Illegal Dowloading....

dont worry, simple 50$ video games are getting even more intense protection, or at least a try from the crackers, and it would be like dvd comfirmation, like starforce, and such
 
I do occasionally download music, but if I like it I generally buy the album both for the sake of having it and so that I can support the artist.

Downloading games seems heretical to me, you're stealing years and years of hard work from a team of many people.
 
SidewinderX said:
No one HAS to pirate anything. No one HAS to steal anything. Not having the money isn't a reason to steal something.
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Ennui said:
Downloading games seems heretical to me, you're stealing years and years of hard work from a team of many people.
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Quoted For Emphasis
 
wow this bears striking similarity to a thread made at the harassment authority ;)
 
We don't live in a society where you instantly have the right to everything. Not being able to afford something means that you work to get it. You go without until you a privaledged enough to afford to buy the product. The assumption that people are fine to pirate stuff if they cannot afford to purchase it is very silly, because that's very similar to going into a shipyard, stealing a yacht and saying it's perfectly alright, because you couldn't afford it.
 
gabriel said:
right, not having money isnt a reason to steal. but i think its a perfectly good reason to pirate. i still say pirating does not equal stealing (in most cases anyway). have you guys ever seen those lame ads on dvds that say "you wouldnt steal a car... blah blah.. so don't pirate"? those things are so ridiculous that they make me want to pirate more. stealing a car and pirating something that exists in the digital world are completely different things.
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That 'something' that exists in the digital world took thousands of man-hours to produce. You don't buy a magazine for the paper, do you? You buy it for the content, the stuff that makes that bunch of paper worth the £3 you pay. Do you shoplift magazines? By your anology, you're a pussy if you don't because the content isn't really 'worth' anything, and as such it doesn't mean anything to steal it.

You are not entitled to things that are worth money unless you have the money to pay for them. The money you pay is usually an accurate representation of the product's worth, otherwise people wouldn't buy it. Why should you be the exception? You are stealing content worth years of development when you pirate.

You are morally bankrupt if you can't accept that this work is indeed worth something. Taking this work is stealing.

Gabriel, you're ridiculous. Go to bed.
 
The OS I'm using now is pirated.

I didn't know until a few days ago. I bought the computer at a store and they don't even use real copies.
 
Who doesn't use a pirated XP copy? Even used one once? Heck I have a legal copy or two of XP lying around with legit keys that arn't used yet. I still couldn't be bother ripping their boxes open and changing my key (keychanger) just to have more downloads from microsofts site.

When it comes to the gaming industry things are different. How do you expect a dev to make better games when you pirate their early releases and shun them for not being good enough, and you'll just wait for the next game from them which will be worse due to lack of sales.
 
Companies like Adobe make most of their money on selling their products to companies that have to pay for all their licenses. You dont really sell games the same way...
 
gabriel said:
right, not having money isnt a reason to steal. but i think its a perfectly good reason to pirate. i still say pirating does not equal stealing (in most cases anyway). have you guys ever seen those lame ads on dvds that say "you wouldnt steal a car... blah blah.. so don't pirate"? those things are so ridiculous that they make me want to pirate more. stealing a car and pirating something that exists in the digital world are completely different things. a car is a physical item that has a worth and can't be replaced unless another car is bought. something like a game can be copied over and over again until the whole freakin world has a copy. also, stealing something like a car would be very devastating to the one person who bought the car. pirating a game online might create a small devastation to an entire company, but only if the person was actually thinking about buying it. sure, i understand that when tons of people all pirate the same thing, that the money that was "lost" adds up, but i dont think you can blame those people for the company not being responsible for their own product and making sure that it wont be leaked or cracked somehow. blame the crackers, blame the company, blame the websites or software that is letting pirating happen, but i think it is completely unreasonable to put blame on the people that are just taking advantage of what has been given to them. the internet was created to share information, and thats all these people are doing. i think if pirating really seriously caused all the major problems that they say it is, then they would have been able to put a stop to it by now. i know the difference between right and wrong, and pirating isn't exactly "right", but in most cases i do not believe that it is wrong.
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So your whole argument is based on the fact that games are digital content?

"stealing a car and pirating something that exists in the digital world are completely different things. a car is a physical item that has a worth and can't be replaced unless another car is bought."
When you by a car, you're paying for the materials that built it, the people who built it, and the people who designed it. When you buy a game you're paying the people who built it and the people who designed it. Just because there's no physical object to a game doesn't mean that it didn't cost anything the build. It's not like companies have some magical money tree that they use to pay thier employees. Thier employees are paid out of the revenues of the games they sell. If you pirate games you're hurting the people who made it.

