See I can respect that. If you're gonna steal then be honest about it, and in all honesty you were a kid and probably werent buying many of those titles anyway so the industry did not lose any value from you as a customer, because you didnt exist. I just hate it when these chumps try to defend theft with the ole "it's duplication not stealing, the original is still there!" completely disregarding the fact that what they are paying for is the effort and not the bytes.
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Why People Pirate Video Games
- Thread starter HardOCP News
- Start date
See I can respect that. If you're gonna steal then be honest about it, and in all honesty you were a kid and probably werent buying many of those titles anyway so the industry did not lose any value from you as a customer, because you didnt exist. I just hate it when these chumps try to defend theft with the ole "it's duplication not stealing, the original is still there!" completely disregarding the fact that what they are paying for is the effort and not the bytes.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
That is the looter or moocher mentality and it destroys both creativity (why should I create if there is no money in it) and self improvement (if I get everything for free without working for it, why should I put myself to that trouble)
There is an option (C) and it isn't based on the concept of morality but self awareness:
C. I can't afford to buy it and I don't download it but I improve myself and my situation so that I can afford to buy it (and the developer gets money and the person improves themselves and ceases to be a burden on society)
Yes, we'll just tell the 12 year old kid that he should quit school and get a full time job. Let's go back to the Gilded Age where we have kids working 18 hours in sweatshops.
I would also point out that not everyone who creates stuff does it for the money. Have you seen what large game developers like EA pay their content creators? Not exactly rolling in the dough.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
OR, alternately, he/she can learn the reality of the world that you can't always have everything you want exactly when you want it
... when I was 12 I had a paper route and mowed lawns ... as a teenager I worked as a bag boy at the grocery store ... there are also babysitting and tutoring opportunities ... there are lots of ways a preteen gets money (including an allowance from Mom and Dad) ... when my kids were growing up and in school their mom gave them lunch money each day ... if they chose to get a cheaper lunch or skip lunch then they had money to go play games or buy other things they wanted ... building lots of child labor sweatshops is not necessary
whether you work for the money or not you need to eat ... if you want to put your software out for all to take then that should be YOUR choice, not the choice of the looter who expects you to provide them a service for free (and then complain about the quality of the service that they failed to pay for)
OR, alternately, he/she can learn the reality of the world that you can't always have everything you want exactly when you want it
when I was 12 I had a paper route and mowed lawns ... as a teenager I worked as a bag boy at the grocery store ... there are also babysitting and tutoring opportunities ... there are lots of ways a preteen gets money (including an allowance from Mom and Dad) ... when my kids were growing up and in school their mom gave them lunch money each day ... if they chose to get a cheaper lunch or skip lunch then they had money to go play games or buy other things they wanted ... building lots of child labor sweatshops is not necessary
I'm guessing when you were 12 was a long time ago because most of that stuff is illegal now and the stuff that isn't, no one will hire anyone under 18 anymore because of liability issues.
In the state I live in :
1.Under 16 cannot operate any powered lawn equipment.
2.Under 16 cannot work a paper route.
3.Under 16 cannot work in any food preparation that relies on an open flame or on baking or manually operated deep fryers.
4.Under 14 can't work period except on family owned farms.
5.Have to be age of discretion to babysit (basically, whatever the bureaucrat at social services decides).
In addition, most places these days simply don't hire people under 18 due to the legal liabilities and risks incurred, especially with the career "burger flippers" that will work there for decades.
twonunpackmule
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 27, 2005
- Messages
- 1,700
Sometimes pirating is offering a service that the providers are not providing. In an era pre-digital, pirating offered a digital platform. A means of getting content without having to physically acquire it. In some cases, it also kept things alive. When prices of games hit $100 for titles because it was allowed to go OOP, the only means of obtaining that game was either;
A) Hope to find a store that carried it still
B) Pay after market prices
C) Pirate it
I pirated a lot in my youth and when I was in college. I still bought things too. It was an odd mix of the two. I still have that mix going. Mostly because I watch odd Out of Print Animated films from the 80's. Stuff that hasn't been released on DVD yet.
However, I never diluted myself into thinking I was entitled. I knew what I was doing and what it was. I was a thief and I didn't pretend not to be.
