Piracy Eithics

[Twimfy]

lol!!! back in the day of what, 96??!?!?!!!!??

That really makes me laugh when people refer to "back in the day" when it was about 4 years ago. Who are you, Craig David??!?! 

Craig David all over your... <boing>

Hey, I'm still pretty damn young and 7 years ago (learn to subtract you fool) was pretty far back for me. Yeah 7 years doesn't feel to long for the 65 year old you are but it does for me.

yeah you bought some psx games but you still pirated some other games and the companys that produced them didn't profit from it.

Did you read my post?! Me copying the games motivated me to BUY the games of which the company that made the game gets money for.

WTF are you talking about? For a start I'm 18.

96 + 4years = 2000
96 + 7years = 2003

so if the person in question says "back in the day" and they are reffering to 96 then thats 7 years ago! Not 4.

anyway I'll stop ranting now as it as nothing to do with the topic.

 

[wave]

That would be the case if once I've cleaned a window I could clean more for a ridiculous amount of money and your wash hasn't costed anything to me (that it sure costed something).

 

[Fredrm]

The point about the whole concept of 'intellectual property' is not to do with what is morally right, but what the big corps can get away with to preserve their profits and viability, and the extent to which they can exert leverage on the lawmakers to sustain that profitability. Look back at the history of VCRs, when Sony were sued for making a product that allowed bootleg movies to be produced (Sony won); now there is a VCR in every home. That wasn't anything to do with Sony's moral stand for the right to work of their employees, (as is evidenced by their taking completely the opposite position on other court cases) but to protect their profits.

This whole thing is some kind of wierd inverse Luddism, with Nintendo etc throwing legalistic spanners in the works. New tech makes copying and distribution of digital material effectively free (or 'frictionless' to use Bill Gates term).And you know what? THIS IS A GOOD THING. The plain facts are these: Over the next few years we will (should) see major changes/crises for digital content producers, which might result, for example, in it not being economically feasible to put 40 programmers on full salary for 18 months to turn out the next Ratchet and Crank.

I know that might be hard to believe, or hard to accept, But I imagine that the major players in Egypt found it hard to accept when advances in the technology of social organisation caused the bottom to fall out of the pyramid building industry.
These companies are only delaying the inevitable and all the lawyers in the world won't stop it happening.

</rant ends>

 

[muppets4]

A software company invests time. And you know how it is for yourself: You'd like to get paid yourself when you've worked. So the company must pay the programmer, the musician etc. So you can't say that "it's no theft cause they've never had it". They paid money to their employees and cause of you (and a lot of other people) they don't get it back.

It's like riding a train without a ticket. You don't buy a ticket because you could be asked to show it, you buy it to get transported from A to B

 

[Swiss_Cheeseman]

 

[moora101]

Hey, I'm still pretty damn young and 7 years ago (learn to subtract you fool) was pretty far back for me. Yeah 7 years doesn't feel to long for the 65 year old you are but it does for me.

Yeah, you're "pretty damn young" so don't say "back in the day" then... only "craig david" (where yesterday is called "back in the day" and similar idiots would refer to "back in the day" as being PSX!! Christ, it's ONE generation ago... now if it was Nolan Bushnell talking about "pong", or Shigeru Miyamoto talking about "Donkey Kong" being back in the day then I could respect that.... Yeah, "back in the day" I owned a gamecube, when was that day? 2 day's ago.. BAH!!!

 

[moora101]

Well at least the games industry is trying to do something about piracy without sueing individuals who share pirated games (unlike the RIAA). I believe that piracy will become a thing of the past with regards to consoles as too much R&D is being spent on piracy protection. Currently Nintendo seem to have it right with the Gamecube as it still hasn't suffered any piracy and Sony and MS will not let it piracy happen in the next generation.

I personally think that the games industry should accept emulation with open arms by actually developing a method to sell old ROMs via the internet. I for one would be quite happy spending a couple pounds on an old game.