"but i dont think you can blame those people for the company not being responsible for their own product and making sure that it wont be leaked or cracked somehow. blame the crackers, blame the company, blame the websites or software that is letting pirating happen, but i think it is completely unreasonable to put blame on the people that are just taking advantage of what has been given to them."
So are you saying that if you saw a cell phone inside someone's car, and you saw the car was unlocked, you'd steal the cell phone because it was the owner's fault for leaving the car unlocked, and you are therefor entitled to the cell phone? That's called stealing. It doesn't matter if it was easy... you're taking something that isn't yours.

"the internet was created to share information, and thats all these people are doing."
So now you're elevating crackers to the status of people who are doing what's right? Yes, the Internet is a great way of sharing information. There's a huge difference between an article about mars and a game that took 20 people 2 years to create.


You say you know the difference between right and wrong, but all you've shown us is that you're ignorant.

And Kangy, you hit the nail on the head.
We don't live in a society where you instantly have the right to everything. Not being able to afford something means that you work to get it. You go without until you a privaledged enough to afford to buy the product.
 
Kangy said:
We don't live in a society where you instantly have the right to everything. Not being able to afford something means that you work to get it. You go without until you a privaledged enough to afford to buy the product.
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But the idea that someone should be shut out of a career in music production, graphic design, etc etc, just because they can't afford to be shelling out on software at £500 a pop is also silly, if not plain unfair.

Copyright law is more about maxing profits for the big guys than protecting some righteous moral code of entitlement, IMO. If people find ways to break those laws and get away with it, then they manage it, and companies should just get over it. It will never be stopped.

Regardless of what you are paying for when you buy software, pirating it does not somehow magically rob a company of money they would have otherwise received. It may decrease sales slightly in the long run, but people need to stop waxing moralistic about this issue. The reason this is enshrined in law is because people want to make lots of money, not to draw some righteous line between evil scavengers and pious software-patrons.
 
I was arguing that point more for video game piracy, to be honest. Graphic design and music production are entirely different beasts, and I don't have so much problem with pirating the basics in those fields, as they're needed to get people going. Gaming is completely different.

Once someone pirates that game, they're not learning skills or going to buy more advanced products to be used in industry. They're just stealing media that someone has spent hours and hours working on.
 
aquabelic said:
you do not see a multi-billionaire Bill Gates complaining...
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ya think? if he or microsoft did complain, it would just make piracy of their products even greater.
 
Kangy said:
I was arguing that point more for video game piracy, to be honest. Graphic design and music production are entirely different beasts, and I don't have so much problem with pirating the basics in those fields, as they're needed to get people going. Gaming is completely different.
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so are you saying that pirating music programs and graphic design programs is OK, yet pirating games is wrong? so then the makers of these graphics and music programs must have conjured these programs up out of thin air in 1 second right? its not like they spent hours and hours of employees wages creating a product that will hopefully put food on their family's table right for all the work invested right?

oh but since these are just 'tools' in your eyes to get people going, its ok to pirate them and screw the people who invested time and money developing these programs. i mean, they are just doing you a service, so you can make actually valuable material to sell. and it would be horrific if someone pirated the material YOU make from using these pirated tools. god forbid!
 
poseyjmac said:
so are you saying that pirating music programs and graphic design programs is OK, yet pirating games is wrong? so then the makers of these graphics and music programs must have conjured these programs up out of thin air in 1 second right? its not like they spent hours and hours of employees wages creating a product that will hopefully put food on their family's table right for all the work invested right?

oh but since these are just 'tools' in your eyes to get people going, its ok to pirate them and screw the people who invested time and money developing these programs. i mean, they are just doing you a service, so you can make actually valuable material to sell. and it would be horrific if someone pirated the material YOU make from using these pirated tools. god forbid!
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No, we're not saying that it's alright to pirate them, we're saying it's a different issue.
 
SidewinderX said:
No, we're not saying that it's alright to pirate them, we're saying it's a different issue.
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What he said, mainly because the companies that produce these products can rely heavily upon their sales to BUSINESSES, CORPORATIONS etc, while games depends pretty much entirely on the "single consumer" for sales.
 
It's because the people that really need Adobe products for proffesional use such as graphic designers are going to have to buy it, while no one _has_ to buy games.
 
aquabelic said:
Well it's not only Adobe,
What about Microsoft Windows?
Most of us use it and a large portion did not even pay for it, yet it is still able to ge the updates, run all the games perfectlly, you do not see a multi-billionaire Bill Gates complaining...
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Keep up with the times buddy.

There's a little thing called WGA that just pwned you.
 
SidewinderX said:
No, we're not saying that it's alright to pirate them, we're saying it's a different issue.
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speak for yourself. HE said he doesn't have a problem pirating them, which means hes alright with it. and i explained why that is hypocritical
 
sinkoman said:
Keep up with the times buddy.

