Pirating Game Dev Tycoon Dooms Players to be Ruined By Piracy

[Cecilo]

I almost shed a tear, ALMOST!
But once again this is shitty world.
And would such developer feel better if nobody would even bother to pirate his/her game?
Because if your game is being pirated, you did something right.
If your game isn't pirated then you just produced shit.
Harsh reality, sad reality, disappointing reality, but still reality.

No, I'm sorry but this is not a shitty world, the only thing that's shitty here is your justifications and your perspective.

I'm sorry that you're unable to empathize with someone who's working his ass off to create a game that you feel entitled to steal. You talk to me about charity? You know that charity depends upon giving a shit for someone else? And yet you come up with all sorts of rationalizations why giving a shit for a developer is something you don't need to do? That you feel entitled not to do? Of having not done?

You think a developer should feel grateful people are stealing his game? What world do you live in? Maybe you should feel grateful when someone makes sexist remarks to your girlfriend. After all, if no one openly comments on how great her ass is it must mean she's not very attractive right? That's the sort of logic you're dealing.

Discussion over.

Except he pirated games in his youth, so.. again why should ANYONE care about the fact that he is having HIS game pirated now?

He justified it by saying "Games weren't readily available in my youth" (Paraphrasing), Okay. Well, money is not readily available in this recession, so I guess we are even eh?

Because this is a discussion about piracy in general, not piracy as it relates to this specific developer.

As many people have previously said. This is about pirating an "Eight Dollar Game". He pirated games, so why should I feel bad that he got his game pirated now. Answer is. I shouldn't. The only reason he cares about it now, is that it is his game. I can guarantee you, he did not care about whose job he was killing, or whose family he was stealing from when he did it, so he can take his self righteous "You dirty pirates" Message and shove it.

Is there a reason you're putting Eight Dollar Game in quotation marks? Is the game less valuable and therefore less of a problem to pirate it because of the price?

What you as a youth (presumably) don't understand is that wisdom is a product of age. And while he may have fileshared in the past his perspective is now different. You would be wise yourself to listen to the advice and opinions of your elders so that you can benefit from what they know and in part avoid making the same mistakes they have. Instead however, you're just using it as further justification to do something unjustified.

If a boy once beat up a boy in school, should we feel no empathy for them when they're getting beat up as an adult? Not listen to their plea for assistance? That's essentially the philosophy you're promoting.

And if in your youth you make a mistake and someone holds it against you in your adult life and chooses to not respect what you have to say when you need respect the most, then remember this lesson.

I am perfectly fine with making someone who did something wrong in the past, which again you have pointed out many times, is illegal, suffer in the future. Especially since the person in question is saying that when he did it was fine, but all of us who do it now should be punished and should suffer for it.

And actually yes, I am perfectly fine with that kind of philosophy. He did something wrong, he took no issue with him doing it wrong, into adulthood he still says it was justified, but because it now effects him he doesn't want it to happen anymore. So no, I have no sympathy for him, I would if maybe, he would at least admit that what he did was wrong, but no. He says it was fine, it was justified.

And yea, I have learned something from him, if I say it is alright to do it, it is, as long as I feel it is.

 

[Entitled]

Every pirate who tells you that "Stealing a game and paying for it later" is okay is evidence that they make less profit. Because paying for a game later usually means paying less for the game than at the time you played it.

Like most other lost sale arguments, this has the problem of not knowing whether these people's no-piracy alternative woulld have been to buy everything earlier, or they would have spent the same amount of money on gaming and go without until they are cheap enough to afford them.

So, now the argument is "you don't have a right to be a game designer, therefore I have a right to play your game without paying for it?"

Really?

You see there's a difference between someone:
A - Making a product, have people not buy or use it, and the business failing as a result
B - Making a product, have people use it but not pay for it, and the business failing as a result

One is justified. The other is not.

I'm questioning whether situation B exists as a separate, closed cause-and-effect situation.

Right now, piracy exist. Single-player PC games report 90% piracy rates all the time. Console games and multiplayers somehow lower. And yet, there are plenty of successful games.

The fact that there are businesses that fail, is an extremely weak proof of their failure happening "as a result" of file-sharing.

