Pirating/Piracy in internet language? First things first what is Pirating/Piracy in internet language? Well it refers to the act of sharing copyrightted material meant for profit, But we will take the use of the word "Material" Lightly.
Now usualy this is Games/Music/Video examples The Witcher 2/Glee second season soundtracks(Spot on)/ Thor in camcorder.
Piracy is considered Theft/Stealing in the eyes of the law! which we will also take Lightly in this case.
What could led men to commit such an atrocious act you may ask? to share/Partake the fruits of someone elses labour without even paying him as much as a mouse fart!
For some it started sharing Disks back in 1992 for others in 2002 one thing is for sure tho if you havent been playing games for 10+ years this discussion is not for you.
What if your 20-30 something studiying and you wanna play all the latest games that comes out more frequently then your wallet can afford? do you leave the hot plate of warm DeliCious Crysis 2 gameplay or do you make Four Clicks and get it for "Free"
Thoose Sinners that fail to resist this tempetion immediately flog themself fiften times with catclaws attached(Yiikess) and swear to never do this deed again it was just this once. Just like you said when you were a kid and mastrubated for the first time.
This is were to problems starts you have just "Stolen" a game from a gaming company dimishing their profits! or? But what if you would never buy it because you couldent afford it to begin with? Well you just took their Copyrighted material, But wait material ? did you physically take something from them i guess not that makes it all okay! but wait what if you could afford but were saving your money for that Starcraft 2 game where you would play the multiplayer!
Potential customers exit and enter So what did the Gaming companies lose from your horrid conspicious defilment of their copyrighted "Material" They Lose and gain potential consumers the few that would buy the game if it wasent for "Free" and gain the few that wouldent even buy it but in their moment of Righteousness decided to purchace the game (For Multiplayer or support it varies)
The Piracy mentality more commen then we think? to understand the process behind making money of a game we must understand that we are feeble minded creatures that buy the hype one way or another with few things to anchor us down to reality one of theese things are sources of game reviews such as Gamespot PCgamer IGN. And The absolute ultimate game Review is to play the game for yourself.
The state of the gaming industry Making a game is easier then ever making a "AAA" More expensive then ever gaming is growing and it dont show any sign of stopping. So you will find dishwasher companies investing money into making games but what do they know of making games you wonder?"Pause" .Exacly, Nothing! so what do we get when we infuse the gaming industry with exceding amounts of money with infestors "Cough soz" Investors demanding return on their money? You get shallow proven games MMO/FPS that all looks and feels the same in the same/Similiar settings!
The Samurai and Ronin What is the Bane of Shallow money infushed games which only interest is making profit? you guessed it Reviewers and Pirates anything that can turn potential customers(Victims) away from the dark alley alley were they strip you of both cash and hope. Reviewers and Pirating is a shackle for the gaming industry that holds them from crashing like in 1983 . what i wont tell you tho is which one is the Samurai and which is the Ronin.
The Witchhunt We like to hunt pirates and blame them for everything that happends thats wrong and say their supporting the gaming industry but this is only half a truth if anything they hurt the money suckling and grubbing part of the industry which is the most conceviable viewpoint many people are distorted to see. and in turn Strenghen/Empower the gamer with real choice of what he can play and not so what many people dont know is that their allowing the status quo to detoriate the gaming industry and weaken their own possition as consumer of the game!
Conclusion Piracy is theft by every legal term of the word. But when i disect "Sharing Copyrighted material" i ignore copyrigheted search for a physical refrence to material find none... and are left with Sharing. And Sharing folks is caring. And there is many things i cheerish more then monetary currency and its the currency of time which we all have a limited amount of and im not gonna spend it playing something i dont enjoy Pricetag or not.
Henrik Pedersen The Zeitgeist Movement contactinfo:DeliCiousTZM@Gmail.com
I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
Piracy is not stealing. Theft is a well defined legal term that does not apply to piracy. The legal term for piracy is copyright infringement.
You can argue that morally, piracy is just as bad as stealing, but you will never get convicted of stealing by downloading a game illegally and playing it.
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
What. Thats makes no sense. Piracy is not "when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything" lol. Piracy is when you have 2 milions cars, and someone steals on of the cars, and he doesnt give you the money for it and you still have ~ 2 milions cars, but you lost the profit ot the stolen car. imo
when i was younger i pirated because i had no money, so it kinda applies, but now i do have money and games are not worth it anymore imo, well most anyway.
I now use love film for all single player games/ multiplayer for console and only really play sc2 and LOL on pc, and the only game i will buy if bf3 this year and guildwars 2.
i heard they are trying to put more constraints on second hand consumers e.g second hand and rental services i wonder what they do
Why not just use the term for it? It doesn't make it less illegal... I have no idea why people want to put the tag "theft" on it. It's like trying to pin animal cruelty and manslaughter together, they don't fit.
They can't possibly say that theft is a worse crime so they want to bunch them together because the punishment for those actually convicted for piracy is so much worse than for those convicted of theft.
People for piracy use it as something to defend what they are doing, and those against use the term to incite that the pirates are doing something worse than what they actually are. Both sides are idiots, both sides should just drop the whole thing. Piracy is piracy nothing else.
