Poll: Do People Pirate Because it's Free? Or is There Something More to it?

[Blackvegie]

You gotta fight the powers that be!

 

[hecticpicnic]

because of pirating the internet is probably gonna be regulated and everthing will work where money is cyculated though this internet advertising system

p.s. thumbs up if you hate internet rescition of sites depending on counrty and law
sites have to pay loads to have soming free in a certain country 'the internet should be free'

 

[Giantcain]

i pirated the mother RPG series (mother 1, Earthbound, Mother 3) because mother 1 and 3 are Japanese only and earthbound plus a snes to play it on is about 100 to 200 pounds and and is no longer in production) it was near impossible to get otherwise.

 

[cahtush]

they are all greedy ****s

 

[MartialArc]

Companies try to keep prices as high as possible, and in some cases stifle technological innovation rather than adapt. The music industry resisted internet heavily, piracy came about, now we have Itunes. The movie industry is just starting to climb out of the same hole I think, trying to fight it head on rather than adapt and corner new markets.

One prime example is college textbooks. Seriously, why are we paying 200 dollars for a print book that be distributed MUCH MUCH more easily electronically. And sure, the entire price of a book isn't printing and shipping, but its a substantial portion. Nooks and kindles are rampant, ebooks would be very easy to implement. The folks printing the books want to continue making money, understandably, but you can't hang in the market without adapting.

Internet piracy is just another form of "black" market. You can't fight the economics. Trying to keep prices high or avoid new mediums will just result in illegal sales and distribution. It comes as somewhat of a progression. New technology > new method of distribution > resistance by those selling the old distribution > lawsuits, ad campaigns, etc > market innovation to curb new methods > new price is set.

It all gets tricky with non-tangibles as well. You buy a loaf of bread. It is one loaf of bread, it is consumed and it is gone. There is a direct correlation between producing each loaf and effort.

An artist records a song, it takes one effort, and can be copied indefinitely. There is no supply demand curve because there is no finite supply. At least when it was physical CD's we were buying one could rationalize somewhat of a production cost. With the internet, it becomes basically impossible. Yet companies attempt to hold prices the same. Making one, two, or three million copies of a song costs the same.

Moral arguments aside, it just can't go on that way. Without some kind of additional value or service attached to digital media, fixing price by unit will fail.

 

[Craftybonds]

You pirate BOOKS!? That puts you just above panhandler on the cheap fuck scale. I've never heard of pirating books. How low can you go? Honestly. It's called a library if you want free books. At least the author still makes money when his books are in the library. Pirating books... Honestly. It takes a lot to be that incompetent at life.

I don't pirate anymore because while stealing might be necessary sometimes to survive, stealing from artists is just dishonourable. And there's no one else you could be stealing from when you pirate. That movie you downloaded in an hour took someone millions of dollars and thousands of hours to make. That song took hours upon hours of practice to produce. That book took years of experience.

I don't understand your logic here. books are free through the library, and books are free to pirate. what's the difference? the library doesn't profit off of me renting the book; their budgets are determined by population size, not the rate at which the community rents them. Also, it's called an amazon kindle. you can't exactly rent books for those.

Also of note are game rentals - the makers see no money from that, it's basically piracy masquerading behind a veneer of legality because you've spent some money. That is bullshit. It's still the same thing as getting the game ANY other way than buying it new at full price, so some people need to get off their high horses and get a sniff of reality.

Also, what's wrong about DLing TV? I have a TV license and Virgin TV, so it's not like I'm just a leech or anything. There's only 4 shows that I want to watch, and none of those seem to be shown in the UK, so fuck the programmers that I'm paying for my useless, commercial-ridden subscriptions, I'm going to download my TV and watch it when I want, how I want.

Game manufacturers wouldn't sell to rental companies if they didn't profit off of rentals. I hardly see how "the makers make no money from that" can even be half true. Rental companies are almost always guaranteed to buy thousands upon thousands of copies of a single game. Blockbuster alone probably buys at least 20,000 copies of a single game for all of their stores nation wide, and even more for their online rentals.

You're also forgetting the vast number of gamers who do not choose to purchase a game until after they have rented it. rental services are probably the best form of advertisement for a game publisher. Even if a renter doesn't purchase a game after they rent it, they're probably likely to brag about how great a game is to all of their friends. That's practically free sales for a publisher.