Specifically, it's a classic example of the Fallacy of the single cause. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause]

This question is paradoxical.

Common Law is based upon tradition and precedence. All laws are built upon the examples and cases that have come before it. Copyright law does not exist as some separate entity outside of normal tradition, rather it is the interpretation of the tradition and precedence as it applies to the medium.

Therefore faith in copyright law is faith in the tradition of the law as we know it.

Yet there is such a thing as "unjust laws", and "Appeal to Tradition" is considered a logical fallacy for a reason.

By your own claim, you basically admit, that no matter how strict copyright laws could possibly be, even if they could have stifled all Fair Use in the bud, never given chance for passage to Public Domain over time, it could have banned all second-hand sales, etc, and no one that it would be applied to, should ever question it, as long as it represents the tradition of the law.

Conversely, if a few decades ago, as personal copying took the spotlight, it could have been decided that it's an individual's right that publishers shall not infringe upon, and then now all piracy would be legal, and therefore moral.

By your own logic, file-sharing ("piracy") in Switzerland is legal, therefore right now, it's morally nothing like theft over there.

 

[DarthFennec]

Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?

Three assumptions. Two of them completely wrong. One of them right and in favour of what I'm saying.

So why are we still talking?

I told you that those were the only three possible assumptions I could think of, and that you may have one or more of them, so I just decided to address them all. I suppose the one that was right was that "developers feel disrespected by piracy"? Alright, let's talk about that then.

The point I have contention with is that piracy does not help developers as many people are fooling themselves into believing.

... oh, okay. Or not, I suppose.

Not every artist lives to create experiences. Some create art for their own sake and would like nothign better than to create and not have it experience by anyone.

Then those people aren't going to care about piracy because they're never going to distribute their art in the first place ...

So no, your assumption is false. And the foundation of your reasoning is false.
Artist, whether they be game designers, musicians, whatever, their dream is to live their life doing what they LOVE. What they love is creating. A by product of creating is getting feedback by people who experience their work but it is a BY PRODUCT. Not the primary goal.

It's not much of a creation if nobody sees it ... I mean, what's the point in creating some fantastic drawing if you can just scribble doodles? The "doing" is the same in both cases, and if nobody sees it then nobody's going to know the difference, so there's no point. Creating for an audience and getting feedback gives art a direction, and it allows the artist to push himself and become better at his craft. I think the process and the audience are equally important. But if you think creating experiences for others is "just a byproduct", you don't have to do that part, just don't expect to make any money with your scribbles.

And what enables them to live their life doing what they love? Being paid for it.

Again, they're still being paid for it. Pirates don't prevent non-pirates from paying.

One of the rationales in this thread for piracy is "why pay for a game that isn't very good".

Take the scenario where a talented but inexperienced game designer creates a game. It's a failure. Because it's a failure no one pays for it. Because no one pays for it, he doesn't make any subsequent games. And because he doesn't make any new games, he quits his career and all the great games he COULD HAVE made will no longer be made.

Compare this to the opposite. Guy makes a game, not very good. People pay for it. He has money to make a second. It's a better game. People pay for it. He has money to make a third. It's an even better game. People pay for it. He h as money to make a fourth. It's a brilliant game.

See, the problem is that the second sort doesn't happen. Nobody buys games they don't like. Pirates will just download everything because they can, non-pirates will research and play demos and things to make sure they're not wasting their money on a "not very good" game, and either way, the inexperienced designer will not make any money. That has nothing to do with piracy, it's just how free market works. The fact that he apparently gave up on his entire life's dream after just one failed attempt probably means his heart wasn't really into it, so that's for the best.

I mean if someone's gonna pirate, then whatever, do what you're gonna do.
But don't waste your time and mine telling me that what you do benefits anyone but yourself.

Take this scenario where a talented but inexperienced game designer creates a game. It's pretty damn good. But it doesn't sell very well, and the designer falls on troubled times. The reason is, of course, that only about three people in the world know that the game exists. It's hard to sell to an audience that doesn't know about your product.