A) Hope to find a store that carried it still
B) Pay after market prices
C) Pirate it
I pirated a lot in my youth and when I was in college. I still bought things too. It was an odd mix of the two. I still have that mix going. Mostly because I watch odd Out of Print Animated films from the 80's. Stuff that hasn't been released on DVD yet.
However, I never diluted myself into thinking I was entitled. I knew what I was doing and what it was. I was a thief and I didn't pretend not to be.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
So we are still left with waiting to get things ... even for 12 year olds you can't always get everything you want exactly when you want it ... this expectation that some people have that I want it now so I take it is a bad and dangerous attitude ... whether you are directly harming a developer or not, you are taking something you are not entitled to have ... the reality is that we will never stop it but let us not rationalize it to be anything more than what it is, "a self serving spoiled individual is taking something they have no right to take and is blaming society or the victim for their act"
![Zarathustra[H]](https://cdn.hardforum.com/data/avatars/m/9/9298.jpg?1707758471){kind=avatar}
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,850
That's all good and well.
And I agree with you. Pirating a title if (and only if) you were never going to buy it anyway is totally victimless crime.
The question is, how do you know you'd never buy it? As a kid, if you couldn't just pirate it, you'd beg your parents for a game for christmas, or your birthday, etc.
With games being easily pirated, this is a practical reduction in revenues for the publishers.
The sense that, I cant afford it, but I deserve it, so I'm just going to take it is a real problem, and deeply troubling, especially if kids are learning this lesson early on and incorporating it into their world view.
As the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want". Kids (and adults) should really learn to do without what they can't afford. BNot only is the expectation that "I should be able to have this no matter what" troubling in and of itself, but the next step of "since I should be able to have it no matter what, I'm just going to disregard the rules and take it" is even more problematic for a society supposedly steeped in the rule of law.
Its a problem of entitlement. People arent entitled to anything, and this expectation should not exist, the consequences being victimless or not.
These are not just "outdated issues of morality" as you put it. They are real societal problems once these behaviors become learned.
The understanding should eb that laws exist for a reason. One should have reverence for the law, obeying whether or not one agrees with it, or understands it, as otherwise its a slippery slope to chaos and anarchy.
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,850
"a self serving spoiled individual is taking something they have no right to take and is blaming society or the victim for their act"
Couldn't have said it any better if I tried.
That being said, I feel like some full disclosure is due here.
I have to admit, that as a kid, I swapped "Police Quest II" floppies with the best of them. In retrospect it was because I didn't know any better. Everyone I knew with a computer was doing it, and it didn't seem wrong. it was along the lines of "its mine, I should be able to do whatever I want with it". A kids understanding of physical vs intellectual property I guess.
Even in college when Napster first came out, I pirated heavily. I only came to the realization of how much of a problem this was when I was a little older and came to my senses. Have bought every title I've played, and listened to music through legal means since.
Zarathustra[H];1041722848 said:
The problem is you are treating ones and zeroes as property when they are not. If I take your car, that deprives you of the possession of that car. You can no longer use that car. Copying a piece of software does not delete it off of someone else's computer.
Your thinking on laws is a very typical statist position and a dangerous one at that. Just because the state writes things on pieces of paper and decrees under threat of violence that they are law and to be worshiped and revered at the church of statism does not mean people should follow them or that they are valid. Rights do not come from the state but exist in nature. Under your line of thinking, any number of abuses can be justified simply on the basis that the state is the holy gospel and that their laws are sacrosanct. I would point out that, at one time, the government here decreed that slavery was legal and at one time decreed that people of different colors must be segregated and decreed that Native Americans were to be forcibly relocated. Under your thinking, all of these were perfectly legitimate activities because the state said so and the state's law is the holy gospel.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
You are still taking something you didn't earn ... we essentially live in a variation of the barter system ... if I work and earn money which I then use to trade for goods and services I am bartering my time and effort for someone else's time and effort ... I am by default acknowledging the value and importance of my time and that of the person I am purchasing from ... a mutually beneficial transaction
If I take something with no barter I am saying that the other person's time has no value (since I am trading zero for his time and effort) ... this system currently works because their are responsible people who acknowledge the value of these items and purchase them ... however, if everyone felt they should have it for free the system breaks down (or you must force the person to provide the service against their will since few of us will voluntarily work for nothing in return) ...