If only Nintendo would make Animal Crossing 2 with online functionality so you could download NES/SNES and GB games.... sigh......

 

[generalnmx]

As said before, morality is all a matter of perspective. All we have is our own opinions.

I'll try to state mine briefly. Since I barely have any money of my own, I can't justify buying games anymore. College saps nearly all of my resources, and some of my relatives too. Therefore, I've had to take it upon myself to find enjoyment by other means.

So, here we have a moral delimma - I have no money, yet I want to play games. I'm also rather a nostalgic - I'd rather play around with old pixels then the new 3D stuff. So I try to restrict myself to old games, ones that aren't in production anymore (especially for dead consoles).

The idea of "stealing" as a question of morals is rather complicated. One could say that the electronic game industry sells "entertainment" through their products, yet what if one is not entertained? Should we be morally (not legally) entitled to receive our money back? Even morally, I do not think this to be so.

Speaking therefore on an entirely moral level (as legality is not morality), I don't see what I am doing as "stealing". These are electronic copies, and some of them don't even have very many physical basises left. "Stealing" is the act of taking something away from someone else. The only thing I could be "stealing" is my own buisness (IE, by not purchasing the game). Since I have no money in which to purchase games, I am not "taking away" my own desire to purchase games.

So I end up owning something that, legally, I should not be owning. However, morality is a different question.

 

[Dozer]

You should write a book generalnmx, you could be quoted up there with moron churchill

 

[Evil_Cartman]

hehe, tho piracy is ok when you have the orig game/movie/mp3.

 

[JDUK]

So I end up owning something that, legally, I should not be owning. However, morality is a different question.

You can not say as a student you have absolutley 0 disposable income (i know im a student and was unemployed during term time and saved for my games) . If you wanted a game save money you spend on renting vidoes/drinking/cinema and buy one. Saying i have no money (haha yeh nice one) is no excuse. I dont have £100,000 is it ok that i go out and steal a Porche i cant afford? moraly or legaly.

Saying its only a copy and its not actual property well .... see the window cleaner example above.

I have no money, yet I want to play games.

I have no money but I want a stereo
I have no money but I want my Windows washed
I have no money but i want yours.

Why if the answer to

I have no money, yet I want to play games.

is that i should steal them and thats ok, but when its any of the other 3 then stealling is "wrong"


Counterfiet notes are just harmless copies would you be happy if brought your car off you with a big wad of copies ?

 

[SatanClaus]

Don't compare hardware with software. If you steal hardware, you steal from someone. If you copy software, noone loses anything.
I don't see the problem: If software is not sold anymore (NES, SNES, SMS etc.) the company won't lose money. And I don't want to pay tons of money to people on ebay.

 

[thebluenewt]

Piracy is wrong.

It is stealing.

But I still do it... :unsure:

 

[kram]

Yeah, you're "pretty damn young" so don't say "back in the day" then... only "craig david" (where yesterday is called "back in the day" and similar idiots would refer to "back in the day" as being PSX!! Christ, it's ONE generation ago... now if it was Nolan Bushnell talking about "pong", or Shigeru Miyamoto talking about "Donkey Kong" being back in the day then I could respect that.... Yeah, "back in the day" I owned a gamecube, when was that day? 2 day's ago.. BAH!!!

You are the most uptight jerk I've ever had the misfortune to come across. You sound like an 80 year old man and a school teacher having her period wrapped up into one person. If you have any friends or have ever (daresay) a girlfriend I would be very suprised. Loser. <_<

 

[generalnmx]

Saying its only a copy and its not actual property well .... see the window cleaner example above.

I have no money, yet I want to play games.

I have no money but I want a stereo
I have no money but I want my Windows washed
I have no money but i want yours.

Why if the answer to

I have no money, yet I want to play games.

is that i should steal them and thats ok, but when its any of the other 3 then stealling is "wrong"


Counterfiet notes are just harmless copies would you be happy if brought your car off you with a big wad of copies ?

