Piracy, simply put.

[Denariax]

snip

This is just laughable. I don't care if I get another warning, you need to get a grip. How can you possibly be so angry?

Because gaming, film, music, animation etc are things I'm passionate towards and I'm well on my way to becoming one of those people who see there hard wroth work demeaned by self-interested twits.

Well I hope you get used to it soon, because copyright infringement isn't going anywhere. Ever. I also hope you see that it's not always a bad thing either.

You're not some artist who got screwed over by some producer, or a director who lost the rights to his own film. You're not fighting a battle on creative control.

If you pirate all you do is serve yourself through the effort of others.

It all comes down to money. There'll always be two sides to it. Simply banning it overall and hunting them down is just plain sad. Let their moral compass take a turn; if it doesn't, that's their problem and no one elses.

Besides, companies don't lose that much off a few pirated copies. I mean look at MW3, one of the worst games ever made (teehee). Nearly billions of dollars were spent on that. They have only a few million pirated. They still have award-winning sales. Why should it matter if a small percentage don't pay if the majority does?

People would say that it's unethical to pirate. I say its unethical to steal on both sides of the spectrum. Stop making crap that I pay my own hard earned money on.

 

[brunt32]

I thought I will throw my hat into this debate and see what I get.

Piracy is only acceptable in certain situations, I'm not going to be all righteous about it because I've done it in the passed and sometimes I know that morally I should be ashamed as there was no real reason to do it except for my own person greed.

I have and still do download a game that it is impossible to get now-a-days and I totally agree with doing this and would recommend it to anyone. It helps keep interest in the old games and sometimes even makes a community that allows a upcoming game company to see a cult interest and pick up the license and re-create the game. Even though this only happens once in a million years.

Sometimes the game and DLC/expansions cost to much, I'm un-employed and have been activity looking for a job since September now. As in I will spend about 3-5 hours a day online and out and bout posting applications and CV's to companies. Money is low for myself, with an income of 30-60 pound a week depending on if I can get a day or two of work labouring. When I get home I might want to relax and play the sims, so I buy the main game. I really enjoyed it however its obvious that they leave quite key-features from the previous games so they can stuff it into expansions. I don't have the money to buy all the expansions and it will take me weeks to do so, so I pirate them. Also Notch has agreed with this method slightly telling people who can't afford Minecraft to pirate it and if they ever get the cash then consider buying it. I've done this often with other games to, I didn't have the money that week but didn't have anything else to do so I pirated the game and sometimes I really enjoy it so I buy it as soon as I have money, other times I made the right choice and just delete the game.

In general I personally disagree with pirating, however I find it hard to fight against it when you hear about companies like Blizzard earning 4 billion a year, when I'm struggling to buy 40 bucks wroth of games.

 

[peruvianskys]

No, I'm not going to buy a car without giving it a test run first.

If you want to buy a car, and you go to the dealership to ask for a test run but they say no, do you have the right to jump the fence and steal the car to see how it handles? Of course not. They funded and produced and distributed the product themselves and you have no right to decide what they have to do with it.

Grow the fuck up, OP and his defenders; the games industry does not owe you anything. They made the product, they get to decide how and when and for how much it is offered. Do you think you're so special that people simply owe you the charity of a free game? Do you have any idea how a market system works? If you can't afford something or you don't want to buy it then you don't fucking get to have it. All your intellectual smoke and mirrors doesn't disguise the fact that these outright piracy apologetics are based solely on your belief that somehow you are owed the product of another person's labor by virtue of you being too lazy to get the money to buy it or too self-important to see the need to respect basic human decency by not taking for free what others have to pay for.

If you don't like the way the games industry is set up then you could just not buy the games with DRM or the games from publishers you don't like. To oppose the industry but still take the product for free robs you of any shred of moral high ground you could possibly have. People are right to say that piracy is a complicated legal topic but morally your defense just does not hold up.

 

[RubyT]

What are you putting into the system of the entertainment industry?

