Poll: Can piracy be justified?

[Warachia]

Yes, I think it can be justified for your media reasons 1 and 4, I remember some games that had such bad DRM pirating them was really the only way to play them.

Extra note, in the case of 4 usually you only found out about the terrible DRM after you bought it, and if you pirated it you should still have a legitimate copy of it, as for me, that's like getting extra copies of something you already own (that you will not redistribute) in case one of them doesn't work, which I think in some cases isn't illegal.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

I own Age of Empires III... destroyed my disc, pirated an ISO with a crack to allow the game to launch the ISO.


Is it really Piracy? I owned the game technically.

 

[Warachia]

But doesn't it defeat the entire point of a law if the only ones we follow are the ones we already agree anyway and therefore would obey anyway? A law, in order to be effective has to restrict people from doing things they'd normally choose to do on our own. If we pick and choose which laws to follow we've essentially removed their purpose in the first place and yes that does make you an anarchist, even if you don't realize it.

For example, take the Joker from TDK. He obeys many many laws in that movie, it's illegal to rape people and he never rapes anyone. It's illegal to drive while intoxicated and we never see him do that. It doesn't make him any less of an anarchist. It's because he doesn't have any intention of doing these things in the first place, regardless of their legality.
So that fact that there are some rules you choose to obey doesn't really mean anything.

Believing that laws should exist but then choosing to disregard whichever ones you don't like just makes you a hypocritical anarchist.

No it doesn't, I thought people who break the laws were called criminals, believing that some laws should exist and others doesn't does not make you an anarchist, it makes you a person with opinions, you don't need to choose "all or none" with laws, and an anarchist is just somebody who believes there shouldn't be any laws. If a law is ineffective or unnecessary it gets changed or removed, and one of things the government does is pick and choose which laws should be enforced (in a broad sense). That does not make government officials anarchists.

Captcha: end of story

 

[mrdude2010]

There are certainly some cases in which I can see justifications for piracy. Related to the ridiculously high prices one is a game from a now-defunct developer from 12 years ago that they're trying to hawk for like $30

To add to the list, if you previously owned the game but your disk got scratched, it's just your personal use digital backup copy, that might even be completely legal. Happened to me with WC3. Bought the game way back when, CD doesn't work anymore, downloaded a version, and used my original CD key.

 

[Olas]

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think it does. I believe that laws should exist because most of them are vital to keep society working, but some of them I disagree with and would prefer not to exist. In an ideal world, I'd hope they'd be changed and thus I could be entirely lawful as well as true to my own moral code. But in the absence of that, I don't see what's wrong with breaking the occasional rule that I disagree with. It's like, I dunno, provisional anarchy. There's little hope of all the laws I disagree with being changed any time soon, so it's either that or blindly follow all laws whether or not they conflict with my views - and if everyone did that, laws would never change in the first place.

For example by your logic, anyone who lives under some kind of totalitarian regime has the option of either being considered an anarchist (regardless of how they'd feel towards living in a more democratic state) or being entirely subservient. So I think calling someone an anarchist for disagreeing with certain laws is too simplistic a view. I'd concede that disobeying laws is partially anarchistic but by your definition there is no difference between someone who rejects all forms of authority and someone who rejects only those they consider unjust.

Okay, anarchist isn't the right term, you're right. Just because you choose to defy the laws of a certain society doesn't inherently mean you don't believe in laws period. It might just be that you reject that particular authority as a whole.
Still, I hold firm that if you stand by your societies laws as a whole you should obey ALL of them, even the ones you don't agree with. Nobody agrees with every single law or rule that authorities create, but we obey them because we respect those authorities enough to put our minor differences aside.
Relying on a countries legal system to keep you safe and secure but then violating that same system the moment you disagree with one of it's policies that inconveniences you is spineless and hypocritical. Just suck it up and pay for your damn music. If you really have a problem with it either try to change public policy, or move to somewhere where it is legal.

 

[vun]

I own Age of Empires III... destroyed my disc, pirated an ISO with a crack to allow the game to launch the ISO.


Is it really Piracy? I owned the game technically.

See, this is sort of a tricky area. Downloading the game you own from an illegal source is still not legal, but I'd say there's nothing morally wrong about that.

Another part is when whatever you're pirating is no longer in the hands of their original creators.
Say you pirate a Jimi Hendrix album; he's not even alive anymore so you wouldn't be supporting him if you did buy the album.

