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

(+) Yeah! (+)

WingsOfGood posted...

Ah you admit you made it up.

I guess Half Life 3 not existing is pirates fault too?

The story of Half-Life 3 development hell is well documented. A Spore sequel was never considered by EA. They funded some low budget content packs and lower budget shovelware and that's it.

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People should be paid a fair wage and compensated for their labor! Just not if that labor produces something I want for free!

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V see sig V

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

In these examples, somebody actually bought the game/movie involved. Plus, for the most part, loaning or borrowing a game/movie from a friend is impermanent. If you want to own your own copy while your friend still has theirs, you have to buy it for yourself.

Plus, the idea of borrowing from a friend implies that it's a physical copy, which isn't the issue. Stealing a physical copy is cut-and-dry theft in every scenario.

I remember there was this dude on another board who, when speaking about piracy, referred to it as "piracing" instead of "pirating." Everyone laughed at him.
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Tyranthraxus posted...

The story of Half-Life 3 development hell is well documented. A Spore sequel was never considered by EA. They funded some low budget content packs and lower budget shovelware and that's it.

All you have to back this is your personal opinion so lets compare your own with some random dude I found on the internet as that is just as valid:

https://www.quora.com/Despite-the-popularity-of-the-Spore-video-game-why-is-there-no-Spore-2

In 2007 the iPhone came out.
By the time Spore was released in 2008, it was already clear mobile was a thing and EA was already aligning in that direction. I think there were serious questions about where the casual market was heading and if Maxis style games would stay in PC land or move to mobile.
Spore doesnt blow the doors off with 3 million units but it isnt bad. EA greenlights some expansions and even a standalone DarkSpore (2013.)
Then, in 2009, Will Wright leaves EA.
If you are running EA and the creative head of a so-so title leaves and that same studio has a stupidly successful franchise (The Sims) and a second strong franchise (SimCity) AND you are doing some of these operations out of a second studio (Emeryville) which is just up the East Bay from HQ - which frankly costs a stupid amount of money - then your MBA plan is to close that studio and fold operations back into HQ. No, not layoff people just not pay a ton extra when you have ample room at HQ. EARS can handle something like 4,000 people in 3 large buildings plus a VERY nice gym and a few great kitchens. Trying to keep parity in remote studios is expensive and Emeryville just got more and more expensive as bay area real estate exploded.
So the put Spore on a shelf and tell Emeryville take a swing with SimCity. The 2013 game came out and had a horrible launch due to poorly written client database code calling into the servers. (I was working at EA during this fun time and it wasnt pretty.)
Which makes it unsurprising that EA closed Maxis Emeryville in 2015 ands consolidated the teams at EARS.
If Will hadnt left then I think we would have seen a real sequel.

The only thing I have to add regarding piracy is that game developers in Japan are WAY more adamant and obnoxious about it. Pretty much every game you start up in Japanese has a warning about not going on the internet and downloading the game, or something like that, and it gets removed in American localizations. Even if you have an English game, if you switch the console's language settings to Japanese, you'll get to play the Japanese version and see that warning pop up when you start the game when you wouldn't have otherwise. I don't think it's even possible to pirate PS4 games, but you'll still see that warning because they copy-and-paste it onto every game over there. Japan's corporations are weirdly obsessive about this.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

In these examples, somebody actually bought the game/movie involved.

Like I said in my previous post, this is also the case with piracy. The ripper buys the content once, and then shares copies.

Plus, for the most part, loaning or borrowing a game/movie from a friend is impermanent. If you want to own your own copy while your friend still has theirs, you have to buy it for yourself.

There are piracy services that allow the user to stream movies or live tv. The user doesn't become a permanent owner of the content in those cases, but it's still considered piracy.

Plus, the idea of borrowing from a friend implies that it's a physical copy, which isn't the issue. Stealing a physical copy is cut-and-dry theft in every scenario.

The argument was that enjoying the fruits of someones labor without being the one who paid for it was immoral. Whether the copy is physical or digital doesn't really matter in that regard.


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Hornezz posted...

Like I said in my previous post, this is also the case with piracy. The ripper buys the content once, and then shares copies.

Then in that case, they didn't buy the copies they sold. They are selling "unauthorized reproductions," which are a form of thievery. Because of copyright law, the only people authorized to make copies of something to then sell or distribute are the ones who own the copyright on that material.

