Piracy

Please show us a poll that states the minds and motives of the majority of pirates. Obviously people pirate because they don't want to pay for it. The question then is, why don't they want to? The answer is simple: due to various reasons relating to quality control, the product is not worth the retail price. Yet that is the price they are charged anyway, by publishers who knowingly release broken or inferior products without alerting the consumers about the dysfunctional state of the game.

Pirating has been on the rise for years now, and it has spiked especially dramatically within in the last two years. Within that timeframe, and following that same pattern, a high number of barely mediocre games with invasive DRM and many glitches (Bioshock, Mass Effect, etc) have been released. Do the math. :cool:
 
Bioshock and Mass Effect were massively acclaimed games; just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's broken. That is no excuse for piracy; and most pirates don't care about their actions. Millions and millions pirate, and it's a problem. That's that. It's wrong.
 
Both of those games were released prematurely with a huge volume of bugs. Any acclamations are rather meaningless, considering that the most popular game review sites are paid for by advertisements originating from the companies that promote the games on that site. Let's not forget the reviewer who Gamespot fired a few years ago for writing a negative review, because the game's parent company had paid for advertisements on that site.

Mega-publishers like EA and ActiVision have swallowed up every decent independent studio that ever existed.. adding them to their ever-growing kennel of devs and keeping them on a short leash. Meanwhile, we have all been spending the past couple of years being systematically conditioned to expect mediocrity as the norm. In that way, all of our expectations have been gradually lowered.

So when a game that doesn't totally suck (like Mass Effect) comes along, suddenly everyone is behaving like well-programmed consumers. They're leaping all over it like rabid, gushing fanboys... as if this game were the greatest thing to have ever happened in their lives. Be a sheeple if you must. Be a programmed droid who happily pays a premium price for mediocrity, simply because the preponderance of mediocrity these days has brainwashed you into complacency. But there was a time when MOST games being produced for the PC market were well-written, fairly original and COMPLETE upon release. And if the game happened to be a hit, then maybe we'd get a sequel. But what we're seeing here is an industry which has learned how to engineer their own "hit status," by hyping the crap out of a new product and watching people call it "acclaimed."

That's how the market is dictated, folks. By hype and payola scams (//waves at GameSpot).
 
Okay, so you're saying the games are low in quality; then okay, don't buy them. That's what people do with anything else they don't like.
 
No one finds out that the publishers had falsely advertised the game as fully functional until after they took your money. And then refuse to refund it, when you call them about the dysfunctional and buggy state of the game. If those companies want to avoid piracy, then they need to either (1) ensure higher quality control or (2) fully recompense consumers who are unhappy with the buggy state of the game. Right now, they aren't doing either on prevalent enough basis. Ergo, piracy.
 
WillNever said:
No one finds out that the publishers had falsely advertised the game as fully functional until after they took your money. And then refuse to refund it, when you call them about the dysfunctional and buggy state of the game. If those companies want to avoid piracy, then they need to either (1) ensure higher quality control or (2) fully recompense consumers who are unhappy with the buggy state of the game. Right now, they aren't doing either on prevalent enough basis. Ergo, piracy.
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That seems to be a direct call for people or consumers to take the law into their own hands.

It also seems to imply that if one company deals falsely with customers, then all companies will do it ....therefore it's okay to pirate the products of all companies.

And then, of course, is the implied threat of piracy ...if the companies don't provide quality products that you like, you'll pirate their products and, what, force them out of business.

**

It's funny to me to read some of the wild and varied excuses to pirate copyrighted material when almost everyone making the excuses know damned well that it's wrong and/or illegal. What? It's okay to fuck someone out of their rightful profit if you can come up with silly-assed excuses? ...LOL!

Baron Max
 
I'm a pirate. But I'm no more of a pirate on the Internet than I was before the Internet existed. Before the Internet existed, I was borrowing CD's from friends and recording them to cassette tape. I was also lending CD's to my friends so they could do the same. I was recording my favourite songs off the radio and making compilation tapes to listen to in my Walkman. I was taping movies off the TV and editing out the ads so I could watch them ad free later, and I was borrowing and lending such tapes from and to my friends. Each of these activities either is or was at some point in the past, copyright infringement according to Australian law.

But here's the thing. Anyone who wants to get on their high horse and condemn me for the behaviour I have described above can quite simply bite me. I just don't care. As far as I am concerned you are just not going to make your case. I've heard all of the arguments before and they just don't move me. And you will never get me to feel like a thief who just doesn't want to pay for anything, and that's because I've spent an absolute boatload of money on legitimate stuff. I have a huge CD collection, a massive DVD collection, and I'm a real fan of the genuine cinema experience which means I go to see all the movies that I think I'm going to really like.

As for software, well, I can't say that I've never pirated a version of Windows, because I have. However I have at least 6 computers with valid OEM Windows XP licenses that I don't use, but the one installation of Windows XP I do actually use is a pirated Corporate version. It's just less of a hassle. Technically it's piracy yes, but I've paid for this OS several times over. As for the installation of Windows 7 I'm running right now, it's pirated too. Because I work from home sometimes, I could justify using a legitimate corporate licensed version, but again, what's I've got now is just easier. If I was forced to use a legitimate version, Microsoft wouldn't be getting any additional money from me.

