Piracy

[mordea]

and who are the "owners of the property"? a few years ago, i covered a robert wyatt song. i had to shell out several hundred bucks--a certain amount for every single copy of the cd which was pressed--for licensing fees. and to whom did this money go? well, not robert wyatt; rather, the money went to the harry fox agency--robert wyatt did not see one penny. oh, but that's all good to you, right? because it was all legal, and that's all that matters. nevermind the fact that the actual creators of the music were fucked over by the likes of richard bransen (virgin records) and his ilk.

So it's OK to steal labelled clothes because it is the middleman, not the tailor, who is making the majority of the profit? I don't agree with the monopoly that the RIAA has over the music industry, its bullshit regulations and how it leeches off artists. But engaging in theft to 'stick it to the man' sounds like a poor rationalisation.

you have not shown how piracy adversely impacts the creators of music or software, and quadrophonics, Randwolf, and others have shown how piracy may very well work to the benefit of the creators of such.

So what? If I steal twenty dollars from you, make some wise investments that result in a return of one thousand dollars, and pay you thirty dollars, isn't that still theft?

 

[Norsefire]

Yeah, some strange sort of theft where the "victim" isn't missing anything after they've been robbed.

They are missing the money they deserve.

But why is it customary to pay someone for a good or service? Well, it's customary to pay for goods because if you take a good without paying you are harming the other party by taking away something of value to them. As was already discussed above with the TV analogy, that reasoning doesn't apply here. So what about services? It seems reasonable to me to describe writing software or making music as a "service" that is being provided to me - which is why I do indeed pay for music or software if I like it enough to want to use it. But in my opinion the musicians and software companies only provide me with a "service" when they give me something that I can actually use, which is why I don't feel a bit bad about evaluating their services before I decide whether or not I want to pay, especially since doing so doesn't harm anyone in any perceivable way.

Again, what the hell is this naive notion that people only pirate in order to 'test' things? Millions of people pirate every day, and they don't 'test things out'. They just plain pirate. And keep on pirating.

Nobody is so noble as you, to pirate and then quit using it or buy it.

Consider a painter who wants me to pay him for providing the service of painting my house, and he wants me to pay in advance. If I had some magic crystal ball that would allow me to see what the results of his painting would look like before paying him, I don't think that I would be "stealing" from him in any way if I used it to evaluate the quality of his work and help me decide whether or not I wanted to hire him. Morally, that seems exactly the same as evaluating music or movies before deciding whether or not I want to purchase them.

See above.

Well, of course they want me to pay them. Any business would love to have everyone pay them for everything. But you haven't explained why I have any sort of ethical obligation to obey their wish to be paid. Other than the fact that it's illegal, can you explain why you think it's immoral for a person to say "Hey, I don't harm you in any way when I make a copy of your music, so I'm going to do it." After all, in a free society it's generally accepted that you should be free to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't harm anyone.

Of course, but that doesn't mean free to steal; or, free to use other peoples' services without their consent and without payment. Property laws exist.

 

[mordea]

Originally Posted by Nasor
Yeah, some strange sort of theft where the "victim" isn't missing anything after they've been robbed.

Neither is a doctor if you refuse to pay him for the consultation.

 

[Nasor]

They are missing the money they deserve.

They don't deserve anything until they provide me with something that I can use.

Again, what the hell is this naive notion that people only pirate in order to 'test' things?

I never said that people only pirate to test things out, but millions of people do...

Nobody is so noble as you, to pirate and then quit using it or buy it.

This just shows how ignorant you are. Many, many people download things to test them out and then pay for the software/music/whatever if they decide to continue using it. Most of my friends and coworkers are the same way. You only think that most pirates never pay for anything because you've uncritically accepted to propaganda being put put by the software companies, record labels, etc.

Of course, but that doesn't mean free to steal.; or, free to use other peoples' services without their consent and without payment. Property laws exist.

The moral justification for having property laws doesn't hold up well when applied to intellectual property, as has already been explained at length. I asked you to explain why you think people are morally obligated to always obey the wishes of people who don't want others using their intellectual property, and you still haven't been able to come up with a justification other than "it's the law."

 

[WillNever]

Again, you can't justify theft no matter how much it 'benefits' anybody, and it doesn't benefit anybody, anyway.

That's a [bad] attempt at rationalization. The point is, you are using someone else's intellectual property, and enjoying their creation without paying for it; you are also breaking the law.

I don't need to explain this a thousand times: if you want music, pay for it. What is so damn hard to understand about that?

