For all the would be software pirates.

[Silas13013]

Well there's your problem..... you should have bought it from Toyota not Toyoda them knock off brands ruin everything

I blame my phone and my button mashing thumbs

[Deathmineral]

I will not disagree that it is not on the same level but that does not mean it is not wrong. Whats worse is it is people doing the wrong thing without believing it is wrong. What is even worse it is not justifiable in any measure. Stealing for food, killing because you think you are protecting someone. These might be crimes but they at least have a real reason. Stealing a video game because you want it for free is just a selfish crook plain and simple.

Stealing for food is pretty selfish in my opinion, if you stole bread to save your life, that seems kind of selfish to me. Killing to protect someone else, I would say it depends on who you're killing for that determines whether it's selfish or not. If you're killing someone else to save your wife, I would say that could be considered selfish, if you're killing someone else to save a total stranger, I would say that could be considered selfless.

 

I had meant to stay out of this one but this just made me laugh.

You think that because i/Ed/Stoner/whoever you meant looks down on people who justify piracy think its okay for companies to do what they want to people for their own ends your dead wrong! That is soo misguided it made me laugh. If it was my game you were pirating i would surely try and bust you for it(not prison though, that is stupid), but i will never sit back and let companies track me and collect/sell my info spy on me whatever while i can still fight it.

I don't agree with pirating but i don't really care that people do it, i won't judge you for your decisions. i may disagree with them but i won't judge you for them. What i do hate is people who do something they know is considered wrong and make excuses about it, justify it. I don't care what you did, you did it, it makes absolutely no difference what reason you come up with. If you have to resort to petty excuses and arguments to make yourself feel you were right in your decisions you should not be making decisions in the first place. Do what you have to but don't make excuses for it.

On the subject of piracy itself i am a bit divided, i won't pirate games or software but music so long as it is for personal use i don't see any problem with it.

Legally its still piracy and i understand that i won't disagree with that or make excuses. Now i will say this, if i was downloading full albums or collections i would just go buy it i.(i like cds)

If your gonna pirate don't make excuses, they just make you look insecure.

So what do you think the super secret 100% method of tracking these people is then? Personally, I'm betting their method is one you're against, I believe that because if it were truly a 100% foolproof way of catching pirates legally, you'd see a good number of companies in the US doing it. I'm thinking there is something in our laws that makes what they're doing illegal and perhaps Germany doesn't have the same kind of law. I should mention though, that's a big guess on my part, because I don't know their method and I don't know Germany laws.

 

I don't even know how you're able to do that part in the middle, you say the thing you hate is how people justify it but then you're like music is okay to pirate though.

 

I really don't know where you guys get the idea that pirates make up excuses and stuff though. Pretty much everyone in this thread so far that has admitted to piracy agrees that it is a crime, they aren't lying to themselves or anything, they do have a different way of looking at the whole picture but as far the act goes, they understand they're committing a crime.

 

Now here's the thing I don't get, "What i do hate is people who do something they know is considered wrong and make excuses about it, justify it. I don't care what you did, you did it, it makes absolutely no difference what reason you come up with." You say that but you only harp on piracy for it, what about ComputerEd saying murder is okay under certain circumstances? Murder is without a doubt, a crime, that's more day and night than anything else if you ask me.

 

Again, the measuring cup is needed here, you can't just clump everyone into one big pile, each person is unique and different. As an example, Pirate A pirated Mass Effect 9000, Pirate A understands that they're committing a crime, Pirate A runs their torrent software but places limitations on how much bandwith the software is allowed to use, Pirate A intends to buy the game if they enjoy it. Pirate B pirated Mass Effect 9000, Pirate B believes he isn't really committing a crime because it hurts nobody, Pirate B runs their torrent software at full bandwith constantly, Pirate B doesn't intend to buy the game. Do you see the difference between these two pirates? You can't clump everyone into a general area. The key point of this example though is to show that not every pirate looks at their crime the same way, you might think every pirate has an excuse for doing it but that's just not true.

[F13Bubba]

Swiss Gov't Declares Downloading for Personal Use Legal

 

Interesting article, thanks for the heads up Loc.

 

Switzerland’s findings are just the latest in a series of reports showing that the downloading of music and movies is far less harmful than the entertainment industry would have us believe. In July Douglas C. Merrill, formerly of Google and then EMI, one of the three main record labels, said in a keynote address that his research while at EMI showed that users of torrenting service LimeWire were among the best customers in the iTunes music store. Around the same time, Telepolis published a report (Google Translation) stating that users of the recently raided kino.to website tended to pay more at the box office than the average moviegoer. Meanwhile, another study conducted by Northwestern University (PDF) showed that users of peer-to-peer client software – i.e., BitTorrent users – bring in a substantial amount of money for the large ISPs.