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
How about - You are selling games, someone who was going to buy the game steals it, uploads it. 5000 people play it, 3000 people from that 5000 don't follow the game release scene so they couldn't buy the game, because they didn't know about it. Then they visit torrents and download this fresh game. 1500 from these 3000 will really like the game and buy it, the rest doesn't like the game and they won't buy it, but since they don't follow releases, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So, one guy "stole" your game, 2000 people pirated it (some of these could buy the game too, lets say 500), but 1500(+500) others bought it, which is kinda profitable.
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
What. Thats makes no sense. Piracy is not "when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything" lol. Piracy is when you have 2 milions cars, and someone steals on of the cars, and he doesnt give you the money for it and you still have ~ 2 milions cars, but you lost the profit ot the stolen car. imo
except I would of never bought the shitty american car to begin with and I was just curious.
Not having enough money to buy the product, or if the product isn't available in your area, are the only justifications I can accept for doing pirate stuff.
But honestly speaking, 95% of the pirates I have met do it because it's free (and they can drink their money or something similar).
It's simple: If you can't afford the games in any way, wait a few month until they are cheaper and buy them then. - No excuse for downloading.
If you could afford the games if you'd just stop smoking/spending your weekends partying/buying drugs (of any sort)... decide what you'd rather do, gaming or smoking/partying and spend your money on that instead of trying to have both by downloading the games - No excuse for downloading.
If you can afford the games you want, buy the games - No excuse for downloading.
If you want to know how good a game is, check the reviews of people/sites you trust, then decide if you skip the game or buy it. You might have to wait a week or two to get enough opinions, but is that really important? - No excuse for downloading.
I usually go with the "wait until the games are cheaper" approach, eventhough i could afford the games on release. If everyone would do that, the games companies would finally understand that the best copy protection is to be affordable to almost everyone.
I like how the magicka developers said it when TB asked them why they had no copy protection. The developer said something along the lines of "We have the best copy protection in the world - we only ask for 10€ so it's not that big of a loss for those that buy it if they don't like it. If there is less risk, more people will buy it. For those that still can't afford it... well, there is no way to stop them anyways without harming the paying customers."
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
How about - You are selling games, someone who was going to buy the game steals it, uploads it. 5000 people play it, 3000 people from that 5000 don't follow the game release scene so they couldn't buy the game, because they didn't know about it. Then they visit torrents and download this fresh game. 1500 from these 3000 will really like the game and buy it, the rest doesn't like the game and they won't buy it, but since they don't follow releases, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So, one guy "stole" your game, 2000 people pirated it (some of these could buy the game too, lets say 500), but 1500(+500) others bought it, which is kinda profitable.
How about games that only have single-player? RPG games..Oblivion, Sims 3, etc.....
p.s. if you're really using "it's not our fault because corporations are money grubbing bastards" or "yeah but most people buy the game after they pirate it" then get off your fake throne of morality and take a real hard look at yourself and your argument
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
How about - You are selling games, someone who was going to buy the game steals it, uploads it. 5000 people play it, 3000 people from that 5000 don't follow the game release scene so they couldn't buy the game, because they didn't know about it. Then they visit torrents and download this fresh game. 1500 from these 3000 will really like the game and buy it, the rest doesn't like the game and they won't buy it, but since they don't follow releases, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So, one guy "stole" your game, 2000 people pirated it (some of these could buy the game too, lets say 500), but 1500(+500) others bought it, which is kinda profitable.
How about games that only have single-player? RPG games..Oblivion, Sims 3, etc.....
I was assuming mostly Singleplayer games. I mean, who would pirate SC2 or battlefield..?
I'll pay for it if it pleases me. I never download games though. If it is not worth my money it is not worth me playing it.
Movies on the other hand. When they're been on tv or some payview channel it is in my opinion up for grasbs. Anyone with a recording device could have taped it. I just happen to have one of those 'tapes'.
On June 23 2011 21:14 Greentellon wrote: Not having enough money to buy the product, or if the product isn't available in your area, are the only justifications I can accept for doing pirate stuff.
But honestly speaking, 95% of the pirates I have met do it because it's free (and they can drink their money or something similar).
How can not having enough money a justification to commit a crime?
It is maybe more understandable if it was like basic necessity such as water or food but..come on..
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
What. Thats makes no sense. Piracy is not "when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything" lol. Piracy is when you have 2 milions cars, and someone steals on of the cars, and he doesnt give you the money for it and you still have ~ 2 milions cars, but you lost the profit ot the stolen car. imo
What he's trying to say is that if you pirate a game, you are not reducing the available copies of the game. It's not like he went into Wal-Mart or Gamestop and snatched a copy from the stock room. The giant argument is should approximate amount of pirated copies be considered loss? If someone was not going to buy the game anyway due to poor reviews or general disinterest or just lack of disposable funds, do you actually count this as profit loss? What if someone pirates a game with poor reviews, but ends up loving it? In this day and age of social media and one button ad sharing, it could be said that the pirate is helping certain games thrive.
On June 23 2011 20:58 StarcraftXTZM wrote: swear to never do this deed again it was just this once. Just like you said when you were a kid and mastrubated for the first time.
I'll have you know it was the complete opposite. Must have bust one out about 5 times that day. Greatest discovery ever.