 

[Craftybonds]

People pirate because they can't afford to buy something they can get for free. Saying people are just cheap is ignorant of the quality of life in a lot of countries. I wish people didn't have to do it but that's the way things are and you shouldn't compare internet piracy to physical theft.



By the way, I wish people just pirated shit like the "twilight" and the "transformers" franchises instead of pouring millions and millions into the gaping gobs of the untalented douchebags involved with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rock_Hard

Pirates tend to have taste though. Twilight and Transformers movies are practically designed to target the walking coin purses out there.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

There is a significant difference between the two. If I were to steal your shirt, you would be without a shirt.

Both are stealing. It matters not a whit where a shirt ends up. Somebody owns something, you take it without payment or blessing, it is stealing. The fancy semantic footwork is only a vain attempt to create a grey area in which a pirate feels justified in their actions.
Frankly, I prefer the ones who say "F--- you, I know it's wrong, but what are you gonna do about it?" They're thieves, but they're not liars.

Technically, you're not taking the property of another person. They're giving it to you. They purchased the game/moves(with the exception of movies still in theater)/books/music, and they made a copy to share with as many people as they want.

The reason it's against the law is that copy breaks the copyright that says that it cannot be copied. That's a legally binding contract that you accept when you purchase something.

Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement. The sooner people realize that, the sooner we can get beyond the whole "you're a thief" thing.

You are a thief. And I'm not condemning that. But when you try to justify it it and pretend it's something else on a phantom technicality, you sound like the junkie who marches out reams of "research" rationalizing the good aspects of drug use. And while you stop to ponder it, he's gone and hocked your TV.

Oh I do have that stand when it comes to pirating music. I could not care less, I desire the song and my only present means to acquire it is via the Internet. That being said, there does exist a gray area to some degree. You did not respond to my second query, explaining a potential split between thievery and not. What difference is their at the basis, if you borrow a friend's CD and rip it to yours and downloading a file off the Internet? Yes the latter is more clearly defined as stealing, no one will deny this, however the final result is the same. You acquired content you did not pay for.

This is why piracy, wrong as it may be, is not the same as stealing a shirt. Where everything becomes problematic is through further analysis. If your argument is, "Well my friend allowed it." That same argument could be used as a rebuttal. The only difference is a person uploading a file is offering to vastly more people. In the end, piracy is stealing. It is simply a different approach and not as cut and dry as one may think. Still no less wrong however not my concern.

 

[Wicky_42]

Spoiler: snip

You pirate BOOKS!? That puts you just above panhandler on the cheap fuck scale. I've never heard of pirating books. How low can you go? Honestly. It's called a library if you want free books. At least the author still makes money when his books are in the library. Pirating books... Honestly. It takes a lot to be that incompetent at life.

I don't pirate anymore because while stealing might be necessary sometimes to survive, stealing from artists is just dishonourable. And there's no one else you could be stealing from when you pirate. That movie you downloaded in an hour took someone millions of dollars and thousands of hours to make. That song took hours upon hours of practice to produce. That book took years of experience.

I don't understand your logic here. books are free through the library, and books are free to pirate. what's the difference? the library doesn't profit off of me renting the book; their budgets are determined by population size, not the rate at which the community rents them. Also, it's called an amazon kindle. you can't exactly rent books for those.

Also of note are game rentals - the makers see no money from that, it's basically piracy masquerading behind a veneer of legality because you've spent some money. That is bullshit. It's still the same thing as getting the game ANY other way than buying it new at full price, so some people need to get off their high horses and get a sniff of reality.

Also, what's wrong about DLing TV? I have a TV license and Virgin TV, so it's not like I'm just a leech or anything. There's only 4 shows that I want to watch, and none of those seem to be shown in the UK, so fuck the programmers that I'm paying for my useless, commercial-ridden subscriptions, I'm going to download my TV and watch it when I want, how I want.

Game manufacturers wouldn't sell to rental companies if they didn't profit off of rentals. I hardly see how "the makers make no money from that" can even be half true. Rental companies are almost always guaranteed to buy thousands upon thousands of copies of a single game. Blockbuster alone probably buys at least 20,000 copies of a single game for all of their stores nation wide, and even more for their online rentals.

