By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - In which cases do you consider piracy legitimate?

Tagged games:

Cobretti2 on 13 January 2015
Rankstrail said:
Cobretti2 said:

Being poor is not a reason. That is a reason to better your life instead of pirate because you are to lazy to better your life. If you want better entertainment that should be a motivator enough to do it.

The only reason you would have to pirate is if idiots like Ubisoft put in DRM that prevent you playing the games because NERO has installed a virtual CD-ROM. Even when disabled it still complained about virtual CD-ROM. In that case I just downloaded the crack and patched my legit game.


WOW, didn't know about that! Will avoid Ubisoft games when I come back to glorious PC master race!


nah this was years ago now with one of the prince of persia games. i did complain so maybe they fixed it. But now I have steam. So there is no CD-ROM checks etc... So far things just seem to work.

However that Ubisoft shit really turned me off buying PC game discs so I started focusing more on steam and console gaming again as it just worked minus the odd times where there were game breaking bugs.



 

 

Around the Network
Scoobes on 13 January 2015
Zoombael said:
Darwinianevolution said:
KLXVER said:
Ka-pi96 said:

When you already own it. Which is also the only time piracy is legal, so yay for that


Its still not legal...


I'm sure it is, it's called a back-up copy.


Cracks/No-DVDs are never legal. But i guess that's not the point of this thread.

 

Actually they can be as long as you're using it with legally purchased software for personal/archival use or even just for the convenience of not having to put the disc in the drive everytime you want to play.

Whilst they're associated with allowing users access to illegal software, they have perfectly legal uses as well.




Get your Portable ID!

small44 on 13 January 2015

Places where there's no videogames market



PS4 - over 100 millions let's say 120m
Xbox One - 70m
Wii U - 25m

Vita - 15m if it will not get Final Fantasy Kingdoms Heart and Monster Hunter 20m otherwise
3DS - 80m

sc94597 on 14 January 2015
SamuelRSmith said:
Always.

I don't pirate, don't want to. I buy games because I want to support the industry, and Spotify / Netflix make it convenient enough for me to obtain music and video content legitimately. Hell, I even keep ads on for Youtube and VGChartz because I want to support those sites.

That said, I do not think piracy is theft, nor do I think it is immoral. On the whole, I think it is the concept of intellectual property that is immoral. Moreover, I do not think IP is a net positive from a utilitarian perspective, particularly when it comes to patents.

You're an ancap right? Rothbard was for copyright and against patents. He says that property rights can be split apart and if somebody chooses to sell the part of property that allows one to reproduce and distribute an item while removing the right to sole use of said item he/she can do so. Obviously you would disagree with Rothbard in this matter. I'm interested in your justification (as I want to see both sides of the viewpoint from an ancap perspective.)

(Personally I consider violation of copyright as property damage, not theft.) 



SamuelRSmith on 15 January 2015
sc94597 said:

You're an ancap right? Rothbard was for copyright and against patents. He says that property rights can be split apart and if somebody chooses to sell the part of property that allows one to reproduce and distribute an item while removing the right to sole use of said item he/she can do so. Obviously you would disagree with Rothbard in this matter. I'm interested in your justification (as I want to see both sides of the viewpoint from an ancap perspective.)

(Personally I consider violation of copyright as property damage, not theft.) 

I'm not quite sure I understand the bolded.

My view is simple, a contract can be between consenting parties only. A publisher may sell a book to you, and form a contract between you and them. That contract may specify that you may not reproduce the book.

If you go ahead and reproduce that book and then give me a copy, you void your contract, so the publisher can go after you. However, I never consented to any contract with the publisher, the publisher should have no moral justification for coming after me.

I tend to take the Stephan Kinsella approach to IP. He's written for the Mises Institute, and has talks on Youtube, if you want to get the nitty-gritty philosophical take on this side of the argument.



Around the Network
sc94597 on 15 January 2015
SamuelRSmith said:
sc94597 said:

You're an ancap right? Rothbard was for copyright and against patents. He says that property rights can be split apart and if somebody chooses to sell the part of property that allows one to reproduce and distribute an item while removing the right to sole use of said item he/she can do so. Obviously you would disagree with Rothbard in this matter. I'm interested in your justification (as I want to see both sides of the viewpoint from an ancap perspective.)

(Personally I consider violation of copyright as property damage, not theft.) 

I'm not quite sure I understand the bolded.

My view is simple, a contract can be between consenting parties only. A publisher may sell a book to you, and form a contract between you and them. That contract may specify that you may not reproduce the book.

If you go ahead and reproduce that book and then give me a copy, you void your contract, so the publisher can go after you. However, I never consented to any contract with the publisher, the publisher should have no moral justification for coming after me.

I tend to take the Stephan Kinsella approach to IP. He's written for the Mises Institute, and has talks on Youtube, if you want to get the nitty-gritty philosophical take on this side of the argument.

I don't understand Rothbard's argument clearly, but Rothbard goes even further and explains that one can go after a third party who externally reproduces the material as well. 

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/intellectual-property-as-usual-rothbard.html

Violation of (common law) copyright is an equivalent violation of contract and theft of property. For suppose that Brown builds a better mousetrap and sells it widely, but stamps each mousetrap “copyright Mr. Brown.” What he is then doing is selling not the entire property right in each mousetrap, but the right to do anything with the mousetrap except to sell it or an identical copy to someone else. The right to sell the Brown mousetrap is retained in perpetuity by Brown. Hence, for a mousetrap buyer, Green, to go ahead and sell identical mousetraps is a violation of his contract and of the property right of Brown, and therefore prosecutable as theft. Hence, our theory of property rights includes the inviolability of contractual copyright.
A common objection runs as follows: all right, it would be criminal for Green to produce and sell the Brown mousetrap; but suppose that someone else, Black, who had not made a contract with Brown, happens to see Green’s mousetrap and then goes ahead and produces and sells the replica? Why should he be prosecuted? The answer is that, as in the case of our critique of negotiable instruments, no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold. Green did not own the total property right in his mousetrap, in accordance with his contract with Brown—but only all rights except to sell it or a replica. But, therefore Black’s title in the mousetrap, the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s, and therefore he too would be a violator of Brown’s property even though he himself had not made the actual 

- ethics of liberty.