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Press Junketeer  Posts: 443 Joined: 25 Sep 2008     | |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 62 Joined: 10 Sep 2008     | As a software developer myself I find you full of crap. The facts are that it is the game makers who don't understand the idea of yours and mine. If I buy a product from you I now have to right to do whatever I want with it. What if you bought a car but couldn't open the trunk or the windows because the car maker would call you a crimial for it? Software is just like any other product, the consumer can do whatever they want at anytime. You need to let go of your work once it is sold. What if an artist sold you a painting, and then told you couldn't hang it up but had to keep it covered and in a vault? Does the artist still have the right to tell you what to do? No, you paid the money for it, it is yours. On the idea of piracy, believe it or not it a good thing for the industry. RIAA produced a study (that they quickly buried) that showed piracy increased sales because it let people try out a service before having to shell out money. DRM is another reason piracy is getting stronger, companies are trying to tell people what they can and can't do with there products. These companies need to just sit back and count their money, not acting like a spoiled brat over other people playing with their toys. |
On the Record  Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007   |
I think there's a fatal flaw in that context: you're assuming the person who took the DVD, but for the theft, would have done something that would have put earnings in the pocket of the developer/publisher. And yes--I would argue that the change in context makes the analogy flawed because there's no taking of a physical object involved in (at least certain forms of) software piracy which changes the issues involved to the point where the analogy no longer applies.
If we're lumping all pirates into one category for a single moral judgment, it's not absurd. It might be absurd if were were talking about the phenomenon of piracy itself, but, the OP was specifically talking about individual pirates. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2033 Joined: 7 Sep 2008    |
There may not be a legal method left to stop piracy, however, you can always go to the technical/developer's side for an answer. This is also the issue that got me started here in The Escapist. I got the link from this thread. My reaction to this topic can be seen at that thread. As developers, the fight against piracy should start with yourselves. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007     |
Was there a point to this nonsensical blurb? Playing the Victim card doesn't work. The only ones impressed by it as by those that try to run the same scam. To the rest, you just come out as a whiner from the activist left who blame everything that isn't peachy in your life on others.
Well if that was the question, then I already answered it. You are talking about positive side effects of pirating and whether I would excuse it for the sake of earning more money. Further more you seem to be misrepresenting my opinion. I never said that any unauthorized copy is inherently bad. The important part, which is kind of fuzzy I'll agree, it to respect the rights and wishes of the property owner. For instance I don't think that an unauthorized copy of Visual Studio Professional that some bedroom programmer uses just to learn VS is a bad thing, because I'm very certain that Microsoft does not mind someone learning to use their product. However, the minute that he uses VS to make software that he starts to sell... then it's a whole different ballgame. Finally, if I do sell my software in any other manner than making it donation-ware or gratis-ware, then I really don't have a choice but to take a stand against piracy because the consumer laws of this country dictates that must I deal fairly, i.e. I must not give don't give vastly different pricing to roughly equal customers.
I did not say that! Go back to the OP and read again. I said: I do not like piracy because it violates a commonly accepted principle: that of sanctity of property; Yours & Mine. So what am I going to do about people pirating? Well first of all I can show you my dislike about it and argue that pirating is in violation of principles that most people accept in every other situation. For some it will make them realize they are using double standards and as such get a wee bit of guilty conscience and start concidering buying the software since there are real people, and not just megacorps, that take offence to pirating. Secondly I have posted plenty of hints as to what I want producers to do to help reduce the problem. The most important thing they can do is to give customers incentive to buy the software rather than pirating it. Factors to concider here are: pricing; quality; ease of purchase; customer support; product updates; product content; replayability, and so forth. Producers need to make the peopel want to buy the software rather then to try bullying them into not pirating. Does that answer your question? /S |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 849 Joined: 5 Aug 2008   | This is nothing but a rant. You're obviously pissed off but you didn't add any new views on the subject or even suggest that people should discuss your views, you just ended it with a middle school style closing sentence. This is more of a blog than an actual forum post, since you just needed to vent. On topic: thisbymaster's post is pretty much exactly the same as my view on the subject. If I bought it, I can do whatever the hell I want with it, I might even let my friends borrow it despite the obvious evil of such a thing. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
Let me make the example even clearer: you go to a DVD rental store; you take a DVD home without paying; you watch it; you go back to the store and put the DVD back in the shelf. Never during this time were they out of copies to rent to others meaning that you "borrowed" an otherwise unused copy. Right or wrong? I think it's wrong. The store didn't lose any money on it, but you used their property without permission.
