Copyright law has always been a very flexible piece of legislation, that has been adapted based on the times. When the radio was invented, the law was updated with compulsory licenses to keep it simple yet fair. When the VCR was invented, home-taping was legalized (in most countries), because the lawmaker felt that no harm was done. Yes, currently copying a game is illegal, but the law can be changed as it has many times in the past. If the net effect of copying is positive for the selling market, and that is simply something that needs to be researched, then legalizing it will free up a large part of the judicial system while keeping a positive effect on the market. If the net effect of copying is negative, then we need to figure out if it's possible to uphold the law and at what price to society. The current state of copyright infringement raises the very distinct question: is it even possible to uphold copyright law, and if not: what alternatives are there to copyright law? Perhaps it will go like the tv-rights and home copies for music/film went in our country: legalize in return for a levy/tax system. One can continue to jump up and down screaming it's evil, immortal, bad, theft, etc., but in the end that's not going to being one extra penny into the pockets of the artists that produce these works. We need constructive solutions to this issue, and the only way we can do that is by first doing a proper social economic study into the matter.
I'm not. I give my reason again: Because while the intentions of group 5 and 6 may well end up buying it, many, many more will not, and therefore it's probably in the best interest of the gaming industry to allow no one to download it in it's entirety for free. I thought I was being very clear in offering my reasons. yes. The above. I can argue that you are the one re-iterating a point without justification. How can you defend piracy on the grounds that a few will pay for the game when we both know that many more will not? Yes, because the TV programs were broadcast to your home for free anyway. They would NOT however be as understanding if you were copying motion picture films that were NOT broadcast to your home for free.
Your argument assumes that Groups 5 & 6, the good pirates, pirating it will somehow make it possible for the bad pirates (group 3 & 4) to pirate it. There is no connection: by pirating and then buying, how do I make it easier for the destructive pirates to pirate? It makes no difference; my 'good' piracy can be assessed in isolation. I don't make the pirated versions available or make them easier to get. I help nobody but myself (and the developer, when I ultimately buy the game).
Well for the major part it's your reliance on inappropriate analogies and lack of rational reasons for your claims. You compare copyright infringement to acts that it's completely different to as an attempt to prove your argument, don't provide any reasoning beyond your own rhetoric and ignore any points people have raised that don't fit in with your views. I don't think it puts anything into perspective any better than what phulshof stated. All it did was put your own spin onto it. As for this powerful reason perhaps you'd like to share it with us all and explain why it'd still make the current state of affairs a bad thing if the amount lost from people who would've bought a copy but downloaded it instead is less than the amount gained from people who downloaded a copy and then went on to buy it? Or perhaps why it's "stupid" to pay less attention to a group of people who wouldn't have paid for a copy regardless of whether they could download it or not?
Because the system is in place to obtain it illegally? If it's there... free to download by anyone, that will be abused by the bad pirates as much as it will be used by teh good ones. The only way to stop it is to stop EVERYONE from downloading it... or... radical as it may seem... charge for it LOL My reasoning is thus: Try to keep up. If it is possible to download games illegally, for free, that system will be abused by those who have no intention of paying for it. While this may seem unfair to those who wish to download it for free and promise to pay for it later, you must see that there are no measures in place to stop people abusing it. For this reason Sainsbury's do not have a bucket hung on the wall by teh exit with a sign saying "Please be honest, and place the correct funds for your goods in here" Was THAT analogy stupid as well? I'm only repeating myself because you all seem to be ignoring this one flaw in your argument.
He's referring to piracy as a collective activity and assuming that by condoning one of the groups, we are condoning all of them. This is the active point right now, and there is one possible interpretation by which he is correct (though I am still exempt from it and morally in the clear).
But I don't uphold the system that makes it available; I just use it. In no way am I supporting the distribution system. Also, as I've stated before, I would support the disassembly of the systems that make pirated material available. But my argument remains that until then, my piracy is not morally wrong, because I buy afterwards and do not help other, less moral pirates to obtain materials.
Ahh.. that old chestnut. Absolutely. But as you are morally unimpeachable you will no doubt understand why this system needs to be shut down, yes?
