Current Events > Piracy advocates have the most absurd justifications for stealing.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Pirates were not going to pay to begin with so its not even a lost sale.

Its literally someone mad that they had to legally pay for it.

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COVxy posted...

Everything that can be done to benefit others that doesn't incur cost to anyone else should be done.

by gaining access to things you haven't paid for you're incurring a cost to the entities that own those things. while it's not a direct cost by consuming their resources directly, you're preventing them from benefiting off something they created. instead of paying them for their work, you are taking it for free and that indirectly incurs a cost to them.

using that rationale, people who create digital content would never ever be compensated for their work. do you really think it's cool for dozens or even hundreds of people to spend part of their lives working on a product only to not receive compensation for said work? if everyone followed your belief, nobody would pay for digital games and those content creators would not get paid.

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Billyionaire posted...

"The company isn't selling this game anymore and I can't afford it on the second hand market, hence it is not morally wrong for me to steal it".

Well, this is the main reason that piracy would be acceptable.

If the people who made it arent getting money from it, who fuckin cares how people get it?

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Ooh. What if I steal from a company like Disney that has used its power and influence to change things in its favor? Any action against a tyrant is justified?

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If I steal a physical copy of GTA 5 from Walmart, there is one less item in the inventory.
If there were 10 copies, I steal one, there are 9 left. When I download an iso off the internet there is no "inventory" loss. I am downloading a digital copy made of 0's and 1's. There is no entity that goes missing. There is no physical, tangible thing I have "stolen" . I downloaded an image composed of 0's and 1's. It's literally not stealing by sheer definition of stealing.

Wait till they find out you can screenshot NFTs

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Nasty_Nitro posted...

the multimillion dollar company doesnt get their cut obviously thats worse than worshipping satan and as bad as murder

lol

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How are you stealing from the game company if they aren't selling copies anymore?

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TsunamiFox posted...

How are you stealing from the game company if they aren't selling copies anymore?

Why are you acting like the vast majority of downloads aren't readily available games?
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For games that are still for sale, justifying it is kinda silly, but any game that is not legally for sale by the rights holder is morally fair game.

who the fuck cares

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

by gaining access to things you haven't paid for you're incurring a cost to the entities that own those things.

Not a cost, a prospective cost if it was the case that someone were to buy the product if they couldn't pirate it.

Putting this more concretely: this assumes that the pirate values the product equal or more than the market value of it, and has the funds to purchace it.

Seems like this probably isn't the case for the majority of piracy, given that added costs of piracy (quality of product, difficulty getting to work, etc).

I mean, you almost necessarily have to assume that the pirate values the product less than what that money would otherwise purchase.

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I dunno TC, could be more based but its generally right.

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tony1221 posted...

If I steal a physical copy of GTA 5 from Walmart, there is one less item in the inventory.
If there were 10 copies, I steal one, there are 9 left. When I download an iso off the internet there is no "inventory" loss. I am downloading a digital copy made of 0's and 1's. There is no entity that goes missing. There is no physical, tangible thing I have "stolen" . I downloaded an image composed of 0's and 1's. It's literally not stealing by sheer definition of stealing.

when you pirate that copy of GTA 5, the hundreds of people who put time and effort into making that game are not being compensated. you are stealing from them by enjoying the product of their work without compensating those who worked to produce it.

COVxy posted...

Not a cost, a prospective cost if it was the case that someone were to buy the product if they couldn't pirate it.

Putting this more concretely: this assumes that the pirate values the product equal or more than the market value of it, and has the funds to purchace it.

Seems like this probably isn't the case for the majority of piracy, given that added costs of piracy (quality of product, difficulty getting to work, etc).

I mean, you almost necessarily have to assume that the pirate values the product less than what that money would otherwise purchase.

this is why this argument annoys me. it's mostly just nitpicking semantics. i dont know the right word to use here, but how do you address the fact that thousands of hours of hard work were needed to produce something and the people who created it are not compensated when people pirate?

nothing in life is free and pirates seem to fail to understand that. if everyone pirated everything we wouldn't have nearly as many content creators, only those who do it for fun.

pirates fail to understand that the only reason we have video games, music, movies and TV shows we all enjoy is because content creators produce that with an expectation to make a profit. if all you pirates ruled the world and got your way, who would create the content you love so much?

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M_Live posted...

Idk I don't do roms & emulators but this logic actually makes perfect sense to me. Like what are you stealing if it's impossible to purchase something lol

It's not impossible to purchase it

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People who created it already got paid.

What, you think game devs start getting their money per copies shipped?

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metallica846 posted...

Its a victimless crime.

see my points in #65. the people who invested hundreds of hours of their lives into making a product you consume deserve compensation for that. this idea that you're somehow entitled to enjoy that without paying for it is 100% pure entitlement. people deserve to be compensated for their work, period.

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Billyionaire posted...

