Lawyer Destroys Arguments for Game Piracy

[Dastardly]

There are games that I would like that I don't have any intention of paying for. Those games I do not get to play.
However, if I was a pirate, I could download those games.

There is money that I would like that I don't have any intention of working for. That money I do not get to spend. However, if I steal/defraud/embezzle, I could have that money. I understand why people pirate. Having a "reason" doesn't make it okay.

Does that mean the developers have lost revenue? Of course not. They've lost absolutely nothing. The only resulting difference is that I get to play a game I would not otherwise have been able to play.

If you want something, pay for it. If you genuinely don't want it, there would be no reason to pirate it. If a person would have even paid $5 for a game, that's lost revenue to the publisher.

I don't think you even understand what a "No true Scotsman fallacy" even means. Please look it up before you start making a fool of yourself and using it incorrectly.

I'm absolutely clear on what it is. For your benefit: It's when someone's argument is challenged, so they change the definition of one or more of the terms involved to insulate their original argument from criticism. Say there's a psycho-killer, and a proud Scot says, "Well, it's not a Scotsman, because no Scotsman would do such a thing." Later, it's discovered that the killer is indeed a Scot. When confronted, our proud Scot friend says, "Well, no true Scotsman would do such a thing."

He has changed the definition of "Scotsman" by adding arbitrary details, simply so it can't be used to assail his opinion. For instance:

A: "Piracy is good/okay/whatever."
B: "No, Piracy is stealing. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you."

A: "It's not stealing, because it has to be physical property."
B: "That's a NTS, because the definition doesn't say the property has to be physical."

A: "Well 'property' is different from 'intellectual property.'"
B: "That's another NTS, because the definition doesn't make that distinction. You're adding that detail and moving the bar."

A: "But the owner isn't deprived of the property, so it's not really stealing."
B: "That's yet another NTS, because the definition of stealing doesn't demand that the original owner be deprived, only that the would-be thief in question has obtained the property without permission or right."

Here are some accepted definitions of stealing:

From thefreedictionary.com:
"1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission."

From dictionary.com
"to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force"

From Merriam-Webster:
"to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully" and "to take surreptitiously or without permission"

From Oxford:
"take (another person?s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it"

None of these definitions preclude intellectual property, or thefts that do not result in deprivation. Only by retroactively appending details to the definition can such a claim be made. That is a No True Scotsman (or, more generally, "Moving the Goalposts")

They aren't saying that better games will somehow magically improve only the non-pirated copy.
They mean that if a game is better, people will be more inclined to buy it.
That has a certain truth to it. While I don't pirate, if every game was as good as Mass Effect 2, for instance, I would have a lot less money.

Because you don't pirate. So you're a non-issue in this, aren't you? If you did pirate, you'd be getting the game for free. Making the game better doesn't suddenly make "free" any less enticing. There is no reason to believe that someone (who has already demonstrated a willingness to take the game for free) will suddenly decide to pay simply because the perceived quality of the product has improved. That just means now they're getting even more for free.

It's far more likely, given knowledge of basic human psychology, that a person will pirate to "try" a game, realize they have it for free, and then retroactively decide, "Nah, this game wouldn't have been worth the $60, so I'll just keep the free copy." Even if they loved the game immensely, it's easy enough to point out a few flaws to self-justify that claim.

 

[Dogstile]

Bulletstorm is the lastest I have gotten (Not long after release and I was both horrified and relieved).

You do it because you're a lazy-ass gamer, who puts your own immediate needs ahead of those who actually did the work to make the game.

Case in point: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/04/bulletstorm-pc-demo-now-out-on-steam-and-gfwl/

There ARE demo versions, you were just too damned lazy/impatient to bother finding them.

"Not long after release"

Looks like you were too lazy (Edit: Yes, that was a little jab at you insulting him, it was meant to be a thing of "see, doesn't feel good when someone insults you does it" post, figured i'd clear that up) to read through his post properly. The demo didn't come out on the PC until about two months after.

On an on topic note, what argument did he destroy exactly? Is it just because he has a legal degree that the same argument now magically means more?

Man.. now that's funny -- attempting to berate somebody for not reading thoroughly when it's pretty clear that the only one who has a problem reading thoroughly here is you. And because you probably haven't read this message thoroughly either, I'll just point out I bolded some stuff for you.