There's a little thing called WGA that just pwned you.
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thats been cracked after 24hours of its release



PWNED
 
i have always agreed that it is not "right" to pirate. but it is not the same as stealing and is not hurting companies directly. you can't just say "if you pirate, youre a bad person" because the issue is not black and white. there are so many other aspects to it that many people just fail to see. i beleive that pirating is "wrong" only when it reaches a certain level, but that level is what is hard to define. that is why they need to either bring it to a stop somehow, or just leave it alone because no amount of bitching from either side will change anything.
 
gabriel said:
i have always agreed that it is not "right" to pirate. but it is not the same as stealing and is not hurting companies directly.
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i agree. it hurts the people behind the companies directly.
 
Hmm..
I say no more buying games only pirating games!
*Every pirates game*
*Company makes no money*
*Company shuts down*
*Company got hurt...and died*.

Overtime this stuff builds up. Eventually if pirating isn't attacked by companies MORE PEOPLE WILL PIRATE. If companies stop caring, PIRATING WILL GROW BIGGER.

Companies have to care about pirating so they eventually DO NOT GET HURT and get hurt DIRECTLY by making to little of profit.

So you all see my point right?
 
poseyjmac said:
so are you saying that pirating music programs and graphic design programs is OK, yet pirating games is wrong? so then the makers of these graphics and music programs must have conjured these programs up out of thin air in 1 second right? its not like they spent hours and hours of employees wages creating a product that will hopefully put food on their family's table right for all the work invested right?

oh but since these are just 'tools' in your eyes to get people going, its ok to pirate them and screw the people who invested time and money developing these programs. i mean, they are just doing you a service, so you can make actually valuable material to sell. and it would be horrific if someone pirated the material YOU make from using these pirated tools. god forbid!
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It's different than games. Here;s one difference: content.

When Adobe releases another Photoshop version, it's the same product as the previous version except with a few new things. Therefore, they elevate the price for the new features and stop selling or supporting the previous versions without the extra features. What if someone only had the money for a previous version, and they only needed those features? They have to pirate because they can't pay for a $600 product when they need, say a previous $200 version that can't be bought because it's been replaced with a more expensive newer one with a lot of extra features.

When a game company releases a new game, it's not the same as the previous one with a couple extra levels or a few new weapons (then they'd pwn themselves), it's usually a overhaul (new story, new weapons, new features, new engine, etc.). You can't use the same arguement as above because they're two different things.
 
ricera10 said:
It's different than games. Here;s one difference: content.

When Adobe releases another Photoshop version, it's the same product as the previous version except with a few new things. Therefore, they elevate the price for the new features and stop selling or supporting the previous versions without the extra features. What if someone only had the money for a previous version, and they only needed those features? They have to pirate because they can't pay for a $600 product when they need, say a previous $200 version that can't be bought because it's been replaced with a more expensive newer one with a lot of extra features.

When a game company releases a new game, it's not the same as the previous one with a couple extra levels or a few new weapons (then they'd pwn themselves), it's usually a overhaul (new story, new weapons, new features, new engine, etc.). You can't use the same arguement as above because they're two different things.
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IF photoshop was the only graphic program solution out there, you would have a point. in reality, if someone doesn't need all the features of an expensive program, there are many other solutions. paint shop pro for example is a great art program, with not all the stuff photoshop has, but very effective. and much cheaper than photoshop.(but of course the pirates defense is, ph0tosh0p is teh l33t. everything else sux0rz my b0x0rz)

what point exactly are you trying to make? that its morally ok for people to pirate these programs because they have no other choice? or that this is the reason that they do think this way?

on a side note, its also a load of BS when people say they have to pirate photoshop or a rendering program, or they cannot continue their education or entrance into a professional job that will need it. if that person is so lazy, that they aren't willing to work for the $ required to get what they need to progress, they are going to be mediocore employees anyway. its the mindset that i find so pathetic.
 
It's not legal (or moral) to pirate either games or software. BUT, the impact of piracy is huge on the game industry, and not so much in prodoctivity/application industry.
 
SidewinderX said:
It's not legal (or moral) to pirate either games or software. BUT, the impact of piracy is huge on the game industry, and not so much in prodoctivity/application industry.
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have any evidence to support this claim? because curiously i'd like to know if this is really true.
 
