morality of piracy (was: Final Fantasy III update)

[Trippyhippy]

So... yeah.

I'm gonna buy a DS... And any FF cartridge that I can get my hands on that will play on it.

 

[Alouette]

Third, you claim it is stealing profits from the developer but I disagree and your demand to earn more money is a mute point. This is because there will always be more games out there than you can buy unless you are very wealthy or make large financial sacrifices (eg: sell your home and car). Thus, you can still spend all the money you can afford on games and pirate the others without causing the developer to earn any less money.

This shouldn't even be an issue, unless if you're buying EVERY game that's coming out. Hell, I don't make great money but in this past week I bought a X-Box 360 Premium and 4 games. I don't even want to get into digital theft but let's just say your sig took you 10 hours to make, since you put it online for everyone I guess that means we can take your sig and do whatever we want with it right?

 

[Georgebobbilly]

First, I know it is illegeal. Did you miss the first line in my second to last post? As for your corrections, I suggest you google utilitarinism before continuning to show how ignorant you are on the subject of philosophy.

btw I did this before I made my post. it still has no bearing on whether piracy is legal and "ok" to do.

u·til·i·tar·i·an·ism Audio pronunciation of "utilitarianism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (y-tl-târ--nzm)
n.

1. The belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.
2. The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.
3. The quality of being utilitarian: housing of bleak utilitarianism.

I'm going to assume you are refering to the 2nd definition there. Guess what, the Game developers, programmers, Advertisers, artists who were involved in the making of the game don't give a shit. They want they're money. You don't give a shit about them making the money they are entitled to because you want to maximize your own happyness. Otherwise you would save the money, maybe give up some of the other niceities in life to be able to play the game. Your no better then the people who smoke pot or kill just because they beleive it's ok. "The law is wrong and instead of making a difference, or going somewhere the law doesn't exist I'm going to break it." The fact of the whole matter is you are getting something without earning it. And what's worse because of your ideaology you think you are entitled the right to do so. Now when the law does change and say that Downloading intellectual property on the internet is not legal, you won't ever hear from me on the subject.

Also if Open source is the god of all, why is it that most if not all major businesses use microsoft products for there offices? just a thought.

 

[Halifirien]

I never said or implied piracy was not illegeal. What I attempted to discuss was the morality which resides outside law (laws do not make an act moral or immoral). ... The philosophy of maximum happiness you so casually dismiss is utilitarinism and worth much more consideration than you gave it.

I'm not dismissing utilitarianism; I believe in it to an extent (not as much after reading Charles Dickins' Hard Times). I'm just saying it wouldn't hold up in a court of law. Of course, you're only justifying not feeling bad about breaking the law.

Edit: Suddenly I want a copy of that old Simpsons brochure: "So You've Decided To Steal Cable."

 

[Sculli]

The developers make more money off me investing in their stocks than they would get from me buying their software because I'm putting a larger amount of money into the stocks than I would pay for the game (which in turn earns me more money that I can invest in the companies).

Perhaps you should propose that all shareholders get the games for free.

C'mon Rones, all your arguments are just for yourself to feel better about something that you know is wrong. It's like the dudes who donate to Greenpeace every year and then drive a V12 SUV in downtown Chicago.

You can try to rationalize piracy any which way, in the end you are using a product that you did not pay for. You are taking advantage of someone's hard work without to properly compensate them for it. No matter which way you look at it, that is what it is, and no amount of reasoning is going to change that.

Owning stocks doesn't entitle you to using the products of the company for free.

It's like Halifirien said; Most all of us couldn't care one way or another, but making it sound like piracy is morally ok is just wrong. Piracy is theft, and theft will never be morally right.

As far as whether the laws are correct; Laws are laws, while they are enacted they are binding, whether someone agrees with them or not. Write your congressman to change the laws if you are not happy with them.

 

[Sculli]

I though of something else:

The developers make more money off me investing in their stocks than they would get from me buying their software ...

