Lawyer Destroys Arguments for Game Piracy

[Awexsome]

Yeah it's pretty legally clear if you ask me when it comes to piracy. In order to ever play that game you have to pay the developer/publisher to do so. If you do not pay them and still play their game they reserve they have the right to prosecute you.

Stuff like SOPA will go way overhanded in hitting the innocent but in order to actually crack down on piracy there is going to be a few innocents caught in the crossfire. People are wrongly accused in the normal system and if proven innocent they go free. We need stricter laws on piracy and less loopholes for the main sources of piracy to exist like Pirate Bay.

 

[Gindil]

-snipped, still just for space-

I'm not gonna deny that all past legislation has failed. It's all been fairly draconian, though. I'm not a lawmaker, but I'm pretty sure there's some legislation that'd take it down. Hell, I'd back the government up if they applied the SOPA idea of blocking websites if they only did it to The Pirate Bay and other popular, illegal torrent sites. That's fine with me. And I think legislation like that could help to solve or lessen the problem. And while I am a proponent of the idea that "politicians are bought and sold," I'm not a proponent of the addendum to that idea which says that "politicians are bought and sold, by and large, by copyright holders." No, they're bought and sold mostly by powerful corporations who want to further their agenda.

Economically and historically speaking, piracy has allowed more people to profit. There are two great studies on this in regards to book piracy that is quite relevant to the digital market. Economic history of copyright [http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.copyright]

The United States stood out in contrast to countries such as France, where Louis Napoleon's Decree of 1852 prohibited counterfeiting of both foreign and domestic works. Other countries which were affected by American piracy retaliated by refusing to recognize American copyrights. Despite the lobbying of numerous authors and celebrities on both sides of the Atlantic, the American copyright statutes did not allow for copyright protection of foreign works for fully one century. As a result, American publishers and producers freely pirated foreign literature, art, and drama.

And two, the CCIA has a fair use exception methodology which exposes the lie that copyright leads to higher profit [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110718/03141415125/once-again-using-industrys-own-methodology-shows-that-copyright-exceptions-contribute-more-to-economy-than-copyright.shtml]. If copyright is making money, then by the same token, fair use helps out the economy a lot more. And this makes sense. You can have someone play a game on Youtube, review it, recommend it to people and see if it's worth the investment. Likewise, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that sometimes people download unauthorized versions of games, like them, then buy them outright. Piracy is not, nor never has been a zero sum game.

Good on Gaben. Maybe legislators should ask for his advice on curtailing piracy. Although I find it rather pathetic that the Russian excuse for pirating was, "It had bad acting and I couldn't wait for it to come out." I mean, what, were they all impatient game critics?

You're dismissing the complaints, but it was a very valid response that he realized. He shortened the release windows of games, stopped treating them like they were criminals, and also lessened the price of games to something that Russians would buy. Unbeknownst to others, $30 in Rubels is a lot of money compared to how much Russians earn from their work. Also, you can not tell me you would be happy with something like this in Russian:

Again, I think a company should be as loose as they can with anti-piracy measures, and if that doesn't work, then turn to the government.

And again, I'm stating that no matter how much legislation you put in there, you won't change anything. This is not a legislative problem. We already have the DMCA (which is still bad save for the safe harbors) in regards to civil liberties. So long as people rely on government to bail them out instead of figuring out the problem for themselves and lowering prices of games, making a better service, and offering more carrots of incentivized DLC or some such and less stick like DRM, then they'll continue to find the problem of piracy instead of their own business model.

If you're giving pirates money, what's the point of pirating? Or are you implying that the price of $0.00 is better than $49.99? I sincerely hope it's the latter, because otherwise, that's incredibly stupid. And anyways, all the pirates I've seen on the internet make it out to be a moral/ethical struggle, and you even implied that earlier.

I never said anything about giving pirates money. But Netflix sure does compete with Bittorrent by allowing easy access to content. People watch more movies through that service than Bittorrent. The point is why focus so much effort on those that won't pay instead of make a service for the people that want to pay?