When you go to the store and buy a new game, the industry expects you to pay the full retail price for that game... regardless of how broken it might be out of the box. I can name a dozen examples of premiere games such as that. Keep in mind that they *knew* that it was broken when they sold it to you, yet there are no such warnings anywhere to be found... not on the box, not in their advertising, not anywhere. And if you contact them for technical support after you discover that your new game is broken, they often simply tell you to wait patiently for an upcoming software patch. That is, if they even bother to reply to you at all (many don't... or else they reply in a deliberately vague and anemic fashion a la Electronic Arts).

I wonder what would happen if we told the publishers "I'll give you *some* of the retail price now... and the rest of it after you patch the game and give me a fully functional product that works as advertised." Would they make that kind of a deal with us..? Of course they wouldn't... because these people have next to zero integrity and not only that, but the laws issued by the corporate whores in Congress fully protect the industry and its greed. Meanwhile, there are absolutely NO LAWS TO SPEAK OF which protect the consumers of gaming software. Almost none whatsoever. These pricks have been given free reign to sell whatever they want, for as much as they can get away with, whilst deliberately engaging in false or misleading advertising... and let the buyer beware.

This is the essence of what I am trying to say here: that in my opinion, the pirating of crappy (or even not so crappy) commercial gaming software is, to at least some extent, a way for pissed-off consumers to lash back at an exploitative industry, who have been greedily giving us all the shaft for far too long. In many (if not most) cases these days, those publishers simply do not deserve our money anymore. Or at least, they don't deserve full price for a broken or otherwise inferior product. And until there is some sort of federal regulation of the software industry, this problem will continue to frustrate us all... for lord knows how many more years.


Obeying the law is always preferable... but when the law becomes the enemy of the common man and woman... then the law itself is oppressive and needs to be disobeyed. So when the system fails, the people need to take over.

 

[Norsefire]

WillNever, I don't even understand what you are saying. If you mean the game sucks, then don't buy it.

 

[WillNever]

What part do you need help understanding?

The software need not suck (although that is very often the case, that is not the actionable complaint) for it to deserve pirating. This is a case when the software is bugged, broken, or dysfunctional in any way whatsoever, the publisher KNOWS it is not working as advertised, and then releases it anyway and charges full price. To reiterate my earlier example, what if I charged you full price for a new car -- knowing that the brakes were faulty, or that the engine was only producing two-thirds of its rated horsepower... and I told you that it was in a fully functional state? In other words, I lied to you about the operational capability of the product. Simply "not buying it" isn't an option, because you were told it was fully functional when in actuality it was a broken piece of crappola. The above situation describes much of the PC games released in the past two years.

Just think about how absolutely abysmal the state of PC gaming software has become during the past few years. I realize that there are some exceptions here and there, but generally speaking it seems that the old rule of "release it now -- patch it later" has spun wildly out of control. We could say exactly this... to varying degrees... about games like Oblivion, or Hellgate: London, or Fallout 3, or Age Of Conan, or Vanguard, or Spore, or F.E.A.R., or Stalker, or any one of literally hundreds of other "blockbuster" titles. All of those games were knowingly released prematurely by their publishers in a dysfunctional state... and in some cases the game was barely playable in its original "plain vanilla" condition.

Hence, people pirate. If publishers don't want people to pirate, then they need to release quality products that work as advertised. If they don't release quality products that work as advertised, then they will have to face a future of piracy.

 

[Norsefire]

That's just called lying, and piracy is entirely irrelevant. They shouldn't be allowed to lie in the first place.

Piracy, however, is still wrong any way; so no, nothing justifies piracy.

 

[WillNever]

Yet they are allowed to lie, due to a lack of legislation protecting the consumer. If you want to stop piracy, you need to stop the lying.

When the buying public is repeatedly made to feel as if they are being ripped-off and exploited, then the inevitable result is a breakdown in consumer confidence. Is it any wonder that an increasing number of consumers are beginning to feel a desire to fight back against their feeling of being exploited... by refusing to pay full price for inferior merchandise..? The law offers them little recourse, so is it any wonder than an increasing number of gamers have decided to take the law into their own hands... by engaging in piracy..? Not at all. When the law becomes your enemy, then the law is oppressive and needs to be disobeyed. Pirating is a symptom of a much larger disease and it IS justifiable. The major gaming publishers in the industry have made it so.

 

[Norsefire]

No, they haven't. You don't have a right to steal because you feel the merchandise isn't to your liking. If you have a problem with lying, fix it; but you don't ever steal. That is not justifiable.

Any more than I can steal from Wal-Mart because I feel that I am being cheated; and further, most people that pirate, I would guess, do not do so for protesting or for trying out or for anything! They just pirate to get the software and stuff they want, like little thieves and viruses that they are.

