Yet another Piracy: Good or Bad? discussion

[Sigourn]

1. Piracy allows people to "try before they buy".

Against the intention of the developers, who made the product.

2. Piracy allows people to dodge some of the crap enforced by the publisher (and it often has nothing to do with the software itself).

Against the intention of the publishers, who publish the product.

3. Piracy allows disenfranchised people to stay in the loop, culturally speaking.

Say what?

You may not think much about any of these points, but there are people out there to whom these can be important.

It doesn't make piracy any less wrong. They are just different reasons as to why they engage in piracy. But piracy is ultimately wrong.

 

[Sigourn]

You need a reason to declare it wrong. Law is obviously bullshit. You gave 'respect their wishes' but that's bullshit too. Everyone has wishes and most are stupid and selfish.

I already have but you bring up the museum argument (which makes no sense) and someone else brought up the "steal from a merchant" argument (which also makes no sense).

 

[Mustawd]

I’ve always held that piracy is illegal and equal to stealing. I also think it hurts sales.

interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright: '[...] an infringer of the copyright.'

— SCOTUS majority opinion, Dowling v. United States

Copyright infringement(AKA 'piracy') for non-commercial purposes is not a crime in USA, it is at best a civil offense depending on the circumstances.

MGM v Grokster (2005)

No one disputes that “reward to the author or artist serves to induce release to the public of the products of his creative genius.” United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U. S. 131, 158 (1948). And deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8647956476676426155

 

[unfairlight]

Say what?

Are you low IQ? Where do you think the creators of "Who Killed Captain Alex?", a Ugandan action movie made with pirated Windows Movie Maker and recycled computers got their inspiration from? 80s Hollywood action movies, most probably pirated in the few places that got stable internet connections and then bootlegged on to DVD and watched communally in the few TVs the slums had.
If there was no piracy at all, there would be a lot less people playing games (and indeed, buying games) in the world. If there was no piracy, I would have never played Counter Strike 1.6 back in mid-2000s and I would have never bought all the Counter Strike games on Steam either 10 years later. There are probably at least a million Eastern Europeans just like me who started playing CS 1.6 in the 2000s on pirated copies and bought CS:GO on legitimate copies down the line when they grew up and got their own money or managed to get easy access to purchasing these games legitimately via Steam, since no such access was there during the 2000s.
Nowadays the excuse of having no access isn't really valid in most of the world (although it still is in some, such as remote locations in India), but students and kids still pirate games and will turn into legitimate paying customers later when they get more money or jobs out of nostalgia for the games and series they had pirated.

 

[Sigourn]

Say what?

Are you low IQ? Where do you think the creators of "Who Killed Captain Alex?", a Ugandan action movie made with pirated Windows Movie Maker and recycled computers got their inspiration from? 80s Hollywood action movies, most probably pirated in the few places that got stable internet connections and then bootlegged on to DVD and watched communally in the few TVs the slums had.
If there was no piracy at all, there would be a lot less people playing games (and indeed, buying games) in the world. If there was no piracy, I would have never played Counter Strike 1.6 back in mid-2000s and I would have never bought all the Counter Strike games on Steam either 10 years later. There are probably at least a million Eastern Europeans just like me who started playing CS 1.6 in the 2000s on pirated copies and bought CS:GO on legitimate copies down the line when they grew up and got their own money or managed to get easy access to purchasing these games legitimately via Steam, since no such access was there during the 2000s.
Nowadays the excuse of having no access isn't really valid in most of the world (although it still is in some, such as remote locations in India), but students and kids still pirate games and will turn into legitimate paying customers later when they get more money or jobs out of nostalgia for the games and series they had pirated.

Good. It's still illegal and thus wrong.

From a moral point of view: no, you are not entitled to games just because you are poor, sorry.

 

[unfairlight]

Illegal is dubious. In much of the world copying copyrighted works via the internet is unregulated or even legal. To my knowledge it's actually legal to download here for personal usage, it is only illegal to upload. Via torrenting you can do both at the same time, of course.

 

[Sigourn]

Illegal is dubious.

It's true. Forgetting about the law for a second, what makes you think you are entitled to a product you aren't paying for? I'm not asking "why do you pirate?", because that's a different question and any reason is valid.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Indifferent. Since time immemorial there have existed those who have things, or create things, and those want those things as much as to steal them or try and take them away. This is the duality of consciousness and of humanity. So I have no quarrel with it one way or the other. Do what you want and answer only to your Self.

 

[Micormic]

if you would have asked me 20-15 years ago I would have said yes it's bad. Back then I got a certain quality from MOST games that made it worth the price. not to mention most games had demo's.



Nowadays with this DLC stupidity and releasing half finished buggy garbage? This idiot companies can blow me. I'll play their games for free and they can cry about me if they want.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[unfairlight]

what makes you think you are entitled to a product you aren't paying for?

