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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 07:37 PM |
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You play PC games since when?
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted April 25, 2011 07:55 PM |
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Since 2002-2003 i think...... hmmmmmm, suck to be young xD
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 08:16 PM |
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Then you will have to trust me and others who have been at it from the start (whom I urge you to ask), that the situation was WAY better then. There were so many software companies then with so many games - I mean, what do you think why basically all interesting games started THEN?
It IS true, innovation has been declining in the industry as much as it has been reduced in the movie production industry.
There are many reasons for that, and piracy has its place there.
However, that's not what we are talking about - we are talking about the MORAL of it.
The Moral of it is this:
1) The industry's biggest fault is not being able to agree on a media fee standard like they did for tapes and xerox copies. ONLY because of that piracy is an issue at all.
2) Uploading content you have no copyright on is illegal; it is also a violation of INGTELLECTUAL property which is not better than violations of material property.
3) Downloading content that has been uploaded illegally, is using of stolen goods. It doesn't matter that a user isn't paying for the download - it's like knowingly using counterfeit money you didn't make yourself, but find somewhere.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted April 25, 2011 08:52 PM |
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Tsk, if anything, the game industry is experiencing the exact same as the music industri did: It did not serve the people good music, and suddenly sales fell.
I also agree that the situation is not currently good, and that a lot of good firms who did a great job at publishing decent and innovative games has died.
However, if the marked has not shrinked, and that snow went to hell before the p2p wave, it is the industris own fault.
I disagree over point 2 and 3, but in the end it is all sematics and we disagree over core values.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 25, 2011 09:12 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 21:35, 25 Apr 2011.
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@del diablo
Quote:
Taking someone elses work, and selling it, is plagiarism, but it is not as bad as if you claimed you also created it.
Plagiarism implies that I'm representing the work as my own.
E.g.
If I take Stephen King's The Stand and photocopy it, and I sell those photocopies, this is copyright infringement.
If, before I sell it, I replace the title page with a new page that says that *I* wrote it, this is copyright infringement. It is also plagiarism.
If I take a paragraph from Stephen King's The Stand and use it in a magazine article I'm writing without proper citation or in such a way that I make it seem like the paragraph is something I have written, this is plagiarism. It may or may not be copyright infringement, I suppose, depending on the circumstances (e.g., were you doing it for profit?).
Here is a nice description about the differences between copyright infringement (piracy) and plagiarism.
Note that, according to US law, copyright infringement, including software policy, is not theft. I am not an intellectual property lawyer, so I do not know exactly under what conditions copyright infringement becomes a criminal offense in the US. Here is the actual US law, if anyone is really interested. In most cases, I believe, copyright infringement is primarily handled by civil courts, and you can be sued over it. I think some particularly egregious examples are treated as crimes.
I guess the important thing is that people who claim that piracy is theft may be correct from an idealogical point of view, but the law does not support this claim. Of course, that doesn't really have much to do with whether it is moral or not to infringe on someone else's intellectual property rights.
One thing I can absolutely say is that if everyone pirated software, there would be no software to pirate. So the pirates out there are able to access software only because there are still people who purchase software legally. You're essentially freeloaders who profit because of someone else's work - I don't mean the software companies here; I mean the people who work to be able to afford the price that software companies charge. In principle you're also relying on the fact that only a small proportion of people actually pirate software.
Unfortunately, software companies have the solution all wrong. Obviously, making it harder to pirate software is not a good solution, because no matter how good your DRM program, someone's going to crack it. Raising prices with the goal of off-setting the economic losses due to piracy is equally useless, because you're just going to make more people want to pirate software as the price becomes more unreasonable. The real solution would be to try to minimize piracy by making it more desirable to own a legal copy of the game. I'm not sure what the best way is to do that, but substantially lowering the price of new software - especially these days where games are often downloaded right from the production company rather than through 3rd party brick-and-mortars - may actually help in this regard.
In the full spirit of honesty, I'll admit that I have in the past been guilty of pirating software and music. I don't do it any more, partially because I earn more money now than in the past, partially because pirated versions are often of vastly inferior quality, and partially because I valued my integrity too much to continue doing it.
To me, it's always been a gray area, because the legal and ethical status of information ownership is something that's hard to get my hands around. Who really owns information? It's not a thing, after all. Even so, I recognize that someone put a lot of effort into creating it, and I do believe that piracy hurts everyone in the industry - consumers, producers, etc.
