Your Opinions on Piracy?

FAST6191 · Apr 17, 2015

BerserkLeon said:
Let's be generous and say for DS it was more like 25%, since it was dead-simple to grab a flashcart and go. Maybe 5% of the total userbase knew of Cing, so I'd guess 5% or less of the pirates knew of them. And I imagine maybe 1/3 of that 5% of that 25% were responsible pirates and bought the games after discovering they liked it.

I am not sure your model works -- raw numbers might be one thing but demographics and such like count for a lot more (drop all the homophobic 12 year olds from COD and you will see a bigger player number drop than if you dropped all the grandmothers, despite being represented about as well in the population at large).

As for the subject of the OP we have done this basically every month since forever.

Hungry Friend · Apr 17, 2015

The only thing I feel guilty about are all the DC games I burned back in 2000-01, but if, say, CVS2 & Guilty Gear X had come out on the US DC I would've bought them instead of burning them.(DC version of CVS2 is obviously closest to the arcade) Otherwise, I don't feel bad about emulating games and I'd say the industry's crappy DLC/microtrans scams are hurting gaming much more than piracy but I don't even download newer games because my PC is ancient.

I think much of what the big publishers say about piracy(and used games for that matter) is exaggerated hyperbole that they use as an excuse to justify their shitty business practices.

netovsk · Apr 17, 2015

I think sony nintendo and microsoft are poor and almost broke because people are stealing them people should be hanged for piracy it's too cruel a crime.

Deleted User · Apr 17, 2015

netovsk said:
I think sony nintendo and microsoft are poor and almost broke because people are stealing them people should be hanged for piracy it's too cruel a crime.

Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.... Poor???
??????????????????

Smuff · Apr 17, 2015

"You wouldn't steal a car......." - I fucking would if I could download it from the comfort of my own living room.

FAST6191 · Apr 17, 2015

Smuff said:
"You wouldn't steal a car......." - I fucking would if I could download it from the comfort of my own living room.

Give it a couple of years

Anyway I have already stolen money from the starving mouths of car companies by fabricating replacement parts for their goods, and helped others do the same.

smf · Apr 17, 2015

Cherry Pie said:
Piracy is not theft because theft removes the original and piracy makes a copy.

Morally piracy is theft of the profit of a sale that should have occurred for you to get the enjoyment out of it. Whether you would buy the game or not if you couldn't pirate it, doesn't make any difference.

Legally there is some debate over whether the word theft is correct here because copyright law doesn't use the word theft, laws tend to be written in words that people don't use everyday.

However the FBI and NCPC do use the word theft

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/ipr/ipr

It’s an age-old crime: stealing.
But it’s not about picking a pocket or holding up a bank. It’s robbing people of their ideas, inventions, and creative expressions—what’s called intellectual property—everything from trade secrets and proprietary products and parts to movies and music and software.

http://www.ncpc.org/topics/intellectual-property-theft

"Stealing intellectual property is cheap and easy. All a thief has to do is copy someone else’s ideas or product."

Making the whole debate about whether copyright is theft an exercise in nit picking, like arguing whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable (most people don't realise it's possible to be both).

Whether copyright is theft or not is not relevant to your opinion of piracy & your opinion of piracy isn't relevant to whether you infringe copyright. The people who try to justify piracy (either legally or morally) are the worst, they want it all. They are just lying to themselves and hoping to persuade enough people to join them in their mass delusion.

Piracy is like speeding. Not everyone does it and those that do don't always get caught. If anything you do ever gets bad enough that someone notices then you'll get a nice new shower buddy called Bubba.

netovsk · Apr 17, 2015

"Morally piracy is theft of the profit of a sale that should have occurred for you to get the enjoyment out of it."

For that to be true you should be able to prove one is willing to pay full price if copying wasn't an option.

If business fails because of people making unauthorized copies for personal use it's because the business model is wrong or outdated and they should find a better way to serve. Take netflix for instance.

PagaN · Apr 17, 2015

Piracy is great :nds:

smf · Apr 17, 2015

netovsk said:
For that to be true you should be able to prove one is willing to pay full price if copying wasn't an option.

Invent a time machine so that we can run every situation through both scenarios and you could do that. However there is proof out there that people do buy games at full price when copying isn't available. You can tell by looking at sales figures for games at the time the consoles are hacked. Dreamcast, Wii & PS3 are good examples because you don't need to actually buy anything to play pirated games. I agree that not everyone will have bought a game. But with speeding not everyone will kill someone in an accident, but everyone is punished because they took the risk that they could. Therefore it is fair to punish someone who has downloaded ten games but would only have ever bought five of them as if they have stolen ten games.

netovsk said:
If business fails because of people making unauthorized copies for personal use it's because the business model is wrong or outdated and they should find a better way to serve. Take netflix for instance.

The people who are actually buying games said they would stop if consoles moved to a rental model like Netflix. It's unlikely they'll alienate the people who are keeping them in business on some pseudo argument from people who are already "stealing" from them. Netflix hasn't noticeably reduced piracy of tv shows or movies, maybe their business model is outdated?