Spoilered since it's quite large, but the image nicely sums up how I feel about piracy. + Show Spoiler +
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
How about - You are selling games, someone who was going to buy the game steals it, uploads it. 5000 people play it, 3000 people from that 5000 don't follow the game release scene so they couldn't buy the game, because they didn't know about it. Then they visit torrents and download this fresh game. 1500 from these 3000 will really like the game and buy it, the rest doesn't like the game and they won't buy it, but since they don't follow releases, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So, one guy "stole" your game, 2000 people pirated it (some of these could buy the game too, lets say 500), but 1500(+500) others bought it, which is kinda profitable.
I love this world that supposedly exists where people regularly pirate and then legally buy a game. I would never do that and never have, it is a waste of money, I already have a copy of the game illegally, why would I need another one?
I'd love to think that piracy doesn't hurt companies, but cmon, you people can't seriously believe that companies are better off without trying to stop piracy.
On June 23 2011 21:14 Greentellon wrote: Not having enough money to buy the product, or if the product isn't available in your area, are the only justifications I can accept for doing pirate stuff.
But honestly speaking, 95% of the pirates I have met do it because it's free (and they can drink their money or something similar).
How can not having enough money a justification to commit a crime?
It is maybe more understandable if it was like basic necessity such as water or food but..come on..
What makes something a crime ? General consensus in my opninion. These days most people have at one point or another downloaded some music sonic at the least. Laws are nice, but if the general consensus is to ignore a law it has little value.
On June 23 2011 21:14 Greentellon wrote: Not having enough money to buy the product, or if the product isn't available in your area, are the only justifications I can accept for doing pirate stuff.
But honestly speaking, 95% of the pirates I have met do it because it's free (and they can drink their money or something similar).
How can not having enough money a justification to commit a crime?
It is maybe more understandable if it was like basic necessity such as water or food but..come on..
Software can be copied without any loss to the original copy. But doing so illegally means the original sellers don't get the money they would have gotten if the person had bought it. But if the person didn't have the money to buy the product in the first place, or he couldn't for some reason, then the seller didn't lose that profit either.
This is such a nice excuse to tell but honestly it's very rare that you really couldn't afford it. I mean come on, almost every person out there wastes money on things.
But as you can see, this applies to software only.
On June 23 2011 21:18 TheFrankOne wrote: I love this world that supposedly exists where people regularly pirate and then legally buy a game. I would never do that and never have, it is a waste of money, I already have a copy of the game illegally, why would I need another one?
I'd love to think that piracy doesn't hurt companies, but cmon, you people can't seriously believe that companies are better off without trying to stop piracy.
Only recently I went through steam and got myself legit copies of game's I'd pirated in the past and actually enjoyed. However rare it might be, we do exist.
And just look at the feedback for Deus Ex: HR since the leaked build hit the torrent sites. Before the leak, this game was widely expected to be a fail and an insult to the original. I wasn't even going to get it. It looked horrible. I felt insulted.
But I took a play through of this build, essentially just a demo. And my word, I, and many others really enjoyed it and re-added my pre-order. Why? Because they've made an amazing game and many people want to show support for developers who do so. If it hadnt been for pirating this early release, I would have covered my eyes, ears and screamed viral pretending the game didn't exist.
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
Software developers dont give you consent to download their products, thus its theft.
Yes, they lose money because people download software, no not 100% of the people that downloaded it would have purchased the product, but there are people that would have.
On June 23 2011 21:18 TheFrankOne wrote: I love this world that supposedly exists where people regularly pirate and then legally buy a game. I would never do that and never have, it is a waste of money, I already have a copy of the game illegally, why would I need another one?
I'd love to think that piracy doesn't hurt companies, but cmon, you people can't seriously believe that companies are better off without trying to stop piracy.
Only recently I went through steam and got myself legit copies of game's I'd pirated in the past and actually enjoyed. However rare it might be, we do exist.
I think the problem is that it is rare not whether such type of people exist or not.
I don't understand the concept of I want this but can't afford it. I wouldn't have bought it anyways so therefore I deserve to get it for free. If were arguing terms here that is entitlement.
Considering your strange ramblings, this quick explanation of property won't likely do much for you. But here goes the old college try.
Property as we legally define it is merely a bundle of rights over an object. These rights include: 1) Exclusion 2) Alienation (right to sell) 3) Possession 4) Right of use
Stealing is defined as any action which deprives a property owner of at least one of their rights over the object. What confuses people in the case of piracy and stealing is that stealing, as we usually experience it, takes the right of possession or the right of use from the original owner. Piracy however, only takes the right of exclusion away from the owner. All other rights are maintained.
This is still stealing however, since property rights over the object have been violated.
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
Argoneus, you are confusing two separate things. As for your first example Stealing is indeed when someone takes your car. They are violating all four of your typical property rights over the object.
But your second example is talking about "lost profits", which has nothing to do with stealing. Lost profits would be how much damage the theft did, but it has nothing to do with whether your property rights were violated.
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
Software developers dont give you consent to download their products, thus its theft.
Yes, they lose money because people download software, no not 100% of the people that downloaded it would have purchased the product, but there are people that would have.
I agree. It does not matter if torrent results in net profit or net loss. The problem is that you are
using someone's intellectual property without paying or getting consent from the developers for the
On June 23 2011 21:18 TheFrankOne wrote: I love this world that supposedly exists where people regularly pirate and then legally buy a game. I would never do that and never have, it is a waste of money, I already have a copy of the game illegally, why would I need another one?
