Why I don't like piracy: a software developer's thoughts.

[KSarty]

Again let me refer to the example with the car rental. Does the fact that you bought the right to use the car for one day for 50 USD give you the right to smash it into a heap of metal scrap? No it does not. That wasn't the condition of the sale.

Same with software. The "product" you refer to is not a license to use the developer's property in any and every manner possible.

Thats a terrible example. When I go out and buy a video game, I'm not friggin renting it, I am buying it to own, at which point I can do whatever I damn well please with it.

This is nothing but a rant. You're obviously pissed off but you didn't add any new views on the subject or even suggest that people should discuss your views, you just ended it with a middle school style closing sentence. This is more of a blog than an actual forum post, since you just needed to vent.

Well since we are now on page three with 75+ posts I think that your opinion has already been proved wrong empirically. People are discussing it lively so apparently there was something about it worth to debate after all, your opinion to the contrary.

You didn't pay attention to what I said. I didn't say it wasn't worth discussing, I said that you did not encourage discussion. You stated your view and just left it at that. You didn't ask for other people's opinions about the subject matter or your own opinions. You obviously just wanted to get it off your chest.

 

[molesgallus]

""molesgallus:
we live in a sick hypocritical society. people are disillusioned by our sick capitalist system, they feel it is acceptable to fuck over the big companies that are fucking over everyone else, anyway.

Was there a point to this nonsensical blurb?

Playing the Victim card doesn't work. The only ones impressed by it as by those that try to run the same scam. To the rest, you just come out as a whiner from the activist left who blame everything that isn't peachy in your life on others.""

I am not whining about anything. It's not a nonsensical blurb, its an answer to your question. I happen to be a very successful webmaster, earning a LOT of money. So I'm not exactly left, Im just a realist. Do you really think it's the poor guy's fault that their poor, and that anyone could be rich if they put the work in. If you do, then your an ignorant twat, clearly denying the facts of the matter. In a capitalist system the little guy gets fucked over, that's a fact. If everyone was rich it wouldn't be capitalism. Now, don't get me wrong, i think its great, im rich, fine by me. But i can see why, if your on minimum wage, you might pirate a game, and justify it with the argument that the publisher is ripping you off to start with. I don't condone it though, and if i found any of my website materials being copied, I'd hit the offender with the full force of the law.

 

[Sayvara]

No, I'm not talking about the positive side effects of pirating; I'm talking about the positive direct effect of pirates. Big difference.

I don't think I've done anything to represent your opinions as being the former rather than the latter. I get exactly what you mean--the wishes of the property owner should be respected. My point was that property owners wish to both make money AND have their rights respected, and how the same person can fulfill one wish and not the other, like in your example of the bedroom programmmer.

Do you have to take a stand so vociferous that you must argue that anyone who pirates is no better than "pimply snot-nosed kids" who "don't have the manners or good graces to actually respect other people's property"?

Whether it's a side-effect or just an effect is semantics. We are talking about positive outcomes of pirating.

Sure I want to make money, or achive fame, or spread the message that software should be free (i.e. taking a stand against commersial usage of my software). But how I want to achive those things is up to me to decide, not you. My property ==> my decisions. So even if I make really bad decisions that in the end leads to me achieving less success than I could have, that mistake is mine to make. You cannot excuse piracy of my property with "Well it's good for ya"... only I can do that.

And no, I did not say that all software pirate are snot-nose pimply kids. Some are though... and those in particular really get on my tits. Then there are other pirates too, not necessarilly snot-nosed pimply kids, but none the less in breach of my rights. I don't like those either.

And even if I had equated all software pirates to snot-noded pimply kids... what are they going to do? Come to me and say "Hey! I may pirate your software but I'm no kid!"? Those I reserve the right to smirk and chuckle at. It's like when my 9yo girl tries to talk back to me by saying: "Hey, you're wrong! I did not take 10 SEK from your wallet, I actually took 20!". Heh... want some water to wash down your foot with?

/S

 

[Saskwach]

The framing of the question (or statement, as 'twere) in the OP has coloured the debate, IMO. "Piracy is bad, it's theft [therefore it must be stopped]." There were a few tacit nods to customer rights along the way.
But that's the rub isn't it? That piracy isn't nice is besides the point: of course it isn't, but what are you going to do about it?

I did not say that! Go back to the OP and read again. I said: I do not like piracy because it violates a commonly accepted principle: that of sanctity of property; Yours & Mine.

So what am I going to do about people pirating? Well first of all I can show you my dislike about it and argue that pirating is in violation of principles that most people accept in every other situation. For some it will make them realize they are using double standards and as such get a wee bit of guilty conscience and start concidering buying the software since there are real people, and not just megacorps, that take offence to pirating.

Secondly I have posted plenty of hints as to what I want producers to do to help reduce the problem. The most important thing they can do is to give customers incentive to buy the software rather than pirating it. Factors to concider here are: pricing; quality; ease of purchase; customer support; product updates; product content; replayability, and so forth. Producers need to make the peopel want to buy the software rather then to try bullying them into not pirating.

