Why does everybody seem to hate pirates?

[lacktheknack]

Because ninjas are so much bett-

I mean, for the same reason we hate global crime syndicates. Massive groups of people stealing.

 

[Discon]

I don't think people would be so tempted to pirate if games weren't so rediculously priced. 40 £ for Bioshock, now? Seriously.

 

[hypothetical fact]

I don't think people would be so tempted to pirate if games weren't so rediculously priced. 40 £ for Bioshock, now? Seriously.

What makes you say that it's a rediculous price? You'll need logic that can't also be used to say that 20£ or 10£ isn't rediculous.

 

[Signa]

snip

People don't buy good products to reward the producers, they buy them because they want them. People pirate products because they want them for less money, whether they are good or bad they get pirated. Also no matter how crappy you think Indiana Jones was, you have no right to see it for free.

Libraries also are not endorsing piracy because their copies are licensed and purchased. Pirated copies are stolen and copied.

Finally do you have any evidence to justify that pirates actually buy everything they pirate and enjoy rather than pirating because they can get away with it?

snip again

Cause people want to own books rather than a two week "rental". Or they don't wanna get on a 3 month waiting list cause your library is only getting 5 copies of the new harry potter/twilight/book of the month. Its a bit different than DL'ing a movie that you can keep as long as you want and whenever you want.


Anyways.
My reason for hatred of "pirates" is they never admit that they are just too cheap to do something or they try to justify it by saying its a "demo" or "anti DRM" or not good enough to buy. Yeah their might be a few that do but the majority are just too cheap. Just go to any torrent site and its a line of comments like.
"hey thanks uploader V10 A10 Funny/good/whatever movie....seeeeeeddddd plz..." Not hey thanks I wannted to see if this was good enough to buy or whatever.

Or game "why doesn't this work/can I play online with this/instructions how to get it to work/CD keys/ other stuff." Not "I wanted to try this out but there was no demo/thanks for drm free upload/whatever"


EDIT: my favorite excuse, "Its not stealing its copying !!!"

I can't help but feel you both quoted me and completely missed my point. You both latched on to some petty sub-point that is inconsequential to the main point/argument.

@hypothetical fact: did you even look at that link I went out and posted? I wasn't talking from my ass on this one.

 

[Discon]

I don't think people would be so tempted to pirate if games weren't so rediculously priced. 40 £ for Bioshock, now? Seriously.

What makes you say that it's a rediculous price? You'll need logic that can't also be used to say that 20£ or 10£ isn't rediculous.

The logic here is that the game cost 40 £ when it was released one and a half years ago, on STEAM it costs 20 £, maybe it's just Norwegian retailers being retarted.

 

[dududf]

I only pirate when I either cannot purchase it, that being lack of funds or no near by stores are selling.

Or when I want to play a game but do not wish for a sequel, e.x. Evil Genius. mainly just a "shits n' giggles" attitude.

I have no moral issues with it, as I've said if I WANT to support a game I will with the because of the incentive of a possible sequel.

All devs need is a incentive (a positive one not a negative one, all a negative one would do is bug us for 10 minutes as we wait for a crack) to purchase that being a sequel in the works, bonus weapons upon completion of internet verified achievements... just a pot shot, imagine in RFG to get the ostrich hammer you need to do a quick achievment verify, which also checks if you used a CD key if you didn't use one then you won't get the bonus weapon. This will work for a while untill it is cracked but trust me when I say that I will not download a small file JUST to unlock the weapon, could be a virus. 'sides it'll be a mild discomfort maybe not enough for osmeone to tyr to crack it, and thus every pirate is missing out on the fun of destroying buildings with by swinging your honking huge ostrich around...X_X


DRM just needs to be looked at differently IMO. Give us a good incentive to buy and we will.

I do not ecncourage pirating, nor do I suggest you pirate games. go buy every game you have blah blah blah, am I free of mod wrath? no? If you pirate games you will be bum "loved" in hell for the rest of your days. Now? Yes? okay good.

Activate... Power of FLAME SHIELD. It's Super Effective!

 

[whitefox_moodscape91]

Pirates kick Ninja-ass.. Pirates are out in the sea, making the money and getting the honey! am i right?? Ninjas are just sneaky bastards.

 

[That Guy Ya Know]

All the work put into anti piracy measures are ridiculously ineffective, the problem is that the money it would take to develop a hypothetical perfect anti piracy system (which is impossible) would massively dwarf the tiny amount of extra sales. People shouldn't worry about whether or not piracy is morally wrong but should instead focus on developing a new system of distribution that embraces piracy as a way to spread your game to a lot of people very quickly. I can't be bothered to go digging around for facts at the moment but some music artists do just that and can make more money giving away their songs for free over p2p networks than other artists do by selling them.