I'd love to think that piracy doesn't hurt companies, but cmon, you people can't seriously believe that companies are better off without trying to stop piracy.
Only recently I went through steam and got myself legit copies of game's I'd pirated in the past and actually enjoyed. However rare it might be, we do exist.
I think the problem is that it is rare not whether such type of people exist or not.
Buying games through steam you enjoyed in the past is not as good for the developers financial statements and profit margins as buying them new. Unless 'the past' is a few months, not years as I assume. I have also done that, because I no longer had the pirated copy and it was like $5 for a new one, not $50.
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
How about - You are selling games, someone who was going to buy the game steals it, uploads it. 5000 people play it, 3000 people from that 5000 don't follow the game release scene so they couldn't buy the game, because they didn't know about it. Then they visit torrents and download this fresh game. 1500 from these 3000 will really like the game and buy it, the rest doesn't like the game and they won't buy it, but since they don't follow releases, they wouldn't have bought it anyway. So, one guy "stole" your game, 2000 people pirated it (some of these could buy the game too, lets say 500), but 1500(+500) others bought it, which is kinda profitable.
I love this world that supposedly exists where people regularly pirate and then legally buy a game. I would never do that and never have, it is a waste of money, I already have a copy of the game illegally, why would I need another one?
I'd love to think that piracy doesn't hurt companies, but cmon, you people can't seriously believe that companies are better off without trying to stop piracy.
Because often times the pirated version might have stability issues or not be able to be played online. I know I've bought games that I had pirated previously, mostly because I said to myself, I would have bought that game had it been impossible for me to get for free. Morally, I can sleep just fine pirating something I'd have no intention of buying, but if I buy something I would have bought without pirating I don't have that on my conscious.
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
How about creating a copy of someone else's property? If your real world property analog applies to software too, wouldn't making copies be legal, because I can craft my own copy of neighbors wooden chair?
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
Software developers dont give you consent to download their products, thus its theft.
No. You are not "taking" it, you are making a copy. It is not theft. It's copyright infringement. Edit(just read BobbyT's post): (If theft really is defined in terms of those 4 rights) Isn't the right of exclusion only violated by the person who copied the original? When this person uploads it, he gives permission to download his copy. Other downloaders are not violating the original owner's right of exclusion.
In my opinion it doesn't matter what you call it, in my eyes piracy is the equivalent of stealing thus I consider it illegal. Which is why I intend to buy every movie, series and song which I can remember downloading. It's not going to fix it or anything, but I intend to make up for myself in principle at the very least.
The only thing which makes me ambivalent is that without piracy the market would probably not have offers such as Spotify and the likes, so in a sense piracy forces the market to please the customer - which I think is a good thing. Nevertheless, even if I do it myself I'm not going to be so delusional as to call it anything but theft.
On June 23 2011 21:22 Slaytilost wrote: As wikipedia defines theft:
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
How about creating a copy of someone else's property? If your real world property analog applies to software too, wouldn't making copies be legal, because I can craft my own copy of neighbors wooden chair?
You can indeed go to a store, buy some wood and recreate the chair. I dont see how that is theft, i didnt take anything from Ikea. It could be considered plagiarism though.
Only games I've ever pirated were for SNES emulator, not sure if thats even considered pirating seeing that it's been years since those games were actually sold somewhere...
Personally I usually wait till the prices come down, last game I bought as full price was SC2. Consoles are even worse in this case, it's utter BS to expect people pay 70€ for 8 hours single player experience.
I don't really understand where the prices for video games come from seeing how much more expensive they are than going to cinema/buying DVD. I do understand that video games provide more content for the cost but surely the production values on big Hollywood movies are higher than your average video game?
I took a Entertainment Industry course a while back and obviously this has been a big deal now for over a decade. (The class I was in focused on music but it can be applied to all here)
So what exactly has the piracy trend done to the entertainment industry really?
1. Made the worth of intellectual property virtually zero 2. Made the cost of distribution virtually zero
The change of piracy did reshape and is still reshaping entertainment, but not exactly destroying it. This is a market economy, if people want music it will still be made. So to make the change make more sense let's break down how most movies and games and albums are made:
1. The cost to create a piece comes tot he creators in the form of an advance from the record label or studio to cover the cost of studio time and such 2. Artists usually do not see a dime of sales on their products until it has paid for itself. In movies this happens when the movie breaks even, most of the time in music this never happens and the artists usually ends up owing money to their label. 3. The label's role is essentially to put up the money for the asset and covers the cost of distribution (printing millions of CDs isnt free)
The advent of online piracy like I mentioned earlier has made the cost of distribution virtually nothing, meaning that one major role of labels is gone. With the internet as it is, artists no longer need a label to get their product to the ears of the masses.
What a few people in the industry are thinking (those who don't work for a label anyway) is that this shift will be both the death of the record label and the album as we know it. What we are likely to see as the future of musicians anyway is a change from albums to songs since the overhead of a record or CD is gone now, artists will just release a new song every few months as they write them. Then, after marketing online and giving their music away, the artists will make their money they way they have historically always have, touring and selling merchandise.
