Piracy: Common Myths

[RodrigoDavy]

but the fact that by downloading you are making a copy of the information on the internet.

So is making a backup... The only difference is that instead of making a copy from the file in the internet you're making a copy of your own physical/digital media. And that's how files in the internet start anyway, a backup that is uploaded.

 

[Rydian]

The difference between copying your disc and downloading a copy off the internet is that if you backup your disc, you're backing up your copy, and there's no distribution (the entire process involves ONLY you), while if you download off the internet you're using somebody ELSE's backup, and it's being distributed without permission.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

The difference between copying your disc and downloading a copy off the internet is that if you backup your disc, you're backing up your copy, and there's no distribution (the entire process involves ONLY you), while if you download off the internet you're using somebody ELSE's backup, and it's being distributed without permission.

You're getting the exact same file in both cases. The only true difference is that in one of the cases you can rest assured that the FBI won't knock on your door

Also, by this logic intentionally buying a bootleg version of a game you already own should be just as illegal as downloading the game. (It's being distributed illegaly and it contains a copy of somebody else's backup)

 

[Rydian]

You're getting the exact same file in both cases. The only true difference is that in one of the cases you can rest assured that the FBI won't knock on your door

Also, by this logic intentionally buying a bootleg version of a game you already own should be just as illegal as downloading the game. (It's being distributed illegaly and it contains a copy of somebody else's backup)

In bootleg cases the person who's physically producing the copy is the target.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

In bootleg cases the person who's physically producing the copy is the target.

Okay, learned my lesson! No more downloading games, now I'll just buy bootlegs!

 

[Rydian]

Do not know if sarcasm.

 

[LDAsh]

I'm probably missing something but I don't see what piracy has to do with a publisher choosing a game that they know will make money instead of some game from some small time developer that may or may not make any money.

It's primarily to do with manufacturing and marketing, a cost usually always covered by the publisher and not the developer and which gives a publisher the right to claim most of the overall profits, which they always do and something like 80%-90% is not unreasonable. A developer may be able to fork out for this, but would a publisher want them to? Otherwise they can't stuff their hands so deep into the cookie jar justifiably. They'll probably tell the developer something that equates to "Well you can just go and be your own damn publisher then, can't you!"...

Otherwise, one may create the most awesome game in the world, but without marketing and getting it onto the shelf, whether physical or virtual, who will know about it to actually buy it, even pirate it.

I'm not actually 100% against piracy, I'm just against rampant piracy of games whose sales would mean more games from that particular developer on that particular system. That's what it really all boils down to.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Do not know if sarcasm.

I am not THAT stupid, Rydian! But I see you got a point, don't worry

 

[kristianity77]

I dont really have any guilt pirating stuff. I have my own weird logic behind it and why it doesnt bother me.

I have consoles which I dont hack, like the Xbox 360 and a PS3 which I buy everything legit for (120 games between the two consoles), and then on the other hand I have a couple of consoles that I do pirate for like the Wii and the PSP. I justify this to myself by the fact that if these consoles werent hackable, Id never ever have bought one. So who is losing money from me, or losing a sale when they would never have made it in the first place to me personally.

 

[Depravo]

...and then there's the one about it being legal to download a ROM if you delete it within 24 hours.

 

[Rydian]

Oh, right, yeah that one was on ROM sites everywhere, added.

 

[xist]

It's very difficult to get a developers point of view on piracy so i think that the following is worth a mention. From an interview with Ready At Dawn's Creative Director (God of War Chains of Olympus, God of War Ghost of Sparta, Daxter)

Remember this is a DEVELOPER, not the publisher...the Dev's have to weigh up how attractive their work will be to publishers. Read the last three questions but i'll quote one to give a flavour

How bad do you feel the piracy situation is on the PSP and DS?
Ru Weerasuriya: Both of them have problems. I’m not very familiar with how it is on the DS, but on the PSP it’s pretty rampant now all around the world.
It’s getting to the point where it doesn’t make sense to make games on it, if the piracy keeps on increasing. It’s a tough call right now to say what’s going to happen to it and where it’s going to go, but it definitely hurts a lot of developers out there who are trying to make great games.

http://www.vg247.com/2010/10/26/int...st-of-sparta-wii-development-piracy-and-more/


In the music industry studies have shown people actually spend MORE on legitimate music purchases when they pirate (overall - 1 , 2). However, it's difficult transferring that research to gaming because the replay usage is very different.