Does that answer your question?

/S

So you didn't say piracy is bad because it can be equated to theft you just said you didn't like it because it violates property and ownership? I'd say my paraphrase wasn't totally inaccurate.
Your solutions are nice and I can get behind them, but I was making a point about the framing of the subject, not your solutions. I don't particularly like hearing repeated tales of woe as it is - and piracy is a doozy - but this one often leads to the kind of flawed logic that creates DRM. It wasn't so much about you as this incessant complaining about the problem rather than looking at the solution. You made a thread about how piracy sucks. It's an old subject and it's not a helpful one either.
It should also be said that cutting off my quote at where you did cuts out the reasoning behind the rhetorical question.

 

[Sayvara]

Nilcypher asked: "Is that theft?"

you asked: "Right or wrong?"

Two different questions.

That may be the case but trespassing isn't any less wrong than is theft.

I never argued that software piracy is theft. But I do feel that it is a violation of my rights as he owner of the software.

Thats a terrible example. When I go out and buy a video game, I'm not friggin renting it, I am buying it to own, at which point I can do whatever I damn well please with it.

You didn't pay attention to what I said. I didn't say it wasn't worth discussing, I said that you did not encourage discussion. You stated your view and just left it at that. You didn't ask for other people's opinions about the subject matter or your own opinions. You obviously just wanted to get it off your chest.

No you don't buy the game to own it. You buy a license to own the disk and to use the game. That's why I only charge you 50 USD instead of 500 000. If you want to own my game, then you cough up... but if you're bent on only paying 50, I'm not going to give you more than the right to use it.

The plastic thing that is the DVD, sure, shove it up your crack for all I care. But the game, and the right to decide what happens with it and who gets to use it, remains mine. If you for some reason thought that your purchase was about owning my intellectual property, then you have deluded yourself. That was never the condition of the sale, just like the car rental was only the right to use the car... not to own it.

/S

 

[KSarty]

Nilcypher asked: "Is that theft?"

you asked: "Right or wrong?"

Two different questions.

That may be the case but trespassing isn't any less wrong than is theft.

I never argued that software piracy is theft. But I do feel that it is a violation of my rights as he owner of the software.

Thats a terrible example. When I go out and buy a video game, I'm not friggin renting it, I am buying it to own, at which point I can do whatever I damn well please with it.

You didn't pay attention to what I said. I didn't say it wasn't worth discussing, I said that you did not encourage discussion. You stated your view and just left it at that. You didn't ask for other people's opinions about the subject matter or your own opinions. You obviously just wanted to get it off your chest.

No you don't buy the game to own it. You buy a license to own the disk and to use the game. That's why I only charge you 50 USD instead of 500 000. If you want to own my game, then you cough up... but if you're bent on only paying 50, I'm not going to give you more than the right to use it.

The plastic thing that is the DVD, sure, shove it up your crack for all I care. But the game, and the right to decide what happens with it and who gets to use it, remains mine. If you for some reason thought that your purchase was about owning my intellectual property, then you have deluded yourself. That was never the condition of the sale, just like the car rental was only the right to use the car... not to own it.

/S

Again, you don't understand what I am saying. Obviously buying the disc does not buy me the rights to the intellectual property, but that disc and its contents now belong to me. If I want to make a copy of it and give it to my friend, than I should be allowed to. I would agree that making copies of it and selling them is and should be illegal, but not allowing me to even let people I know borrow the disc because they themselves haven't paid for the rights is down right ridiculous.

As recently expressed on Penny-Arcade, what if they did the same thing with books? Would it become required by law to avert your eyes from any book you yourself had not purchased yet? Or what about paintings, would you have to hide a painting you bought for fear or people seeing it without paying for the "right to use it"?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

As ever it seems to have turned into a 'drm' topic.

However, I think the original poster has the wrong view of most casual pirates.

A pirate is not going to download your work for free because they think you should not be paid, in fact I don't believe most of them even consider anything like that, they're doing it because it is easy and free, and to quickly be hypocritical, it doesnt help the cause when its far easier to install a pirated game than an original.

I really dont think the 'snot nosed kids' are thinking they have some right to rob you of your work, its just a case of 'I get £5 a week pocket money, I'm gonna spend it on cider.'

It's wrong, and I think something needs to be done, but I don't know what.

Anyway I'm guessing I'm saying that sure, hate them for stealing your work, but don't hate them for the other reasons, because the vast majority of pirates are not thinking it thru that far.

 

[blank0000]

well stated. I've noticed in a certain piracy person. That what they do often has nothing to do with personal preference. It's just a matter of being able to take something. and that my friends is theft. Plain criminal theft, no way around it. You could argue about how unfair the price is and how "The evillll cooperation don't want you to have the game" but at the end of the day, your just trying to rationalize your problem away.

Interesting fact!
-when so many copies of a game are pirated, it sends a message to the big old cooperation heads that the demand for their product is high. If they money their losing is "such a small percent that they don't realize it " then they are led to believe that they can raise the price because their software is an "elastic consumer good" with a higher demand "take an econ course"
so ironically, piracy is probably contributing to the growing of prices any-way

The more you know!

