Frogboy

Ownership of an idea or a product you have created off of your own brains and brawns is the central principal to the modern world; besides the law, of course. Freedom of information to all is a noble idea, and I would support it in an ideal world however since 100,000 people illegally downloaded this game before it was offically released I would say we don't live in an ideal world and these people don't deserve the benefit of the doubt; they obtained the game in a manner deliberatly designed to avoid payment of it and thus I call them thieves. The law states a person in entitled to reep the profits of an idea/product that they have marked and registered as their own; are you above the law?

Ah, of course, because by "avoiding payment" I meant people who receive the game through give-aways and promotional offers, and not downloading it from a peer-to-peer network or off of a LAN network or cracking a friends copy of the game by locating a cracked execute file on the internet and downloading it.

*Sigh*

Arguing to the definition of the words used in ones post rather than for or against the general idea, ideal or concept the post puts forth - which you will no doubt argue is in fact put forth by the exact words one uses - is a pointless debate. You chose to not understand and argue against contrary definitions derived by deliberatly ignoring the concepts, ideas and ideals of a post while seeking holes in the finer details to provide a fruitless argument or debate.

The fact remains you don't believe downloading the game over a peer to peer network is stealing the game. I disagree. To argue that it's not theft because it's not causing them to lose a sale is refering to the strictest terms of the law. This assume the person downloading the game did so because they did not want to buy the game. Well, I don't want to pay for my Cars' tires, can I take those without payment or permission? I didn't cost them a sale because I had no intention of buying the Tires. Oh, no, wait - that's stealing. Where do you draw the line? Right there - you say - between the real and the digital? Between whats considered a material product and whats not? As you yourself put it:

The laws are simply behind the times to define the terms in more accurate terminology, however only those profiting - and by profit I actually mean through the cost of no expense, since your not making money illegally downloading games your simply not spending money - chose to be ignorant to that fact that it is stealing. You believe internet based piracy is in fact a good thing, spreading the products to the masses which in term generates buisness for the people who rely on the sales of their computer applications for their livelyhood ... how? Word of mouth? When offered two identical products, one that costs and one that does not, it's safe to assume that the person is going to chose the product that is of the best value. It's difficult to beat anything 'free' in terms of value, especially if a group of talented people have spent years crafting it to ensure it provides "value".

If you were to select a career dedicated to the production of a particular product, and then spend many, many months creating a product from that career path for the sole purpose of selling copies of it to provide yourself with money to continue paying your bills, buy food, etc. and this product didn't sell because someone was able to hand the exact product you created - not a knock-off, not a cheap immitation but your product - to the masses through a method of reproduction without your consent, you'd be ok with that? You'd pat them on the back and say "Well done lad"? I think not.
You'll argue that Stardock has made money off of Demigod, and I can't prove that piracy cost them a Sale. True. I can't. I can use my brain though, and summise that at least 100,000 people downloaded the game - that's actual, confirmed figures - and tried to connect to Stardock's servers. Since Stardock offers unconditional refunds for it's games, why? Download the game and try it, and if you don't like it get a refund. The only difference in the situations is the transfer of funds. They downloaded the game from the peer-to-peer network because they didn't want to transfer funds from their accounts to Stardock for the purposes of owning their game. They stole it because they didn't want to give Stardock they're money, costing them sales.

Brad,

I don't know if you remember me from the old strategy newsgroups (Bob Perez) but you and I used to talk about piracy all the time. As I said then, and continue to say now, the more people playing your game, the more people buying your game. It's always worked for me and my productivity software sales, and I believe it's also true for games.

Congratulations on a great game. My family and friennds are all playing it non-stop.

BobP

God, of all the stupid arguments...

You can run around trying to redefine and properly define and misdefine all you want, but it boils down to two things:

Developers and publishers have a right to be paid for the product they put out, and by pirating it you are stealing that money from them.  You can run around complaining that it isn't actually theft because of xyz or say that it actually falls under the legal definition of SomeStupidThing, but you are, morally and ethically, stealling from the people who made it.