Of course this might have been said already, I just didn't feel like reading through 4 pages on legal discussion. My apologies if my laziness has rendered this post superfluous.

Oh, and no matter how morally justified piracy might be; it's still illegal and I'm inclined to say it should be; while in some of the cases in this thread that are morally justified makes it seem like a good idea to loosen up on the laws surroundind piracy this would just make it easier to exploit as it's already sort of a grey area.

 

[Olas]

snip

No it doesn't, I thought people who break the laws were called criminals, believing that some laws should exist and others doesn't does not make you an anarchist, it makes you a person with opinions, you don't need to choose "all or none" with laws, and an anarchist is just somebody who believes there shouldn't be any laws. If a law is ineffective or unnecessary it gets changed or removed, and one of things the government does is pick and choose which laws should be enforced (in a broad sense). That does not make government officials anarchists.

Captcha: end of story

Your missing my point.
I'm not saying that disagreeing with a law makes you an anarchist, I'm saying that thinking it's okay to break a law simply because you disagree with it does. Everybody disagrees with some laws, I disagree with many US laws, but they're still laws, so I still obey them. Government officials disagree with laws, but they obey them, then they try to change them. If they fail to change them they continue to obey them. It's just that simple. If a congressman was caught breaking a law he didn't agree with, he wouldn't just try to justify what he did morally to the public, he'd resign.

It doesn't matter if you think pirating music is morally justified, it's illegal.

If the fact that something is illegal doesn't override your own personal opinion on whether it should be okay to do it, then you are disregarding the laws of your country in favor of your own. As In Search of Username pointed out that technically isn't anarchism, perhaps it's more akin to nihilism. Regardless it makes you a hypocrite if you think other rules of that authority should be followed.

 

[TWEWYFan]

Generally I agree that if the product isn't available to you in any other form, piracy can be justified. Still not necessarily the right thing, but you don't really have any other option if you want to enjoy the work.

 

[Vegosiux]

This can o' worms again.

Well, I'm tired of repeating myself over and over, so I shall say thusly:

There is a plethora of reasons for people copying things outside the extent of any license they may (or may not) have, some of those reasons less scrupulous than others. Not all piracies are created equal and therefore there's no blanket generalization to cover them all.

But there is most definitely a difference between someone who regularly pirates because they're simply too cheap and someone who rips a couple of their favorite songs from different albums onto one compilation to use in their car on a long drive.

 

[Cabisco]

There are cases where it can be justified yes.

However these are never the reasons people pirate, perhaps one in a thousand 'pirate' for reasons you can understand but the vast (vast) majority do it because it is A. Easy and B. Free.

It's as fucking simple as that.

The latest example I can think of is a bunch of people being really happy because a band has got a new album, it debuts and they all have it. They love the band, think they are amazing and yet pirate the album. You question why and it's because 'they can't afford it' while you sit there, in a pub drinking, talking about doing things that cost money. Yet no, the band you love doesn't deserve your money...

So to recap, yes Piracy can be justified in extreme cases but no that doesn't make you any less of a prick for when you just need to play that new game but it's FUCKING HORRIBLE that the company ask for money in return for months/years of work. HOW DARE THEY ASK FOR MONEY!

Urgh... this is a subject that really riles me up.

 

[Warachia]

Your missing my point.
I'm not saying that disagreeing with a law makes you an anarchist, I'm saying that thinking it's okay to break a law simply because you disagree with it does. Everybody disagrees with some laws, I disagree with many US laws, but they're still laws, so I still obey them. Government officials disagree with laws, but they obey them, then they try to change them. If they fail to change them they continue to obey them. It's just that simple. If a congressman was caught breaking a law he didn't agree with, he wouldn't just try to justify what he did morally to the public, he'd resign.

It doesn't matter if you think pirating music is morally justified, it's illegal.

If the fact that something is illegal doesn't override your own personal opinion on whether it should be okay to do it, then you are disregarding the laws of your country in favor of your own. As In Search of Username pointed out that technically isn't anarchism, perhaps it's more akin to nihilism. Regardless it makes you a hypocrite if you think other rules of that authority should be followed.