You're also forgetting the vast number of gamers who do not choose to purchase a game until after they have rented it. rental services are probably the best form of advertisement for a game publisher. Even if a renter doesn't purchase a game after they rent it, they're probably likely to brag about how great a game is to all of their friends. That's practically free sales for a publisher.

Yes, rental 'companies' as an entity buy many games, maybe 1 or two copies of most mainstream titles, more perhaps if it's extra popular, per store. Maybe they buy a license to allow the to rent games. They then need to rent out each game enough times to begin making a profit. What's a rental like? $5? I dunno, but if so then that's each copy minimum of 6 times. From then on, it's all gravy for the rental comp and NO PROFIT FOR THE PUBLISHER. Bam. Plus, with the length that games are these days it's likely that one would be able to complete a game in a few days of evening play, thus removing the attraction of purchasing after trying.

I have to say, I highlydoubt video games companies are making a 'profit' from rentals (let alone a return), and as for the 'free advertising' stuff, exactly the same can be said about straight-forward piracy.

Basically, I'm not buying your counter-argument. Rentals are just libraries that you have to pay a little for, but that money doesn't got to the publisher or developer but to the shop owner - just like used games. For the majority of games, once you've consumed the content there's little reason to buy it afterwards, just as one might not purchase a book having borrowed and read it at a library.

 

[mega48man]

Mostly because it's getting something for free. Think about it. Pirates, how much of your library would you have paid for instead of getting for free. Did you eventually buy it? If not, why?

Obvious answers are so obvious.

Completely disagree with this. I almost always buy the DVD's and merchandise that belong to a TV show or movie that i enjoyed, that i pirated. If i didn't buy it, it's because i didn't like it. I believe in a society where we only pay for the things that we like. this prevents studios from putting more shit on the market, and working harder to create better works of art.

Also, most pirates would have never ever seen the majority of the things they have pirated, if they were forced to buy everything. I'd say 80% of my library consists of media that i would have never paid to see, and would have never experienced without piracy, but i liked them, so i bought their respective merchandise.

Right, but why did you pirate that stuff that you wouldn't have paid for beforehand? Because it was free. You could have checked out a lot of that online, on say youtube, or what have you to see what other people thought. But you didn't, for whatever reason. It was free to pirate and then decide if it was worth buying or not.

that's right, and instead of illeagaly watching it, you can to HULU and watch almost anything for free without the fear of FBI agents literally trying to kill you.

I would watch a torrent filled with commercials before i would watch something on hulu.

xD well played my good man. do you seriously have something against hulu? b/c if it's the availability of the internet, then i can totally understand, i've been there.

 

[mega48man]

that's right, and instead of illeagaly watching it, you can to HULU and watch almost anything for free without the fear of FBI agents literally trying to kill you.

HULU is only available in the U.S.A., so that kinda screws people in other countries (not that I care, DVR allows me to watch all of the shows I love whenver I want... and there aren't many shows I really care about).

OT: I don't pirate, and I actually hate pirates a lot (I hate all thieves in this world). Anyone who takes something without paying for it, or that doesn't belong to them is simply a cheap bastard who is too lazy to legitimately obtain what they stole.

There is no other reasoning, you cannot deflect by saying you don't wish to support the people you stole from, because that makes you a hypocrite. If you don't wish to support them with your money, then you don't deserve to have their product unless they themselves give it to you. They put hard work into what they sell, and if you think it isn't good enough to purchase, then you shouldn't have it.

I think all pirates are the lowest form of life, and I have always thought this. However, if someone ceases to be a pirate, then I will actually forgive them very quickly. While I may hate pirates, I do understand the allure of being one, and I realize that people make mistakes in their lives. So I'm quick to forgive pirates and thieves of all kinds as long as they renounce their stealing ways... and get rid of everything they stole (or return it to its rightful owner).

ok, one, i'll quit pirating for your sake, you're totally right, but then i'm gonna start pirating like, 2 seconds later.

