Poll: Can piracy be justified?

[ATRAYA]

The only time I will pirate is when I desire a really old game/movie that I can't get anywhere, or when I purchase a game on console (for full price, no less) but I actually want it on P.C. - which isn't as stupid as it sounds, when I extrapolate that a while back I had pre-ordered "Skyrim" before I had decided on whether or not I wanted a gaming P.C.; thus I was stuck with the inferior console version.

I've also pirated when Steam's service has been malfunctioning, ineffective, or simply pathetic, because uTorrent (with ports forwarded) actually downloads about TEN TIMES FASTER, and the files won't SPONTANEOUSLY and WITHOUT NOTIFICATION/WARNING "suspend" the download until I click "resume", which happens on Steam CONSTANTLY! *Shakes fist in fury*

Oh, and I would also NEVER expect a person who has a whole library of games to pay for them again, if their hard drive crashed, or their Steam account was hacked, or for any other reason beyond their control (though none of those things have happened to me).

 

[Saulkar]

In some rare cases I think it can be justified, but mostly I would only think it was okay if the thing being pirated was, for example:

1. Not available anywhere commerically, and there were no plans for reintroducing it. So in the case of the Star Wars Holiday Special, or the early Dad's Army/Doctor Who episodes back in the day, a lot old 90s cartoons and old videogames fans should keep circulating the tapes to make sure the record of it is preserved. However, if the thing comes back into production, or a re-release is made, then the piracy becomes wrong again if it's continued.

2. Related to the above, but on a country scale. if something is not available in your country, and will not become available in your country due to censorship/lack of interest, then in the interests of preserving the fandom, showing that the show is loved overseas, or as a form of protest, then piracy is acceptable, again with the exception that when the media becomes available for purchase it is purchased.

I basically share this sentiment, I would also like to add that some games/movies/books are stuck in IP hell and may never see another sequel or ever be sold again and thus I feel it is more of a duty of preserving art that you must pirate and spread it. There are very few of these kinds of games/movies/books but none the less I do not believe they should ever be forgotten.

P.S. Did the two of us discus this before or is it just me cause that would be a lil embarrassing.

 

[Spinozaad]

If I wouldn't have bought it in the first place, I feel justified to pirate it.

But the lack of a sensible alternative also plays a role. I pay for Spotify, because I listen to so much music that I could not justify piracy for myself. If there was a service that would allow me to stream movies/series for a reasonable price a month, I'd throw my money faster at them than a Kentucky hooker can pull out your cock.

But alas, no such option. I will therefore pirate movies I will only watch once.

 

[ATRAYA]

The only time I will pirate is when I desire a really old game/movie that I can't get anywhere, or when I purchase a game on console (for full price, no less) but I actually want it on P.C. - which isn't as stupid as it sounds, when I extrapolate that a while back I had pre-ordered "Skyrim" before I had decided on whether or not I wanted a gaming P.C.; thus I was stuck with the inferior console version.

I've also pirated when Steam's service has been malfunctioning, ineffective, or simply pathetic, because uTorrent (with ports forwarded) actually downloads about TEN TIMES FASTER, and the files won't SPONTANEOUSLY and WITHOUT NOTIFICATION/WARNING "suspend" the download until I click "resume", which happens on Steam CONSTANTLY! *Shakes fist in fury*

Oh, and I would also NEVER expect a person who has a whole library of games to pay for them again, if their hard drive crashed, or their Steam account was hacked, or for any other reason beyond their control (though none of those things have happened to me).

Your games in Steam suspend updating when you launch a game, in case that game has a MP component. Otherwise people on anything but really fast lines would get stutter and other issues. Don't forget, not only does it download at 2-3MB/s but that is being written to the same drive you are playing your games from.

I don't know what Steam YOU'RE talking about, as my downloads on the bullshit client I use constantly suspend when I'm not doing ANYTHING; I could literally be doing nothing at all and still have it spontaneously suspend, and Steam wouldn't even have the DECENCY to tell me it stopped its progress.
And the download speeds are RIDICULOUSLY slow, especially when compared to uTorrent and the open ports in my wireless. See, I wouldn't have half as much of an issue with Steam if you actually had the option to CHANGE the goddamn wireless and download settings (such as forwarding ports, securing server connections, setting bandwidth priorities, and etcetera), and they got rid of the pausing downloads crap. But alas, it is what I must suffer through in order to play with a clear conscience.

