Feds going after gaming pirates

[Zanchief]

You're ignoring the law when it comes to fan fiction authors because it's a "gray area".

Why bother prosecuting them? After all we can interpret them the way we want, right?

[Harrison]

There's no way around it, anymore than saying someone who illegally hacks into a bank and adds cash to their account isn't really taking anything. Both are easily and legally shown as false.

I see the point you're trying to make, but it still fails at its most critical juncture between being an analogy and more propaganda.

Hacking into a bank and transferring funds creates a very real and instant deduction from someone else's assets into a gain in your own. That is very clearly defined as theft.

A download of COPIED bytes of information does exactly nothing to the developer, at all. There is no measurable deduction, only a measurable gain of a copy.

It can be argued there is a POTENTIAL loss of revenue. This possibility is based upon a very flimsy base that the downloader MIGHT have bought the game, which in most cases isn't true at all.

The government needs to stay the fuck out of everything.

Sigh...

I'm starting to sound like a liberal

[Tacks]

I can see both sides. What happens when nobody buys anything anymore and everyone just "copies" everything? How are the companies then to make money and stay in business? Stealing games does nothing to help the industry, period. That being said, if I'm not sure a game is good I play the demo. If a company is too fucking stupid not to put out a demo then yeah I'm likely to burn a copy to see if it sucks or not.

[Narrock]

I can see both sides. What happens when nobody buys anything anymore and everyone just "copies" everything? How are the companies then to make money and stay in business? Stealing games does nothing to help the industry, period. That being said, if I'm not sure a game is good I play the demo. If a company is too fucking stupid not to put out a demo then yeah I'm likely to burn a copy to see if it sucks or not.

QFT

[numatu]

I buy used books all the time. From discount shops, mom and pop stores, yard sales, etc. Am I depriving the author of his copyrighted income? Cassette tapes and VCR tapes were copied all the time for casual people, nobody ever dreamed it was 'morally wrong'. It's only since the advent of the internet that now it's some kind of huge deal, where the companies are pushing huge moral propaganda campaigns against even casual copy downloaders (criminals, apparently).

The industry loses its moral high ground when they go after copy users, instead of *only* the mass copy-sellers and people who think it's a business, because casual copying either between friends or family was deemed okay and even encouraged as good word-of-mouth business practice in the past.

[Reynaldo]

I can see both sides. What happens when nobody buys anything anymore and everyone just "copies" everything? How are the companies then to make money and stay in business? Stealing games does nothing to help the industry, period. That being said, if I'm not sure a game is good I play the demo. If a company is too fucking stupid not to put out a demo then yeah I'm likely to burn a copy to see if it sucks or not.

Agree there.

Alot of time, the demo doesn't really give you what you're hoping to find out about the game, but you can get a general idea if you're going to like it or not.

I can live with folks like Harrison who will actually fork over the dough if it's a game they like and delete the ones that suck and they didn't play more than 2 days.

XBox seems to be on the right track by disallowing Xbox live play if any mods are made to the boxes - at least that's how it was last I heard.

[10sun]

XBox seems to be on the right track by disallowing Xbox live play if any mods are made to the boxes - at least that's how it was last I heard.

That is an easy technology to bypass. Personally for me, because I rarely play a lot of games and the ones that I do play are of a mixed bag, I try to buy at least a few games from developers that I especially when I have downloaded copies of many of their games.

Early on with my XBox, I would purchase loads of games. I had 50+ at one point and time, many of which I played for one week, beat the game, and nothing kept me coming back to it.

The problem with a lot of games these days is there is no replayability, yet we are expected to pay the same amount for those games as those with months of replayability. As a consumer, I was left feeling cheated on many levels.

[Maeya]

I see this happen a lot with artwork, too, and *I* consider it stealing as well, though a majority of the population doesn't.