Again let me refer to the example with the car rental. Does the fact that you bought the right to use the car for one day for 50 USD give you the right to smash it into a heap of metal scrap? No it does not. That wasn't the condition of the sale. Same with software. The "product" you refer to is not a license to use the developer's property in any and every manner possible. /S |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
Well since we are now on page three with 75+ posts I think that your opinion has already been proved wrong empirically. People are discussing it lively so apparently there was something about it worth to debate after all, your opinion to the contrary. /S |
On the Record Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007 |
No, I'm not talking about the positive side effects of pirating; I'm talking about the positive direct effect of pirates. Big difference.
I don't think I've done anything to represent your opinions as being the former rather than the latter. I get exactly what you mean--the wishes of the property owner should be respected. My point was that property owners wish to both make money AND have their rights respected, and how the same person can fulfill one wish and not the other, like in your example of the bedroom programmmer.
I know--but do you have to take a stand so vociferous that you must argue that anyone who pirates is no better than "pimply snot-nosed kids" who "don't have the manners or good graces to actually respect other people's property"? A closed gate takes a legal stand against people entering your property whether it is a simple chain-link fence or the Black Gate of Mordor. Same applies to what kind of stand you take on your software property rights, no? Also, you're starting to conflate two different issues: (1) the property rights you *want* to assert because the violation of those rights bothers you, and (2) the property rights you *must* assert "because the consumer laws of this country dictate" you must. |
On the Record Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007 |
If you're going to make an example clearer, you can't change the question in doing so, otherwise you just make things more muddled. Nilcypher asked: "Is that theft?" you asked: "Right or wrong?" Two different questions. |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 849 Joined: 5 Aug 2008 |
Thats a terrible example. When I go out and buy a video game, I'm not friggin renting it, I am buying it to own, at which point I can do whatever I damn well please with it.
You didn't pay attention to what I said. I didn't say it wasn't worth discussing, I said that you did not encourage discussion. You stated your view and just left it at that. You didn't ask for other people's opinions about the subject matter or your own opinions. You obviously just wanted to get it off your chest. |
Paperboy Posts: 29 Joined: 24 Sep 2008    | ""molesgallus: Was there a point to this nonsensical blurb? Playing the Victim card doesn't work. The only ones impressed by it as by those that try to run the same scam. To the rest, you just come out as a whiner from the activist left who blame everything that isn't peachy in your life on others."" I am not whining about anything. It's not a nonsensical blurb, its an answer to your question. I happen to be a very successful webmaster, earning a LOT of money. So I'm not exactly left, Im just a realist. Do you really think it's the poor guy's fault that their poor, and that anyone could be rich if they put the work in. If you do, then your an ignorant twat, clearly denying the facts of the matter. In a capitalist system the little guy gets fucked over, that's a fact. If everyone was rich it wouldn't be capitalism. Now, don't get me wrong, i think its great, im rich, fine by me. But i can see why, if your on minimum wage, you might pirate a game, and justify it with the argument that the publisher is ripping you off to start with. I don't condone it though, and if i found any of my website materials being copied, I'd hit the offender with the full force of the law. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
Whether it's a side-effect or just an effect is semantics. We are talking about positive outcomes of pirating. Sure I want to make money, or achive fame, or spread the message that software should be free (i.e. taking a stand against commersial usage of my software). But how I want to achive those things is up to me to decide, not you. My property ==> my decisions. So even if I make really bad decisions that in the end leads to me achieving less success than I could have, that mistake is mine to make. You cannot excuse piracy of my property with "Well it's good for ya"... only I can do that. And no, I did not say that all software pirate are snot-nose pimply kids. Some are though... and those in particular really get on my tits. Then there are other pirates too, not necessarilly snot-nosed pimply kids, but none the less in breach of my rights. I don't like those either. And even if I had equated all software pirates to snot-noded pimply kids... what are they going to do? Come to me and say "Hey! I may pirate your software but I'm no kid!"? Those I reserve the right to smirk and chuckle at. It's like when my 9yo girl tries to talk back to me by saying: "Hey, you're wrong! I did not take 10 SEK from your wallet, I actually took 20!". Heh... want some water to wash down your foot with? :D /S |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2664 Joined: 4 Nov 2007    |
So you didn't say piracy is bad because it can be equated to theft you just said you didn't like it because it violates property and ownership? I'd say my paraphrase wasn't totally inaccurate. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
That may be the case but trespassing isn't any less wrong than is theft. I never argued that software piracy is theft. But I do feel that it is a violation of my rights as he owner of the software.