That's why it's called copyright. If you're making copies of something you don't own the copyright for, then you're willfully denying someone of their right to control the thing they created. That's not morally sound at all. That's theft, and worse, it's denying the creators the ownership of their own creation. It's not morally correct to take somebody's artwork and make exact copies of it to give away for free. That's plagiarism, piracy, any number of violations of both law and human decency.

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Hornezz posted...

The argument was that enjoying the fruits of someones labor without being the one who paid for it was immoral.

No, you added that stipulation. The idea is that somebody paid for it, and they're adhering to the expected purpose of the product. Nobody's questioning borrowers, resellers, or friends/family watching/playing something together.

The thing is, there's only one copy involved in that scenario. The instant you make another copy wthout permission from the creator, you are breaching the trust of the agreement and are now behaving immorally.

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Hornezz posted...

The argument was that enjoying the fruits of someones labor without being the one who paid for it was immoral. Whether the copy is physical or digital doesn't really matter in that regard.

I mean, it is funny how much the mind twists just because something is allowed legally and has been done by society.

You give your friend FF7 to play, he plays it for 40 hours. He has no reason to buy a copy like someone else does who wanted to play FF7.
He paid nothing. You also did the same as in playing the game 40 hours.

But this is fine because we are used to this as it would cost way too much money to go after a kid borrowing a game.

Let me note that XBOX did want to prevent this if you guys have not forgotten. Xbox One had a system designed to prevent borrowing physical games but consumers had backlash against it.

It is basically no different than downloading a game off the internet. Just cause your friend bought a disc doesn't give you the right to enjoy the content without paying. If a pirate steals anything, then you did too.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

That's why it's called copyright. If you're making copies of something you don't own the copyright for, then you're willfully denying someone of their right to control the thing they created. That's not morally sound at all.

It doesn't seem very copywrong to me.
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What about games not sold new or digital anywhere?

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I'd like to ask an interesting question:

What, exactly, makes stealing immoral?

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WingsOfGood posted...

Let me note that XBOX did want to prevent this if you guys have not forgotten. Xbox One had a system designed to prevent borrowing physical games but consumers had backlash against it.

It is basically no different than downloading a game off the internet

I think intent is a major difference. When you buy a game, play it, and love it, then you want somebody to talk about it with, so you loan it to a friend to play. This creates a personal connection between you, your friend, and the product. This creates stronger support for the product via word of mouth and sharing, which long-term could lead to another purchase (if your friend wants his/her own copy.)

This is also pertaining only to physical copies. Physical copies are finite. There is only one copy of the game in this scenario. This means that only one person can play it at a time based on that one purchase.

One friend loaning a game to another friend isn't going to lead to some massive domino effect where 2, then 4, then 8, then 16, then 32, then 64, then 128, etc. are all getting to play the game based on one purchase. That's what piracy does. It has a mass-produced, soulless quality where thousands upon thousands of people who have never met one another are playing a game they didn't pay for.

Sure, there's still the element of community that's created when more people play and are familiar with the game, so maybe the outcome isn't entirely negative, but that's only going to translate into further success for the company if all of those pirates change their ways and buy the game legitimately on the next release--do you think they're going to do that?


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also, remember online passes? ahahaha

Would you guys steal a CAR?!

Pwnd.
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WingsOfGood posted...

also, remember online passes? ahahaha

Online passes are also immoral. Their existence does not justify stealing either.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

I think intent is a major difference. When you buy a game, play it, and love it, then you want somebody to talk about it with, so you loan it to a friend to play. This creates a personal connection between you,

This is just cognitive dissonance.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

This is also pertaining only to physical copies. Physical copies are finite. There is only one copy of the game in this scenario. This means that only one person can play it at a time based on that one purchase.

This argument is ignorant because you perpetually can share the game. There is no end to how many times you can share the physical disc. If you had 1 million people who were patient enough, you could tell them all to wait and you would share your physical disc with all of them eventually.
Then they don't buy the game.

But, the publishers disagree with you anyways. They believe you sharing the game is piracy. It just so happens the law disagrees with them.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Online passes are also immoral. Their existence does not justify stealing either.

What is immoral about an online pass?

It is just a publisher wanting their fair share.

wiiking96 posted...

What, exactly, makes stealing immoral?

That's not an interesting question. It's a concerning question.

