Piracy

[gunsmithx]

first an article by Jeff Vogel, he's an indie game desinger who does old school rpgs and writes alot on the internet, he's a got a pretty good blog thats a good read if you get a chance. Jeff's Blog

 

http://pc.ign.com/articles/967/967564p1.html

 

First off to those of you that pirate games, puppy dogs and sunshine.

 

No seriously, I know some douch will come on now and try to justify being a criminal(and yes thats what it is, fucking deal with it.), but you can't anymore then you can justify stealing someone's car. You'll say it's not the same, you'll say your not really hurting anyone cause you wouldn't buy it anyway(and while I can't afford a porsche but I don't steal one) but these are people who put time, money, effort and very often love and passion(anything done very well takes that) into creating things.

 

Now I'm sure someon will say that you can't own inseart art/pixils/ideas, I'm not even going to try to talk to you anymore cause you are insane, a duouch and should be removed from the gene pool to avoid you possible breeding.

 

This really brings to light one of the things I hate most about the internet(it's also something I love too but meh) it's the fact that you really are no one, everyone is no one so we think we can do whatever we want, people would wouldn't fucking speed(much less shoplift or hold up a game stop) will take music, and movies and games. And somone will say will if I like it I'll buy it(HA, try renting, borrowing or demo's instead) or i'm just hurting the big evil guys(ask the world of goo guys or stardock about that) so who cares.

 

You guys hate bullshit DRM, you have no one to blame but yourselves and thanks for fucking me too. You want to know the future of DRM, look at AC2, you have to be online to play, they keeps your saves, and in 6 months it'll be patched to play locally but thats extra time and money that could have been used for god knows what. I put 10 to 1 that all drm will go that way, first it'll be stay online to play, then it'll be saves, then it'll be assests and everything else and you only download a client till who knows how long after a game comes out(the bulk of sales takes place in the first few months so thats what they care about.) and you'll say anything is crackble right? sure, yeah but how long will it take? how well will it run(go play on private servers for mmo's and see, it's alot of shit and takes months if not years to do and most of them try to get money from you for the work)

 

Now even I'll admit that some of these companies havn't always made things better but what would you do if you were watching people steal your shit? be calm? panic?? grab a gun? call the police? shit sounds similar doesn't? I wonder if part of the problem here is most of you people have never created anything, I've done some writing and I'm going back to school for computer science so I've created a little bit, and I can understand a little if someone just took my work, and if I was making money on it? if it was what I used to put food on my table, pay my bills, live? Most of these shops arn't ID, most of these guys don't drive supercars, they are mostly like you and me, they work hard and make enough to live and surive and take care of their families, so yeah, this shit really effects and hurts people.

 

Thanks to this shit, the pc gaming market is trying to die(thank you mmo's and steam for keeping it alive.) Thanks to you we get so few good games on psp(and yes I homebrew my psps and I buy the games, ask nick or george if you don't belive me) because it's so easy to pirate, thats why developers even bitch about shit like the DS. And we all lose out, I love all the cool things I can do with homebrew on my psp and the media center shit you could on the xbox, but yeah fuck that from happening again.

 

I doing this not to reach anyone(your all in your bullshit, i'm a moral, ethical rebel bullshit) so I'm not changing anyone's mind but i'm tired of it. This is just a rant I guess, maybe someone will read it and be like oh shit, I shouldn't do it, but I doubt it, but I will bitch and fight it at every step, maybe I'm just a better person then I think but I think it's mostly cause I don't want people to steal my shit, because I understand what choices I make when I did things like this(and yes I did pirate alot back in the day, it took a while for me to understand what I was doing, most victim-less crimes arn't) at the very least I hope this gets some of you to understand that you are stealing, that you are taking things, that people are hurt by what are you doing, that it's not fair and not right and not moral or ethical in anyway(maybe thats not a better place but it is a step foward.)

 

 

huh... this might be the most I've written at one time in this place, thanks for reading this far if you have.

Edited April 8, 2010 by gunsmithx

[gunsmithx]

BTW as somone has already pointed this out to me, I know this comes off as angry(and possible bitter depending on your pov) part of this is because I wrote this the second I decided to when I was just most frustrated and pissed and it's also partly on purpose as it is well... a rant. As I said this isn't going to change anyone's mind and it's not really intended too, might get some people thinking, might piss some people off, and I figure alot of you might not care.

