Woaah, where did I say that? I never excused piracy in any way shape or form! I wasn't saying that people below the poverty line have the right to pirate, so Pookeyhead, you too mistook what I was saying. I was addressing mvagusta's post about poverty and stealing, and it had nothing to do with piracy. I agree it went too OT, clearly, as you guys seemed to be thinking I was justifying piracy if one was poor. I was implying that some people are tempted to steal items they are desperate for (such as food or clothes), in times of deprivation. Digital media is a luxury, and there can be no excuse for stealing (pirating) this. And mvagusta, if you want to try and twist what I am saying again, try harder!
Blunt truth right there. Crisis can happen and life doesn't always go as planned, but there are a great number of things which a great number of people could do with taking more responsibility for. Each day I see late-teen/early-20s mothers, half of them are happy with their decision, the other half feel it's Fate's fault that the condom broke and they did nothing to plan for such an occassion. There are many situations where people make plans based on a likely outcome and think it's just some kind of crisis when the unlikely outcome comes true. That's called failure to plan! Making a bad decision does not mitigate the effect of stealing, it's simply following one bad decision with another. BUUUUUUUT that's way OT. Piracy is not about poverty. Anything which can be pirated is a luxury and there is no Robin Hood story behind it.
You can't plan for every single eventuality that life will throw at you, and it's stupid to claim that. Unexpected events do take place in people's lives, that they could simply not have forseen, or had the means at their disposal to protect against. Why are you focusing on single, young mums too? There are hardworking people who made all the right moves that find themselves in poverty too you know? Happily, the courts would disagree with that view. It's the same with every other crime one could commit. There are circumstances that people find themselves in, and find themselves under pressure, and then make the wrong moves. It does happen. And I never claimed it was or that poverty is an excuse for piracy.
Because it followed the theme of Mva's post which was quoted, and it's an easy example of a chance which a person can forsee. I can't forsee that when driving along down the highway a plane won't fall from the sky and kill me, but I can sure predict that condoms have a chance to fail and should be prepared for the slight chance that one does. It's not at all unforseeable and happens quite often. And thankfully they have a good judge of when circumstances are because of foolish choices or genuine misfortune! Good luck gambling away your money and hoping to get off with stealing because you're in a tough circumstance! That's true, and I know you never did, which is why I'd like to help make that distinction and keep the thread away from such an idea.
We seem to be talking about different issues here. Teenage and unwanted pregnancy isn't something I would class as unaviodable circumstances. I agree it's failure to plan. But I'm talking about redundancies, onset of long term illnesses, bereavements etc. etc. These are issues that face people on a daily basis, and if you are already close to the breadline, then incidents like this can help tip the balance and very easily too. Some people do find themselves in a true pickle, and do silly things while under extreme pressure. If this is genuine, then I think it only right that magistrates/ judges take this into account when passing sentence, but only where guilt has been admitted, there is genuine remorse, and the offender was of previous good character. What do you suggest, we just remove the powers of magistrates to be able to show leniency, and have fixed penalties across the board? Thanks for the help
What monies are they entitled to, I've bought the DVD, I've paid my license fee (rip off that it is) etc. for example I am legally allowed to import US disks for personal use, I am legally allowed to make a backup copy I am not allowed to circumvent DRM or to download a copy. So legally I can buy the DVD, convert it to Divx, copy it to a flash drive and watch it anywhere. Total cost to me £15 several hours of my time and lots of inconvience carrying them about and everyone has been paid all of the money they are entitled to by law Or Buy the DVD put on shelf, Download from torrent about 20 mins outside the UK and about 35 here, watch from anywhere. Total cost to me £15 and everyone has been paid all of the money they are entitled to by law but it's illegal. I fail to see who has been deprived of anything
As I've said before, if you download from torrents you're also sharing the illegal files with others - therefore aiding their copyright infringement - and they may not be so kind-hearted. If you use download sites, usenet etc, you downloading the files supports the people who offer the illegal material (ie subscription fee for usenet and the incentives to subscribe on most download sites), which helps increase the amount of piracy in the first place. The end result is the same for you, but probably not for others.