I never thought I would see the day when Damicatz was the one arguing in favor of slave labor and a socialistic model where someone gets their desires met for free at someone else's expense
You are still taking something you didn't earn ... we essentially live in a variation of the barter system ... if I work and earn money which I then use to trade for goods and services I am bartering my time and effort for someone else's time and effort ... I am by default acknowledging the value and importance of my time and that of the person I am purchasing from ... a mutually beneficial transaction
If I take something with no barter I am saying that the other person's time has no value (since I am trading zero for his time and effort) ... this system currently works because their are responsible people who acknowledge the value of these items and purchase them ... however, if everyone felt they should have it for free the system breaks down (or you must force the person to provide the service against their will since few of us will voluntarily work for nothing in return) ...
I never thought I would see the day when Damicatz was the one arguing in favor of slave labor and a socialistic model where someone gets their desires met for free at someone else's expense
It is neither slave labor (because no one is forcing the creator to make anything) nor is it socialism.
You are arguing the labor theory of value which is a very leftist economic policy belief. We do not subscribe to that, we subscribe to the subjective theory of value.
jeremyshaw
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2009
- Messages
- 12,511
A friend decides, after a recent GPU purchase, that he "deserved Witched 3." WTH?
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
Zarathustra[H];1041722860 said:
In full disclosure I will also acknowledge that I pirated videos and games when I was younger (although it was the copying of VHS tapes or buying bootleg copies on CDROM, since the internet options weren't available then) ... as I matured I realized that just as my time had value and I expected my employer to compensate me for it, that the people I was shortchanging by using their product without buying it also had value ... since I like to play games and have seen too many game companies with excellent products go under I got religion (so to speak) and converted to the purchase model (certainly Steam and Netflix have made that easier as well)
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
Left
... I am a Laissez faire capitalist ... I think that is more of a centrist or right view rather than left (taking stuff you do not earn is the view of the left) ... it is socialism because the only reason that one person can take these "bits" for free is because someone else chose to pay for it instead ... if you don't have these responsible people who actually buy the creations of others then many of them will cease to be created ... that isn't the economics of the left or the right but the economics of reality One last Ayn Rand to top things off,
misfitsfiend
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 18, 2003
- Messages
- 1,293
Zarathustra[H];1041722860 said:
In other words, when it became convenient for you to purchase software (read: you acquired the means, aka $$$) you no longer felt compelled to pirate it. This is great.
Do you really think people would download software illegally if they could afford to outright purchase it?
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,850
...and your philosophy seems to be a rather anarchist one.
We'd have chaos if everyone just got to decide what they thought was right and wrong and behave accordingly. Sure, most people might do just fine like this, but then there would be the ones who think it's perfectly acceptable to beat their wife because dinner was late, or decides they think they deserve the same amount of money as someone who works full time while they stay home, and decides to help themselves to it.
All power originates from the people, and people SHOULD have opinions on laws and regulations, and if they disagree with the ones that are on the books, they should work to change them, either through voting, advocacy, getting into politics, etc. Until the very second a law changes though, the expectation is that you fully abide by it.
I would even argue that if you sell weed on Monday, are arrested for it on Tuesday, and it becomes legal on Wednesday, you should still be charged for it, because you violated the laws at the time. Law and order in and of itself has intrinsic value.
Having a profound level of respect for law and order is a key part (the biggest part) of civil society, and what separates us from the bad old days of the wild west or tribal anarchy.
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,850
I do admit, having the means makes it an easier decision to make, but that was not the reason behind it.
In fact, right out of college I went through many years when I did not have the means, and I also did not pirate.
Zarathustra[H];1041723047 said:
Your understandings on anarchy are misguided. You can have rules without a government; see for example, a home owner's association. The difference is that those rules are imposed voluntarily; the developers that have legitimate ownership of the land attach conditions to the sale of that land and there is a voluntary and consensual contract in which you agree to abide by certain rules. There is no reason you couldn't have private cities that work the same way (e.g. Ave Maria).
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
But that system breaks down if you have non-physical things ... you yourself said that the developer has no rights over his program because it is just magnetic bits ... it gets no protection under YOUR law and has no value because you can take it for free since it doesn't really exist in the physical realm ... does this same rationale apply to books (if I publish a physical book I get legal protection from Der Kommissar Damicatz, but if I publish an ebook that is only bits in cyberspace then anyone can take my work for free and do anything they want with it
)I gotta tell you, I'd rather have the government than a homeowners association.
