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Forums - Gaming - Similar evil? Used games retail business = Illegal downloading/torrenting?

Spankey on 14 April 2011
thekitchensink said:
Spankey said:
UncleScrooge said:
thekitchensink said:

I agree, they're nowhere near the same thing.  If you pirate a game, that means it's available for millions to download at no charge.

If you resell your legitimately purchased copy, that's none of the companies' fucking business.  I have the right to resell my TV, my bookshelf, or my damn house if I want to.  What makes my video games so special?


This! A hundred times!

It is your right as a customer to sell your legally purchased game to whoever you want. The same goes for your old computer, TV, car and everything else.

This discussion is absurd. It's like half of all forum visiters were slaves of the videogaming industry. What's next? Will people stop reselling their cars because of the poor car manufacturers?

Reselling items is part of every market. It's part of a free market economy.

small point but maybe vaguely valid; while you can digitally redistribute software (legally or not) you can't torrent your car to millions of people

We're talking about selling your used copy of the game... as in going to a store, buying a copy, playing it, then selling that copy (the same disc you bought from the store) to someone else or to a used game store.  So it's exactly the same as the car example.

That's why i said vaguely.

Imagine someone goes to a shop, buys a legal game, turns it into a torrent, then resells the game. you still can't torrent a car yet. even if you let everyone else on the planet drive it around, it's still only one (rather well used) car. a torrent can potentially get to millions of copies of itself.



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Galaki on 14 April 2011
twesterm said:
Don86 said:

How come both of these options are considered equally bad for the industry?

The only people that consider them equally bad are the people that are trying to justify their piracy and shift the focus of the argument.  That's all that really needs to be said.

That's unfair calling on pirates as we've seen numerous publishers claiming that.



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Galaki on 14 April 2011
Spankey said:

That's why i said vaguely.

Imagine someone goes to a shop, buys a legal game, turns it into a torrent, then resells the game. you still can't torrent a car yet. even if you let everyone else on the planet drive it around, it's still only one (rather well used) car. a torrent can potentially get to millions of copies of itself.

But it should be treated the same. You can't call guilty on everyone just because some do it.



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twesterm on 14 April 2011

Which publishers (and recent links please)?



 

UncleScrooge on 14 April 2011
Spankey said:
thekitchensink said:
Spankey said:
UncleScrooge said:
thekitchensink said:

I agree, they're nowhere near the same thing.  If you pirate a game, that means it's available for millions to download at no charge.

If you resell your legitimately purchased copy, that's none of the companies' fucking business.  I have the right to resell my TV, my bookshelf, or my damn house if I want to.  What makes my video games so special?


This! A hundred times!

It is your right as a customer to sell your legally purchased game to whoever you want. The same goes for your old computer, TV, car and everything else.

This discussion is absurd. It's like half of all forum visiters were slaves of the videogaming industry. What's next? Will people stop reselling their cars because of the poor car manufacturers?

Reselling items is part of every market. It's part of a free market economy.

small point but maybe vaguely valid; while you can digitally redistribute software (legally or not) you can't torrent your car to millions of people

We're talking about selling your used copy of the game... as in going to a store, buying a copy, playing it, then selling that copy (the same disc you bought from the store) to someone else or to a used game store.  So it's exactly the same as the car example.

That's why i said vaguely.

Imagine someone goes to a shop, buys a legal game, turns it into a torrent, then resells the game. you still can't torrent a car yet. even if you let everyone else on the planet drive it around, it's still only one (rather well used) car. a torrent can potentially get to millions of copies of itself.


Of course the turning it into a torrent part shouldn't be tolerated. But that's a small minority of those reselling their used games. In everything we do we can potentially abuse our rights to do illegal or morally wrong things. That's no reason to remove our civil rights. If we don't believe in the maturity of people we also can't justify our support for democracy or a free market.

Imagine someone grows up, robs a person and later dies. Would you punish him for growing up?



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UncleScrooge on 14 April 2011
Galaki said:
twesterm said:
Don86 said:

How come both of these options are considered equally bad for the industry?