If I don't download the game, then I won't buy it. I don't just buy games I don't like. I play games to est em out, see if I like em. I mean, I don't have alot of money to spend...and I would like to have SOME enjoyment.
 
poseyjmac said:
have any evidence to support this claim? because curiously i'd like to know if this is really true.
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It's really common sense, a company like say Photoshop or Discreet can rely on their sales to huge companies, because "huge" companies(Say a game-dev) can't really get away with pirating their copies of the program(Remember what happend when they SUSPECTED that Far Cry's dev had pirate copies of the programs they used to dev the game? Then you get how serious they take THOSE issues), whilst gaming companies don't really have any people who just simply -can't- pirate due to this.
Gaming companies as I've stated earlier relies on the "single consumer" for sales, and thus, it has a more damaging impact economically on them than on a company like say Adobe which can rely pretty heavily on their sales to corporations etc..

And sure, this is no evidence, but it's common sense and logic.;)
 
Minerel said:
Hmm..
I say no more buying games only pirating games!
*Every pirates game*
*Company makes no money*
*Company shuts down*
*Company got hurt...and died*.

Overtime this stuff builds up. Eventually if pirating isn't attacked by companies MORE PEOPLE WILL PIRATE. If companies stop caring, PIRATING WILL GROW BIGGER.

Companies have to care about pirating so they eventually DO NOT GET HURT and get hurt DIRECTLY by making to little of profit.

So you all see my point right?
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How many companies that made good games, and were hence downloaded excessively, got hurt and died?
 
How many companies that made good games, and were hence downloaded excessively, got hurt and died?
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Obviously you can't read.

If you read correctly,
I SAID OVERTIME THIS STUFF BUILDS UP.
In other words maybe I can say this in a language you understand,

"IF PIRATING IS NOT ATTACKED BY COMPANIES, IT WILL GROW MUCH BIGGER AND THEN COMPANIES THAT MAKE GOOD GAMES WILL GET HURT".

God damn dude, I wasn't talking current at all but future. READ.
 
Another argument is that 98% of those who pirate software were never going to buy it in the first place. It's a "lemme try this out" mentality.

I bought Splinter Cell 3, I bought Guild Wars, but I know I damn well didn't buy Hunting Unlimited 3 and was never going to... :farmer:

Now if I had liked Hunting Unlimited 3 I would probably buy HU4 if it ever got released.

You might've covered this already, but I don't feel like going through 6 pages.
 
StardogChampion said:
Another argument is that 98% of those who pirate software were never going to buy it in the first place. It's a "lemme try this out" mentality.

I bought Splinter Cell 3, I bought Guild Wars, but I know I damn well didn't buy Hunting Unlimited 3 and was never going to... :farmer:

Now if I had liked Hunting Unlimited 3 I would probably buy HU4 if it ever got released.

You might've covered this already, but I don't feel like going through 6 pages.
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that argument has never held any water. i grow weary of disproving it.

the argument's postulate can never be proven, because we don't live in a world where games are not available via pirating. and people's behaviour changes with their environment. IE, bob had no intentions of buying a game since there was a pirated version available. yet if he actually lived in a world where no pirated version was available, his mind might change. etc etc.

so please, refrain from giving the bogus percentages. it doesn't mean shit unless it can be proven. and in our reality this is not possible.
 
I bought Splinter Cell 3, I bought Guild Wars, but I know I damn well didn't buy Hunting Unlimited 3 and was never going to...
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So if you were never going to buy it why pirate it?
Even if you were never going to buy it, does that give you the right to play it?
It's not only the money involved but the principle and moral's involved.
 
poseyjmac said:
i grow weary of disproving it.
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poseyjmac said:
it doesn't mean shit unless it can be proven.
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How about you PROVE that companies lose massive amounts of money to pirating? Oh that's right, you can't.

minerel said:
I bought Splinter Cell 3, I bought Guild Wars, but I know I damn well didn't buy Hunting Unlimited 3 and was never going to...
Click to expand...

So if you were never going to buy it why pirate it?
Even if you were never going to buy it, does that give you the right to play it?
It's not only the money involved but the principle and moral's involved.
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Are you suggesting that people are lying when they say they pirate games they were never going to buy? If so I think you're being naive. There are tons of games I would never buy for the PC. For example GTS:SA; I've played it before on PS2, and even in a world with no piracy there are a slew of games I would sooner spend my money on. However, I might concievably download it to kill a few hours since I have nothing better to do on my PC. In my view it would be worth the time spent downloading it for free, but it would not be worth the money I would blow on it in a shop and it NEVER would be, whatever the external circumstances (eg. no piracy in the world, whatever). I rarely pirate games, because I just don't have time to play them, but I have a lot of friends who do, and every single one of them who pirates games does so with the above mentality.

There is a small point to the morality/pay-for-right-to-play issue. But you will have a hard job convincing people because, as an example, if I pirated Commandos 3 right now:
1) Noone would notice
2) Noone would care
3) Noone would lose any money
4) Noone gets hurt or sad

...and so people can't really be bothered to examine their conscience over something that that barely shows up on the moral register. I just don't have the Care to spare.
 
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