No you don't buy the game to own it. You buy a license to own the disk and to use the game. That's why I only charge you 50 USD instead of 500 000. If you want to own my game, then you cough up... but if you're bent on only paying 50, I'm not going to give you more than the right to use it. The plastic thing that is the DVD, sure, shove it up your crack for all I care. But the game, and the right to decide what happens with it and who gets to use it, remains mine. If you for some reason thought that your purchase was about owning my intellectual property, then you have deluded yourself. That was never the condition of the sale, just like the car rental was only the right to use the car... not to own it. /S |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 849 Joined: 5 Aug 2008 |
Again, you don't understand what I am saying. Obviously buying the disc does not buy me the rights to the intellectual property, but that disc and its contents now belong to me. If I want to make a copy of it and give it to my friend, than I should be allowed to. I would agree that making copies of it and selling them is and should be illegal, but not allowing me to even let people I know borrow the disc because they themselves haven't paid for the rights is down right ridiculous. As recently expressed on Penny-Arcade, what if they did the same thing with books? Would it become required by law to avert your eyes from any book you yourself had not purchased yet? Or what about paintings, would you have to hide a painting you bought for fear or people seeing it without paying for the "right to use it"? |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1886 Joined: 11 Jul 2008  | As ever it seems to have turned into a 'drm' topic. However, I think the original poster has the wrong view of most casual pirates. A pirate is not going to download your work for free because they think you should not be paid, in fact I don't believe most of them even consider anything like that, they're doing it because it is easy and free, and to quickly be hypocritical, it doesnt help the cause when its far easier to install a pirated game than an original. I really dont think the 'snot nosed kids' are thinking they have some right to rob you of your work, its just a case of 'I get £5 a week pocket money, I'm gonna spend it on cider.' It's wrong, and I think something needs to be done, but I don't know what. Anyway I'm guessing I'm saying that sure, hate them for stealing your work, but don't hate them for the other reasons, because the vast majority of pirates are not thinking it thru that far. |
Muckraker  Posts: 265 Joined: 3 Oct 2007   | well stated. I've noticed in a certain piracy person. That what they do often has nothing to do with personal preference. It's just a matter of being able to take something. and that my friends is theft. Plain criminal theft, no way around it. You could argue about how unfair the price is and how "The evillll cooperation don't want you to have the game" but at the end of the day, your just trying to rationalize your problem away. Interesting fact! The more you know! |
Copy Clerk  Posts: 62 Joined: 24 Jul 2008     | I agree entirely OP. And as for Spore, there is no way anyone can say 'I pirated it because of DRM', DRM is only there because people pirated games in the first place. No-one pirated Spore to make a point against DRM, they pirated because they wanted to play it, and didn't want to pay. EA not telling people about SecuROM , however, is entirely wrong, but that should be cleared up legally, so it shouldn't happen again. |
On the Record Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007 |
No, we're talking about the positive effects of pirates having an interest in your software. I think one of your issues is that you keep switching back and forth in your arguments between pirates and piracy as a phenomenon. In fact, I think that's a recurring issue in this discussion whenever it happens, that we talk of people as if they are either pirates or honest consumer, when a lot of people fall in the middle.
