[borninlyoko]

Personally, I don't have anything against pirating. Infact, after reading this website, I'm for it.

File Sharing: A Debate

Some Excerpts

Quote

Are CDs worth buying?

* A CD only has a few good songs.
o "...the public thinks albums have too much filler." BBC-1 [quick-link]
* CDs cost too much.
o The five biggest music companies were sued for CD price fixing Lieberman [quick-link]
o Even when Universal lowered prices, retailers balked at listing the MSRP Ahrens [quick-link]
* I wouldn't have bought the CD anyway.
* Music these days is terrible, so that's why sales are declining
o A 2006 poll found that 49% of music fans ages 18-to-34 say music is getting worse.Bauder [quick-link]
* College students barely have enough money to pay for laundry, let alone CDs and DVDs.

Quote

# Intellectual property should not follow the same rules as physical property.

* "...the misused notion of intellectual property as a form of tangible property." Lemley [quick-link]
* "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." Jefferson [quick-link]
* "...making intellectual property decisions by analogy to physical object property, or even to older intellectual property policies, is a mistake." Stallman [quick-link]

# If taping off the radio is okay, then why not trading MP3s?
# If sharing with one friend is ok, then why is sharing with everybody wrong?
# The Internet is global, and the RIAA is forcing American laws on the world.

* The international community may abide by the Berne Convention, but the United States' DMCA goes beyond what the World Intellectual Property Organization required in the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty. EFF-2 [quick-link]
* "The U.S. government has joined forces with the entertainment industry to stop the freewheeling global bazaar in pirated movies and music, pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers." Ahrens-2 [quick-link]

# Copyright law is becoming increasingly restrictive because of special interests.

* U.S. Copyright law is rooted in the Constitution, and has expanded through laws since then. Wikipedia-3 [quick-link]
* "Lobbyists for movie studios and record labels have long dominated the copyright discussion in Washington" Dean [quick-link]

[nanowire]

Maybe stuff like printer drivers (just in case you lost the disk, You might have to pay $20 for a replacement) But not really games.

[modi123_1]

@borninlyoko

That's fine and dandy for the music world (well not fine at all but a different discussion)... but how do you justify the inherent cost in producing a video game? Modern Warfare 2, w0w, and the AAA like do not fall off trees. There is a lot (millions of clams) tied up in paying developers, marketing, and what not that go in to a triple-a title... Quality games cost money somewhere, right? Companies shouldn't have to fork over the pay to the developers out of the goodness of their hearts.

[borninlyoko]

Looks like you got me there...

Have fun @Modi123_1

This post has been edited by borninlyoko: 10 January 2010 - 02:21 AM

[PsychoCoder]

borninlyoko, on 9 Jan, 2010 - 07:42 PM, said:

Personally, I don't have anything against pirating. Infact, after reading this website, I'm for it.

Boy you really are ignorant aren't you? So what do you think would happen if companies kept spending hundreds or millions on R & D, marketing and such and no one was paying for the product, everyone was stealing it (like you claim is ok to do)? I imagine that company wouldn't be around long (nor would any company for that matter) and then you would have no software/games/drivers to steal.

Boy am I happy you're not going to work out in the software development industry and will ber out of work soon

[Astraeus]

It has it's ups and downs.. I found it helpful when a few of my games got stolen/lost, i got them back on an r4.. It's not exactly pirating if you've purchased the games or plan on purchasing the game. Yea, this was from the view of game pirating.

But pirating with the intent of not spending money is bad in my opinion PsychoCoder is right, companies spend millions making the software, with the intent of making a profit.

This post has been edited by Astraeus: 10 January 2010 - 09:59 AM

[ForcedSterilizationsForAll]

So where does the money go that would have went to the content owners if the person paid for it?

[papuccino1]

The only instance I'll pirate a game:
If the publisher decides to install a myriad of useless shit on my computer.

For example, I was going to buy Bioshock 2, but now that I've learned it will come bundled with not 1, not 2, but 3 extra software components, I'll just save the hassle and pirate the game.

In these cases, it's absurd that a paying costumer has to put up with more bullshit than a pirate user that can just run a .exe file without anything else.

[modi123_1]

papuccino1, on 21 Jan, 2010 - 03:34 PM, said:

The only instance I'll pirate a game:
If the publisher decides to install a myriad of useless shit on my computer.

For example, I was going to buy Bioshock 2, but now that I've learned it will come bundled with not 1, not 2, but 3 extra software components, I'll just save the hassle and pirate the game.

In these cases, it's absurd that a paying costumer has to put up with more bullshit than a pirate user that can just run a .exe file without anything else.

What extra components are you talking about?

How would the pirated version not have these 'extra components'?

[zombie_chan51]

PsychoCoder, on 7 Jan, 2010 - 02:38 PM, said:

drjoe51, on 7 Jan, 2010 - 12:44 PM, said:

It's bad
but I don't like paying for games

So, companies like Ubisoft should spend millions upon millions on development and R&D and shouldn't be allowed to charge for that? I can tell you haven't been a software developer for long, have you? Ever heard

Quote

Nothing in life is free

Well, I did just get my degree. So no, not very long. i know nothing in life is free. But I can still steal.

