Pirates accidentally preserving gaming history?

[jpoon]

Completely agree with the OP, pirates just aren't as damaging as these multi-billion dollar corporations whine on about. If anything they are helping customers in the long run.

 

[Sikachu]

Fair play. And thanks for the life lessons in your other post. But to return the favour, you might want to your stance on the matter at hand a bit more clear from the start, because I'm quite sure that most people would have assumed from your initial post that you were pro-piracy. Anyway, I trust that this matter is now resolved, we've settled that their is some form is financial detriment to the gaming industry that comes from piracy, which is my main point. And although I'm sure that most people would dismiss the word 'cost' in place of 'fail to earn' as long as the main point is clear, I'm terribly sorry that my phrasing offended you so deeply.

Are you trying to wind me up? I was at no point offended by your phrasing, rather I thought your phrasing made your point wrong. I was trying to have a conversation with you about that but you and the other person who quoted me actively destroyed the possibility of this because of your assumptions about what was behind my questions rather than just dealing with it on face value.

I also didn't try to give you any life lessons, merely my opinion on why it's important to use the right arguments, and why I thought you weren't doing so. If you don't want to engage in a conversation, don't bother going to a forum.

 

[Fedayk1n]

What could happen is a "www.gog.com" type service for newer consoles,

 

[Antari]

Be wary of writing anything positive about piracy on The Escapist forum - it's an organ for expanding the revenues of the games industry rather than free and rational discourse and you could easily face mod wrath.

For my part I think that there should be a ten year limit on copyright infringement in videogames, and thereafter old games should have their sources opened for the good of the community. I think this is actually true for software in general, as restricting that information for longer doesn't doesn't really provide much in the way of extra incentive to innovate.

Isn't that how copyrighted works go into public domain, a number of years after the copyright owner's death?
of course, difficult to quantify with games, seeing as so many work on them...

Actually its fairly easy to quantify. Copyrights are like a driver's licence and have to be renewed, every 5 to 10 years depending on the copyright's inital period. Now when a copyright goes stale that doesn't make it OPEN SOURCE. Open source would mean any person or company could copy the product and sell it as their own, based on changes they have made. Public Domain just means that no one has the right to claim ownership of the product, therefore anyone can sell it or give it away, without making any changes or claiming ownership.

 

[Xanthious]

The only reason that certain drugs are so prevalent is because their socially acceptable, such as weed. I do not want our subculture to make piracy as socially accepted as that is. So i will argue and shout at people standing up for it.

I got news for ya, piracy is already just as socially acceptable (probably more so) as your analogy to weed. I know a ton of people that would never think to ever smoke a joint but wouldn't bat an eye at watching a pirated movie, or putting a pirated app on their phone, or playing a pirated game.

I work with an older woman who is one of the most "by the book" people you will ever meet but she didn't bat an eye when her grandson told her he'd rather have an R4 cartridge for Christmas this year rather than any specific games for his DS. She thought it was "neat" that he could get his own games now for free. Hell in my office of 50 or so people it's pretty commonplace for the older less tech savvy folks to swap burnt movies they buy from this person or that person between themselves. Or loan out copies of Windows to one another. Or even ask the IT guys if they can "get them" whatever piece of software.

My point, piracy is already a social norm. Piracy has been a social norm since the days of people recording songs off the radio onto cassette tape. Piracy these days is largely a crime in name only. Outside of the occasional story you read online when is the last time you seen anyone really get in trouble for it? How many times a day you think cops pull people over and see burnt CDs in their car? Now out of those times they see burnt CDs or DVDs just laying around a car do you think they bother to do anything about them? I'd say it's as close to never as to make no difference. Now imagine if that was a bag of weed. Do you think the same cops that totally ignore burnt CDs would ignore a bag of weed or a joint? I bet the weed wouldn't be ignored at all.

 

[Yeager942]

Yeah, it is because of Pirates I was able to play Planescape: Torment and other such gems like Sacrifice or XIII.