I never asserted that you said that. I asserted that you said that they were no better than "pimply snot-nosed kids" who "don't have the manners or good graces to actually respect other people's property."
So you don't like people who give you more money than your other, non-pirate customers? I mean hey--maybe you do, but that's what I'm trying to draw out of you clearly: when you say these things about pirates, you are talking about people who you make more money off of than non-pirate customers--do you not "like those either"?
No, they'll just point out all the flaws in your arguments contained in posts that you make on Escapist message forums. ;-D Also, like I asked before: if you are such a stalwart when it comes to property rights and seller's wishes, what's your stance on something like TiVo as far as its ability to let the user skip commercials? |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
Well the inaccuracy of your paraphrazing in this particular case was important to me to point out since the argument "Piracy is theft" has been thrown around alot and isn't really accepted by the piracy advocates/defenders. The nuance is important here because the pirates argue that since piracy isn't theft in the regular sense then piracy is not wrong at all. I'm countering that argument by the pirates by arguing that while piracy is not theft it is still wrong since it is trespassing and a violation of my rights anyway, namely my right to say what happens with my property which is the foundation of the principle that is Yours & Mine. Further more this is not a defence of flawed anti-piracy measures. While some IP owners take it that far, I don't, which makes your argument a Strawman. What I did was to introduce another way of looking at the problem with piracy. If you don't want to hear it, then that's your own lookout. Part of the solution to the problem to piracy is to vent such views and let others see them because it may bring an understanding to as to why I and many others feel it's wrong. /S |
On the Record Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007 |
Well, I disagree with you about that. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1092 Joined: 23 Sep 2008    |
I agree because for people who have no income you cant afford those kinds of things |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 2664 Joined: 4 Nov 2007 |
Apparently there are fifteen deluded or lying Escapists then. There are also thirty seven who simply didn't buy the game based on the DRM. Turning away those kinds of numbers in a failed attempt to protect your game from piracy is an overall loss in sales. |
On the Record Posts: 6742 Joined: 10 Apr 2007 |
Well no, but making someone a copy of software while you retain a copy for yourself is more like taking a book down to a copy shop and printing up an extra copy. Now *borrowing* the disc is another issue. Someone saying another person can't borrow your disc is like saying someone can't borrow your book. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 4190 Joined: 6 Sep 2008   | I don't know, i'm inclined to agree with the OP... I mean, piracy ONLY hurts the little guys who don't have the money to come after you with a crack team of net thugs, internet savvy coders and lawyers. A giant like EA could soak the loss easy. Your not fighting the system, your helping the man. |
Paperboy Posts: 29 Joined: 24 Sep 2008 | I am not whining about anything. It's not a nonsensical blurb, its an answer to your question. I happen to be a very successful webmaster, earning a LOT of money. So I'm not exactly left, Im just a realist. Do you really think it's the poor guy's fault that their poor, and that anyone could be rich if they put the work in. If you do, then your an ignorant twat, clearly denying the facts of the matter. In a capitalist system the little guy gets fucked over, that's a fact. If everyone was rich it wouldn't be capitalism. Now, don't get me wrong, i think its great, im rich, fine by me. But i can see why, if your on minimum wage, you might pirate a game, and justify it with the argument that the publisher is ripping you off to start with. I don't condone it though, and if i found any of my website materials being copied, I'd hit the offender with the full force of the law. |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 4190 Joined: 6 Sep 2008 | Moneybags has a slight point I guess, but is this really an unreconcilable class war? |
Pulitzer Laureate Posts: 849 Joined: 5 Aug 2008 |
Huh? Whether you think piracy is wrong or not this post makes no sense. Any developer that doesn't have enough money to afford lawyers, doesn't have enough money to make a video game. Those are the developers that have big publishers funding them, and its the publishers that will come after you. Also, forcing EA to soak up a loss is not "helping the man". In fact I don't see how pirating is helping the man at all. If it was, the government and all the big movie/record studios and video game publishers wouldn't be trying to stop it so desperately. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1351 Joined: 22 Aug 2008   | I have a mix breed Windows version. it has all the nice components and stability of XP Pro, and all the visuals and some of the nice features of Vista. It also passes the genuine Windows test. Would you consider this piracy? |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
You can lend them the disk all you want. However, if they want to use what's on it, they had better cough up, because that was part of the conditions under which I sold you the right to use the software. The analogy with books and paintings is flawed because, unlike software, those items were not sold under the condition that you must pay to use the contents. It all boils down to what is reasonable usage of the property in question. Further more I think the painting analogy is flawed in another manner too. As a gallery owner, I may let you watch my painting only under the condition that you do not photograph it. Or more specifically, I may ask that you do not bring any kind of recording equipment into the gallery as a condition to enter it. That is perfectly within my rights. Further more if you, while in the gallery, were to take down the painting, go outside and show it to a bunch of people and then come back inside and re-hang it, then you have done something wrong, don't you agree?
