omigosh piracy

0_- what?

Everyday i give thanks that this people exist.

It's actually very, very difficult to get authentic stuff outside the western world, in undeveloped countries. I remember the first time I saw an authentic PC game in 1999... it was like... whoa. What's that bright, heavenly, shining light?

But yeah, just drop by any Asian night market and you'll see things beyond your wildest dreams. Pirated bibles, drugs, animals, bodyparts, baby fetuses, guns, etc.

Guess the cannons on those pirate ships don't fire themselves... but at least we've got another legit sinner on board. :p

I'd love to know a valid reason for stealing something unessential for one's survival like gaming software.

I'm wise enough in the ways of the tubes to understand the redundancy of arguing this concept. I will instead, recommend reading the following, and advise you to form an opinion from there:

On global economies:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_trade
2. International studies : an interdisciplinary approach to global issues / Sheldon Anderson ... [et al.].
3. How capitalism was built : the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia / Anders Åslund.

On piracy:
4. The pirate's dilemma : how youth culture is reinventing capitalism / Matt Mason.
5. Human rights and intellectual property rights : tensions and convergences
6. Music piracy and crime theory

On international economics, politics, and law:
7. International organizations and implementation : enforcers, managers, authorities?
8. Economics of conflict of laws
9. Lag (1998:112) om ansvar för elektroniska anslagstavlor

But obviously you won't read them because God forbid you happen to change your mind.

Because its non essential... that is, if you didn't pirate it you wouldn't have bought it either... And copy protection that leaves a bad taste in your mouth doesn't make you want to buy a game...
Also I have NEVER seen a copy protection that hasn't been circumvented... The only thing copy protection does is force people to buy multiple copies of the same item (oh, little jimmy scratched his game cd and it doesn't work? Yea he is gonna have to do extra chores to pay for the replacement I bought)...
I am 100% positive that none of that stuff has EVER been meant to stop piracy, but only to force legit users to buy multiple copies of the same item... As well as erode consumer rights.

I downloaded the game (no demo yet so...) and bought it literally 10 minutes into the game (unusually quick that is)...
2/3 of games I play I never even finish (although sins doesn't have an official campaign so it cannot be finished).

I am now on my 5th scenario play... I think I will start playing online soon.

PS. Its not the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America)

Trying to justify theft with a lot of words doesn't accomplish anything besides wasting said words.

And wasting time reading said words... well. Hell, I don't even need to go past the titles.

e.g. "Human rights and intellectual property rights : tensions and convergences"

While human rights arguments can be made for the unlicensed use of certain technologies, there is no possible application of this argument to game software.

But obviously you won't read them lest you change your mind. :p Oh well, I tried.

I don't really feel like justifying anything else because it's just feeding of trolls but this sentence caught my eye:
"Trying to justify theft with a lot of words doesn't accomplish anything besides wasting said words."

WOW! Ingenius! Seriously! What the hell are courtrooms and lawyers for! Wasting words trying to justify crime! Get rid of the whole legal system. OBVIOUSLY they are trying to justify crime. Oh yeah, and tell your parents that. No need to use words. Burn the place down. What? Cheating in an exam is bad? Whoo! Execute the kid!

Man, I'm going to copy that quote down and tell everyone about it.

Why would I waste my time?

If you can summarize, in a hundred words or less, why human rights pertain to piracy of game software, I'll read the full article.

Naaaah.

In other words, you can't.

Yeaarrrh me matey, i be goin to shanghai this thread. on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco the spirit of the pirate is alive and well. There be a pirate store which is also a writing workshop. and everyone breaks federal laws everyday with our downloading, sharing, bartering, trading and smoking. there will always be room in the briny for rapscallions!

Yarrrgh! Ye be not boarding this thread, laddie. Break out the cannon and grapeshot lads and lets teach this here scallywag a lesson 'ell never ferget. Arrrgh.

If that's the best the two of you can do, the only advice I can give you is to work harder and smoke less. Or at least stop inhaling.

Piracy isn't stealing physical content but accessing acquiring knowledge without paying the author.
Pirating games and entertainment only relates in the terms of the severity of the punishments for the type of act. When you go to the store and steal a CD you are taking something that cost money to produce and transport, as well as the information it contains. When you are downloading a copy of that CD you are only denying them potential income (not that you would have necessarily bought it if you couldn't pirate it..) it doesn't cost anything per unit stolen, but there are original creation costs that need to be recuperated.

Furthermore, you might also be driven to download something that you HAVE purchased but the media was damaged. Such replacement piracy is a consumer right that should not be impeded. Or also attempting to archive things for historical purposes or creating backups of content that you own (it is PIRACY to make a copy of a game you bought legally at the store!)

But human rights really come into play in any other kind of piracy. Pirating anything other then fiction based entertainment is absolutely no different then going to the library and reading a book. Anti piracy organizations DO define library usage as piracy and their ultimate stated goal is to have all libraries pay per usage per item per person... meaning an end to free libraries and all free knowledge.
This is a basic human rights issue and a very grave one.