[Maldron]

I don't pirate games. Music, anime, comics... yeah, but for some reason I love games too much.

 

I like your rant. In part because you misspelled douche at least two different ways, in part because it's nice to know other people like blasting people for trying to justify thievery.

[spiffytee]

being a dirty pirate, you must really hate me. i watched a streaming movie last night from one of those bring the camera into the movie sites. granted, i didn't finish it cause i couldn't take it anymore because it was so damn crappy... but i am curious how far your conviction goes. you are saying you buy all your music, reading material, etc? what about the gray areas like fansubs and youtube? technically, and this is being super picky - homebrew anything is not endorsed. are you also saying you ask where something came from and refuse? not trying to pick a fight, but clarify where you are coming from.

 

mabye it's just me, but i don't think someone can really go around and purposely avoid everything that is out there... you'd really have to force yourself to do this.

[Keth]

aren't roms essentially just pirated games? thats where I get the majority of my old school stuff from.

[The NZA]

First off to those of you that pirate games, fuck you.

 

...aaand that's the end of all intelligent discussion in this thread, thanks for coming out guys! tune in next week when gunsmith, who no longer pirates anything evar and obeys all traffic laws, stands in righteous judgment over us dirty criminals regarding whatever else he fancies.

 

for posterity:

 

 

*edit:

aren't roms essentially just pirated games? thats where I get the majority of my old school stuff from.

 

shhhh! you're fucking it up with your moral relativism, son!

[gunsmithx]

being a dirty pirate, you must really hate me. i watched a streaming movie last night from one of those bring the camera into the movie sites. granted, i didn't finish it cause i couldn't take it anymore because it was so damn crappy... but i am curious how far your conviction goes. you are saying you buy all your music, reading material, etc? what about the gray areas like fansubs and youtube? technically, and this is being super picky - homebrew anything is not endorsed. are you also saying you ask where something came from and refuse? not trying to pick a fight, but clarify where you are coming from.

 

mabye it's just me, but i don't think someone can really go around and purposely avoid everything that is out there... you'd really have to force yourself to do this.

 

I do in fact currently buy all my shit(music, books, movies, mostly from amazon) also I never got pirated books but meh. Homebrew is not piracy, don't strawman this, but it's mostly used for piracy. Fansubs have always been a weird greyarea in alot of ways, and most legit groups will normally only release stuff thats not here and will stop when it comes out(yes alot of groups do this. but alot don't) and yes I for instance do read alot of scanlations of manga and I do buy it when it's released(nick can confirm my large manga collection) movies have never been an issues, I like to watch it in HD and frankly I also like alot of special feature and such(and I hate that fucking bullshit cam in a movie dvd, horrible to watch).

 

Just about all the roms I use I have either owned, they never came out here,(y's 4 i'm looking at you) or I just can't get a copy at all(which even I admit is a grey area) but then I'm mostly talking about super nintendo shit.

 

It's kinda funny that it's gotten so widespread and easy to pirate that no one believes anyone who says they their shit, crazy huh.

 

and no tim I don't hate you, it's only cause I love you that I've turned you in to the FBI :P

 

btw nick if I go back and edit that fuck you out of the post(btw I already said I wrote the post when angry, I didn't edit it so people don't bitch) will you try to have intelligent conversation?

[The NZA]

yes, if we're really into stone-casting mode, having helped clean part of gun's place, he has all the stuff he says he has. even 1 ROM he doesnt currently own in cart form would get some to call him a hypocrite, but ive no use for that kidna person, either, personally.

 

gun:

 

for real though, you dont have to edit anything - and yeah, i saw your 2nd post, what i was saying is you kinda made a dead-end here; if you wanted replies, i wasnt sure how/where you were asking for them. since you're saying you do wanna talk about it, weve had threads in other forums but not here @ games, i wanna say, so yeah man, talk, ill respond.

 

ps snitches get stiches, narc!

[Visitant]

RvB Real Life vs the Internet, in which piracy is touched upon.:

 

 

[Maldron]

Homebrew may not be piracy, but it is illegal.