What about the labor that went into assembling those 1's and 0's. What you have deprived somebody of is the gas that they had to spend to drive to work to design the software for you to use. The car that they had to pay for to get there. The house that they have to live in so they can drive there tomorrow. That is what you are stealing.
CreepyUncleGoogle
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 6,871
Yes soooo this! Some of the people I work with are in one of those associations and they always seem like they're led by incompetent people and they're full of the dumbest rules too. It's like any other government which isn't anarchy anyhow since someone is in charge and making up rules or being a leader so yeah, the whole idea of comparing an awful homeowner association with anarchy is accurate in the fact that they're both a stupid idea, they're actually pretty different and anyone who's touting anarchy that thinks it's in some way similar to one is pretty clueless about what anarchy actually is.
Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 38,850
Definitely.
I had to deal with a homeowners association in the neighborhood I lived with my ex.
They were some of the most pedantic and incompetent people I have ever had the misfortune to have to deal with. They made going to the RMV (what we call the DMV here in Mass) seem like a breath of fresh air.
If I am ever able to afford another house, I will NEVER buy in an area that has a homeowners association, condo association, subdivision, gated community, whatever you want to call it again.
Zepher
[H]ipster Replacement
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2001
- Messages
- 20,927
Back in the late 80's there were 2 stores that rented console games, computer software, and videos.
In 1994 the 2 owners split up, each keeping the store they were running.
The store closest to me dropped video rentals and did strictly console games and computer software.
The console games were rentals while the computer software was "rented" on a 2 day trial period.
Basically you pay a deposit based on the retail price of the software to try it out for 2 days and if you didn't like it, you just brought it back and you lose your deposit.
The Deposit you paid would go towards the software if you decided to purchase it.
$5 for software $50 and under, $10 for $50-$100, $15 for $150-$200, and $20 for anything retailing over $200.
I got a job there in 1994 for a few months making $9/hour with 10 hours of mandatory overtime every week, everyone worked 5 10 hour days and got a paid lunch hour and 15 minute break.
All of my friends at the time were only making $4.25 at the time.
The store ended up getting sued from software manufacturers a few months after I left.
One of the new employees was talking to prospective member (you have to be a member to try the software) and told the prospective member that it was basically renting the software and then bring it back when you are done. We are not supposed to mention the words Rent or Rental when talking about the software.
The prospective member was an undercover investigator for the software companies.
In 1994 the 2 owners split up, each keeping the store they were running.
The store closest to me dropped video rentals and did strictly console games and computer software.
The console games were rentals while the computer software was "rented" on a 2 day trial period.
Basically you pay a deposit based on the retail price of the software to try it out for 2 days and if you didn't like it, you just brought it back and you lose your deposit.
The Deposit you paid would go towards the software if you decided to purchase it.
$5 for software $50 and under, $10 for $50-$100, $15 for $150-$200, and $20 for anything retailing over $200.
I got a job there in 1994 for a few months making $9/hour with 10 hours of mandatory overtime every week, everyone worked 5 10 hour days and got a paid lunch hour and 15 minute break.
All of my friends at the time were only making $4.25 at the time.
The store ended up getting sued from software manufacturers a few months after I left.
One of the new employees was talking to prospective member (you have to be a member to try the software) and told the prospective member that it was basically renting the software and then bring it back when you are done. We are not supposed to mention the words Rent or Rental when talking about the software.
The prospective member was an undercover investigator for the software companies.
MrGuvernment
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2004
- Messages
- 21,810
This is what happens when we live in a world where religion is all but dead.
The irony I find is that this forum is very anti-religion, specifically anti-Christian, and then they act shocked when people act like this.
Not to get off topic on religion, but really, it is the lack there of which are causing all of these problems.
It has nothing to do with religion, and religion seems pretty dam strong in most of the world.
Strange, because i distinctly recall being able to rent video games from Blockbuster around that time frame.
Zepher
[H]ipster Replacement
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2001
- Messages
- 20,927
you could rent console games, but did Blockbuster rent Photoshop, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Corel Draw, etc...
Our store did.
