Piracy discussion - too moral oriented?

NKnight

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Disclaimer: First of, I'm not in favor of piracy. No justification presented bellow is necessarily my own, it's just how I believe most people tend to behave. My main point is that we need more than what we have today to combat piracy, we need more than morality to guide consumer choice. That's all. So please, go easy on me. :p

I was recently brought back into the piracy thing because of two videos I decided to see once more. First one is from "WhatYouOughtToKnow" that brings up some good points, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOtdm-g0DCg

The second is a Extra credits video about it from wich I based most of this topic. Image below sends to the referred video.
[http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/piracy]

First some points brought up by the Extra Credits guys that I feel I disagree with or should add something.

EC - It's impossible to have this conversation without involving ethics or morality.
ME - True. But at the same time, the answer does not lie there. You can't go so far by pressing the guilt button in the war against piracy. If people are going to pay for a product they can easily get for free, they need a much better reason for it.

EC - The only justifiable reason for pirating a game is having no access to the original.
ME - Not completely true. For instance, I'm brazilian, which means I should pay (I kid you not) R$229,00 ($127,00) for a game because of tax policies. Try to justify a legal copy of that! Sometimes it's just too expensive. Even a regular $59,99 game is too much sometimes. I, particulary, have access to better sources, where I can pay much less, but most people here don't. An example to prove it's not bullshit: http://playstation3.pontofrio.com.br/Game-Final-Fantasy-XIII-PS3-43287.html?cm_re=pagea-_-main-_-vitrine2

EC - The "I'm too poor" argument is just a rationalization.
ME - In that sense, yes. But I prefeer to call it the "I have the money but I feel like wasting it when I buy what I could get for free" argument. Wich is not as noble but still makes sense.

EC- You can play free games if you don't feel like spending your money.
ME - Would you play game X, a fun game, but still worse than game Y, just because you feel guilt for not paying for game Y? Yes? Good for you. The problem is, most people wouldn't.

My opinion:

I think what I'd like to bring to the table is this: the current measures are too moral oriented. It's wrong, it's illegal, I'll sue you, you might break the publishing company, it's like stealing, etc.
In comparisson to other forms of crime. You don't steal because that's moraly wrong, that's good, but you also don't steal because there is a good chance you will be punished, maybe face some jail. But in the case of piracy. What are the chances of the law punishing you? Almost none. So what else besides morality holds you back?
This subject needs to be addressed in a more concrete manner, the industry needs to be more pragmatic about it. We should buy the original because it?s better than the copy, not just because it?s the right thing to do. In the past, it was pointed out how inferior pirated products were, they could harm the player, be full of viruses, etc. But people are not buying that anymore (pun intended).
Today games offering online or physical features, like the PokeWalker from pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver, music been sold in special packages like The Beatles USB, special hardcover books and other things hard to pirate are good examples of how the original can be better than the free bootleg copy.
 

the spud

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I wish that game companies would set up a donations page so that those who have no access to the original copy can still balance their karma or whatever by donating. Also, "the price is too high" argument doesn't really work. If it is too much, don't buy it. That's how the market works.
 

AceAngel

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Don't buy the game, and wait for a price drop down the line a couple of years?

Honestly, it's not that hard to have some self control. It's not food.
 

BloatedGuppy

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NKnight said:
I think what I'd like to bring to the table is this: the current measures are too moral oriented. It's wrong, it's illegal, I'll sue you, you might break the publishing company, it's like stealing, etc.
Oh god forbid we make thievery into an ethical issue. Why, all the ethically bankrupt thieves will feel uncomfortable! It's simply not effective!

Guy, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's an ethical issue because it's an ethical issue. You are stealing something because you don't feel like paying for it, and because the means by which to steal it are convenient and low risk. This is not a case of the little guy making clear his contempt for the big, bad corporation who is putting the screws to him. These guys are not trying to control your access to water, or medicine, or anything you need to have a high quality of life. You will not die without video games. If you can't, or don't want to pay for a high priced new title, you vote with your wallet and you don't play it. You don't STEAL it. You are not entitled to get it for free, or at the price you think is appropriate. They could charge you $1000 if they so wished. Your recourse in that situation is to walk the fuck away.

Honestly, the rationalizations people will go through around piracy is absolutely unbelievable. Yes, it's an ethical issue. Yes, you're a thief if you pirate. You're breaking all kinds of laws, you're greedy, you've an inflated sense of entitlement, you're a parasite, you're a scumbag, etc, etc, etc. By all means, keep doing it if you so desire. Clearly the industry is doing a shit job of trying to stop it. But stop LYING to yourself about it. These people don't owe you anything. They are selling a product. You want their product? Pay their price. You don't like their price, or don't like their product? You don't need it, so walk away. Poof. Piracy problem solved.
 