This is false.
EA is for the most part not a developer, they are a publisher.
Depending on what kind of deal the developer has with the publisher, every sale counts. Some scenarios include big bonuses if the game sells more than 1M copies or whatever.

It should be obvious that investing in the publisher does not make the developer any money for a title they have already created. You could perhaps argue an indirect relationship at best.

 

[Rones]

This shouldn't even be an issue, unless if you're buying EVERY game that's coming out.

Exactly! Unless you are buying them all, there are going to be some games that you would have never bought in the first place. So pirating is not causing the developer to lose any money.

Guess what, the Game developers, programmers, Advertisers, artists who were involved in the making of the game don't give a shit. They want they're money. You don't give a shit about them making the money they are entitled to because you want to maximize your own happyness.

You still don't get utilitarinism then. This is not just about my happiness. Had you not skimmed my previous posts you would see how I explained the developers happines is at worse the exact same. Here is how a utilitarnian judges the morality of actions.

Situation1: You buy $200 worth of games every month. This gives you 200 units of happiness for the sake of the example. This gives the developers 200 units of happiness. The rest of the games you can not afford you don't get. End result, 400 happiness net and 200 for each party.

Situation2: You buy $200 worth of games every month and pirate the extra ones that come out which you can't afford. This gives you the same 200 + let's say 300 units of happiness from the pirated games. This gives the developers 200 units of happiness. End reuslt, 700 happiness net and the developers did not get less happiness or lose happiness. According to utilitarinism situation 2 is better and more moral than situation 1.

Situation3: You buy $500 worth of stock every month game developers and pirate all the games you want. This gives you the same 500 units of happiness from the pirated games and 500 units of happiness from the stock. This gives the developers 500 units of happiness because you bought their stock. End reuslt, 1,500 happiness net and the developers getmore happiness. According to utilitarinism situation 3 is better and more moral than situation 1 or 2.

Now tell me again how I am ignoring the developers side and only looking at my greedy self (and actually I'm applying the pirates position to any gamers).

Your no better then the people who smoke pot or kill just because they beleive it's ok.

You are going to have to explain that. A implies B therefore C? Your logic doesn't work.

"The law is wrong and instead of making a difference, or going somewhere the law doesn't exist I'm going to break it."

Wrong, this is trying to make a difference and you would see I described how in two of my previous posts. If you want to claim it isn't trying to make a difference, then try to rebute my previous comments. I'm sick of repeating them.

The fact of the whole matter is you are getting something without earning it. And what's worse because of your ideaology you think you are entitled the right to do so

Again you use "entitled" after I specifically pointed out earlier I never said that. What I'm saying is there is a way to create greater happiness in the world without causing a reduction in happiness. Let's look at another analogy to see if you can better understand:

Millions of people in Africa will never be able to experience the joy and fun that is Disney Land. Disney Land will never see any money from these people. Now imagine you could make a copy of Disney Land absolutly free with no resource costs and put it in Africa for all the millions of African children to enjoy for free. This would cause a huge increase in world net happiness with no happiness lose from Disney Land owners in the rest of the world because they weren't going to get money from these people anyway. This is the same thing I'm trying to show with pirating.

Also if Open source is the god of all, why is it that most if not all major businesses use microsoft products for there offices?

Better question, why do corporations like to spending hundred of thousands of dollars for microsoft products instead of using free open source versions? I suspect it is because they don't know better. China is riding the wave of Linux and open source developement. North America is playing catch up, sadly, to China in that respect.

Suddenly I want a copy of that old Simpsons brochure: "So You've Decided To Steal Cable."

Well if it helps any I'm against stealing cable because it lowers everyone elses signal quality which causes more unhappiness than the stealer gains from getting it for free.

Perhaps you should propose that all shareholders get the games for free.

I do think that would be a great idea to interest younger investors, but sadly the older CEOs aren't to interested.

C'mon Rones, all your arguments are just for yourself to feel better about something that you know is wrong.

