General

[quote=NapalmDe4th]Whatevs brah. Good luck on your attempts to convince people not to pirate in 2k11! Meanwhile, I'll attempt the more feasible goal of swimming to the bottom of the ocean without an oxygen tank.[/quote]

Ok, so good for you, you're a proud thief. Whether it's tough to regulate or not has nothing to do with the conversation of whether it's wrong to steal IP. Just because you CAN do something doesn't make it right nor does it diminish the repercussions of the action.

I understand it's painful to admit that ones selfish actions cause harm to others, but that pain doesn't diminish the damage.

The question was whether piracy is wrong. The answer is yes. Whether it's easy is besides the point. Any other answer ignores business reality. Trying to find a straw man of some rich record-label CEO or movie producer is simply a cop-out.

Now don't get me wrong- like any illegal action, there's going to be times were doing so is basically a justified case of civil disobedience, where your actions are actually helping to right a wrong (iek many may argue about Wikileaks, for example). There may be times were a company's actions are so unethical and thinly veiled behind laws they've had custom-written for them that some sort of action against them is truly morally justified.

But if we're simply talking people wanting to get something for free that a group of people worked hard to produce, well, that's quite simply wrong.

[quote=NapalmDe4th]I would sarcastically say "How much is the RIAA paying you to defend their asses?" but the sad part is that you probably aren't being compensated for defending these utterly useless people.[/quote]

Like most of us (either now or in the future), I absolutely make my living in the knowledge economy, where I am paid for my ideas, IP, and digital solutions to business issues.

No, not the RIAA or MPAA or any other org that has done an absolutely terrible job of using their very much legal correctness to both public relations and a business opportunity. But that's hardly the point. Ideas and software are today's commodities. They are as good as cash in many cases. Stealing and copying them causes companies to spend real money on preventing it, causing very real direct and indirect costs.

It's precisely because we live in a digital era, a knowledge economy, that the protection of digital commodities and ideas are so important.

That doesn't mean there's intelligent and absolutely absurd ways of protecting them (see your RIAA example). But protections and recognizing property rights is every bit as important now as before.

Sharing is caring.

Especially if you're too poor of a college student to afford necessary adobe programs ~(;

i have an R4 but i bought pokemon black :O

[quote=NapalmDe4th]Have fun defending the middle men as captains of industry. lolol @ this unabashed naivity and trust in property rights in a digital age. The 19th century calls--it wants its antiquated ideals back.[/quote]

Property rights are property rights.

The fact we've moved to a digital age doesn't eliminate the fact that if you work hard to develop something, people do not have the right to steal it from you. Whether it was inventions in the 1900s, 1990s, or today, the patent and copyright play a fundamental role in ensuring the continued investment in new ideas.

No one can possibly argue that the current system can handle a digital age. The fact that corporations existing that do nothing except patent troll shows how fundamentally flawed the system is. The fact that record labels will sue a grandmother for something one of their grandkids allegedly did shows how broken and antiquated the system is.

But that doesn't change the inarguable fact that if someone works hard to build something and you steal it, you're a thief. The "It's a digital age" excuse is a wet paper veil that has no substance. By that law people who steal credit card numbers or directly access band accounts haven't done anything wrong. Yet we all understand that our digital identities and properties have incredible value. Value is not simply a physical $100 bill. A stolen diamond from my wife hurts just as much as stealing $20,000 from me in cash, which hurts as much as stealing $20,000 from my bank electronically. And all that does as much harm as causing my business $20,000 in extra expenses, direct, or indirect damages (lost market share, goodwill, etc...).

Trying to hide behind excuses such as marginal cost of a single theft just shows an utter ignorance as to how business and the economy actually work. And making absurd, naive claims that we live in a new age where property doesn't have any meaning anymore is living in some fantasy world that has never existed and will never exist anytime into the foreseeable future.

