Piracy: Common Myths

[xist]

The main problem I see with piracy is that in some places (Finland for example) there is a sort of tax on all storage medium for the sake of letting home copying be legal for personal use. Still it's illegal to download a movie or game and burn the DVD. Even though the HDD and blank DVD-R both have a (pretty large) percent of the price as the said tax.

That's part of the future of dealing with the cost of "piracy" in my opinion.

 

[mechadylan]

Im glad that this can all be contained into one single thread from now on, unless i decide to pirate this thread.

I'm glad that anytime the dreaded "p" word pops up now, we can simply refer them to this thread.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Did the lyrics in the music talk about.... getting a Brazilian wax?

This would be considered too light for carioca funk standards.

There is one song that goes like this "Eu vou na festa da Paula. Pau lá dentro, pau lá fora"

This one is hard to translate... "Eu vou na festa da Paula" means "I am going to Paula's party" "Paula" is a girl's name and "Pau" is a slang for dick so when you say "Pau lá" it sounds just like Paula. The part "Pau lá dentro, pau lá fora" means "Dick in, dick out" is obviously a reference to penetration but it can also mean "Paula in, Paula out". This is one of the more "family-friendly" funks here.

 

[FAST6191]

This would be considered too light for carioca funk standards.

There is one song that goes like this "Eu vou na festa da Paula. Pau lá dentro, pau lá fora"

This one is hard to translate... "Eu vou na festa da Paula" means "I am going to Paula's party" "Paula" is a girl's name and "Pau" is a slang for dick so when you say "Pau lá" it sounds just like Paula. The part "Pau lá dentro, pau lá fora" means "Dick in, dick out" is obviously a reference to penetration but it can also mean "Paula in, Paula out". This is one of the more "family-friendly" funks here.

That sounds more like top flight wordplay than out and out crude or crude for the sake of being crude and respectable as a result, though I must admit I am also a fan of songs that make prudish types go purple in embarrassment.

 

[xist]

FAST6191...I can't help but be reminded of the Federation Against Software Theft whenever i see your username.

 

[MegaBassBX]

So what do I do now stop piracy

 

[Tattorack]

I could go on and on but I will just say - when you pirate games you hurt small independent developers whom you mistakenly identify as these same 'faceless corporations', and you help welcome more trend-mongering parasites who spew more bland and shallow rubbish onto the market that is empty of originality, both in terms of gameplay and concept, perpetuating the marketing feedback and this all only makes things worse. It's a downward spiral.

Don't believe me? Just take a look! Support the developers who deserve to be supported, otherwise look outside and see them collecting your garbage to make a living. Make the distinction between publishers and developers, then open your eyes finally, with just a little maturity and intelligence, it should be clear as day.

I'm inclined to disagree;
The developers are already payed the small amount that they earned for making the game by the publishers.
Its not the dev. team losing the money, it are the publishers (who have already loads of money to speak of) that can't buy their new Mercedis Benz, or their next holidy to Monaco.
Publishers already start calling it a distaster if they lose as much as €1000, wich is only a fraction of the amount they really have (an amount the developers only see small amount of).
"Pirating" doesn't hurt the original creator, just the squeezer.

 

[FAST6191]

Re my name- I would be lying if I said I had not run into it myself.

 

[LDAsh]

Its not the dev. team losing the money, it are the publishers (who have already loads of money to speak of) that can't buy their new Mercedis Benz, or their next holidy to Monaco.

You've basically said what I already said in my original wall of text, but failed to realise (fully read) how it goes around in a vicious cycle, where it forces publishers to only publish contrived games from more established developers (teams usually constructed by the publishers themselves) with marketing research and sales figures to back them up, shoving out small indepentent developers who are more likely to create innovative genre-carvers. There's only so many times I can repeat myself or agrue semantics and obscure microscopics.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

You've basically said what I already said in my original wall of text, but failed to realise (fully read) how it goes around in a vicious cycle, where it forces publishers to only publish contrived games from more established developers (teams usually constructed by the publishers themselves) with marketing research and sales figures to back them up, shoving out small indepentent developers who are more likely to create innovative genre-carvers. There's only so many times I can repeat myself or agrue semantics and obscure microscopics.