All the fancy arm waving and carefuly constructed arguments cannot defeat that simple point.

I always wonder at what price point would piracy be minimally reduced to almost say 10%? What if Demigod came out at $19.99 ? ~ $29.99 ?

With the upcoming 50% off coupon given to all the people who bought before May 10th? I forget the exact date , if you think about it , everyone on average bought the game for $39.99 ~ $49.99 .

Say they sold 50k copies in that time ( just a guess ) so now say the 50k customers each give away their 50% off coupon for a friend to get the game at half price.

Thats another 50k copies sold at $19.99 ~ $24.99

So you are looking at 100k copies sold at an average of say $25.xx , if the game would be released from the start at this price point , would the overall piracy numbers be so high? Also take into account a percentage of the piracy is due to the game being released at different dates in different territories.

I am and always will be a strong proponant to the fact that game are overpriced and at their introduction they are focused at the MUST OWN IT NOW (IMPULSIVE) buying crowd / fanboys. ( I am a part of this fanboy crowd , at least with Stardock and Relic Games) ... then 2-3 months later when the price drops is when the mainstream crowd that waits for reviews and such , then make their purchase.

Some say pirates are people who would never have been customers, some say they are customers that are under-served, I think pirates are customers that don't want to pay the introductory price and don't want to wait 2 months for the price to drop. In the end there will always be pirates, but I think their numbers would be reduced if inital prices were lower. Just something to think about.

That and they release no blood versions of games in Australia, retards.  People should be able to make up their own minds about the level of detail & violence in games without some fat cat who doesn't even play video games making them for us.

Some people become pirates because they are sick of being screwed over left right and center.

You tried to equate "stealing" with "avoiding payment". This is the logical end of your equation. Now you're trying to twist out of it by claiming that "Oh I really meant something specific, not _avoiding payment_ in general." which just shows that your whole argument is based on a equivocal edifice.

I can argue the general idea of piracy as well, but Frogboy and many others here don't make a general argument against piracy, but rather simply equate piracy to thievery. Thus the argument here is on wether those are the same. Don't try to switch arguments when it doesn't suit you.

If you want to talk about the merits and demerits of piracy ,we can do so.

If you want to talk about wether piracy is the same as theft, we can do so.

But make up you mind which one you want.

No it's arguing on the definition of theft most people use. The reason that law differentiates between theft (a criminal offense) and copyrights violation (a civil offense) is because it needs to avoid equivocation arguments as each has different harms associated with it.

In short, the law is strict because it needs to be so to avoid doing more harm than good. Something you obviously don't need the need to adhere to.

Again you have to rely on an analogy with scarce material goods. I've refuted such arguments in this thread what? 3 times now? No, it's not the same because in the later case, the original owner will LOSE THE ACTUAL TIRES. Is this "line" so difficult to see? Here let me make it more clear

Stealing: Original owner lost the commodity

Copyright Violation: Original owner did not lose the commodity

There you go again, making up your own definitions. "Profiting" now equals a violation of copyrights. What an amazing dictionary you must have.

I believe Piracy is a good thing because it promotes creativity, something which is the original meaning of copyright law. The fact that products that are more pirated generally do better sales is a good correlation as well.

The trick to "beating free" is not competing with it on price. The trick is to instead use the free distribution of digital goods to power different business models. Stardock already recognises this with their "Games as service" plan even if you cannot imagine it. Which is incidentally why Stardock is much more blase about Piracy than others. They're just held back by previous misconceptions too.

Nobody can sell my product to the masses. it has to be a cheap immitation or a knock off if we're talking about material goods. If we're talking about ideas, then obviously I would be a fool to select such a career. As big a fool actually as going on a career to build a Telegraph system in the age of Telephony.

There's lots of reasons on why people will download instead of buy and refund. It could be that they have no credit card. it could be that they have no money for the initial investment. It could be that they don't care for the hassle as downloading for trial is easier. Ask 100.000 people and you'll get 1.000 answers.