[the division of joy]

I pirate most things, but I don't pirate games. Unless they're really bad, in which case, they kinda deserve it.

[gunsmithx]

I'll look up more stuff on legal issue of homebrew, I've always just kinda thought of it as my car basicly, I buy my car I can modify it, I buy my psp I mod it, but I'll look it up.

 

Also talking to nick he's right that I was kinda all over the place on this, I'm not really sure what I was aiming for outside of general ranting but lets try and narrow it down a touch.

 

One thing we were talking about was the legal vs moral/ethic agrument. We basicly agreed that legal stuff has some merky areas in terms of case law(as far as I know) for instance I think making a copy of a game for myself is ok(I own chrono trigger in about 3 different forums and there for making an iso of the ps1 verson and playing it on my psp is ok with me) but I understand that leaglly it's murky as I said(btw they really really really need to work out digital law but I have a feeling it'll remain the way it is for a long time.) It makes agruing the legal stuff tricky outside of obvious cases like, mario comes out this week and I download a copy by friday, so lets go to some of the moral stuff.

 

I'm curious what moral and ethic agruments you can make for piracy? For instance doj basiclly said that pirating bad games was ok(that might have been a joke) why would you say that? Since I doubt anyone would agrue that nick couldn't lend me one of his games, can I just download it to save us the time and trouble? I would say thats proabbly crossing a line but even I admit it can seem like a blurry one. Is this just because we are having problems transfering our moral and ethics about phsycial goods to digital ones?

 

oh and yeah if you guys have an points to make on anything I said you can bring it up too since I pretty much went through most of the major topics, or we can just do one issues at a time.

[Iambaytor]

If companies want to offer me a way to read, play, listen to, or watch things before I buy them then I will quit downloading. I use the library whenever possible (though I don't really know how that's any better, they don't get paid for that either. Nor do they get paid when I buy something used.)

[gunsmithx]

If companies want to offer me a way to read, play, listen to, or watch things before I buy them then I will quit downloading. I use the library whenever possible (though I don't really know how that's any better, they don't get paid for that either. Nor do they get paid when I buy something used.)

 

Have you been to a site that lets you pay for stuff lately? Movies have trailers, books have had chapter samples since before the internet(and you can even download them on say a kindle or kindle app) and most music places let you listen to samples. Now if you mean you want to read the whole book, watch the whole movie, and listen to the whole song, then decide if you want to pay for it, you have the raido, the library, and cable. BTW they do get paid because the library bought a copy(and to be fair libraries have almost their own thing.) and well when you buy used someone bought it and it's not like you can both own it(in theory). Also you can rent, both local and online.

 

So what did you mean?

[the division of joy]

I was joking about pirating bad games. I just don't pirate them. Be it because I feel a bit moral about it, or because its a pain to do so, I just don't do it.

 

I however have no issue in making many copies of things online I wish to acquire. Its just movies and music for me that I do. Albeit by the bucketload.

[The NZA]

yeah, the notion of people being paid for their works - specifically here with games - is central, i think. i rent/borrow a vast majority of games (ive been with Gamefly off & on for years now, several industry people argue that's harmful - anyone remember when Nintendo tried to sue Blockbuster in the 80s?). i do download, but the legit stuff i buy, 90% of it is used. same result for the devs, sadly...gun and i were talking about more venues to give money to devs for their work; i keep saying, when say MS puts On Demand prices more fair (charging retail for digital games out for over a year is fucking silly), ill stop paying people on half.com $30 for games and pay that directly to the cause.

 

to address gun's questions, though: yeah, ive made my distinction between priacy and shoplifting, but to repeat what we said, both involve access to something i dindt pay for. to answer your question about the legal and ethical responses: legally, there isnt one. ethically, that's still mostly true.

 

you're right, saying "i wasnt gonna pay anyway" is not nearly a pass. no one's owed access to anything. there's no moral justification, really...its just, i dont seek to make one, is the thing. ethically, let's use jax as an example: he believes in a categorical imperative, which is to say, he believes he should act in a manner he would want all of society to, as this would make the world better, in his opinion. i do not act in this way at all - neither the law nor social graces necessarily dictate how i am to act. this also does not give a pass, but if anything, its more consistent.