 

[NinjaDwarf]

I agree entirely OP. And as for Spore, there is no way anyone can say 'I pirated it because of DRM', DRM is only there because people pirated games in the first place. No-one pirated Spore to make a point against DRM, they pirated because they wanted to play it, and didn't want to pay.

EA not telling people about SecuROM , however, is entirely wrong, but that should be cleared up legally, so it shouldn't happen again.

 

[Sayvara]

So you didn't say piracy is bad because it can be equated to theft you just said you didn't like it because it violates property and ownership? I'd say my paraphrase wasn't totally inaccurate.

Your solutions are nice and I can get behind them, but I was making a point about the framing of the subject, not your solutions. I don't particularly like hearing repeated tales of woe as it is - and piracy is a doozy - but this one often leads to the kind of flawed logic that creates DRM. It wasn't so much about you as this incessant complaining about the problem rather than looking at the solution. You made a thread about how piracy sucks. It's an old subject and it's not a helpful one either.
It should also be said that cutting off my quote at where you did cuts out the reasoning behind the rhetorical question.

Well the inaccuracy of your paraphrazing in this particular case was important to me to point out since the argument "Piracy is theft" has been thrown around alot and isn't really accepted by the piracy advocates/defenders. The nuance is important here because the pirates argue that since piracy isn't theft in the regular sense then piracy is not wrong at all.

I'm countering that argument by the pirates by arguing that while piracy is not theft it is still wrong since it is trespassing and a violation of my rights anyway, namely my right to say what happens with my property which is the foundation of the principle that is Yours & Mine.

Further more this is not a defence of flawed anti-piracy measures. While some IP owners take it that far, I don't, which makes your argument a Strawman. What I did was to introduce another way of looking at the problem with piracy. If you don't want to hear it, then that's your own lookout. Part of the solution to the problem to piracy is to vent such views and let others see them because it may bring an understanding to as to why I and many others feel it's wrong.

/S

 

[neoman10]

But then you have to think of uni students/others who simply can't afford things like Photoshop or other software which cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
I myself am a student who had access to Photoshop legally until the computer left the house. I didn't do any major photo editing, just minor cropping or cloning. Now I cannot do these things as I only have a small amount of cash to spend on food and whatnot.

I am NOT saying that I pirate software or that i like it, I just understand why people do it.

I agree because for people who have no income you cant afford those kinds of things

 

[Saskwach]

I agree entirely OP. And as for Spore, there is no way anyone can say 'I pirated it because of DRM', DRM is only there because people pirated games in the first place. No-one pirated Spore to make a point against DRM, they pirated because they wanted to play it, and didn't want to pay.

EA not telling people about SecuROM , however, is entirely wrong, but that should be cleared up legally, so it shouldn't happen again.

Apparently there are fifteen [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.71518#727361] deluded or lying Escapists then. There are also thirty seven who simply didn't buy the game based on the DRM. Turning away those kinds of numbers in a failed attempt to protect your game from piracy is an overall loss in sales.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

I don't know, i'm inclined to agree with the OP... I mean, piracy ONLY hurts the little guys who don't have the money to come after you with a crack team of net thugs, internet savvy coders and lawyers. A giant like EA could soak the loss easy. Your not fighting the system, your helping the man.

 

[molesgallus]

I am not whining about anything. It's not a nonsensical blurb, its an answer to your question. I happen to be a very successful webmaster, earning a LOT of money. So I'm not exactly left, Im just a realist. Do you really think it's the poor guy's fault that their poor, and that anyone could be rich if they put the work in. If you do, then your an ignorant twat, clearly denying the facts of the matter. In a capitalist system the little guy gets fucked over, that's a fact. If everyone was rich it wouldn't be capitalism. Now, don't get me wrong, i think its great, im rich, fine by me. But i can see why, if your on minimum wage, you might pirate a game, and justify it with the argument that the publisher is ripping you off to start with. I don't condone it though, and if i found any of my website materials being copied, I'd hit the offender with the full force of the law.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Moneybags has a slight point I guess, but is this really an unreconcilable class war?

 

[KSarty]

I don't know, i'm inclined to agree with the OP... I mean, piracy ONLY hurts the little guys who don't have the money to come after you with a crack team of net thugs, internet savvy coders and lawyers. A giant like EA could soak the loss easy. Your not fighting the system, your helping the man.

Huh? Whether you think piracy is wrong or not this post makes no sense. Any developer that doesn't have enough money to afford lawyers, doesn't have enough money to make a video game. Those are the developers that have big publishers funding them, and its the publishers that will come after you. Also, forcing EA to soak up a loss is not "helping the man". In fact I don't see how pirating is helping the man at all. If it was, the government and all the big movie/record studios and video game publishers wouldn't be trying to stop it so desperately.

 

[Syphonz]

I have a mix breed Windows version. it has all the nice components and stability of XP Pro, and all the visuals and some of the nice features of Vista. It also passes the genuine Windows test. Would you consider this piracy?