steam, counterstrike, what happened??

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Originally posted by asmox
i don't have 50$ to throw away weekly on random games. it's a rather big deal for some people.

i acquire games that look interesting in any way i can.. if i end up enjoying the game, i'll probably buy it when i have the extra money. i do the same thing with music - i download albums from wherever, then go ahead and buy them if the album turns out to be good whenever i have some extra money sitting around.

some of us are neither in the well-established realm, nor in the haveajobbutlivingwithparentssodonthavetopayforanythingexcept whateverthehellyouwanttobuy realm.. but somewhere inbetween. and that inbetween is generally financially lacking.

edit: and yeah, then you have the younger kids with no kind of money at all whose parents aren't fond of buying games every other day. people can acquire games however they want, i don't see what the big deal is.

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1) The big deal is its stealing.

2) I don't have 200k for a car, so guess what I don't have a lamborghini.

You are stealing, and you aren't entitled to anything.

Attitudes like yours make me sick.

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Originally posted by spamjedi
No offense, but I doubt it. If you had extra money lying around you wouldnt have said the previous quote. And when we do get extra money, I seriously doubt we go buy the games/music we already have for free.

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why wouldn't i have said the previous quote? i said WHEN i have the extra money lying around.. i'm not completely broke all the time. a few weeks back i spent ~390$ on many, many, cd's - that i had previously downloaded and demo'd for myself - from the cheapest online stores i could find.. when i get another opportunity, i will order more, and more, and more until all the burned cd's in my collection are replaced by originals. i also collect pc game boxes, and up until a few days ago i had roughly ~150 game boxes literally taking up ALL the closet space in my tiny apartment (they're all packed away currently cause i'm in the process of moving).. and ~50 more games sitting around in their jewel cases or on floppies cause i had either bought them from used bins, or lost the boxes. i buy just about everything when i can, and download games/music for the sole purpose of deciding whether it's actually worth buying. i don't have the money to randomly throw away on something so trivial.

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Originally posted by OpStar
2) I don't have 200k for a car, so guess what I don't have a lamborghini.

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i should have expected a completely off the wall analogy from the moral police. i bet you can almost touch the sky.

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Originally posted by OpStar
You are stealing, and you aren't entitled to anything.

Attitudes like yours make me sick.

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i'm trying before buying, but no wait.. OpStar says i'm stealing, so i must be stealing. arghhhhh, FOILED AGAIN.

attitudes like YOURS make me want to run naked in a field amidst frolicking herds of vorpal bunnies.. cause god knows, listening to people like you talk about piracy is the oral equivalent of having all the flesh violently ripped from my bones.

i neither endorse nor scold media piracy, and i personally can't stand listening to extremists on either side of the spectrum.. but if given the choice, i'd definately take the pro-piracy guys over the anti-piracy guys, and not because i like getting stuff for free or because i'm part of an evil conglomerate that plans on overthrowing the media market by forcing all major developers and distributors into bankruptcy or whatever other reason you're gonna try to come up with to make me look bad because i download software to determine whether it's actually worth buying or worthy of the trash bin... but because the pro-piracy guys seem to be inherently more adept at retaining proper brain matter functionality when the phrase "media piracy" emerges in a discussion. the anti-piracy guys just start throwing around all kinds of accusations that may range from "THIEF!", to "THIEF!!", to "THIEF!!!", to completely irrelevant situational comparisons such as "I DONT HAVE 500000000DOLLARS FOR A NEW HOUSE BUT I'M NOT JUST GONAN GO UP TO A RANDOM HOUSE AND MURDER THE RESIDENTS IN THEIR SLEEP AND THEN MOVE IN LOLLLLLLLL! WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.."

man, i wish i had an unwavering sense of morals like you guys. maybe someday i'll be able to better myself, mAYBE!~~~~~~

till then, feel free to mind your own business.

