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

[Kortney]

I pirate and I have no guilt over it whatsoever.

 

[tharglet]

I've pirated for various reasons
> Price (lack of money)
> Availability (not everything is available in the UK)
> I can get a copy that works (take that stupid DVD protection that means I couldn't watch legitimate DVDs for ages)
> Just to see something that people are talking about, but I don't think is worth paying for (rubbish movies)
> Downloading other people's music collections for a cheap way of finding what bands I like (yes, I did indeed have legitimate copies of some of the stuff I pirated)

I very rarely pirate things these days, but I have for a few reasons in the past.

 

[-Samurai-]

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.

What phantom technicality? That's how it is, it isn't something I made up.

When it comes to piracy, what exactly is being stolen? You haven't marched into a store and taken a legal copy, that's theft.

What you've acquired is an illegally made copy. And it wasn't stolen by you, it was made available to you by the person that purchased it or stole it. It was illegally copied and posted somewhere for you to use.

Piracy is not theft, and that's a fact. Nothing you or anyone else says will change that. You're not removing an irreplaceable item from the world, you're using a copy of it.

The fact that the copy was made is where the illegal part comes in. That's the part that's against the law.

Those are facts.

[small] I'll pretend that when you say "you", you really mean the people that download illegal copies, and not myself. The same way when I say "you" I don't actually mean you.[/small]

 

[manaman]

OT: For the last time people. Stealing a shirt and downloading a game/CD/movie/etc are not the same. A shirt has an intrinsic value, each unit cost the same to make. A game costs $10 million for that first copy but each copy after that cost 10 cents to stamp on a disc.

No it doesn't make it right, yes a copyright holder should be paid back for the work they did in creating it, but it is not the same as stealing.

Steal: v.
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force.

Doesn't say anywhere in the definition that it matters whether the property is made of fruity pebbles, ponies, happy clouds, or creative effort. It is the act, in and of itself.

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.

I was going to respond to that, but I see you did an excellent job of it for me, thanks.

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.

You can't apply the same precepts to something intangible that you can so something tangible. Tangible items have already been paid for, and existed in reality before hand. If you walked into a store and out again without paying for a copy of a game you just stole it. If you walked into rental place, rented a game and took it home and made a copy of it you illegally copied the game. It's not theft in the traditional sense. That copy never existed before you made it. It should carry much the same weight, but its wrong to compare someone that illegally copies things with someone that takes physical merchandise out of a store because you run into the gray area aspect of having to factor in those that would never have been a customer in the first place.

You wouldn't consider a person who bought a game used a thief would you? No, for starters they are enabling others to purchase new games when they do buy used, but ignoring that argument how does a person paying for a copy that someone else purchased first change things so drastically?

Sure you could argue that those that would have bought if no other means of acquisition where available to them are in fact stealing as their money spent on the item could have gone towards the producers and developers of the game (provide they bought new rather then used), but even using semantics its a stretch to call a person who violates copyright a thief in the traditional sense.

Taking the argument further what of the people who violate copyright in a way that would never hurt the industry? What of the people in a small country who never have a copy released in their language, when the company has stated time and again they never plan to release it in that language? Copyright is a complex mired mess made worse by the mechanizations of industries that pull in billions of dollars in profit. The VCR was supposed to kill TV and the movie industry. The tape player was going to cripple the music industry. MP3 players should have already killed the music industry ten times over. Even the DVD player when it was first introduced was the enemy because of the lack of built in security, being the superior format through it eventually won out over it's competitors much like the VCR won out over Betamax. CD's never batted an eye at mini discs. Eventually the industry learned with each new format that what it lost to piracy was far outweighed by the sales to the new market.

I don't stand on the side of piracy, but don't for a second think that means I stand on the side of those industries most vocal against it.

 

[cheese_wizington]

I'm simply too damn poor.

 

[ShAd0wS]

Convenience is a huge factor, though Steam does take some wind out of the sails of that argument if the game is available through it. Another major factor is being a poor college student who has no chance of being able to afford everything which I would like to play. And of course the fact that it is free is also a good motivation. But as far as im concerned playing a game through piracy which I never would have purchased otherwise, and encouraging my friends to play it (and possible buy it) helps the developers somewhat more then me never paying the game and they never seeing a dime from me regardless. And if it's a good game I'll prolly buy it when it's on sale in steam for the convenience factor.

 

[hyperhammy]

Because their parents wouldn't give them their credit card. ;D

 

[Marik Bentusi]

In general, I think piracy is full opportunities for big and small developers, but chances are if you have an opinion on this matter you'll already know about this and either reject or agree with it. I also agree with Gabe Newell and others that piracy is a wrong term because it doesn't take away, it "just" duplicates. The actual effects are happening regardless of the definition of the action of course.

There are many good reasons why to pirate from a consumer point of view, all of which are cheating the publisher of course.
First, DRM and other copy protection mechanisms are well capable of making your gaming experience hard. Maybe it's because your internet connection for verification reasons isn't stable and it blows you out of the game, because the disk is read every now for similar reasons and then your framerate suddenly drops because of it - again and again, etc, etc. All I know is that my pirated copy BioShock doesn't have sudden FPS drops and the copy I bought does (same system, patch, etc).
Second, people do not trust trailers, demos or reviews (anymore?). Maybe the 0.5h demo of the first chapter looks great but in the real game your only get 6 more hours playtime and things get repetitive fast. Maybe the trailer looked beyond beautiful, but parts of that scenery where dummied out or you can't play the game with settings that high. And reviews are very, very subjective in my opinion.
Third, there's no other "good" way to get the game. Maybe the game is 18+ like BioShock and you're 16 or 17 and your parents are actually keeping an eye on what you buy and don't like that huge guy with the big drill no matter how much you tell them about Irrational Games' history or BioShock's story-telling techniques that amaze you. Maybe you or your family simply doesn't have the money for new games all the time but you don't want to miss out social interaction or give up what brings joy and fun to your life. Maybe import is too expensive, but the localization in your country sucks and/or the game is censored but you still have to pay the full price for it, no matter how stupid and immersion-breaking neon-green blood looks like. Like I said, those are all things the regular customer has to put up with, so bypassing it via piracy is essentially cheating the company in that regard.
Fourth, with bought copies you rarely feel like you actually own anything. You only got the license to consume this product and the developers say how and when and not. You can't just copy a game or lend it to a friend. Or do you remember the times when you could just bring any game over to your friend and play it together? Some developers try everything they can to put an end to that. Not every copy protection mechanism is capable of doing that, but control of the consumer actions definitely goes hand in hand with stopping piracy.