These are trying to be equalities, when, in fact, they are not. Counterfeit bills are tangible objects, with tangible results. They inflate the economy upon use, and once found, make other people unsuspecting criminals. Neither of these facts relate to copying software. More about this later.

The window washer example doesn't exactly apply in this case. In that scenario, the window washer is providing a tangible service with tangible results - your windows are now clean. Even if you don't have the money to pay the window washer, the window washer still produced effort to complete your given objective, so you have a moral obligation to pay them.

The software industry provides an intangible service with intangible results - you have a need to fufill (playing games, making images, etc.), and your need is fufilled. Additionally, the software industry usually only caters to a mass-market. Now the most important point of all - the software industry relies on replications of their work, while the window washer, to go back to the example used before, relies on jumping from one scenario to the next. What are you actually buying when you buy a piece of software? You are, in fact, buying a copy, as authorized by the distributor.

So, it goes back to the original question - what is "stealing", when refering to software, and with a moral standpoint? I still say that the only thing you can steal is your own desire to purchase that software. If downloading a copy of that software does not truly diminish your desire to purchase that software, then it is not really hurting the company, as there are no tangible results from this action.

Going back to the idea of counterfeit bills. While this seems similiar, the counterfeit bills have obvious tangible results.

 

[EvilDragon]

I think it is pretty important to use different definitions of piracy:

The worst case are the guys who pirate games / movies / music and actually SELLS them! Geez, I hate this people and there is NO excuse for doing that!

The next case is to pirate games / movies / music, use it but never pay for it...
Well I don't like that, too... if you DO like something, PAY for it.
As for software: There are a lot of great free software applications... you don't need word, use OpenOffice! So you don't need to pirate!
I can understand it though if you are under 18 - I pirated myself Amiga games when I didn't have the money for buying... now I own nearly all the Amiga games I played earlier and don't have any pirated games left! I bought them as soon as I earned money!
The companies NEED the money to create good games!

Then we have the case to pirate games which are no longer available (most NES games). Well, it is okay in my opinion, not legal, but as you can't anymore buy them the companies don't lose money at all...

The last case in my opinion is if you pirate something to TRY BEFORE YOU BUY (but you have to be honest in that!)
I'm running a company together with a friend, we started everything from scratch with our own money (Post Production company).
But we had the problem that we didn't know which software would fit our needs best - and one piece of software costs about 7000$, so if we'd bought it but couldn't really use it, we'd run out of money - damn.
So we pirated those programs (or used the demo if there was one available), tested them a few days then bought the ones we needed and deleted the other ones.
This is also okay, in my opinion, though it also isn't legal.

So far for my "different-kinds-of-pirates"-opinion.

I have another interesting aspect to think of:
I know some people who work in the music business.
And - believe it or not, but it's true - a lot of music producers (and I am talking about those chart breakers!) release their newest, often yet officially unreleased tracks using share clients (like Kazaa, eDonkey)!
I asked some why, and they told me that the song is then better known to the public, gets high into the charts when released and sells much better!
Here pirating can really bring money to the producers!

Another interesting aspect is the answer of an audio magazine to the question
"What system will survive - DVD Audio or Super Audio CD?". Their answer was: "The system where the copy protection is cracked first!"
True, as soon as you can copy anything, the system will sell better.
When more people have the system, more people buy original music (well, most people don't pirate EVERYTHING but sometimes buy stuff!)

So pirating can help - but it can also harm.
What YOU think of pirating is your opinion.

MY opinion is that you should pay for stuff you like (I even sponsored some guys who created some really good freeware stuff - in my opinion it was worth every single cent I spent!)
I'm perfectly pleased if one pirates to try something out or to get some stuff which is nearly impossible to find anymore on that planet (like NES carts, e.g.)

But PLEASE don't forget that companies need SOME money to live - pay them if you like their stuff!