It's not impossible to purchase it

Sometimes manga isn't localized outside Japan so the only way to read it is fan translations (scanlations) online. It's "piracy", but without it there are tons of series that wouldn't have become popular. There's tons of games, movies and shows that have the same problem

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LightningAce11 posted...

People who created it already got paid.

What, you think game devs start getting their money per copies shipped?

where do you think the money that pays their salaries comes from? also, performance based bonuses are a thing.

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LightningAce11 posted...

People who created it already got paid.

What, you think game devs start getting their money per copies shipped?

The individual devs are paid salary but the company's income is based on copies shipped and if they don't have enough income then they have to fire developers or close entirely.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

see my points in #65. the people who invested hundreds of hours of their lives into making a product you consume deserve compensation for that. this idea that you're somehow entitled to enjoy that without paying for it is 100% pure entitlement. people deserve to be compensated for their work, period.

I don't pirate games (my Steam library and physical game collection is proof of that), but what is your stance on used games being sold then?

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Legato-and-Vash posted...

I don't pirate games (my Steam library and physical game collection is proof of that), but what is your stance on used games being sold then?

Used games are ethical because they finance the retail operations who also deserve to get paid for the time they work.

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Legato-and-Vash posted...

I don't pirate games (my Steam library and physical game collection is proof of that), but what is your stance on used games being sold then?

i have no moral qualms with re-selling physical copies or media, or buying them used because when the original buyer sells a copy, that person looses access to it. one copy was purchased and only one copy remains. with piracy, a duplicate is made and the original copy is intact to continue to be consumed or enjoyed.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

see my points in #65. the people who invested hundreds of hours of their lives into making a product you consume deserve compensation for that. this idea that you're somehow entitled to enjoy that without paying for it is 100% pure entitlement. people deserve to be compensated for their work, period.

I agree with this in regards to recent works & materials, but a lot of pro-emulation arguments - most of them even - are arguing in favor of preservation, or better access to unpreserved older titles.

Ergo, if somebody wants to play a game made in the 90s a company has forgotten about or just won't re-release and copies on markets are ridiculously upcharged, there are two things that should be noted -

A: The people involved made their money for their work already

B: Secondary markets are a middleman

This is relevant mostly for

1: Modification of games abandoned by their developer in order to rework them to be playable again i.e. construction of servers

2: Replaying old titles developers blatantly refuse to release. Nintendo and the GCN are very notable examples here.

Basically, some forms of piracy definitely fall under some kind of definition of "theft", but most pro-emulation arguments involving games aren't about this.

The issue is that it's hard to know or say when exactly emulation then becomes justified. It's easy to justify emulation of TTYD because Nintendo has done everything except say "We hate the GCN, we don't relate to your enjoyment of it, and we will never re-release 80% of our critically acclaimed material, ever." whereas earlier consoles like the N64 are things Nintendo is still seeking to profit off of.

I think your arguments are sound for a portion of the discussion though.

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There is no truly good argument in support of theft, but you can count on thieves to try to convince you otherwise.

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Billyionaire posted...

"The company isn't selling this game anymore and I can't afford it on the second hand market, hence it is not morally wrong for me to steal it"

If a company isn't selling it, they aren't losing money on it. If they aren't losing money, why should I care?

Because some asshole doesn't get paid $100+ hours for his game?

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Oh, right, and here's another caveat: It's not theft in any sense if you've already paid for the game. If somebody buys F-Zero GX directly and then chooses to emulate it a decade later, quite literally nothing has been stolen. I think that's a pretty important aspect of the debate nobody bothers to mention. It's pretty important imo too, but it does seem the discussion here is geared more towards modern piracy.

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Zero_Destroyer posted...

I agree with this in regards to recent works & materials, but a lot of pro-emulation arguments - most of them even - are arguing in favor of preservation, or better access to unpreserved older titles.

good call on that. this is something that i didn't address and one of the few instances where i feel like piracy is acceptable from a moral / ethical perspective for all those reasons you outlined. if a product is unavailable and there's no way to legally purchase access to it outside of secondary resale markets, i think that's different.


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Well for this particular app i wanted an older version of it because the newer version has a bunch of stuff i do not need. Sony told me they do not have older versions and that i needed the latest one, so i told them i pirated the version i was looking for and saved them the trouble, then i said i wanted to give them money for the old version because they deserved it, however they refused to accept the payment.

So what do i do in this case? Sony lied to me that an old version of a software does not exist, i found it and offered to pay for it, they refused...ok? In this case i deserve the product seeing as they were trying to sell me a product i did not want and lied about previous versions not existing

Doe posted...

I want as many people to think pirating is stealing as possible, that way I cause even more butthurt from fanboys whenever I rearrange the 0s and 1s on my computer according to instructions I got from the internet.

I think regardless of how you feel about piracy the "digital information is just 0s and 1s" reduction is stupid.


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Tyranthraxus posted...

Used games are ethical because they finance the retail operations who also deserve to get paid for the time they work.

Not if the seller is a person and not a business entity.