I assume you're looking for an answer like this: "stealing is wrong because it's taking something from somebody else," which you will presumably then segue into a rebuttal like "Ha, but downloading a copy isn't actually taking anything from anybody," but you're quite a few pages of argument behind here.

We're discussing the ramifications of mass distribution of IP that, while not a tangible product, is still theirs to distribute as they see fit because it belongs to them. Downloading something is not directly stealing a physical thing, it's true--but when you illegally download a copy of a game, you are stealing the owner's right to distribute it, which is equally wrong.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

Then in that case, they didn't buy the copies they sold. They are selling "unauthorized reproductions," which are a form of thievery. Because of copyright law, the only people authorized to make copies of something to then sell or distribute are the ones who own the copyright on that material.

Yes it's against the law. We're discussing morality, I'm entirely uninterested in discussing legality because we all agree on that.

The thing is, there's only one copy involved in that scenario. The instant you make another copy wthout permission from the creator, you are breaching the trust of the agreement and are now behaving immorally.

The question is why? What's so fundamentally morally wrong with making a copy? The end result for the creator is the exact same in all the scenarios: one person paid for it, and someone else enjoyed it without the creator being compensated a second time.

The creator has no way of knowing whether the second person is watching a burned DVD or a borrowed one. From their perspective there's no reason to think one is wrong and the other is fine.

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WingsOfGood posted...

But, the publishers disagree with you anyways. They believe you sharing the game is piracy.

I'd like to see some examples of that being stated, because I'm certain it's not the majority opinion.

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I genuinely want to have a discussion on morality. I want a genuine answer to the question I asked.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

I'd like to see some examples of that being stated, because I'm certain it's not the majority opinion.

online passes
xbone prevention system

@Gobstoppers12
Another example:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/1/21277036/internet-archive-publishers-lawsuit-open-library-ebook-lending

As a library, the Internet Archive acquires books and lends them, as libraries have always done, Kahle told The Verge. This supports publishing and authors and readers. Publishers suing libraries for lending books in this case, protected digitized versions, and while schools and libraries are closed is not in anyones interest.

A lost sale is a lost sale to a publisher.

The could care less that sharing books, games and such is something humans have done historically.

Hornezz posted...

The end result for the creator is the exact same in all the scenarios:

It's not, though. In the scenario where a friend borrowed a copy, the person who loaned it to them no longer has that copy. If they want to play the game again, they'll have to take it back from their friend. And if the friend, in this scenario, wants to continue playing it, then they will need to buy their own copy.

This can potentially lead to two sales, and it does not flood the market. On the other hand, if you made an illegal copy of the game and gave it to your friend instead of loaning out the original, there are now two copies and no real expectation that another sale will be made. So, for the price of one copy, two people now 'own' the game.

Hornezz posted...

The creator has no way of knowing whether the second person is watching a burned DVD or a borrowed one

Whether or not the creator knows about it has no bearing at all on the morality of the act. It's wrong to make copies of things that don't actually belong to you. When you buy a game, you're not actually buying the rights to the game--buying a painting doesn't mean you created it, just that you are able to enjoy it. Making copies of that painting to give out for free is disrespectful to the artist, as would be making copies of a book for the same purpose.

Legality and morality are in agreement that we shouldn't mass-produce an artist's work without permission. Right?

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WingsOfGood posted...

The could care less that sharing books, games and such is something humans have done historically.

There's a very different context when it goes from sharing a physical thing to putting up a master-copy of said thing for anybody to make their own copy with. Forgeries have usually been looked down upon throughout history.

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Here is recall to xbone shenanigans

https://www.technobuffalo.com/xbox-one-used-borrowed-games

There are two important parts to that paragraph. The first is that publishers can enable you to trade in games. Xbox One games are not, as an overall product, forbidden from resale, but publishers can make it so. I wouldnt expect to see this with most games. I could see games with a particularly long tail, like Call of Duty, coming with this caveat.