I buy the occasional game (last: Skyrim) and TV-box. Oh, I know, you thought pirates never do that.

For Christmas I bought a new 27" screen for 600 bucks. I could have bought 10+ games for that. But then the good folks at HP would've been sad. It's economies of scale that help drive the prices for consumer electronics down. From which you benefit too. I know, my one HP monitor isn't gonna get noticed by the system, but your $50 for game X aren't gonna be felt in the pocket of it's assistant texture artist either.

As I said, I'm not hoarding money out of spite, I contribute everything I earn to this wonderful circle of value creation. What more can I do?

 

[chaos order]

ill explain piracy in even simpler terms FREE STUFF. thats it there is no other justification for it. i hate hearing excuses like "oh its not REALLY stealing", "oh im just one person", and " well they should have released a demo"

so OP you just want free stuff with no cost to you and you dont care that it hurts developers.

 

[LilithSlave]

"I wouldn't have bought it or can't afford to buy it anyway" is not an excuse.

Saying it's not an excuse is not a proper argument.

Do you have any reasons why it's not an excuse other than it being against the law?

Because if not I'd ask to you excuse or justify the law.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

What are you putting into the system of the entertainment industry?

I buy the occasional game (last: Skyrim) and TV-box. Oh, I know, you thought pirates never do that.

For Christmas I bought a new 27" screen for 600 bucks. I could have bought 10+ games for that. But then the good folks at HP would've been sad. It's economies of scale that help drive the prices for consumer electronics down. From which you benefit too. I know, my one HP monitor isn't gonna get noticed by the system, but your $50 for game X aren't gonna be felt in the pocket of it's assistant texture artist either.

As I said, I'm not hoarding money out of spite, I contribute everything I earn to this wonderful circle of value creation. What more can I do?

I never said pirates never did that. But you didnt earn every game. And you still enjoyed those other plants without watering them. Sure you water a few but that doesnt excuse your lazyness to water the rest you enjoy, expecting us to cover those that you miss.

I dont benefit from HP getting money from you. And i dont need to. I give to the system the same as much asi take out but you take far more than you give, deciding that as a higher form of life you only need to give for a few things. Dont claim "its ok i enjoy SOME things without contributing since I contribute to other things i enjoy". Well fucking done. Thats what everyone else does ALL the time with EVERYTHING. I contribute everything i earn to it to, but im not entitled to free shit. At all. You enjoy something. You contribute to it. You cant "make up for it" by saying you pay for other shit you buy. Thats not how it works. You contribute toward everything you enjoy and dont expect us to pick up the slack for stuff you dont.

Im not creating any slack for YOU to pick up and compensate for by leeching. Why am i expected to do the same for you? HP survive fine with me because i dont leech from them. The only reason you have this concept of "make up for piracy with other spending" is because you accept that your leeching does harm.

Heres what you can do. Dont earn SOME of it. Dont earn MOST of it. Earn EVERYTHING you enjoy and dont presume to be entitled to more shit than me or expect me to fund the stuff you enjoy and dont pay for. Since i pay for everything i enjoy like every other self respecting person does you dont have this issue of having to fund shit for other people.

 

[SpartanBlackman]

Just remove the whole factor of cost for a moment. No, don't just say "BUT COST IS IMPORTANT YOUR POINTS ARE WRONG", listen. If I have 2 choices, I can either; play a game where I can only play it at certain times, get about 80% of the content on the disk, have to have my computer probed before I can play, and they have the right to take away my game at any time.
Or
Get the full game.
Honestly, which one do you pick?

 

[LilithSlave]

Which is illegal, just like Stealing.

And for Christ's sake, if you're a pirate, grow a proverbial pair and acknowledge that you're breaking the law.

I have never seen one person ever claim that in the United States piracy is not illegal.

Though you would be wrong to claim that copyright infringement is the same everywhere in the world and that piracy is illegal everywhere.

And telling someone to "grow a pair" is both rude and sexist. It would be like me telling you to grow a brain and learn that piracy isn't illegal everywhere.