This is happening to a certain extent in other fields. Depending on how it works, Kevin Smith is marketing his own movie that comes out in November by self promotion and no straight up advertising like commercials. Movies seem safer in a way as people still will pay for movie tickets int heaters, but things like DvD sales might be a thing of the past with only only online mediums like netflix or pirated films being the result. i.e. people will write off DVD sales as a source of cash (I don't recall it being a big source anyway). So companies like Paramount or Alliance will still exist for movies as movies will always require a much higher overhead than say an album and so these companies will exist more like movie investors and overall movies will be made a little cheaper (distribution costs not production costs)
Games are actually different, they have not been shrinking in sales. Most games are designed with anti-piracy measures that are pretty solid (Battle.net) or are console exclusive and actually Video Games at least in 2007 when I took the class were the fastest growing field in the entertainment industry.
Okay this is getting out of hand. Look guys, when you "buy" a software, YOU DO NOT OWN ANYTHING FROM THE SOFTWARE. The owners of the software is and always will be (unless stated otherwise) the people who produced the product. What you are doing is not theft, it's piracy.
Basically, people are buying the right <LICENCE> to use the software (thus you must abide their ToS, you do not own anything, you are using a mere license). So by pirating, you are falsely using a product you do not have a licence for. It's not yours, there is no ownership thus not a theft.
What you are doing is, by analogy, trying to go on amusement ride without a ticket. At no point you own the amusement ride and the person who owns the amusement ride won't lose anything or much however you can see how this is morally wrong and number of issues that may arise from large number of people doing so. Now an amusement ride could be $10~20 but what we have here is $50~70 price tag.
What's the conclusion, you may ask? It is not theft as there is no ownership of some sort. Is it as bad as theft? -> Almost but not as bad as theft, but pretty damn close.
If gaming companies didn't make it so hard on gamers that actually buy the game. - You have to keep your cd in your drive - Ridiculous drm systems - Digital sales sucks compared to torrents (besides steam maybe) - Poor support
So all in all, there is no adventage of buying over pirating. If companies made buying more atractive by addings game books posters and what not, maybe people would start buying again.
I think that companies shouldn't put all their money in preventing piracy. They should put that money into adding value to the product for example by adding online services, addings special goodies and so on.
Off course piracy is 'stealing', ur playing a game ur supposed to pay money for. But yeh.. I do it myself too only for singleplayer games like Assasins creed and stuff.
I know it's wrong but I really don't care too much about it, it's not like I would have bought any of the games I downloaded if downloading wasn't an option lol
Computers have obliterated scarcity of music, games, and other content. Some people who make their living in the content market are unable to mentally cope with that change. Like the Luddites, their old ways are doomed.
Accept the ease of copying because it will never go away. Find a new way to make money.
The OP is clearly showing a very strong bias towards defending piracy.
"Thoose Sinners that fail to resist this tempetion immediately flog themself fiften times with catclaws attached(Yiikess) and swear to never do this deed again it was just this once"
In this case you are acting like people who don't hack are masochists or something incredibly extreme as if that helps prove your point that people who pirate stuff are the real good guys. Instead of debating the character of people who pirate or who don't, please focus more on the actual act of piracy instead of writing distracting exaggerations.
On towards answering the question of Piracy being theft. First, the law doesn't matter because morals come before laws, and are "generally" (arguable ) the basis from which laws are formed.
Do I consider it immoral to take something from someone and act like I didn't steal something from them? Yes.
OP is suggesting that piracy actually takes nothing away from businesses, because all piraters are incapable of buying "expensive" games and would not have normally bought the game anyways. First, I contend that if there was no way to pirate games, some (not all) people who usually would pirate in most situations will pay for games that they wish to possess.
More importantly however, and where your argument fails, is the issue where they share it with their friends. Yes, you can again assume the lofty position that NO ONE CAN AFFORD ANY VIDEO GAME EVER AT ANY POINT IN HISTORY but you don't know if these friends can afford the game or not. Maybe they were planning to buy the game, but then their friends pirated the game for them so they didn't need to. Those are customers that you took away from a business by stealing the company's product.
Assume you aren't posting this from Communist China, we have this thing called property rights which basically means if you make something, it's yours and you have the right to do with it what you want. This means a product that a company makes is the company's, and it is not YOURS to do with what you want. If six people come in to your house and start eating food at the table that you bought in the house that you own and then try and convince you that everything's nice and fair because sharing is caring, it is still your house and your table before it is their house and their table, so you have the right to kick these strangers out.
Also, protip: If something is too expensive, how bought you either A. don't buy it, or B. work hard and save enough money to buy it. Herp derp.
On June 23 2011 20:58 StarcraftXTZM wrote: Pirating/Piracy in internet language? First things first what is Pirating/Piracy in internet language? Well it refers to the act of sharing copyrightted material meant for profit, But we will take the use of the word "Material" Lightly.
Now usualy this is Games/Music/Video examples The Witcher 2/Glee second season soundtracks(Spot on)/ Thor in camcorder.
Piracy is considered Theft/Stealing in the eyes of the law! which we will also take Lightly in this case.
What could led men to commit such an atrocious act you may ask? to share/Partake the fruits of someone elses labour without even paying him as much as a mouse fart!