I am convinced, and that apparently is also Gabe Newell's point of view despite using Steam (I keep mentioning him because he's head of a very successful gaming company, so that ought to give his voice a greater importance than mine), that people are very willing to spend money on things if the product convinced them, if it makes them actually WANT to support the developers.
For example, the Orange Box was a great package and especially Team Fortress 2 has received so much free support and content other companies *cough* would charge for, that a frequent question is how or whether it's actually worth the effort and show in sales. Some parts of the TF2 community are so in love with their game they even say "Hey, know what? Don't bring out a TF3 to get more money, we'll gladly pay again for our game in order to support you".
I got no statistics, but on the Facepunch forum I proposed that idea I received almost only agreement.

But again, you can't generalize. Not all pirates are misunderstood, poor angels, not all pirates are wearing eyepatches and want to rip apart the industry because they're greedy like the devil himself. But it's not like research is done on that matter, most companies just want to see them gone.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

I pirate for many reasons.

Doesn't cost anything
More convenient
Freedom to use the media however I want
Some of the more obscure stuff I have to pirate to get
Don't wish to support certain businesses or corporations

I think overall, what I love is the freedom to explore any form of media I want. I go to share threads and download dozens of albums, hardly giving it any thought as to whether or not I would like it that I sometimes don't get around to listening to for weeks or months afterwards. Then, one day, it will just pop up to my surprise when I listening to shuffle on my iPod, and I will instantly love it, and suddenly have a new musical obsession.

I think a good 80% of the things I pirate I probably would have never payed for, I would have never seen them or knew they existed if it wasn't for piracy. And there's quite a few cases where after I pirated something, a band's music for example, I would love it so much I would see them live, buy a shirt, and support them. Whenever I buy music, I try to make sure it all goes directly to the band by buying the album or whatever directly from them.

 

[Imbechile]

I pirate because i don't have money and those are pretty old games also.
In my country people think that you are a complete idiot if you bought a game, when you could have just pirated it

 

[Haydyn]

To respond with a quote from a fictional man with a hangover in regard to why he was looking at a younger girl's boobs: I don't know, they were there?

If I can, why not use all available sources? I downloaded music 100% legally for free until the site changed its format, then I just used my stash of iTunes gift cards. Why rent a movie when I can watch it on line free and legally?

I watched the first five minutes of Twilight online (before throwing up) because I didn't want to continue to bash it without giving it an honest chance (big mistake!) There's no facking way I would have given a single penny to watch that movie.

My theater going lately has increased, because it is so much better to watch a movie on a giant screen with friends and ridiculously priced soda and pop corn than on youtube video quality streams stretched out fullscreen on my computer.

And yes, if I could steal a car online without anyone noticing and no negative consequences, I would. Darn commercial trying to convince sheltered people that pirates are bad people; shame on you.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

The more people pirate, the less money the companies have to put towards new projects meaning less content for everyone.

This isn't entirely true. Sure, theoretically this is possible, but really there isn't any substantial proof that piracy is killing business.

And oh look:

More people are pirating
http://www.gamesradar.com/pc/starcraft-ii/news/starcraft-ii-is-the-most-pirated-computer-game-of-2010/a-20100812172458966028/g-20070518211627437097

And more money made by the developer
http://www.softsailor.com/news/34594-blizzard-to-cash-in-350-million-from-starcraft-2-sales.html

And again!

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/avatar-already-most-pirated-blu-ray-movie-ever-released-20100428/

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2925012/avatar_dvd_sales_very_impressive_on.html?cat=9

But wait, there's more!

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/09/14/heroes-leads-tv-show-dvd-sales-supernatural-strong-for-week-ending-96/27135

http://thresq.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/01/top-pirated-tv-shows-2009.html

 

[Jirlond]

Piracy is convenient, and many companies are taking the piss with the cost involved in online distribution, I buy what I can these days, but I make a decision based on wether I think its's worth my money.

 

[Haydyn]

Snip

um...you know what pirating is right?
Because what you described is not pirating. You just described watching movies on sites like you tube or downloading them from a legal provider.
And if your downloading things for free and not paying a monthly fee then your probably using an illegal torrent site. Not a huge deal but thought you may want to know that it does have risks if that is indeed what your doing.

So what you are saying is I'm doing the exact same thing as pirating, but not?

I've known people who have used many different sites for free music and movies. I guess what we are doing is different because it is the person before us doing the actual pirating; we COULD just be the ones reaping the benefits. But no, I know far too little to pirate a whole game.

 

[blankedboy]

This is a touchy subject, I can imagine lots of probations going around...

I HAVE pirated a couple games if they're in abandonware status (i.e. they're too old to be sold at game stores), and friends of mine have given me illegal copies of games, but personally I've never pirated a game I could buy elsewhere.