Frequently someone will pop over to the board and give us a heads up where someone in a guild somewhere will be making signatures & images for their guild mates by hunting down someone else's artwork, cropping it down, and slapping a name on it. Many times I've seen it happen to the art of people on the board I respect a lot and it's a slap in the face to them. They spend hours working on a custom piece of artwork for a paying customer, trying to get all the details just right, and someone else comes along and casually rips it off. The person doing this doesn't see it as theft - afterall, it was available on the internet... obviously it's free for everyone to use. However the person who poured all their efforts into creating this piece of art very much views it as a theft. As do I.


I view the download of video games much the same way.

[brinstar]

in lyion's world, all the books at barnes and noble are shrink wrapped

you can't test drive a new honda to decide if you want to buy it

there are no free samples given at the ice cream store

where does it end??


IMHO there are two types of pirates:

1. the jerkwads - they pirate stuff they know they want, specifically to avoid paying for it

2. those practicing "caveat emptor" - before they irrevocably cough up $50 for a game (or $14 for an album, to make another comparison), they want to make sure their purchase will be satisfying. see above for perfectly normal examples of Try-Before-Buy

if you're to able to shut down the neocon part of your brain and look at this issue both ways, you'll see that Type 1 Pirates should indeed be punished, and no one has yet posted anything contrary. Type 2 Pirates are simply practicing caution and sense with their hard-earned money.

the problem then becomes: do we carpetbomb the whole countryside, just to get a few Type 1 offenders? of course not, that's tyranny. if it's worth that much money to the software companies, they should spend the amount of money they claim they're losing on piracy protection innovations.

[Lyion]

Way to be ad hocfully polemic in an otherwise rational and good discussion, Brinstar. Good job, sir.

[Snero]

in lyion's world, all the books at barnes and noble are shrink wrapped

you can't test drive a new honda to decide if you want to buy it

there are no free samples given at the ice cream store

where does it end??

isn't that exactly what demo's are for?

[Harrison]

When I pay for a game, I expect updates, bug-fixes, some level of support for awhile.

Some games I buy expecting none of that, like RE4. I saw it for $20 and thought to myself "Why not? It rocked on the GC." These are few and far between though. Games have been sucking ass for the past 2 years.

I could have easily just downloaded the game and never paid the $20 for it. I knew the quality beforehand though.

[Zanchief]

I do the same thing for movies. I suppose I could just get a netflix account but I don't want to bother myself to go the post office. plus some weeks I may want to watch 6 or 7 movies and none the next.

When I see something good I make an effort to buy it. That way in the end everyone gets their just payment. If something isn't available, well then, I can't really be blamed for downloading something that isn't even commercially available.

[Harrison]

Valve is on the right track as far as piracy goes, and any game with any GOOD multiplayer system.

Wasting your money on the newest SAFEDISC or fucking starforce(GRRR) is retarded.

Half of these copyright protections cause problems for your typical end-user. To run RE4, I have to copy it to my HD using an "OMG ILLEGAL PROGRAM" and run it from there.

Their copyright protection prevents my DVD drive from reading it. That's fucking retarded and almost made me want to return it to Best Buy out of spite.

[dammuzis]

tehcnically the downloading of copywrited material ISNT illegal
it is the distribution of copywrited material that IS illegal

mod chips ARE not illegal, since the xbox or playstatiion is YOUR property not sonys or microsofts you can do whatever the fuck you want with it

the code that you put on the chips that bypass DMCA is illegal

the riaa has been having a hell of a time conviting anyone of actually downloading illegally (most cases get tossed from court)

[brinstar]

Way to be ad hocfully polemic in an otherwise rational and good discussion, Brinstar. Good job, sir.

i was being neither ad hoc nor polemic. if you want ad hoc polemics, try this on for size: i consider you, lyion, a deluded fuckface, simply for blindly believing the outrageously stupid things you believe-- and furthermore, i think you have an undiagnosed victim complex.

