Poll: Does pirating a game to test it make it okay?

[Entitled]

First, the op asking if piracy was OK. Many of the posters before me had stated that it is illegal so I didn't need to comment on if it was legal or not. That is why I posted on the moral aspect of the piracy.

Second, why is the moral aspect of piracy so hard for people to grasp? Do you own the game? Did you make it? The answer is an obvious no. The people who do own the game say that you can use it if you pay them. Doing anything but paying them before you play the game is immoral because the game is not your game.

First of all, no, I didn't make it, but most often the IP holder didn't make it either. Did Disney make Star Wars? Because that's who is going to get paid if you by an Original Trilogy Blu-ray instead of pirating it.


This is what I called a hidden variation of the "argument from legality" at the end of my post. Because it boils down to "whoever owns the legal copyright is The Owner, and therefore it has a moral right to Owning It."

What we call IP, what copyright protects, is not property that someone "owns" in the same way as someone can own a physical property. It is protecting ideas, knowledge, data about how to do something.

How could a song, a story, or a game, be "owned" by a single person, while also selling ownership of copies of it to anyone who pays?

By your logic, the Tolkien Estate still owns the Lord of the Rings novels, and I'm taking away their property from them if I download it.

So who owns The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? L. Frank Baum's heirs? Am I still taking away property from them if I download it? How about Oliver Twist? Don Quijote? The Decameron? If they are truly owned by someone, then I assume they can be inherited in the will of their owners like any other property.

So what if Notch says that you are not allowed to make Let's play vidos of Minecraft? That you are not allowed to take screenshots by using his property? If Valve says that you are not allowed to quote from their Portal? That you are not allowed to sell your used copies?

You see, copyright isn't about protecting property, it's about giving a set of government-granted monopolies to IP holders, that allow them to charge for usage of their IP under certain reasonable conditions. It often involves arbitarily drawn lines, (90 years are still IP, but 91 are Public Domain, this video is Fair Use but that remix is not, using your copy together with too may people is illegal, but selling it to them is not).

You can claim that the artists' SHOULD have real ownership rights. That there shouldn't be Fair Use, no Public Doain, no consumer rights, no public rights, only total IP holder rights. So pirating OZ is just as bad as pirating anything else, and re-selling your Assassins' Creed game even if Ubisoft doesn't want you to, is immoral because you should always respect their wishes.

But if you believe that only legal Copyright Infringement can count as harming the artist's ownership, then you are still basically arguing from legality.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

If your system isn't very good, either you take the risk like everyone else or don't play PC games.

"take a risk like everyone else?" Yeah because that's being a responsible consumer.

How many other types products do you spend $60 dollars on without knowing if you can actually use it? I'd wager not many because that would be really stupid. Yet with games there's a culture of pre-ordering and buying day one which leads to lots of people being disappointed.

I've never pirated myself (other than a few emulators for games 10-15 years old) but honestly between DRM, Online passes and a lack of demos.. Pirates frequently offer a better service than publishers so I find it hard to judge anyone who pirates.

 

[Entitled]

Is it okay... to read a book in the bookshop in its entirety before buying it?

Is it OK to read a newspaper that someone left on the table?

Is it OK with street musicians without tipping them a few bucks?

The difference between these is only that newspaper publishers can't make their papers self-destruct, and that street musicians can't lock down the entire street for their performance, while bookshops can throw you out.

But believe me, they would grab the opportunity with both hands if they could.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Is it OK to read a newspaper that someone left on the table?

Is it OK with street musicians without tipping them a few bucks?

Yes and Yes.

The answer is, look for a demo to run, or install it via your Steam account. Both are lawful solutions.

 

[Canadish]

Morally speaking, I can't see a reason why anyone would say it's wrong these days.

As other people have said, the publishers lie about system requirements for PC games way too often and demos are few and far between these days.

At the same time, I think it's only becoming more and more obvious how useless "professional" reviews are these days because they're all saddled with conflicting interests, so you can't really turn to them for an accurate picture of things.

If a game is new, there is no word of mouth yet.

DRM means lending a game is impossible, unlike with a book or movie.

So the only place you can turn is the marketing, which (I shouldn't need to say) is all spin, hype, and photo-shopped pictures that lie to you about what you're getting.


Technology is so anti-consumer these days that it's really the only one-up we have over these guys. It's the only way to get a fair and accurate picture.

The responsibility we all have to bear however is to not get greedy and choose not to pay. If the game is bad, uninstall that shit and never look back.
If it's good and you want to keep playing, give those guys your money.
So far the statistics are on our side, and show that pirating doesn't really dent sales.

To just write it off as stealing is just being way to heavy handed with it. I'm not really one to support that kind of moral absolutism.
Things are grey enough as they are now, and with M$ and the like are looking to try force interactive advertisements and DRM that scans users faces, it's going to become harder and harder to argue against users bypassing these invasions of privacy.

Good or ill, there are going to be some really interesting debates coming up in the next year or two about this topic.

 

[TelHybrid]

Legally, no.

Morally, grey area.

Personal view morally, yes.

 

[TwiZtah]

No it is not (although I've found my stance on piracy to be one of the harshest on this site...basically, it's never OK unless you literally can't get the item in question due to it's age).

There are sites that you can go to that will tell you these things.

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri (like this one! I'm sure there are others but this is the one I personally use)

When you buy a car, do you not test it first? I have bought more games since I started testing them through piracy, because now I know I like a game and am not as scared of buying it.