Compare this to what actually happens. Guy makes a brilliant game, three people play it. One of them happens to be a pirate, and he decides he wants to share this excellence with the world, so he puts it up as a torrent. Three thousand other pirates see the game in the "recently uploaded" section of the torrent site, and decide to check it out. They all like the game too, and they all tell their friends about it. Let's say each pirate has, on average, one non-pirate friend (in reality it's probably more), so suddenly you have three thousand non-pirates who have heard about an excellent game from someone they personally trust. That's usually enough, so they go to check it out, and decide to buy it. The game does well, and things are looking good for the inexperienced designer.

Obviously this doesn't apply to all games (triple A titles that can actually afford marketing, in particular, don't reap this benefit), but most games do benefit from it. I'm not saying that this necessarily makes piracy an inherently good thing, but it certainly does have its helpful side.

"There are problems in the world, and there's nothing we can do that will fix them, so why bother trying"

That's your philosophy in a nutshell.
I don't agree.

Oh? In that case, what steps are you taking to fix it, yelling past pirates in forums? Very helpful, surely the world is bound to be changed by your efforts. I never said we shouldn't try to fix the problem, all I said was that trying to forcibly make people stop pirating or trying to guilt them out of pirating is clearly wasted effort, and we should look at solving the problem by other means. We should accept that pirates exist and that they always will exist, and we should focus on minimizing piracy rather than eliminating it, because the alternative is just headaches and wasted time.

 

[ResonanceSD]

a DRM free game with a demo as well. There's absolutely no justification to pirate this game.

You know, I cant help but laugh every time you call it DRM free, when its DRM system triggers the game to fuck over pirates...

Sure the DRM may not actively fuck with the paying customers, but it is DRM all the same.

That's not the official demo

http://www.greenheartgames.com/game-dev-tycoon-downloads/

This is

Thanks for playing, you get 0 points.

I never said the demo wasnt DRM free, you said the GAME is DRM free, I didnt mention the demo at all.

Seriously bro, if you are going to be on an internet forum, reading is highly advised.

Reading is one thing, actual comprehension is another.

The game has no DRM

the thing you refer to as DRM without any understanding of what you're talking about is the poisoned torrent that the developer released.

Seriously bro, if you are going to be on an internet forum, reading is highly advised.

 

[DarthFennec]

My point above, that not all artist create art for consumption is in support of what I'm saying. The fact you don't understand that, and instead put it into your "oh well they don't care piracy" nonsense is proof of your lack of understanding.

It's not that I don't understand what you're saying, it's that this discussion is about piracy, so any arguments about art are only relevant if they also have something to do with piracy. I agree with you that artists who just want to make stuff for themselves and don't want anyone else to see their work would't be happy to know that someone pirated their work, and I'm saying that since they wouldn't distribute their work in the first place, that fact is completely irrelevant.

Art doesn't need to be view and appreciated to have value. Just like a person doesn't need praise to have value.

I never said it didn't have value. It has as much value as the artist decides it has, and that value comes from the act of creation. That's exactly why it's pointless. If the artist can give the same amount of value to a complex, beautiful drawing as a bunch of scribbles, why waste the effort on the former?

What? So no one bough Aliens Colonial Marine?
No one bought Duke Nukem Forever?

Wrong.

I said nobody buys games THEY don't like. Just because YOU happen to not like those games doesn't mean other people feel the same way. But I guess you have a point, sometimes people buy into the hype and marketing in the triple A market, or they just buy every game in a series just because it's part of that series and assume they'll like it. Not that it matters, as none of those things apply to your example.

Heart doesn't pay rent or buy groceries.

I never said it did? All I said was that, as long as his heart isn't into it, it's good that he gave up, he should definitely pick a different career path in that case. Being a startup game designer really doesn't pay very well, so it's better for his rent/groceries that he goes with something else.

Accept it and move on?
You know what move on means right? It means, not doing anything.

No. It means accept that piracy exists, and move on to other, more relevant concerns. For example, how to sell games to pirates.

I would suggest, in future when you enter a discussion that you actually understand what you're arguing for because from these two posts it's clear that your opinion is changing to fit your reply. Which means you don't actually have an argument.