NKnight

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the spud said:
I wish that game companies would set up a donations page so that those who have no access to the original copy can still balance their karma or whatever by donating. Also, "the price is too high" argument doesn't really work. If it is too much, don't buy it. That's how the market works.
AceAngel said:
Don't buy the game, and wait for a price drop down the line a couple of years?

Honestly, it's not that hard to have some self control. It's not food.
That's the point. The price is too high, so people don't buy it. They pirate it. When you rule out the moral paradigm it normally gets too hard to justify a legal purchase. I believe it shouldn't be so.
BloatedGuppy said:
NKnight said:
I think what I'd like to bring to the table is this: the current measures are too moral oriented. It's wrong, it's illegal, I'll sue you, you might break the publishing company, it's like stealing, etc.
Oh god forbid we make thievery into an ethical issue. Why, all the ethically bankrupt thieves will feel uncomfortable! It's simply not effective!

Guy, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's an ethical issue because it's an ethical issue. You are stealing something because you don't feel like paying for it, and because the means by which to steal it are convenient and low risk. This is not a case of the little guy making clear his contempt for the big, bad corporation who is putting the screws to him. These guys are not trying to control your access to water, or medicine, or anything you need to have a high quality of life. You will not die without video games. If you can't, or don't want to pay for a high priced new title, you vote with your wallet and you don't play it. You don't STEAL it. You are not entitled to get it for free, or at the price you think is appropriate. They could charge you $1000 if they so wished. Your recourse in that situation is to walk the fuck away.

Honestly, the rationalizations people will go through around piracy is absolutely unbelievable. Yes, it's an ethical issue. Yes, you're a thief if you pirate. You're breaking all kinds of laws, you're greedy, you've an inflated sense of entitlement, you're a parasite, you're a scumbag, etc, etc, etc. By all means, keep doing it if you so desire. Clearly the industry is doing a shit job of trying to stop it. But stop LYING to yourself about it. These people don't owe you anything. They are selling a product. You want their product? Pay their price. You don't like their price, or don't like their product? You don't need it, so walk away. Poof. Piracy problem solved.

Wow, chill out. I'm trying to adress the problem here, not make a personal justification. I never said I'm in favor of piracy. I'm just saying the current strategy to combat it is flawed. Of course it's wrong and it's logical to bring up moral values into this, but that's not the point. If there was something to be said that resulted in "Poof. Piracy problem solved" them nobody would have to deal with those issues.
 

BloatedGuppy

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NKnight said:
Wow, chill out. I'm trying to adress the problem here, not make a personal justification. I never said I'm in favor of piracy. I'm just saying the current strategy to combat it is flawed. Of course it's wrong and it's logical to bring up moral values into this, but that's not the point. If there was something to be said that resulted in "Poof. Piracy problem solved" them nobody would have to deal with those issues.
Don't read too much into my use of the word "you". It's the general "you". It's not YOU SPECIFICALLY.

There really IS no answer to piracy beyond "people need to stop being doucheholes", because that's the root of the problem. That's all it is, at the end of the day. Greedy, selfish, entitled brats who want the product of someone else's work without paying for it. As long as people have that mentality, nothing you do to combat piracy will result in anything other than more piracy.
 

NKnight

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believer258 said:
I thought that said "$229,000" for a game at first. I was about to say, "Wow? Really? Two hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars for a game?"

Luckily I recognized the missing zero and that you put a comma (,) for cents where most of the time I see cents represented by a period (.).

I have to ask what you mean by "moral-oriented". Giving people money for the right to play the game/movie/book/music they worked on is a moral and righteous thing to do; not giving money to them and simply copying it off of the internet or buying it at your local pirated media shop is not a moral thing to do. The whole reason it's wrong is one that falls into the realm of morality and ethics; without those two things, you don't really have a "right" and a "wrong" and can do whatever the fuck you please. That is, unless I'm having a serious misunderstanding of the fundamentals behind morals and/or ethics. I don't think I am.

Many people are going to tell you to wait for price drops or something of that sort, when most of the time these same people would pirate if games were as expensive where they live as they are where you live.

Enough babbling. Do I think piracy is wrong? Yes, I do, for the most part. Do I think there are some times where it is acceptable, like Extra Credits mentioned? Yes, I do.