This isn't just me though, this is the morality of the act of piracy for all gamers. Heck, if it was just me why would I play ffxi where I have to pay every month?

Most all of us couldn't care one way or another, but making it sound like piracy is morally ok is just wrong. Piracy is theft, and theft will never be morally right.

If it is wrong, disprove my logic. As I said in an earlier post, do not associate digital piracy with our millenia old concepts of theft with its stigmas that immidiately stick in our minds. Theft of tangible objects works very different from copying digital media, namely the person pirated from does not lose anything, they have everything they started with. The only loss is a potential buyer (the pirate). If they weren't even a potential buyer there is no loss at all.

 

[Halifirien]

As I said in an earlier post, do not associate digital piracy with our millenia old concepts of theft with its stigmas that immidiately stick in our minds. Theft of tangible objects works very different from copying digital media, namely the person pirated from does not lose anything, they have everything they started with.

See, this is where your argument falls apart. It is exactly the same. It's not your game to download/duplicate without permission, and the ease of piracy gives you absolutely zero reason to save your money to buy it. It's a nice philosophical abstraction to argue -- there are plenty of laws on the books which I believe are too stupid to be obeyed -- but it's extremely self-serving to say "nobody is getting hurt" when you're taking something without paying for it just because it exists as 1s and 0s instead of physical matter.

Your Disney example cracks me up because I had the image of Walt leaping out of his freezer to stop that one himself. It's a cute idea, but completely invalidated by the real world. Disney and their team of lawyers would stop that before you could say "Night on Bald Mountain," and rightly so.

Edit to add: I'd have a lot more respect for you if you just said "Piracy is theft, and I'm stealing but I don't care because it's just way too easy to get away with it" instead of trying to spin it as morally acceptable like you're some kind of digitized Gandhi.

 

[Sculli]

Situation3: You buy $500 worth of stock every month game developers and pirate all the games you want. This gives you the same 500 units of happiness from the pirated games and 500 units of happiness from the stock. This gives the developers 500 units of happiness because you bought their stock. End reuslt, 1,500 happiness net and the developers getmore happiness. According to utilitarinism situation 3 is better and more moral than situation 1 or 2.

Except, as already pointed out, you are confusing publishers with developers. There are very few, if any publically traded development studios.

Your rationale also doesn't hold up in cases where neither the publisher nor the developer are publically traded. What's your utilitarian argument for privately held publishers and developers?

Millions of people in Africa will never be able to experience the joy and fun that is Disney Land. Disney Land will never see any money from these people. Now imagine you could make a copy of Disney Land absolutly free with no resource costs and put it in Africa for all the millions of African children to enjoy for free.

Logical fallacy: Appeal to Pity.
If you do want to go that route though, then consider the difference between Disney putting up a free Africa Disney, and Mubumba Kalamumba putting up a rip-off of the Disney World for free.

Better question, why do corporations like to spending hundred of thousands of dollars for microsoft products instead of using free open source versions?

Open source is great, it works for products for which there is a huge global demand (OS, web server, database, etc). It will never work for high quality games (which is why there are to date no high quality open source games out there). Games do not have the life-span of a web server application. People play them, and then they are played out. Open source only works well if the product allows for years of continuing development.

Perhaps you should propose that all shareholders get the games for free.

I do think that would be a great idea to interest younger investors, but sadly the older CEOs aren't to interested.

The primary responsibility of a publically held company is to make profit. In fact, you as a shareholder can sue the company if they disregard that responsibility. The SEC is watching over companies to make sure that they do what's in the best interest of the shareholder. We have already established that you are confusing publishers with developers, but let's just for a moment assume they are the same, then what? Everyone who buys a share gets to use the current and any future products for free? Where is profit being made?

As I said in an earlier post, do not associate digital piracy with our millenia old concepts of theft with its stigmas that immidiately stick in our minds. Theft of tangible objects works very different from copying digital media, namely the person pirated from does not lose anything, they have everything they started with.