My argument hasn't changed at all. From my very first reply, my argument has been the following:
1. pirates are not going to go away, and should be accepted as a thing that happens.
2. piracy doesn't hurt sales because people will always buy games and pirates would just go without them if they didn't steal them.
3a. artists who distribute their art are concerned equally with the creation and audience/experience/feedback parts of artistry.
3b. artists who sell their art are (or at least, should be) concerned with money only to the extent that they can make a living and therefore have time to create/distribute/sell more art.
3. game developers who sell their games should be glad to be pirated, since they're making a living either way, and they're reaching a wider audience than they otherwise would.
4. people tend not to buy bad games, especially not bad indie games, because they want to make sure they don't waste their money.
5. good games, especially good indie games, tend to have a better chance of selling better if they're pirated, because more people (including more non-pirates) have a better chance of knowing those games exist at all.
These five support my position, which hasn't changed either, although I don't think I ever explicitly mentioned it because I sort of expected you to be able to figure it out from the context: Piracy isn't as bad as people like you make it out to be, and it doesn't need to be eliminated, only understood and accounted for. This is my argument, it has been my argument since we started this discussion, and it will continue to be my argument until we stop having it.

You're simply trying to win one reply over the other which is also why your replies focus on sentences out of context than understanding the debate as a whole.

Yeah, funny, I was about to say something similar about your replies. You haven't responded to the vast majority of my points at all, instead you've been mostly picking at my wording, misinterpreting my clarifications, and making wild assumptions about how little I know about what I'm talking about. I will continue to assume that you aren't doing these things on purpose, because I would like to have an engaging and enlightening conversation with you. I will also assume that you feel the same, and that you simply misinterpreted my responses as "simply trying to win", especially since I feel that I've pulled this conversation back to focusing on the central debate-as-a-whole more than once.

 

[delroland]

The piracy gag is weak and a violation of suspension of disbelief. Pirates generate zero profit, not negative profit.

Also, like it or not, piracy is a means of information distribution. If pirates download a game and like it, they tell their friends about the game. Some of those friends may purchase the game. By this line of reasoning, pirates increase profit because 1) they would have never bought the game in the first place and 2) their word-of-mouth advertising generates additional sales.

We see this time and again, especially with indie titles, where piracy generates publicity which generates massive sales. Does it matter if 90% of your one million players are pirating your game when without piracy you would instead have 100% of 10,000 players paying?

 

[Entitled]

Yes and like most flawed arguments you ask for evidence and yet offer none in return.
Why is it necessary for one side to prove a case and yet not the other?

Because I'm NOT trying to "prove" that piracy can't possibly cause a loss in profits. I've even desribed alternate paths in my arguments for the case if it does cause some in certain examples. What I'm claiming, is that in the end, neither of us can prove it in one way or another, so

1. you shouldn't use "sales are lost" as a definitive argument without proof either. (more on that later)
2. Obsessing over hypothetical losses is insignificant. Publishers are not entitled to every possible source of revenue that they can think of, so they are the ones who need to make an argument why they need that particular one.

The only measurable fact is that people are playing a game they have not paid for.

Yeah, they are. They are also playing over at a friend's house. They are playing demos and F2P games. They are borrowing books from the library. Picking up newspapers left on a café's table. They are downloading books that are already in the public domain. They are listening to musicians' channels on youtube.

Again, you could make the difference that these are legal and file-sharing is not, but this just proves that you are just blindly following whatever the law says. You don't have a problem with the concept of "people playing a game that they haven't paid for", or even with artists losing potential revenues (after all, they could push for longer IP ownership, or all content being playable by one), as long as it's done in a legal way.

It's not unreasonable to assume that some of the people who played it COULD have paid for it. The fact that they chose not to pay for it, doesn't mean that it's not a lost sale.

DarthFennec already covered this pretty well. It's not unreasonable, but the opposite of it, of a pirate's eventual recommendation leads to more sales, is not an unreasonable scenario either, therefore you can't prove whether won sales happen as well.

If won sales outnumber lost sales, then the game as a whole won sales with piracy, and you can't reasonably claim that you know this not to be the case.

The fact that successful games exist in a market where piracy in prevalent does not mean that piracy does not affect some businesses in a profoundly negative way.

And that's why I linked to the single-cause fallacy. To "affect" and "to cause" are very different thing.