two, allow me to defend my side of the argument b/c i love the shit out playing the devil's advocate. you brought up stealing things in general along with pirating, and that's a very good point to make, i never thought of it like that. however, if i stole your cell phone you'd get REAL damn pissed right? now if i stole a COPY of a movie you made, the movie itself but a COPY of it, would care if you knew? no, you're raking in enough money in the box office to not care at all. what you have to worry about now is if your movie was good enough to have people keep giving you your money. if it was bad like the expendables, then no ones gonna want to pay extra to see it again on blu-ray. likewise if it was really good like The A-Team, then hell yeah i'm gonna buy the limited edition box set on blu-ray!!! hell, i'd see 3 times at the movies if was that good.
also, you can't pirate high quality blu-ray and play it on your blu-ray player. tried it, crashed and BURNED. plus, buying a DVD or BR cd gives you access to bonus features and behind the scenes that you don't get when you pirate it, so the extra stuff on the dvd is where the money is made not in the movie itself. i mean, you come on, you tell samuel jackson to talk to this guy like a badass cop and the other guys (wink!) act intimidated. that's easy, i can act, writing script and programing for stuff like on a dvd menu, THAT'S a real *****!

so you see where the problem is here? directors put forth a lot of effort and hard work, but a lot of directors did a shitty job (MICHEAL BAY!!! SKID AND MUDFLAP ARE A TRIBUTE TO AUTOBOT RACISM!!!) then what can you do? give them a pat on the back and say "you did your best"? no, your gonna watch something worth paying for.

as far as music goes, Lars Ulrich is a noble god among muscians for going to the supreme court with napster. music piracy is like talking about rwanda; it's been going on for a while, there is a bad side but you feel bad for both sides some how, and there's just utter chaos in the whole dispute. it's just a big mess and i'm not even gonna start on limewire (although, that is file sharing as apposed to breaking in to eddie van halen's house and stealing his old cassette tapes from back when he started playing guitar (AND IF HE HAS ANYTHING LIKE THAT, I WOULD GIVE HEAD FOR THEM (MAYBE)))

i see what you said about deserving the product, and sorry, but that's crazy talk. directors make movies for us to watch and we choose whether or not to watch them, they're trying to please us for a reward and we decided if they deserve it. if they made a good movie, we reward them and buy tickets, dvds, and other merchandise, like my ghostbusters lunch box where i keep all my dick drawings. if it wasn't a good movie, like the phantom menace (which i actually liked as a kid, i wasn't old enough to know better about the bad script write up) then you don't reward them by not buying their stuff.

video games? if you can pirate that, you are very tech savvy, but i'd just buy shit in the bargain bin or wait for the price to go down, i have no idea in hell how people pirate a game for your 360, that's seems insane to me.

(what else can you pirate...) books? uhh.... nvm, us pirates aren't the reading type. xD

can you pirate a car? yes, but the cops call it "stealling" so it's a mind fuck when you raise the jolly roger and they laugh at you.

ok, that's all i have, shoot.

 

[Marmooset]

You did not respond to my second query, explaining a potential split between thievery and not. What difference is their at the basis, if you borrow a friend's CD and rip it to yours and downloading a file off the Internet? Yes the latter is more clearly defined as stealing, no one will deny this, however the final result is the same. You acquired content you did not pay for.

This is why piracy, wrong as it may be, is not the same as stealing a shirt. Where everything becomes problematic is through further analysis. If your argument is, "Well my friend allowed it." That same argument could be used as a rebuttal. The only difference is a person uploading a file is offering to vastly more people. In the end, piracy is stealing. It is simply a different approach and not as cut and dry as one may think. Still no less wrong however not my concern.

I didn't respond to your second question because: a) I don't think we're going to see eye to eye & I don't thrive on last words; b) I had as yet not seen anything that has made me feel I needed to restate my position; c) I have to work and sleep sometime; and d) these threads tend to age faster than egg salad on a sunny park bench.

Nonetheless, you seem to have been able to keep up both sides of the argument pretty well, so I'll give you an answer:
For one, you have fairly well answered your own question. But I think what happens in to the object in question is secondary to the act of the individual. Did the pirate take something? Did the owner of that something (whether it still exists or not) give him permission to take it? If you answer yes, then no, in my view, you have stolen. The condition or remainder of the object in question does nothing to affect the starting action.
One could take launch codes or (less dramatically) credit card information, and both would still be there. Nonetheless, both would be stolen, regardless of whether they have been used - or even if the victim is aware.