Giant_Aspirin posted...

i have no moral qualms with re-selling physical copies or media, or buying them used because when the original buyer sells a copy, that person looses access to it. one copy was purchased and only one copy remains. with piracy, a duplicate is made and the original copy is intact to continue to be consumed or enjoyed.

You structured your complaint to be that someone is enjoying the content for free that others slaved over creating. How about this scenario. A big group of friends all purchase a single game each and they frequently share the other games between each other. And just for good measure, lets say one of the friends actually doesn't buy a game but still participates in the sharing of the games. This is still moral by your standards right? What if this is instead a group of 10 people. What if only 1 person buys a game and then shares it with the group of friend who all play it whenever they get the chance. Basically at one point is the line crosses? In that last scenario, you have 9 people who will play the game without having contributed to the developers/publishers. They are violating your belief that a person shouldn't be playing a game that they haven't paid for since the developers spent so many hours working on it.

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Legato-and-Vash posted...

Not if the seller is a person and not a business entity.

The private seller will likely just use the money to buy more games.

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Legato-and-Vash posted...

You structured your complaint to be that someone is enjoying the content for free that others slaved over creating

yeah, you're right. i should probably rephrase my argument around the idea of "paying once per access point" or something like that. i should also rethink how i phrase things so that i don't place importance on who paid for the access. it's not about that, but the # of access points / copies. see below.

Legato-and-Vash posted...

How about this scenario. A big group of friends all purchase a single game each and they frequently share the other games between each other. And just for good measure, lets say one of the friends actually doesn't buy a game but still participates in the sharing of the games. This is still moral by your standards right?

yeah, because there was only one 'point of access' purchased and only one 'point of access' exists. it's similar to a public library buying one copy of a work and lending it out to patrons. as long as that singular point of access is preserved, i see no problem with it.

Legato-and-Vash posted...

What if this is instead a group of 10 people. What if only 1 person buys a game and then shares it with the group of friend who all play it whenever they get the chance. Basically at one point is the line crosses? In that last scenario, you have 9 people who will play the game without having contributed to the developers/publishers. They are violating your belief that a person shouldn't be playing a game that they haven't paid for since the developers spent so many hours working on it.

see above. i feel like that's the same idea as a public library buying one copy and lending it out to 10 people.

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metallica846 posted...

What if I was never going to pay for the content in the first place? Then Ive consumed the media and they didnt lose any money because I was never going to give it to them in the first place.

Checkmate.

This is always a bad argument. If you don't acquire the item legally, then you don't have the right to use it.

"I wasn't going to buy it, anyway" is not a meaningful argument. The copyright holders have the right to control how their product is distributed.

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ClunkerSlim posted...

This sums it up nice.

Doesn't really account for patents, copyrights, etc. does it?

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

see my points in #65. the people who invested hundreds of hours of their lives into making a product you consume deserve compensation for that. this idea that you're somehow entitled to enjoy that without paying for it is 100% pure entitlement. people deserve to be compensated for their work, period.

lmao stfu

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Gwynevere posted...

The bell curve meme is so pathetic. That subwits have the nerve to not only pretend to be better than the average, but that they have anything in common with intelligent people.

"Oh but you don't know which end I'm on! That's the poi--"
Yes I do.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

this is why this argument annoys me. it's mostly just nitpicking semantics. i dont know the right word to use here, but how do you address the fact that thousands of hours of hard work were needed to produce something and the people who created it are not compensated when people pirate?

nothing in life is free and pirates seem to fail to understand that. if everyone pirated everything we wouldn't have nearly as many content creators, only those who do it for fun.

pirates fail to understand that the only reason we have video games, music, movies and TV shows we all enjoy is because content creators produce that with an expectation to make a profit. if pirates ruled the world and got their way of being entitled to content for no cost, who would create the content you love so much?

See, because of the way you are arguing this, it's clear you don't care about cost, or harm. You care about fairness. Other people have to pay, so pirates should as well. It's the reason you support resellers, even if their goal is often to undercut the actual people selling things (looking at you GameStop).

But this is a deeply anti-social argument. Same reasoning why each time student loan forgiveness comes up, people get angry and say things like "but I paid my student loans, so should they!".

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metallica846 posted...

How long have we all been pirating literally anything and everything

Uh...bruh why are you confessing to actual crimes on gamefaqs.gamespot.com right now?

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metallica846 posted...

If you download stuff then the companies wont make stuff anymore!!!

How long have we all been pirating literally anything and everything and the world just keeps on creating more content for us to pirate?? Double checkmate.

That's only because there are real people who buy the things.

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metallica846 posted...

That was the royal we. Humanity we.

That's not what you said. You said "we all" as if you're part of it.

I haven't been pirating shit. Don't count me in that group.

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Gobstoppers12 posted...

That's not what you said. You said "we all" as if you're part of it.

I haven't been pirating shit. Don't count me in that group.

They just can't stop clinging onto the backs of high-quality people.
I think they're addicted to it tbh

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