"Pirating" a game that was never released in your country/language

[Jake0fTrades]

Eh, you can come up with an argument for just about anything.

Murder? Maybe the person you killed was a serial-killer and the only way to stop him was to shoot him dead yourself.

Stealing? Maybe you're stealing food to feed your family.

Rape? Well... I got nothing. That's a tough one.

It comes down to you; at what point are you willing to break the rules?

 

[Vegosiux]

Legally, of course you're stealing. It doesn't matter if you're stealing from a company in America or one in Japan, theft is theft.

If you steal a copy of a game, that copy tends to be genuine and not pirated.

 

[Vigormortis]

Okay, finally someone explained me if those "tools" used in ROMs are legal or not.

I think there is nothing else to do here.

The game is for sale. Just not in the OPs region. So pirating it would be like saying, "They only sell this particular fruit in this country? Well I want it, so it's okay for me to steal it since they aren't selling it in my area." It's just....it doesn't make sense.

I like how people use those analogies. Have you considered that you can pick up what's left of the fruit after someone ate it and create conditions in your garden to replicate the tree that spawned that fruit?

It conflicts with your analogy because there is no patent laws for the genetic coding of a specific fruit that allows you to replicate as many times you want it and give it away for free.

In modern agriculture a lot of trees are effectively "clones" of each other since they were not created by sexual reproduction, process that is very simple and does not destroy the original tree.

At that point people are replicating the fruit and giving it away like software. So at best you gave the OP a justification to take the fruit (a copy someone uploaded and cracked) and share it, not a deterrent.

I like how people try to craft counter-points with analogies that make no sense.

If we were to take your analogy at face value, it would apply more to someone making a mod of a game than actually pirating the game.

You say they "take the left-overs and grow their own trees". Sounds just like how most mods, especially full-conversions, are done.

And, adhering to this analogy, as long as you aren't reselling the used "seeds" (i.e., the game code) but are instead just giving it away, it's perfectly legal.

However, if you take the original fruit, in it's entirety (and not the left overs), and then resell or give it away, THAT is illegal.

So...where was your counter-point again?

Also, we have already established that acquiring the legal game won't hold any water, as he will have to use illegal means to play it in English.

Actually, you are legally allowed to own cracks, ROMs, and what-not as back-ups, provided you own a legitimate copy of the software.

Just like old-console ROMs. As long as you own a real copy of the game, you can have as many ROMs of the game as you like. Again, provided you don't sell them or give them away as copies to others that don't own the game.

 

[LilithSlave]

You know, a 5 year old from the 50s would be able to tell you that if you don't have enough money to buy something, you're not supposed to take it.

And a 5 year old from the 50s would be able to tell you that copying a book from the library is not taking something.

Copying is not stealing. You can go to your local library, pick out a book, and run every page through their photocopier. Having a fairly exact copy of the book you went out and bought, and nobody is going to stop you. Because you're not taking anything. You're copying. If anyone were to reprimand you for something, it would be how inefficiently you're copying a book when there are better methods out there.

It's a shame grown adults from 2012 aren't able to process such a basic fact of commerce.

You mean like yourself?

Do you have money? Yes?
Then buy it.

Do you not have money?
Then wait until you do.

Oh, right, it's not okay to listen to the radio? It's not okay to check out a book from the library? It's not okay to play at a friend's house? It's not okay to borrow from a friend?

We're back to the same old faulty arguments that anti-pirates use all the time. Unsurprising, as the arguments against piracy don't have any logical basis.

Gaming is not a fucking necessity.

Then all the less is piracy depriving anyone of anything. If gaming is so trivial, there's no reason to flip a lid over how creators are having things "taken" from them.

If you don't have enough for it, you wait until you do.

Do anti-pirates have any other arguments other than ordering people on what to do with their life? No, people should copy and spread anything and everything that deserves to be copied. Anything that deserves to be copied and spread should be copied and spread. If something is not worth copying and spreading on a massive scale, it is worthless.

You don't tell what to do based upon some twist anti-piracy morality. You are WRONG. You don't get to tell people what to do. You don't have any logical basis in your disagreement with piracy. You don't get to tell people they have to pay for every single thing they use. If you don't have the money for a video game, you do get to play it. You get to use the many resources available to you in order to play it for free. Some of them legal, some of them not. But they are morally correct. You don't deserve to have anyone listen to you and your twisted "morality".

Yes, watching a music video on YouTube is of course the same thing as grabbing a ripped ROM of a game that you did not pay for and playing it.

But it obviously is...