Hungry Friend · Apr 17, 2015

It's technically stealing but cmon, downloading abandoned or Japan-only games from the 80s and 90s isn't hurting anyone and quite frankly emulation gives companies a lot of exposure due to things like LPs. Would Seiken Densetsu 3 be as popular as it is without emulation and fan translations? Fuck no, and one could argue that pirating/emulating old games is actually beneficial in some ways because LPs and such are free advertising most of the time. It's a win/win situation; I get to play kickass old games for free and the people that made said games become more popular as a result of emulation and ROMs being extremely popular. Arguable yes, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Also I'd rather emulate a rare ass game than spend hundreds of $ on the second hand market. Playing a game on real HW is always preferable but most of us don't shit money. Playing Xmen VS SF on my PC will never stop being awesome, btw. Only legal way to play a good version of it is to buy a Saturn, an action replay/other 4MB RAM cart and an expensive used copy of the game. I'd much rather play it on MAME with a Saturn controller using an adapter for free.(well, minus the Saturn pad)

smf · Apr 17, 2015

Hungry Friend said:
It's technically stealing but cmon, downloading abandoned or Japan-only games from the 80s and 90s isn't hurting anyone and quite frankly emulation gives companies a lot of exposure due to things like LPs. Would Seiken Densetsu 3 be as popular as it is without emulation and fan translations?

You can't determine whether it is hurting someone. If you're sitting playing PS1 games you downloaded then you're less likely to be buying PS4 games, because you have a finite amount of time to do it. Therefore you have to assume that in some cases you are hurting someone. If the copyright owner gives you permission then they are taking on the responsibility for that.

I can't answer whether Seiken Densetsu 3 would be as popular without a way to run both scenarios. What you seem to propose is that two wrongs make a right (one wrong is the legal issue of you pirating the game, the other wrong is a moral issue with the developer condemning/prosecuting customers who stole one of their products even though they only bought a later product because of it).

Hungry Friend said:
Also I'd rather emulate a rare ass game than spend hundreds of $ on the second hand market. Playing a game on real HW is always preferable but most of us don't shit money. Playing Xmen VS SF on my PC will never stop being awesome, btw.

That is at least an honest reason for piracy, essentially "I want something but I don't want to pay for it".

Hungry Friend said:
Only legal way to play a good version of it is to buy a Saturn, an action replay/other 4MB RAM cart and an expensive used copy of the game. I'd much rather play it on MAME with a Saturn controller using an adapter.

AFAIK you can legally buy the original arcade version. At one time you could even go to a room that had lots of games and just put a small amount of money in to play them, but that model became outdated because people wanted to pay once and not be limited to when they could play it.

Console game prices haven't risen as fast as inflation and piracy affects budget games too. A lot of people would steal a car if they thought they wouldn't get caught and it was ok because other people do it. To get to that point you start out with something small and easily "justifiable" to yourself until you become desensitized enough.

GhostLatte · Apr 17, 2015

smf said:
Anything you do ever gets bad enough that someone notices then you'll get a nice new shower buddy called Bubba.

You must have some experience.

the_randomizer · Apr 17, 2015

Fuck paying inflated prices for games that are out of print and don't give companies money, I always say. Oh no, some scalper on eBay doesn't get his $400 for a mint condition copy of Earthbound, and the guy on Amazon doesn't get his $200 for a mint condition copy of a gold NES cart. Boo hoo.

No longer in print, no lost sales.

driverdis · Apr 17, 2015

when I hear people describe piracy as theft, I think of this picture.

smf said:
You can't determine whether it is hurting someone. If you're sitting playing PS1 games you downloaded then you're less likely to be buying PS4 games, because you have a finite amount of time to do it. Therefore you have to assume that in some cases you are hurting someone.

And how about how I buy and play used PS1 games from video game stores and eBay rather than buying PS4 games, does that mean I am as bad as a pirate?

GhostLatte · Apr 17, 2015

driverdis said:
when I hear people describe piracy as theft, I think of this picture.

And how about how I buy and play used PS1 games from video game stores and eBay rather than buying PS4 games, does that mean I am as bad as a pirate?

Exactly

Smuff · Apr 17, 2015

smf said:
Morally piracy is theft of the profit of a sale that should have occurred for you to get the enjoyment out of it.

I love this line of argument......

Ever borrowed a book from a friend ?

A DVD / Bluray ?

Listened to a CD with friends ?

Read someone else's copy of a newspaper/magazine ?

etc etc etc

"Come on everybody, following the dancing bear to Guantanomo! Keep up at the back there, Granny and Gramps!" :teach:

RevPokemon · Apr 17, 2015

Smuff said:
I prefer to think of it as "Try-before-you-buy" and I'm not done trying just quite yet

Nothing is wrong is wrong with that. I mean that's how i did with multiple things but eventually buy

Smuff said:
I love this line of argument......

Ever borrowed a book from a friend ?

A DVD / Bluray ?

Listened to a CD with friends ?

Read someone else's copy of a newspaper/magazine ?

etc etc etc

"Come on everybody, following the dancing bear to Guantanomo! Keep up at the back there, Granny and Gramps!"

Borrowed a car from a friend?

Sugar for a cake?

A tool for yard work?

TotalInsanity4 · Apr 18, 2015

Tomato Hentai said:
Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.... Poor???
??????????????????

To be fair, Sony is going bankrupt. The other two, though... Yeh, they're pretty set

Deleted User · Apr 18, 2015

the_randomizer said:
Fuck paying inflated prices for games that are out of print and don't give companies money, I always say. Oh no, some scalper on eBay doesn't get his $400 for a mint condition copy of Earthbound, and the guy on Amazon doesn't get his $200 for a mint condition copy of a gold NES cart. Boo hoo.

No longer in print, no lost sales.

I'd buy a $400 EarthBound cart if I had the money tbh

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