So what I'm basically reading when you say that pirates provide a better service and should be lauded for doing so, is that if a thief in a shady back alley sells you a stolen deluxe household appliance (which he modified slightly) for cheaper than even the store is selling their regular one, it'd be okay to buy it from him. That's what I'm getting. That's ridiculous. And also illegal. This thief, much like the pirates, makes a living on taking goods, modifying them slightly, and giving them for free or for cheap to people who are too cheap to buy a legitimate one. What in your mind tells you that this is not only okay, but is a great idea?? It's completely illegal, and also very, very stupid!

If they can do it, more power to them. You failed in what you were doing by providing a service (entertainment) at a price to make it sustainable for you. But you know what? The ones that make an effort [https://buy.louisck.net/news], who find the time to find scarcities [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/business/media/cee-lo-green-strikes-pop-star-gold-without-a-gold-album.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all], who don't care about piracy [http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/mark-cubans-hit-e-book-sun-fun-and-women-billionaire-status-33046?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20mediaredef%20%28jason%20hirschhorn%27s%20Media%20ReDEFined%29], but sell digital goods at decent prices [http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/11/freemium-self-published-fiction-china/] are making money. Meanwhile, I hear of places like EA, Activision, Capcom (through the ESA), and GoDaddy complain about piracy while others are working their ass off. Sorry, your argument and confusion of digital goods with an actual thief holds little weight when you have to conflate two different things. People make money and create content even though the rules say otherwise. There is an economic abundance of material and you can't sit and say that the businesses should have the ability to choose which companies they want to compete with. That's ridiculous and illogical. If they can't compete, they shouldn't be in business. Period.

No one has to pirate. It's not inevitable. It's just sad...and also illegal...and also a form of theft.

As I said before. Which do you want to download? A patch from Steam for 9GB or one off Bittorrent for 1.9 MB? What price do you want to pay for a game? $60 US or $100 Aussie Dollars? If you can't recognize why people pirate you have no moral high ground to judge their decisions.

 

[hawkeye52]

EDIT2: Upon re-reading the title of the article, what the hell is he supposed to be destroying? He picked out the 2 most flimsy arguments and basically said "No evidence" and "NO U" to both of them without any evidence of his own, which is about the least bit of destroying you can do to an argument.

That sir made me lol have a free internet

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Sorry for the double post, I was expecting that in such a busy thread, somebody would have posted in the time I took to write this...

Can you prove that every single one of those 1000 would have paid for it if they didn't pirate it? No? Then that is all just speculation.

Why is the burden of proof on those who are arguing on the side of legality? Shouldn't it be the pirates who have to prove that their illegal acts do NOT result in a loss of revenue for the developers? You can dress up petty selfishness - which, after all, is what piracy is all about - in any manner of noble rhetoric, but at the end of the day, why on earth would you think that you would have ANY right to anything if you hadn't paid the price?

And stop being ridiculous. So unless one can prove that every single pirated copy means a loss, piracy is okay? What a load of rubbish. Now, for example, I myself may or may not have got a not insignificant number of illegally downloaded movies. Would I have bought them ALL on DVD or Blu-Ray, if piracy didn't exist? No. Would I have bought SOME of them? Of course I would have. By the same token, did I legally purchase some of those movies later? Yes. I do own around 500 original movies. There is no black and white here, but to argue that I may or may not be doing ANY damage to the motion picture industry is simply risible.

See, it's about entitlement and selfishness. That is literally the extent of it. I own a huge games library - but to buy 2-3 games every month, I have to make sacrifices. I don't travel much, I do not own a car, and so on. I willingly make those sacrifices because gaming is more important to me than travelling (plus, I've pretty much been everywhere) and I live in a country with great, cheap public transport. The problem I have with piracy is the rather entitled notion that one does not need to make sacrifices of any kind, which is the very definition of petty, childish immaturity.

The person I quoted worded it like a 1,000 pirated copies equaled a 1,000 purchases of lost income. I was simply saying that that was a big assumption.