People on the pro-piracy side do not disagree that piracy is illegal many places, they disagree that it is unethical. In short, they disagree with the law. That's a common thing considering that there are a lot of terrible laws.

i hate hearing excuses

And I had people dismissing all arguments against anti-piracy instead of addressing them. And people taking a few relevant mentions about the matter such as "piracy isn't stealing" out of context against them.

Saying "piracy isn't stealing" isn't a justification of piracy. It's a common rebuttal to the claim by ANTI-PIRATES that is wrong and should be addressed as such.

The claim that piracy is wrong because it is theft is wrong because piracy is not theft. And to use that against the pro-piracy... well, I've heard better anti-atheist arguments from Christians. And Christianity has no logical basis to stand on.

Also, it needs to be stated again that not everyone who supports piracy is a pirate themselves or "justifying" their own actions. This same horrible accusation made at pro-drug legalization advocates. That they're just druggies who want to "justify their wrong habit". When in fact, many people who do not do drugs agree with, on a moral basis, their behavior. And the same do pirates.

I would like to try out the Skyrim mods right now. There's a new My Little Pony mod. But it's $60, and I do not find it worth that. Does it mean I have pirated it? No. Because I don't pirate. But I am a pro-piracy individual. And no amount of bannings or warnings on the internet would stop that. Because that is what I know to be morally right and I will state it.

Furthermore, as someone who loves video games, I want the industry to do as well as possible. And since I understand anti-piracy to hurt the video game industry, I argue against it. The worst thing for any media to have, is a lack of presence and relevance. A lack of piracy would mean less presence, less relevance, and therefor less sales and economic worth in video games.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I honestly believe that when I pirate, I'm not doing something immoral, at all. Illegal? Sure, yeah, but that doesn't take into account the context.

All piracy has done is allow me to let me listen to as much music as I want, discover new bands that I would never have bothered with otherwise, and let me pick the albums I've then wanted to purchase physically. I haven't spent any less money on music than I would have if I were forced to purchase everything. If anything I've spent more, because this way I'm guaranteed to be contributing to an artist I genuinely like. And trust me, I spend a lot on music.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I honestly believe that when I pirate, I'm not doing something immoral, at all. Illegal? Sure, yeah, but that doesn't take into account the context.

All piracy has done is allow me to let me listen to as much music as I want, discover new bands that I would never have bothered with otherwise, and let me pick the albums I've then wanted to purchase physically. I haven't spent any less money on music than I would have if I were forced to purchase everything. If anything I've spent more, because this way I'm guaranteed to be contributing to an artist I genuinely like. And trust me, I spend a lot on music.

Oh yes, let's just look at what it's done for you. That's the way to determine whether something is ethical or not.

What's unethical is that you enjoy it for free, when those who own it do not wish to give it away. Doesn't matter how much else you spend on music, that bought you the music you got, not rights to other music.

So who's losing out? Who's directly losing out?

 

[Rhaff]

I agree piracy isn't stealing and that potential revenue isn't actual revenue but Piracy is closer to counterfeiting. If you didn't pirate the game there is a chance that you would buy it.

And with second hand games the dev's got money for the game on the original purchase they didn't sell another copy they don't deserve money for the second hand sales. That last part sounded better in my head.

Actually you can't even call it potential revenue, since if one pirates game, movie, music etc. then the odds are that you will not go down and buy it afterwards, and since one pirated the object in question there was not really any chance of the pirate buying it in the first place, which puts the pirate outside the target demographic for the product, and therefore was never a potential sale.

 

[Uber Waddles]

Its been pretty much established that its a pretty stupid argument to say piracy is stealing. Its a copyright issue. No merchandise is stolen, and all funds lost are theoretical, not actual.

This has been something people have been saying for years and years. Piracy is a Customer Service issue. It has to do with price points, customer service, quality, and stock and availability.