 

[WillNever]

This isn't a case where you are stealing merchandise because you don't find it to your liking. This is a case where you are refusing to pay full price for a product that doesn't work as advertised. In that case, the first ones to be dishonest are the major gaming publishers, not the consumers. They committed the first theft, when they took your money while lying about their products. If the industry was conducting their business in an honest and sincere fashion, then I would still be opposed to piracy. Right now, it is not.

I don't know about everyone else, but I do not feel so bad about stealing from another thief. The gaming software industry has become overrun by polyester-clad thieves. Min-maxxing, outsourcing and downright lying about their products seems to be a perfectly acceptable way to conduct their businesses... so much so that frankly, I don't feel that the industry is entitled to our money anymore. If they feel that it is perfectly okay to steal billions of dollars from *us* every single year, then I don't see why it isn't okay for us to steal our money right back from them... in the form of pirated, hacked and freely exchanged copies of commercial games. That way, nobody is getting ripped off (except the thieving publishers) and the industry can just fuck off if they don't like it. You can't file charges against everybody... especially if everybody is doing the same thing. In the end, the industry will be forced to cave in and start producing products with INTEGRITY again. Either that, or just eat it.

No amount of DRM bullshit is going to change that either. SIDE FACT: DRM encourages more piracy, not less.

 

[Norsefire]

Then you address the issue by fixing the problem of deception and not resorting to piracy!

Do you think saying 'piracy is good' will be taken only in the case of "protesting" (what a laugh)? Nobody pirates to 'protest'; people pirate because they are cheap and lazy. That is the plain truth; and so piracy is wrong and must be cracked down upon with the entire might of the law, as well as deception.

Both are wrong; both thieves need to be punished.

 

[WillNever]

Pirating does fix the problem of deception. The more the software industry chooses to prematurely release broken pieces of crap, the more people will pirate. And the more that people pirate, the closer the software industry will be forced to cave in and start producing with integrity once more. Here's a real world example of what I am talking about...

Some time ago, I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on my PC. As is the case when installing an OS, I needed to re-install most of my applications after the upgrade. Occasionally, I produce gaming videos that are made with my licensed copy of Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Edition (version 8.0). It is legitimate software that I paid for more than a year ago. I have the full retail package... the install disks, the original box... all of that shit. I bought the fucking software from Amazon. I own it. It's mine. And after I re-installed Vegas, it asked me for my serial number. No problem -- I have the original serial number card. So I typed in my serial number and waited for Vegas to activate itself over the web.

And it refused to do so.

So I tried to figure out why it was screwing up. At first, I thought maybe Windows 7 was somehow interfering with it. But no... that turned out to be a dead end. So eventually I got online with Sony's tech support. And they told me the following:

"Our system shows that you have Windows 7 installed. This product is not compatible with Windows 7, therefore it is not eligible for technical support. Also, our records show that you have exceeded the number of allowable installations of this product."

Excuse me..?! Did I buy this software, or rent it..? FUCK YOU, SONY.

Naturally, I refused to take this lying down. So rather than fight with their online support monkey, I told him "Fine, up yours. I'll just hack it. In fact, I'll hack the most recent version and give myself a free upgrade. Happy now..? Look at how much money you just lost. Have a nice day, asshole." <<click>>

Then, I downloaded the most recent trial version of Vegas Platinum (ver. 9.0b) and installed it. And I also grabbed a copy of a Sony key generator/patcher (hack) which I happen to know is safe to use. Long story short: I now have a nice, new copy of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. It's all registered, activated and ready-to-go. And even better, it's an upgrade from my previous version. SUMMARY: If Sony hadn't tried to dick me around with their greedy DRM bullshit, and their refusal to support a product that I've paid for fair and square, then I wouldn't have been forced to resort to this kind of crap. But the last thing in the world that I am going to do is pay them twice for the same product. Fuck that.

Once again, DRM compels an honest user to resort to piracy in order to get what we HAVE ALREADY PAID FOR. What a world. But it's nice to know that there *are* options. And thanks for the free upgrade, Sony... you stupid greedy douchebags. YOU LOSE, ya bunch of nasty, nerdy, four-eyed nematodes.

 

[Norsefire]

Again, address the deception; resorting to piracy is like resorting to crime to deal with crime. It's stupid.

Pirating will just encourage more pirating, and when deception is 'fixed', people will be in the habit of pirating anyway; and they will justify themselves just as they do now, and just as you do.

Piracy is theft. And further, most people, as I said, aren't so 'noble hearted' in their intentions; they pirate because they are cheap morons that do not want to pay.

 

[WillNever]

Norse, you aren't paying attention. Piracy is how the deception is addressed. My above real-life event exemplifies that. Sony lost money because of my piracy, which was due to THEIR shadowy business practices. Cause and effect.