You simply can not escape the fundamental issue here. You are getting something without paying for it against the wishes of the owners. Despite what you might consider irrelevant comparisons, the issue does not change.

If a demo of a game is not published it is not your right to go pirate the game in order for you to try it out. Buyer be ware. I hate spending $50 on a game I end up not liking just as much as the next guy. Our job as consumers is to research the product the best we can before purchasing, and if even after that the game is a dissapointment, thats simply how it goes.

This is a small issue in the grand scheme of things, I admit that, but you can not say that you not having the money to buy a game, or not wanting to waste your money justifies it.

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Originally posted by spamjedi
You simply can not escape the fundamental issue here. You are getting something without paying for it against the wishes of the owners. Despite what you might consider irrelevant comparisons, the issue does not change.

If a demo of a game is not published it is not your right to go pirate the game in order for you to try it out. Buyer be ware. I hate spending $50 on a game I end up not liking just as much as the next guy. Our job as consumers is to research the product the best we can before purchasing, and if even after that the game is a dissapointment, thats simply how it goes.

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you are, without any doubt, politically correct.. though as you are probably aware, that means little in the real world.

if my 'job' as a consumer (i hadn't even realized that being a consumer was any kind of job to begin with) is to research a product as best as i can before purchasing.. then i'm going to use every resource i have to research that product before purchasing. torrents, usenet, ubernet, p2p, and whatever else are just more resources to add on to the existing list of commercial methods.

technically speaking, is it your right to mod xboxes and break EULA's? nope. is it your right to mod video cards and take away potential revenue from manufacturers? i mean, you are getting something without paying for it, after all. when you agree to NDA's for closed betas, is it your right to go yelling at all your friends about how cool/terrible the game is? absolutely not, but barely anybody sees it as a big enough deal to actually keep quiet.. though it can lead to potential loss of subscriptions.

how about demo'ing music or games from your friends? you borrow a game or you borrow a cd, and you either say 'hey, this is cool', return the item to your friend and go out and buy it - or you say, 'hey, this is garbage', return the item to your friend and forget about it alltogether. what's the difference? the difference, of course, is that you're not in possession of a pirated copy for any period of time. HOWEVER, how does that differ from downloading an album/game, trying it out, and then trashing it when you realize that you hate it? it doesn't at all. you aren't keeping the product for any period of time, you tried it, you didn't like it, you trashed it. whether you downloaded it or borrowed a copy from somebody, they don't get your money either way. HOWEVER, if you keep the item after realizing that you like it with no intention of ever actually buying an original copy, then there's room for questioning. though again, however, i believe i've made it quite clear that i do go out any buy albums/games that i like when i have the spare cash (which really isn't as few and far between as you might think).. so that's a nonissue.

you're probably itching to say, "HEy~, you just made irrelevant comparisons after accusing people of making irrelevent comparisons..", but these are relevant, if you're talking about what is and isn't within your rights to do.

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Originally posted by spamjedi
This is a small issue in the grand scheme of things, I admit that, but you can not say that you not having the money to buy a game, or not wanting to waste your money justifies it.

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i have no problem spending money on things that are worth buying, and yet again i DO buy all media that i keep after downloading. they just have to wait an underdetermined amount of time before actually getting my money (usually no more than a month) :O ..and as for media that i throw away after downloading, like i said earlier.. there are any number of 'legal' ways to demo products like that in whole before buying, and the result will be the same - no money for them.

sorry for repeating myself several times there, but some points just aren't getting across.

This is a slight change in the pace of things, but..

There are two issues piriting things, the moral issue, and the legal issue.

Since they are already doing it, and usualy agree that it is indeed illegal we can saftly say calling them a thief or telling them its illegal isnt going to stop them.