What on earth? Are you even attempting to argue there's a difference here? Based upon what? A ridiculous prejudice that video games are better than music or music videos or the like? Video games are not better or more deserving of money than music.

The fact that the Escapist heavily punishes video games piracy of any variety but allows people to link to pirated material via youtube is an irony. If people don't buy music, it hurts the industry. Of course, some record companies are putting their own material onto youtube for free. But the vast majority of music on youtube is piracy.

Your logic is really reaching a low here that you show such obvious bias in favor of video games. That you repeat the rhetoric "not paying for using something" as if it's wrong, in the same sentence you trivialize not paying for music you listen to.

There's nothing special about a ripped rom in comparison to a youtube video. The only thing separating the two is a ridiculous prejudice in favor of video games above music. Video games are NOT superior to music. And downloading and playing a rom is NOT different from going on youtube and listening to copyrighted music.

 

[Nu-Hir]

So used games exist, publishers lose money through this venue, its legal and it sucks that the industry suffers because of it.

However the argument that because used games exist, its ok to suck more money out of the industry by pirating them is bollocks.

You paid your ISP for bandwidth to use in a legal manner, ditto with the computer retailer

You could argue that reselling whilst bad for the games industry, is good for the economy in general as cash is circulating.

Pirating a game doesn't even have that benefit.

You kind of missed my point, even if I did make it poorly due to it being late at night for me and I should have been in bed. I was mainly mocking those who say that Piracy is stealing because the developer/publisher doesn't get paid. If you buy used, the developer/publisher also does not get paid, regardless of it being a legal transaction. So from the developer/publisher point of view, piracy is just as bad as buying used.

As for the second part, I'm not even sure what I was trying to say, looking back at my comment. Like I said before, I was tired. And Piracy does have a benefit. For those of us who aren't jerks, it allows people a chance to see if they're getting their money's worth from a game. If I could have pirated the first set of .hack// games for the PS2, I would have. That was the biggest waste of $120 I have ever made. If I pirate something and I like it, I'll actually buy it legally. I'm more likely to buy something if I know it's going to be good.

Would I have known that Iced Earth was an awesome band without downloading a song from them at Random? Most likely not, and I wouldn't legally have almost all of their albums right now.

 

[Discordius Erisianus]

To me it's morally OK.
They didn't want your money anyway, and no jobs will be lost over your piracy. BTW, send me a download link, will you?

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Wait, is it abandonware? Are having an abandonware discussion? Abandonware is perfectly legal to download if you can find it on a ROM. If they're not selling the product and they've abandoned all retail support for it, you can only get your hands on it by either buying second hand (where the dev gets no money), or downloading it. It's not piracy, at that point.

If they're still selling it in Japan then things get trickier. But how old is the game? Is it still sold new? Sorry if I've sorely missed the point but I didn't think this was an issue?

 

[Tanakh]

Sometimes this is just really confusing.

Well, yeah, but if you have enough technical and legal knowledge to relize all this and have reasonable elements to know you might be sued, then it's trivial to mask your IP while dealing with such buisness and encrypt your HD. Then you might go for it and reduce to almost zero the chances of being caught.

Now, to do this legally is just a bit more complitated, as there are instructions on how to do a DIY cartridge reader, some seem very easy and not expensive, crap, if i had my old SNES collection i would start building those right now. AFAIK only the mass produced tools to do the ROM image are illegal, a DIY seems to be on the celar.

Fortunately for me, here the law doesn't give a shit about copyright, so all the paranoia of being on court for that just doesn't apply... and being a IRC, Napster, P2P, etc veteran that is always nice

Then again... when i was active in the torrent scene i did masked my IP, most of what I DL/UL was done with public terminals i had access to, ended up with several hundred CDs/DVDs of that data. Good times those... nowdays kids are sooo ignorant about computers QQQQQ

And yeah, the law for digital info is a little barroque. Would be more fun if the actual law applied instead of it being a battle over who has more laywers/patents.

Cheerio & nighty night Crystal, always a pleasure stumbling upon you.

-snip-

Very new, DSi release. And even old games are not on the clear, nintendo and others go to lenghts to prevent em from being abandonware.

 

[coolbeans21]

So used games exist, publishers lose money through this venue, its legal and it sucks that the industry suffers because of it.

However the argument that because used games exist, its ok to suck more money out of the industry by pirating them is bollocks.

You paid your ISP for bandwidth to use in a legal manner, ditto with the computer retailer

You could argue that reselling whilst bad for the games industry, is good for the economy in general as cash is circulating.

Pirating a game doesn't even have that benefit.

