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[pilgrimboy]

Like a book.  Is stealing a book you would never have bought wrong?

Apparently it's okay if you steal a digital copy, but stealing a physical copy is wrong.

[Cthulhu]

A better comparison to books would be reading the entire book in the bookstore's lounge, without paying for it.  Is that stealing?

Piracy doesn't steal the code or the labor involved in making the game in any way that deprives the owner of it. 

All questions of morality aside, a law is useless if you can't enforce it.  Is it possible to enforce anti-piracy laws to any acceptable extent?  I've pirated all kinds of shit and never even got a sideways glance.  Many games (Even indie games, despite what some people will tell you) have 9 pirates for every 1 legitimate owner.  If you add music in, basically everyone with internet access is a pirate.  Why even have the law?

[itisnotlogical]

Like a book.  Is stealing a book you would never have bought wrong?

Apparently it's okay if you steal a digital copy, but stealing a physical copy is wrong.

If you watch a music video on Youtube, you haven't paid for it. I am going to guess and say that the entire Beatles discography is on Youtube at this very moment. If you listen to it, are you stealing?

[The Darkling Wolf]

How does it not being a physical object matter? The digital code is what costs the most in the item, not the physical object. They spend a lot of money to arrange code in an order that we will enjoy playing. I buy digital code to play all the time on Steam. No physical object involved. Buying a game isn't really about buying a physical object.

Like a book.  Is stealing a book you would never have bought wrong?

Apparently it's okay if you steal a digital copy, but stealing a physical copy is wrong.

WRT stealing. Yes. Stealing a physical copy of something has a tangible cost, that object needs to be replaced by someone, which will cost money.
Downloading a copy of something doesn't delete that code from the internet, many thousands of people can download a single copy of the same thing, there's no cost incurred to manufacture some new bytes to replace the downloaded ones, it doesn't need to be shipped out on an internet truck, and stocked by an internet stockboy.

[pisskop]

Darkling, Lets assume that your cataclysm mod made royalties.  Every 10 people to DL it earned you $1 from the game's creator.

Now let's assume 4/5 people pirated your copy from a website like pirate bay (which companies have gone after repeatedly).  That's a lot of potential money being stolen from your intellectual property.  Nobody's hurting your mod, true.  But they are taking something you worked hard to create, and depriving you of the financial motivation you created the mod with.  Undermining capitalism.

[The Darkling Wolf]

That's a terrible example, because I wouldn't give a shit
As long as people were playing and enjoying it, I wouldn't care how they obtained it, but I'm pretty abnormal in that respect.

[Cthulhu]

Yeah, that sucks.  But some issues:

1.  Your analogy doesn't really make all that much sense, as is.  Are the people downloading it buying it?  Assuming they are...

2.  How many of them would have bought it were there no other option?  This is always the big question of piracy, and is never given a satisfactory answer from either side beyond "Whatever makes my argument better."  If no one would have, then he's "losing" money that would have never been his either way.

3.  Again, what's the practical solution here?  You can't make piracy go away.  You can't prosecute every pirate, you can't make it impossible, it's not gonna go away.  Here's an illustrative anecdote about unavoidable loss of product:  Guy I know used to be a truck driver, and would deliver products to stores.  He was told before he started, "Don't mess with the homeless people, just wait for them leave and deliver what's left."  Sure enough, in certain areas, as soon as the truck stopped, groups of homeless people would show up and walk off with a bunch of merchandise.  Did the people being stolen from try to moralize with them?  Did they have cops show up and arrest everybody?  No.  They acknowledged that shit was gonna get stolen, and just factored it into their finances as an unavoidable loss.

[Zyxl]

Copyright infringement is a closer comparison than actual physical theft I think. Not exactly the same thing, but the high development, low reproduction costs are a fairly unique situation.

A company spends massive amounts of time and money to develop a new technology. It costs effectively nothing to replicate it in comparison to the startup cost, allowing any other company that could use the new technology to use the new technology practically for free. However copyright law exists such that everyone plays fairly and those that use the new technology ultimately pay for the investments to develop it.

A game company spends massive amounts of time and money to develop a new game. It costs effectively nothing to replicate it in comparison to the startup cost, allowing any gamer to use it for practically for free. However piracy laws exist such that everyone pays fairly and those that play the game ultimately pay for the investments to develop it.

[pisskop]

Yeah, that sucks.  But some issues:

1.  Your analogy doesn't really make all that much sense, as is.  Are the people downloading it buying it?  Assuming they are...

