+1
/endthread

This. Some people seem to have this idea that they're entitled to play any game they want; so if they can't afford to buy it, then of course it's ok to pirate it, because hell, they need to play it, don't they? How about, if you can't afford a $60 luxury item, you go without the $60 luxury item? It won't kill you, and heck, sooner or later it will even come down in price!

Slippery slope. First gay marriage, then child rape and bestiality. And democracy has already failed, it is not possible to restore it by democratic means.

Why? It is not an excuse, it is a solid logical argument. Until there's proof that piracy harms society, me downloading a movie for free and watching it always beats me not downloading that movie.

I kind of want to buy his game now...

With that in mind - you downloading that movie and paying for it beats you downloading it while offering no compensation.
I know this is unlikely to convince you of anything, but reciprocity is the cornerstone of human societies. Do ut des. Gifts beget obligations.

OK, if taking your resoning to a logical extreme doesn't show you may have something wrong about your argumentations, that's fine. I did know the kind of response the "rape" card can have I decided to use it nonetheless, not as a last ditch effort (mind the discussion was rather fresh) but because I'm pretty sure you *saw* the pertaining parallels between what you said and what I said. You made an argument defending illegality because it had "good", albeit inuntentional, consequencesa and unfounded claims. I did the same.

Part of the purpose of property rights is conflict resolution. So if we try to give property rights to non-rivalrous things to create artificial scarcity, is this conflict resolution or conflict seeking? I think it's the latter. There isn't a right to profit. Try to profit all you want, but it's not a right.

This is not about morality issues. This is about business model issues. I have no problem whatsoever if people want to try to convince people (also called bullshit in that cracked.com article linked to in this thread) to pay for something (GOG has done a pretty good job here, I've bought a ton of games but only played about 10%) but I have a huge problem when said people use state violence to force people into a business model that creates artificial scarcity and try to justify it based on morality. It sucks to have a business that fails but it is not a moral issue. Find a model that doesn't suck.

Mike Masnick agrees. He's been saying it quite a while though. A quote from Wesley Verhoeve from the first link "This is not about morals. This is about smarts. It’s not about being right or wrong. It’s not about rebelling. It’s about a giant shift in consumer behavior and how we as an industry deal with that."

Basically, if you can't be creative and think of new business models (why can't I copyright a successful business model?), you fail, and if you aren't even willing to try something else, just stick to making content for someone else and accept whatever percentage of revenue is left over for you. Or find a 9-5 cubicle job somewhere working for people who don't suck at business. Here are a [url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120509/03383918841/kevin-smiths-approach-to-competing-with-piracy-give-away-ton-then-sell-stuff-that-cant-be-pirated.shtml]tips.

This is not an ideology issue either. I find pro intellectual property stances to be strong anti private property stances. With private property, I can do whatever I want with my property as long as I don't aggress against others. So, if I lived 200 years ago and bought a printing press and then was forced to not be able to make copies of books I bought, whether commercial or non-commercial, this is the state controlling what I can or cannot do with my private property. This is close to a certain F-word from the last century. Same with a computer, a usb stick, and the connection to the internet I pay money for. But Ayn Rand is considered a capitalist. Funny how many people seem to dislike her in this community but all of the sudden when it comes to games the community is crawling with the most ardent Ayn Rand fans using the exact same arguments she did for IP.

I have a little bit of sympathy for cost recovery (not much though), but the type of products under patents typically have a much higher cost than products under copyright but patents last a much shorter amount of time. When I buy a patented item, the seller does not try to tell me how I can use it or if I can lend it to a friend either.


Actually, I've heard reciprocity is fairly vibrant in file-sharing. If you download a file, people expect you to share files in return or else you might be blocked in the future.

I don't really know about that because I don't really use file-sharing services but that's what I've heard. Copies are easier to make but they still cost resources to produce and share. TANSTAAFL and all that. I'm not interested in trying to justify piracy so people can get things for free. I am pissed that other people think they can tell me what I can do with my property.

I know how difficult it is for many of you to comprehend analogies, but I'm going to try using one anyway.
Imagine person X and person Y being in a close relationship. Now imagine person X having an affair with person Z. Is this ever wrong ? Assuming the time spent by X and Z together would not be spent by X and Y even if Z hadn't existed - can Y complain ? Assuming Y doesn't know about the affair - is everything peachy just because no one is suffering ? X and Z are happy together - does that mean that what they are doing is right ?