You can look at a video game company's financial results, and declare that if it is going bankrupt, this was "affected by" piracy. You could also claim that it's "affected by" taxation, or "affected by" not enough of the demo players buying the full game, or "affected by" some people buying used discs. Basically, you could claim any fantasy scenario where you can imagine deleting one type of theoretical loss and adding a theoretical gain that they can dream up.

But these are ALL inevitable constants in the market, that they should have taken into account when they planned their budget. There are a few truly direct causes that can make a studio go bankrupt, like a particularly unpopular game, or a sudden new tax. Th fact that 90% of players are not consumers, is just a fact.

In general, the move to consoles was in response to piracy concerns on the PC.

Maybe, though
1. I seriously doubt that there really was such a thing as the "move to consoles". Aye, the PC was a lot more prominent two decades ago than now, but it wasn't really the PC market that was shrinking (it's still growing ever since), but the console market that outgrew it. That could be eexplained with a number of things, from casualization to the increased interest in cinematic, on-the-couch gaming.

2. Equally anecdotal stories can be made about how the subscription MMO genre's almost constant financial failure, is an example of DarthFennec's scenario in work, how locking out piracy making communities more insular and less quickly growing than with games that anyone can access.

Because people pirate, legitimate customers now can often only buy their games through Steam Origin or some other DDS that restricts their de-facto ownership of said-games.

I don't think the phrase "de facto" means what you think it means.

Besides, Steam games can still be pirated, you know that, right?

And yet no one in this discussion is claiming that piracy is the sole cause for failure of a business.
Further piracy doesn't need to be a sole cause to be relevant, being a contributing factor is relevance enough.

Again, then why aren't you arguing against every possible cause, that could theoretically contribute to the publishers collecting more money?

Theft is a crime, it's not an issue of morality, nor am I talking about morality. I'm talking about understanding for the individual.

Come on, you know that I know that Piracy happens to be "illegal" in the US, you are not trying to convince me about that.

When you say things like "Piracy is ultimately disrespectful to the developer", when you argue about the financial effects of piracy, or even when you aree comparing piracy to theft, you are not making descriptive claims about what is legal, you are making arguments in favor of why one thing should STAY illegal.

If you don't even claim to have any arguments against file-sharing other than "it's illegal", then the obvious solution to fix that huge problem of yours, would be to legalize file-sharing.

See? Problem solved. Creators keep profiting from other revenues, they no longer get robbed of profits that they are entitled to (because they are no longer entitled to it), and consumers are no longer disrespecting the developers, because respect is no longer supposed to be expressed by obligatory payment per every copy.

Though if the basic rule of morality is to treat others in the same manner as you yourself would want to be treated then the theft of games and other media speaks more about the individuals view of themselves than anything else. If a gamer doesn't believe that a developer deserves their money and respect, then it follows that the gamer likewise does not respect themselves. So perhaps the real issue is not one of copyright but of gamer self-esteem.

The Golden Rule doesn't work that way. It's something that we should strive towards, not a clue to eveyone's secret motivations.

And to answer your question, no, I don't think that I would ever demand the respect of others that comes from dictating everyone what publically available data they are allowed to access.

The Golden Rule isn't just about "do whatever others demand of you, because you would also expect others to follow all your demands". It's intended to describe a sense of equality, striving to live and let live, to find a common compromise.

 

[A-D.]

le giant snip

So you intentionally ignore every argument, cherrypick what you like and then ***** at me for generalizing the whole discussion and not just you specifically? Wow. There's a tough one right here. How's it up there on that high horse? Weather good? Morality good? Yeah i can see that.

Lets get to the meat then.

Yes people still make games. It proves the industry is still chucking along. Is piracy making a dent in some of the undeserved profits? And please dont give me that usual tripe about how they are a business and exist to make money. People bitched why EA got the golden poop and not bank of america which is a bank thats whole point is money, i hate double standards. They are supposed to deliver Entertainment first, make money second. If nobody buys their shit, they make no money, if they fail to entertain, nobody buys anything and they go under. Its that simple. Now follow my example here because this HAS happened, namely to me.