I insult people who deserve it, moron. Someone admitting flat out that they pirated a game because they're simply too self-entitled to wait to see if a demo comes out is certainly deserving of that.

Beyond that, however, even if a demo had NEVER come out, that still gives the prick no right to download the game. He's certainly free to not purchase it, and to tell the company that without a demo he won't purchase it. And in fact, if we want to encourage demos, that's the exact thing he SHOULD be doing -- not just downloading a copy anyway and using that to decide.

Tell me, at what point should he pay the movie theatre for a ticket once he's gone in and sat down? Or perhaps he should just sneak into clubs and decide after he's watched the band for a while whether it's worth paying the cover charge? Here's a thought, instead of either of those, why not act like a responsible human being and NOT decide his desires for entertainment supersede the rights of developers to charge a price for their product and release/not release demos if they want?

Oh i'm sorry, did you just go on a tangent away from my actual point? You insulted him using an argument that was invalid, I pointed that out. If that makes me a moron then I will quite gladly be a moron. I never said I agree'd with his view, but your argument was flawed. No need to be a prick about it.

And on your movie theater analogy? They bring out trailers, those are the "demo's" of the theater world. You can argue that games bring out trailers too, but you can't magically sense how the game feels without a true demo. That analogy doesn't work, feel free to try again. This time, try to keep it civil, your tone is rather barbaric.

 

[Seanchaidh]

A lawyer offering his superficial understanding of what copyright is? And an overexcited journo calling the exposition of that opinion a 'destruction' of arguments? How tired. A lawyer the man may be, but a legal philosopher of any note he appears not to be.

Intellectual property is a legal fiction that in many cases seems to have outlived its usefulness. "Stealing" a game may or may not be a lost sale. That issue is mostly one of academic interest. What really matters is whether there are appropriate incentives to make games. If copyrights were fully enforceable, that incentive would actually be too high in comparison to those for producing the things which people actually need-- and that can't be copied at will (corn, for instance.) It may even be too high now: one can say that production of the Call of Duty franchise has enjoyed quite the incentive. The grant of a monopoly is a powerful thing, especially over something that is (more or less) unique and can be copied for pennies or less. Games companies should be able to tolerate some friction in the realization of the value of their legal monopolies. There is one thing I agree with: developers should look to adapting their business models rather than their legal strategies. The unfortunate downside of that is that it means doing something actually useful rather than whining about being unable to collect every rent to which they feel entitled.

 

[Treblaine]

"Piracy is theft" is like saying "Corporations are people"

I don't think corporations are considered people, never heard of a company be put on trial for murder. At least not in the sense of criminal law, only civil law in terms of paying damages like in lawsuits and matters of ownership.

And it IS very important that there is corporate ownership, as it is ripe of embezzlement if it is the actual human being at the top who personally owns all the property of a company, like say if for a trucking company the boss of the company owns personally all 300 trucks they operate. But a company owning and being financially responsible for something doesn't make the company a person.

PS: you know who popularised the term "piracy is theft"?

Steve Jobs.

Before that the industry was extremely reluctant and conflicted on how to categorise online music piracy, but in Steve Jobs push for iTunes he had Apple pretty much coin the phrase "piracy is theft" at the same time as "iTunes is great". Soon after that criminal prosecutions and civil damages were pursued not just against napster but also the users of such service. iTunes was pushed as the one legitimate alternative locked into Apple products like iPad. It would be over half a decade before DRM-free songs would be sold on iTunes in that time iTunes and iDevices had more than cornered the market it had completely dominated it.

On the other hand, while Jobs screwed the pooch with 99c per song for the music industry, he did a wonderful move setting sub-$2 as the price for iOS games while Nintendo and Sony were struggling along with $40-50 games of very similar engagement/value (Steel Diver anyone?)

 

[Sandytimeman]

Personally I just buy all my games on Steam. Seriously, I rarely pay more then 10 bucks for a game and I'm happy with that. I also avoid most triple A titles. If a game has annoying DRM, I don't buy it.

Basically the only games I used to pirate was Chronotrigger and Secret of Mana, but as I have the first one on DS now, and hopefully the second will get a similar release.

Heck even some of my favorite sega games can be bought on steam for a 1-2 dollars us, and I own them for all time now.