I prefer to transcend utilitarian naivety.

But of course... A gang of thugs also has people looking out for one another.
Ugh... I almost feel dirty after reading the articles you've linked to above.

Property is acquired through either work or trade agreement. The latter can be convoluted or simple, there isn't really a one-size-fits-all set of rules that apply to everything universally.
You shouldn't share something you do not own. The simple fact that technology allows for it is irrelevant.

It makes me feel dirty that people think something universal like ideas can be owned and then stolen. It seems to me the only way to own ideas is to own other people and their property.

I agree.

Ah, the philosophy behind ownership, that's a tricky one. In the end it's not a law or morality that defines what we own, that's just civilized shields, but the force we have to keep others from taking it. Isn't the the biggest issue with piracy? That people can do the crime but avoid punishment. If assuming that most lost sales isn't worth the scandle or investments in DRM but it probably depends on the situation.

Noble sentence but ownership is still a ridiculous notion if one excludes pragmatism. I agree however that we should be more civilized about it and respect co-operation but it's more complicated than that. For example, the underlining issue behind why people feel the need to pirate in the first place. a) they want entertainment and b) they lack money. That's two fundamental issues that's needs a more surgical solution then warmongering on morality and broken DRM systems.

I don't think it has really failed. And I think everything else fails much more. But we should discuss the political system as a whole in another thread. I will be there.

Judging from this thread I found no valid excuse for pirating video games that I would accept except some diffuse maybe it's better for the whole of society idea. Of course you can do it, and for you personally it gives you an advantage, but that we argued the whole time. Because you save money, because it means lost sales in your case. But it doesn't mean it's right or it's legal and if you get caught and fined I will be the last to argue in your favor.

My particular case is that I haven't played a pirate game I hadn't paid for in over 5 years, since I got a day job, for several reasons:
- I like to support devs
- I like to bother devs
- I like having GOG games on my shelf, ooh shiny
- I like seeing my name in the credits
- I like having high-speed cloud hosting for the game installers
- I want to have a physical copy
- my PC can't run games for which the above does not apply.

"Supporting devs" is beneficial to society (Right). Everything else is a scarce commodity, gaining unsanctioned access to which will constitute harm to society (Wrong).

(However, I do have an ebook library "worth" about $1M. I am only going to make $500k max until I kick the bucket.)

Gives me an advantage =/= legal =/= right. I want those three to correlate as much as possible, but they don't.

I am a utilitarian. I form opinions, and change opinions, based on facts. Utilitarianism is awesome, because I do not need to hold on to any external principles. It means never having to be ashamed of having been proved wrong, because the fallible component of the reasoning is outsourced facts. The scientific method is never ever wrong.

So far, I've drastically changed my opinions on
- fat people
- abortion funding
- Mary Sue characters
- school grades
And that's only the "holy shit, the data proves me wrong" cases I can recall offhand that were in no way influenced by personal experience.

I am actually interested in real data. I no longer have a monetary stake (aka conflict of interests*) in piracy (although I wish I had - as in, I wish I had enough free time that piracy would meaningfully increase my quality of life). I own two laptops, a bike, and 3/4 of a room in a communal apartment. Excess money gets burned off, because it is excess money, and I do not need it.

Important note: by that, I in no way imply that people who actually benefit from piracy are being unethical - but they might not be entirely receptive to hypothetical data that proves their private interests and society's interests in general contradict each other.

*For example: I pay taxes. Taxes pay, among other things, for retirement of the currently elderly, medical care, education, public television, and inflatable tits, ahem, neighborhood churches. I do not, and will not, directly benefit from any of those. I am financially inclined to support the idea that taxes are evil and I should stop paying them - but the data shows that four of the five contribute to making people's lives better. Therefore, not paying taxes is unethical from the utilitarian POV.

yes

The really funny thing is that you will kick the bucket before you will be able to finish reading all these books. And this example perfectly demonstrates what's wrong here. That you own such a collection can only be explained through a crazy form of greed which is IMHO a major problem in today's society. The average ebook price in case of Kindle is less than 7 bucks, for Nook it's about 9 bucks - so let's say generally it's 8. This would mean that your collection (based on your information) consists of approximately 125.000 books. You will definitely only read a fraction of these books but you won't pay for any of them (not even the ones you read) with your argument being "because I can't afford my whole collection". It's quite probable though that you could afford all the ones you actually read, especially considering that you don't read them at once but over a long timespan. So really, you think you have a valid argument here?