Logically, it's hard to argue equivocally that piracy is outright wrong. You can come up with all kinds of crazy logical problems with trying to show that piracy should be outlawed. For instance, consider the following hypothetical argument between a questioner and someone who is against piracy.
Q. Is downloading a pirated piece of software wrong?
A. Of course.
Q. Alright, if a friend lends you a legal version of a piece of software, is that wrong?
A. No, he purchased it. He can do what he wants with it.
Q. Does he own the disk, the information, or both?
A. Err....
Q. Can you borrow a piece of software from a friend as often as you'd like?
A. Of course. He purchased it, so he can do whatever he wants.
Q. If your friend lends you a legal version of a piece of software, can you make a copy of it so you can play it whenever you want?
A. No, he's not allowed to copy it.
Q. But he owns the disk, right? I thought he could do whatever he wants.
A. Yes, I mean't except for copying it.
Q. I don't get the distinction.
A. The problem here is that now two people own copies of the game. Effectively, the company has lost a sale. That's what makes it wrong.
Q. Ok, then suppose he makes you a copy of the game, but the two of you agree that only one of you is allowed to play it at the same time. Effectively, it's like having a software dongle. Is this allowed.
A. No, you can't copy software. That's stealing.
Q. But in this scenario, the company hasn't lost a sale, because this is effectively the same as him lending you the disk when you want to play the legal version of the game. It just means he doesn't have to physically give you the disk.
A. Errr...
Q. Furthermore, if you purchase a legal version of the game and play it to completion, are you entitled to GIVE the game to a friend? Or can you sell it on ebay or amazon.
A. Of course you can sell it. It's yours!
Q. But then the company loses a sale if you do that. What's the difference - from the company's point of view - between buying a used version of the game from a friend or ebay, and downloading it for free? Either way, the company that made the game doesn't get a dime and you get to play it. What's the difference?
A. Errr.
The problem is that even lawyers have a problem sorting out who really owns the software when you purchase it, and what, if any, rights the purchaser gets if ownership is retained by the seller. All of these details make it incredibly hard for the consumer to understand what is legally allowed and what is not! Even though I have an emotional feeling that downloading pirated software is wrong, and possibly should be illegal, I certainly have no qualms with buying used games at Amazon, or online. My local library has many to rent for free, and presumably these were donated by normal people. I do this all the time - yet it's hard to find a logical difference between buying used software from a "legal" source and downloading it from an "illegal" pirating site online.
I fully recognize therefore that this is a completely emotional rationalization. It certainly feels more legal and more ethical if I am parting with money in order to get something in return - as I do by purchasing a used version of a game - even if the person receiving the money isn't the one who made the game/music/movie, because this is the way our society usually works. Downloading a leaked version of a game just feels like stealing to me, even if it strictly isn't. I guess that's blissful ignorance.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I avoid getting pirated media because I feel it is wrong. Even so, I recognize that there are a lot of blurred lines underneath the whole issue that make it hard to distinguish what is legal from what is not and what is ethical from what is not. For that reason, I don't think it's really advisable or logical to take some sort of absolute moral high ground over people who download media from "illegal" websites. I do think it's bad for the industry, but is it any worse than the proliferation of used versions for sale at Amazon.com? I don't know, and so I don't throw stones at people who download them for free. So, even if an absolute legal definition of piracy ever becomes a reality, I'm still not convinced that one position is inherently more superior than another, from a strictly ethical or moral point of view.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted April 25, 2011 09:18 PM |
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Corribus: tl r, what do you have against long sliding scales?
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 25, 2011 09:21 PM |
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The companies did fight against selling used and borrowing too but that was essentially fruitless. Having a hard copy of the game is like having a book. It's information in an easily moveable format. You aren't allowed to copy one but you are allowed to sell the original or lent it to a friend.
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DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 25, 2011 09:28 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 21:28, 25 Apr 2011.
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Quote:
The companies did fight against selling used and borrowing too but that was essentially fruitless. Having a hard copy of the game is like having a book. It's information in an easily moveable format. You aren't allowed to copy one but you are allowed to sell the original or lent it to a friend.
Yes, I know. The point was that most people who are vehemently against piracy (under the argument that it deprives companies of compensation for their intellectual material) have no problem with the huge amount of money traded hands over sites like Amazon for used games - of which the developers and producers of software also don't receive a dime. Maybe the anti-piracy people have never realized that. Or perhaps it's a purely emotional distinction. That one activity is completely accepted and supposedly legal and the other is treated only half a step above murder in some circles should tell you how murky the legal waters are that float over this subject.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 09:29 PM |
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Sure.
