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[Gantolandon]

I really don't see much difference between resale and lending.  In a fully developed resale economy, once you put something on the used market, you can buy it back off the used market for a little more than you got for it (or the same amount, depending on how long you wait for its value to go down).  The resale economy, to a large extent, IS about lending your copy of a work to the world-at-large, often in exchange for borrowing a copy of another work (yeah, there's a transition through currency, but this is one usual way it happens).  And unlike libraries, if you get a book off the used-game market, you are almost guaranteed not to buy it from the original publisher.  Sequels maybe, but still.

And what is the reason that the customer should care about it?

Anyway.  In this hypothetical situation where Alice buys a game and Bob makes use of it, I'd like someone to pinpoint exactly where it STOPS being piracy on Bob's part:

I won't, because there is no such point. Piracy is an arbitrary label to name some actions made by the user which are undesirable for the distributor. You can put the border wherever you want. Point 1? Point 11? Never mind, you're still right and still wrong.

Then buy a copy for your friend, then you can care about your friend AND the guy who made whatever you're sharing.

Yeah. I could also buy him a car instead of driving him to work when he needs it.

As for 'watching a movie with whoever' or 'playing a game together on the same console using two controllers', those are pretty firmly established as okay.  Though it would be interesting to contrast 'two players on one console' versus 'two players on two consoles', yeah.

Last when I checked, sharing books (or movies) was also considered okay. And those cases also appear unethical if you use the same logic. Why shouldn't the distributor get the money for your girlfriend if you happen to watch the movie with her? She will most likely not watch it again, thus depriving him from a part of his profit. Why should she get for free something that she should usually pay for?

[Nadaka]

Eh, this is kind of different though.  It's an issue of "What gives a purchasing bloc of three or four friends the right to pay the same amount as any one other person, while still obtaining the same individual value for each of them".  Books, too.

What gives them the right? The concept of property. The right of first sale.

Once you buy anything, you own it. Period. You can do what you want with it, including give it away.

You know what isn't a right? Copyright.  It is a restriction of rights. You do not have a right to always profit. You do not have the right to restrict the rights of others. For the eventual enrichment of the public domain, the creator of a work of art is granted a temporary monopoly on distributing copies of that art.

Reselling a video game, movie, book, car or piece of land does not produce a copy. It does not infringe. Period.

[Virex]

It should be noted that sharing books, music and films is allowed as long as it is restricted to small-scale, non-commercial ventures. You can share your earphones with your friends, but if you're throwing a big festival, you usually need permission to use the music for that application.

I think if I paid to OWN something, I can do whatever I please with such something, including reselling it.

That currently is a bit of a weird case with software, at least with most games. With MMO's (including single-fee ones) and many industry-grade software they're making it clear you've got a license, but in such a case you also get the services associated with a license, such as the ability to install anywhere but only to activate it if you have a valid account and quite extensive access to tech support.


With games and some consumer programs, things get weird. Technically you're buying a license bound to a single physical copy. In practice this would mean you have the "privileges" bound to a physical copy, such as installing from a physical medium and losing access if the medium is made inoperable (though until recently companies used to offer replacements. Don't know the current situation though), but you've got the "obligations" bound to a license, such as not being able to transfer it without permission from the producer.
At least that's the way I've understood EULA's, with the caveat of course that EULA's can be superseded by the law.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Now as for movies, they already say that 'not for public performance', so I'm sure you already know there's a difference between watching it with a friend and showing it at your own homemade drive-up theater.

There's not. Both Netflix and Redbox, for instance, simply bought up DVDs wholesale and rented them out dirt cheap. This was 100% legal for them to do. The MPAA didn't much like this, and started threatening the licensed wholesalers, trying to stop anyone from selling to Netflix or Redbox. Eventually, both caved in and signed a contract with the studios themselves not to release new movies until they'd been out on DVD for over a month, in return for getting them cheaper/getting streaming rights in the case of Netflix.

[Ivefan]

Piracy; (1 2 3) is the same thing. 5
Lending; 4 9 10 11
Sharing; 6, (7 is the same thing.

And unlike libraries, if you get a game off the used-game market, you are almost guaranteed not to buy it from the original publisher.  Sequels maybe, but still.