You desperately need to look up definitions for anarchism, nihilism, and hypocrisy, You are not an anarchist if you know the law and choose to break it, you are a criminal, you would be an anarchist if you wanted to destroy the law(s).
You are not an nihilist if you choose your own laws over the established laws, you are a criminal, you would be a nihilist if... I don't know that much about nihilism (enough to know this isn't it), I'm guessing thinking that these laws shouldn't be followed because they are meaningless and in the long run it doesn't matter, you'll end up dead.
You are not a hypocrite if you think it is fine to avoid this law and follow others, you would be a hypocrite if you encourage this law, an encourage others to follow it, and then break it when you think no one will notice.

 

[lacktheknack]

Here's a fun example for you:

I have "Selected Ambient Works Vol. II" by Aphex Twin. The CD version I have has twenty three songs on it.

I found out that another track was never put on the North American album (presumably because it takes a jab at the European Labor Party, and what stupid American cares about that?), and another one was left off because "there wasn't enough room on the disk".

However, the North American vinyl copy has the CD tracks, PLUS those two extra. So I sought it out on Amazon, and purchased a vinyl copy under the pretense that it contained all twenty-five tracks.

However, when I received the vinyl and eagerly listened ripped it to my hard drive, I was shocked and unhappy to find out that the two elusive tracks were not on it. Apparently, I had purchased a "NA rerelease", much to my chagrin.

So now, after spending about fifty dollars in total, all of it supporting the artist, I now have a music album on CD, an identical album on vinyl, and despite $35 extra on top of my original purchase, am still missing two of the tracks.

Wat do?

 

[wookiee777]

I'll be honest, my only real rule about piracy is that Independent companies are off limits, regardless of how bad their business practices are, otherwise, I don't see piracy as a big issue. It can't be stopped and going to such extremes as have been this generation is more than excessive. I understand guarding your crap so you can keep your company afloat, but some of the stuff companies do to prevent it and some of the things they say have really made me feel more sympathetic towards pirates and as a result of this, I don't hate pirates. They are just there, and will always be there. Kind of live and let live with pirates.

 

[Olas]

You desperately need to look up definitions for anarchism, nihilism, and hypocrisy, You are not an anarchist if you know the law and choose to break it, you are a criminal, you would be an anarchist if you wanted to destroy the law(s).
You are not an nihilist if you choose your own laws over the established laws, you are a criminal, you would be a nihilist if... I don't know that much about nihilism (enough to know this isn't it), I'm guessing thinking that these laws shouldn't be followed because they are meaningless and in the long run it doesn't matter, you'll end up dead.
You are not a hypocrite if you think it is fine to avoid this law and follow others, you would be a hypocrite if you encourage this law, an encourage others to follow it, and then break it when you think no one will notice.

Perhaps it would help if you actually paid attention to what I say instead of inventing a totally different argument for me. I never claimed knowingly breaking the law made you an anarchist. I said believing it's morally justified to break laws does.

anarchism - a person who promotes disorder or excites revolt against any established rule, law, or custom.

It's a pretty close fit I'd say.

nihilism - total rejection of established laws and institutions.

I'd say that's almost exactly what I'm describing. (You're thinking of existential nihilism which is very unrelated) Read Crime and Punishment if you want to understand moral Nihilism. It's about a nihilist who decides to murder his own landlord because his landlord is a cruel person and he feels that killing him is morally justified even if illegal. It shows the horror that comes from placing our own subjective beliefs above that of society.

 

[Signa]

Does it need to be justified? As long as it isn't selling knock-off products on a street corner[footnote]seriously, fuck those guys. At best, they are thieves, directly stealing the profits from someone's work, and at worst, they are scammers, preying on those that feel cheated by the legitimate venues.[/footnote], it's just a symptom of a greater problem. Specifically, the over-valuing of a product. In talking about online piracy, people deserve the respect that pirates give them. A free, high quality product released to those who want it, when they want it. There's no need for this long duration of time to pass after a theater stops showing a movie before it hits DVD. If a customer is wanting to buy a movie, they should be allowed to.

The same goes with TV shows. No one has the time these days to sit down and watch something when it airs, but people will still DVR their shows and watch them at their own convenience. It's a battle of control: the media companies want control, because to them, it means profits. The consumers want control, because it means more value in the products they are willing to purchase. In the end, it's the consumers with the power, because it's their money that they need to be separated from for the current system to work. Piracy drives that power, because it gives people a taste of what the media companies could be offering, but don't.

Even so, none of that justifies piracy, but there is a reason for it. Most of the complaints against it completely ignore the problem of control, and focus on the symptom of piracy itself. It's like a bleeding man complaining about the blood damaging his clothes while ignoring the gaping wound in his side.