You kind of missed my point, even if I did make it poorly due to it being late at night for me and I should have been in bed. I was mainly mocking those who say that Piracy is stealing because the developer/publisher doesn't get paid. If you buy used, the developer/publisher also does not get paid, regardless of it being a legal transaction. So from the developer/publisher point of view, piracy is just as bad as buying used.

As for the second part, I'm not even sure what I was trying to say, looking back at my comment. Like I said before, I was tired. And Piracy does have a benefit. For those of us who aren't jerks, it allows people a chance to see if they're getting their money's worth from a game. If I could have pirated the first set of .hack// games for the PS2, I would have. That was the biggest waste of $120 I have ever made. If I pirate something and I like it, I'll actually buy it legally. I'm more likely to buy something if I know it's going to be good.

Would I have known that Iced Earth was an awesome band without downloading a song from them at Random? Most likely not, and I wouldn't legally have almost all of their albums right now.

I dont understand the point you are making, because developers/publishers lose money through a legitimate channel (used sales) We should all accept that piracy is fine and they lose no money from it?

Devs and publishers have to live with used sales, as its legal, they can do things to impinge them (day1dlc for new copies, online passes etc) But the end of the day its something they have to accept.

Piracy they do not have to roll over and take though, as it, unlike used sales, is not permited under law.

You also missed the point that although used games do not help the industry, they do help the economy. Piracy only benefits the pirate as he thinks he's entitled to things without paying for them.

As to the point about piracies benefits, perhaps if all people were like you andbought the game or music, then fine, however they are not and its naive to think that they are, the vast majority of pirates are scum who like to take things for free.

How many people who pirate the game "just to see what its like" delete it straight away when they realise its not great, I imagine the majority think "don't want to pay for it, but might as well play it, i mean i went to the trouble of downloading it after all"

Gaming is a luxury, people don't have a right to demo the entire thing before they decide if its "worth it" in their opinion, if the publisher doesn't offer a demo, then the options are to wait for reviews, take a chance on it or not buy it.

 

[Zeckt]

I try to justify myself pirating mother 3 for GBA because its the only game I ever pirated and I've bought games full price all my life. I loved the first snes one, and I just could not resist the translated game any longer.

Nintendo pretty much wanted to torture me by not giving me the option of playing and I would of paid full price in a heartbeat. After playing it now I have no regrets, it was a wonderful game.
I have nothing against people who pirate games that would otherwise be impossible for them to play, but for any other reason I do think of it as stealing. Why nintendo goes to great lengths to make me feel unworthy for certain games kind of upsets me.

 

[Something Amyss]

1) is it right, wrong, or morally grey to "pirate" such a game (note this encompasses ALL JP-only games, or on the flip side if you're Japanese, US/EU-only games)
and
2) from a more legal viewpoint, CAN you even pirate such a game? it was never released in your area, or language. and the only translation is from a fan patch that HAS to have a ROM to function.

Let me answer both at once:

Part of intellectual property rights is the ability to control distribution of your product. That doesn't just mean the ability to sell your product, but also the ability not to sell it.

Sorry, yes, it's wrong, legally and morally. Also, it's kind of dodgy for you to say you plan to do something illegal on this board.

 

[Insanity72]

Well if they didn't release it in your country, then they aren't going to get your money anyway. So I don't see why you wouldn't, it's not costing them any money and you are getting what you want. Yes it's still technically illegal, but the company isn't losing anything out of it.

 

[Abedeus]

I don't understand why the fuck people think pirates would stop if their self-justification doesn't hold up. I could tell you it's morally wrong and illegal, but you wouldn't listen.

And I wouldn't blame you one bit. I don't have an issue with people claiming to pirate. As long as you never think what you're doing is in anyway justified, I don't take issue with it (because there's just too many people to combat if I do).

Problem is, I have no way of buying half of the Nintendo DS games that comes out nowadays. Every retail store I've visited (and we have no DS-focused stores in my town, probably in my country there's a handful) has some shit like Nintendogs or puzzle games for children. I think only Pokemon somehow avoided it, but even then it's freshly after release.

I remember when I bought GBA and wanted to buy some Megaman Zero or Battle Network, or one of the older Pokemon games, or Zelda...

Nope. I had a choice between Bomberman and Mario.

 

[coolbeans21]

For fuck's sake.
Pirating is stealing. There's no grey area, excuses or whatever else. You took something you should have paid for in the most convoluted way possible, with whatever excuses as 'I wouldn't have paid for it anyway' and 'It's not stealing because it's not a physical item', without paying.

The bottom line is you stole something. What part of this confuses you?

Dude, piracy is copyright infringement, not stealing. At least get your definitions right.