You have to realize that a pirated copy of something doesn't equate to a lost sale. How do you know that person was going to buy it in the first place had they not been able to pirate said software/movie/music? It's possible they may have, but it's also extremely likely they wouldn't have bought it at all because of the ridiculous prices some companies charge (see: photoshop, 3ds max, other high dollar software). More importantly, there is a surprising number of people who will pirate something and then later buy it.

You're not hurting a company financially by making a copy their software/movie/music/whatever. It doesn't cost anything to make a copy of it. In actuality, the author isn't losing any money.

If anything, piracy gives a company free publicity, as people who may not have been able to 'try' their product previously will find out if it's actually good or not. Then those people tell their friends, who tell their friends, etc...

I'm saying this as a software developer, although my company's customers aren't the type to pirate software.

View it from the seller's perspective. You want the profits from the product you're selling, if they became free after only a few sales... Don't you feel like you got robbed basically?

because people want money.

instead of buying, it's obtained for free.

but honestly, companies probably don't lose all that much from piracy because sometimes the people would have never purchased the things they pirate if piracy wasn't an option. lol
Just, people will be more interested in downloading random things.

I mean, say you hear of a band your friend likes and you decide to go download an album to get a listen. Chances are, you would never purchase the album since you haven't even heard of the group.. but you would download it for free since it costs nothing.

So really, in this case the company doesn't lose money since you wouldn't have paid for it anyways.. and the band has potential to get a new fan.

I see that as a win for the group.
Like someone on the first page quoted - "I'd rather be heard than paid." - Henry Rollins
And although this isn't for the people who want money so much, there are plenty out there who feel this way. Example with music - plenty of musicians would rather take 100,000 fans listening to their music for free rather than only 1,000 listening to it after paying for it.

Even with things like game developing - like if you've ever heard of the Humby Bundles - they let people pay how much they want for a bunch of different games. You have the option to pay money and support them if you'd like, but it isn't required because these developers would rather have people playing their games for free than no one playing them at all. And before someone thinks of it like MS or something since maplestory is pay-what-you-want - it isn't that way at all because paying doesn't effect the gameplay in anyway or change one thing about it.

Which is a good way to go imo. More and more people are starting to distribute that way. I don't have a problem with piracy really, but I feel if you make enough to be able to afford it and really enjoy whatever it is then it's worth considering purchasing it eventually just to show your support. :]

[quote=Mooton]But my point is that no matter what, me downloading software does not change anything they own whatsoever. They didn't lose a physical copy, nor did I use the their servers or bandwidth.[/quote]

Again, the point isn't the harm of 1 particular instance. It's the toleration of IP theft.

As @achyif pointed out, companies and the government need to protect property rights. Without strict enforcement, companies simply won't spend the millions of dollars it takes to make a product if they know everyone can use the "Oh, this 1 instance won't matter" excuse for theft.

So yes, even single instances of unpunished theft very much make a difference once it becomes known that any 1 instance of theft isn't punished.

Don't get me wrong- just because I feel IP should be protected and theft should be punished doesn't mean I feel people's lives should be ruined for stealing some stupid Katy Perry MP3. We do live in a country that values the punishment fitting the crime. It's why we don't execute people for jaywalking, and why I don't think cracking some CD code protection for a game for your own personal use should send you to jail or anything absurd like that.

But substantial fines for people stealing? Yes, that's fine. It sends the message that we as a society and, more importantly, system of laws value the hard work people put into developing patents and intellectual property and we will defend a person's right to make a living off their hard work. We encourage people to invest their blood, sweat and tears into developing a new product. We want there to be more Microsofts, Apples, and Googles, where people can make obscene fortunes and employ (directly and indirectly) hundreds of thousands of people by coming up with a genius idea and knowing that their investment won't be stolen.

there's a difference between passing around one copy and copying the copy and distributing it to potentially millions of people.
The original people who make the goods are never paid. Not getting paid > not making a living > unable to produce those goods that you get for free.

anyways, piracy is more than just companies losing money
If we took a more lenient stand on piracy, then it implies that intellectual property isn't safe, and unsafe intellectual property = less people willing to invest their time and money into creating products that would be stolen anyways. And if that happens, we won't have as many interesting music/movies/programs/whatev.