For some it started sharing Disks back in 1992 for others in 2002 one thing is for sure tho if you havent been playing games for 10+ years this discussion is not for you.
What if your 20-30 something studiying and you wanna play all the latest games that comes out more frequently then your wallet can afford? do you leave the hot plate of warm DeliCious Crysis 2 gameplay or do you make Four Clicks and get it for "Free"
Thoose Sinners that fail to resist this tempetion immediately flog themself fiften times with catclaws attached(Yiikess) and swear to never do this deed again it was just this once. Just like you said when you were a kid and mastrubated for the first time.
This is were to problems starts you have just "Stolen" a game from a gaming company dimishing their profits! or? But what if you would never buy it because you couldent afford it to begin with? Well you just took their Copyrighted material, But wait material ? did you physically take something from them i guess not that makes it all okay! but wait what if you could afford but were saving your money for that Starcraft 2 game where you would play the multiplayer!
Potential customers exit and enter So what did the Gaming companies lose from your horrid conspicious defilment of their copyrighted "Material" They Lose and gain potential consumers the few that would buy the game if it wasent for "Free" and gain the few that wouldent even buy it but in their moment of Righteousness decided to purchace the game (For Multiplayer or support it varies)
The Piracy mentality more commen then we think? to understand the process behind making money of a game we must understand that we are feeble minded creatures that buy the hype one way or another with few things to anchor us down to reality one of theese things are sources of game reviews such as Gamespot PCgamer IGN. And The absolute ultimate game Review is to play the game for yourself.
The state of the gaming industry Making a game is easier then ever making a "AAA" More expensive then ever gaming is growing and it dont show any sign of stopping. So you will find dishwasher companies investing money into making games but what do they know of making games you wonder?"Pause" .Exacly, Nothing! so what do we get when we infuse the gaming industry with exceding amounts of money with infestors "Cough soz" Investors demanding return on their money? You get shallow proven games MMO/FPS that all looks and feels the same in the same/Similiar settings!
The Samurai and Ronin What is the Bane of Shallow money infushed games which only interest is making profit? you guessed it Reviewers and Pirates anything that can turn potential customers(Victims) away from the dark alley alley were they strip you of both cash and hope. Reviewers and Pirating is a shackle for the gaming industry that holds them from crashing like in 1983 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvHcYe2sQ-I. what i wont tell you tho is which one is the Samurai and which is the Ronin.
The Witchhunt We like to hunt pirates and blame them for everything that happends thats wrong and say their supporting the gaming industry but this is only half a truth if anything they hurt the money suckling and grubbing part of the industry which is the most conceviable viewpoint many people are distorted to see. and in turn Strenghen/Empower the gamer with real choice of what he can play and not so what many people dont know is that their allowing the status quo to detoriate the gaming industry and weaken their own possition as consumer of the game!
Conclusion Piracy is theft by every legal term of the word. But when i disect "Sharing Copyrighted material" i ignore copyrigheted search for a physical refrence to material find none... and are left with Sharing. And Sharing folks is caring. And there is many things i cheerish more then monetary currency and its the currency of time which we all have a limited amount of and im not gonna spend it playing something i dont enjoy Pricetag or not.
Henrik Pedersen The Zeitgeist Movement contactinfo:DeliCiousTZM@Gmail.com
You seem not to know what is intellectual property, now do you? You don't have to steal a game box from the shop in order to steal it. Making illegal copies is violating the copyright and EULA. Buying/downloading/getting an illegal copy of a game isjust aquiring it in an illegal way without paying for it. That is a theft.
It's stealing. It's a crime, it's immoral, unjustifiable, but it still makes sense. Problem is, with the way copyright laws are currently enforced for the majority of consumers it's worth the risk. The generation growing up today does not want to watch tv at 7pm every monday to catch the new episode of House. They do not want to wait 6 months and then drive to the store to watch a mediocre movie. And most people will download a game with no DRM multiplayer mandatory component because in their eyes its logical and economical to get it for free. For most people, the benefits of downloaded copyrighted content outweighs the possible risks. It's a logical choice to make. I believe governments and corporations are going about it the right way, going after the providers. The people who actually rip this content and put it online for the average person to get a hold of. The problem is, these big name players have been doing it for so long they're probably quite hard to catch. Copyright infringement is so widespread it does not make sense to punish the odd man out every now and then. And it's hard because if you cant prove a specific person downloaded it you now have an expensive trial under your hands. A system like battle.net works for a company like blizzard. Blizzard makes great content, and they stand behind that content for long periods of time. Other companies like the developers of assassin's creed, the makers of the next call of duty, or the entirety of EA are only interested in the bottom line. They clone a game and release it with a new bandaid and an amputated arm every 6 months. A system like battle.net 2.0 would not work for these companies. Kinda went offtopic but what I'm trying to say is that as long as developers continue to disregard the fundamentals of PC gaming there is going to be widespread copyright infringement of their products. Games that have flourished on the PC platform have largely been multiplayer oriented games, sticking online DRM on a single player game pisses alot of people off, but these are people who would have downloaded it for free anyways. So it's a very sticky situation.