So for the most part this is a moral question, is the person taking something from the company that he would have bought thereby depriving the company of income. With the case of the poster above, probably not. For the people that are near totaly out of money, that also isnt an issue (they arent depriving the company of money because they _dont_ have any). Its a hard question to answer, are these users all pretty much taking money that that the company would have gotten anyway? ehh


From the moral standpoint you can make the argument that using your friends copy is the same thing as piriting that title. Hey, the company isnt getting any money from you playing that title. So shouldnt anti-piricy be against this as well...?

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Originally posted by Mancora
From the moral standpoint you can make the argument that using your friends copy is the same thing as piriting that title. Hey, the company isnt getting any money from you playing that title. So shouldnt anti-piricy be against this as well...?

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No, this isn't pirating. If you borrow your friends copy, you can play it, while your friend cannot because you have his disk. In other words, only one copy was purchased, and only one of you can run the game at any given time. This also assumes that the disk must be had for the game to run.

If you install a game you borrowed, and that game does not require the disk to run, and you do not uninstall the game when you return the disk to your friend, then this is pirating.

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Originally posted by asmox
the anti-piracy guys just start throwing around all kinds of accusations that may range from "THIEF!", to "THIEF!!", to "THIEF!!!", to completely irrelevant situational comparisons such as "I DONT HAVE 500000000DOLLARS FOR A NEW HOUSE BUT I'M NOT JUST GONAN GO UP TO A RANDOM HOUSE AND MURDER THE RESIDENTS IN THEIR SLEEP AND THEN MOVE IN LOLLLLLLLL! WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE.."

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Its the same.

Spin it all you want.

If you are thirsty and have no money you do not walk to the store and take a soda, wait a month and buy it later.

You can get arrested for something as trivial as a dollar soda.

You are stealing, all the rest of your rant in reply is a spin to attempt to convince yourself that you aren't.

Stealing is stealing, period.

If you can't afford a game, then sucks for you, but you shouldn't play it.

Overclocking hardware has nothing to do with stealing, as you paid for the product and are entitled to use it however you want.

Your analogy is akin to buying a game cd, and then erasing it and storing pictures on it.

Once you've paid for it (<---key) and own it, its yours to do with as you please. As long as doing so doesn't break any agreement you agreed to with the company who produced the product.

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Originally posted by asmox
i'm trying before buying, but no wait.. OpStar says i'm stealing, so i must be stealing. arghhhhh, FOILED AGAIN.

because i like getting stuff for free

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Hmm, I thought you said you ended up buying the stuff? How are you "getting it for free" then.

Sorry if I struggle to believe a thief's promises.

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Originally posted by asmox
you are, without any doubt, politically correct.. though as you are probably aware, that means little in the real world.

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Not sure what you mean by that. If you're saying something to the effect that what Im saying is correct but not practiced, then I would agree.

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Originally posted by asmox
if my 'job' as a consumer (i hadn't even realized that being a consumer was any kind of job to begin with) is to research a product as best as i can before purchasing.. then i'm going to use every resource i have to research that product before purchasing. torrents, usenet, ubernet, p2p, and whatever else are just more resources to add on to the existing list of commercial methods.

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'Responsibility' is probably a better word than 'job', but you obviously understood what I meant. There isnt any doubt about what you will do to research your purchase ie. p2p. I'm making the point that it is ilegal to do so. Again the core issue remains. It is illegal to obtain a product for sale without payment and without the owner's permission, regardless of the reasons behind it.

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Originally posted by asmox
technically speaking, is it your right to mod xboxes and break EULA's? nope. is it your right to mod video cards and take away potential revenue from manufacturers? i mean, you are getting something without paying for it, after all. when you agree to NDA's for closed betas, is it your right to go yelling at all your friends about how cool/terrible the game is? absolutely not, but barely anybody sees it as a big enough deal to actually keep quiet.. though it can lead to potential loss of subscriptions.

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Im not saying people dont do these things, or that it isn't commonplace (Im honestly not sure about modding xboxs and such). I agree with you that it happens all the time, but thats really not the point.