[b]IF[/b] companies would make [b]GOOD[/b] products I believe people would buy more.
Video games needs more quality, we don't want any rush made games (Call of Duty, anyone?) we want video games that is worth buying.

Movies: WAAAAY too much commercials in the beginning, and you can't even skip it. When there was (still is) VHS tapes you had to press the fast forward button and STILL wait like 1 minute until the commercials are done.

Music: Too expensive, please come again.

I want: Better quality on games, don't pump out games once every year, take your time and MAKE IT INTO A PIECE OF QUALITY. REMOVE the commercials from ALL movies, too greedy.

@arlongpark: Spotify?

i know a simple solution. make a sort of itunes things but the music is free to download. then have people pay that website or whatever to put up ads and give the money to the artists. im not really smart so i dont know if itll work

You spent 2 years working, your paycheck= 50$. One person bought it and the other million people pirated off that guy.
You're now living on the streets. Exaggeration but the concept is there.

Piracy is illegal and it's really obvious that you're stealing something if you're getting it for free when you should be paying for it. Just because people can get away with it for now (in most cases) does that make it right? No, of course it doesn't.
You should have morals and values that stop you from stealing something. It's theft and it ends up hurting a lot of people; it can only be justified with selfish reasons.

[quote=Mooton]@myrdrex
How dare I provide a counter-point to an argument!
Am removing something that somebody owns? No.
Are they losing money from absolutely nothing happening to their money whatsoever? No.
Was I ever going to buy it? No.
So how am I stealing by not buying something I never intended to buy?
Also, @RhythmKiller, we are talking about online piracy, not "Selling pills I stole" piracy.[/quote]

Oh, I'm not faulting you for making a point. I'm faulting you because you point is wrong. It demonstrates a naive viewpoint that is likely caused by not having actually experienced, thought about, or studies the issue of IP.

You're right on 1 account- the marginal cost to a company for a single instance of software theft is basically 0.

However, those marginal costs are a tiny fraction of a company's value and costs. It's not what they are concerned about! There's so much more at stake for a company when it comes to their IP. Companies like Apple and Coke have obscene market valuations due to the strength of their brand. Stealing IP, or being known as easy targets of counterfeiting and IP theft reduces that value.

And let's not even get into what a strong and enforced system of property rights means for an economy. To touch it at the most basic of levels, however, even a macroecon 100 book for dummies will concede that an economy requires a strong system of law and property rights. When you don't enforce IP rights, you stifle innovation and investment. Over time it does incalculable harm to not just companies, but economies as a whole.

Looking at only the most marginal of costs for a single theft misses the big picture.

@Mooton: I don't even understand what u saying

piracy is wrong because it takes away potential money a company makes.

I only buy the games I like and I listen to music off of youtube so no piracy there

I wouldn't call piracy stealing.
It's like what you said but it'snot borrowing cause your not giving it back. It's more like your friend bought it and decided to share with you.
I always download all my stuff. But if I really like something for example a game. I'd go out and buy it. I download tons of anime as well. I simply download it cause it's not out here in NA yet. For music I just find it too expensive. Occasionally if I see a CD somewhere in the mall that I like I'll buy it but that's rare.

But you could call it wrong since the companies loose money but I wouldn't go as far as calling it stealing.

Why is EVERYONE just talking about the money loss? Fake foods, medicine and other products can harm you and even kill you and piracy of those still exists, yet all you can think and use as an argument is "money, money, money", and you don't even look at the whole picture assuming we use pirated stuff because we want and feel like and not because we can't pay for the real products or we have no other choice.