Again: I am of the opinion that positive effects of piracy cannot be used by a pirate to excuse piracy. Even if I'm a stubborn idiot with the financical sense of an investment banker on LSD, that mistake is mine to make. The pirate can never claim "but I'm doing this for your own good" and use that as an excuse to get away with unless I specifically allow him to. And about TiVo's... I have never heard of that subscribing to an ad-financed TV channel legally binds you to watch the commersials. Have you ever heard of such a subscription agreement? I sure as hell havn't. Sure the advertizers get peeved that you avoid their adverts... but as long as I'm not required to watch their ads, and I don't see how that could ever become a reality, they have no say in the matter.
Lesser evils are not excused by the existance of greater ones (except in cases of self-defence... I'd like to see anyone try to claim self-defence as an excuse for software piracy :D).
And your point is what? That you have some kind of fundamental right to use other people's property? You don't. If you cannot afford purchasing the right to use the software, you are not allowed to use it. What's so strange about that? /S |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1011 Joined: 1 Dec 2007    |
"Alright, what's the equation?" I've no problem with you arguing profit vs. expenditure, reward for work, all that jazz. But saying intellectual property is "yours" in the same sense a cake is "yours" is plain silly. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
If you like to indulge yourself in a fantasy that you're a powerless little worm always getting done over by big entities, that is your own problem. I will never reduce myself to that and it sickens me to see all that uses that shoddy excuse to not kick their own arses and start getting their lives in order. Sure the megacorps have power... but saying that they do nothing but screw you over and that you have no power... that's just lame. /S |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 4190 Joined: 6 Sep 2008 |
Your "helping the Man" because Piracy is another nail in the indie 'non $80,000 budget game' coffin. Only large producers can afford to soak the loss of rampent piracy, smaller developers die in the water, so your part of the REASON only large developers can afford to make games (admittedly stupid consumers are also a big part of it) and thus PART OF THE REASON games trend towards the uninspired and expensive. The reason the industry goes after piracy so hard is because they want to maximize their profits, not because it actually poses and sort of threat to the giants. It works out much the same way Malpractice Lawsuits have for the Medical Community- Malpractice insurance has gotten so outrageous only large practices can thrive, prospective doctors are scared into different career paths by the threat of litigion, anything daring or different is quelled because if one thing goes wrong it's their financial ass. In the same way, piracy undercuts the profits of small indie companies, money they need just to survive, and great idea's die on arrival or are subsumed and raped by the larger corporations. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 367 Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
Flawed example. Intellectual property is a reality and I know of no legislation that doesn't agree that IP can be owned and thus be "mine". Or are you seriously saying that as soon as I have created some IP, then everyone in the world has a right to take part of that on their conditions and that I have no right to refuse them? You're not saying that, are you? /S |
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Exactly, Pirate the game out of spite if you want to play it but paying $50 AU or even $25 US is stupid if they never finished it or put no effort into making it a playable game.