I'm cool with that, I wouldn't mind another type of Steam service. In fact a company is more likely to allist a purchase for me if I can redownload a digital copy of said product on a new machine at a later date. Kind of like Blizzard's Battle.net system. (I refuse to use Origin because of all the spyware and other crazy shit that is in that)

Ancient Chinese Proverb - "All things come to the man who waits for the steam holiday sales"

 

[ZombieGenesis]

I am so proud of my profession right now.

 

[AngleWyrm]

The word 'piracy' is an inflammatory label for what is really copyright infringement, and any laws designed to limit or punish such behavior should be appropriate to that interpretation.

Remember that guy who was sued for half a million dollars? Or the woman who was fined nearly two million dollars? They are still alive you know. What do you think the next seventy years of their lives are going to be like? Do you think that's a bit much for not paying for a video?

If I actually stole those exact same products from a store, what kind of fine could be imposed? Would it be potentially ruinous to my life?

Something is seriously wrong with the punishments not fitting the crime.

 

[SmegInThePants]

Lawyers are paid advocates, don't forget.

Piracy, DRM, etc... I just really detest what has happened to intellectual property. I have consumer rights protected by law for almost any consumer product i buy. If I buy a chainsaw I can return if it isn't fit for the purpose it was made, like cutting down a tree, and i have this right by law even if the retailer tries to refuse and puts up signs saying no returns (implied warranty of fitness for purpose). I have the right to get my money back if this chainsaw turns out to be something other than what a reasonable person would have expected it to be based on the description (the implied warranty of merchantability).

But wait, we've slowly stripped away all consumer rights from the realm of software. So much yelling, screaming, fear mongering, oh feel sorry for poor EA and ubisoft, their concerns are more important than your rights. If people start shoplifting chainsaws should i then lose *my* right to return mine when it doesn't even do what it purports to do on the box?

I remember a day when i could get a pc game and return it if it didn't work. Did the world end? Were no games made back then because it was impossible to make a profit? No. The world kept turning, games kept being made, some really good ones too. Its just greed.

Or for movies. Instead of being innovative, adapting to changing demands, and making a legit way for someone to see a new movie release on their computer over the internet at home, lets make it so someone who is willing to pay to see it this way, willing to pay full price, has to either wait a year for it to be on dvd/netflix, or pirate it, because there's zero legal ways to watch this finished and distributed product from home, even for someone ready, willing, and able to pay.

Its capitalism, adapt or die. Give the public what they want in a form they are willing to pay for, or die. If you don't give it to them, they might find their own means of getting what they want. People are like that. If they'd rather pirate than buy your product, you're doing it wrong. Or maybe its an issue of time, maybe they'd rather pirate than wait for you to take your sweet time in getting your product out there in a form they aren't even going to like. If so, you're doing it wrong. You don't use force to prevent the world from changing so that you don't have to change in response to it. If the pirated version of your game/movie works better than the official version, you're doing it wrong. If customers are sick of having to buy your product multiple times as different formats come out (dvd vs. blu ray, cassette vs. dvd, cd vs. mp3) at full price each time, then you are doing it wrong. Find a way to make money giving the customer something they are willing to pay for. Adapt.

But why adapt or be innovative when you can just strip away consumer protections, create invasive DRM that makes the official version of a product inferior to the pirated version, or turn potential customers into criminals by changing the law itself. Why adapt when you can just make an empty promise to your customer that your product will be x,y,and z, then avoid all accountability when it turns out to be anything but. Why adapt when you can dupe consumers themselves into arguing against their own hard fought consumer rights.

SmegInThePants, J.D.
Lawyered

 

[Versuvius]

Lawyers are all blood sucking, poison veined leeches. I don't believe a word of anything that comes out of their mouthes regardless of the stance on piracy. Quickly, stake him in the heart

 

[Treblaine]

Steve jobs can spout out all he wants about theft and piracy until god's angels fall to earth and it wont matter because the Supreme Court ruled differently. Copyright infringement is Copyright infringement. Theft is theft.

Supreme court is a criminal court. Their ruling says that if you merely download (or even buy) a pirated copy you are not criminally liable, the actual copyright violator is criminally liable. But that's criminal law. As in fines paid to the government and time spent in prison for committing crimes. So you won't ever have the cop's kick down your door but that doesn't mean you won't be served with a notice to appear in civil court.