so

now that that's out of the way, how about addressing my argument? why is it okay to sample some things before you pay big money for them, but not other things? why is it okay to sit in barnes and noble and read a whole chapter before you decide whether you even want to buy the book? why is it okay to grab a pair of jeans and see how they fit you in the dressing room before shelling out bucks for them? why is it okay to see how the new mercedes handles a curve at 60mph before you sign the dotted line on the lease? people do these things every day. you've done them, i've done them. it's good sense to try before you buy, everyone knows that!

so what makes those things different than downloading a game to see if it's fun and worth the price tag? why can't i sample an mp3 of a band before i spend $14 to buy their CD? where are you drawing the line, and which corporate sponsor has their logo on your pen?

all that being said, there are INDEED people out there that are ruthlessly pirating games simply to avoid having to pay for them-- and worse, some of these people share or even SELL these copies. these things are indisputably wrong, and such offenders should be punished by applicable law.

[Lyion]

What in the world are you talking about? I'd discuss it with you, but you are off in left field with nothing really to talk about.

Note Snero's response to you. Your examples are again not relevant to the simple points I've made, also.

Now, go away Mindi.. Er, Brinstar.

[Narrock]

What in the world are you talking about? I'd discuss it with you, but you are off in left field with nothing really to talk about.

Note Snero's response to you. Your examples are again not relevant to the simple points I've made, also.

Now, go away Mindi.. Er, Brinstar.

Brinstar just handed you your ass with perfectly clear logic, to which you have no reply other than, "what in the world... ?" LOL

Um...

[Lyion]

Since he exudes your previous persona's behavior in this thread , I'm glad the two of you are bonding here.

Hey, maybe the two of you can go start your own thread and let the normals here have a discussion. What a thought!

[Narrock]

Since he exudes your previous persona's behavior in this thread , I'm glad the two of you are bonding here.

Hey, maybe the two of you can go start your own thread and let the normals here have a discussion. What a thought!

First of all... I'm the one who made this thread because I thought most people here would find it at least interesting if anything else. Now my second thought is... what do you find so difficult to understand about what Brinstar posted? I'm not bonding with Brinstar. I just understand what he wrote and I agree with it. Who are the "normals" anyway to which you referred?

[Zanchief]

Since he exudes your previous persona's behavior in this thread , I'm glad the two of you are bonding here.

It ain't "previous".

[brinstar]

Now my second thought is... what do you find so difficult to understand about what Brinstar posted?

an extremely pertinent motherfucking question

what the fuck is wrong with you lyion

i suggest either a) re-reading my entire post or b) fucking off to some other thread

[Lueyen]

now that that's out of the way, how about addressing my argument? why is it okay to sample some things before you pay big money for them, but not other things? why is it okay to sit in barnes and noble and read a whole chapter before you decide whether you even want to buy the book? why is it okay to grab a pair of jeans and see how they fit you in the dressing room before shelling out bucks for them? why is it okay to see how the new mercedes handles a curve at 60mph before you sign the dotted line on the lease? people do these things every day. you've done them, i've done them. it's good sense to try before you buy, everyone knows that!

so what makes those things different than downloading a game to see if it's fun and worth the price tag? why can't i sample an mp3 of a band before i spend $14 to buy their CD? where are you drawing the line, and which corporate sponsor has their logo on your pen?

Every comparison you made involves limited "try out" of the product, this is not the case if you download the full version of any software. In no case are you allowed to test a product for an indeterminate length of time based on your personal discretion.

[Yamori]

now that that's out of the way, how about addressing my argument? why is it okay to sample some things before you pay big money for them, but not other things? why is it okay to sit in barnes and noble and read a whole chapter before you decide whether you even want to buy the book? why is it okay to grab a pair of jeans and see how they fit you in the dressing room before shelling out bucks for them? why is it okay to see how the new mercedes handles a curve at 60mph before you sign the dotted line on the lease? people do these things every day. you've done them, i've done them. it's good sense to try before you buy, everyone knows that!

