LogFAQs > #878880846

WhiskeyDisk posted...

exactly. if i steal your bicycle, i have deprived you of the use of property you own. who have i deprived of the use of a file that i have copied?

You've deprived the creator of that file's value in income which they would otherwise have gained by sale of said file. In turn, you are theoretically limiting their ability to create new works in the future due to financial concerns, and are ultimately harming the very thing you profess to like (or, at least, like enough to want to experience it in the first place). This is doubly true in cases where the creator isn't necessarily a massive conglomerate that can soak minor losses, but even there you're potentially putting the jobs of hundreds of people at risk if cumulative loss of sales becomes too impactful.

Sierra used to mention at least one case where, in the days before DRMs were really a big thing, one of their major titles sold more copies of a strategy guide than they'd actually sold copies of the game itself. Statistics like that were a large part of why PC gaming companies back then started putting secret codes into the manual or "feelies" that came with the game. When it became obvious that it wasn't enough (pirates would just make code lists for people to use that would come with the pirated copy), DRM grew more and more invasive, complex, and potentially damaging to the consumer.

It's also part of why developers are keen on shoe-horning "always on" and "server-side processing" to new games - because both of those things make it easier to prevent people from using illegally obtained copies of games (or at least make it harder for them to do so), with the added bonus of cutting the legs off the used game industry.



Zeus posted...

In general, even the concept that the loss of a potential sale doesn't really hold up because a person who pirates may not have legitimately purchased in the absence of piracy.

Yeah, but then you're getting into the entitled asshole argument. Way too many people today seem to have the belief that the world should be obligated to provide them with every experience they want without ever having to pay for it, and thus moralize their piracy into a social obligation. When realistically, if you're not going to legitimately purchase a creative work, you also have zero right to experience it at all. Your civil rights don't include life, liberty, and the pursuit of watching Game of Thrones without paying HBO.

If you don't want to pay for something, you also don't get to experience it. Simple.

I'll be perfectly honest, I'm one of the first people who will resort to piracy and intellectual property theft left and right if it's convenient (I've read lots of books and comics, watched plenty of shows and movies, and listened to a fair amount of music I never paid for), but I'm at least self-aware enough to admit that it's absolutely morally wrong, and I have no problem with it being legally wrong, either.

We can get into even more granular aspects of the debate (such as whether or not things like copyright or intellectual property rights should exist at all), but like it or not, in the world as it currently exists piracy is absolutely "wrong".


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