Geez, sorry for that long post, I hope it was a bit interesting

 

[klay51]

The window cleaning analogy is a very poor one. Copying a game does not take ANY resources from the company who made it. Such as paper, ink, discs and other packaging. Washing windows takes water, and soap. Two KEY resources to the window washer. If you don't pay for the window service after it has been done they lose both resources and time.(they could be washing other windows). You are not wasting the game companies time by using a digital copy. BUT I do agree that pirating games that are widely available is stealing...but man if piracy is stealing boy do I love it lol. I do not however steal from Gamepark and the developers due to my own personal love of Gp32. And my excuse for not buying games anymore is really just habit. Once you start getting games at the push of a button its hard to stop

 

[EvilDragon]

If you don't pay for the window service after it has been done they lose both resources and time.

Wait a second:
The window service employs people. They have to pay them.

Now assume that you actually let them clean your windows and don't pay them.
The window service still has to pay their workers whether he gets money from you or not.
But the more windows a window service has to clean, the more workers he requires.
So if a lot of people don't pay after cleaning, they lose a lot of money (they probably wouldn't need to employ that much workers if only the paying people would've order some window cleaning).

Do you still want to tell me that all they lose is time and the money for the soap?

 

[klay51]

EDIT: Let me rephrase...they do lose money from wasting they emplyoee time BUT the point is that doesnt compare in the same way with a video game degveloper as ill try to explain below. I'm just saying its a bad comaprison

Yes, I do. Did I order Bioware to create Knights of the Old Republic? No....I could care less. But did I tell the window washers I want this service, and that they will be compensated? YES. They did work with the promise I would buy. I would never buy certain games and the company should never expect ME to, I never told them I would....your sayign they are losing my oney...but they never had my money. But in the window analgoy i had guranteed them money. You must see its totally different.not only that its a service as opposed ot a product. You'll be hard pressed to put an air tight seal on this leaking analogy

 

[JDUK]

These are trying to be equalities, when, in fact, they are not. Counterfeit bills are tangible objects, with tangible results. They inflate the economy upon use, and once found, make other people unsuspecting criminals. Neither of these facts relate to copying software. More about this later.

The window washer example doesn't exactly apply in this case. In that scenario, the window washer is providing a tangible service with tangible results - your windows are now clean. Even if you don't have the money to pay the window washer, the window washer still produced effort to complete your given objective, so you have a moral obligation to pay them.

The software industry provides an intangible service with intangible results - you have a need to fufill (playing games, making images, etc.), and your need is fufilled. Additionally, the software industry usually only caters to a mass-market. Now the most important point of all - the software industry relies on replications of their work, while the window washer, to go back to the example used before, relies on jumping from one scenario to the next. What are you actually buying when you buy a piece of software? You are, in fact, buying a copy, as authorized by the distributor.

So, it goes back to the original question - what is "stealing", when refering to software, and with a moral standpoint? I still say that the only thing you can steal is your own desire to purchase that software. If downloading a copy of that software does not truly diminish your desire to purchase that software, then it is not really hurting the company, as there are no tangible results from this action.

Going back to the idea of counterfeit bills. While this seems similiar, the counterfeit bills have obvious tangible results.

Nice to see ppl still make weak excuses to get somthing for free

These are trying to be equalities, when, in fact, they are not. Counterfeit bills are tangible objects, with tangible results.

Piracy causes loss of proifits loss of profits causes game pricces to rise WITH TANGINBLE RESULTS. remember when games where £1.99 ??

In that scenario, the window washer is providing a tangible service with tangible results - your windows are now clean.

The games company are providing a service, making a game,WITH TANGINBLE RESULTS..... the game... you now have a game you didnt before :rolleyes:

. Even if you don't have the money to pay the window washer, the window washer still produced effort to complete your given objective, so you have a moral obligation to pay them.

even if you dont have the money to buy the game it still took man hours, research, marketing, what do you think? the fairies made it from magic dust ? o you have a moral obligation to pay them