Do I think that people in Brazil pirating games because the official copies are unreasonably expensive is wrong? I think that is the real question here. My answer is simply that you decide what it is and isn't worth; is the game in question worth 227 dollars? No? Then don't buy it.

The price doesn't make the piracy any less wrong. Import it or get it off of EBay at a cheaper price if you must play it.

Ops, sorry, I'm used to use "," instead of "." when referring to cents, that's how I was taught.

Answering your question, I believe you got the meaning of moral oriented right. I'm not ruling out that part of the discussion, and no, I don't think the price tag is a good justification for piracy, even here is Brazil. What I'm trying to say is that more concrete measures are needed to combat piracy, we need more than morality to guide consumer choice. I guess I'll edit the OP to make that more clear.
 

Kargathia

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BloatedGuppy said:
NKnight said:
I think what I'd like to bring to the table is this: the current measures are too moral oriented. It's wrong, it's illegal, I'll sue you, you might break the publishing company, it's like stealing, etc.
Oh god forbid we make thievery into an ethical issue. Why, all the ethically bankrupt thieves will feel uncomfortable! It's simply not effective!

Guy, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's an ethical issue because it's an ethical issue. You are stealing something because you don't feel like paying for it, and because the means by which to steal it are convenient and low risk. This is not a case of the little guy making clear his contempt for the big, bad corporation who is putting the screws to him. These guys are not trying to control your access to water, or medicine, or anything you need to have a high quality of life. You will not die without video games. If you can't, or don't want to pay for a high priced new title, you vote with your wallet and you don't play it. You don't STEAL it. You are not entitled to get it for free, or at the price you think is appropriate. They could charge you $1000 if they so wished. Your recourse in that situation is to walk the fuck away.

Honestly, the rationalizations people will go through around piracy is absolutely unbelievable. Yes, it's an ethical issue. Yes, you're a thief if you pirate. You're breaking all kinds of laws, you're greedy, you've an inflated sense of entitlement, you're a parasite, you're a scumbag, etc, etc, etc. By all means, keep doing it if you so desire. Clearly the industry is doing a shit job of trying to stop it. But stop LYING to yourself about it. These people don't owe you anything. They are selling a product. You want their product? Pay their price. You don't like their price, or don't like their product? You don't need it, so walk away. Poof. Piracy problem solved.
Piracy is an ethical issue. The solution, however, is not ethical. It'll have to be pragmatical.

Most religions have been telling us as long as they've existed that stealing is wrong. So far they've had... limited success.
There's no reason to think that corporations telling us that stealing from them is wrong will fare any better. Especially not as long as their own image is something worse than a thief: a bullying thief.

This, of course, by no means forms any excuse for pirating, but do we really expect an ethical discussion about piracy to really solve the issue? It's a good thing to have in that it encourages people to think about it, and about where they stand in it, but it certainly isn't going to change a few very old truths. Personal wellbeing and greed often are more important than ethics. No news there.
People like to consider themselves the good guys, even if they arguably aren't. No news there either.

Then why exactly are you still hoping to affect a mass behavioural change?

EDIT:
NKnight said:
Answering your question, I believe you got the meaning of moral oriented right. I'm not ruling out that part of the discussion, and no, I don't think the price tag is a good justification for piracy, even here is Brazil. What I'm trying to say is that more concrete measures are needed to combat piracy, we need more than morality to guide consumer choice. I guess I'll edit the OP to make that more clear.
We seem to be saying the same thing here.

In the past, it was pointed out how inferior pirated products were, they could harm the player, be full of viruses, etc. But people are not buying that anymore (pun intended).
No. Not if pirated products are superior.
 

BloatedGuppy

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Kargathia said:
Personal well being and greed often are more important than ethics. No news there.
Personal well being!? There is nothing about gaming that contributes substantially to personal well being. It's just greed, plain and simple. And I don't expect there to be any great sweeping change in personality amongst pirates. If anything, I expect them to act even more greedy and entitled as time marches on.

I just can't embrace the whole "corporations as the monster" stance when it comes to video game developers and publishers. I'm sure they're all dicks in the way that all corporations are dicks, but if there's a less essential service than video games I'm not sure I've found it, and I LOVE them, and have for decades. I think if people hate what a company is doing in this realm, they need to just not buy their shit, and problem solved.
 

Kargathia

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BloatedGuppy said:
Kargathia said:
Personal well being and greed often are more important than ethics. No news there.
Personal well being!? There is nothing about gaming that contributes substantially to personal well being. It's just greed, plain and simple. And I don't expect there to be any great sweeping change in personality amongst pirates. If anything, I expect them to act even more greedy and entitled as time marches on.