 

 

Interesting.....

[Deathmineral]

Swiss Gov't Declares Downloading for Personal Use Legal

 

Interesting article, thanks for the heads up Loc.

Locutus linked this to me as well, definitely interesting to see them do a study on it rather than just giving in to the industries. Personally I'm not surprised by their findings, I've always firmly believed most pirates are still willing to purchase content even if they've fully enjoyed it via pirating first. I think this thread supports that idea even, pretty much everyone in this thread that's admitted to piracy has also said they typically go on to purchase that content as well.

 

I'd also recommend checking out the comments on that article page, a lot of really good and logical points are made.

[WardO]

Great Article. I don't use pirated Games. Before buying the game, I would play the Demo version of the game then research some reviews about the game that i'm going to buy and if it doesn't satisfy my gaming needs then i would not buy that game.

[Deathmineral]

So I was taking some screenshots with fraps just now, when I went to check the folder I found this. It's a screenshot from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It's actually a pretty funny thing when you get that line in game, the gal in the screenshot is like a fortune teller or psychic and you sit there asking her questions for about 10 minutes and finally you ask her if you will win the game or not and that's her response.

[VaporX]

My apologies for people taking what I said wrong. I am not calling the person stupid. The argument however that people steal music because they cannot afford it is purely stupid when you realize the vast number of ways to get free music legally.

[Locutus]

My apologies for people taking what I said wrong. I am not calling the person stupid. The argument however that people steal music because they cannot afford it is purely stupid when you realize the vast number of ways to get free music legally.

Whether or not the argument is stupid is irrelevant, and it's not up to you to make that call. If you think it's a stupid idea then you should disprove it, not start calling names.

[Muchoman1]

Wow, this thread had really got people emotional huh? I download TV series's cause we got CT@p all in Australia. I also will torrent games I already own (on console and the like) but that's about it.there ate very few butt title games I buy at launch.I prefer to wait till they are 10 bucks on steam

[NikoDG]

I <3 Steam

[medbor]

Just bringing you all some other topics to siscuss regarding piracy.

 

Waco you are tha man! +1

 

1. Minecraft has not payed for advertising still selling more than 1M copies. This only works forr good games though

2. Is lending games to a friend considered morally wrong?

3. Radio is "free" music, but only a limited number of songs are available, and very little choice regarding songs to listen to at any given time.

4. TV has movies and series for free (some channels), though same as radio; limited choice.

5. Games are never free in the same way, though you can still play games at stores to try them sometimes.

6. Discounts are really as bad as pirating (about 80%), since the developer will only get about 20% (steam) of the usual retail price, so five discounted sells are just equivalent to one full sell (might even be worse than pirating) but is of course still legal. (i guess a lot of people will get angry about this)

7. The marginal cost argument is proved by that games become cheaper when games get older.

8. Pirating is not always just to get it for free, there can be a lot of different reasons, and as Valve usually says it is not about pricing, it is much more about availability.

9. If someone is pirating 24/7 is not possible to use all the content so it seems rather pointless for the bandwith argument

10. Netfilx is using the same bandwith as a dvdrip on a torrent site (downlink) as they are about 700MB/movie, (more if watching HD)

11. Recording songs from the radio is not illegal, but getting the song from internet is? Why is that?

same with tv+music

12. Pirating music often leads people to listen to new artists, which in turn might get someone to go to a concert (getting the artist more money than a cd) or buying their albums. Machinae Supremacy is one of the artist i found on piratebay (actually legally since they released their first album for free), and i have bought a later album from. And a lot of concerts I've been too I wouldn't have if i hadn't first heard the music (they where not big enough to be on the mainstream market yet).

13. All copyrighted material not available for legally (at all) which gets you to the situation with abandonware

14. Listening to music via youtube, or getting it from there (recording it) is not illegal... why is that?

[Stonerboy779]

Medbor point no 6

 

How are discounts going to affect the producer? Because do they not already sell the product on at least in physical form to shops and so on so they only one loosing out is the store if they discount heavily.

Also with steam I am more than certain that all the dicounts are run past the game companies and the biggest discounts are on poorly selling games and will actually generate more sales than it would have done otherwise.

 

 

I have no idea why people say game producers get $60 per game this is ridiculous. Do people really not understand what markups are? How differnt costs like transport, handling, storage and advertising are factored into cost to you and cost to the reseller.