steam, counterstrike, what happened??

I don't have one thing against people who pirate...what I have problem with is the problems they are causing because of it.

1. I can no longer simply backup my software.

2. I can no longer simply move it to another machine (i.e. windows).

3. I can no longer make "fair use" copies of my music and videos w/o worrying about the RIAA and MPAA coming down my throat.

So even if you ignore the fact of "stealing/theft", the people who "steal/pirate" are making my life a PITA when it comes to things I own. So before you think you are "putting it to the man" you are also "putting it to everyone who obeys the law".

Really though. I dare you to go to you parents and say "Mom and dad...sice you don't give me enough money to buy movies/games/music I have been downloading them illegally over the internet. It doesn't bother me that I may put this family into financial ruin or I am blatantly telling you that all the effort you have done trying to raise me into a good and honest citizen has failed. My need for instant gratification is more important."

-tReP

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Originally posted by OpStar
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looool. i've been agreeing with you about its inherent illegality in the last few posts, so i'm not sure why you keep trying to push your overpowering conviction that it's illegal on me.

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"The law even grants copyright holders the right to hand a "victim impact statement" to the judge at your trial, meaning you can expect an appearance from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) or the Business Software Alliance (BSA), depending on what kind of files were on your hard drive. You'll no longer have that hard drive, of course, because it'll have been seized by the FBI, and you'll be in jail."

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that one made me giggle though.

you can post all the articles and laws that exist on this wonderful place we call the interweb, but you will never find anything that tells me that by doing the equivalent of borrowing an album from a friend and listening through it before going out and buying it is stealing. nothing, ever (well you might if you look hard enough, but i really doubt it). the act of downloading the media is considered illegal, yeah, i figured we'd be past that by now since i've agreed to it; but the end result is exactly the same as if you were to go to your local sam goody and listen through one of the demo cd's that they have up before deciding whether or not to buy it.

i don't see what's so hard to understand.. that's not a legal, or moral, or ethical issue. that's purely a common sense issue. there is NO thievery going on.

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Originally posted by OpStar
Educate yourself

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yeah, sure, i'll do that.. just for you, i will. maybe it'll get rid of that irresistible urge within you to paste a giant "IT'S ILLEGAL" sticker across my monitor because your reading comprehension skills aren't up to par.

now, just so we don't go over the same points again, and especially so i don't have to go through another lifetime of schooling to educate myself AGAIN, read with me: downloading copyrighted media is illegal; it is stealing if you keep the downloaded media with no intention of ever buying an original copy; it isn't stealing if you use it as a glorified try-before-you-buy, even if the company never intended there to be a TBYB for their product.. the methodology isn't exactly legal, but the end result is EXACTLY the same. you don't get away with anything for free - you either like it and go out and buy it, or you don't like and you trash it. NO STEALING.

for the record, i love you all.

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Originally posted by Trepidati0n
I am blatantly telling you that all the effort you have done trying to raise me into a good and honest citizen has failed. My need for instant gratification is more important.

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looool. your need for broad generalization ruins the effect, avoid that in the future.

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Originally posted by spamjedi
There was a post not too long ago about distributors causing the most loss in revenue for game developers, not software pirates. The article was written by a game dev and was one of the best reads Ive had in a long time.

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yea i remember reading that, pretty informative article.

OpStar is my pirate Hero,,, ARRHHHHH!

I will say this simple analogy.

I am going to go into a bank and "borrow" money.
I plan on paying them back when I am good and ready.
I just want to test out what money feels like.

If you want to reply pick up the phone and call 1-888-IDONTCARE.

-homerj31

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Originally posted by homerj31
If you want to reply pick up the phone and call 1-888-IDONTCARE.

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congratulations, you have gained 5000 points of credibility.

Asmox:

The act of downloading copyrighted material to your pc is illegal. Once you do that even if you go buy the CD/Game ten seconds later, it doesn't make it not illegal.

Period.

As soon as you have the copyrighted material on your pc w/o paying for it, you stole it.

Your reasoning is like "well I stole this cd from Wal-Mart but then I bought it from Target, so I'm not a thief".

Right, here I go...

I see this discussion as very important, as it is a snapshot of the world we live in and whether we get hung up on the exact wording of laws (and their creation) or use a bit of common sense.

(please forgive my limited No. of links, as time is limited)

A little background:

The RIAA (or its equivalent of the day) tried to ban tape recorders as it thought they would bankrupt the music industry. They even tried to ban radio for the same reasons – why would people buy music if they could listen to it for free on the radio (and even record it!!! (shock, horror :o) )

In the end the opposite happened, instead of reducing music revenue, it INCREASED sales as it helped expose more people to it, who thought “I like this, I’ll buy it”

The present day:

The RIAA has now been jumping up and down complaining again how these “new” forms of music piracy (mp3 downloads) are bankrupting the industry and how music sales are suffering, yet:

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- For the first quarter of 2003 Soundscan registered 147,000,000 records sold.