From Microsofts page:
Give your games to friends: Xbox One is designed so game publishers can enable you to give your disc-based games to your friends. There are no fees charged as part of these transfers. There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.
Right there, the question of a fee for loaning a game is right out the window. Thats not happening, so we can forget about that. The rest is pretty confusing.
First is the requirement that you can only give games to people who have been on your friends list for 30 days or more. Its like Microsoft wants to make sure were really friends. I thought at first that there was a benefit to this with regard to theft; if someone stole your game, they couldnt play it. But then cant they sell it? Or will the used game sales path have something in place to determine whether the seller is also the owner? Well need to hear more from Microsoft about both aspects to this to really understand it. It doesnt seem bad as much as it does weirdly specific.
If you like to sell your own games through Amazon or Craigslist, however, that is out the windowunless you friend your buyers for a full month beforehand.
And then theres the wording each game can only be given once. What does that mean? By the current owner? Bill to Steve, Steve to Sarah, and so forth? Or does it mean that once Bill gives it to Steve, that all ownership transfer options are gone? And then what about selling it? Does the buyer of used game get to give it once, too? The spiderweb of possible scenarios for this is mind-boggling, and the more confusing it is for consumers, the angrier consumers will get. This definitely requires further clarification from Microsoft in the coming months.
Jason Schreier of Kotaku had an interesting take on the subject. After detailing the above information, he compared it to the lending policies of Amazons Kindle service, Steam, and iOS. All three are, by all accounts, wildly successful digital media platforms, and the comparison is warranted, to varying degrees. Kindle books, for example, can be loaned out once, for 14 days. Steam has no lending option in place, but allows users to buy games as gifts and then gift it to someone else or themselves at a later date (Side note: You should be buying all your Steam games as gifts unless youre planning to play them right away; if you never play them, someone else might be able to.). Of course, you can lend out your username if you really trust the person. Apples policy states that a certain number of devices can be authorized using the same Apple ID. So theres not really any sharing of any kind unless youre willing to lend out your username as well.
The Kindle services lend-once policy sounds similar to the Xbox One, but without the benefit of having a physical device to resell. Apples policy is hard to apply because so few of the products on Apples service reach the $10 mark and even fewer surpassing it. Steam is really the only directly comparable service just by virtue of the value of the products. PC users have long since gotten used to not being able to resell games, and those that have fully embraced Steam have been purchasing full price games without any ability option to lend them either.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

It's not, though. In the scenario where a friend borrowed a copy, the person who loaned it to them no longer has that copy. If they want to play the game again, they'll have to take it back from their friend. And if the friend, in this scenario, wants to continue playing it, then they will need to buy their own copy.

This can potentially lead to two sales, and it does not flood the market. On the other hand, if you made an illegal copy of the game and gave it to your friend instead of loaning out the original, there are now two copies and no real expectation that another sale will be made. So, for the price of one copy, two people now 'own' the game.

Whether or not the creator knows about it has no bearing at all on the morality of the act. It's wrong to make copies of things that don't actually belong to you. When you buy a game, you're not actually buying the rights to the game--buying a painting doesn't mean you created it, just that you are able to enjoy it. Making copies of that painting to give out for free is disrespectful to the artist, as would be making copies of a book for the same purpose.

Legality and morality are in agreement that we shouldn't mass-produce an artist's work without permission. Right?

If someone pirates a game, they might enjoy it and recommend it to others who then pay for it, which means sales. If they don't pirate it and decide they aren't interested in spending money to purchase it, that mean no sales D:

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

There's a very different context when it goes from sharing a physical thing to putting up a master-copy of said thing for anybody to make their own copy with. Forgeries have usually been looked down upon throughout history.

Good because that is not what the virtual library does.

The virtual library works just like a library does. You check the book out, you check it back in.

Launched in 2006, Internet Archives Open Library allows users to borrow ebooks scanned from physical copies, according to a theory called controlled digital lending (or CDL) that limits how many times a single scan can be borrowed at once.

As a library, the Internet Archive acquires books and lends them, as libraries have always done, Kahle told The Verge. This supports publishing and authors and readers. Publishers suing libraries for lending books in this case, protected digitized versions, and while schools and libraries are closed is not in anyones interest.

If you find an issue with this, it is odd you think libraries of any kind are then not piracy.

Machete posted...

If someone pirates a game, they might enjoy it and recommend it to others who then pay for it,

Much more likely, if they pirated it initially, they'll then tell their friends how to pirate it too. Piracy is rarely an isolated incident. It's a whole network of people who work together to defeat the creator's attempts to actually get paid for their work.

People talk shit on DRM, and I agree DRM sometimes goes too far, but DRM only exists because of how many people are out there stealing games.

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WingsOfGood posted...

What is immoral about an online pass?

It is just a publisher wanting their fair share.

Online passes were often not advertised as part of the game which is deceptive marketing Designed to fleece legal economy-contributing owners by holding a portion of the game hostage simply because they didn't purchase a factory sealed copy.