Why is a publisher who owns the IP but is completely unrelated to the original developers entitled to my money? What about abandonware, games that have no way to play other than piracy or used copies from ages long gone? What about physical copy sharing, is that also entitlement and piracy?
The further you go into this mindset of yours, the further you want to trample the rights of people who ARE paying for the game. This is why online only is so retarded as the only ones who lose are legitimate customers, the person who bought a copy 10 years ago on Steam has no access to it anymore since the developers shut off the servers while the pirate is playing freely.

 

[Sigourn]

Why is a publisher who owns the IP but is completely unrelated to the original developers entitled to my money?

Because they paid for the I.P. and thus the rights to profit from the game?

What about abandonware, games that have no way to play other than piracy or used copies from ages long gone?

I don't consider either to be a problem because:

1. The dev can no longer profit (not selling the game anymore).
2. The dev can no longer profit (your money is going to Joe the cashier who bought the game when he was 10 as opposed to the company that made the game).

There are more things to be said about this, but my opinion boils down to "devs should permanently make their games available for legal purchase".

What about physical copy sharing, is that also entitlement and piracy?

My opinion is that if someone wants to play a game, they should buy it. You can very much give your game to a friend, but you are entirely in your right to call them "cheap" if they absolutely DEMAND you lend them a game you have finished without offering nothing in return.

The further you go into this mindset of yours, the further you want to trample the rights of people who ARE paying for the game. This is why online only is so retarded as the only ones who lose are legitimate customers, the person who bought a copy 10 years ago on Steam has no access to it anymore since the developers shut off the servers while the pirate is playing freely.

This has nothing to do with piracy but with online stores, which I think are cancer in pretty much every regard except "you can buy the game". The problem, however, is that as you and other users here have shown, piracy is very much a thing, which is why shit like Denuvo and so on keeps popping up. If devs could know for certain you will keep your games to yourself or share them with a very limited amount of friends, they probably wouldn't mind.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's still illegal and thus wrong.

Just like blowjobs were until 2003. Thank god the laws changed and they stopped being wrong.

Forgetting about the law for a second, what makes you think you are entitled to a product you aren't paying for? I'm not asking "why do you pirate?", because that's a different question and any reason is valid.

You're begging the question here. We're not demanding all products be made available for our consumption. You're demanding that things be unavailable for our consumption. I'm not demanding access to games as though they're a neccessity, I'm just taking them because they're just as easily accessible as reading something at a library or getting news second hand. Nobody is arguing about how we shouldn't feel entitled to 'free news' and need to pay publishers for their work instead of letting people just spread news around. Games are functionally the same at this point.

Why do you think a publisher is entitled to absolute control over all information they produce? That's insane.

 

[spectre]

1. Piracy allows people to "try before they buy".

Against the intention of the developers, who made the product.

2. Piracy allows people to dodge some of the crap enforced by the publisher (and it often has nothing to do with the software itself).

Against the intention of the publishers, who publish the product.

This is interesting - so you care about the intention of the publisher and the developer.
What if the intention of both of them goes against my interest. What if their intent is to mislead and scam me?
(To give some examples: that would be fleecing people with microtransactions and DLC, early beta versions as release builds, forcing always-online for single player games)
In such a case your one-sided moral evaluation of piracy might become problematic for you because the developer and publisher does not enjoy the benefit of default moral high ground
and piracy becomes an act of insuring or protecting oneself against possible scam.

Still, I don't care about "intentions" or "good feelings". I care for something that is enforceable. And speaking of enforceable things, please see below:

It's true. Forgetting about the law for a second, what makes you think you are entitled to a product you aren't paying for?

This one's quite easy to turn around. What makes someone think they're entitled to somebody else's money?
A valid contract of sale is a good enough answer, though in contracts of sale usually the rights of the buyer are secured in some way if the seller fails to deliver.
Piracy obviously doesn't have any of this, and I believe it's fair -there's no contract, I paid nothing and in turn I don't expect any support or guarantees from the developer.

Now, we're entering a nebulous ground - at which point can I say that I have, for the lack of a better word, "experienced" enough of the game
that the developer is entitled to their pay? Is it the fact of installing the game on my system that matters?

Say I watched the entire playthrough of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on youtube. There's actually no difference in me doing so, because the gameplay is non-existent.
I experienced the entirety of the game's story, the assets and atmosphere, which was all it had going for it. I may have even liked it, but I don't really want to re-play it. It was good for one go.
Should the devs be entitled to take my money at this point? Let's assume foir the sake of argument that they do, what if buy the game and gift it to someone after a time?

Or a different situation - my brother is watching me play a game. Should he be charged by the developer for watching? (Hey, I heard there are console systems out there
that can detect the number of persons in the room, so it's not entirely out of the question, technically speaking) Do I tell him to sod off and buy his own when he wants a go?

 

[unfairlight]

Because they paid for the I.P. and thus the rights to profit from the game?

But I spit on their rights, because they did not make it and the only reason they have it is due to a stroke of luck. This corporate worship is pathetic, dude.

but you are entirely in your right to call them "cheap" if they absolutely DEMAND you lend them a game you have finished without offering nothing in return.