- For the 1st quarter of 2004 Soundscan will report 160,000,000 records sold.

That's 13,000,000 more units, almost a 10% increase in sales since last year. He also confessed that 1st quarter "album sales" (as opposed to overall sales) had increased 9.4% since 2003.

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Taken from here

*Edit
There were decreases in sales around 2000 - 2001 for example, but though piracy may have had a factor it was a small one (in a round about way even admitted by the RIAA). Main factors in the sales decrease would be various economic ones and just maybe a decrease in new music releases of over 10,000 on previous years!!! (see this, first table)

Considering this, its remarkable that sales only dipped as little as they did - indicating an increase in the ratio of sales/releases. This also clearly shown in the table where in 2000, when total sales revenue started dropping, there were also 10,000 releases less. Yet dollers per release went up by $156,849.09

Basically it seems sales have been going UP since the advent of P2P file sharing!
*/Edit

So maybe my faith in humanity is partially restored by people like asmox who will obtain new music, listen to it, if liking it, will then buy it! The 9.4% increase in sales seem to back this up – I believe this is one of the biggest increases in music sales for some time, leading to the possible argument that music piracy has lead to a direct increase in music sales!!!

Sadly there are obviously people who will happily download their favorite music and NOT buy it (they too may later change their ways as they realize the impact of what they are doing), but as long enough people buy what they like of the music downloaded there should be a net increase (to a point) in music sales as people find more of what they like rather than just waiting to chance across something they like.

This is very good for newer, less well know artists, I know I would not (potentially) waste good money by buying music from unknown artists, but will TBYB in this pirated fashion and have thereby paid good money to artists I would never have otherwise known of. This has lead me to spend a LOT of money on music in the Psytrance genre.

The Point:

Yes downloading music via P2P is illegal, no one here is denying that.

The reason it is illegal is what we should really be looking at:

The RIAA (and other media groups) saw the potential of P2P to freely distribute music (and other media) to people who wouldn’t have to pay for it – add here a low opinion of people and forgetting what happened in the past (“A little background” above)- then you can see how inappropriate laws come about. Laws that perhaps should not exist. Imagine if after all radio had been banned and remained banned (sounds daft I know, but they tried this), I’ll wager the music industry would be a LOT smaller today and we would have a LOT less choice.

So basically laws have been created based on a knee jerk reaction from the request/pressuring of groups like the RIAA who have also tried to have perfectly legitimate businesses (P2P networks which hold no illegal files on central servers) closed down. (please accept this one, as it is currently legally so and does not need to be turned into another argument).

At the end of the day, if enough people like myself and asmox actually buy what they like, this “Piracy” may well save the media publishers millions of dollars in advertising! & become an accepted part of life, like radio and tape recorders did.

At the end of the day these groups are here to make money, when they see that P2P actually can increase sales, then it will be accepted like radio was.

People who have the “free” or pirated music & games do buy them

Between myself and a group of friends (about 8 of us) we all had a cracked d’loaded copy of Farcry, yet 5 of us after “trying“ this full copy of the game still liked it enough to go and buy it. We liked it, and wanted more quality games (music, programs etc, etc…) so we bought it to support the people creating products we like.

People aren’t on the whole (I have faith here) completely stupid. They can see that if they just stole electronic content and never bought it, people making the products would be prepared to invest much less time, effort and money or may not even bother to produce excellent products.

Please buy what you like and support the brilliant programmers and artists out there who enrich our lives so!

Ummm....

Hey, RMK... did you ever get your Half Life CD key successfully entered in Steam? Are you up and running Counterstrike yet?

It has been my overwhelming experience that people who pirate (including myself in the past) do not purchase anything they download for free. Aparently some people do, but I still think the vast majority of people dont.

Again this is illegal, and I am of the opinion that it should be illegal.

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Originally posted by OpStar
Asmox:

The act of downloading copyrighted material to your pc is illegal. Once you do that even if you go buy the CD/Game ten seconds later, it doesn't make it not illegal.

Period.

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ok, i give up.. you have won me over with your overwhelming ignorance.

Pailin - yeah, thanks.. you pretty much have it.

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Originally posted by Pailin
This is very good for newer, less well know artists, I know I would not (potentially) waste good money by buying music from unknown artists, but will TBYB in this pirated fashion and have thereby paid good money to artists I would never have otherwise known of. This has lead me to spend a LOT of money on music in the Psytrance genre.

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yeah, especially that. if it weren't for soulseek and a few good friends that are generous with their music, my collection would be extremely one-dimensional.

I really think this thread has outlived any usefulness.