Lets put it this way. I have no problem with piracy (although I dont partake in it) as long as it can be justified. Do I think charging $40 for a re-release of a game over a decade old is too much? I certainly do. Do I think you are justified to torrent a game if its DRM is holding it back, and a group of modders have removed it from the equation? I certainly do. Do I think its right to pirate games that are no longer readily available in stores? Ive got no problem with that. What if Im pirating a game thats not available in my region? You bet thats fine (even the Americas have this issue).

Look at iTunes and Steam, and how many people they converted over from piracy. They offer their services at a cheap rate, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They constantly have specials, and modify their content to keep users interested. There is a group of people who will pirate no matter what: you cannot get around that. When people can't get their things electronically, they'll go back to mod chipping and copying content from disks, like the good old days.

Piracy is not something thats destroying the industry. Its something industries want to minimize because they want to maximize profits, and will do anything to do so (as seen with SOPA/PIPA/ACTA). Piracy has its uses, and you can diminish it, but you cannot get rid of it. Its not harming the industry. The industry COULD minimize it by re-evaluating their shitty business models, but that takes time, effort, and money. Everything expressed here is stuff thats been said before, and will be repeated, by many, later.

 

[Viridian]

Long time lurker here. Just registered to say this:

I'll stop downloading games when publishers will remember that demos are a great promotional tool. No, I'm not going to buy a car without giving it a test run first. Same with a game. Demos allow me to make my own idea of the gameplay - It also allows me to guesstimate how long it'll take me to finish the game, and judge how much I'm willing to spend on the product. - I'm not going to spend 60 euros on a 4h long game.

If there's no demo, i'm going to pirate your game. If it's good, i'll buy it. This is non negotiable. Before you tell me about reviews, I'll just point you towards metacritic and laugh.

Obviously, if the game is shitty, i'm not going to keep playing.

I buy games. I've bought quite a lot of games, actually, and will probably buy even more games in the future. I have 200+ games in my Steam library. I also own quite a lot of DVD boxes and even some direct download stuff. I have a current backlog of 20+ games I need to play, because of the goddamn steam winter sales and the HIB/RIB. I just don't feel like being shafted by shoddy publishers who couldn't care less about my experience but oh god do they want my money so much.

People who look for reviews don't go for the abyss that is metacritic, and you know that. You shouldn't use the weakest example of a source for reviews in order to condemn reviews as a whole.

While pirating for a demo is reasonable, how far in the game will you get before you decide that it isn't for you? What if it's a game that you're on the fence about? If you experience a third of the game's content before deciding you don't like it, does that still make it a demo?

 

[plonk420]

i'm late to this thread (just saw it in the sidebar), but i have this to say... piracy is not stealing/theft per the US Supreme Court: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowling_v._United_States_%281985%29

 

[LilithSlave]

Considering that "I wouldn't have bought it or can't afford to buy it" isn't a proper argument itself it doesn't need anything more than dismissal.

Well, if you take the "I" out of the equation and generalize it, it is.

Part of the argument of piracy, and when it gets into the crux of the matter instead of just petty statements like "piracy is stealing", has to do with the ethics of how developers deserve reward for their hard work, and how it relates to copyrights and copyright infringement.

Claiming that people often buy because they simply don't have the funds, is related to loss of sales of lack of loss of sales. PC games that are heavily pirated are also heavily bought, and studies show that people who pirate games also tend to buy a lot of games, while people who do not pirate games tend to buy considerably less games. There has not been a loss of sales due to the rise of technology and therefor piracy, but an increase in sales. And that people pirate now, instead of showing a permanent lack of interest in buying, simply shows the lack of buying power and possible earnings available in comparison to how many gamers that gamers want to play or at least sample somehow. And the short term action of pirating shows a long-term purchasing desire in materials pirated.

So again, saying "I" is too anecdotal to be a great argument. But saying most people who pirated did not have the immediate means to buy, but a long term interest in buying still. Is an argument against the idea that piracy causes lost sales. I hold that pirates are, on average, more interested in buying games than non-pirates. And that video game industry profits would decrease dramatically if piracy were to disappear completely.