While it is true that the person who wrote the book on carpentry or genetics deserves compensation, it is also true that by denying people access to basic knowledge about the world, science, etc unless they pay specific fees to specific people completely locks out the poor from advancing their knowledge and station. Thus it is a human's right issue.

Personally I would agree that fiction entertainment books, movies, etc should not be in libraries or taken freely, except by paying customers... But anything other then that should be keenly observed for human rights purposes...

smoking less...pssssh! shows what you know.
although, frogboy, if your reading this, it played no part in the game i got obliterated by, with my team mate oogly.

Nope. Doesn't work.

That argument fails completely with regards to game software, music and entertainment.

There is no human rights issue to be made there.

Which is what I said in the first place. But thanks for typing up a long post and missing the point.

Wow, you convinced me. Denying people's arguments but not offering up any counter-explanations is the best way to debate effectively.

OP = best. troll. ever.

The extent to which people will go to justify their theft of other people's intellectual property is astonishing to me, and also hilarious.

In order to have a debate, you have to have two positions. My position was that there was no human rights argument to be made in favor of game piracy. Taltamir spent four paragraphs rambling on about how human rights applied to piracy of knowledge and technology specifically excluding entertainment.

If he's not going to stake out a position that's at all different from mine, then where's the debate?

Eh, none of that really answers my question. Gaming software is not a necessary commodity like food or clothing for which all of the above arguments would apply. And as you've clearly demonstrated in this thread, it is very possible for you to acquire gaming software legitimately, so don't pretend like that's not an option. Rather, you and your friends/family are simply cheap. Your words, not mine: "Extreme pirates who took the cheapest price for anything without a care in the world went out of their way to buy this product."

But just as you claim that making your case is futile, I'll express the same sentiments since past experience has taught me that software pirates have 1001 excuses for their inexcusable behavior.

Aw, don't kill the debate now, mtn_man! We haven't heard from him how youth culture is reinventing car theft!

You latched on to part of what I said, completely ignored the rest, and proclaimed it a victory... A debate works best when every tries to learn and not "win"...
The key issues that are human rights are:
1. Legally there is no differentiation between fantasy entertainment and knowledge.
2. There are a variety of legitimate reasons to "pirate" a game (lost the CD, making a backup copy, no demo, etc... those are all legally piracy!)
3. The human right against excessive punishment towards a very VERY minor crime.

The wonderful thing about stardock is that it eliminates all the legitimate reasons to pirate. But stardock is the ONLY publisher that does so.




Nobody in their right mind thinks its their human right to play a game they enjoy like sins of a solar empire without ever paying for it. They might do it anyways, but not consider it as a "human right"... there are other human rights involved directly in game piracy that I did mention that you pretended did not exist. I was not talking ONLY about knowledge... There are a variety of cases where people should be able to download it. To test a game that has no demo, to replace a lost/damaged CD for a game they legitimately purchased, to bypass annoying copy protection on a game they legitimately purchased.

I specifically explained that its not a human right to steal entertainment, but that that copy protection inadvertently violates human rights. The thing is that the law makes no distinctions between information and entertainment, IT SHOULD, but it doesn't.

There are human rights that regard punishment vs crime relationship. If someone steals a game he should receive a modest fine, no cruel and unusual punishments which have no relationship to the size of the crime.

While its not a human right, there is the issue of value. People oftentimes pirate music because its overpriced and they WANT to hurt the record industry. I know a guy who DJs for a big radio station here in dallas, and he told me that their contract with the record industries is that they may ONLY play songs by artists who have signed on with an approved label... and signing on with such a label means signing away practically all profits from CDs and the like... the artists really only make money from concerts... OR if an inordinate amount of CDs are sold then the tiny fraction they receive from the sales adds up.

I for example will NOT buy any game published by EA. They are evil and they hate me personally (that is, they hate their customers)... Whenever I can I buy good games directly, not second hand, not from a store (where part of that 50$ goes to the store, to delivery, to stamping out disks, etc).. I love direct download because that means more of the 50$ goes to the actual people who made the game...


PS. And keep in mind that I downloaded before I bought Sins because there is no demo... When there is no demo false advertising is often risked, where the game does not deliver on its claims... for most games even if there IS a demo, the demo is version 1 and the game vastly changed since, so its not an accurate representation... Many games are extremely buggy, to the point where they are completely unplayable. Titan quest, Hellgate london, etc... By downloading the full game and updating to the latest version you can first see if the game even WORKS. and if it does, pay for it. There is no consumer protection law saying that you should be refunded the 50$ if your shiny new game blue screens ever 10 minutes and has a chance to delete your progress when it does... So people make their own consumer rights through piracy.

Oh god a troll thread. I bought this game and was proud to do so, just as I've bought every other stardock game including political machine, and I am a proud customer of a company that does not make its customers struggle with with "insert GAME CD" and starforce, etc...

But there is so much overstatement on this thread. Unauthorized copying is bad because it can harm the copyright holder, but it is distinctly different than theft, wherein you deny someone else an item and instead take it for yourself.

Also, it never, never contributes to higher prices becuase competing with a "free" product always drives down the price. The music industry is a good example of this. Please continue to encourage others to refrain from unauthorized copying, but don't get hysterical or illogical about it!