Do you often pirate things on a computer?

[Kirameo]

Millennium said:

Kirameo said:

dunno001 said:

Gilgamesh said:

Here's another way of looking at pirating, technically the thing that's being pirated is just being shared not stolen, because in order for it to be pirated in the first place someone must of bought it. If I let a friend borrow a game I own is that not pirating?

That is not piracy, as while your friend is borrowing the game, it deprives you of the ability to play it. There was one license sold, and one copy existing for it. This is fine (even if a few companies may want to say otherwise). What would be piracy is if you made a copy of it for your friend, as your one license now can be used twice concurrently. I assume that Canada also has something like the US's version of right to resell? Loaning it is selling it for $0, with the intent that it will be sold back to you at a later time for $0. Weird wording, I know, but it does allow it to fall into the fair use part.

The used games market argueably hurts the industry more than piracy.

 

If I buy a physical copy that is used (meaning that the company doesn't benefit from it) I'm sure I would most likely buy a new copy (benefiting the company) if there was not an used one.

In the other hand, someone who pirates most likely would not buy the game if he could not pirate it.

The used games industry doesn't hurt the industry at all, because the industry has no right to prevent resale. This works exactly like any physical product: if you buy, for example, a couch, the maker of the couch cannot prevent you from reselling it, even if that might "deprive" the maker of a further sale. No one would argue that this hurts the furniture industry, which faces far greater manufacturing costs than the game industry does; therefore it does not hurt the game industry either.

The entire point of the first-sale doctrine is, much like the rest of copyright, an attempt to make buying and selling intellectual property as similar as possible to buying and selling physical property, and that is why resale is fair use. But this also extends further: a furniture maker cannot prevent resale, but it (and its associated stores) can take steps to prevent theft, which does hurt the industry, just as the theft of games does.

 

There's a difference. Software doesn't deteriorate as physical objects do. So buying an used game and a new game are almost the same thing, the difference is that one is cheaper. In the other hand, a couch will deteriorate over time. And you don't see people "Hey, I bought this couch and I finished it yesterday so I'm selling it!". And you wouldn't download a car :)

I'm just rambling.