 

[Vorlayn]

Same as many people here, I like many old games that are not commercially available. I think it's quite ok to get them via a torrent. If I want it and cannot buy it, I will have to get it another way.

 

[Warachia]

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.

I did pay attention, and it still doesn't fit, not obeying a law is FAR from "promoting disorder" or "exciting revolt", if the person actively encouraged others to go against this law, then you could make a possible argument.

You also can't be a nihilist in the sense that you think, I don't know how you missed the words "TOTAL REJECTION", that does not mean "rejects a law they don't like at this time" (my mistake on Nihilism, like I said, I don't know too much about it), the reason that blurb you mentioned is different from here is because he did reject everything in committing that murder, he rejected laws, human life, and a possible future, whereas the people who steal just choose to break one law, and they don't break it constantly, they'll break it in a certain situation, but then they'll buy a different electronic product that they could have pirated and follow the law they previously broke. That's not Nihilism.

 

[scw55]

The most pirated material are the material which are unavailable.

I.E. Movies/Games etc that you cannot buy.

I used to watch the latest episodes of the Pokemon Anime on Youtube because they would never be aired on Terrestrial Television in Britain. I can't anymore because the Copyright fairies have reaped any videos.

 

[4RM3D]

Except the fact that it wasn't like that and shows that actually did air early did make a good amount of views and actually made money... realistically. It is TV execs getting jealous of animation from another country actually doing better than anything they have ever made which caused this to happen. So yeah... racism caused anime to be quarantined to one night a week...

Jealousy, really? Well that sucks. Then again, I am living in a country that doesn't show any anime on TV at all, except for a few rare exceptions (Ghibli, mostly). So, I guess it still could be worse.

Also. TV ratings are bullcrap. Neilson ratings are so borked that youtube, hulu, netflix. All of those alone beat it into submission in terms of accuracy. While the rating system for TV is meant to be as bullcrap as possible. Only 20K people in a country of 300 million people are the ones who decide what to watch on TV... yes... it is that level of bullcrap.

But I do hear it almost every time: "TV canceled because of low ratings". So that is just an excuse then? I do believe there is more to that story.

*snip*

So how do you feel about people pirating EA and Ubisoft games with the rationalization that EA and Ubisoft are just greedy (and evil) corporations unworthy of your money, because they don't seem to give a shit about their customers (among other things)?

If I wouldn't have bought it in the first place, I feel justified to pirate it.

That's a very tricky explanation, without defining what you would normally buy, because now it could be that you don't buy anything and pirate everything.

...
And the download speeds are RIDICULOUSLY slow, especially when compared to uTorrent and the open ports in my wireless...

I do like Steam, but yes, their download servers are crap.

 

[JediMB]

There are the odd justified reasons.

Like when something isn't otherwise available, or when you've misplaced your damn disc and have to torrent a game you already own.

 

[JediMB]

I do like Steam, but yes, their download servers are crap.

I can't hear you over the sound of my Steam download whooshing by at 11.4 MB/s!

 

[Spinozaad]

[

If I wouldn't have bought it in the first place, I feel justified to pirate it.

That's a very tricky explanation, without defining what you would normally buy, because now it could be that you don't buy anything and pirate everything.

I wouldn't spend a cent on 'The Grudge' if I could not have "pirated" it. I really enjoyed Inglourious Basterds, so I saw it at the cinema and I bought the DVD.

It's on a case by case basis, really.

 

[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.

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.

As far as I know downloading a copy of something off a place like TPB knowing it was put there without the consent of the copyright holder is similar to, if not the same as, handling stolen goods. Of course I don't know much about the laws surrounding this, which varies from country to country, and they never chase after the people who only download as that would be a waste of resources that would be better spent going after the hosters.

Still, I'm with you on this; if I legally own a license to play the game, and the CD key to prove so, it shouldn't matter how I get the files to install the game. Though with most games today this is sort of a moot point as the majority are tied to services like Steam or Origin. Many games that don't require Steam can still be registered and downloaded through the service.