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Originally posted by asmox
how about demo'ing music or games from your friends? you borrow a game or you borrow a cd, and you either say 'hey, this is cool', return the item to your friend and go out and buy it - or you say, 'hey, this is garbage', return the item to your friend and forget about it alltogether. what's the difference? the difference, of course, is that you're not in possession of a pirated copy for any period of time. HOWEVER, how does that differ from downloading an album/game, trying it out, and then trashing it when you realize that you hate it? it doesn't at all.

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Yes it does. There was an initial purchase made. While you have it your friend can't play. You give it back, and now you can't play. Pirating is illegal copies.

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Originally posted by asmox
you aren't keeping the product for any period of time, you tried it, you didn't like it, you trashed it. whether you downloaded it or borrowed a copy from somebody, they don't get your money either way.

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That is their product, not yours, not mine. They say "You must pay me for this product, Im not offering a demo or anything, screw you." Regardless of whether we like it or not we have no legal right to go pirate the software.

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Originally posted by asmox
sorry for repeating myself several times there, but some points just aren't getting across.

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If you're refering to me specifically, you're points are getting through just fine. I'm having a good time debating this with you (honestly). I'm positive I understand everything you're saying, I just think it is flawed logic IMHO. Hope we can keep debating in good will :)

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Originally posted by OpStar
Hmm, I thought you said you ended up buying the stuff? How are you "getting it for free" then.

Sorry if I struggle to believe a thief's promises.

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loool.. why don't you read that part of the post again -

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Originally posted by asmox
but if given the choice, i'd definately take the pro-piracy guys over the anti-piracy guys, and not because i like getting stuff for free or because i'm part of an evil conglomerate that plans on overthrowing the media market by forcing all major developers and distributors into bankruptcy or whatever other reason you're gonna try to come up with to make me look bad because i download software to determine whether it's actually worth buying or worthy of the trash bin...

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russ_watters: "I think you need to download that firmware update for your sarcasm detector..."

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as soon as you figure out where that came from, i suggest making use of it. nice try, though.

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Originally posted by Un4given
No, this isn't pirating. If you borrow your friends copy, you can play it, while your friend cannot because you have his disk. In other words, only one copy was purchased, and only one of you can run the game at any given time. This also assumes that the disk must be had for the game to run.

If you install a game you borrowed, and that game does not require the disk to run, and you do not uninstall the game when you return the disk to your friend, then this is pirating.

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Your right in the case you stated. Its a game that both of you want to play at the same time my case doesnt hold up. For anything else it is the equivalent of piricy, moral equivalent. Im not debating legalities since thats clear cut, no question at all of whats correct and incorrect.

All but one game that i own is sitting on the shelf not being used. I could loan out all but that one game and it wouldnt effect me. If i loan them out for them to play it my friends would be getting a free copy.. Free, they didnt pay one single cent for it.. Shouldnt they pay for all the games they get, i mean the company isnt getting any more money if they play it.

Good god, how many times do we have to have a thread turn into a lengthy ethical debate on piracy? This has been done so many times...

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Originally posted by spamjedi
Yes it does. There was an initial purchase made. While you have it your friend can't play. You give it back, and now you can't play. Pirating is illegal copies.

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yeah, assuming the game requires the cd to play, your friend won't be able to play while you have the cd.. but that isn't the point. the point is, you're trying a product before buying it. if you borrow the game, and you don't like it, you will not buy it - the developers/distributors do not get your money. if i download a game, and i don't like it, i will not buy it - the developers/distributors do not get my money. either way, they don't get my money, and they don't actually lose anything because i didn't steal a hard printed copy of the game. i tested out an existing copy that has already been sold (that's all you do when you download a game), and i proceeded to trash it or return it to whoever i borrowed it from. one method may be less commercially acceptable than the other, but i wouldn't say you're doing anything illegal. now, if i borrow OR download the game, and i do like it and decide to keep it, then i will go out and buy it.. money goes where it's supposed to, and everybody is happy.

in that way, i'd say there is absolutely no difference between demo'ing a game by downloading it, or demo'ing it by borrowing it from somebody.