But imo there needs to be a shift in the way mainstream media (tv and movies) are presented to viewers. People are wanting to watch their favorite tv shows or movies when ever they have the time too. Hence, there is alot of piracy of movies and now tv shows. Something has to be done about copyright infringement, but I feel the entire system has to be reworked for that to happen --- and media has progressed the same way it is now for half a century. Charging $30 for a blu-ray of a movie you're going to watch once is ridiculous, same with charging $20 for an album with 5 new songs and 10 from the previous album.
On June 23 2011 21:34 Vaelone wrote: Only games I've ever pirated were for SNES emulator, not sure if thats even considered pirating seeing that it's been years since those games were actually sold somewhere...
Personally I usually wait till the prices come down, last game I bought as full price was SC2. Consoles are even worse in this case, it's utter BS to expect people pay 70€ for 8 hours single player experience.
I don't really understand where the prices for video games come from seeing how much more expensive they are than going to cinema/buying DVD. I do understand that video games provide more content for the cost but surely the production values on big Hollywood movies are higher than your average video game?
Console Games are the worst offenders with Prices. I don't know if it changed by now, but seeing Playstation 1 games for the same price they had at release even 3 years later would have made me angry if the only console i owned wouldn't have been the SNES.
The price difference between games and movies can be defended by assuming that the customer base for movies is a lot higher and movies have a lot more product placement (Ad revenue). I still think games are too expensive and would be bought more and pirated less if they would be cheaper.
Meh, I still look at it as demoing shit out before I potentially waste money on something that could be bad.
I played Mass Effect last year, ended up pirating it because I heard about the horrible DRM it comes with. It was ok. Then I heard about Mass Effect 2, and how they not only improved upon the first one alot but they also got rid of the DRM bullshit from the first one. Ended up buying it.
There was also Super Meat Boy as well. Ended up not buying it because the keyboard controls are shitty. Ended up pirating it and using a third-party software so I could play it on the PC using my PS3 controller. Checked out their website where the two guys who developed it answer questions and shit on their blog and they were a bunch of fucking douches, so I am glad I never gave them my money ~_~
That and I have a bunch of emulators/ROMS on my computer, but most of the systems I have emulators for I used to own myself, as well as the games. For old-school systems, emulators are simply more convenient. If you buy any of those systems nowadays anyways, you will be giving your money to some used game retailer or some shit, it won't even be going to it's parent company, no loss for them.
Don't really care myself if some people think it is stealing or not, I don't see myself stopping it anytime soon, simply too convenient for me nowadays.
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
What. Thats makes no sense. Piracy is not "when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything" lol. Piracy is when you have 2 milions cars, and someone steals on of the cars, and he doesnt give you the money for it and you still have ~ 2 milions cars, but you lost the profit ot the stolen car. imo
not really, it is excactly like he said. Actually even a better analogy would be to say that you take a picture of a car then print it out and drive it. Did you steal anything? No. Did anyone lose anything at all? No. The car company however did not earn the money that you wouldve spent IF you had decided that you wanted to buy the car.
On June 23 2011 21:08 Centorian wrote: Piracy is theft. The car analogy is bad.
A better one:
You are selling games. Someone who was potentially going to buy your game steals it instead. After this starts happening more often then you sell it suddenly you aren't making money and go out of business. No more games.
Don't be a fuck head.
pay for your shit.
This is a bad analogy as well. You have no basis to say the pirate was going to buy the game in the first place.
That said, it's still piracy, not theft, and piracy is a crime. You're taking something without paying for it all. Pretty simple concept. It doesn't matter what kind of bullshit excuses you come up with, you are taking someone's intellectual property without first paying for it. There's definitely room to argue about the overall morality of piracy and if it hurts or helps sales of a game, but the fact remains that you are taking something you didn't pay for.
You can indeed go to a store, buy some wood and recreate the chair. I dont see how that is theft, i didnt take anything from Ikea. It could be considered plagiarism though.
That would take resources, whereas pirating takes absolutely none. The better analogy would be if you bought SC2 and then went home and copied it by manually programming and creating the entire game yourself using it as an example.
On June 23 2011 21:00 Argoneus wrote: I don't like when people call piracy "stealing". Stealing is, when someone steals your car and its not there the next day. Piracy is, when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything. If I was to pirate a game, chances are I wouldn't buy it anyway, so I don't think people lose profit because of that.
What. Thats makes no sense. Piracy is not "when someone takes your car, but you still have the car, so you haven't lost anything" lol. Piracy is when you have 2 milions cars, and someone steals on of the cars, and he doesnt give you the money for it and you still have ~ 2 milions cars, but you lost the profit ot the stolen car. imo
not really, it is excactly like he said. Actually even a better analogy would be to say that you take a picture of a car then print it out and drive it. Did you steal anything? No. Did anyone lose anything at all? No. The car company however did not earn the money that you wouldve spent IF you had decided that you wanted to buy the car.
The correct analogy is:
A games company is spending a lot of money on developing a game. You download the game and don't give them money. The programmers starve and die the next winter because they didn't have money to pay rent.
On June 23 2011 21:12 Qzy wrote: You would never download a car
I would if i could...
But i buy the games i love, sc2+all its expansions for example , i have few more original games, but i mostly play ET(freeware i think) and sc2. So all legit here.
If I have no money for buying both game X and Y. I pirate game X and buy game Y. The company that made game X does not lose any money, nor do they lose potential profit since I wouldn't buy game X anyway.