I bought, oh many years ago, a game called Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising. It cost me 40 Euro. So i was happy, went home with my purchase, install it and expect a nice game, right? Wrong. It crashes, instantly, for no reason. I tried everything, updating drivers and such, reinstalling. Nothing helped. Even a whole system upgrade did nothing. So i go back to the store. And please not i have a right to get my money back if i return a defective product, or any product within 14 days with the reciept. Here's what i got "The game was opened, we do not take that back because you could have used a disk-burning program." Let that sink in, the store, not the publisher, not the developer, refused to return my money. How is bitching at the Developer or Publisher going to work? You know what "glorious" Steam does when you buy a hardcopy game that doesnt work and you complain to them "Please ***** at whoever sold it to you, it wasnt us". You think a publisher doesnt do the same thing? Its not fucking Sim City, its not "server problems" or "mass of disgruntled fans". Its one person who was refused a refund by a store. Ya think EA or whoever gives a shit?

Dude save for your sob stories and your rants. You can use whatever sad experiences and tales you have to prop up your own sense of self worth but your actions remain the same. I don't care.

Furthermore I have not in one of my posts mentioned the word "morality". That's something that you're bringing up on your own accord, and in doing so you're trying to put it on me? You complain when I don't quote your needlessly long rants for the sake of being clear and concise, and yet when you reply you show a basic lack of understanding of what I've said because in two replies you've misrepresented me twice. You're batting a thousand for not knowing what you're talking about.

I've never said "morality" or "poor folks" so either you're talking to the wrong person, or you just don't know what you're talking about. I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the latter because the former is a greater failing.



The most ironic thing that is consistent with every one of you people replying to me is that your justification for piracy largely depends upon a dehumanization of the developer. In order to feel justified in doing what you're doing, you treat developers as a single entity. One bad game suddenly entitled you to steal from everyone. Being converted into a paying customer by buying a game from company A suddenly erases or justifies any failings when you stole from company B, C, D and F.

In short, your perspective on developers mirrors the perspective that people allege a company like Electronic Arts to have. EA dehumanizes the consumer and just wants your money because it's a corporation. You dehumanize the developers and just want free games because you're a pirate.

It's sad. Really.

So next time you pirate a game, and go rant on a forum about corporation X are bad guys for doing what they're doing, for not giving a shit about you, then go look in the mirror and get some insight into their world because the two worlds are not so far apart.

And this whole post tells me one thing. You didnt read past the thing you quoted, at all. Have i ever justified Piracy? Name one example. Clearly look at it and tell me where i have EVER said "in this case, its totally okay to pirate." Please. Go ahead. I'll wait as long as you need to twist whatever i write to suite your needs. I have mode the point that in some cases, i can understand it, i have in some cases done it. I never did it to steal. To send a message or whatever to some faceless publisher where the right hand doesnt know what the left is doing.

I pirated for one simple reason, one simple question, and follow me on this one because its the entire point.

Does this Game i have interest in work on my computer or not?

Its that simple to me. Does it work or not? What if i cant get a Demo? And i havent seen many demos in years, maybe a handful at best and those were usually to games i had no interest in owning in any form any way. You label me as a pirate for the consideration that i might want to know if a game works beforehand? And dont give me the tripe about "Look at the Hardware Recommendations", i did, in the case i mentioned, obviously it didnt work anyways. If the game worked? I went and bought it. What if it was full price? Then i just waited, i didnt keep the "pirate copy" until then. What if it was already reduced? Well so? Am i somehow wrong for waiting for the game i want to drop in price if i am not willing to pay 60 Bucks for it but rather pay 40?

I never pirated to have a game for free. I didnt do it to send a message, i didnt do it out of some sense of self-entitlement that somehow the developers owe me. Because they dont. But neither do i owe them my money unless they deserve to have it. First step: A Game that interests me. Am i interested? Okay. Step two: Make sure the game works. Does it work? Okay. If either of these questions gets the answer "false"..then yeah, either i dont buy it, or if i did, i am well within my rights to ***** at them for it. Or to return the product. Evidently the returning part didnt work for me then, so i skipped that step. I tested whether it worked or not on my own and THEN bought the game. If it didnt work? Then i didnt potentially lose money in case i get another refund refused. If it works? They get my money. How much i pay them though doesnt really matter. Whether i wait until it drops in price or not is totally unrelated to any notion of piracy. Unless you also want to claim that any person who does not buy a game on day 1 is somehow a entitled pirate.