To my mind, victim's loss (or perceived loss) is a mere projection of responsibility away from the doer. Now, I am certainly not Jesus' mom when it comes to the whole issue (in fact, I believe the estate of Charles Schulz might like to have a word with me about my avatar), I simply have problems with folks who attempt to justify piracy as if it were on par with freedom of speech or civil rights. It's simply not.

And, from your remarks, I don't think you think that way, either. In a way, our difference seems to lie more along the line of a variation the age-old tree-falling-in-the-woods question. And, while I can see your philosophy, I'm a little too cynical and concrete to embrace it.

 

[mega48man]

Usually it's impossible to get what I pirate otherwise. Not my fault they don't make physical copies anymore.

If i ever do its due to this, and if i ever find a place to purchase it afterwards i do. As for the question of piracy, id say yes.. or else they would buy it.

Give Amazon a go. I'm in Australia and anything I can't get there I get from there. They pretty much ship everywhere (eBay too).

snip

I believe in a society where we only pay for the things that we like. this prevents studios from putting more shit on the market, and working harder to create better works of art.

We do live in that society. If I don't like something I don't buy it, but that doesn't mean they will stop making it. Look at pointless unfunny (my opinion) movies like 'Scary Movie' and the 200 other films like this. They still exist even though I don't buy into them. The flaw with your idea is that media is subjective. All art is. If you think it's terrible then chances are you are just not the target audience.

snip

xInfiniteX, you're a mad genius, and i will need to borrow you laptop when you crash at my place, you're gonna help pirate all 200 billion pieces of shit and some 20 or less masterpieces from my childhood.

I don't have a laptop at the moment, but by your logic I'm sure you won't mind if I steal yours..?

i'm actually using my laptop for phase one of our plan; Alladin and every pixar movie, i'll put the one's in phase two at the top of the que when we begin phase 2 and 3. yes, two phases, there's a lot of disney shit to wade through.

 

[Vilcus]

-Snip-

-Double Snip-

-Multi Snip-

Playing devil's advocate is always fun. I won't deny that some people make god awful films and games, but in the end it's still their film/game. There's nothing you can really do to make it seem like you're doing the right thing. There have been several artists, and game programmers who have come right out and said to people "If you can't afford my product, then PIRATE IT!"

I personally think that we should stop using the term "pirate" for people who make copies of movies, games, and music because it's likening them to those bastards on the high seas right now who are taking ships hostage, and killing innocent people. Also piracy is seen as taking something that doesn't belong to you, and leaving the vitcim with nothing of what you stole. If it was truly piracy, then no one would ever get to play Halo: Reach because it has already been pirated (that would suck if the second someone took a digital copy, all data was lost, and no one could ever gain access to it again).

I do see your reasoning, and I notice the logic behind it. But when faced with morality, bootlegging always looks like a dick move (unless you're making alcohol, then you're awesome). However, when face with legality, it is sometimes accepted. Case in point, the privateers were sanctioned by the government to steal everything they could from rival nations, they even got a full military pension, and they were given an unofficial rank in the navy. I'm certain that there's a government out there somewhere (I'm guessing China or Korea), that is paying their hackers to break into secure networks and steal whatever games or movies they may have in their databanks.

I won't bash you for having an opposite view. Just know that I will never accept those who take without permission on a moral level. I do not hate people who bootleg just to see what something is like. I understand that going to the theatre is god damn expensive these days, and you might not be sure if something is worth actually buying when it comes out. I know around 20 or so people who download movies illegaly before they buy them, but usually they buy the movie afterwards, in fact if they don't buy it, then they throw out or delete the stolen copy.

Admittedly I do see how illegal copies have actually helped many directors and music artists by getting the word out there. No one notices the game that had no real advertising. However, many gems have been dug up because a story was made about it being "pirated" countless time, so people started to wonder if it was any good. In these cases I'll admit that I'm glad there are people out there who steal these games, because they bring attention to the lesser known titles in the world.

My distain for people who steal digital media for their own personal use is less than the utter hatred I feel for those who steal and then make copies to sell for a profit. These are the ones I will never forgive, because they have not only taken what does not belong to them, but they have profited from the hard work of someone else.