The only people that consider them equally bad are the people that are trying to justify their piracy and shift the focus of the argument.  That's all that really needs to be said.

That's unfair calling on pirates as we've seen numerous publishers claiming that.

Why is this unfair? Pirating games is illegal and for good reasons. Someone put work into the pirated game and has the right to get the money the market is willing to pay for it.

The funniest argument ever is when someone says "I'm just making a copy of it, it's no theft!" But legally what matters is the financial damage dealt to the developer / publisher. Not whether you took something away or not.



Galaki on 14 April 2011
UncleScrooge said:
Galaki said:
twesterm said:
Don86 said:

How come both of these options are considered equally bad for the industry?

The only people that consider them equally bad are the people that are trying to justify their piracy and shift the focus of the argument.  That's all that really needs to be said.

That's unfair calling on pirates as we've seen numerous publishers claiming that.

Why is this unfair? Pirating games is illegal and for good reasons. Someone put work into the pirated game and has the right to get the money the market is willing to pay for it.

The funniest argument ever is when someone says "I'm just making a copy of it, it's no theft!" But legally what matters is the financial damage dealt to the developer / publisher. Not whether you took something away or not.

You must have misread on the piracy part. Try again.



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FaRmLaNd on 14 April 2011

Used games are sold in retailers and help subsidise the stores that sell legitimate games and help provide employment for a lot of people in the legitimate economy. Piracy does not.

Plus as you say, 1 copy resold is just 1 copy being resold. 1 copy thats pirated can be turned into millions of copies as is essentially illegal distribution of the software.

Also one is legal the other is not.

Not comparable at all.



UncleScrooge on 14 April 2011
Galaki said:
UncleScrooge said:
Galaki said:
twesterm said:
Don86 said:

How come both of these options are considered equally bad for the industry?

The only people that consider them equally bad are the people that are trying to justify their piracy and shift the focus of the argument.  That's all that really needs to be said.

That's unfair calling on pirates as we've seen numerous publishers claiming that.

Why is this unfair? Pirating games is illegal and for good reasons. Someone put work into the pirated game and has the right to get the money the market is willing to pay for it.

The funniest argument ever is when someone says "I'm just making a copy of it, it's no theft!" But legally what matters is the financial damage dealt to the developer / publisher. Not whether you took something away or not.

You must have misread on the piracy part. Try again.

Oh snap!

I'd argue that he is right in most cases, though.



mibuokami on 14 April 2011
Spankey said:
thekitchensink said:
Spankey said:
UncleScrooge said:
thekitchensink said:

I agree, they're nowhere near the same thing.  If you pirate a game, that means it's available for millions to download at no charge.

If you resell your legitimately purchased copy, that's none of the companies' fucking business.  I have the right to resell my TV, my bookshelf, or my damn house if I want to.  What makes my video games so special?


This! A hundred times!

It is your right as a customer to sell your legally purchased game to whoever you want. The same goes for your old computer, TV, car and everything else.

This discussion is absurd. It's like half of all forum visiters were slaves of the videogaming industry. What's next? Will people stop reselling their cars because of the poor car manufacturers?

Reselling items is part of every market. It's part of a free market economy.

small point but maybe vaguely valid; while you can digitally redistribute software (legally or not) you can't torrent your car to millions of people

We're talking about selling your used copy of the game... as in going to a store, buying a copy, playing it, then selling that copy (the same disc you bought from the store) to someone else or to a used game store.  So it's exactly the same as the car example.

That's why i said vaguely.

Imagine someone goes to a shop, buys a legal game, turns it into a torrent, then resells the game. you still can't torrent a car yet. even if you let everyone else on the planet drive it around, it's still only one (rather well used) car. a torrent can potentially get to millions of copies of itself.

You are now combining piracy with used game sale, while this thread was specifically created to differentiated the two; thus the argument is irrelevant to the post you were originally replying to.

 

OT: The justification is extremely thin. Other electronic medium suffers the same fate: DVD, BD, Music-CD, this is not new even to digital medium. LIVE WITH IT developer! And stop shoving you asinine view on the evil of second hand retail down consumer's throat.