The publishers themselves also realized it was wrong and eventually cancelled the concept as a whole.

wiiking96 posted...

I genuinely want to have a discussion on morality. I want a genuine answer to the question I asked.

This is a never ending rabbit hole because once this question is answered it leads into "what even is morality and why are morals desirable?"

The short answer to the question however is that society functions on a contract of contributions to the community that are rewarded with goods and services based proportionately on the value of the contributions that you make. The contributions that you make are measured in currency. The currency that you possess tells everyone who uses the same currency that you have created contributions to society with a value equal to the currency that you possess. This entitles you to rewards equivalent to the sum of that currency. You exchange the currency to receive rewards that are themselves the contributions of other people and thus the transfer of contributions to society is documented in the currency that we all possess.

When you steal that society's contract is violated and it throws the balance of measuring contributions and fair assignment of rewards for your contributions completely off balance. If enough people begin violating this contract the incentive to continue participating in that contract goes dramatically down.

If everyone steals and no one pays for anything then people stop making things because these things will no longer be considered contributing to society. Instead only things that cannot be stolen will be made.

I know it doesn't look like a short answer but it is.

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Im curious what the moral argument is for people that bring up the preservation thing or the right to experience it thing. Seems a stretch when applied to a piece of entertainment.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Designed to fleece legal economy-contributing owners by holding a portion of the game hostage simply because they didn't purchase a factory sealed copy.

They did not pay the publishers. They did not contribute to the game sales.

On the opposite end from my earlier statement, and far more scifi.: if you literally couldn't pay for the game anyway, then it's impossible to have reduced projected value.


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WingsOfGood posted...

If you find an issue with this, it is odd you think libraries of any kind are then not piracy.

Libraries are an interesting subject. They still have to get their books from somewhere, right?

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Whether or not the creator knows about it has no bearing at all on the morality of the act.

I'd argue it matters A LOT if the argument heavily relies on the rights of the creator.

If the creator has no way of telling the difference between two scenarios (copy or borrowed) and the results in terms of revenue are indistinguishable (he gets paid only once) then it makes no sense to call only one of the scenarios disrespectful to him and therefore immoral. Either both are or neither is.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

Libraries are an interesting subject. They still have to get their books from somewhere, right?

The digital library scans in the physical book.

But your argument is foolish as if a pirate buys a copy, is it then ok?

@Tyranthraxus

Can I summarize your answer as "Stealing is immoral because it is harmful to society"?

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Physical libraries aren't even all that good a comparison. Physically limited, state funded, not-for-profit, direct wage employment...

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WingsOfGood posted...

The digital library scans in the physical book.

I assume they can't do this without permission from the publisher, and that's why they ran into issues?

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

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"

To be fair, most of them -- like the TC -- are just trolling when they pretend to not understand. Unless somebody comes from a society without movies, books, etc, they're going to really understand, even if they're taking the piss out of people by pretending that they don't.

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Hornezz posted...

I'd argue it matters A LOT if the argument heavily relies on the rights of the creator.

If your rights are violated and you don't realize it, were your rights still violated?

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Hornezz posted...

I'd argue it matters A LOT if the argument heavily relies on the rights of the creator.

If the creator has no way of telling the difference between two scenarios (copy or borrowed) and the results in terms of revenue are indistinguishable (he gets paid only once) then it makes no sense to call only one of the scenarios disrespectful to him and therefore immoral. Either both are or neither is.

That is not correct. When you pay the creator, you make an agreement to not copy the game. You do not make an agreement to never lend out the game. Making a copy is breaking your promise / agreement, deception, and theft. It is immoral and disrespectful.

This is functionally equivalent to cheating on your spouse but then saying "eh they have no way of ever finding out so it's okay"

No it's still immoral even if your spouse never finds out.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

I assume they can't do this without permission from the publisher, and that's why they ran into issues?

I am not a lawyer but the article is from 2020 and the library opened in 2006.

wiiking96 posted...

@Tyranthraxus

Can I summarize your answer as "Stealing is immoral because it is harmful to society"?

Sure. Feels free to copy / paste the whole thing in case someone asks "How?"

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

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

FPBP

@Tyranthraxus

You seem to hold the opinion that dishonesty is immoral. Therefore I must ask you this question:

Why is dishonesty immoral?

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Tenlaar posted...

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

its against the law but explain the moral part to me?

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