Sink The Pirates

[Mistwraithe]

All the arguments about how piracy isn't the direct cause of PC gaming dying, and even how in some cases it is helpful by allowing paying customers to get rid of the irritating disk checks, are quite valid.

And yet... Sean Sand has a point. If you consider the whole picture over the last decade or more then Piracy HAS done enormous harm to PC gaming and continues to.

If there was no piracy, no one had even considered illegally copying a game, then would we have disk checks? Root kits? Phone home activations? I think not. Think of the thousands (millions?) of hours saved by both consumers and developers across all the games written in the last decade or more.

So at its core the contention that Piracy is killing or has partially killed PC gaming is hard to argue with.

However... we live in the real world and while it is true that a complete lack of piracy would have avoided many the things that are bad about PC gaming these days it is unrealistic to consider a scenario where no one had ever thought of illegally copying games.

Given that more realistic background one has to take into consideration what all parties have done in response to the real world environment. The answer is that the PC games industry has by stages committed suicide in its misguided attempt to stop something that couldn't be stopped, only minimised.

Quite simple really. Piracy might have started it, but the PC games industry is determined to get the last word by ripping up the game board and throwing all the pieces around... while simultaneously complaining about the fact that no one will play any more.

Ironic. Or do I mean Idiotic?

 

[radio_babylon]

Killing everybody who disagrees with you doesn't make you right.

right and wrong doesnt enter into it. im not talking about morality, or ethics. im talking about social contracts.

a social contract *can not exists* without punishments for breaches, and authority capable of administering those punishments. period. without either one, you dont have a social contract anymore, you just have a bunch of lip-flapping about how you wish people would do this or that or the other.

im merely saying that the problem with piracy (and many other social ills) is that the social contracts that constrained these kind of behaviors have broken down utterly. the removal of any real, immediate, consistent and credible threat of punishment has made them null and void.

so, i say again, if pirates (or burglars, or rapists, or mimes, or whatever) knew that the punishment for what they were contemplating was a fairly brutal blugeoning, and that the chances of that punishment actually being administered to them were quite high, you WOULD see a reduction in piracy. period.

so forget about the morality or ethics of piracy, thats the sort of thing philosophers and geeks can argue about all day long for all i care. im considering the question at hand: "how to sink the pirates?" and the answer is simple: punishment and enforcement.

all the drm and blog debate in the world wont ever amount to a hill of beans without those two things.

 

[Yvressian]

a social contract *can not exists* without punishments for breaches, and authority capable of administering those punishments. period. without either one, you dont have a social contract anymore, you just have a bunch of lip-flapping about how you wish people would do this or that or the other.

I'm afraid you don't realize that social contracts are never written in stone, and even when they are the letter of the law, they are still open t interpretation. There's a lot of space for problems in said interpretation, so a rigorous enforcement system would look more like mindless fascism and less like social justice.
Changes on a global scale that would have to happen to irradicate pirates would take decades, and don't seem likely. And short-term draconic bursts would do little but strengthen their resolve.

 

[radio_babylon]

There's a lot of space for problems in said interpretation, so a rigorous enforcement system would look more like mindless fascism and less like social justice.

im not much interested in social justice. and i dont much have a problem with the idea of "mindless fascism"... im a pragmatist, not an idealist.

as far as "only strengthen their resolve" goes... seriously? i mean... come on. these arent people fulfilling a survival requirement (ie, stealing food because they cant afford to eat) or partisan fighters opposing a hostile regime that threatens the health and safety of themselves and their family... theyre SOFTWARE PIRATES. line up, say, the next 1000 downloaders from the pirate bay against the wall, shoot them, and stick the video on youtube... then see how strong their resolve to play free games is.

hell, skip the hyperbole, and simply IMPRISION the next 1000 downloaders from the pirate bay for 3 months.

the simple fact is that the majority of human beings are selfish assholes who dont give a damn about anything but themselves, and will take whatever they think they can get away with... and in the absence of ANY kind of credible penalty for piracy, theyre going to steal any and every thing they feel like taking, simply because they ARE selfish assholes who dont give a damn about anything but themselves.

sure, theyll trot out their justifications, some of them more intelligently worded than others, but it isnt because their actions actually HAVE justification... its because nobody wants to think of themselves as being a selfish asshole who doesnt give a damn about anyone but themselves.

so, i repeat again, bottom line: with noone and nothing in place to keep the selfish assholes in line, theyre going to keep on doing what theyre doing. if the industry/congress/society/whatever wants it to stop, they have to step up and implement real and meaningful penalties for being a selfish asshole.

 

[SilentScope001]

You know, I think you guys are missing the only important thing that Sean has written:

THE PC GAMING INDUSTRY DOES NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

Everything else was just a rant, but that bold statement is pure truth. They don't care. Come up with all the arguments in the world, at the end of the day, you are still denying them profit and stealing their intellectual property. (And yes, we need intellectual property right. There needs to be an incentive to actually make something.)

Why can't pirates come out and state, yes, they are breaking the law, and yes, they don't actually care about the people who rant and rave about losing profits. "If you want to pay money, do so. Let us do as we will. We can't get caught." Be honest. Do it. Just for fun, I'm going to throw an anology: Does the Mob come up with awesome 10-page, double-spaced essays about the beneifts of 'protection'? No, they go out there and break kneecaps.

EDIT: Though I am still somewhat interested in the flip-flop.

 

[Yvressian]

as far as "only strengthen their resolve" goes... seriously? i mean... come on. these arent people fulfilling a survival requirement (ie, stealing food because they cant afford to eat) or partisan fighters opposing a hostile regime that threatens the health and safety of themselves and their family... theyre SOFTWARE PIRATES.