I think I should point out that unikey is not, as far as I know, condoning piracy itself, but rather the breaking or evading of DRM/regional restrictions, such as cracking purchased games and redownloading films he already owns. Sorry if that's incorrect, unikey, I just feel everyone's talking past each other at the moment. Bakes is correct, though: even if piracy isn't personally wrong for you because you already own the product, it is wrong in effect because it encourages and sustains the systems that facilitate piracy. That's the rub that I tried to avoid with my try-and-buy model, and we concluded that there is no way to pirate that doesn't encourage and aid piracy. Arguably, leeching a torrent while you download it is about as close to morally neutral as you can get, and is a very slight thing, but technically it does still involve you in the system and ties you up in the same bag as other, less conscientious pirates by association.
orly? Exactly! Being involved with piracy, is being involved with not letting mega rich movie producers not make as many millions as they could have otherwise, or in other words, being involved with breaching copyright = being involved with thieves/helping them to steal. It's really not that complicated guys I'm not saying that movie producers are fair, generous, humanitarians, or anything like that, but if I was going to steal from them, I would either admit it, or just not mention downloading anything at all. The last thing I'm gonna do is illegally download something, then try and pretend that It wasn't illegal, because I deserved to or something like that
I think that basically we are dealing with an issue of entitlement. unikey feels that because he bought the DVD, and hence its licence of use, in the first place he should not experience any limits on its use and that it is OK to circumvent DRM for that purpose. Others feel that they should be able to try before they buy because they want to prevent being ripped off: spending money on what turns out to be a crap game. Yet others pirate because they think prices are exploitative and extortionate in the first place. Some are just greedy: they like taking stuff when it's there for the taking, like piling your plate high at the all-you-can-eat buffet table with food that you could never possibly eat. Although I sympathise with unikey's argument --he did buy the licence, after all-- in the end nobody seems to accept the argument that if you don't like the conditions of sale, whether price, quality assurance or limitations on use, you simply don't buy. I mean, it's not as if we're talking about life's essentials here. We're talking about games. Music. Films. Entertainment. And yes, also productivity software but there are many cheap, or even free alternatives that do the job just as well. This sense of (over)entitlement does bother me. It is what got people into the massive debts which led to the current recession, makes the A&E flood every weekend with drunks who overindulged and makes pathetic individuals sue gaming companies for their own addiction. When yet another politician complains about a game's content we all know the answer: if you don't like it, don't buy the game. If you don't like the explicit lyrics, don't buy the music. If you don't like the scenes of sex and violence, don't watch the movie. If you don't like the price, quality assurance or conditions of use, don't buy it. Do without. Find a legal alternative. Spend your money on something else fun.
I agree. I also think (and have said it a few times) that those who are actively pirate seem to place digitial media on some sort of plateau. They seperate it from other commercial products in their mindset, because doing so allows them to excuse their own actions. Ask someone who pirates if they would go shoplifting, or steal any other physical product, and the answer could well be no. But because the product they are stealing is not a physical one, and can be simply downloaded so easily and so readily, it's seen as a non-event. Even though the act of piracy can have the same end result as theft. This is what irks me the most. If you are going to pirate, own up to the fact you are acting illegally, and ultimately you are stealing. If you don't, then you are fooling no-one but yourself.
For possibly the first time, I unconditionally agree with you Where I have pirated, I do accept that it's a variant form of theft and that morally it's the same thing. It's rather telling that people see games as such non-entities simply because they're not physical things; in a way, they're an intensely more valuable product than, say, pots and pans because it's the result of a huge amount of collaborative work condensed down into a tiny package. When you consider the art and design elements alone that a game contains, and then consider that people will pay huge sums of money for a single piece of IRL art, games really are more like a compendium of products packed into a tiny (non-physical) space. One of the justifications for piracy not being like theft is that the thing stolen is one of many, is endlessly duplicable, is a COPY rather than an actual original product; like a clone of a real product. But if you think about it, the same is true of any mass-produced physical product. Pots and pans are made for nothing in huge factory machines that can make thousands per minute, and are murderously overpriced relative to that production cost. Essentially, stealing pots and pans from a shop is far less of a theft in gain/loss terms than pirating a game. I suppose the fallacy is measuring the degree of the theft by how much the victim loses, rather than by how much the thief gains. When you pirate a game, you gain a lot. Games are huge, substantial products, but their non-physical nature makes it easy to forget that. I haven't so much talked myself out of piracy as I have convinced myself that shoplifters are pretty cool guys
Couldn't agree more. My personal annoyance is the factor of quality assurance. Any discussion of piracy/second hand/DRM seems to always touch upon "Well, if developers made better games...". The concept of better or worse seems trivial in matters of taste. Almost every game is a good game. Why? Because someone out in the world will think so. Joe thought MW2 was a good game even when b_e didn't. Thankfully b_e is a bright fellow and accepted that it is a matter of taste, but many are not so bright. That sense of entitlement makes people think every product should be tailor made to their own wishes and desires, and anything which doesn't is outright trash. As you say Nexxo, if you aren't sure it won't fit your tastes: don't buy it. I've been needing a new set of cookware...