Just because you do not associate digital piracy with theft doesn't mean it's not theft. It only means it's not theft to you.

To me, regardless of any laws, if someone made something, that party is entitled to decide how to distribute their work. If they make the choice to sell it, and I use it without to pay, then it's theft.

I am not exactly sure how anyone could possibly look at it in any other way. Again, this is not about blaming people, I am sure there isn't a single QCDN user who hasn't either used pirated software, pirated movies, pirated music, pirated print media (ebooks), etc. etc.. It's about whether such an act is morally wrong.

Yes, morals are first and foremost set by society, then by individuals. People's sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, varies. I am not talking law here. What's the problem with saying: "I am a pirate, I steal people's stuff, I know it's wrong, but I do it anyway!"?

Above all, this really is a philosophical question. Laws only reflect what the majority of the population thought about the subject at the time the law was made. Actually laws only reflect that the majority of the population doesn't care about how laws are made, but that's neither here nor there.

I often wonder whether those who apply the utilitarian approach would do so if it was their work that is being freely distributed even though they are asking for compensation.

In the end it comes down to respect for the property ownership, whether it is tangible or not. Those who own any kind of property, tangible or not, and decide to sell it, are entitled to ask for compensation. Using their product without to compensate them can never be morally right. Net happyness this, net happyness that, it's all just a smoke screen to divert attention from the fact that pirating is an elemental breach of ethics by going against the expressed wishes of those who own the property.

I am sure you will agree that those who make (or in some cases those who distribute) a game own the rights to that game.
I am sure you will agree that those who own the rights can decide how to distribute a game, and how much compensation to ask for.

The above are like 2 and 2, when you add them you can not possibly come up with anything other than 4.

If I were a developer, then net happyness can screw itself, if you don't pay for my product, then I don't want you to be happy!

Edit: Fiksed teh splleing

 

[Sculli]

Moved this to Off-Topic, I think we have a good discussion going and more exposure will be a benefit to this thread.

 

[Jagster]

I'll be buying this game, I love my DS. It'll be hard for anyone to top advance wars DS though, that game just kicked ass.

 

[Bajaratt]

I'm on Rones' side, but for somewhat different reasons. I understand his utilitarian analysis and through that, he IS right, it does create the greatest good for the greatest number. Does that mean that it's not illegal or that it's not stealing? No, but he's already acknowledged that; you guys just continue to hammer on that while ignoring the analysis. Yes, it is an attempt to assuage any feelings of guilt around stealing, but the moral logic is still sound. The basis of his arguments makes the existence of the laws irrelevant, because while morality and justice share a correlation, they are not the same thing.

Halif, digital media is vastly different than tangible media. They had to make entirely new laws to encompass the internet, so obviously the law makers even consider it to be something entirely different than a CD/DVD in a store. Sony installed a ton of digital rights management(DRM) software on their CD's to try to prevent piracy, and then they got slapped with a class-action suit and other legal action against them for that action.

On to my personal opinions about piracy, I really don't care about it. Everything that I download, which isn't very much, is something that I'm mildly interested in, but is not something that I'm compelled to get. If I didn't download it, then I would just live my life without having ever experienced it and I wouldn't care.

I'm not depriving the companies of any revenue, because I wouldn't buy their product anyway, so me getting it for free doesn't hurt them. I still buy games when it's something that I want, but I download other games that I don't buy, but I'm mildly interested in.I will say this, I have actually purchased some games after downloading them. Some where the same game, others were the sequels after I found out the games were good.

This is actually the same position that Rones' has been explaining, but he's justifiying his position morally, whereas I just don't care.

 

[Halifirien]

I don't care, either. I've downloaded my share of movies, music and games. I've just never tried to justify it as some morally neutral action; I'm content to leave it at greed and indifference because, no matter how you try to dress it up, it's still stealing.

 

[Bajaratt]

Yes, but it's stealing in the way that borrowing a friend's music CD, DVD or game is; this is just on a larger scale.

