Current Events > I have never seen a good argument for why "piracy" is immoral.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Protip: laws don't determine morality. It is trivially true that piracy is illegal (in the US). That says nothing about whether piracy is somehow "wrong."

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You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

this. i don't understand why so many people struggle with this. the only 'arguments' i see center around "bUt iTs A cOpY sO iT iSnT tHeFt"

edit: the only way piracy is bordering on morally acceptable, IMO, is when the original work is not available for purchase for whatever reason. and even that's debatable

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

Someone is going to explain to you how it's not actually stealing

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You're struggling with the morality of "stealing is bad?"

It's stealing

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Shooting someone else's boat full of holes, stealing the cargo, and slaughtering the crew, aren't exactly considered nice things to do.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

How is copying an arrangement of data, stealing? Show me the moral imperative that I should pay someone's asking price before doing so.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

What if they are not asking any price cause the game or whatever is no longer sold? What if you had previously bought it for the asking price?

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

Stealing? I am "stealing" thin air... >_>

Next you're gonna say driving 56 in a 55 zone is immoral

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Tenlaar posted...

You're struggling with the morality of "stealing is bad?"

So the physical game disc is something that, after you stwal it, can't be retrieved by the developer for resale, so they lose a their property in the process?
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Questionmarktarius posted...

Shooting someone else's boat full of holes, stealing the cargo, and slaughtering the crew, aren't exactly considered nice things to do.

You add in a sea shanty and you go down in legend

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

the only 'arguments' i see center around "bUt iTs A cOpY sO iT iSnT tHeFt"

golly gee what do ya know:

Doe posted...

How is copying an arrangement of data, stealing?

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uwnim posted...

What if they are not asking any price cause the game or whatever is no longer sold? What if you had previously bought it for the asking price?

It's still their property. They can do what they want with it.

That said, I'm all for exceptions for stuff that's clearly abandoned or defunct, like star wars galaxies or old pc games from publishers who went belly up.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

golly gee what do ya know:

WiThOuT DoInG tHiS, clarify your position.

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Doe posted...

WiThOuT DoInG tHiS, clarify your position.

the only arguments i see center around "but its copying so it isnt theft"

happy?

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I think you should only pirate something you can no longer get from the original publisher. Otherwise, you're being dumb if you don't realize how video games couldn't be made if everyone pirated them. You're just being entitled and think everyone else should pay for you to be able to enjoy shit for free.

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I think the advent of streaming services has taught us that if there's a convenient way to purchase access to digital goods, the people who would buy things do buy things. If someone is pirating something, I would be willing to bet that the majority of the time they were never going to buy it. If you accept this, then the argument against piracy comes down to classism and gatekeeping.

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Doe posted...

How is copying an arrangement of data, stealing? Show me the moral imperative that I should pay someone's asking price before doing so.

Intellectual property is still property
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

the only arguments i see center around "but its copying so it isnt theft"

happy?

No, because you keep implying that said argument is weak without actually giving any counter. That argument is valid.

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https://www.dictionary.com/browse/steal

to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:

piracy is theft of intellectual property without permission or right. there's not really room for debate there. your only real next step is to argue that "intellectual property" is an antiquated concept and should be abolished.

the key that decimates your "theft of property" argument is the concept of "intellectual property". even though physical objects are not being transferred from one owner to another, theft is still going on because you're giving yourself access to something the owner hasn't agreed to.

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COVxy posted...

If someone is pirating something, I would be willing to bet that the majority of the time they were never going to buy it. If you accept this, then the argument against piracy comes down to classism and gatekeeping.

Bullshit argument that doesn't apply in any other regard. "He wouldn't have bought a car anyway" doesn't make stealing a car okay.

Seems like this thread is just going to be people constantly denying the validity of intellectual property.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

the key that decimates your "theft of property" argument is the concept of "intellectual property". even though physical objects are not being transferred from one owner to another, theft is still going on because you're giving yourself access to something the owner hasn't agreed to.

How is downloading a game infringing on the maker's "intellectual property?"

Am I infringing their intellectual property if I play on a friend's computer, or use their account?

Am I infringing if I watch an uncommentated playthrough of a game? What if it's a visual novel?

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/steal

to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force:

piracy is theft of intellectual property without permission or right. there's not really room for debate there. your only real next step is to argue that "intellectual property" is an antiquated concept and should be abolished.

The key difference is in the word "take". Copying isn't taking anything away.

If my car gets stolen, I'd be pretty pissed. If someone builds an exact replica of my car without touching the original, I'd be fine with that.

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Tenlaar posted...

Bullshit argument that doesn't apply in any other regard. "He wouldn't have bought a car anyway" doesn't make stealing a car okay.

Seems like this thread is just going to be people constantly denying the validity of intellectual property.

The difference is that with a car, there is actual loss.

The only loss that occurs in piracy is the potential sale, and that only exists if the person pirating would actually buy it if not available to pirate.

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Tenlaar posted...

Seems like this thread is just going to be people constantly denying the validity of intellectual property.

it's how they rationalize their entitlement

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

By this logic, how is pirating different from buying second hand?

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My problem with piracy is that the idea behind it being "okay" is predicated on other people actually paying for the product. If everyone pirated the product and no one paid for it, guess what? No more product.

I'm guilty myself, do I pay for every MMA ppv event I want to watch? No, but I won't try to defend that fact. I know it's wrong I just do it anyways, no need to try justify it.