@Whami: Sorry for not approaching the part of your questions regarding films. To be frank with you, I don't watch that many movies, but when I do it's in the theatre (mostly for the thematic effect), so likewise I have no real conjecture at that part. However, it's still a respectable argument. I'm glad we could reach somewhat of a consensus. I find the moral obligation not that adamant. I know people would consider the act blasphemous or immoral, but it's often a reminder that morality and "opportunity" have never been great friends. With respect to the theoretical economics, I have to yet so study the long-term effects. Until I dig deeper, I suppose I'll bask in my ignorance and favour the weird "theoretical" over "economics".

I kind of have to agree with the TS, you paid for it, you should be able to do what you want with it. People will always buy it the old fashioned way, and companies will still make billions of dollars with or without people getting the game for free. In fact, I think it's wrong for the companies to be making billions of dollars and still complaining about people stealing something that was actually bought. For instance, I recently bought legend of Zelda ocarina of time for my 3ds, there's 3 save slots on that game. If I went and lent it out to 2 friends to play the game would that be wrong, immoral, or illegal? NO! The company "loses" 2 other potential customers of the game, but they already made the money from selling it to me. The same thing can be said of movies, someone paid for the DVD, they can show it to their friends if they want to. That isn't immoral. And the same concepts can be applied to a much larger scale because yes there will be some people who are freeloaders, but there will also be people who bought the game and didn't share it with anyone.

It causes the company to make substantially less money off their product.

I agree with Mildhunter 100%

Btw watching pr0n online is considered pirating right? Cause a lot of websites show copyrighted material for free.

There's a difference between sharing something via giving someone something to borrow, and sharing something via copying it for them.
Stealing, not steeling, by the way.

The more a product gets pirated, the better indication the owner can see of how good their product is. If next to no one was pirating it, it's a clear indication that the product is crap.

ITT: It hurts the economy, stop trying to justify theft. You don' own it because you did not pay for it.

ITZ JUZT A COPEE HUR DUR, Well its still illegal to distribute stuff like it.

SO GG CAPTAIN SPARROW

Also when you BUY a used game money is still being circulated through the economy NO MONEY IS GAINED BY PIRACY.

@Whami: Appreciate the response. Again, I would like to narrow this topic down to each digital medium. Games? Certainly not. The majority of games on the market are either sequels to their predecessors or repeated concepts masked with a different logo. Unless the game is a masterpiece, then I buy it; however, this is unlikely. I'm not going to pay for "Dark Ops Seventeen" By "Jayarch" because it's the same game, different name. I'm certainly not paying for a game like Batman, where more money is allocated for "in-game" items.

In regards to music, I still hold a similar view. I view piracy as the one of the greatest forms of advertising. I know indie bands that now play concerts and are selling albums at record-sales all because they gave their music out for free. And the best part? It still circulates around the internet. All their new music and merchandise, and they don't mind. You know why? Because a real artist doesn't do it for the money. Sure, it's your hard work. But if you relate price to content, then I guarantee you're not true to your work. You just want that fat paycheck.

Appealing to "guilt" and law are simply not effective methods. You can deny, you can delay it. But you can't stop it.

[quote=jay1]lol thats bs...
those people usually make millions it shouldn't matter to you if you make 10million or 7million it doesn't matter they still make enough to live a great life[/quote]

A totally false argument.

For every main player (whether a rock star, or the CEO of IBM) that makes countless millions and can easily afford to have their income reduced by 25, 50, or more %, there's thousands, TENS of thousands of people who rely on that IP to make their income and who are living check to check, day to day. When you reduce the income of a company, you're hurting the most vulnerable more than you're hurting the people that don't even need the money anymore.

Think if Apple went out of business tomorrow. Steve Job's widow would have her billions, more money than she or her descendents could ever spend in their lifetimes. But all the developers, engineers, statisticians, marketers, sales people, janitors, receptionists, architects, etc... would suddenly be unable to provide for their families. THOSE are who you are stealing from.

You need to age past puberty.

Are you sure you know what piracy means?