 

[Red Is Dead]

No, I'm not going to buy a car without giving it a test run first.

Grow the fuck up, OP and his defenders; the games industry does not owe you anything.

Oh, Don't misunderstand me, I fully condemn piracy for the sake of piracy. The whole "I wouldn't have bought it in the first place" is a bloody moronic argument. Same with "I did not steal anything, they did not lose money etc." and basically all the stuff OP uses to justify his copyright infringements.

I also strongly believe that artists (in a broad sense, from the musician to the movie costume designer to the video game developper) should be rightfully rewarded for their work. But I don't have unlimited resources and ultimately I have to make choices. And to make choices I have to be informed.

But, do you know why nobody breaks in auto shops and steals a car just to see how it handles? Because you just have to ask for a test ride and they'll be happy to provide one.

There used to be a time when there was demos for pretty much every single game. Heck, even before magazine CDs, only demos, or sharewares were distributed. If you wanted to buy a game, you'd have to send the money directly to the dev team. This allowed to build a pretty good opinion of the games before shelling out some hard earned cash.

And then this fell out of favor for gameplay videos. They were OK, you could still get a decent grasp of the gameplay from looking at them. This allowed to make a relatively educated choice.

Nowadays it's just 'trailers'. You get selected pieces of cinematic with some text effects and engaging music. You can only, at best, judge of the graphical quality of the game. This does not allows one to make an educated choice.

So I go for the next best thing, which is, sadly, copyright infrigement. I would use any other legal alternative if I could, but I can't, because there's none.

As for DRM, as mentionned in my post, I do not have any problem with them. I almost exclusively use Valve's DRM platform, Steam, although some games I have use GFWL or the horrible Ubisoft piece of crap. However, I do not currently own or plan to own any games on Origin, for various reason. I also, as much as I like the BF series, I didn't even download BF3, because I know I wouldn't buy it anyways.

 

[AnarchistFish]

I honestly believe that when I pirate, I'm not doing something immoral, at all. Illegal? Sure, yeah, but that doesn't take into account the context.

All piracy has done is allow me to let me listen to as much music as I want, discover new bands that I would never have bothered with otherwise, and let me pick the albums I've then wanted to purchase physically. I haven't spent any less money on music than I would have if I were forced to purchase everything. If anything I've spent more, because this way I'm guaranteed to be contributing to an artist I genuinely like. And trust me, I spend a lot on music.

Oh yes, let's just look at what it's done for you. That's the way to determine whether something is ethical or not.

What's unethical is that you enjoy it for free, when those who own it do not wish to give it away. Doesn't matter how much else you spend on music, that bought you the music you got, not rights to other music.

So who's losing out? Who's directly losing out?

So, who's being resurrected from the dead? Who!?

Or in a more direct way of saying things, now with 100% less sarcasm... I never said anyone was losing out so don't ask me stupid questions. No one needs to lose out for it to be unethical.

I didn't say you said that, but as far as I see it, if the artist isn't actually being negatively affected by me downloading their music, I don't see why it's a problem. Maybe on the face of it it's unethical, but that's an extremely narrow minded way of looking at it.

 

[peruvianskys]

Oh, Don't misunderstand me, I fully condemn piracy for the sake of piracy. The whole "I wouldn't have bought it in the first place" is a bloody moronic argument. Same with "I did not steal anything, they did not lose money etc." and basically all the stuff OP uses to justify his copyright infringements.

Yeah, that whole post wasn't too heavily aimed at you; I understand frustration over not having demos and although I don't think it's necessarily a perfect system to download first and buy later, it's about a hundred times less destructive and annoying than the "fuck it, I'm pirating this because I don't want to pay for it" approach. So you're absolved haha.

 

[Gatx]

Whether or not it's akin to "stealing" is a debatable. What isn't is that it's wrong: you're using something that you're supposed to have paid for, but didn't. How do people get it in their heads that they have some kind of right to piracy.