 

[GraveeKing]

Ya know, Pirating will happen anyway. But maybe 10-15 years or so after a game release they should let pirating me legal for that game. I mean you're not going to make any more serious money anyway. (unless it's WoW but really that game is.... I won't get off topic)
But the point is that old games which deserve credit make more sense to play first, so yeah pirating could be legal after a set amount of time - it makes sense to me.

 

[Eggsnham]

Ya know, Pirating will happen anyway. But maybe 10-15 years or so after a game release they should let pirating me legal for that game. I mean you're not going to make any more serious money anyway. (unless it's WoW but really that game is.... I won't get off topic)
But the point is that old games which deserve credit make more sense to play first, so yeah pirating could be legal after a set amount of time - it makes sense to me.

I agree with this man, and I am also too lazy to write my own reply!

 

[Antari]

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Its as prevalant in films and music, but games not as much. And i still reserve my scorn for the people who pirate games over those other forms, because those other forms make money in a plethora of other ways where gaming is still just the one.

So your saying gaming doesn't have any other merchandise? No T-shirts or toys to put alongside their game? Funny ... I don't see it that way. And your seeing it as more prevelant in movies and music because they are more accessable to the population, and in general have been around for a little longer.

 

[corsair47]

I wonder how many years old a game has to be before it's "not so bad" to go searching for it?

Perhaps it's better this way, instead of any 'old skool remake's

there isn't a certain number of years, but a company usually stops defending the copyright or stops supporting the game. It then becomes abandonware and you can legally get it for free.

 

[Imbechile]

Pirates accidentally preserving gaming history?

They are in a way. For instance is there anywhere else than Amazon where you can buy copies of System Shock 1+2 or Thief 1+2. You can torrent the easilly, but buying them is hard as hell

 

[Dr_Horrible]

I, while not condoning piracy, wholeheartedly support the archival and preservation of games. After all, this happens with books, movies, and music, so why not games?

As a not-that-old example, the NWN1 premium modules. I have the first 3 of them with my Diamond edition, but I literally have no legal way to purchase and use the others because the publisher (was it Atari or someone else? Can't remember)decided to shut down those servers and keep the modules from being released because NWN2 was coming out. I will never have an opportunity to play Pirates of the Sword Coast or any of the others, because of executive meddling.

(I'm getting back into NWN recently, so I feel a bit pissed off about it right now)

 

[Antari]

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Its as prevalant in films and music, but games not as much. And i still reserve my scorn for the people who pirate games over those other forms, because those other forms make money in a plethora of other ways where gaming is still just the one.

So your saying gaming doesn't have any other merchandise? No T-shirts or toys to put alongside their game? Funny ... I don't see it that way. And your seeing it as more prevelant in movies and music because they are more accessable to the population, and in general have been around for a little longer.

The T-shirt industry to my knowledge earns the actual companies very little, in contrast to bands who can give out their music for free and survive primarily off of selling shirts at gigs.

The toys thing you may have a point but im not entirely sure what the percentage on royalties are on those (opposed to shirts bought from manufacturer is practically 100%)

I'm not saying gaming doesn't have merchandise, just that it in no way makes a significant percentage of their income (opposed to films having cinemas,dvd,tv rights and music having radio,singles,albums,shirts and touring).

I mean yes this probably means that we need a new way of monetising our products (such as microtransactions and dlc that we want and would pay for even if some people pirated). But thats an argument for the economists of the world to worry about.

Yes but the exact same rules apply to the movie and music industry there. Not all theatres are owned by the movie companies. And re-releasing an movie, album or song is the same as if a game company simply renewed its copyrights and continued to sell the game. There are a few games out of the 1980's that are still under copyright and being sold, which you can get in trouble for downloading. But the rest fall under public domain, if the copyrights stale, the law provisions for free use. As it is by then considered to be common use/knowledge.

Your slapping informed people into a group they don't belong in. Yes if I download battlefield 3 for free the day after it comes out, that is piracy, and it does affect the company because its currently releasing what it has done. 10-15 years down the road if they want to continue to pay the taxes pertinant with maintaining the legal claim of the rights to copy they are more than welcome to and most people do respect that. But if the taxes to maintain that copyright outweights the current sales, they usually don't bother to. It then goes to public domain/abandonware.