 

[Norsefire]

Norse, you aren't paying attention. Piracy is how the deception is addressed. My above real-life event exemplifies that. Sony lost money because of my piracy, which was due to THEIR shadowy business practices. Cause and effect.

Piracy is a very poor way of 'addressing the deception', because a) most people don't pirate for this reason. They pirate to steal, and the more justification you give them, the more they will do it, and b) we need to address deception instead of resorting to piracy.

How can you ensure that only people with a 'legitimate' reason pirate, and those pirating to get free downloads don't get to?

By the way, I have Sony Vegas and it works fine. So that was just a problem for you.

 

[WillNever]

You're presuming to know the minds of all pirates, norse. Have you taken a piracy poll? May I see it?

How can you ensure that only people with a 'legitimate' reason pirate, and those pirating to get free downloads don't get to?

There's no need to ensure that. Pirating is very much a market force that ebbs and flows, based on whether or not the quality of the product is worthy of the money that is charged for it. If you charge too high a price, then you face pirating. So make it worth it. And make sure it works.

So that was just a problem for you.

Nay, it is a potential problem for anyone who was doing a reinstall on a new OS. It's a very good example of how pirating is simply a response to overzealous and inconvenient DRM.

 

[Norsefire]

There's no need to ensure that. Pirating is very much a market force that ebbs and flows, based on whether or not the quality of the product is worthy of the money that is charged for it. If you charge too high a price, then you face pirating. So make it worth it. And make sure it works.

You can get songs from multiple vendors for 99 cents; and people still pirate. It isn't about 'market' or anything; people pirate because they can, and because they don't care.

Nay, it is a potential problem for anyone who was doing a reinstall on a new OS. It's a very good example of how pirating is simply a response to overzealous and inconvenient DRM.

It's a poor response; fight wrongdoing with wrongdoing.

 

[WillNever]

Many publishers make all kinds of excuses for why they "need" to incorporate invasive DRM, limited installs and other such crappola into PC games. The fact is they are simply lying. Short-sightedness and greed is what drives them... along with a clandestine desire to drive the players away from PC's and over to consoles. One of my favorite publishers is Stardock. Let me share with you an excerpt from their most recent yearly report:

Gamers Bill of Rights

In 2008 Stardock announced the Gamers Bill of Rights. It is a set of 10 basic principles that we believe PC game developers and publishers need to adhere to in order for the platform to remain competitive with consoles. The full text is now up on a new website called: www.gamersbillofrights.org.

In essence the 10 principles are:

1. If a game does not function for a player, for any reason, gamers should be able to return that game to the publisher for a full refund regardless of where they purchased it.
2. Games should be released without material defects that affect the player experience as determined by the player.
3. Games should receive free updates that address minor defects as well as enhance the game experience.
4. Games should not require a third-party download manager to be running to work.
5. Games should function adequately on the minimum hardware requirements.
6. Games should not install hidden drivers or services onto a PC.
7. Games should allow users to re-download the latest version of the game even if purchased at retail.
8. A game’s “Copy protection” or “DRM” should not inconvenience gamers.
9. Games should not require an Internet connection to play unless absolutely necessary for the game experience.
10. Gamers should be able to sell or transfer physical copies of their games to another person.

Over the past year, a great deal of effort has been put in to evangelize these principles to developers and publishers, not on the basis of ethics or morality, but because they make good business sense.

Three cheers for Stardock. Take note of the lines that I highlighted in red. Basically, the CEO of Stardock is pointing out that unless the rights of PC gamers are respected, then the end result will be LESS revenues for the publisher... not more.

And I have been saying the exact same thing in this thread. If you keep pissing off the customer, then eventually their resentment will come back around full-circle and burn you in the ass. Somebody should explain this simple concept to EA and ActiVision... because neither of those publishers seem to be able to get this simple concept through their skulls.

You can get songs from multiple vendors for 99 cents; and people still pirate. It isn't about 'market' or anything; people pirate because they can, and because they don't care.


It's a poor response; fight wrongdoing with wrongdoing.

The alternative is to pay twice for a product that is already owned, which makes no sense and is *allowing* MORE wrongdoing to take place. In actuality, what I did was prevent further wrongdoing.

 

[Norsefire]

Again, the masses pirate for the purpose of free downloads, and not for the purpose of protest; your argument doesn't really apply. And it is flawed because you are still stealing, and justifying it.

If you keep up with this people will think it is okay to pirate, and then do you honestly think they can pay for stuff when they can just pirate it? Millions of cheap, inferior people already pirate and you want to justify that?