Also you'd be surprised how many people pirate books, it's actually rather strange. Oddly enough it is also technically possible to pirate cars, because that's basically the premise behind a chop shop, although they're causing real harm, and they aren't just making copies, they're taking something that doesn't belong to them, and turning it into parts.

Long post is long. It'd be even longer without the awesome snips.

 

[Craftybonds]

Spoiler: snip

You pirate BOOKS!? That puts you just above panhandler on the cheap fuck scale. I've never heard of pirating books. How low can you go? Honestly. It's called a library if you want free books. At least the author still makes money when his books are in the library. Pirating books... Honestly. It takes a lot to be that incompetent at life.

I don't pirate anymore because while stealing might be necessary sometimes to survive, stealing from artists is just dishonourable. And there's no one else you could be stealing from when you pirate. That movie you downloaded in an hour took someone millions of dollars and thousands of hours to make. That song took hours upon hours of practice to produce. That book took years of experience.

I don't understand your logic here. books are free through the library, and books are free to pirate. what's the difference? the library doesn't profit off of me renting the book; their budgets are determined by population size, not the rate at which the community rents them. Also, it's called an amazon kindle. you can't exactly rent books for those.

Also of note are game rentals - the makers see no money from that, it's basically piracy masquerading behind a veneer of legality because you've spent some money. That is bullshit. It's still the same thing as getting the game ANY other way than buying it new at full price, so some people need to get off their high horses and get a sniff of reality.

Also, what's wrong about DLing TV? I have a TV license and Virgin TV, so it's not like I'm just a leech or anything. There's only 4 shows that I want to watch, and none of those seem to be shown in the UK, so fuck the programmers that I'm paying for my useless, commercial-ridden subscriptions, I'm going to download my TV and watch it when I want, how I want.

Game manufacturers wouldn't sell to rental companies if they didn't profit off of rentals. I hardly see how "the makers make no money from that" can even be half true. Rental companies are almost always guaranteed to buy thousands upon thousands of copies of a single game. Blockbuster alone probably buys at least 20,000 copies of a single game for all of their stores nation wide, and even more for their online rentals.

You're also forgetting the vast number of gamers who do not choose to purchase a game until after they have rented it. rental services are probably the best form of advertisement for a game publisher. Even if a renter doesn't purchase a game after they rent it, they're probably likely to brag about how great a game is to all of their friends. That's practically free sales for a publisher.

Yes, rental 'companies' as an entity buy many games, maybe 1 or two copies of most mainstream titles, more perhaps if it's extra popular, per store. Maybe they buy a license to allow the to rent games. They then need to rent out each game enough times to begin making a profit. What's a rental like? $5? I dunno, but if so then that's each copy minimum of 6 times. From then on, it's all gravy for the rental comp and NO PROFIT FOR THE PUBLISHER. Bam. Plus, with the length that games are these days it's likely that one would be able to complete a game in a few days of evening play, thus removing the attraction of purchasing after trying.

I have to say, I highlydoubt video games companies are making a 'profit' from rentals (let alone a return), and as for the 'free advertising' stuff, exactly the same can be said about straight-forward piracy.

Basically, I'm not buying your counter-argument. Rentals are just libraries that you have to pay a little for, but that money doesn't got to the publisher or developer but to the shop owner - just like used games. For the majority of games, once you've consumed the content there's little reason to buy it afterwards, just as one might not purchase a book having borrowed and read it at a library.

I never said they profit more off of rentals over sealed purchases by the individual, but they definitely make a large profit, also, a single rental store usually purchases 5-10 copies of a single game at release.

Rental stores are completely different from a library. When you walk into a block buster, do you see a single copy of a brand new title? Of course not. For movies, they usually have 20+ copies of the same title, and atleast 5-10 copies of a game. Game manufacturers are probably thankful for rental companies because of this. even if a game is hated by every possible reviewer, the rental company is still a guaranteed sell, no matter the quality of the game.

The fact still remains that most major rental companies deal directly with the manufacturer. it's not like these corporations are refusing to sell to rental companies. they've clearly helping the industry, or the majority of manufacturers would be blackballing companies like Gamefly and Blockbuster on a regular basis.