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Originally posted by spamjedi
That is their product, not yours, not mine. They say "You must pay me for this product, Im not offering a demo or anything, screw you." Regardless of whether we like it or not we have no legal right to go pirate the software.

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imho, you're only crossing over into the illegal realm if you decide to keep the software without ever paying for it. by doing that, you take a potentially paying customer and leave him with the product for free - the company loses money. if you borrow the software and find that you don't like it (it's completely irrelevant here that the guy you borrowed it from is unable to use the software while you are in possession of it), then the company doesn't lose or gain anything at all, and you make out with $50 saved. if you download the software and find that you don't like it and TRASH it (<- key), then it's the exact same thing as borrowing it from somebody to try it out. it isn't "stealing". if you were to walk into EB and steal a hard copy of a game off the shelf, or walk into best buy and steal a bunch of cd's.. that's.. umm yeah.. stealing. you're taking physical objects that the developers/distributors spent money to manufacture, and you are not paying for them.. the companies end up losing money. downloading media doesn't fall under that particular umbrella, imho.. unless, of course, you decide to keep it with no intent to ever pay for it.. but i avoid that particular scenario.

that's also why i don't go along with the auto thievery scenarios, or the stealing soda from a store or what have you. when you download software or music with the intention of buying it afterwards, you aren't costing the company any money because you're not taking an actual hard copy of the software that the company spent money to create. and even if you do intend on keeping it without ever paying for it, you still aren't exactly stealing, but more indirectly costing the company money because you used to be a potential paying customer who now has a copy of the product for free, so they never get any money from you (you cost them some revenue in this way), but they also don't LOSE any money because you haven't taken a hard copy that they spent money to manufacture. FYI, i'm not condoning the latter practice.. was just presenting another scenario.

it may very well be flawed logic, who knows - though i'd say it depends on how broad your gray area between right and wrong is. i download media with every intention of buying it afterwards if i end up liking it. if i don't like it, i trash it and it's the same as if i were to demo an album at a store, or borrow a game from a friend, or audition a pair of headphones at guitar center - the companies neither make or lose any money from me, because i was never exactly a potential paying customer to begin with. it only takes on some semblance of stealing and becomes illegal when you download things and keep them without ever paying. arghh.. i'm repeating myself again.

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Originally posted by asmox
i wouldn't say you're doing anything illegal.

imho, you're only crossing over into the illegal realm if you decide to keep the software without ever paying for it. it isn't "stealing". if you were to walk into EB and steal a hard copy of a game off the shelf, or walk into best buy and steal a bunch of cd's.. that's.. umm yeah.. stealing. you're taking physical objects that the developers/distributors spent money to manufacture, and you are not paying for them.. the companies end up losing money. downloading media doesn't fall under that particular umbrella, imho.. unless, of course, you decide to keep it with no intent to ever pay for it.. but i avoid that particular scenario.

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It is illegal. It is stealing.

Your opinion doesn't matter because you live in a country that has laws and doesn't ask your opinion.

Spin it all you want.

You are a thief, period.

Whether or not you steal a hard copy of the game is irrelevant. If you play the game without paying for it unless there is an authorized demo, you are stealing.

It is against the law. Why do you think forums do not allow discussion about pirating? BECAUSE ITS AGAINST THE LAW.

Your opinion of the law doesn't matter. Laws are not for interpretation. Your "outweighing" it against other laws is ridiculous and unfounded.

The hardcopy aspect of the game is simply a means to get the product to the end consumer, we all know you are paying for the software, which is what you are stealing. So your entire "hardcopy" drivel is sad at best.

You are a thief, just accept it and quit trying to rationalize it.

I for one welcome our new pirating Alien overloads


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