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Forums - Gaming - Video game piracy is not stealing!!!!!

STEKSTAV on 23 November 2009
SnowWhitesDrug said:
@eggs2see: My wife works at a DVD rental place and she said they pay fees to be able to rent the games and DVDs, so renting is not piracy because money is going back to the publisher.

Selling an old used game is also not piracy because nothing has been infringed. If you were to sell and old car, or bike, or house, are you committing piracy? No, because you are selling the original work, not a copy. When you purchase a game or a computer program or music you are essentially purchasing the license to use that material. You have not purchased a license to distribute the material, or rent it and make money etc. The publisher retains that right, and they have payed to have it. If you make copies of it you are not allowed to use both at the same time. Eg, you break the law if you are at home listening to a copy of Linkin Park while your girlfriend is driving around in the car listening to the original.

When you sell a game or program you are selling your license to use that data. So if you have burnt a copy and you keep it to play you are pirating because you have forfeited your right to use the data.

The thing is when you buy a game from the shop or digital distribution you are buying the license, and any materials used to make the games packaging. It’s this license (the right to play the game) that you are infringing on. Its like driving around in an unlicensed car, or using a program where the license has expired. It’s all illegal and a ban is nothing compared to the jail sentence pirates deserve.

Does that make sense?

So what if I record MNF to watch tomorrow with my buddies? Am I pirating because i made a copy and my friends are enjoyning it? And if so, should I be sent to jail for making the copy, or my friends for watching it?



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Haste262 on 23 November 2009
JWS said:
StiC said:
eggs2see said:
Haste262 said:
JWS said:

silicon said:
By pirating you limit the revenue streams of some developers and publishers. These companies are fundamentally driven by creative work produced by teams of artists.

In order to for someone to fund a project such as a videogame, they require some knowledge that they will be allowed to recoup the costs to create the work.

By pirating games you steal from the rest of society the potential for greater and more innovative games due to the restrictions placed on developers in order to be able to recoup costs.

This also applys to people who rent, borrow and buy used games. Blockbuster and gamestop are no better than the guy who posts a game on the pirate bay.


You pay to rent from stores, you have to give it back. They will even get more money in the long run by renting rather than selling that 1 particular game. Buying used is just like a reduction, you still pay and pay for the asked price.


The game companies don't make any money out of rented titles or used titles so in that sense it is the same as getting a pirated copy.  I don't like getting pirated copies of games as i think if you want to play the game and feel it is good enough (and want to see future games from the developer) than you should pay for that.  At the same time i don't see any reason not to download older titles instead of buying used games, or if you are looking for an older title that you would be getting used also.  Pretty much unless you are buying a game brand new it is the same as "stealing" it to the developers revenue.

I used to rent video games and to make any money at all you had to keep new titles that people want to play. So don't tell me the companies didn't make any money from the thousand or so titles that I purchased.

They absolutely made money from every game that you bought to rent out. They also made money from the copy the guy posted to the internet. They didn't make any money on any of the rentals or any of the bittorrent downloads. So in the eyes of the game industry the renters and pirates earn them the same amount of profits, zero.


Of course they make money out of it, the shops cant jus rent out the game for nothing. They pay the companies to be able to rent out the game. The shops make a lot of money out of rentals also. So the more the game is wanted and rented, the longer the shops will want to rent it out and therefore pay the company more and more money anyway.



 

 

scruffybunny on 23 November 2009

ok the quoted posts in this thread is getting out of hand xD




hsrob on 23 November 2009

^ I would be very surprised if this person was permabanned for a simple confession, "BTW, i pirated a game once", so I for one would be interested in hearing the whole story. Generally on this site, in most instances people will get warnings for first offenses, followed by a short ban, followed by progressively longer bans, final warning and then permabanning.

The only exception i have seen is people with new accounts just coming on and posting dirty porn, spammers and advertisers. I was in another thread yesterday where ioi was talking about forum rules and stated the difficulty in coming up with a comprehensive set of forum rules that is concise enough that people are actually going to read them. He said in most instances it is left to common sense and at the discretion of the mod, and there is always an appeals process if you feel you were unfairly treated.

Like i said, i would like to hear the whole story.



Chairman-Mao on 23 November 2009

Are you fucking dumb or joking? Piracy is stealing because your taking something that isn't yours that you normally have to buy.

And where did you get the idea nobody is losing anything? The developers and publishers are losing. If you steal from EA or Activision then not a big deal they won't notice, but if you steal from small developing companies it kills any chance they have of succeeding.



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.jayderyu on 23 November 2009

Digital Pirating is not stealing since there is no loss in regards to property. It is however not giving anymoney to the developers(who regardless of the game sucks or not) spent a lot of pain, sweat and tears into making. Heck even Price is Right for the Wii took a lot of hardwork by the developers. And to them that work is worth their time and money and it would still be appreciative to pay them if you play it.

Many companies offer demos of their games to evalute if that's all you are going to do.

As for the OP situation. Really unless your on a game developer website you should not be banned for it. On the case of the mod that banned you. Well you know you could show some discretion and not mention it all. There are plenty of passionate people on this site and this site isn't a place for Ethical/Moral/Philosophical/Political matters in regards to a controversial subject.

On a final note. I believe that piracy is wrong. I believe that all games should be free and that other mediums of profit should be found. Finally yes you should be banned, because this subject about piracy is a waste of time on the site and you just came back talking about piracy.



Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.