Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GlyphGryph]

Here's a question - as long as we are considering piracy theft, what if I spend 60 dollars on a game that doesn't live up to the hype and promises made advertising it (*cough* Fable *cough*), to the point where I can't even play it?

Have they stolen my money from me? In addition to the 60 dollars, have they stole the 60 hours (by my salary, that's... 1400 dollars) worth of my time I /could/ have spent playing the game they promised?

Because by the "conceptual theft" arguments I've seen in this thread, that seems like it would fit.

Edit: Sorry for the double post. Truth be told, with the speed this thread was growing I expected someone to post in the time it took me to write that.

[Dr.Feelgood]

(message deleted)

[Solifuge]

Software piracy is a new crime... never before have we been able to produce an exact copy of an existing product at no material cost. As such, it gives us cause to revise our idea of what "theft" actually is. I would say that, since both pirates and thieves are denying the creator compensation for their product, and leaving those who purchase products legally in a worse position than they (however minor), after stealing the product, I would say they are one and the same thing.

Except there's nothing inherent in piracy that leaves the store/owner of the product any worse off, while in your initial example they were at least out the bottle of wine.

This has become a game of definitions... take a moment and consider this: Much like the vinter, software programmers spend time learning their craft, planning and developing their products, and testing it with consumers before selling it... and there are costs associated with all of these things. Unless they are compensated, neither have any incentive to produce these products within our economic system.

A vinter may have made their champagne from physical grapes, and a programmer may have made a game from an intangible electronic code, but both represent an object which we assign a value to, as a society. We want them to make these things for us, and offer pay as consumers. A consumer who experiences either of these products without compensating the creator steals from them a real product. It's theft, plain and simple.

[GlyphGryph]

Again, you need to actually SUPPORT those statements. And, perhaps, read the thread, since it seems that you haven't.

The act of copying something and the act of stealing something are fundamentally the same

Then how do you account for the differences?

When you buy something you don't own it.

Wuh... wuh... WAIT, WHAT? Seriously? You're making this as a general statement? So my Yogurt IS stealing?

Pirates are stealing the unspent money that a company would have received had they not stolen the product.

Please, will someone who supports this madness respond to my yogurt argument?

Solifuge:
You make a good case for copyright infringement begin a thing with legal repercussions. You made an argument that we should have those laws for the same reason we have laws against theft. Nowhere in that post did you make an argument for it actually being theft.

And your definition still leaves making a superior competing product an example of theft, so seriously - either work on your definition and give one that makes sense or give it up.

I have the dictionary to back me up, and the law to back me up, and you're currently running on just insisting really really hard and drawing incomplete comparisons.

[Vector]

What happened to creating for the sake of creation?  Solifuge, you seem to have thrown that possibility away from the outset.

And why do we think that carrots and sticks make art, let alone great art?

The act of copying something and the act of stealing something are fundamentally the same. Copyright Infringement is theft. Both acts are illegal and should be punished to the full extent of the law. When you buy something you don't own it. You pay for an agreement/contract to use the product the way the original seller intended for it to be used. Pirates are stealing the unspent money that a company would have received had they not stolen the product.

Hey, one more time:

You are stealing the money the company would've made had you not pirated the game.
/thread

And if I wouldn't have given them any money, no matter what?

I am not a minority.  A lot of people expect payment for crappy stuff, just because it took them a long time to make it.

[Orangebottle]

You are stealing the money the company would've made had you not pirated the game.
/thread

And if I wouldn't have given them any money, no matter what?

Then you wouldn't(and shouldn't) receive the game.

I am not a minority.  A lot of people expect payment for crappy stuff, just because it took them a long time to make it.

There are easy ways to tell if a product is crap, too. Check out the demo, reviews from other people who bought the game, gameplay videos on youtube, etc. If these are bad, you don't have to buy it. But pirating it is taking profit from the company that made the product, because they are now out the 10$-50$ that they would have received had you bought the game legitimately.

[GlyphGryph]

Except, again, THEY NEVER HAD THAT MONEY. How can they be "out" something they never had? How are they any more "out" that money than if you bought a different product? Or if you bought nothing at all? Since the consequence is the same for the "victim" in all cases, why is your case so much worse?

