Cynical skeptic said:
7ru7h said:
How so? Because along with selling the illegal goods, you also need to create them. Places like Game Stop don't copy a disk for God of War 2 and then put that copy on the shelves while keeping the original in the back. If they did, that would be bootlegging, but they don't.
Honestly, I think game devs/publishers are just being stupid about the used game issue. Its not piracy, and its not illegal in the slightest (nor should it be). Why? Because of the first sale doctrine [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine]. Basically, once I buy a legal copy of something, I'm allowed to sell it to whomever I choose, whenever I choose. Saying that Ubisoft deserves any of the money that I spend on a used copy of PoP for my Xbox is no different than saying the guy who originally built the house I want to buy deserves any of the money that the sellers are asking for the house.
I just can't wait to hear the reaction from the music industry when they find out you can get an old album at CD Warehouse and not pay them a dime...
I said it was pretty close, not identical. you can pretty easily compare the costs of illegal production of, say, moonshine (speaking back in prohibition era), to the costs involved in obtaining used copies... also similar profit margins... but thats not what we're talking about here.
Since intellectual property doesn't depreciate in value the same way any non-consumable product does and it isn't consumed the same way commodities are, it shouldn't be treated like either of the aforementioned.
You're right, IPs don't depreciate the same as other non consumable goods. They depreciate much more rapidly. For example, my house has increased in value over the last 10 years, but has starcraft? No. Games, like movies and cds lose a good amount of their value relatively quickly. But just because it loses value so quickly doesn't mean the creators deserve to be payed multiple times for the same license (since that is all you are paying for when you buy a game).
The first sale doctrine protects consumer rights. We're not talking about consumers selling their used copies online/whatever. We're talking about massive retail chains. Massive retail chains should not be treated like consumers. They should be treated like distributors. Every sale they make of an IP should send a portion back to the people responsible for creating that IP, rather than funding their massive expansion so they may continue placing their slightly cheaper used copies between legitimate customers and new copies.
To an extent you are right, the first sale doctrine is about consumer rights, but it does have a few valid points, namely that when the video game is sold, the producer's no longer hold the right to any of the money that comes with any of the subsequent sales. By your logic, every time a painting is sold, the painter deserves a cut of the sale, since it is his IP that is being sold. And even though you and I may not like it, the government does recognize a corporation as a person, so they have every right to buy the game at whatever price you'll sell it for, and sell it for whatever someone else will buy it for. That's how our economy works.
Arguing its your right to trade in your games for about a tenth of what they're going sell it for, then buying a used copy for 9-10 times what it was bought is just saying we should rescind all fraud and con artistry laws, because its the people's right to get conned.
...no it isn't. It's economics. People buy and sell at levels they deem worth it. Just because you don't like it, doesn't make it a scam.
And, I'm sorry, but I don't see CD Warehouses in every shopping center or mall,
Maybe where you live, but where I live, I can think of 5 places to sell used games (only two of which are in a mall) but there are at least 6 different places to sell used music and movies, and there are 3 or 4 of them in the malls (and one of the malls has two different places that do that)
which makes it pretty hard to argue the "used music" market is a clear case of distributors fucking over content producers for massive profit.
How does that involve distributors? They don't distribute them around, they buy the item from people and sell them at the same store.
Most the times I ended up in places like that, I was buying replacement copies of albums I really liked, and lost in strange circumstances. As thats what the "used music" market is. A replacement service. Pay a few bucks, and you have a mostly clean copy. Replacement is never a very profitable business model, so no harm, no foul. There is nothing comparable for games. Even the independant aftermarket is rife with bullshit like "L@@K $300 CHRONO CROSS MINT SHRINKWRAPPED MANUAL INCLUDED SIGNED BY ME PRETENDING TO BE SOME OTHER GUY!"
Since that NEVER happens with any other type of media. Seriously, caveat emptor.
So, if I need to replace a game, and I can't find a new copy, I just pirate it, as I am not going to give a single fucking dime to any large retail chain for a "used copy." As every single dollar made off the used games business model is a clear "fuck you" to people responsible for content.
... Yea...
...and piracy isn't? Wow... that is by far one of the dumbest arguments for piracy I have ever heard. At least if you buy the game used, you show that you are willing to pay for the game, just not at the initial retail price, but with piracy, you not only say fuck you to the people responsible for creating the content, but it also tells them that their work was meaningless and that you feel entitled to play the game anyway.
So yeah, I may not be directly helping out the industry when I buy used games, but at least I'm not contributing to the scourge of DRM.