I'd like to remind you of the alchohol bootlegers of the prohibition era in the US. These people weren't really helping anyones survival by selling alchohol, but they did have a direct interest in making money off of it. Therefore, the crime itself is not a means of survival but the money it generates feeds the families of the criminals in some cases.
Also, the rigorous penalties that the police forces were meant to enforce for the prosecution of bootlegers of the era had an unexpected side-effect of giving birth to the largest and most efficient groups of organized crime that to this day still cause great concern for the american judiciary system. Trying to root out crime with violent and schizmatic procedures can be very counter-productive.

im not much interested in social justice. and i dont much have a problem with the idea of "mindless fascism"

This sentence, other than giving me pause, suggests that you are not properly educated in the history of fascistic regimes and the consequences of systems that unfortunately plagued some countries in the (not even so distant) past.

 

[panfist]

You know, I think you guys are missing the only important thing that Sean has written:

THE PC GAMING INDUSTRY DOES NOT CARE WHAT YOU THINK.

And I think you are missing the point of my argument which is, THAT'S A MISTAKE.

They claim they are losing revenue due to piracy. They claim they are losing sales. Some consumers already bought a game, other consumers pirated, and the rest of consumers don't care about the game and don't factor into the equation. On which group did the PC industry supposedly lose revenue? The people who pirated it. Will copy protection ever stop pirates? No. Then perhaps the PC industry should take a look at the group that is responsible for lost sales, the "pirates," and see how they can get them to buy games.

 

[Asehujiko]

There's a lot of space for problems in said interpretation, so a rigorous enforcement system would look more like mindless fascism and less like social justice.

im not much interested in social justice. and i dont much have a problem with the idea of "mindless fascism"... im a pragmatist, not an idealist.

as far as "only strengthen their resolve" goes... seriously? i mean... come on. these arent people fulfilling a survival requirement (ie, stealing food because they cant afford to eat) or partisan fighters opposing a hostile regime that threatens the health and safety of themselves and their family... theyre SOFTWARE PIRATES. line up, say, the next 1000 downloaders from the pirate bay against the wall, shoot them, and stick the video on youtube... then see how strong their resolve to play free games is.

hell, skip the hyperbole, and simply IMPRISION the next 1000 downloaders from the pirate bay for 3 months.

the simple fact is that the majority of human beings are selfish assholes who dont give a damn about anything but themselves, and will take whatever they think they can get away with... and in the absence of ANY kind of credible penalty for piracy, theyre going to steal any and every thing they feel like taking, simply because they ARE selfish assholes who dont give a damn about anything but themselves.

sure, theyll trot out their justifications, some of them more intelligently worded than others, but it isnt because their actions actually HAVE justification... its because nobody wants to think of themselves as being a selfish asshole who doesnt give a damn about anyone but themselves.

so, i repeat again, bottom line: with noone and nothing in place to keep the selfish assholes in line, theyre going to keep on doing what theyre doing. if the industry/congress/society/whatever wants it to stop, they have to step up and implement real and meaningful penalties for being a selfish asshole.

And who will keep the selfish assholes called the copyright lobby in line? Law =/= a flawless divider between good and evil. If you attack somebody for a perceived difference in ethics we have the right to defend ourselves. Starting a war by murdering ~800 people who were getting simply another version of linux is not a way to "sink the pirates" but will most likely end in you getting the short end of a few year geurilla combat. When you are threatening to seriously hurt alot of people i care alot for, i will resist with force and so will the majority of pirates. We are everywhere and we outnumber you.

 

[radio_babylon]

And who will keep the selfish assholes called the copyright lobby in line? Law =/= a flawless divider between good and evil. If you attack somebody for a perceived difference in ethics we have the right to defend ourselves. Starting a war by murdering ~800 people who were getting simply another version of linux is not a way to "sink the pirates" but will most likely end in you getting the short end of a few year geurilla combat. When you are threatening to seriously hurt alot of people i care alot for, i will resist with force and so will the majority of pirates. We are everywhere and we outnumber you.

this is the most lol-worthy thing i think ive ever read on the internet... thank you for giving me a hearty laugh on an otherwise boring afternoon

 

[bedhouin]

"Here's the bottom line: Yes, piracy is destroying PC gaming. That is an immutable truth, evidenced by the exodus of PC developers defecting en masse to make games for consoles. End of story. And frankly, I've lost patience with it."

Aaah... That's why the XBox 360 which also suffers from piracy has no shortage of developers. The only platform not suffering from piracy is the PS3, so by your logic developers would be flocking to develop PS3 titles - not quite.

I think you've missed the point - developers are moving away from PCs due to the inherent complexity of supporting a myriad of configurations. Consoles are easier to develop for plain and simple.

 

[The_Prophet]

I don't download pirated games (with exception for those that are no longer sold in stores), not saying i am an angel in any way, i download other stuff, but to argue that pirates should be ignored and comparing them to cancer is kind of disgusting. Also he just goes into a rage instead of giving valid arguments which makes it all seem pretty pointless.

good point. One of the problems is the bloody price of the games

 

[Zombie_King]

I wanted to sympathize, but a voice was whispering "EA... EA..." at me the whole time.

I think the joke's on the game companies frankly. Criminals advance AHEAD of law enforcement. So even if PC gaming were to hit the pits, you can bet people would figure out ways to still get all the games they wanted free for free. Whether that means hacking a console, or just figuring out how to transfer game files from a 360 disc to pc, they'd do it. And because it's the internet, mass propagation. I'm not saying it's right, just that I'm indifferent.

It's impossible to keep up with the cheaters, hackers, pirates and criminals. The law can't follow the crime.