[Pnx]

There are easy ways to tell if a product is crap, too. Check out the demo, reviews from other people who bought the game, gameplay videos on youtube, etc. If these are bad, you don't have to buy it. But pirating it is taking profit from the company that made the product, because they are now out the 10$-50$ that they would have received had you bought the game legitimately.

Frequently there aren't demos, and when there are demos they're rarely representative of the full product. Have you ever noticed how a lot of games contain a lot of scripted events and cinematics at the beginning of the game but peter out after the first third or so?
Gameplay videos and reviews are similarly a poor basis for what you'll get out of the game. Especially with how idiotic the reviews you get from places like gamestop are.

Fact is, the only way to get a good idea of how much you'll enjoy the game is by playing the game itself.
Personally I find most games lacking.

[Darvi]

Fact is, the only way to get a good idea of how much you'll enjoy the game is by playing the game itself.

Alternatively, watch a Let's Play, but that lacks the immersion of actual gameplay.

[kaijyuu]

My view: It's "theft" of potential profits, not profits that currently exist.

The justification is similar to anything that infringes on your ability to do business. If someone's say, scaring customers out of your store, you're pretty justified in claiming they're hurting your sales, even if the other customers never actually paid any money.


The problem with protection of potential stuff is well, it's potential. Not everyone who pirates a game or song would've bought said game or song if piracy was not an option (I'd wager a guess that very few would, actually). Plus, even if you accept the protection of potential things as valid, you have to draw the line somewhere; competition, for example, quite obviously cuts into potential sales as you can't set the price to be whatever you want. However, competition is justified despite that. What else is justified, and what is not?


Further note: Several markets simply would not exist without this sort of protection. Anything that can be turned into data (music, games, etc) are intellectual property; without protection of that, music, art, games, would all be hobbies rather than jobs. Only being able to make money off of physical objects seems kind of silly to me. I dunno about you, but I'd like to live as an artist selling my art, not by selling random doo-dads like t-shirts and novelty mugs.

[GlyphGryph]

You do realize that Let's Plays are illegal copyright infringement, right?

[Orangebottle]

Except, again, THEY NEVER HAD THAT MONEY. How can they be "out" something they never had? How are they any more "out" that money than if you bought a different product? Or if you bought nothing at all? Since the consequence is the same for the "victim" in all cases, why is your case so much worse?

Because, as I believe I said in my last post, they would've received money had you bought the game legitimately. Pirating nets you a copy of the game they spent money to create, without you having to pay for it. This results in them losing profit, because there's a copy of the game out there that the pirate didn't pay money for.

In other words:
Company X sells 1,000,000 copies of Game Y: Game Gamier, a highly anticipated sequel, on the day of release. They've spent lots of money on writers, voice actors, playtesters, music, programmers, etc. It sells for 30$ each. Later, someone uploads a pirated copy on the interwebs. 100,000 people download it illegally because they can't be arsed to spend 30$. Company X now sees 3,000,000$ less profit than they would've seen had those 100,000 people bought the game.

[GlyphGryph]

And again, I ask, how is that different from the following (in regards to lost profits, the loss profits being the key to your argument about this being theft), perfectly acceptable scenario we all agree isn't theft:
Company X sells 1,000,000 copies of Game Y: Game Gamier, a highly anticipated sequel, on the day of release. They've spent lots of money on writers, voice actors, playtesters, music, programmers, etc. It sells for 30$ each. Later, someone makes a different game that people realize they prefer to Game Y. 100,000 people buy this new game because they don't think Gamy Y looks all that great anymore. Company X now sees 3,000,000$ less profit than they would've seen had those 100,000 people bought the game.

Or IS that theft?

[Vector]

Those 100,000 people weren't going to buy the game anyway, and those who liked it tell their friends with money to buy it, and in the long haul feel a little bit guilty about their conduct to Company X; they purchase other games in the future, and become loyal customers.

This is the behavior I have seen from most piraters.  I'm not exactly sure why it's wrong.

[Darvi]

You do realize that Let's Plays are illegal copyright infringement, right?

*shrug*

Less damning evidence than downloading.