Don't insult me by generalizing my argument while ignoring the point. Now, try countering everything he said. If you can't, your singling out of my "speculation" was just another baseless justification.

Calm down. I'm against piracy. I just hate the line of thinking that one pirated copy of something=a lost sale. There are plenty of arguments against piracy, I just hate seeing people use false ones.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Don't insult me by generalizing my argument while ignoring the point. Now, try countering everything he said. If you can't, your singling out of my "speculation" was just another baseless justification.

Calm down. I'm against piracy. I just hate the line of thinking that one pirated copy of something=a lost sale. There are plenty of arguments against piracy, I just hate seeing people use false ones.

Hmm, alright. My whole schtick is that I'm for people getting compensation for hard work which is the basis of my opinion regarding piracy, if I can even simplify it down to that. I just don't like over-simplification of an argument, especially when it felt like, in doing so, you were intentionally missing my point. I guess that's not the case. What's your stance, anyway?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Don't insult me by generalizing my argument while ignoring the point. Now, try countering everything he said. If you can't, your singling out of my "speculation" was just another baseless justification.

Calm down. I'm against piracy. I just hate the line of thinking that one pirated copy of something=a lost sale. There are plenty of arguments against piracy, I just hate seeing people use false ones.

Hmm, alright. My whole schtick is that I'm for people getting compensation for hard work which is the basis of my opinion regarding piracy, if I can even simplify it down to that. I just don't like over-simplification of an argument, especially when it felt like, in doing so, you were intentionally missing my point. I guess that's not the case. What's your stance, anyway?

If it is in your language and is sold in your region, you have no excuse not to buy it. But if it was never released outside of Japan, using a emulator and a fan translation from online is ok to me. They weren't planning to sell it to you anyway and you have no way to play it. So I have a problem with an American downloading The Witcher 2, but I have no problem with an American downloading Mother 3 and using the fan translation. And sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

If it is in your language and is sold in your region, you have no excuse not to buy it. But if it was never released outside of Japan, using a emulator and a fan translation from online is ok to me. They weren't planning to sell it to you anyway and you have no way to play it. So I have a problem with an American downloading The Witcher 2, but I have no problem with an American downloading Mother 3 and using the fan translation. And sorry for the misunderstanding.

No apologies necessary. I got a bit overly excited there, and I get where you're coming from now. Better to have the experience of the game than to never have experienced it at all, and how can you pay for someone's hard work when they don't sell it to you in the first place? Especially when the work is Mother 3...

 

[Something Amyss]

be definition... pirating is theft.

By definition, theft is theft and piracy is piracy.

You can viably duplicate digital information. However, what we're discussing here is the illegal copyright infringement perpetuated daily, by millions, of intellectual property. If you want it, you pay for it. If not, you don't get it. It's as simple as that. No one creates content and puts it in a marketplace in order for it to be obtained by millions of freeloaders illegally.

SOPA: We do what we must, because we can.

Also, both of you epitomise the entitlement culture of gamers. Entertainment is a luxury. Not a right. Get that into your heads.

That's nice. I embody the entitlement culture because of things I never said. Did you even read my argument or try and understand the context? I merely said that such a culture exists CONTRARY TO THE CLAIMS of the quoted poster.

I'm sorry, but after casting stones, the least you can do is explain how acknowledging something exists contrary to another's claims is in any way the epitome of entitlement.

Maybe read what I said next time before pointing fingers.

 

[Xanthious]

You can viably duplicate digital information. However, what we're discussing here is the illegal copyright infringement perpetuated daily, by millions, of intellectual property. If you want it, you pay for it. If not, you don't get it. It's as simple as that. No one creates content and puts it in a marketplace in order for it to be obtained by millions of freeloaders illegally.

SOPA: We do what we must, because we can.

Also, both of you epitomise the entitlement culture of gamers. Entertainment is a luxury. Not a right. Get that into your heads.

This is a perfect example of what I've been talking about when it comes to the anti piracy crowd. This fella thinks that it makes a damn bit of difference that piracy is illegal or morally questionable. It doesn't, not a single bit, to anyone but this fella and the few people like him who either work in an industry battling piracy or aspire to.