Ah...I thought you just meant console games. No, they didn't rent s/w, because they only rented console games. I only saw one place, in the late 80s, that rented PC games and not long after that, it was banned...not sure if there was a legal precedent or not, but I'm sure it was a cause for concern, since you could copy a game pretty easily. About the only thing they could do is have questions from the manual, which you could generally photocopy (though not always) and even if you couldn't, if you had the desire, you could type up the manual...most of them weren't that big.
Zepher
[H]ipster Replacement
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2001
- Messages
- 20,927
here is something I found about it,
https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=xgcGAAAAIBAJ&pg=5661,5528380&hl=en
1990 falls in line with what I remember. I also wonder if that Austin shop was the one where i saw games for rent. I do know that I could return games to Babbages if they didn't work...well that's what I told them, but it normally meant I didn't like them. It was rare...for the most part, I only bought games I was sure I'd like.
I am aware that nobody on this forum knows what free software is because this is an enthusiast forum (i.e. not programmers), but some people don't feel that software should be licensed and sold in the first place (including the FSF). If someone doesn't recognize code as having any monetary value, they would likely not make the distinction between paying and not paying to use it.
kbrickley
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- May 13, 2012
- Messages
- 7,514
"Free Software" should be the choice of the software creator and not a third party or the consumer ... if a company like Rockstar wishes to spend 100 million to develop a Grand Theft Auto game for sale then that should be their right (just as a consumer has a right to not purchase it) ... if a company like ID or Epic wishes to create a graphics engine to and make it available to other users through a licensing agreement then that should be their right ... If an open source programmer wants to write a game or wordprocessor program and give it and his source code away for free then that should be their right as well ... I don't believe a consumer's perceived rights ever trump the rights of the service provider who actually created the item in question (once it is sold or licensed to me then I must use it legally within our agreed boundaries)
You don't seem to understand your own argument very well.
First of all HOA rules are not "voluntary"
HOAs have governance, as well. They are not a collective.
You don't own the property your home sits on in a planned community. You only own "walls in."
Lastly, they impose their rules through the threat of violence in the same way you criticize the government. If you fail to obey the rules or refuse to pay the fees, an HOA can foreclose on your home and strip you of all rights.
While it's possible to have an private, anarchic city, an HOA is incompatible with an anarchy belief system.
Who/what grants this "developer" ownership rights over the land such that they are allowed to sell it in the first place and then impose restrictions over how it is used afterwards?
Yeah, I mean first of all I don't necessary agree with FSF supporters.
I just mean that I've observed that some FSF supporters view proprietary software as unethical because of the obvious problems with freedom of use. Most FSF supporters would just not use any proprietary software at all. Those who do might pirate it. Either way the FSF supporter doesn't support an economy they see as unethical. Actually a FSF supporter who pirates has no effect on the proprietary software economy (as they wouldn't be buying software anyway) and are only hurting the free software community as they are not supporting free software.
When I was in that mindset decades ago we simply didn't use proprietary software (which I think you and I are agreeing). I don't see not supporting proprietary software as a legitimate reason to pirate software and I never heard anyone else legitimately saying so, either.
Ah I see. Yeah it's actually a rather common statement by richard stallman who would obviously would never use proprietary software but more generally doesn't make the distinction between sharing existing proprietary intellectual properties (books, film, tv, games) and those which are free. I'll see if I can find some interviews if you're interested.
It's important to keep his comments in context, though.
Stallman is a supporter of legalizing "sharing" because he believes that non-commercial sharing is something that people have always done and one's basic right to do with what they own should not be infringed by corporate entities. He also agrees, however, that copyright has its place in encouraging the development of the arts.
That said, I've never hear him outright endorsing pirating in the sense of downloading a game and just playing it or downloading a movie and enjoying it. The fact that he doesn't equate sharing with stealing isn't a necessary endorsement of simply ignoring a moral component of taking things without compensation to their makers (part of his position of opposition to record labels in the past anyway has been that they fail to compensate the content creators).
But I don't want to speak too much for Stallman.
The main point I was raising was that in the scene given a choice between openoffice and download MS Office the fact that one is an adherent of free software meant that he or she should opt for OO (even with its significant limitations back in the early development) over simply downloading and using Office for free. Along with that position was always pointed out that "free" meant speech (unencumbered) and not beer (no cost).