 

[Daygall65]

Actually sub-genre question that I feel IS relevant. Hypothetical situation.


I bought ME3 retail, on launch because I wanted to support that kind of game. 3 parts space saga???

HELL YA I Want to send the message *MAKE MORE STUFF LIKE THIS*

But because of the fiasco that is Origin, I left the game rapped with it's receipt taped to the front, and pirated the game full cracked.

Is that wrong also...?

OT: Though the idea of *pirate to test* might be valid... I have to say, it's to far on the dark grey spectrum of these "grey issues." For me to feel anywhere near confidant in saying that... It'd have to be either A: SO OLD you can't find it, or B: Region locked and you can't buy it without an expensive import.

Just my $0.2

 

[MrCollins]

Is it ok to steal food in order to taste it?
Is it ok to steal clothes to see if they fit?
It is ok to steal a car to see test it?

 

[sagitel]

i dont think its wrong as long as you pay the price.

but a question. is piracy justified when you have NO means whatsoever to get the original games?
i mean its like buy the pirated game or not buy at all cause you cant buy the original version. what about then?

 

[kortin]

No, it's not. There are only two reasons in which pirating is acceptable:

1. You cannot get the game legally where you live.
2. The company no longer makes money off the game.

Any other reason is just people making up shit and excuses for stealing.

That being said, the people who do pirate it for the purpose of trying it out aren't entirely at fault. The fault also partly lies on the developer for neglecting putting a demo out.

 

[Entitled]

Is it ok to steal food in order to taste it?
Is it ok to steal clothes to see if they fit?
It is ok to steal a car to see test it?

No, no, an no.

And now that we are done with this unrelated detour, let's go back to discussing whether it is OK to infringe on a corporation's government-granted monopoly on stopping the creation of new copies being made without their permission.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Most PC games have demos or at least specs (if u only have the minimum required u can't play it well) to test the game or at least let you know if you can run it. Especially steam games, theres tons of demos. I really hate it when people don't want to admit they just don't wanna pay for a game.
Be honest.

 

[anthony87]

Is it ok to steal food in order to taste it?
Is it ok to steal clothes to see if they fit?
It is ok to steal a car to see test it?

No but it's okay to ask someone for a taste and then buy the same thing if you like it.
No but it's okay to take some clothes into a changing room and then buy them if they fit.
No but it's okay to take a car for a test drive and then buy it afterwards.

EDIT: Awh...someone already said the same thing.

 

[eternal-chaplain]

I've always believed that piracy is a multifaceted gem. Once I formatted one of my hard drives that had my Starcraft I data on it, and I thought I had the case but ended up losing it, so I didn't have the CD key, and none of the CD key finders I used could find it. So I pirated a copy and ended it at that. I already had paid money for the original game years ago, I just needed to replace it.

As for testing a game--there are usually demos for the game available, which are what I always use. Though of course this is not true for every game. So yeah, I don't see what the problem is if you're only testing the game out; if the developers don't want to release a demo, that's their choice.

Have you considered, though, websites like 'Can I Run This?' which will tell you what you want to know without having you download the entire game?

 

[anthony87]

Have you considered, though, websites like 'Can I Run This?' which will tell you what you want to know without having you download the entire game?

You really can't rely on those things though. According to one of those sites I don't meet the requirements to play Crysis, Crysis 2, Darksiders, Darksiders 2, Saints Row 3, Dark Souls and a few others yet I can play all of them just fine.

Only reason I got Battlefield 3 on PS3 was because it told me that my PC couldn't run it. Now I'm thinking I'll be just fine but like the OP, I don't wanna shell out money for something that might not run. Only reason I took the risk on the examples mentioned above is because they were on sale at massively reduced price.

 

[Mordekaien]

I went with yes. I'm a Mac user, and for the most part there are no demos out there for me, no physical copies that I could return if it was not working with my computer, the games that have listed minimum requirements often lie (I should not be able to run Batman Arkham Asylum, yet I was running it no problems, same with Witcher, I should be able to run Dragon Age, yet it runs crap even on the lowest settings).
So yeah, I check the game out, if it runs reasonably I will buy it, but I don't think it's OK to release a pricey thing that you then will not use, because the minimum requirements listed are not right.
If there was a demo out for these games, I would have no problem with it, yet now I'm stuck with false information about products that cost pretty great sum of money, without the means to try them beforehand.

 

[LetalisK]

Is it okay to hotwire a car to "test drive" it? Or to read a book in the bookshop in its entirety before buying it?

I'm not equating piracy with theft, because it isn't (nor is it a crime in the UK, it's an offence), but illustrating the stupid question that the OP could have answered himself if he had thought for 30 seconds prior to writing the question.

That's not analogous to the OP at all. You don't have to hotwire a car to test drive it. The dealership will most likely give you a set of keys if you're looking to purchase a vehicle. And you can read a few chapters in a bookstore just fine.

 

[eternal-chaplain]

You really can't rely on those things though. According to one of those sites I don't meet the requirements to play Crysis, Crysis 2, Darksiders, Darksiders 2, Saints Row 3, Dark Souls and a few others yet I can play all of them just fine.

Ah, fair enough; honestly i haven't used those sorts of sites before; I have only been told about them by friends. I suppose it really is hard to beat the accuracy of a demo.