I just can't embrace the whole "corporations as the monster" stance when it comes to video game developers and publishers. I'm sure they're all dicks in the way that all corporations are dicks, but if there's a less essential service than video games I'm not sure I've found it, and I LOVE them, and have for decades. I think if people hate what a company is doing in this realm, they need to just not buy their shit, and problem solved.
Emphasis on the "personal" part. You gain entertainment by playing a video game, and "gain" the money you otherwise would've spent on said entertainment. This means you're better off. And this is more important to many than "not feeling guilty about having pirated it". It is quite irrelevant whether this personal gain is necessary to your survival.

The discussion of whether corporations are the soul-sucking, baby-eating monsters they're made out to be is also not relevant to this topic. People simply have a much harder time feeling guilty stealing from a big, faceless corporation, than they would have stealing from an actual person. That's not conjecture, or ethic justification: it's how we humans work. This goes for piracy, just as much as it goes for profiting from an ATM error.

To sum it all up: yes, pirates are on the wrong side of this whole ethical discussion. No, getting on your soapbox, and telling them they're "wrong" won't make them stop.
 

Epona

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PC games need demos or benchmarks and if a company is too lazy to give us that then I would not condemn someone for pirating their own demo. If a game has incorrect specs or is poorly optimized and it doesn't run well, you can't return it.

How many people would buy a TV without viewing the display model? How many people would buy shoes without trying them on first? I think the game industry has quite a scam going on where PC games are concerned. Can't legally try out a game unless they offer a demo (most games don't), can't return a game once it's opened and can't resale it because of one use activation codes that you have to redeem BEFORE you can play the game to see how well it runs.

Yeah, who is on the moral high ground here?
 

NKnight

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believer258 said:
NKnight said:
believer258 said:
I thought that said "$229,000" for a game at first. I was about to say, "Wow? Really? Two hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars for a game?"

Luckily I recognized the missing zero and that you put a comma (,) for cents where most of the time I see cents represented by a period (.).

I have to ask what you mean by "moral-oriented". Giving people money for the right to play the game/movie/book/music they worked on is a moral and righteous thing to do; not giving money to them and simply copying it off of the internet or buying it at your local pirated media shop is not a moral thing to do. The whole reason it's wrong is one that falls into the realm of morality and ethics; without those two things, you don't really have a "right" and a "wrong" and can do whatever the fuck you please. That is, unless I'm having a serious misunderstanding of the fundamentals behind morals and/or ethics. I don't think I am.

Many people are going to tell you to wait for price drops or something of that sort, when most of the time these same people would pirate if games were as expensive where they live as they are where you live.

Enough babbling. Do I think piracy is wrong? Yes, I do, for the most part. Do I think there are some times where it is acceptable, like Extra Credits mentioned? Yes, I do.

Do I think that people in Brazil pirating games because the official copies are unreasonably expensive is wrong? I think that is the real question here. My answer is simply that you decide what it is and isn't worth; is the game in question worth 227 dollars? No? Then don't buy it.

The price doesn't make the piracy any less wrong. Import it or get it off of EBay at a cheaper price if you must play it.

Ops, sorry, I'm used to use "," instead of "." when referring to cents, that's how I was taught.

Answering your question, I believe you got the meaning of moral oriented right. I'm not ruling out that part of the discussion, and no, I don't think the price tag is a good justification for piracy, even here is Brazil. What I'm trying to say is that more concrete measures are needed to combat piracy, we need more than morality to guide consumer choice. I guess I'll edit the OP to make that more clear.
Oh! You're looking for more ways to combat piracy! I understand now. Sorry.

...and on that end I really don't know what could be done beyond what's already being done. Incentives for not getting the game free? Who cares about the incentives when you've got the full game, for free, right there?

The only thing that I can really think of is to make demos standard. I don't understand why this isn't already a practice for games that get decent to good ratings; if the game is good, then some people are bound to buy it, end of story. Unfortunately, some people will want to try a game if they aren't sure whether they want to buy it, and with no demo their only option will be piracy. Many will just keep that copy instead of going to actually buy it.
As i said in the OP, I believe today online and physical features are the main factors. When you buy a game that comes with a artbook, an action figure, online multiplayer mode or something like that, wich is very hard to copy, or presented in better quality on the original, you feel that the original is worth it. It's like Extra Credits said on their video: The industry has to think about pirates as their competitors. Ofering the product for free is already a very good seeling point, so how can you make an even better product?

I believe piracy is in part responsable for the online features boom we are having today. It's hard to pirate when you need an internet connection on the company server that you're ripping of to play your game.