If someone was smart enough to keep a copy around, then yes they have preserved some of gaming history. They are not bad for doing that. They are making a great game available to others, usually at a loss to themselves, having to host the files for download and not charging for it (Abandonia). Unlike Steam or GOG, who have you pay for the bandwidth you use. Which on a Dos game like X-com is laughable since it can be transfered in a sneeze of most broadband connections these days. Dosbox being about 1.2meg and X-com being about 8meg, I go through more bandwidth than that on youtube watching a single 30 second video most of the time. Dosbox is open source and X-com is public domain, all they are doing is hosting it. Until the rights are renewed and someone actually asks them to take them down they are legally able to sell it as a service, even though they don't own it.

You just have to take some perspective on it all, use a brush instead of a roller when painting your picture of it.

As for DLC and such thats a whole different thread.

 

[incal11]

To try and sum up in a less rambling manner, we don't need pirates for this, we don't need pirates for the industry in general, and the ends do not the justify using piracy to achieve them. Great works of art from every other medium have been lost to carelessness and malevolent intent and yet they continue to thrive so I don't see why preserving gaming is so necessary. If the choice was between no piracy, or losing huge chunks of gaming history, I'd take the loss of history to remove piracy.

That's a bit nihilistic, no matter what gems are lost forever, more will always be made. But wouldn't you be better off if you had all the gems of the past and the future available ?
Also no, without piracy most of those old games being resold by Gog and steam would not be so because there would be no demand for them in the first place. They'd have been forgotten and vanishing like those 90% of the first movies that were made.
The "piracy" here is not new, it's more of a fatality. The arts thrived despite this, maybe even because of it. One way or the other this isn't formally proven, but I disagree that it's unprovable, see the link in the rest of my post.

Protection of the legitimate expectation of profit is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable goal in a capitalist society. Without it, the incentive to produce is diminished and thus society at large is harmed.

Err, lol. I hope you come back to me after those 14 days. Discussing piracy on the escapist is really walking on a fine line (I hope I didn't overstep).
I DO NOT DEFEND PIRACY bootlegging is wrong, definitely
I am merely speaking theory.

Except when that protection takes the form of DRMs, a form of greed driven paranoia that keep publishers wasting considerable amounts for stupid useless bloatwares. It does have it's use against day one piracy, mostly from casual media consumers who don't think about these things as much as we do, but still. It starts getting seriously ridiculous when older medias keep being released with DRMs even when they actually are in the public domain.
Copyrights in general are made by and for publishers, not the makers themselves. In certain periods writers actually profitted from copyrightlessness. So They are not that monolithic unquestionable force of lawful good that so many believe them to be, though I can admit they may have their good sides.
I've seen you too think that expectation of profit beyond ten years is not reasonable for digital medias. Would copyright lenght being reduced from life + 70 years to 10 years from publishing have such an impact on incentives as to be harmful ? When they were reduced from literally forever to, originally, 14 years artistic creativity did not suffer.

Pirates often argue that they wouldn't have bought the game anyway, so this harm evaporates. For some of them, this is plainly a lie. For others it's true, but they have nevertheless availed themselves of a benefit which they in no way deserve, and as such fall into the category of 'unjust enrichment'. It's wrong, but it can't be said to cost the games company anything - they produced the game already and had no cost in purveying it to the pirate - no cost, just a failure to gain.

Not all piracy is 'Wrong', I challenge you on that.
Exploiting a failure to gain is not wrong, indeed not letting culture be restricted by availability is hardly wrong. I have explored the issue of the impact of piracy quite deeply in other discussions. I have come to the conclusion that due to the unpredictable nature of digital media distribution those studies that could definitely answer that much debated question would have to be done without control groups. It actually is possible:
http://www.nccmt.ca/pubs/non-RCT2_EN.pdf
If after reading that article you have some inspiration on how it could be done, you're welcome to share them with me.