And as I've asked previously what actual harm is being caused by people, who by your own claims have no intention of paying for a game, are downloading a copy of it? Who's it cost? Who's lost out from that? People who have no intention of paying for a game, whether they go on to download it or not, are a non-entity when it comes to a discussion about the harm piracy may or may not cause. The only groups that matter are those who would've bought it but didn't because they download it and those who downloaded it and then went onto buy a copy anyway. It then becomes a case of does the former causes more loss than gained by the latter? Yes, because you're trying to equate theft with copyright infringement.
Pookeyhead, a simple question: If, by some miracle, you manage to complete eliminate copyright infringement from the world today, and the result is that less money is being made by the artists: how would that be a good thing? Is your own sense of moral justice more important than making sure the artists get paid? IF (and this needs to be researched, as said before) the impact of copyright infringement is positive for the artists, then the reduction of copyright infringement serves no other purpose than to please your sense of morality over the outrage that there are still people out there getting something for free. As said before: the only important question to me here is: group 4 > group 6?
Because being seen to legitimise this is any way opens up teh flood gates and then everyone will just shrug and say "I didn't want it anyway". And AGAIN... you miss the point. Just because some people may pay... and others had no interest in buying it anyway, there WILL be MANY people who WOULD have paid, but instead choose to steal it. Are you saying this is not so? I'm not talking about whether the PEOPLE who have no intentions of buying it are right, wrong, good bad or stupid.. I'm talking about the SYSTEM that allows ALL of us to download a game in it's entirety for free is bad because there are no measures to stop those who INTEND to steal it and WOULD have paid for it should no other alternative be present. My God this is hard work! Copyright infringement IS theft if it takes revenue from the original author! While many may well have not bought the game otherwise, many WOULD have, and THOSE people have stolen it. The only way to stop this, is to clamp down on people who seed torrents and host illegal content. Either you just don;t WANT to see the truth, or you've convinced yourselves so much that it's OK to be able to download copyright protected material for free that you actually DON'T see the harm in it. Either way, that's dangerous. What makes you suggest that this would be the case? Prove to me it is and I shall recant everything I've said and give you all a humble apology.
I've already made it clear that I'd condone that. Do you agree that until that is possible, my actions are moral, since they have no negative impact, no supportive effect to that system of piracy, and directly benefit the developers? My problem with that claim is I'm not convinced that group exists. Consider the facts: these people have invested in gaming hardware. They are gaming enthusiasts. They enjoy games. They have money. Are you really yourself convinced that, if piracy didn't exist and weren't possible, these people wouldn't buy games? I'm convinced they would. In truth, I don't think Group 3 really exists - I think people just claim to belong to it. Morally they're virtually identical; legally they're similar. There's nothing wrong with putting them side by side - although there is something wrong with calling them the same thing (it's a straightforward fact that they're not).
How about the people who have paid for the game? Surely some thought must be given to those who choose NOT to pirate games, as they are paying for your privilege to pirate! If it wasn't for the buyers who rely on time tested and legal ways to opt for the purchases, then you wouldn't have a game to be able to try b4 u buy!
YOUR actions may be, but my problem is that there is a system still in place that allows those who are LESS moral to steal the games should they choose to do so. Whether there is an alternative in place or not, that must stop. It's not as if this denies you access to the games, as you could always buy it after all if you're that desperate. I can see no justification for allowing the P2P propagation of illegal games on the premise that SOME people may pay eventually, and the SOME people had no intention of buying it at all. That would just get laughed out of court should it be used as a defence alone. Again... nothing is gained by examining the moral differences between individuals. There ARE people who WILL abuse the ability to obtain illegal games, and they will be in a majority. The system that delivers said content needs to be stopped. Simple. [edit] Missed this paragraph, sorry. You assume that EVERYONE is a gaming enthusiast has invested a great deal in hardware, and has a good salary, and is morally upstanding; That's a little naive.
So we're actually in complete agreement! I suspected as much. I'm comfortable with my own actions within the current situation but disagree with the situation itself - I would like p2p software to be stopped and I agree that there isn't a justification for it on any grounds. What I enjoy about this situation - what I revel in purely from a theoretical standpoint - is that it shows positive moral acts emerging from within, and being facilitated by, a negative moral framework, which is totally counter-intuitive. It also demonstrates that the morality of an act can be variable depending on other related acts - in this case, my theoretically-immoral act of piracy is rendered moral by the fact that I buy the game afterwards. I do like playing around with moral concepts. They're like putty. Anyway, on a related point, piracy isn't theft. It just has similar effects and is similarly wrong. You don't need to say it's the same thing just for it to be wrong: we can acknowledge that it's a separate type of crime to theft without giving it some kind of legitimacy.