This post has been edited by zombie_chan51: 21 January 2010 - 03:05 PM

[papuccino1]

modi123_1, on 21 Jan, 2010 - 01:50 PM, said:

papuccino1, on 21 Jan, 2010 - 03:34 PM, said:

The only instance I'll pirate a game:
If the publisher decides to install a myriad of useless shit on my computer.

For example, I was going to buy Bioshock 2, but now that I've learned it will come bundled with not 1, not 2, but 3 extra software components, I'll just save the hassle and pirate the game.

In these cases, it's absurd that a paying costumer has to put up with more bullshit than a pirate user that can just run a .exe file without anything else.

What extra components are you talking about?

How would the pirated version not have these 'extra components'?

Comes bundled with: Games for Windows Live, Sony DADC SecuROM and an active internet connection to save games. Although the internet is only required for the first use.

Meanwhile a copy downloaded off of KickAssTorrents will only need a double click on a .exe as usual. Skullptura will most likely provide.

Is a man not entitled to game that he paid for?
No, says SecuRom, it belongs to the publisher.
No, says Steam, it belongs to the internet.
No, says Live, it belongs to everyone.

This post has been edited by papuccino1: 21 January 2010 - 03:39 PM

[SwiftStriker00]

Just my two cents on the whole topic.

Does anyone remember SMB3? that game is as close to perfect your gunna get, there are no major bugs, that crash the game, its enjoyable and it doesnt need patches. I think the availiblity of the internet has destroyed the quality of games.

Now take a look at most modern games, the companies whore them out as fast as they can to get as much money from titles as possible. Often missing a lot of bugs ( I'm looking at you Splinter Cell double agent >, could have been the buggiest game i've ever played).

Now this is why im an advid support gamefly, with the occasional temporary pirate. I could go out and buy a $70 computer game, that I cant return, and find out I hate it, or its a piece of crap, and it wasn't worth anything close to the money ( i.e. that x-men wolverine game that came out where models disappeared in the middle of fights, and the hit boxes were much bigger than the models). I was glad i rented it and was able to return it. The companies dont deserve the money if they dont produce a polished game, or more importantly if they dont finish a game before selling it. Games shouldn't need 5 patches before they work as intended.

Thats why I'd bootleg a game, and if im wrong, I like the game, i'll go out and buy it. but since companies like LameStop wont let you return something cause you looked at the cdkey, well then its the only way i can protect my money.

Yes i know it hurts the industry, but look at call of duty 4 modern warfare. they made a game that was worth the money and then some, and a lot of ppl bought it, sure you have a few crackers but your always going to have ppl that will try and do it.

[papuccino1]

I still can't believed they raped the PC version so hard. No dedicated servers? Are you kidding me?

This post has been edited by papuccino1: 21 January 2010 - 04:29 PM

[pakkuman_shinde]

ForcedSterilizationsForAll, on 28 Sep, 2009 - 07:47 AM, said:

...If someone entered your house, made an exact replica of all your possessions, left all the originals there, and left everything in the exact state it was in before entering your house (aside from your fear for your safety) how would you react?

I would hunt them down, and find out how they created said replicas, and then do so myself.

I'm not condoning piracy in any way, because it can steal money from the authors/creators of the product,but the argument of large companies keeping majorities of profits from the authors/creators can be quite sound. The thing is, even if the authors/creators are getting a marginal amount of the profit, the profit still trickles down to them nevertheless. So even if you are a small percent of the people who listen to or use the product, including those who pay for it, you are still stealing from the authors/creators.

Let's say that one decided you like Microsoft's Office Suite, and decided to create an exact copy of it, but programming it by oneself, completely from scratch except for the knowlegde of how the software works and what the software looks like, and then use that instead of buying it, would that be stealing? I say no, but what are the chance anyone could get the EXACT same thing without stealing something?

The excuse, "I wouldn't have bought it anyways!", isn't valid for disproving piracy's equality to theft. If one doesn't pay for the software then it is stealing. If you "weren't going to pay for it anyways," then you're not really stealing any profit, but still stealing the product itself.

I'm bored.

This post has been edited by pakkuman_shinde: 21 January 2010 - 06:40 PM

[briambo]

pakkuman_shinde, on 21 Jan, 2010 - 04:55 PM, said:

Let's say that one decided you like Microsoft's Office Suite, and decided to create an exact copy of it, but programming it by oneself, completely from scratch except for the knowlegde of how the software works and what the software looks like, and then use that instead of buying it, would that be stealing? I say no, but what are the chance anyone could get the EXACT same thing without stealing something?

So just like OpenOffice then?


OT: I'm not going to say I've never downloaded anything illegally, because I have. I buy most of my games, especially the ones I'm like all hyped about. But some games I download because I either can't get them at a local dealer (and seriously I'm not going to travel 20miles just to buy a game), or either those games are pretty old and aren't sold anymore (the Wing Commander Saga for instance).

I know you can say: 'why not order them online and have them shipped to you', simple because that would make most of those games cost me more than they are worth. If it says 35 euros and I really want the game, I'll pay those 35euros, but I'm not going to cough up another 10 euros just to get it delivered here.