 

[The_Echo]

I think it should be OK if whatever you want is not released in your country and you can't seem to import it somehow.

Or if whatever it is happens to be past a certain age (especially if the original creators are now incapable of profiting from a purchase anyway, e.g. a defunct game company or a dead author).

 

[Giftfromme]

Nah, man. If you can't buy something, you do not deserve to have it. /sarcasm

I don't quite understand. Are you saying the comment is sarcastic as in you should do deserve to have something if you can't afford it, or are you saying the comment is silly and you don't deserve something if you can't afford it?

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

I own Age of Empires III... destroyed my disc, pirated an ISO with a crack to allow the game to launch the ISO.


Is it really Piracy? I owned the game technically.

See, this is sort of a tricky area. Downloading the game you own from an illegal source is still not legal, but I'd say there's nothing morally wrong about that.

Another part is when whatever you're pirating is no longer in the hands of their original creators.
Say you pirate a Jimi Hendrix album; he's not even alive anymore so you wouldn't be supporting him if you did buy the album.

Of course this might have been said already, I just didn't feel like reading through 4 pages on legal discussion. My apologies if my laziness has rendered this post superfluous.

Oh, and no matter how morally justified piracy might be; it's still illegal and I'm inclined to say it should be; while in some of the cases in this thread that are morally justified makes it seem like a good idea to loosen up on the laws surroundind piracy this would just make it easier to exploit as it's already sort of a grey area.

Here it's illegal to host, not download.

Technically here it is not piracy, especially since I ran the installation and use MY cd-key, because that's what you really own for a game, the unique key, you are basically paying for the ability to play a game and your cd-key is your pass to do so.

A medium is just a medium, borrowing my friends disc is technically also piracy by some people's definition. Having an ISO is not piracy; using a key you haven't paid for is. The disc/files; it REALLY doesn't matter how you got them, there are millions of copies of those exact file, again the cd-key is the unique bit you pay for.

 

[Skoosh]

I agree with most people here that if it isn't offered where you are, you're justified in pirating it. Also if it's extremely difficult to get a copy of it, mostly in the case of older games, go ahead and pirate. There are lots of old NES games that are hard to find and barely work. If it's not in circulation anymore, I understand pirating.

As for all the other reasons? Nope, pirating is wrong.

Too poor? You have a gaming PC or system, you can probably afford some games. Buy older, used, or free-to-play games. Borrow from friends, pool money together, etc. I game on a budget of >$100 annually, and could easily do on less. Honestly, this is just a BS excuse and I think most people know it.

Games being too expensive is a similar situation. It sucks, but with older, used, and FtP games, you can play on a budget. When they are jacked up arbitrarily (e.g. Australia) it's really unfair, but I don't think it justifies pirating.

DRM? Yeah, I dislike it, but pirating is a terrible reaction. It just makes the situation worse. If it's that bad for you, don't play it. There are so many games out there, it shouldn't be hard to find an alternative.

Dislike company or whatever? Then just like before, don't play the game. If you were mad about the whole Chick-fillet homosexuality issue(spelling? Whatever. The fast food chain), stealing from them wouldn't be an appropriate response. Eating elsewhere would be. Same situation. Give your sale to another company.

 

[crazyrabbits]

Wait, what? I said murder was worse then piracy and you agreed but disagreed... or are you saying that they're incomparable? Are you saying that one being worse means it can be justified but something else bad can't? I don't know what just happened.

Yeah, it is their problem. They want to, for whatever reason, not distribute their idea/product/whatever, which is legally theirs and people are doing what they like anyways. It's also the problem of the victim when their house is burglarized. That's why laws exist to combat such situations.

I think you need to brush up on your understanding of logical fallacies. I am saying that they're incomparable. Your whole argument started with you trying to equate murder to piracy - two disparate things that you decided to smash together to make an argument. No, they're not comparable.

By the same token, you're now trying to equate physical theft with piracy - again, two disparate things. If I went and illegally downloaded a game, I'm not going to the developer's house and physically taking the source code to their product. I'd be copying already-existing information - the original still remains.

Not only that, but there are plenty of well-defended institutions/products that still get burglarized, regardless of their security. Now you're trying to say it's always the "victim's" fault if they get pirated, regardless of how much they've tried to secure their work?

I've realized that it's a waste of time talking to you, seeing as your whole argument is predicated on backwards logic and fallacies.