 

i can sit here and tell you that due to bootlegging music, books, games, and movies, ive purchased a great deal more than i did prior, specifically of lesser known/import shit. again, no free pass on what i did or that which i didnt buy (the market doesnt have to cater itself to my individual whims), but as a consumer, ive valued this access. i tend to buy physical copies of say wu-tang albums and smaller studio games and never really touch them, as digital access has just been quicker/easier. shit that i love that absolutely bombs, i do feel an imperative to support - bought Deadly Premonition twice, trying to buy No More Heroes II retail instead of used, etc. i dont mean to rationalize here as much as simply detail my patterns.

 

again, its not victimless, and its not right. i don't make excuses nor think society should somehow follow my example, nor do i feel responsible for their collective actions either. personally, id like to paypal Schafer $20 or so for having bought/played Grim Fandango used like 10 years later.

 

 

 

ps gun - in your reply to baytor, you mentioned that libraries and used/second hand venues are ok for having had an original purchase. is this true of downloading, then, if the original source was retail? what about me borrowing a game off you vs me making a copy of your purchase?

[Maldron]

You can modify your car, but you can't modify your car to have police lights. The thing about Homebrew is that by itself it constitutes a bypassing of the manufacturer's security programs, which are established as a means to prevent piracy. Circumventing piracy prevention is punishable under the DMCA as I understand it.

[gunsmithx]

Yeah the used market has been it's own beast really, alot of dev's and companies don't really like it, but I doubt you'll find any industry that likes it when you buy used instead of new.

 

The thing with libaries is also a social thing, as far as I know, outside of universities, just about all libraries are public, supported by local and sometimes federal goverments, again it's kind of it's own beast.

 

As for used in terms of digital used I dunno, it's a moral grey area and the problem is it's easy, before if I borrowed a game I had to go to your house, or you came to mine, and for the most part only one of us had a copy. Now though I could say jay wants to lend me a game, but I'll just download it instead of flying to aussie land to get it... it completely changes the game, hell I'm sure I've read someone saying piracy was just alot of people 'borrowing' the game. It's alot of new ground to cover cause there really hasn't been anything like it before. This is the place where things get strange, we can agree that if a million people dl the game for free it's wrong, but if I download a game nick has cause I'm borrowing it, it's ok(maybe). A problem of scale maybe? And the fact I can't... lend out my steam games for instance(though I could lend out my login and password but I don't think thats a huge issue)

 

On one note, the way amazon handles kindle books is you can have up to 6 kindles on an account, which works out nice for say families or something, Maybe a limited 'friend list' you can lend games to? I have a feeling we'll just see people trying a whole mess of different things and seeing what sticks.

 

----

BTW doj, why is it ok to pirate one thing but not another? What would make you not pirate music and movies?

[gunsmithx]

You can modify your car, but you can't modify your car to have police lights. The thing about Homebrew is that by itself it constitutes a bypassing of the manufacturer's security programs, which are established as a means to prevent piracy. Circumventing piracy prevention is punishable under the DMCA as I understand it.

 

I could have sworn you could modify your car to have police lights but not use them(there's also a saefty issues if you set your car up like a police car that doesn't exist in the psp that doesn't really translate well). Also you can legally as far as I know modify your care ECU(electrionc control unit) and many companies have but it voids your warrenty(and yes it requires cracking it) in fact thats normally the punishment, mdifiying your care enables the company to refuse you warranty service on problems the modified part can cause(ie I get new springs and my shocks blow for instance).

[the division of joy]

BTW doj, why is it ok to pirate one thing but not another? What would make you not pirate music and movies?

Nothing really. At all.

 

Edit; I'm not saying its ok to pirate one thing, but not another. I just don't do one and do another.

Edited April 8, 2010 by the division of joy

[The NZA]

yeah, its definitely in scope, but then like you said you kinda invite the "what # is too high?" thing.

 

its funny, cause some gamers feel the PSN ability to share with 4 others is a loophole that gets exploited, but its still a legit one that even Tretton has backed in past interviews. didnt know kindle did that too though, huh.