Yeah, the importance of Jobs' evangelism is by saying "Piracy is theft" is that "people who pirate are bad people". He legitimised the idea of suing even a 12 year old girls for hundreds of thousands of dollars because they downloaded a Hannah Montana song. That's Civil Law in terms of lawsuits. Going after the people who download rather than the few intangible people who upload, that is what he had a big part in changing.

This does sway so many cases where such a pervasive idea as "piracy is theft" permeates into civil courts and does influence rulings.

Remember civil and criminal law are completely separate. OJ Simpson was acquitted in Criminal Court but in Civil Court was sued and found culpable for the murder of his wife where IIRK he had to pay so much he had to declare bankruptcy.

I faintly remember (I was very young) piracy in the pre-digital age, I don't think you'll ever find a case of someone being arrested for buying a bootleg VHS tape. Instead the industry was quite sympathetic to the people who bought such bootleg pirate copies and reasoned with them emphatically and reasonably not to buy such pirate goods for their own good.

I can't find a video example of the ad, but it shows how much the industry has changed its stance from informing the public - to threatening them.

 

[Dastardly]

You seem to have trouble understanding the difference between theft and copyright infringement.

It's not a fallacy of any kind, it's a mislabeled crime. Difference.

Edit: While i'm at it, I went back and double checked. US law has a clear difference between stealing something and duplicating it illegally, Piracy and Theft are NOT the same thing, supreme court rulings in the past support this. (See: Dowling v. United States 1985)

Firstly, I appreciate that you went back and added a bit more of discussion value to your post.

On the topic itself, we're not talking the official labeling of crimes here. More specifically, I do not intend to. Allow me to clarify my position (though this does not necessarily apply to others making superficially-similar arguments):

I'm not arguing the legal definition of terms as used in courts. In these cases, fraud, embezzlement, robbery, and counterfeiting are technically not the same as larceny (commonly referred to as "theft"). That's because our legal system has to more carefully categorize crimes based on the method and means of commission, not just the impact of the crime. That's why murder, manslaughter, etc., are separate crimes.

Whether by murder or manslaughter, we can rightly say, "The convicted person killed the victim." It's the court that has a responsibility to be more specific--this is because the law has no "spirit," only a "letter." But if someone told you they were going to sell you something, you paid them, and then they fell off the grid and never contact you, would you say, "Hey! That guy criminally defrauded me of my money!" or would you feel (and probably say) that you were stolen from?

Where I find the problem is that most people tend to view "stealing" as a broad category of crimes. It includes robbery, larceny, fraud, and all the rest. But when the discussion comes up, we narrow the definition artificially by citing the very narrow legal definitions... and yet some of the very same people using that argument will throw out laws or cases that reinforce ideas they disagree with regarding piracy. It's the inconsistent application that bothers me.

That's why I take a step back from the legal system. I'm discussing the action itself on moral/ethical grounds. A person is receiving property that belongs to another person, to which they are not entitled and have not compensated the proper owner. If one was unaware of how computers work, regarding copying, one would look specifically at the behavior and say "That dude just stole that!"

Even back in 1985, we were still trying to deal with new ideas. Data was getting faster and faster, and the fidelity of recordings better and better. No longer could someone simply argue, "Yeah, he has a bootleg, but the quality sucks!" The quality was improving, to the point that the false product was nearly identical to the original. A crime that was easily ignored (or at least marginalized) was becoming more consequential.

And, as with any new things, the Supreme Court made a very conservative decision -- they didn't want to "throw the book" at this guy rashly. I disagree with their decision, and there's always still room for such things to be overturned by later decisions. I recognize that, under law, these things are prosecuted differently. I prefer to look at it from the human angle, however -- which is actually why the law exists in the first place. The technicalities are simply there to manage all the ins-and-outs of it.

____

Now, as for whether or not data has the same weight as physical goods... we already demonstrate the belief that it does, and we do so daily. My money, almost in its entirety, does not exist in the physical world. But we all, as a society, agree that the digital representation of my money is enough to assert its existence and resulting value. I can spend, loan, borrow, and otherwise operate on this "money" in any way I could actual bills.

If someone were to illegally access the banks computers and duplicate some of that digital money, inserting it into the bank's system, I would not be deprived of anything. They didn't necessarily steal from me, but that money is stolen. Until the crime was discovered and reversed, someone somewhere would be responsible for the value of that duplicated money. So, if the issue is that the goods don't actually "exist," we're inconsistently handling that. A digital good is a representation of something else -- in this case, my monetary value, and in the case of software, it is representative of the work and money put into the creation of the data.