Ok so it's illegal but what does that matter if your odds of being prosecuted are just a hair under your odds of being struck by lightning? He may very well be right when he says that gamers are over entitled and it's wrong that piracy is rampant. However, what does that matter when there is largely zero stigma attached to piracy in any meaningful way?

Screaming at the sky that it's wrong and illegal and morally bankrupt to pirate things off the internet will get you no place. In fact I would go so far as to say that people that feel strongly against piracy are likely in a tiny minority based solely at just how widespread piracy is these days. People think nothing of downloading a free mp3 or buying bootleg movies from friends and co-workers. It's become commonplace and your moral and legal arguments are falling on deaf ears. Stop screaming about what should be and accept what is.

Again, the bottom line is piracy isn't going anywhere and every day it just keeps growing and growing as does it's acceptance among every day people. Battling piracy through legislation with SOPA will ultimately make no difference at all assuming SOPA gets passed (it won't). What needs to be done is to give people reasons, other than "doing the right thing", to buy your product and not pirate it instead of trying to stop them from pirating it through methods that have never worked to begin with.

 

[Denariax]

I wouldn't have as much a problem with this act if it wasn't so blatantly stupid.

See, I stream games. Not as a form of piracy (Who the hell video-streams games and calls it piracy? Its a public viewing, nobody but the person who bought the game can stream it anyways), but as a form of "Hey, viewers, I'm going to stream a game that you should probably spend your hard earned cash on."

Renting games is nearly abolished at this point. Netflix is completely stupid, as it still takes a few days to get to the house, and by then I've probably changed my mind and still have to throw the ignorant morons cash. I understand the logic of a lot of pirates who don't do it solely to steal, too. A lot of people cannot afford a library of games, because; get this; we don't have the money from all the overpriced stuff. That, as well as the mere fact that games have lost quality over the years to look pretty, so trying to find the diamond in the sea of torment is nearly impossible if you have no way to play it without spending 60 bucks to get a copy, realizing you paid for crap, and return it for 30 if you're lucky.

A lot of companies who actually support this are greedy anyways. Lets take Sony for example. Their current record of being greedy, news-manipulative thugs is pretty big (for anyone who was intelligent enough not to believe in their 'Anon did this lets sue them' fiasco). A Gamestop manager once flat out admitted that PC games don't sell as well because we can't sell them back if they're tripe.

So my own solution to this entire thing: Drop the bill, and start making games that are worth purchasing as a whole. If people pirate it then, then go after 'them', but not the people who could make you extra bucks by advertising your game better than you ever could.

 

[Double A]

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.

I didn't buy Psychonauts till the Steam sale. That doesn't mean Double Fine or even Valve lost money until I bought it, it means they just didn't get any from me for it till the other day.

edit: Note that I'm not a pirate or defending them, but that I'm just showing you the flaw in your argument.

It's not so much an economic argument as it is a moral one. You could argue that everyone not buying something is depriving the developer of their profit just as much as pirating is, and that would be mostly correct. But do we really want to be people who siphon off of other people's hard work and give them nothing in return? I don't see any justification for that.

... Since when did international corporations get the moral high ground?

 

[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.

Can you prove that every single one of those 1000 would have paid for it if they didn't pirate it? No? Then that is all just speculation.

I repeat, if the product is worth playing, then the developers deserve to be paid what they earned for their hard work. If the game wasn't worth paying for but it was worth playing, you don't have an excuse since the creators of the IP won't be receiving the payment they earned (based on your evaluation of the product being worthwhile for it's primary function: entertainment). That isn't hard to get, is it?

And if it was still worth playing, then many of those thousand would have paid if downloading wasn't an option. Which, as I stated before, would still be a very negative financial impact on the gaming industry if they didn't.

So, you are against used games as well? If not why not? All of that applies to used games as well, and I have seen many gamestop fanbois claim "Well if it was better I would have payed full price for it! heh he snurk."