Well, the vendors in all those cases give implicit (or actual) consent to try out there stuff within the limits of the store/area/ect. Electronics stores usually have shitty game demo setups, but in this line of reasoning that's where those would fit in.

DLing pirated stuff would technically be akin to just walking out the door with the books or the jeans and then coming back 3 days later and paying them if you liked it enough, I think. o_O

That said I don't really care about this issue that much I am just playing the devils advocate because I am the champion of reason. :3

I have no qualms about downloading any games that haven't been in print for 2-3 years and aren't available in stores anymore. If the only person making profit off me buying Mario RPG or Mike Tyson's Punchout or TOMBA! is some random goober on ebay with a used copy, there's no reason to not just download it. I think that's a pretty good rule to stick to.

But yeah, I think it's wrong for them to be going after mod chip manufacturers and vendors... even if their uses are pretty narrow, those people aren't stealing from anyone. They should be going after the pirates themselves. :/

[Lyion]

in lyion's world, all the books at barnes and noble are shrink wrapped

you can't test drive a new honda to decide if you want to buy it

there are no free samples given at the ice cream store

where does it end??

All of this is bullshit that is not related to not liking software piracy. Where the fuck do you get this analogy?

I'm all for free samples, test drives, coffee shops, game demo's, and everything else that enables trying stuff out and promotes free enterprise.

What I'm not for is ignoring laws so one can do what the fuck one wants because they feel it is the way it should be. Stealing is stealing, regardless of their ulterior motive.

IMHO there are two types of pirates:

1. the jerkwads - they pirate stuff they know they want, specifically to avoid paying for it

2. those practicing "caveat emptor" - before they irrevocably cough up $50 for a game (or $14 for an album, to make another comparison), they want to make sure their purchase will be satisfying. see above for perfectly normal examples of Try-Before-Buy

if you're to able to shut down the neocon part of your brain and look at this issue both ways, you'll see that Type 1 Pirates should indeed be punished, and no one has yet posted anything contrary. Type 2 Pirates are simply practicing caution and sense with their hard-earned money.

the problem then becomes: do we carpetbomb the whole countryside, just to get a few Type 1 offenders? of course not, that's tyranny. if it's worth that much money to the software companies, they should spend the amount of money they claim they're losing on piracy protection innovations.

What you are suggesting is theft is ok if it's minor, and if you *mean* to pay for it later. Your analogy is more akin to walking out of that bookstore with a few books and not paying until you decide whether you like them or not, or driving that Honda home for a few months to make sure you want it. Hey, that law stuff is silly. Let's just ignore it and make up our own!

Shareware and demos are great, and there for a reason. Piracy regardless of ones noble caveat emptor ex post facto motives is not, and is ignoring the law, because it's bad. Next time you get pulled over for speeding, be sure to use this fucked up analogy above on the cop.

Also, many programmers aren't part of huge corporations, that have millions of dollars to spend protecting their product. I guess it's ok if they get fucked out of selling their product. Again, I disagree. Perhaps it's different for me because it's what I do for a living.

Hey, let's play the Brinstar Game:

My views on *programs* and *software* have no bearing on music, or musicians. They generally are smelly idiotic fuckers who can't comprehend a high level discussion on basic economics, intellectual property, and copyright usage and have to equate it to politics or base anarchistic principles due to their lack of education, bad drug use, or STDs.

I'm all for people downloading and sharing music mp3s en masse, since unlike programmers who are smart and innovative and deserve to make coin for their easily copyrighted hard work, sound is vague and should not be copyrightable and it should all be free. There isn't a single musician who should be selling any *sound*, they just should have their music shared on the Internet. If their music was worth a shit, they'd be with the RIAA and have their flocks of lawyers going after people downloading their stuff. Also, I feel they should only make money at concerts, since songs are really just *trying* their music to see if you want to see them live.