Libraries purchase the book once, from the original publisher, then lend it to a lot of people.
Someone purchase the game once, from the original publisher, then sells it to someone else.
In both cases, revenue was gained once, so what is the difference?

[Sowelu]

Eh, this is kind of different though.  It's an issue of "What gives a purchasing bloc of three or four friends the right to pay the same amount as any one other person, while still obtaining the same individual value for each of them".  Books, too.

What gives them the right? The concept of property. The right of first sale.

Let me bold this so it's clear: I am arguing AGAINST the right of first sale for creative works.  I'm arguing a distinction between creative consumables and physical property.  If you remove the right of first sale, can you still build an economy that's fair to the consumer?  I think yes, the tricky part is deciding what's "fair".  Before you complain too much, the right of first sale and the things it contains are arbitrary, too--just because you're used to them doesn't mean they're the end-all be-all of contractual theory.

Anyway.  In this hypothetical situation where Alice buys a game and Bob makes use of it, I'd like someone to pinpoint exactly where it STOPS being piracy on Bob's part:

I won't, because there is no such point. Piracy is an arbitrary label to name some actions made by the user which are undesirable for the distributor. You can put the border wherever you want. Point 1? Point 11? Never mind, you're still right and still wrong.

Fine, then where's your moral boundary, your personal moral boundary?  Where do you start feeling like you shouldn't be doing it?  Hopefully that point isn't "buying a game, cracking it, then putting it on BitTorrent for all the world to have".  Which is basically point 1, up there, but expanded to a wider population.  If you're willing to do it with one person, why not five?  If you're willing to do it with five people, why not a hundred?

As for 'watching a movie with whoever' or 'playing a game together on the same console using two controllers', those are pretty firmly established as okay.  Though it would be interesting to contrast 'two players on one console' versus 'two players on two consoles', yeah.

Last when I checked, sharing books (or movies) was also considered okay. And those cases also appear unethical if you use the same logic. Why shouldn't the distributor get the money for your girlfriend if you happen to watch the movie with her? She will most likely not watch it again, thus depriving him from a part of his profit. Why should she get for free something that she should usually pay for?

Hmm.  That's actually a sticky one, yeah.  I think you would want new laws to codify some default contractual rights that you get when you buy these non-resalable works.  The right to private performance is an obvious one to include, and it covers this situation...but it's similar enough to the other cases that it's not obvious where it stops.

A "right to private performance" seems like a pretty good place to go from here, actually.  The consumer can make one instance of a work available at a time, at his or her location, usable noncommercially by a reasonable number of participants.  That is exactly what you can do with a DVD or a console game right now, so it's a good baseline to keep.  It includes multiple-controller console games, but doesn't include four copies of Halo on four TVs, and it doesn't include charging money at your home theater.

But for this, it's firmly tied to you as the consumer.  You can't let someone -else- use your right to private performance at their own location with their own friends, your copy has to stick with you.

Now as for movies, they already say that 'not for public performance', so I'm sure you already know there's a difference between watching it with a friend and showing it at your own homemade drive-up theater.

There's not. Both Netflix and Redbox, for instance, simply bought up DVDs wholesale and rented them out dirt cheap. This was 100% legal for them to do. The MPAA didn't much like this, and started threatening the licensed wholesalers, trying to stop anyone from selling to Netflix or Redbox. Eventually, both caved in and signed a contract with the studios themselves not to release new movies until they'd been out on DVD for over a month, in return for getting them cheaper/getting streaming rights in the case of Netflix.

Well, rental and public performance are different (although that is a good case study for rental).  Public performance is specifically (as I understand it) about showing it on a wall for a few hundred people, broadcasting it on TV, stuff like that.


...Hope I'm not ruffling too many feathers here, this is a neat position to be arguing.

[Vel]

Oh goody, another pro-corporate-hogwash crazypants.

You /do/ know that pretty much the only ones who benefit from restricting resale and the like are huge publisher powerblocs with absolutely no interest in the business except to put their hand in the cookie jar, right? A lot of the smalltime musicians/developers/what-have-you are either indifferent to or, in some cases, encourage.. 'sharing' (literal or otherwise) of their creative works in order to raise greater awareness and interest in their works as a whole.

