I certainly hope you realize that there's a bigger difference between rape and downloading Donkey Kong.

nvm

If you enjoy someone's work, but you refuse to support him then I don't how to call it other than dickery. I always was taught by my parents that everyone deserve to be paid for his work.

Of course you can say that game X is too expensive, but then why you don't just avoid it? Don't buy it, don't pirate it - just avoid (or wait for sale). I don't have problem with avoiding games that I think are overpriced/has abusive DRM. It's just a game.

It's funny that I do often see this kind of arguments, that "copyright doesn't protect the true artists anyway, only evildoers who exploit them". I have yet to find and artist/designer etc. who says "sure, I don't care that most of my works gets pirated, it only hurts my rich bosses anyway". The piracy swarm mind does not care whose stuff it's pirating anyway. Many artists and developers are completely dependent on the commercial success of their current/next project, this is especially true for mid-sized developers who are only able to develop one game at a time (I've been told so by the ex-CEO of a well-known German developer - they were crapping their pants before every release). The copyright actually protects them but just like anybody else they can't enforce it and if they do they are proclaimed assholes by the pirating average guy and it may backfire - not to mention that the company responsible for handling the pirates is usually their publisher and if he does something people automatically say "he didn't even make the game, how dare he make me pay for pirating it", that revenue from the sales WILL serve both the developer and the publisher. Really, not the copyright is the problem but the way people handle it.

Soo... one could say it mutated into something that does not help either side? ;)

How has the copyright mutated? What has actually mutated are the methods of communication and distribution and probably also the ideology of many users (which is a result of the new open methods of communication). Now pirates can actually unite, there's actually massive propaganda that makes up new excuses for piracy all the time. As I said: the copyright is OK, the people (especially the regular users who do pirate a lot) are not.

Also people seem to put all publishers into one basket. There are good publishers too. Like for an example Paradox or Rockstar. Without publishers we would have much less high-budget games. I really loved games like Human Revolution, Sleeping Dogs or Dead Space and those games wouldn't be possible to make without publishers that gave millions of dollar to developers.

Yeah, music is a mcuh better example. Usually music made without participation of huge publishers is better, more original and cheaper.

But yeah, people still pirate it. Making music for a big publisher guarantees more tours and concerts, and this is where artists get their money.

There's only one pirate motto:

Pirates gonna pirate.

Phallacy! Ouch!
I always was taught by my parents to hate gays. Ouch!
Lost sales again? Avoiding pirating something if I wouldn't have bought it is irrational. In this case, piracy is a blatantly obvious net positive: the creator gets nothing, I get increased quality of life (as opposed to "no one gets anything").

---
Anyway, McPixel's dev is wrong. Twice. The numbers he gives do not correlate to "people who are unable to pay", because
(1) "temporarily free and legit " is more attractive than "0.01c" or "free but pirated" - these folks wouldn't have bought the game at all, and quite a number of them wouldn't even play it; and
(2) using a payment system is a chore, especially compared to a readily available torrent.

---
But what if everyone starts pirating?! What will happen to the entertainment industry?

The Kantians you see in this thread are a direct result of the industry adapting to post-scarcity. We have technology sticks (DRM), technology carrots (online features), ethical sticks (THIEVES!!!), ethical carrots (We sincerely appreciate your generosity. Your bundle is currently valued at $420.00.), bundling scarce features with your purchase (physical copies, thanks in the credits, official support, and why don't you check out this leaderboard).

Note that the methods that make people feel bad are themselves bad: DRM is paid for by legit customers (a direct parallel to the thief breaking an expensive display while stealing two cans of peas), and ethical shenanigans promote irrationality. On the other hand, methods that make people feel good look suspiciously like charity. And a realistic democratic government, corruption and all, is still more efficient than any charity. So, ideally, nonscarce things should be free and creators should be given monetary prizes or grants or just put on a salary. And that's Communism.


Cheers,
Zephyrean

Entitled pirate is entitled.

"stealing from a rich guy is no stealing, because my quality of life gets higher, and his quality of life doesn't get lower, because he has shitload of money anyway, as opposed for nobody gets nothing".

Yes, you haven't paid for it, so you're entitled for NOTHING.

Please stop making stupid excuses for piracy. If you want to pirate games, that's ok with me, but please don't make a knight in shining armour from yourself.

If you admit that creator of the game improved your quality of life and you still don't think that he deserve something in return from you then you are ignorant prick for me. But at least you are honest.

I'm not "entitled". I make no demands to the creator; doing otherwise would be intellectually dishonest, because creator time is nonscarce.

I checked the links and I understand which part of piracy you mean. However you cannot be sure that the people who denounce the copyright infringers (is this a valid term) as pirates mean something like pirates of the caribbean. After all they were also pirates.

I think that it is now about copyright. Copyright is a clear mattern. The creator creates something and has the rights to it. He can sell them. He can even sell his workmanship before and work for money. Obivously you need a million to make another. That's just how the economy works and always has worked. Only a minority has bought a game and cannot play it. Just look at Steam's DRM. Steam's customers are happy as anybody about Steam and only a few complain really.

I don't like that as a customer I can only obtain so little rights while paying my hard earned money. But it doesn't mean I feel entitled to infringe the copyright. This just isn't the right way to deal with it.

If someone wants money in exchange for something of theirs (in this case, the rights to owning a copy of their creative work), then getting said thing without paying is dishonest to them, and disrespectful of their wishes. In this case, you're "entitled" because you feel that you deserve the right to experience a person's work without paying what they ask. Like you have more of a right to it than they do. In fact, the opposite is true. They created it, so they own it. They set the terms.

There are a lot of gray areas in the piracy debate, but for me it comes down to this: are you cheating someone out of the money they expect to get in return for their work? Because unless you have a good reason for doing so (and personal entertainment isn't a "good reason"), I believe that's wrong.