@BattleScar: I appreciate your response. There will always be people who purchase the product and people who pirate it. Regardless, the artist will continue to strive because they have to express their ability publicly, which will entice buyers and create profit. Not everyone pirates, and I don't condemn people who pay for it. I simply raised the question from my perspective.

[quote=Mooton]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4[/quote]

That's the usual cop-out. It's the same as saying that you needed the money/car/watch more than the victim of your theft did. It's a pathetic excuse for poor behavior. Here's a hint that works all the time- if you find yourself scrambling for excuses for your behavior, then it's poor behavior. No one every had to justify doing the right thing. It's only when you're doing what you know in your heart to be a bad/evil action that you find yourself having to justify it to yourself, your family, your friends, the authorities, and others.

Copying is absolutely theft. It's stealing from the developers, managers, janitors, administrative assistants, sales staff, marketers, and everyone else that has invested countless hours into that product. Just because you call a crime by a slightly nicer name doesn't make it any less hurtful or any less of a crime. Euphemisms don't excuse poor behavior.

Theft is theft.

I don't care if you steal bits and bytes from my bank account, physical dollars from my pocket, or the result of thousands of hours of my hard work. Either way you're stealing from me.

When you steal software, music, or what have you, you're stealing from the people who put their time, blood, sweat, and tears into making that product. Int he case of software, for a large piece of software, there's literally tens/hundreds of thousands of hours invested in it, and millions of dollars. People's livelihoods- their ability to bring home an income for their family, make their mortgage payments, put their kids through school and college- are all at stake.

Just because you're not physically breaking into someone's house doesn't mean it's any less of a theft. Sure it's not a violent crime (and thus they shouldn't be treated as violent criminals), but it's still a crime that hurts people.

Well if no one buys their products, they company will go bust, and the game you really liked, there may never be any more games in the future.

@IceyArcher: It helps those kids who don't have a credit card, so they can't buy online, and can't drive to go buy something. Trust me, I would pay for any game I liked, and delete the ones I didn't right away, it's just that I can't go buy it when I want.

[quote=Archetype]Why would you pay for something if you can get it for free?[/quote]

Because if that thing is great and very enjoyable then the only way to thank the creators for such great arts is to AT LEAST buy the product so they can get what they deserve.
Imagine if the greatest musicians had all their songs pirated, would you hear from them again? i think not.

Why would you pay for something if you can get it for free?

piracy is changing whatever industry for the better

Piracy should be like a test-drive. Go get it after you find out you like it, if not get rid of it.

[quote=qtprincessxoxo]Company loses money to piracy. I'll admit I torrented Skyrim, but I'm still buying since I found my computer runs it nicely on high.[/quote]

Yeah, i did that but im buying it later too. I just cant live with my self knowing im not paying for a game with such epic content and detail, people working for years to make it great and i disrespect that buy pirating it, im buying it for sure.
Im also reconsidering pirating movies after what the posters said.

every time someone says piracy i usually think back to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkWKvMCzqA

"I'd rather be heard than paid." - Henry Rollins

the person buys the copy,
you give to friend,
friend can use it,make copies, let people see it online for free, etc,
people seem it, don't need it, don't buy,
leaving the companies not to make money

Companies lose millions to piracy. They claim billions, but not a lot of those are sales.

Developers worked hard to make those games (most of them anyways cough cough MW3 cough cough same game 8 times). One person buying it, and distributing it to thousands of others is definity going to hurt the company.

I do support piracy on some levels, for the purpose of testing out stuff, or because I can't go buy it because I can't drive to get it. However, if you just steal all your games, and never pay a cent, that's wrong. I believe most piraters go and buy the games/download the music for things they actually like, so that's good.

It is wrong. If everyone got their music/games/movies from websites that posted pirated material then all of those companies would go out of business. The only reason why I justify it is because I go to concerts/shows on a regular basis so all the bands can still make a living.

A person buys one copy. They shouldn't be allowed to give a million other people the game from that one copy. Also, piracy hurts the companies that made the game.

it's more like making copies

?

It's like borrowing? Do you plan on giving it back?