What publisher do with developers doesn't have anything to do with people pirating stuff. Even when piracy wasn't such a big issue, developers were always in the hand of publisher one way or another. Lack of creativity isn't something exclusive to videogames, it happens with music, movies, computers, cell phones. The bitter truth is, while consumers claims to like innovation they prefer watching the cliche super hero based movies than to try watching something new. When you go to the movies, do you watch that small independent work or do you watch a Warner Bros/Columbia/Disney/Fox movie?

Getting back to gaming, I even go as far as to say that when I was a kid console had much more different choices of games, you could either buy a snes or a mega drive, a playstation, a nintendo 64 or a saturn and find all kind of fun and different games in those system. Nowadays you have to choose either buying a Wii/Wii U for nintendo games + casual games, Xbox 360 for FPS and the PS3 for RPG and also some FPS, many people in this forum even go as far as buying more than one console from the same generation because one console alone can't satisfy their needs... That's how bad the video game industry is nowadays.

Piracy have existed since the 80s with floppy disks and later CDs, are you really going to claim that it's affecting publisher's decisions just now?

 

[Densetsu]

If GBA Temp is so hellbent on having zero tolerance for piracy...

...and yet GBA temp frowns upon piracy and/or the circumvention of AP measures.

Because GBAtemp has zero tolerance for piracy...

Quite the contrary; GBAtemp is all about piracy. First and foremost it's a forum for sharing concepts, ideas, knowledge and information about ripping, copying, patching and hacking for the purpose of *ahem* playing free games on your consoles. The only thing GBAtemp doesn't allow is direct links or references to places where you can download copyrighted files like ROMs or ISOs.

A group of individuals can sit around and talk about illicit drugs, including how to make them, how to administer them, how to acquire and sell them, and they aren't breaking any laws because they're just sharing knowledge. But once they are in possession of illegal substances, they are breaking the law.

Having copyrighted files--or links to them--on this forum is like being in possession of said drugs. One of the moderators' jobs (as I see it) is merely to flush them down the toilet, not to oppress any kind of piracy. It's just to protect this website from being taken down. Simple as. And we have never frowned upon the circumvention of AP measures. ROM patches come in two broad categories: [1] game alteration (translations/sprite hacks, etc.) and [2] AP circumvention. And guess what? We allow both types on this forum. I don't think any staff here would ever tell you that we have zero tolerance for piracy. Most of us currently pirate or have pirated in the past, myself included.

And I think some people might miss the point of this thread. It's not meant to judge anyone or sway them in any direction for or against piracy. It's just a reference. The next time some know-it-all jackass spews forth verbal diarrhea in the pretense of legal "expertise," simply refer them to the first post of this discussion so that they might be educated. It just clears up some misconceptions about piracy; nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Smuff]

Well, I'm convinced. Help me, GBATemp - Help me to avoid this "piracy" thing in all its various guises, I beseech thee!

 

[mightymuffy]

I'm glad that anytime the dreaded "p" word pops up now, we can simply refer them to this thread.

I'm gutted that if the bobbies/police/whatever actually do come knocking on my door sometime in the future, and I pull the "I'm too stupid to know it's wrong" argument, they can simply refer me to this thread. Get it off lol!

 

[xist]

There's only so many times I can repeat myself or agrue semantics and obscure microscopics.

Have you remembered some examples of those soggy cardboard sounding cymbals yet? Because hit and running on topics that favour your observations doesn't give credence to your views.

Dev's are impacted because if a (non 1st party) studio's game sells 4 games then they're highly unlikely to score repeat business, or will be able to demand far less for their next games. It also pushes the market towards a more homogenous "safer" style of game - cheaper development costs, faster turnaround with established tools and a more casual market in place.

 

[Disorarara]

Meh. That's not going to curtail piracy, neither will DRM. People will do what they do and it's not my problem. Same with backing up games, Dios Mios allows people to rip their games to their HDD, and yet GBA temp frowns upon piracy and/or the circumvention of AP measures.

Dios Mios can't rip backups. It allows you to run backups from HDD or SD which isn't illegal.

