Poll: What's wrong with piracy

[Awexsome]

If you intend to play the game, you should purchase it.

Now this is clearly wrong. What if I haven't enough money?

Then... you get enough money to buy it. Anything else is clearly wrong. If you don't have the means to buy the game then you don't have the means to play the game. Sucks to be you but that's how the world works.

 

[tthor]

oh dear lord... I hate people sometimes...

Too many people have this false sense of entitlement, thinking they deserve to have anything they can grab..

I.. hate.. people...

 

[SonicKoala]

I'm

That's not what I said and if it was, I would disagree with it. There are laws for dealing with intellectual property - copyright law. Theft law is for a different purpose - the securing of property.

It still seems to me that you're suggesting that a piece of digital property - in this case, a video game - cannot be stolen (only copied, I suppose). If I'm wrong about that, please correct me.

Now, I'm aware of what you're getting at; Bethesda does not lose anything when someone pirates a copy of Skyrim. Then again, let's think back to the age of physical media - if someone were to steal a physical copy of a game, the game publisher didn't really lose anything, did they? Just packaging and a game disc which could be easily replicated; they still possessed the original "master copy" of the game. However, I don't think that anyone would deny that if someone were to steal that theoretical physical copy, they would be guilty of theft. Personally, I'm failing to see any fundamental difference between a physical copy of a game and a digital copy of a game. If someone is going to be considered a "thief" for stealing a physical copy but not a digital copy, then it would seem as though what we are really concerned about is that packaging and game disc...which is silly, since that is evidently not the case.

 

[dvd_72]

I pretty much agree with you.
I mean, piracy is the lost of a potential sale, but all of the top pirated games are still selling massively well and are still making a fuckload of money for the creators of the game.
It isn't good, but I don't think it is as bad as a lot of people here make it out to be.

But if they bought the game instead of pirating, immagine thier proffits then!

No matter how you slice it, pirate a game and companies loose money. That's usually why people don't like it.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

You are taking something for free, without permission, that doesn't belong to you. That is why it is wrong.

 

[FEichinger]

-snip-

Go capitalism! Yay! ... And again I know why I'm left-wing...
When will our precious humans realize that they shouldn't be as individualistic and start caring about the collective more? ...
When will we finally get true communism instead of the socialist bull we have seen in the past?


Never, I say. Simply because everyone always demands something in return for whatever they do. Gosh.

Don't get me wrong, the "I don't have the money for it." argument is very weak, and doesn't work in a capitalist system ... But to the core, the capitalist system is cancer to the world in the first place.

 

[ryanxm]

Devs don't make money from it, that means less pay, that means they won't want/ be able to work on anymore games, that means that there are less games for everyone to enjoy.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

But when I see people complain about piracy I often wonder, why are you against it?

Because I paid for my game, so should everyone else. What sets them above and beyond me or anyone else who bought the game? There are no valid excuses to not purchase a game.

At the end of the day, Pirating is stealing, no matter what anyone says.

At the end of the day, ducks are fish, no matter what anyone says.

No matter how humorously you spin it, downloading and using an unauthorised copy/key should be a crime on the same level of theft. The logic that 'nothing taken doesn't make it bad' is just plain wrong. By that logic why should anyone have to pay for videogames? We aren't taking anything from the developers, they can create as many copies as they like!

 

[AngloDoom]

If you intend to play the game, you should purchase it.

Now this is clearly wrong. What if I haven't enough money? Now i'm not suggesting that I should pirate it (it seems everyone likes to put words in peoples mouths ITT), but just pointing out that determining whether someone "intends" to do something isn't as simple as you make it out to be. If we're going to have a useful discussion, we can't keep making absurd leaps of logic.

I don't think it's an absurd leap of logic to suggest that by owning something you want it, and that if you want something someone else is legally trying to sell you should purchase it off of them.

I think you may have misinterpreted my words - I did not suggest that if you pirate something you had the intention of paying for it initially. I only said that if you want something you should have to pay for it, and should not expect to receive that 'something' unless you do.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

If you intend to play the game, you should purchase it.

Now this is clearly wrong. What if I haven't enough money?

Then... you get enough money to buy it. Anything else is clearly wrong. If you don't have the means to buy the game then you don't have the means to play the game. Sucks to be you but that's how the world works.

That's one of the options, yes. Which makes the statement "you should purchase it" incorrect, which is all I intended to show.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I believe in copyright laws and I want to get a job in the games industry. Piracy violates copyright and also hurts the game industry. (no, shut the fuck up it does, don't even try to argue that one).

 

[Luke Cartner]

Just FYI technically if you have brought a preowned game you are a pirate as you have acquired a copy of of the game without contributing to the copyright owner.

Personally I dont pirate or buy preowned games. With steam, indie devs and open source there is more than enough inexpensive good quality software that I just dont buy it if the compannie makes doing so hard (thus why I havn't bothered with assassins creed or saints row)

Stating piracy is a moral choice is too black and white. Unless you are talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia (which is amoral) it isn't as simple as a pure moral choice.
I'm not saying in the age of steam I advocate software piracy, however with software companies taking part in price fixing; zone locking; late release in some area's; forced redundancy of applications and other practices I'm not condemning all software pirates either.

The sad thing is many developers work long overtime with no additional financial recognition and computing's forefathers basically gave away their I.P. both of which these companies who in rage when people who were in no position to buy their games obtain a copy out of copy right have built their empires on.

 

[Something Amyss]

No matter how humorously you spin it, downloading and using an unauthorised copy/key should be a crime on the same level of theft. The logic that 'nothing taken doesn't make it bad' is just plain wrong. By that logic why should anyone have to pay for videogames? We aren't taking anything from the developers, they can create as many copies as they like!