Making a deliberate effort to acquire for free something you should be paying for sounds like stealing to me.

Best not to say its stealing, as pirates seem to think an incorrect definition of a crime excuses the crime itself, best to stick with the Pirating software is a dick move and illegal.

It fucks me off when pirates try to justify themselves with "well I wouldn't have payed for it anyway" so they haven't lost a sale, If you aren't going to pay for something, then don't take it, what right do you have to others hard work.

It pisses me off when used game buying kids do the same thing, they think that just because they want to play the game but they dont like the developer/publisher/what-have-you that they are justified in paying gamestop for it instead of buying new so that those who made the game dont see a profit.

I really dislike the used industry, especially the way its pushed at bricks and mortar retailers.

I only buy new(well not entirely, I did pay a metric fuckton for a copy of planescape torment on ebay a few years ago) The video games industry has brought me more pleasure than any other (with the exception of maybe the porn industry) and I am in the fortunate situation of being able to afford to support it.

Captcha = Oxalate nindler, that is so going to be my next character name.

 

[CrystalShadow]

[spoiler ="Hidden for lack of relevance."]

So used games exist, publishers lose money through this venue, its legal and it sucks that the industry suffers because of it.

However the argument that because used games exist, its ok to suck more money out of the industry by pirating them is bollocks.

You paid your ISP for bandwidth to use in a legal manner, ditto with the computer retailer

You could argue that reselling whilst bad for the games industry, is good for the economy in general as cash is circulating.

Pirating a game doesn't even have that benefit.

You kind of missed my point, even if I did make it poorly due to it being late at night for me and I should have been in bed. I was mainly mocking those who say that Piracy is stealing because the developer/publisher doesn't get paid. If you buy used, the developer/publisher also does not get paid, regardless of it being a legal transaction. So from the developer/publisher point of view, piracy is just as bad as buying used.

As for the second part, I'm not even sure what I was trying to say, looking back at my comment. Like I said before, I was tired. And Piracy does have a benefit. For those of us who aren't jerks, it allows people a chance to see if they're getting their money's worth from a game. If I could have pirated the first set of .hack// games for the PS2, I would have. That was the biggest waste of $120 I have ever made. If I pirate something and I like it, I'll actually buy it legally. I'm more likely to buy something if I know it's going to be good.

Would I have known that Iced Earth was an awesome band without downloading a song from them at Random? Most likely not, and I wouldn't legally have almost all of their albums right now.

I dont understand the point you are making, because developers/publishers lose money through a legitimate channel (used sales) We should all accept that piracy is fine and they lose no money from it?

Devs and publishers have to live with used sales, as its legal, they can do things to impinge them (day1dlc for new copies, online passes etc) But the end of the day its something they have to accept.

Piracy they do not have to roll over and take though, as it, unlike used sales, is not permited under law.[/spoiler]

You also missed the point that although used games do not help the industry, they do help the economy. Piracy only benefits the pirate as he thinks he's entitled to things without paying for them.

[spoiler = "other stuff"]
As to the point about piracies benefits, perhaps if all people were like you andbought the game or music, then fine, however they are not and its naive to think that they are, the vast majority of pirates are scum who like to take things for free.

How many people who pirate the game "just to see what its like" delete it straight away when they realise its not great, I imagine the majority think "don't want to pay for it, but might as well play it, i mean i went to the trouble of downloading it after all"

Gaming is a luxury, people don't have a right to demo the entire thing before they decide if its "worth it" in their opinion, if the publisher doesn't offer a demo, then the options are to wait for reviews, take a chance on it or not buy it.[/spoiler]

Right... So the only thing that matters in life is the economy right?
Do you know why copyright terms were originally limited to just 25 years at most?

Do you know why those same laws declared that to benefit from copyright in the first place you had to agree to your work being in the public domain as part of the bargain?

Do you know why the effects of ever-increasing copyright terms are in effect having the complete opposite result from the one copyright laws were intended to accomplish?

Do you even know what those original goals were?

But hey. Endless patent litigation helps the economy too right? Even though frequently the lawsuits cost far more money than the commercial value of the patents...

Or how about that copyright laws are essentially an unfair legally imposed monopoly that while benefiting anyone who holds copyrights, is in effect potentially abusive towards anyone whose income derives from sources without such legally sanctioned monopolistic rights?

But, hey... As long as it helps the economy right?

 

[Ranorak]

Buy the Japanese version to support the publisher, and get the ROM to play it?

 

[Optiluiz]

Not wrong at all. It wasn't released in your country and if you can't obtain it by other means, pirate away.