I do think how wrong it is depends on how new the product is though. Some random PS2 game from 20 years ago that you can't buy new? Download that shit. The newest AAA release whose success determines if there is going to be another game in the series? Little different.

tc logic "if it's not something I can physically touch then I don't need to pay for the effort they put into making it"

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Tenlaar posted...

Bullshit argument that doesn't apply in any other regard. "He wouldn't have bought a car anyway" doesn't make stealing a car okay.

If I don't have the money to buy your car, but I have a button that spontaneously generates a replica of your car while leaving your actual car perfectly in tact, what harm has been done to you?

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It is theft of labor. If someone spent two years writing a novel, then you broke into their house one night, copied the entire book but left them the original transcript, and sold it as your own, how could you rationalize that's not theft?

And, for the utter love of all things holy, since people on this board don't understand how analogies fucking work, let me clarify: All that changes when you switch the selling of stolen labor versus the consuming of stolen labor is the scale. You are not allowed to take the results of someone else's labor without permission even if it is not depriving them of a physical object.

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Hornezz posted...

Copying isn't taking anything away.

it's taking away a potential customer because you just acquired a copy for free without consent from the owner.

would you sneak into a theme park or a museum and justify that as not being theft since you didn't actually "take" anyone's ticket away?

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Doe posted...

If I don't have the money to buy your car, but I have a button that spontaneously generates a replica of your car while leaving your actual car perfectly in tact, what harm has been done to you?

a car is a physical object and not intellectual property so this argument fails.

in this case you'd be in violation of the patents / etc held by the company whose car you copied and that would be theft of intellectual property. that car company spent lots and lots of money on R&D to design that car, you have no right to steal that and make your own. the same way that Honda can't make an exact replica of a Camry and call it theirs.

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Doe posted...

If I don't have the money to buy your car, but I have a button that spontaneously generates a replica of your car while leaving your actual car perfectly in tact, what harm has been done to you?

Studios spend money and time making video games so they can get return on those investments. If you aren't paying for their products and you just take what you want, the business isn't sustainable.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

would you sneak into a theme park or a museum and justify that as not being theft since you didn't actually "take" anyone's ticket away?

I didn't say it was justified, I'm saying that it isn't stealing. But to answer your question: no, I don't think anyone sneaking into a theme park should be charged with theft either.


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Pogo_Marimo posted...

and sold it as your own

Which relates to piracy how?
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Hornezz posted...

I didn't say it was justified, I'm saying that it isn't stealing. But to answer your question: no, I don't think anyone sneaking into a theme park should be charged with theft either.

yet the person who enters the park w/o paying is going to cost the company that owns the park in the form of spent resources, or wear and tear on their property. theme parks cost money to operate and maintain, ergo it's theft of services.

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South Park tackled this issue already.

"He was going to get a bigger underground pool, but now he has to wait a while."

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Machete posted...

Which relates to piracy how?

And, for the utter love of all things holy, since people on this board don't understand how analogies fucking work, let me clarify: All that changes when you switch the selling of stolen labor versus the consuming of stolen labor is the scale.

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Doubling down on a shitty analogy while simultaneously telling other people that they don't understand analogies lol.

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I swear to god, half the people in the world's reaction to an analogy is "If I just pretend to be as fucking stupid as possible when interpreting an analogy, then it doesn't exist".

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

You're literally stealing somebody else's hard work and refusing to pay them their asking price.

@Gobstoppers12
@Giant_Aspirin
Wrong.

Devs already got paid. They don't set the asking price.
You are not stealing from the people who actually worked to make the game.

Pogo_Marimo posted...

And, for the utter love of all things holy, since people on this board don't understand how analogies fucking work, let me clarify: All that changes when you switch the selling of stolen labor versus the consuming of stolen labor is the scale. You are not allowed to take the results of someone else's labor without permission even if it is not depriving them of a physical object.

That's IP theft, where you falsely claim to be the creator of a work.
Piracy is when that writer sells a word document of his book, and then the purchaser leaves the word doc they purchased somewhere where others can access it. In that scenario, the writer has already been compensated.

Of course you'll say "but that makes selling digital goods as commodities unfeasible." And that's true, but it's irrelevant. There are alternative ways to fund artistic production, like public arts funding or kickstarters.

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WingsOfGood posted...

Devs already got paid. They don't set the asking price.

in the case of video games the publisher owns the rights and that's who piracy is stealing from.

WingsOfGood posted...

You are not stealing from the people who actually worked to make the game.

fine, you win on a minor pedantic detail. you're stealing from people who own the rights to the game/movie/work

but, really, does that affect this argument in any way? its still theft.

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COVxy posted...

I would be willing to bet that the majority of the time they were never going to buy it. If you accept this, then the argument against piracy comes down to classism and gatekeeping.

Exactly. $300 for a copy of evangelion before netflix got it.
But netflix doesn't have the same version and paying $8 for netflix isn't soley for that show.

Pogo_Marimo posted...

I swear to god, half the people in the world's reaction to an analogy is "If I just pretend to be as fucking stupid as possible when interpreting an analogy, then it doesn't exist".

Fine, the rest of us are morons. Do you mind dumbing it down so that us simpletons can understand how it relates to the traditional act of piracy?

As it stands, seems like you took a situation that is immoral for several other reasons unrelated to piracy and just asserted that it is analogous.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

yet the person who enters the park w/o paying is going to cost the company that owns the park in the form of spent resources, or wear and tear on their property. it's theft of services.

No it isn't. It's probably trespassing, maybe breaking and entering depending how they get in. It's not stealing. Also, wear and tear obviously doesn't apply to piracy so I'm not sure why you'd add that to the analogy.

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