I see nothing wrong with this.
The problem arises when you do have the money for both game X and Y and you pirate one or both. That is piracy.
As someone who makes computer games for a living ( you know, to eat and have a place to live and so on ).
Please stop stealing the things I make.
As endearing as I find your semantic gymnastics to inform me that I am not losing anything, and the wonderful way i am told I should be grateful for the free exposure that piracy gives me, I would much rather pass up both opportunities and simply say:
On June 23 2011 21:52 Thorakh wrote: If I have no money for buying both game X and Y. I pirate game X and buy game Y. The company that made game X does not lose any money, nor do they lose potential profit since I wouldn't buy game X anyway.
I see nothing wrong with this.
The problem arises when you do have the money for both game X and Y and you pirate one or both. That is piracy.
Sure the company may not lose any profit or whatever...but you are still
using a product that is not yours and have not paid for the access or permission to use it.
Also, have you thought about the money they spent to make that product?
On June 23 2011 21:55 Rossweazel wrote: As someone who makes computer games for a living ( you know, to eat and have a place to live and so on ).
Please stop stealing the things I make.
As endearing as I find your semantic gymnastics to inform me that I am not losing anything, and the wonderful way i am told I should be grateful for the free exposure that piracy gives me, I would much rather pass up both opportunities and simply say:
On June 23 2011 21:52 Thorakh wrote: If I have no money for buying both game X and Y. I pirate game X and buy game Y. The company that made game X does not lose any money, nor do they lose potential profit since I wouldn't buy game X anyway.
I see nothing wrong with this.
The problem arises when you do have the money for both game X and Y and you pirate one or both. That is piracy.
Sure the company may not lose any profit or whatever...but you are still
using a product that is not yours and have not paid for the access or permission to use it.
Also, have you thought about the money they spent to make that product?
If the company does not lose any form of profit, be it potential or real, no one is harmed when I pirate game X. No one loses anything and I gain something. Nothing wrong with that.
Digital data is umlimited. The company does not suddenly have 1 copy of game X less.
But as I said, if you would have bought the game if you wouldn't have pirated it, then you're committing a crime.
Thats like riding the train without a ticket, and when you get busted saying you didnt deserve the ticket because you wouldnt have used the train if you had to buy one.
On June 23 2011 21:52 Thorakh wrote: If I have no money for buying both game X and Y. I pirate game X and buy game Y. The company that made game X does not lose any money, nor do they lose potential profit since I wouldn't buy game X anyway.
I see nothing wrong with this.
The problem arises when you do have the money for both game X and Y and you pirate one or both. That is piracy.
What about buying game Y, wait until you have the money to buy game X or game X gets cheaper and then buy game X?
Not having the money is no excuse for downloading games. If you don't have the money to buy it, why do you _have to_ get the game _now_? Why not wait until next month and buy it then?
There is also the stipulation that a lot of these things were overpriced due to overhead costs and that piracy is a reaction to the fact that digital distribution makes things cost much more like it is worth. Hence the fact that the iTunes store is insanely popular right now.
Everyone who is saying that piracy is not stealing has never ever tried to make and sell a game. Don't argue about this topic with random teenagers on internet. Just don't.
If pirating is illegal then so should be scanning pages off of a book at a library to print out for use... oh wait. Lets also get rid of cameras taking pictures of the Mona Lisa/ other paintings, since that's stealing what the art piece looks like.
Its a funny topic to look at, some gaming companies now apply bonus map packs/ add-ons to download for money for their video games, which prevents piracy a bit, however it hurts the valued honest customer who doesn't pirate anything at all, making them all mad, etc etc.
If you support a game/ company/ people/ organization/ etc, spend money to buy their product to show your true support for them to further their goals and objectives.
On June 23 2011 22:07 Dariusz wrote: Everyone who is saying that piracy is not stealing has never ever tried to make and sell a game. Don't argue about this topic with random teenagers on internet. Just don't.
Ok so lets be pragmatic. So it is theft, what are you going to do? Make more and more copy protection that pisses off your customer base and makes your software more annoying to use? Hope that the entire world all decides to gain a conscience all at once and all of a sudden start buying what is free? What is it you are suggesting here besides wagging your finger at people?
What we need to do is face up that intellectual property beams precisely null in a world where something like the internet exists and move on. What does that mean for the little game developers that could? Let me direct you to the XBox arcade and Steam.
People still pirate games? I havent done that for like 4years or something. The big problem is that there are so few games worth buying and you feel ripped off almost everytime you pay for a game nowadays. Like you buy a game in the NFS-series and think yay, lets drive some cool cars on cool roads. Well you cant. First you have to spend about 24hours of gametime to do some broken annoying careermode with catchup before you can start playing the game. I honestly think bad games are hurting the industry more than pirates. Just look att the sucess of minecraft.
There is nothing in depth about this OP at all, and stop plugging your crap. Your post is far more fickle than most IP discussions people start on this site and given how often you have plugged your different websites, I'm going to say no.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/2136/piratek.png)
) the basis from which laws are formed.![[image loading]](http://media.moronail.net/images/stories/dg_pictures/1007/73E38B66DC23-1.png)
, i have few more original games, but i mostly play ET(freeware i think) and sc2. So all legit here.