Is it unjust enrichment even if you could not pay for it and it is not available to you (or even if you could as the case may be)? That's an interesting question. I know no defence of piracy could hold in a tribunal because of the law, but even if it's just for old semi-forgotten games if you download them you have to see the law with a certain amount of philosophy.
Still, for the heck of it, lets determinate the liability:
1. Was the defendant enriched?
Yes.
2. Was the enrichment at the expense of the claimant?
No, or not provable (for now).
3. Was the enrichment unjust?
Only if the claimant is poorer than before as a result, not provable (for now). Failure to profit is not the responsibility of the defendant.
4. Does the defendant have a defense?
Yes, freedom of information, also claiming some laws are clearly outdated and proving it could be worth a try.
5. What remedies are available to the claimant?
On screen advertising for streamed medias, being popular among the clients and using that popularity for merchandising are two examples proven to work.

Law aside that isn't such a strong claim against piracy. There was an enrichment but no provable impoverishment, or the connection between the two is uncertain (one can argue DRMs are a consequence of piracy, but the cost of DRMs are more of a deliberate measure that does not automatically follows).
There is justification for the enrichment, the principle of a free culture actually does not nullify the expectation of profit. The justification for the impoverishment is at least equally uncertain. Untill a study can be put in place...
The law provides plenty of remedy against piracy, in theory for the most part. That it is grossly ineffective is not an argument against it's validity but that is not my only argument.

 

[Antari]

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In the case of abandonware then go ahead, equally if the product is physically impossible to get in your region (with some of the payment going to the devs) then ok(this latter example is iffier but still moral in my eyes).

It's just when i see people excusing piracy with lame excuses like demo's and the like it makes me facepalm hard. Sorry if i gave the wrong impression, i just hate seeing good companies close down so can get touchy on the subject.

Its no problem, but keep in mind business is business. If they go out of business its usually for other reasons. Lack of exposure, mismanagement, any number of reasons. Piracy is not quite the big monster that its made out to be, however China does pirate quite a bit, and with a large chunk of the world's populaton there, piracy numbers are wild. Its not as widespread a problem around the world as its made out to be.

 

[face_head_mouth]

against it is the devastating amounts of money it can cost game companies

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I can say I pirate quite a few games (recently portal 2/ FNV/ BF2/DA:O/FO3) and to be honest i dont give a flying f*** about the industry when they can make games worth my $60+ I might consider paying for them but untill then ill stick to my game store, The Pirate Bay

If you have a bit of patience (or if you keep your eyes open for deals) you can get a game for as little as $20, even less used.

I have a real problem with people saying that they pirate something "because it's not worth my money". So...why even bother wasting your time playing the game in the first place? You could clearly be doing something more productive with your time than playing a game that isn't good enough to pay for.

But, like you said, you don't give a flying f*** anyway.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I still think there are better ways to ?preserve? gaming over piracy. If you make a copy of the data which you keep for until the game is no longer available, I suppose that is fine. But passing it around the net is not.

I also, on a rather unrelated note, find it funny how pro-piracy these forums can be, yet many people are anti-used sales. That strikes me as rather funny.

 

[Enos Shenk]

They will just be rereleased throughout the ages.

There's TONS of games that cannot be re-released because the rights to the title are stuck in legal limbo. Or titles where the rights holder has no intention of using the IP but refuses to allow new copies pressed.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

This is actually one aspect of piracy that is very interesting to say the least...

I think we do need a huge Vault for gaming, something straight out of Fallout that includes every game ever released ever.

Or y'know, more people could buy from GOG.com, that could work too.

But most people won't want to pay more money for something they bought once.

Then again, I'm all up for the fault kinda thing, as long as it works as a libary.

 

[incal11]

I still think there are better ways to ?preserve? gaming over piracy. If you make a copy of the data which you keep for until the game is no longer available, I suppose that is fine. But passing it around the net is not.

I also, on a rather unrelated note, find it funny how pro-piracy these forums can be, yet many people are anti-used sales. That strikes me as rather funny.

Even passing it around when it's not available anywhere and will not be sold anymore, still not fine ? why ?
and if you want a discussion scroll up to my previous post

The whole spectrum of opinions on piracy are represented here on the escapist, but the admins can't afford to be too kind with those who openly insist that piracy is Right as opposed to Wrong. One already got the hammer in this thread.
I suspect it's because the site risks not being allowed those game trailers and footage otherwise.