The problem here is that opening for this sort of thing in the legal system could potentially create unwanted loopholes, as if they don't have enough of those already. There's probably a lot of room for discussion around whether or not they have justified reasons for it etc., but like I said I don't know a whole lot about the laws surrounding this in most countries so I'd rather not get into that.

 

[FEichinger]

I shall tell a story, of a young man. He once said this to me:
"In my case it's usually TV series I pirate. Reason is simple: I like to watch them in English rather than German, which is kinda hard when living in Germany (Importing the DVD collections is an option in the long run, of course). I usually restrict myself to at least wait until I could legitimately have watched the German version, but seeing how Castle Season 4 just launched over here ... oh well ...

Other than that it's when the money I pay largely goes to those who I disagree with (Say ... EA, Actizzard, or pretty much any of the large music rights holders)"
It's a nice story, isn't it?

 

[4RM3D]

I do like Steam, but yes, their download servers are crap.

I can't hear you over the sound of my Steam download whooshing by at 11.4 MB/s!

It must be regional then. My regional server is crap. Although sometimes I can reach the max download speed, it usually hangs around 50%.

 

[Gameslayer_93]

the main exception for me is if either a game is too old to acquire legally (so the devs wouldnt get any profit anyway) or if the game is ridiculously expensive on eBay (note Conkers Bad Fur Day on N64, etc.)

 

[4RM3D]

I shall tell a story, of a young man. He once said this to me:
"In my case it's usually TV series I pirate. Reason is simple: I like to watch them in English rather than German, which is kinda hard when living in Germany (Importing the DVD collections is an option in the long run, of course).

That is also a very good reason. I hate all the French and German dubs. It also affects me personally, because I can't import certain goods because of the dubs.

For kids shows I can understand, but Germany literally dubs everything. I also believe that is part of the reason as to why most German (and French) people can not speak English properly. Also, to so some extend the reason why German people ignore the social rules and still speak German in public chat of the English speaking servers in MMO's. (I just had a flashback.)

 

[DoPo]

But prepare to be educated.

What. The. Fuck. Man?

Seriously, what the bloody hell was that? You forward-slashed-thread-ed this so thoroughly, that I don't think any other thread about piracy should exist on the Escapist ever again. Also most other websites.

Spoiler: That's it

 

[JediMB]

I do like Steam, but yes, their download servers are crap.

I can't hear you over the sound of my Steam download whooshing by at 11.4 MB/s!

It must be regional then. My regional server is crap. Although sometimes I can reach the max download speed, it usually hangs around 50%.

Yeah, I'm actually lucky enough to live about a 15-20 minute walk from where the local Steam servers are. Or so I've been told.

 

[In Search of Username]

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.

I disagree, I think if I relied on a specific law to keep me safe but then violated that law myself, I'd be hypocritical, but if I was ever to become rich and famous I wouldn't give a shit about my stuff being pirated either, so I see my views as consistent with regards to that specific law. Now if I were arguing that murder is okay and still expecting the police to protect me from someone trying to kill me, THAT would be hypocritical.

I guess the difference in our perspectives is that you see the legal system as a single entity that you should choose whether to obey or reject entirely, whereas I see it simply as a collection of different laws, some of which I wholeheartedly agree with and some of which I reject. And I'd love public policy to be changed in many ways, but I don't see it changing any time soon, certainly not because of my minimal influence.

 

[FEichinger]

I shall tell a story, of a young man. He once said this to me:
"In my case it's usually TV series I pirate. Reason is simple: I like to watch them in English rather than German, which is kinda hard when living in Germany (Importing the DVD collections is an option in the long run, of course).

That is also a very good reason. I hate all the French and German dubs. It also affects me personally, because I can't import certain goods because of the dubs.

For kids shows I can understand, but Germany literally dubs everything. I also believe that is part of the reason as to why most German (and French) people can not speak English properly. Also, to so some extend the reason why German people ignore the social rules and still speak German in public chat of the English speaking servers in MMO's. (I just had a flashback.)

While I attribute the "Germans failing at English" thing more to the ridiculous education over here, I can only agree with you. Germans are often ignorant when it comes to other languages, simply because they don't know better, and dubbing is way too present in Germany (and indeed France as well, if not large parts of Central Europe). I get that the ignorant populace wants their American-style entertainment ... But without a proper option for those who don't ... We're kinda screwed.