Alterego-X said:
Why does everyone begin with the assumption, that supporting "the industry" is good, and hurting "the industry" is immoral? It's not like if it would hurt gaming itself! Maybe piracy destroyed the music industry, but it didn't destroy music. Nothing destroys music. So if there is an easier, cheaper way to produce my copy of a song, why should I choose to give my money to a publisher company that exists solely to spend the incomes on expanding its own bureaucracy, and support hundreds of workers who do nothing but keep the older, more expensive and difficult production method alive, all this in the name of supporting a guy with a guitar who is already rich enough solely from concert tickets and other minor sources, to keep playing.
Gaming is a bit trickier, as obviously, lonely starving visionaries can't create masterpieces without any funding, but the developers could still find alternative ways, like making less ridiculously expensive blockbusters, putting in ads, and after all these, maybe even sell them for a small price, or add microtransactions, or at least liberate 2-3 year old games from the copyright protection, that already brought in 99% of its expected incomes anyways, for us poor guys, as 2Dboy did with World of Goo (that trick gave them $100.000 in donations, ($2 by me, my first time spending on a game) several thousand new fans, and extremely good advertisement publicity) all that from giving it to people who weren't ready to pay for it. |
You are right, pirating is not immoral or moral because it supports or hurts the industry. I don't understand why that's become the center of debate.
The main issue is intellectual property and property rights. I think that we shouldn't be allowed to use the creative works of another to replicate or produce for ourselves. However, once we own a physical property, because of our own rights to property, we can sell THAT physical copy. We cannot however, produce it ourselves.
The right to intellectual property is that of an idea. Because of that, developers have no right over our physical copies, and we do not have the right to utilize those ideas and create products on our own.
So this part is bullshit. Ok, you think the music industry sucks, etc. Just like you said, supporting it or not supporting it doesn't make it immoral. However, you still have no right to produce someone else's creative work on your own. It's their IP, and they can sell it for whatever price they want to. If you don't want to buy it, don't. But you are not entitled to their IP, just like game developers aren't entitled to your physical discs, after you bought them. Buying the CD doesn't give you rights to the song. Just like a coporation doesn't get the right to use a song for a commercial by just buying a $9.99 album.
Wait, so are you putting up an expectation for people who make creative works to do it for free? Sure you could say that it's an ideal, but you can't actually deny people their right to make profit off of their creative works by charging for it. Sure you can say that money can't buy quality, and screw competition, but the only way you can express that is by words and not paying. Pirating is not an way you can express that ideal, we have things called property rights, and you must respect them.
Imagine a world without property rights. Anarchy in that respect only. Forgetting being able to take anything from anybody, lets stick with IP. Medical companies have no incentive to fund research, it'll probably go to the government completely (whether you think that's good or bad is up to you), you'll have absolutely no clue what you're buying, as anyone can use the well known brand name and even designs (so you essentially have a bootleg market). Production value will go down (doesn't necessarily mean that the music or game will be worse. Just that the budgets will go down).