 

[Sculli]

Yes, but it's stealing in the way that borrowing a friend's music CD, DVD or game is;

I assume you mean "borrowing with the intend to make a duplicate", otherwise it wouldn't be stealing.

 

[Bajaratt]

Yeah, that's what I meant.

 

[Chasym]

i think rones is right on one part about most games you download being games you wouldnt buy anyway.
Because when i learn about a game im really hyped for, downloading never crosses my mind. Im always there release date with money at hand..

Now if a game comes out that doesnt really interest me, i dont wanna go out and waste my money on a game ill end up not liking or playing once or twice, compared to downloading it and not having to worry about me losing money on it. Because in all out reality, once i learned xbox 360 was coming out, i modded my original xbox and downloaded like 20 games and played them.
I havent completed any of them, and dont even know where the discs are most the time, cause i really dont play em becuase i lose interest, and im glad i never bought them cause it would have been a waste.
i still play the games i bought 90% more than any game i would download.

 

[Rones]

Logical fallacy: Appeal to Pity.
If you do want to go that route though, then consider the difference between Disney putting up a free Africa Disney, and Mubumba Kalamumba putting up a rip-off of the Disney World for free.

That wasn't my intent when I first wrote the example, but I realized that is how it came out after. What I was really trying to get out of the example is this: What if you could cause a global increase in happiness at 0 cost of resources, not cause anyone to lose money (since in this example disney wouldn't get money out of them anyway), and not cause any unhappiness or loss of happiness. Wouldn't that be a good result? Under a utilitarian view that is the most moral action you could take.

Games do not have the life-span of a web server application. People play them, and then they are played out. Open source only works well if the product allows for years of continuing development.

I think open source can work for games. Just look at some of the amazing half life 2 mods that have come out (golden eye source is great) and even Ragnarok sprung from a free game. The only thing gamers really need is the graphics engine. This is where the other side of my view comes into player. Hardware developers could come together with software developers :emote_grouphug: and just provide graphics engines for the community to use to develop new games. New engines spurs the creation of new games, new games spur the purchase of new hardware. At the very least, I think the possibilities are very interesting.

In the end it comes down to respect for the property ownership, whether it is tangible or not. Those who own any kind of property, tangible or not, and decide to sell it, are entitled to ask for compensation. Using their product without to compensate them can never be morally right

Why can it never be right? I have already shown that under a utilitarian view there are situations where it is morally right. What philosophy are you using to determine that it is always wrong? You can't just point at something and say right and wrong without a reason and process for reaching that decision. In the case of utilitarian the process is comparing happiness results, what is your process?

Yes, theft of physical objects is clearly wrong because you are taking something away from the owner and they will no longer have it. But we are talking about the only loss to the owner being one less person he could have possibly sold to. If it wasn't even a potential buyer, there is no loss. If there is no loss, how can you have theft?

An interesting direction game developers could take is to make the single player experience free and the online experience cost. That is the way it currently works when you pirate most fps. You can play through the single experience, but if you want patches, updates, new content, and online play you need a legit copy. If valve's new episodic content plan is a success we could see just that happen.

Edit: Oh and Sculli you can invest in some developers directly. I have $1,500 invest in Square Enix throgh the Japanese stock market.

 

[Halifirien]

I've gotta admit, watching Rones try to use this argument in a courtroom would be pretty fucking spectacular right up until the moment the judge clonks him with the gavel.

 

[Sculli]

Why can it never be right? I have already shown that under a utilitarian view there are situations where it is morally right. What philosophy are you using to determine that it is always wrong? You can't just point at something and say right and wrong without a reason and process for reaching that decision. In the case of utilitarian the process is comparing happiness results, what is your process?

Common sense. :biggrin:
I think your argument is based on a flawed assumption.
You assume that people pirating games causes no happyness change on the developer side. If I were a developer, you better believe that my happyness would change if the guy next door was playing the game, that I have invested a few years of my life into, without to compensate me for it.