 

[LDAsh]

I think music is different purely because even at 320kbps the compression makes it sound pukey and horrible. Bigger and better speakers only amplifies the compression, I hear it all the time. It took a decade or so but people finally wake up to hear the sloshy cymbals that sound more like someone hitting a soggy garbage bag than what a clean smash of the cymbal should actually sound like.

For pirated games, for the most part, the 'quality' is absolutely the same.

 

[xist]

I think music is different purely because even at 320kbps the compression makes it sound pukey and horrible. Bigger and better speakers only amplifies the compression, I hear it all the time. It took a decade or so but people finally wake up to hear the sloshy cymbals that sound more like someone hitting a soggy garbage bag than what a clean smash of the cymbal should actually sound like.

And that's an entirely different myth...for the vast majority of the music buying public 192 or above is fine. Sure you can ABX Flac vs any lossy encode, but the point is that many people actively have to try and spot the (slight) difference, and that difference is generally fullness of sound rather than any one instrument (excluding encode artefacts). Cymbal crash and sustain is generally fine on today's higher quality codecs. If you hear it you're in a tiny, tiny minority...trawling audiophile forums you'll find people who agree with you, but then again are those people the majority?

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment.html

The hoops you jump through to pirate games, and in many instances the bandwidth used, offset the quality issue. The point is that people like to OWN things.

 

[Carnivean]

I think music is different purely because even at 320kbps the compression makes it sound pukey and horrible. Bigger and better speakers only amplifies the compression, I hear it all the time. It took a decade or so but people finally wake up to hear the sloshy cymbals that sound more like someone hitting a soggy garbage bag than what a clean smash of the cymbal should actually sound like.

For pirated games, for the most part, the 'quality' is absolutely the same.

Most people are completely incapable of hearing a difference even before investing a couple grand into a sound set up to actually justify anything more than 320kbps.

And really, especially on PC, pirated games are of higher quality. People want things like undubs and activation bypasses.

 

[BORTZ]

can u add thsi 2 teh OP plz

 

[the_randomizer]

I am guilty of doing this very thing, or rather, buying games legitimately and then removing the DRM from said legally purchased game (Ubisoft, I'm looking at you). I don't agree with companies' stance on combating piracy by implementing always-online DRM because it doesn't do anything to stop piracy. If anything, it exacerbates the issue; if they truly want people to obtain their games by legal means, invasive draconian anti-piracy measures are not going to attract potential buyers. Splinter Cell Conviction comes to mind. I bought the game from their store, they gave me a key code to activate the game with, but this was on my parent's connection (which is both very fast and very stable) and the always-online DRM isn't an issue. I move out to an apartment complex where the internet is more unstable/drops frequently. This makes the DRM a roadblock and the game impossible to play because of the unstable nature of the connection. So tell me what's more immoral, the company making such restrictive DRM to legitimate customers to the point of making a well-spent purchase unusable due to s****y internet, or to have a customer download a patch that makes his/her legally purchased game usable regardless of the internet?

As for piracy, what people do in their homes is their business. I'm not going to impose my beliefs on other people. Personally, I couldn't care less, especially when it comes to legitimately purchased products like always-internet enabled games. If people spend the money and have bad internet, they should be able to play the game without such restrictions. Draconian DRM doesn't stop piracy, like look at Sim City and Maxis/EA. That worked well for them, right?

 

[mechadylan]

I think music is different purely because even at 320kbps the compression makes it sound pukey and horrible. Bigger and better speakers only amplifies the compression, I hear it all the time. It took a decade or so but people finally wake up to hear the sloshy cymbals that sound more like someone hitting a soggy garbage bag than what a clean smash of the cymbal should actually sound like.

For pirated games, for the most part, the 'quality' is absolutely the same.

People have been ripping cds to their computers for years; for use from everything from portable mp3 players to laptop djs. I've never heard anyone (outside of audiophile magazines) complain about quality.

 

[pyromaniac123]

I wonder how many pages this thread can get to.

 

[WiiUBricker]

Yet another piracy thread. Woohoo!