 

*edit: gun, i dont think you can put police lights legally on your car. fire/ems/police shops ive gone to, you need to provide dept ID and such to even order that shit, as i recall.

[Iambaytor]

Have you been to a site that lets you pay for stuff lately? Movies have trailers, books have had chapter samples since before the internet(and you can even download them on say a kindle or kindle app) and most music places let you listen to samples. Now if you mean you want to read the whole book, watch the whole movie, and listen to the whole song, then decide if you want to pay for it, you have the raido, the library, and cable. BTW they do get paid because the library bought a copy(and to be fair libraries have almost their own thing.) and well when you buy used someone bought it and it's not like you can both own it(in theory). Also you can rent, both local and online.

 

So what did you mean?

 

And somebody bought a copy which they put on the internet. Same thing.

 

This is NOT like stealing a Porsche. This is like having somebody carve a decently running replica of their Porsche out of a lesser material and letting me have it for free. I have yet to see the pirated copy of anything that is as good quality as that which I can buy in the store or online.

 

Second, piracy has generated business for a lot of things that I wouldn't have ever even wasted time with. When I pirate movies, comics, books, games, etc. It is because I would not otherwise spend money on them, when they turn out to be worth my while I do spend money on them. Half the movies I own I only own becasue I saw a pirated copy elsewhere.

 

And yes, there are libraries where I can only keep the item for a limited time putting me under pressure to finish it right then and there rather than at my own leasure. Rentals are expensive (movies are cheap but I run into the same problem as the library) and yes there's gamefly, but maybe I don't want to wait a week to play Gun Battle Slap Fight 7. If I enjoyed it, hey, I'm going to buy that.

 

If I legitimately want to see, play, read something I do so. I buy trad paperbacks, I go see movies in theater, I paid $5 for a 1-Day rental of A Serious Man, but if you think I'm going to do that for Still Waiting you're a crazy man. All these companies fail to realize that the people who are "Stealing" from them the most are also their most valuable customers because I guarantee you the people downloading the torrents are more likely to buy the movie than the person who waits for it on cable.

 

Let's also look at music. What killed CDs? Was it Napster? No, it was iTunes. Blame iPods, Kindles, and Digital Copies for people not getting their fair share, not "pirates."

[alive she cried]

I'll look up more stuff on legal issue of homebrew, I've always just kinda thought of it as my car basicly, I buy my car I can modify it, I buy my psp I mod it, but I'll look it up.

 

And if I buy the cd it is my property do as I wish with. Be that putting it on demonoid. I own it, I'll do what I want with it.

Comparing this to stealing a car is an insane analogy.

Edited April 9, 2010 by alive she cried

[the division of joy]

[gunsmithx]

Ok, first off as far as I can tell with homebrew it's basicly legal to do as long as it's not for piracy(yeah I know) but it's an odd grey area, but as far as I can tell they never go after the guys who hack the systems.

 

2. ASC, that quote you used of mine was in response to homebrew, so yeah...

 

3. baytor, if you really think that please read the articles where it's planily false. I'll stick to games but when doing tracking(stardock, world of goo) using leaderboards, 80 to 90% of the copies on their were pirated. This is a problem when people think that pirating helps(it does not) or has no effect(again please read the article I linked) Also it's not a bad copy in terms of games and I can find very good copies of books, movies and music(the exception being newly released films) in fact in terms of games it's normally a perfect copy. And most people who download a movie do not buy it, why? they have and have seen the film.

 

4. back to ASC, if you want to find me a better way to say then comparing to stealing something, go ahead, nick and I went over it for a while, we agreed that while it wasn't the same thing it was the same effect, you took something that wasn't yours and you did not pay for.

 

Honestly this whole thing of it's ok, it' helps and it's not wrong is insane and your just lying to yourself, it's theft, deal with it, if you can't then you shouldn't be doing it, at least nick admits what he's doing when he does it.

 

Like I said baytor, you have plenty of options(legal and ethical options) to see samples of products, but you dont' want samples, you just don't want to pay for things.

 

oh and as for what doj posted, I can't really see youtube at work so I'll look at it when I get home.

Edited April 9, 2010 by gunsmithx