2.  How many of them would have bought it were there no other option?  This is always the big question of piracy, and is never given a satisfactory answer from either side beyond "Whatever makes my argument better."  If no one would have, then he's "losing" money that would have never been his either way.

3.  Again, what's the practical solution here?  You can't make piracy go away.  You can't prosecute every pirate, you can't make it impossible, it's not gonna go away.  Here's an illustrative anecdote about unavoidable loss of product:  Guy I know used to be a truck driver, and would deliver products to stores.  He was told before he started, "Don't mess with the homeless people, just wait for them leave and deliver what's left."  Sure enough, in certain areas, as soon as the truck stopped, groups of homeless people would show up and walk off with a bunch of merchandise.  Did the people being stolen from try to moralize with them?  Did they have cops show up and arrest everybody?  No.  They acknowledged that shit was gonna get stolen, and just factored it into their finances as an unavoidable loss.

Rape is an unavoidable part of society, does this make it acceptable if nobody gets arrested?
[snip] I refer you back to previous arguements.  You seem to acknowledge tht what you are doing is wrong, yet you refuse to just say it openly.  Others here have said, "yea, its wrong, but Im not going to stop."  Why are you continuing to rationalize it?

[Cthulhu]

Rape is not in any way, shape, or form comparable to piracy here.  Don't emotion-jab me, it's not going to work.  First of all, rape is enforceable.  It's underenforced, for known reasons that don't have anything to do with inconvenience and ubiquity, but it is 100% possible to bring rapists to justice.  Furthermore the kind of harm caused by rape is a societal ill that goes beyond unavoidable loss of money.

I'll say straight up, I've pirated games with no intent to ever buy them in the future.  Games I would not have bought were it the only option.  The developers would never have received money from me in any situation.  The money I could (but didn't, and won't) spend on those games is sitting in my bank account.  It didn't disappear.  I can spend it on something else and stimulate the economy in that way.  There is no measurable loss here, for anyone.

[Tilla]

Wow pisskop you basically Godwinned with the rape shit. Fuck off.

[miauw62]

I don't think toady is going to lock it. He would have long done it if it spiralled out of control. I think he'll leave it open as long as this is a good non-flamey discussion.

*shrug*

[itisnotlogical]

Yeah, that sucks.  But some issues:

1.  Your analogy doesn't really make all that much sense, as is.  Are the people downloading it buying it?  Assuming they are...

2.  How many of them would have bought it were there no other option?  This is always the big question of piracy, and is never given a satisfactory answer from either side beyond "Whatever makes my argument better."  If no one would have, then he's "losing" money that would have never been his either way.

3.  Again, what's the practical solution here?  You can't make piracy go away.  You can't prosecute every pirate, you can't make it impossible, it's not gonna go away.  Here's an illustrative anecdote about unavoidable loss of product:  Guy I know used to be a truck driver, and would deliver products to stores.  He was told before he started, "Don't mess with the homeless people, just wait for them leave and deliver what's left."  Sure enough, in certain areas, as soon as the truck stopped, groups of homeless people would show up and walk off with a bunch of merchandise.  Did the people being stolen from try to moralize with them?  Did they have cops show up and arrest everybody?  No.  They acknowledged that shit was gonna get stolen, and just factored it into their finances as an unavoidable loss.

Rape is an unavoidable part of society, does this make it acceptable if nobody gets arrested?
[snip] I refer you back to previous arguements.  You seem to acknowledge tht what you are doing is wrong, yet you refuse to just say it openly.  Others here have said, "yea, its wrong, but Im not going to stop."  Why are you continuing to rationalize it?

Yeah, no, I shouldn't have expended the effort to debate you.

[Girlinhat]

Rape is an avoidable part of society.  Basic childhood education and being taught respect for your fellow human being would pretty much wipe it out.  But no, schools are more concerned with math and geography...  Also well played, you have simultaneously invoked the rape card, have something that looks suspiciously like a nazi as your avatar, and your current personal text is QFT: "Who forced Macys into giving away a $50 scarf? ME" implying stealing as you try to take the moral high ground.

Also this is where the thread gets locked.  We were all having a nice conversation until someone with 'piss' in his name waltzed in and ruined it.

[Darkmere]

Ah. Wow. It's turned into a car wreck, before my eyes.

I was washing dishes, and I heard the noise, and I came outside.