And if you even think that, please stare in a mirror, for a very long time. Because im certain, something is really wrong with that logic.

As a sidenote, i used EA because its a example of one publisher, could have said activision, or atari, or ubisoft. Am i somehow "bitching" at them? No, please dont assume anything that isnt there and base your argument on evidence that doesnt exist.

 

[Entitled]

I never pirated to have a game for free. I didnt do it to send a message, i didnt do it out of some sense of self-entitlement that somehow the developers owe me. Because they dont. But neither do i owe them my money unless they deserve to have it.

Well, from what I seem to understand from Akalabeth's arguement from my side of the discussion, he is basically viewing this as a matter of the legal vs. the illegal defining right and wrong, therefore you *ARE* sef-entitled just by thinking that developers could possibly not deserve all the legal rights that they are granted right now.

Because apparently "Faith in copyright law is faith in the tradition of the law as we know it", so you are automatically a dehumanizing, disrespectful thief just for not respecting the authority of legal tradition.

 

[EmptyGrave]

People pirate for the same reasons they watch internet porn (the greatest and most ignored victim of piracy):

1. It's free.
2. It's easy.
3. It's anonymous.

Why do we debate the morality and self-justifications of a practice that would essentially not exist were it not easy, free, or anonymous?

How many bitTorrent users would there be if every file transfer had a 50%, 10%, or even 1% chance to log their real name in a database somewhere? How about if each file transfer had a 15% chance to make their PC completely unusable for 24 hours? How about if all bitTorrent software had a $19.99 cost that users could not get around paying?

One of my biggest fears when I'm "researching" whatever depraved sexual fetish I'm in the mood for at the moment is that I'll accidentally click an inconspicuous Facebook Like button. But as long as Gyges' Ring is firmly on my finger I'll happily join questionable forums, pay to support niche porn, and shout from the mountaintops the names of Goblinboy, The Owl, Pusooy, and Tlaero & Phreaky--Pulitzer-Prize-quality purveyors of digital eroticism who will never receive real-life recognition for their accomplishments or make enough money off them to buy EA's newest PoS game.

At least with internet porn the justifications, merits, value, and demand still exist when anonymity is taken out of the equation. When you remove anonymity from piracy you are left with nothing. It's a practice that primarily exists because there is no fear of getting caught.

 

[Entitled]

People pirate for the same reasons they watch internet porn (the greatest and most ignored victim of piracy):

1. It's free.
2. It's easy.
3. It's anonymous.

Why do we debate the morality and self-justifications of a practice that would essentially not exist were it not easy, free, or anonymous?

I think the main difference is, that most people would completely disagree with you about "digital eroticism" being an art form that deserves the protection of continued improvement and creation for the sake of progress to begin with.

As far as most people are concerned, if there are already enough porn videos out there to let me watch new ones every day for the rest of my life, then, as one cracked.com article put it, "titties are post-scarcity". They don't want to fund the making of more porn, because they honestly believe that the world doesn't need more porn.

They wouldn't say the same about video games, because even if we as a culture already have a multitude of great games, they believe that there is a value in the continued existence and improvement of the games industry as well.

 

[Cecilo]

People pirate for the same reasons they watch internet porn (the greatest and most ignored victim of piracy):

1. It's free.
2. It's easy.
3. It's anonymous.

Why do we debate the morality and self-justifications of a practice that would essentially not exist were it not easy, free, or anonymous?

I think the main difference is, that most people would completely disagree with you about "digital eroticism" being an art form that deserves the protection of continued improvement and creation for the sake of progress to begin with.

As far as most people are concerned, if there are already enough porn videos out there to let me watch new ones every day for the rest of my life, then, as one cracked.com article put it, "titties are post-scarcity". They don't want to fund the making of more porn, because they honestly believe that the world doesn't need more porn.

They wouldn't say the same about video games, because even if we as a culture already have a multitude of great games, they believe that there is a value in the continued existence and improvement of the games industry as well.

Great idea actually. We should rally support "Make piracy legal, it will destroy video games and thus stop violence" The regular people will eat it up!