If you restrict the ability for the consumer to either share their purchased media with friends or resell their used media so that others of more meager means can experience said media at a reduced price, then you essentially orchestrate the death of independent media in it's entirety, as only those with huge advertisement backing will be able to generate enough interest to maintain profitability for future works. Congratulations on that.

[BigD145]

If you go to the zoo, can you resell your ticket after you leave?  No.  If you buy a season membership, can you sell it to someone else?  No, you might get fifty people who each use it on a different day, instead of actually paying real money to get in.  Hell, if you donate a ton of money and get a lifetime membership, can you sell it to someone else?  No.  And nobody complains.  Remember, resale means that the original creator GETS NOTHING from resale.

I can't resell my toaster? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!

[Sowelu]

A lot of the smalltime musicians/developers/what-have-you are either indifferent to or, in some cases, encourage.. 'sharing' (literal or otherwise) of their creative works in order to raise greater awareness and interest in their works as a whole.

If you restrict the ability for the consumer to either share their purchased media with friends or resell their used media so that others of more meager means can experience said media at a reduced price, then you essentially orchestrate the death of independent media in it's entirety, as only those with huge advertisement backing will be able to generate enough interest to maintain profitability for future works. Congratulations on that.

You know what's been helping out indie developers even more?

Showing up on Steam, or any other low-entry-cost network where they can sell for low prices and reach consumers very directly.  If it wasn't for Steam's generally fair, effective and non-punishing DRM, they would not be able to support the business model that helps their indie developers to thrive.

The challenge for small, indie publishers is in getting the word out.  With a content distribution network like Steam, that job is already accomplished.  They don't need piracy, because they're already easy to find and easy to link to; there's no mussing around in stores desperately hoping to find them, and you don't have to rise past the barrier of "good enough that people are willing to dick around with your crappy homebrew credit card processing site".  Simply put, as of the last couple years, I don't think that's very relevant for indie games that are big enough to get onto Steam etc.

[Shadowlord]

Also it's pretty cheap (_{for this example, ignore the fact that there's still a free version out there}), and it's pretty SHORT, too.  If you've got a circle of ten friends, do you think it's really legitimate for one guy to buy a copy, then pass it to the next guy, who passes it to the next, until everyone has played it at home on their own time for the cost of a single copy?  Do you REALLY think that's the way that the sale of a one-shot artistic work is supposed to work...one person pays for it, then everyone they know can use it for free?

As others have pointed out, you've basically described a library.

Didn't your mother ever teach you to share? You should feel ashamed of yourself for being so selfish!

[Neonivek]

The difference between Music Books and Videogames is China.

No really... It is all because of China.

I wish I am joking but no that is really it.

Specifically the reason Software is given out as Licenses is because they are more worried about copying games then they are about copying books.

Ok that AND there are laws for books that allow them to be redistributed because they are considered "Knowledge" even the fiction books. While Games are not.

[Sowelu]

Please do elaborate, Neonivek.  D:

Also, hrmmm.  I think some rare libraries *do* in fact stock video games, and quite a few do stock some movies.  So you might do well not to dismiss the worth of that analogy!  If you can figure out a way to maintain a public collection of books, audiobooks, reference books and movies while still making sure that the creators are compensated and that the public does buy them sometimes, surely you can do the same for other works, right?

Remember though that just because a library lets you borrow books for free, that doesn't mean you can download an ebook of a copyrighted book that you got from the library, and send copies to a couple dozen of your buddies.

[Neonivek]

There is an old saying Sowelu

You will only sell a game to China once.

[dogstile]

The reason i'm against your idea is because the very idea of it implies that company's will always have to monitor me and my systems, and the systems of my friends to ensure we do not share.

It creates an idea that it's ok for people to constantly watch you, assuming you're going to do it, so they have to watch.

Also, I brought the fucking thing. They can fuck off, I own it now. If I want to let my friend play bulletstorm when it comes out because he can't afford it then I will.

Pretty much, if this happened, people would simply not buy anything. People do not like being watched.

[Neonivek]

Also redistrubution is quite a bit worse then you think.

Have you ever installed a game on more then one computer? Yep your not supposed to do that.
Have you ever made more then one copy of a game for yourself? Yep also a no

(I had editing of my last post... but my internet gone out and I don't feel like rewriting it. I only went on to say that it is much easier to copy a game then a book. Though Movie...)