Every single other piece of software I currently have installed is freeware. I'm a huge fan of freeware and go to great lengths to find freeware versions of everything. As for games, sure, I've pirated a bunch of them before, but these days everything I have installed was bought from Steam, and it's all legitimate. I'm not saying that I'll never pirate a game ever again, because I probably will, but it probably wont be many now that we've got an excellent online content delivery system with reasonable prices.

The point is, fellas, that piracy is part of life. You'll never stamp it out completely, and you'll never get people who don't have a stake in preventing it to give a shit. You just wont. All you can do is get on your high horse and start preaching ethics and morality, and it will fall upon deaf ears. But you know what? You're human, and I can guarantee you that if I took a microscope and examined your life, that you would not be above reproach. Maybe you never pirate anything, ever. Fine. But that is not the only benchmark for morality.

If you want to get angry at someone, get angry with those who never buy anything, ever. Get angry at the ones who are actually proud of the fact that they've never bought a single CD, or DVD, or who brag about having seen the latest movie before everyone else because they downloaded a shitty CAM instead of paying money to see it. They're out there, and they are the real problem. Better still, get angry at the commercial pirates who seek to divert money that is paid by people who are willing to, away from the people who have produced the content. They are the real problem. Focusing your attacks on the people who actually do spend a significant amount of money on legitimate material, and trying to cast them in the same light, is just ridiculous. Making a judgment about their moral character, using only this as a benchmark, is also ridiculous. If you're trying to suggest that your staunch support of what is primarily a money hungry corporate machine is going to trump the moral fortitude that I demonstrate in other areas of my life, you're truly lost.

Go preach to someone who cares, which is basically no-one. Better to just get over it and focus your efforts on a more worthwhile cause instead. Something that has the potential to make an actual positive difference in the world would be my suggestion.
 
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Baron Max said:
It's funny to me to read some of the wild and varied excuses to pirate copyrighted material when almost everyone making the excuses know damned well that it's wrong and/or illegal. What? It's okay to fuck someone out of their rightful profit if you can come up with silly-assed excuses? ...LOL!

Baron Max
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As much as it's okay to fuck consumers out of their hard-earned money by falsely representing an inferior, dysfunctional product that does not work as advertised.
 
WillNever said:
As much as it's okay to fuck consumers out of their hard-earned money by falsely representing an inferior, dysfunctional product that does not work as advertised.
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Usually you can get a refund, but then your system probbly did not meet the requirements.
 
John99 said:
Usually you can get a refund, but then your system probbly did not meet the requirements.
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You can get a refund for complaining about a product with inborn glitches in the software? Usually not.

This conversation is not about system compatibility issues. Try keeping up, if you want to dispel your self-imposed reputation of being one of the stupid people on the forum.
 
WillNever said:
As much as it's okay to fuck consumers out of their hard-earned money by falsely representing an inferior, dysfunctional product that does not work as advertised.
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Interesting comment, Will. It basically means that you're punishing all companies who provide such products because of the alleged actions of only a few (or one).

But regardless, I'm going to remember your comment, Will, because it's an attempt to justify taking the law into ones own hands. If you ever make another comment condemning some criminal's actions, I'll remind you of this little conversation, okay? ....LOL!

Baron Max
 
quadraphonics said:
Rather, the only really cogent response to his position is "Fuck The Man." Which would work out to an analysis of how this is all about greedy, lazy record execs using their lawyer budget to screw things up for everyone (including the producers of the content in question), as we've seen here. But bear in mind that such an argument isn't going to change Norsefire's mind. You're still going to be a criminal to him, so the point should be to own this status and present good reasons for embracing it. That isn't going to convince Norsefire of anything, but it will result in a fairly compelling refutation of the authoritarian position for any third parties that happen to read this.
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perhaps the key here is not only to embrace our status as "the criminal," but to fashion our critique and defiance of authority as being oppositional to regressive democratic ideals specifically; IOW we defenders of piracy ultimately aim to subvert democratic processes and replace them with an enlightened meritocracy: government by a pure, noble, just, rational elite. yes, that's it precisely. this would present quite the conundrum for Norsefire.
 
parmalee said:
perhaps the key here is not only to embrace our status as "the criminal," but to fashion our critique and defiance of authority as being oppositional to regressive democratic ideals specifically; IOW we defenders of piracy ultimately aim to subvert democratic processes and replace them with an enlightened meritocracy: government by a pure, noble, just, rational elite. yes, that's it precisely. this would present quite the conundrum for Norsefire.
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Struggling artists are now the elite? That is some spinning you are doing there.
 
Norsefire said:
Again, you can't justify theft no matter how much it 'benefits' anybody, and it doesn't benefit anybody, anyway.
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oh, you have established that "it doesn't benefit anybody"? i guess i missed that part--can you reiterate, please?

rather, i saw a number of plausible explanations as to how piracy does in fact benefit the producers of the original product.

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.
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if you haven't noticed, "someone else's intellectual property" is being used by someone other than the creator all the freakin' time. establishing the "fairness," or lack of, is a difficult matter. establishing the legality is another matter; but i realize civil disobedience is a wholly foreign concept to you.

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?
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i pay for plenty of music, probably a whole lot more than you do. and, as the article Anti-Flag cited notes, most "pirates" spend about twice as much annually on music than do non-pirates.
 
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