Heck, there have been studies in this thread that point out that the majority of pirates dont pirate instead of buying games, they pirate in ADDITION to buying games.

Look at it like this: A person makes enough money to pay for his apartment, buy food, pay bills and has roughly 60 dollars left over to buy a game. Now with most modern games you can beat that in say 10 hours, that leaves a great deal of time left, he pirates a couple more games to play. He didn't pirate because he could buy but didn't, he pirated because he already spent all his money on another game(s).

Well, if you wanna make it personal to me... Actually, yes, I am against used games in the market setting that GameStop provides. A lot but not all of the same reasons apply. And no, I'm not going to allow derailment into a "used games" argument, so we'll leave it at that.

Also, I'm only ever able to buy two new games a year, and because of my wise use of money and free gaming outside of mainstream console releases, I get by completely content and satisfied. I bring this up as a real counter-example to your theorized example. But that's not really the point I'm making.

No, what I would ask you is this: Are you suggesting that, because you pay for other games, you are thereby morally exempt of paying good people for their good work simply because you stretched your financial limits to pay other good people for their other work?

 

[ResonanceSD]

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.

Can you prove that every single one of those 1000 would have paid for it if they didn't pirate it? No? Then that is all just speculation.

I repeat, if the product is worth playing, then the developers deserve to be paid what they earned for their hard work. If the game wasn't worth paying for but it was worth playing, you don't have an excuse since the creators of the IP won't be receiving the payment they earned (based on your evaluation of the product being worthwhile for it's primary function: entertainment). That isn't hard to get, is it?

And if it was still worth playing, then many of those thousand would have paid if downloading wasn't an option. Which, as I stated before, would still be a very negative financial impact on the gaming industry if they didn't.

So, you are against used games as well? If not why not? All of that applies to used games as well, and I have seen many gamestop fanbois claim "Well if it was better I would have payed full price for it! heh he snurk."

Heck, there have been studies in this thread that point out that the majority of pirates dont pirate instead of buying games, they pirate in ADDITION to buying games.

Look at it like this: A person makes enough money to pay for his apartment, buy food, pay bills and has roughly 60 dollars left over to buy a game. Now with most modern games you can beat that in say 10 hours, that leaves a great deal of time left, he pirates a couple more games to play. He didn't pirate because he could buy but didn't, he pirated because he already spent all his money on another game(s).

Well, if you wanna make it personal to me... Actually, yes, I am against used games in the market setting that GameStop provides. A lot but not all of the same reasons apply. And no, I'm not going to allow derailment into a "used games" argument, so we'll leave it at that.

Also, I'm only ever able to buy two new games a year, and because of my wise use of money and free gaming outside of mainstream console releases, I get by completely content and satisfied. I bring this up as a real counter-example to your theorized example. But that's not really the point I'm making.

No, what I would ask you is this: Are you suggesting that, because you pay for other games, you are thereby morally exempt of paying good people for their good work simply because you stretched your financial limits to pay other good people for their other work?

No no, what he's saying is as long as there is a desire to do something, and its possible to do, it is therefore excusable. Somehow. Games are a right, not a luxury, according to him.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

No no, what he's saying is as long as there is a desire to do something, and its possible to do, it is therefore excusable. Somehow. Games are a right, not a luxury, according to him.

Pff, who says owning an expensive computer that can even run current-gen games in the first place is a luxury?! I'm poor, dammit!

[small][joking through obvious generalization, don't make this out to be more than a friendly ribbing][/small]

 

[ResonanceSD]

No no, what he's saying is as long as there is a desire to do something, and its possible to do, it is therefore excusable. Somehow. Games are a right, not a luxury, according to him.

Pff, who says owning an expensive computer that can even run current-gen games in the first place is a luxury?! I'm poor, dammit!

[small][joking through obvious generalization, don't make this out to be more than a friendly ribbing][/small]

Same people who defend pirating games thy can't afford. As a member of the 1% of gaming, I sneer at their position. [sub]glorious PC gaming master race[/sub]