Sure, I'll borrow them my own games. Now this is two way piracy, oh god no! Think about the poor megacorporations losing drops of water in the endless ocean!

If devs could know for certain

This decision to add DRM garbage is rarely made by game developers, it is in many or most cases made on the publishing side.

Pray tell, where did you acquire those PS1, PS2 and MSX games in your signature from? Did you asskiss Konami and pay for that Metal Gear collection that was on like 2 consoles total to play Metal Gear and to really show it to the pirates since Konami are the owner of the IP, or did you just get a ROM since it's easier, faster, free, better and on every platform? Because if you did get a ROM or have ever pirated ROMs, I think you might be a hypocrite, and I think you should revaluate what you are saying here.

 

[Zibniyat]

From a moral point of view: no, you are not entitled to games just because you are poor, sorry.

If one doesn't have the money to purchase a game, but has the option of downloading (not torrenting!) it, then it is not immoral to do so. Entitlement does not even begin to be an argument here. This because either the person will download it for free and not pay for it, or they will neither download it nor pay for it. I see no reason for the latter to be any more "moral" or "just" than the former.

 

[Sigourn]

This is interesting - so you care about the intention of the publisher and the developer.
What if the intention of both of them goes against my interest. What if their intent is to mislead and scam me?
(To give some examples: that would be fleecing people with microtransactions and DLC, early beta versions as release builds, forcing always-online for single player games)

Get fucked? You should have known better, it's still their product and it's up to you to buy it or skip it.

This one's quite easy to turn around. What makes someone think they're entitled to somebody else's money?

You make a product and put it for sale. Don't like it? Okay, don't buy it and I won't get the money. But don't pirate it.

Say I watched the entire playthrough of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on youtube. There's actually no difference in me doing so, because the gameplay is non-existent.

I'm not going to look up the gameplay of this game. Unless it is a literal movie (and I don't mean "movie games", I mean a literal movie where you just click play and let everything unfold) then it is not the same as actually playing it. Therefore, I don't see any problem with people watching streams.

That you compare watching someone play a game to actually playing it yourself speaks wonders about the kinds of retards I'm arguing against, good job.

 

[Sigourn]

But I spit on their rights, because they did not make it and the only reason they have it is due to a stroke of luck.

What "stroke of luck" are you talking about? You speak as if developers were randomly assigned publishers who have absolutely nothing to deal with them. As if Obsidian was assigned Bethesda and Bethesda did absolutely nothing but hold the title "publisher", when in fact they GAVE them the money to make the game.

This corporate worship is pathetic, dude.

Calling "facts" = "corporate worship", ok.

That's 2 down, one to go. Mind saying something retarded so we can end this discussion, Damned Registrations ?

 

[unfairlight]

What "stroke of luck" are you talking about?

Looking Glass went bankrupt and their IP was mostly handed off to Ion Storm. Ion Storm went bankrupt and this all went over to their publisher, Eidos Interactive. Eidos was bought out by Square Enix long ago, and the only one making money off of me buying Looking Glass or Ion Storm's game is Square Enix who are basically keeping most of the licenses on deep freeze and doing absolutely nothing with them.

 

[Raghar]

when will hot seats sessions be considered illegal?

They were already, the same as using one copy for playing on LAN. On the positive side, they resolved the hot seat piracy problem the easy way. They removed hot seat from modern games. See? No hot seat, no lost sale.

 

[Damned Registrations]

That you compare watching someone play a game to actually playing it yourself speaks wonders about the kinds of retards I'm arguing against, good job.

That's pretty rich considering publishers have used the exact argument to take stuff down from youtube. Why aren't you respecting their wishes? For that matter, how is what you did to get that avatar any different from torrenting a game? You're using their IP against their 'wishes'. If you want to use the avatar you should contact capcom and sign a license with them for it's use. I'm sure they'll do it for a reasonable fee of hundreds of thousands of dollars. If screenshots weren't available you'd have paid those hundreds of thousands of dollars to use that avatar. Dear god, the damage you've done to capcom is immense.

 

[Valky]

Piracy is great because I get to have a functioning game that runs by itself in a vaccuum while the paying consumers get fucked up the ass by DRM. Piracy fills the market that the publisher/developer refuses to. If I am unable to purchase a DRM free version of something I will obtain one elsewhere.

 

[rolandz_Baton_PROD]

From a moral point of view: no, you are not entitled to games just because you are poor, sorry.

Piracy: A poor man's natural birth right

Morality: A rich man's natural birth right

 

[rolandz_Baton_PROD]

also ayyy lmao when are we going to get custom dick avatars? xDDDDDDDDDDDDD

 

[Jenkem]

Indifferent. Since time immemorial there have existed those who have things, or create things, and those want those things as much as to steal them or try and take them away. This is the duality of consciousness and of humanity. So I have no quarrel with it one way or the other. Do what you want and answer only to your Self.

This is Satanism.