Actually, that was the exact reasoning for legalizing home-taping with the VCR in most countries in the world. The legislator felt that the impact on artists was negligible or even positive, and as such they legalized these actions even though traditionally they would be seen as copyright infringement. As long as we don't know what the impact of current day copyright infringement IS (group 4 > group 6) we can't know which way this should be legislated either.
Praise be!! Someone sees my point! I need a drink! So it was decided that people being able to copy and freely distribute copies of copyrighted material that was not yet on release to TV networks would generate MORE income for those selling the copyrighted material? Just LOL. I'm not talking about recording TV shows here... I'm talking about renting a VHS tape, making 10 copies and then giving them to your mates. How in the name all of all that's good and green can THAT be good for the movie industry? And don't pretend that EXACTLY the same thing goes on with computer games, because it does, and worse.. people SELL pirate copies of computer games. I don't know how well travelled you are, but I regularly go to Malaysia and there are ENTIRE shops in malls selling pirate games. These aren't dodgy back street stalls, these are full on, air conditioned rented units in major shopping malls. How can THIS help ANYONE except those who are comfortable with receiving stolen goods? All this material would have originated in a torrent somewhere.
No, i'm not saying that and I don't believe i've even implied that was what I was saying. I thought i'd made it quite clear that I was discussing people who have no intention of ever paying and that people who downloaded but would have paid for a copy if the download wasn't available were a completely different issue. And you still haven't answered the question I asked. You banged on numerous times about people who have no intention of paying for a game downloading it as a reason for piracy being wrong when their actions aren't actually costing anything. It's the actions of those who did have an intention of paying for it but downloaded it instead that are causing a potential revenue loss. It's only bad if the loss caused from that system is greater than the gains made from people who have downloaded it and gone onto buy a copy because of that. As it is i'm not sure whether any serious independent research has been conducted in the gaming market to determine which is greater, the loss from people not buyin a copy they otherwise would have because they could download it or the gains made from people who have downloaded it and gone onto pay for it. No, copyright infringement is not theft. You can claim it is as much as you like but that doesn't make it true. I am intrigued however by your argument that taking revenue from the original owner is what causes it to be theft, do you consider the taking of revenue from the original author when you obtain software through the second hand market to also be theft or are you happy for authors to lose out in those cases? Well of course that's your opinion but it's not one I agree with. You seem to have taken it to a black and white issue, they either buy all their games or pirate them all when it's not that simple. The makeup of each group is going to differ depending on the game in question, someone who may have been in group 3 for one game may be in group 2 or 6 for a different game. Let's be honest, downloading software is not tricky, it doesn't require a large input of time or effort so yes I do think there are people who download stuff for which they never had any intention of paying for simply because it is there. Again i'd argue that both morally and legally there's significant differences between the two, certainly enough that in most cases you can't put them side by side as a comparison. And what harm has been caused to the people who have paid for the game?
This is another interesting point. There is a symbiosis between pirates and buyers: in small amounts, piracy is of little consequence and may even help developers (if phulshof if right in his speculations). But it's not unlimitedly viable: if everybody suddenly pirated, it would destroy the developer. So it may be the case that piracy is variably acceptable based on how many people do it and how those people behave. If they're predominantly Group 5/6, it's beneficial; but if everybody in the market tries to do this at once it'll have a negative impact. So whether 5/6 piracy is moral or immoral depends entirely on how many people are doing it at one point in time: it has no abstract moral alignment. Idealize THAT into black and white. edit - Krazeh, I don't simplify it into all-or-nothing, it's just that I don't think there are many Group 3 pirates. I don't think there are many people capable of playing modern games who wouldn't buy them without the option of piracy. It doesn't seem plausible. edit 2 - He's appealing to notions of chivalry - that it's not fair on paying customers that some people get it for free. Personally I've never really gotten my head around that idea, but a lot of people sympathise with it. Moar explanation needed.
How about the fact that they are subsidising other's bad habits. So they are just supposed to shut up and not be counted, because some geek donut want's to get a freebie? As a paying customer, I have every right to feel aggrieved that masses of spoiled little shites are deciding to obtain exactly what I have, but done so without paying. I didn't become a PC gamer so I could sponsor all those who were shy of getting their cash out of their wallets.