 

[T5seconds]

Okay I have nothing aggenst pirates DO however have a problem with pepole who are stupid as shit and try to stop pirates by makeing it where you can download the game a certen number of times and add that stupid code I HATE THAT infact i dont think it helps BATTLE IT i think it SUPPORTS IT because then you can download it for free CRACKED so you can download it an UNLIMITED NUMBER OF TIMES .... but i digress

i do not support pirates

although i do fancy eye patches

 

[Seanchaidh]

It's because people erroneously think that intellectual property is a real thing that can be 'stolen', not just a set of conventions to stimulate creativity and invention. Pirates actually create value by freely distributing games/music because more people will play a game or listen to a song that's free than one that costs something. What they don't create is profit, and that of course is terrifically evil. The entertainment industry has most people convinced that they should get paid for doing essentially what pirates do, which is take content and copy it millions of times. The difference is that pirates neither make the content nor charge for it, while music and games distributors pay someone royalties and sell copies at retail. Copyright law is the institutional incentive to make things that can be copied by others, and that's really all it is. There is not truly a strong moral component to it. The strength of the system is that the reward isn't totally arbitrary: it has a relation to demand. But we could as easily abolish copyright and find other ways to reward the creation of demanded music and games. It would probably be a more 'moral' system if such evaluation and reward came after experiencing the game rather than before. Right now, game companies sell people stuff they later find out they wouldn't have wanted had they known exactly what they were buying. Consumers are in the position of shelling out money on the suspicion that they'll enjoy something... that's hardly a good thing.

But the institution is copyright, and it is probably here to stay. Disobeying it is illegal and I suppose weakly immoral due to the long-term aggregate affects of piracy under this institution.

 

[Lord George]

Because of our dashing hats and roguish manner, yarr harr fiddle dee dee

 

[Animated Rope]

it would almost be better if you referred to them as what they are and that is a thief.

i mean if you say "oh there's some piracy going on" it sounds nice compared to say "oh look there's some theft going on"

if you keep saying piracy it softens it a bit and makes it sound ok but calling them thieves makes it a bit less ok sounding

It's okay if you stagmatise piracy and antagonize the pirates, but don't call 'em thieves. That's like me refering to a baker as a wheat farmer, I'm arguing semantics here.

If you don't think pirate is a negative enough word, why not find something else to call 'em?

DRM just needs to be looked at differently IMO. Give us a good incentive to buy and we will.

This. I liked the map I got with the Oblivion CD. I put it on my wall. =)

 

[Rolling Thunder]

I have a better question: Why in the hell do people give a fuck?

Seriously, governments - you've got high unemployment, the rise of the extreme right, seccessionist politics, terrorism, let alone the state of the NHS and the public school system....I hereby order you to not spend my taxes on protecting people who have no fucking need of protection, i.e., publishing companies.


Piracy, you could argue, is simply the next form of the market. No, it is not going to stifle creativity, and no, it is not going to crush developers/musicians/authors/etc. The people it is going to hurt, and it is hurting, are the publishing companies, in particular the big, stupid ones like Universal, EA and so on that are so used to having a dominant market share that they don't know how to handle piracy.*

Put simply, this is never going to go away. Oh, and if you even try and put spyware on my machine again, I'm going to torch your head offices.




*Hint: Valve has the right idea. Hell, Valve has a genius idea. Steam is probably the only anti-pirate measure that actually works. Well, for a given value of 'works'. It's convenient, easy to use and, in general, used the 'carrot' element, rather than the big, ugly, shit-covered stick that is Windows Live.

 

[Epitome]

you are taking money away from people who would otherwise earn it from your purchase of the product, therefore it's theft and NOT copying

you are doing the same thing and trying to lighten what is actually happening, they are taking away profits from people, therefore they are stealing

Again though you catch22 here. The pirate was never going to purchase the product, wants it only because it is free, therefore you are not depriving of profit because there would never have been a sale. So it remains copyright infringement and not theft.

I'm sure a lot of people on here bash pirating to make it seem like they aren't doing it themselves.

Abandonware and things I used to own but degraded dont count

If that's what helps you sleep at night...

Like a baby, serious like snes and sega emulators should be public domain at this point. Discontinued production means there are no more expected profits anyway so it even further into the grey zone of infringement law.

 

[Pacman_69_42]

pirates are ok but ninja's are better

 

[Bernzz]

I walked into this thread envisioning the Somalian guys in speed boats with AK-47s.

 

[Trotgar]

It's quite strange that the copyrights (which are "maker's rights" translated from Finnish) are owned by companies and not the maker.

EDIT: and I walked into this thread thinking about hooks and lewdness.

 

[Shycte]

Because they rob and murder people?

OH SHI- You didn't mean it like that. Stupid me.

Well, it's a crime. They are sucking life och out society like a leech.

 

[Trotgar]

And the artists get the most of their money from gigs and album contracts, so the worst thing piracy could do to them is make publishing companies bankrupt, so bands couldn't make contracts anymore, which will propably not happen anytime soon.

I'm quite neutral about piracy.