One the same level does not mean is the same thing.

You claimed the latter but are arguing the former.

 

[tthor]

It has been said before, piracy is pretty much stealing, regardless of how many units the game sells. If you download a game you already own, that´s another story, but unless you do, it´s really that simple.

Yeah, it's theft, and people who don't pirate end up paying for it, because the gaming industry punish EVERYONE for it. piracy caused online passes, the SOPA bill (mainly movie piracy for this one), Game CD Keys, Pay-to-play, The Fees on XBOX live, etc. Gaming companies are trying to make money any way they can, because pirates are making it hard for them to survive, therefore they're being tightwads because THEY HAVE TO in order to survive. if they don't we might not get any new games at all. I don't like this moneygrubbing, but I don't blame the game industry, i blame the pirates. they need to be caught, fined, and the money given to the game devs.

This. You know, I am hugely against the the SOPA bill, but after reading this thread, and seeing just how many little selfish assholes there are, I find myself agreeing that maybe, sadly, we DO need something like this...

god I hate people...

 

[Magnicon]

The amount of ignorance from the "right fighters" on this subject sickens me.

A Musician saying piracy is great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCkX0KcNwrI

An article of independent game developers explaining why piracy INCREASES SALES.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/118/1184550p1.html

A list of the 10 most pirated movies of all time and how much they made at box office.
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-all-time-111012/

The brilliant Stephen Fry talking about piracy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCk9Cheiqqg

Article about Paulo Coelho, author of "The Alchemist", one of the best selling book of all time explaining that he supports piracy and that it increased his books sales.
http://torrentfreak.com/paulo-coelho-supports-the-pirate-bay-090415/

Piracy has been around forever. It has never stopped the Entertainment industries from making god awful amounts of money. Anyone who thinks piracy has a negative effect is simply ignorant on the endless amount of evidence to the contrary.

- Entertainment Corporations ignorantly and stubbornly assume piracy losses them money.
- They spend hundreds of millions fighting something that is functionally impossible to stop.
- They continue to post profits in the hundreds of millions or billions.
- wat

As for the music industry specifically. Independent musicians have the most to gain. As it has been well known for some time, the real profit for them is ticket sales.

Piracy > awareness > more fans > more ticket sales.

The reason the music studios are losing money, is because of legal song downloading.(the actual musicians get very little from cd/song sales) The consumer is spending far less money by only buying the songs they like, instead of gambling on the whole cd. This is positive for the consumer, but negative for the studio. It has NOTHING to do with piracy.

Since the Napster explosion, there has been endless independent study of piracy. It has shown time and again that piracy is a positive thing for all artists in every field, as has always been the case. At the end of the day, if you make a product worthy of money, you will almost always get it.

We are moving into the digital age. If they corporations don't want to get with the times, its their own fault. Piracy has nothing to do with it, and never has.

P.S. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is currently most pirated game on top torrent site.
"The title grossed more than $775 million globally in its first five days of availability, exceeding the $650 million record set by 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops and the $550 million one achieved by 2009's Modern Warfare 2.[71] To be exact, it has beaten theatrical box office, book, and video game sales records for five-day worldwide sell-through in dollars."

 

[Rhatar Khurin]

[Funny video]

That is some irritating disc DRM on his floppy. He should buy Memorex blank discs. I like how at the end she uses the manual as incentive to buy, when they don't make those anymore.

Yer, cos Skyrim and other proper games never have manuals....

Yep, Skyrim is awesome in a lot of ways. Rockstar still does too. But overall, manuals are crap nowadays. You're lucky if it isn't a PDF on the website and luckier still if it isn't a PDF on the disc. On consoles, it is mostly a 2-4 page wannabe booklet about how to put the game in the drive and turn the power on. Hell, I have gotten games with just a sheet of paper with a the cover art on one side and playstation instruction diagram on the other.

A lot of games replace manuals with full tutorials, so that's ok, but a game with an in depth manual like on the old amiga Microprose games (M1 tank platoon, and flight sims) have amazing manuals.
Although i have to admit i havent bought a console game since 2001 so i don't know much about that side of things

EDIT..

Ages of empires if i remember had some 300 pages beast of a manual

 

[BRex21]

The real problem with justifying piracy is that it leads to a sense of entitlement. If Johnny got mass effect without paying why should I? and if im getting it free why should anyone pay? and if no one pays we will never find out how the trilogy ends because the studio would go bankrupt.
People are not entitled to enjoy the fruits of someone elses labour without paying, If someone spends hundreds or thousands of hours crafting something they deserve to be compensated regardless of if they built your house, or made a videogame this is simply a matter of not being able to put a quantifiable face on things.

 

[Rhatar Khurin]

Oh btw, if you just make every game need some system like Steam to be able to boot it, then piracy would not exist

 

[Azure-Supernova]

No matter how humorously you spin it, downloading and using an unauthorised copy/key should be a crime on the same level of theft. The logic that 'nothing taken doesn't make it bad' is just plain wrong. By that logic why should anyone have to pay for videogames? We aren't taking anything from the developers, they can create as many copies as they like!

One the same level does not mean is the same thing.

You claimed the latter but are arguing the former.

It should be the same thing, is what I'm saying. I see no reason why it shouldn't.

 

[DracoSuave]

Every other form of piracy is unacceptable. Piracy is a bad thing, which mainly effects the industry in a negative way.

According to an industry that can't produce any tangible damages from it.

Except of course, for damages they've successfully proven in court cases where copyright violation is in question.

You know, the legal definition of damages.

So, yeah, they fucking have, and yeah, saying they didn't doesn't change the fact they've convinced a court they have.