EDIT: Sure means - why wouldn't I be allowed to sell my LICENSE to use a certain software? That License is valid for an unlimited time - it was, at least for the games until now; today, some corps sell a limited amount of INSTALLATIONS.
Anyway, It's like Jonas says.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 25, 2011 09:37 PM |
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Right, but do you have the legal authority to sell a licence to something you don't own?
(I don't know - I'm not a lawyer.)
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 09:49 PM |
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I own the license. Which means I can sell it.
I do that same thing when I sell a pc that comes with a rig-specific OS.
I don't think there is much to discuss about that one.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 25, 2011 09:56 PM |
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Quote:
I own the license. Which means I can sell it.
Are you sure about that? In US Law?
(I'm not necessarily contesting it - I'm asking if you know this, as a lawyer would, or if it your belief or supposition.)
Even so, what is legal and what is ethical are two separate questions. I'm not interested in the law so much as I'm interested in what is right. This is, after all, a thread about moral dilemmas, not legal ones.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 10:29 PM |
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Corribus:
The difference between buying a used game and copying a game is simple: in the first case, nothing new is created, while in the second case, you're creating a new copy of the game. The question is not whether the company loses a sale - the question is whether the company loses a sale because you created something only it is allowed to create.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted April 25, 2011 10:51 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 22:53, 25 Apr 2011.
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Quote:
The difference between buying a used game and copying a game is simple: in the first case, nothing new is created, while in the second case, you're creating a new copy of the game.
One, that's a trivial difference from the perspective of the receiver. Either way he's gotten a game that he didn't pay the developer for.
You might be able to convince me that it's a non-trivial difference from the perspective of the developer - as pirating might lead to more copies of the game floating around than the used game market creates. However if numerous copies were an issue, legal online downloading services wouldn't allow you to download multiple copies of a game you've legally purchased. (That is, say I purchase a game and am allowed 5 downloads of it. Some people only download 1 copy and others download 5. There's enough variability in the number of copies that could be floating out there to absorb some people downloading copies illegally.) So if the number of copies floating around is REALLY the primary legal or ethical difference between buying a used game and buying a pirated version, then it's really just a matter of principle or semantics at this point. Granted, questions of law have been based upon such trivial things, the tenacity with which people argue over this issue indicates to me that the ethical question can't be that simple.
Two, people make copies of their games or movies all the time for their own purposes (i.e., back-up copies). I may be off-base here, but I believe this might be (legally) allowed as part of the end-user agreement. (At least, it seems to be from what I can tell from frequenting some websites like afterdawn.com which discuss, among other things, how to make legit backups of DVD movies.) If that's legal, then clearly it isn't the copying that's the problem, but the distribution. In which case we are again left with two scenarios with the same effective outcomes which are treated very differently, ethically speaking.
Quote:
The question is not whether the company loses a sale - the question is whether the company loses a sale because you created something only it is allowed to create.
Again, trivial difference. The fact that some companies have tried to prevent users from re-selling legally purchased games pretty much tells you that both kinds of sales-loss are concerning to the industry.
The problem as I see it is that people still look at information or digital product ownership in the same way that look at material goods ownership.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 25, 2011 11:26 PM |
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I heard that here, it is legal to copy a disc, but only for your personnal use.
though, I'm not sure how the police will interpret it if they break in your house and find lots of copies along with the originals? they might come to the conclusion you planned to sell them maybe?
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Vlaad
Admirable
Legendary Hero
ghost of the past
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posted April 26, 2011 12:10 AM |
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Why would the police break into your house? 
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 26, 2011 12:37 AM |
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I heard they already caught a few pirates, and punished them severely
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted May 12, 2011 04:18 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 16:20, 12 May 2011.
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Dilemma #9
Alright, this isn't so much a dilemma as it is a discussion about a real court case that is generating some controversy.
Basically, a 30 year old woman is diagnosed with stage 4 (that's the worst kind) breast cancer. She losers her job and her husband decides to divorce her and sue for custody of the kids. The judge rules in favor of the husband, awarding him complete custody, relying on testimony from a phychologist that kids fare better with a healthy parent than a sick parent. This is allegedly the first time that a judge has used an illness to decide a child custody case.
So - did the judge make the right call?
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ohforfsake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted May 12, 2011 04:20 PM |
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In my opinion it should be up to the child to choose, not a judge.
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Fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted May 12, 2011 04:39 PM |
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This thread is pages long: 