 

[the_randomizer]

Quite the contrary; GBAtemp is all about piracy. First and foremost it's a forum for sharing concepts, ideas, knowledge and information about ripping, copying, patching and hacking for the purpose of *ahem* playing free games on your consoles. The only thing GBAtempdoesn't allow is direct links or references to places where you can download copyrighted files like ROMs or ISOs.

A group of individuals can sit around and talk about illicit drugs, including how to make them, how to administer them, how to acquire and sell them, and they aren't breaking any laws because they're just sharing knowledge. But once they are in possession of illegal substances, they are breaking the law.

Having copyrighted files--or links to them--on this forum is like being in possession of said drugs. One of the moderators' jobs (as I see it) is merely to flush them down the toilet, not to oppress any kind of piracy. It's just to protect this website from being taken down. Simple as. And we have never frowned upon the circumvention of AP measures. ROM patches come in two broad categories: [1] game alteration (translations/sprite hacks, etc.) and [2] AP circumvention. And guess what? We allow bothtypes on this forum. I don't think any staff here would ever tell you that we have zero tolerance for piracy. Most of us currently pirate or have pirated in the past, myself included.

And I think some people might miss the point of this thread. It's not meant to judge anyone or sway them in any direction for or against piracy. It's just a reference. The next time some know-it-all jackass spews forth verbal diarrhea in the pretense of legal "expertise," simply refer them to the first post of this discussion so that they might be educated. It just clears up some misconceptions about piracy; nothing more, nothing less.

Well, all right I will, and yes, I confess that I have pirated as well (why do you think I use RetroArch Wii?) Be a reference or not, I rip Wii games to my HDD for archival purposes only, I refuse to buy a new copy of the disc should it get scratched.

Dios Mios can't rip backups. It allows you to run backups from HDD or SD which isn't illegal.

Not Dios Mios (oops), I meant CFG USB Loader. That rips games right there, which also means anti-counterfeit protection is circumvented. Not that I care anyway. I'd rather have a binary copy of my game than to have to repurchase it.

 

[mechadylan]

I'm gutted that if the bobbies/police/whatever actually do come knocking on my door sometime in the future, and I pull the "I'm too stupid to know it's wrong" argument, they can simply refer me to this thread. Get it off lol!

LOL! U wot m8?

 

[Rydian]

Fixed a typo in number 1, and re-worded 8 a little to note that it's mainly referring to games and such, since when dealing with consoles and handhelds, people rarely, if ever, bother about distributing the software contained on them.

 

[Kwartel]

In The Netherlands, it IS legal to download music, videos and other digital or physical files except software. This is because of the private copying law we have. This means we can freely make copies of things if it stays for personal use. This makes downloading legal in our country (except for software/games). The "losses" because of this law is compromised by the private copying levy there is on data carriers. The money that get raised with those fees gets divided between the organisations who handle the payment of artists.

Note: Uploading copyright protected content is illegal. Always.

At the moment the fees are the following:

Cd-r - €0.03
DVD - €0.03
External HDD - €1.00
Audio-/videoplayer (≤ 2 GB) - €1.00
Audio-/videoplayer (> 2 GB) - €2.00
HDD-recorder/setupbox (≤ 160 GB) - €2.50
HDD-recorder/setupbox (> 160 GB) - €5.00
Phone with musicplayer/smartphone (< 16 GB) - €2.50
Phone with musicplayer/smartphone (≥ 16 GB) - €5.00
Tablet (≤ 8 GB) - €2.50
Tablet (> 8 GB) - €5.00
Pc/laptop - €5.00

Sources (Dutch): Source 1 Source 2

If you want to know more about private copying law, you can find more information on this Dutch website, which explains everything in detail, but still in layman's terms: link

 

[Rydian]

[*]That's just US law, copyright stuff doesn't apply to me in another country so I can pirate all I want.
While I'm using US laws and regulations primarily since it's a main concern of this forum, this is another falsehood. The WIPO/Berne Convention is a worldwide agreement, if your country is in the member list (there's over 100 countries there, so you most likely are) then your country recognizes the copyrights of other countries and has it's own laws in place to deal with violations. Look at the above example, which took place in Australia.


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