Really think about this a moment -- "money" is intellectual property, in the sense that it only exists in our mind. Just like with software, we impose artificial scarcity on it. There's no reason we couldn't just all agree, "Hey, everyone is worth $1 million dollars." But we don't. We limit the monetary worth of people and demand that they go through proper channels to establish it.

But all of the physical goods (paper bills, metal coins, credit cards, even the computers upon which the data is stolen) all exist simply to represent the concept of "worth," which is entirely arbitrary when you get right down to it. Why is it illegal to steal someone's money? Is it just the paper that's being taken? No -- it's what the paper represents that is being taken. The law allows the physical good to stand in for the concept, but it is the concept itself that is the purpose for the law (if money had no "value" assigned to it, it probably wouldn't be a big deal to "steal" it any more than taking something out of someone's trash bin on the curb).

Intellectual property is still a relatively new concept in the eyes of the law. It hasn't been around as long as money has, in its various forms. Given enough time, as the world becomes more and more information-focused, we'll begin to see intellectual property gain ground as the same kind of concept that is behind our most basic ideas of "ownership" and "monetary value."

Just something to think about. Because, again, I'm not arguing this from a currently-enforceable-legal-perspective. I'm arguing it ideologically. Is that binding in any way? No. But I still feel it's worthwhile to think about, even just for the mental "exercise" of it.

 

[DracoSuave]

but in the meantime it means a financial loss for the developer

NO, it does not. That logic is incredibly erroneous.

As I see it, the two polar notions that piracy is always a lost sale and that piracy is never effectively a financial loss are what is truly lacking logic. The truth is in fact somewhere in the middle.

Then we exercise simple math at this point.

Let c be the value of a hypothetical 'lost sale' with d being the number of pirated copies.

The lost sale argument would state the cost would be cd.

On the other hand, there 'there is no loss' argument, would instead state the loss is 0, and thus the cost would be 0d, or zero.

We know, however, the truth is somewhere in the middle, therefore the actual cost per unit, x follows this:

0<x<c

We can all agree this is correct yes?

Oh hey, x is greater than zero... turns out piracy has a cost!

It's not a fallacy of any kind, it's a mislabeled crime. Difference.

Edit: While i'm at it, I went back and double checked. US law has a clear difference between stealing something and duplicating it illegally, Piracy and Theft are NOT the same thing, supreme court rulings in the past support this. (See: Dowling v. United States 1985)

This is also an NTS. He's not using the legal definition in his argument or his statement. You're trying to redefine what he is saying to fit your argument, rather than taking his argument on its own merits.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

but in the meantime it means a financial loss for the developer

NO, it does not. That logic is incredibly erroneous.

Bullshit. If a thousand people download a pirated game, the developers lose the income that would have come from the payment for those thousand. It's a financially negative impact on the industry, and whatever faults you have with paying for the game, if it was worth downloading and playing in the first place, then you have no fucking excuse.

 

[Dogstile]

snip

Ah, saw that coming. You're not gonna get the point, I give up. You still don't understand. If you're going to "go for the gut" to win an argument then by all means, you win, because I will not stoop to your level. You know exactly what tone you're trying to impart with the sarcasm and I shall have no part of it.

Oh, and the bit I "ignored"? Of course I did, it had no relevance to my original point which you're still trying to veer off into a tangent. Good day sir, I shall respond to you no more.

 

[Fishyash]

but in the meantime it means a financial loss for the developer

NO, it does not. That logic is incredibly erroneous.

Yes it does. They worked hard on something, and what would be a paying customer got it without paying for it, depriving the developer or their profit.

No, it does not.

Can you prove to me there is a 100% chance that someone would have bought the game if they were unable to pirate it? (assuming they would afford it)

It is potentially a loss of sales, and on the same note, the person who pirated the game could potentially buy that game afterwards.

EDIT: To clarify, both ends of the argument have their flaws, and going for a middle ground results in estimates that could be way off, so the argument shouldn't really be used (for either side) at all.

No, It is not a valid justification of piracy anyways, and there are very few, if not no justifications for piracy (I can only think of one), but it is not killing the industry, and the loss that people are claiming are not only entirely intangible, but are usually based on estimates that are more likely than not far from the actual truth.