So you're only showing with your "brain use" that you're eager to jump to the desired assumptions in order to falsely call others "thieves".

@Vespucci

If one sentence making fun of your disconnected writing style is enough to stop you from arguing then I guess that's just you grasping at straws to declare victory. Well done. You win one internets. You can exchange it for a pirated copy of Demigod.

Amen to that. I was a little sceptic at first to this game because it didn't seem like my type of game. With your healthy attitude regarding DRM and piracy really made me want to support that, so I went ahead and bought it. It's still a nice game but I'm very happy that I got to encourage your stance.

Actually, I used the vague term 'avoiding payment' to refer to the many methods one can use to illegally obtain a copy of the game without paying for it. These methods are used to .. thats right .. avoid paying the company for their product. These include downloading the game from a Peer to Peer network, cracking a friends copy of the game, buying the game then burning it and then cracking it and then returning it to the store, downloading the game via Impulse and then backing up the files and then applying for a refund and then cracking your backed up files. I meant what I wrote - you can take from it what you'd like.

@yaume, your anecdote has 2 distinct aspects to it that one needs to address

1. Was the charge of stealing levelled at the workers correct?

2. Was the act itself of the workers wrong.

The first can easily be answered in the positive. The act was theft because they took items from the original owner (thus, he lost them) without paying. This is obvious theft as the reason why the owner wanted to keep them is irrelevant to the case. The item, according to law, belonged to the owner who could decide himself how he wanted to dispose of it.

The second part is a bit more tricky. I would say that the act itself was not wrong since as you rightly pointed out, caused small harm. Of course there are caveats to that. 1st, it caused harm to the original owner because it reduced his demand and thus his profit. It is for this reason basically that those doing it were prosecuted. Of course, I wouldn't ally with the owner in that he needs to make this profit. The second caveeat is that the state would consider wrong for some people to avoid security laws to get something cheaper. I wouldn't agree with this condemnation either.

So while it is true that from a utilitarian perspective, this act was not bad, from a business perspective it was, and it is business that makes the laws, which meant that the workers were punished.

As for me, I would take the glass and tell them to be very careful.

@ZehDon

No you used the term to denote thievery. Since you already forgot what you said let me quote you:

This was simply another of your attempts to somehow link piracy to thievery which you're trying to save now.

Many other methods are used to avoid paying a company for their product as well. That does not make "avoiding payment" equal stealing.

Perhaps you mean that "illegaly avoiding payment" is stealing. Which means that you are simply begging the question. If the law changes to make file-sharing legal, is it not stealing anymore? If the law makes second-market sales illegal (as some companies are trying to do), does this make reselling equal stealing?

You can repeat your assertions until you're blue in the face but it won't make it so. Stealing, to repeat myself once more, requires more than "not paying". It requires that the owner also loses the commodity. Not only that but even by your definition, a game I give as a gift is "stealing".

My argument does not limit itself to physical objects. I simply say that victim needs to lose whatever the thief gains through the act. So taking money out of one's bank account is obviously stealing.

You're begging the question again. The argument is wether copying digital goods is "stealing", which means you cannot use that  as proven "how does one stealing immaterial objects..." in your own argument.

Not only that, but even your use of "profit" equivocating between the informal use of the word and the business use.

Wrong. People were able to market it to them successfully, which is why there is a demand. You're also wrong on why I see Piracy as good (I've said it above so I won't repeat myself)

And your point is what? That your analogy doesn't hold in regards to books?

There you go once again, falling back to your original tactic of making an analogy (presupposing a link) between physical theft and piracy, the same thing you're trying to prove.

What, your argument now devolved into stubbornly repeating yourself? Will you plug your ears and go "La-la-la I can't hear you!"

If you want to use a particular definition of "avoid", then come right out and say it, because the way you explain it, you wield "avoiding payment" simply as an extra equivocation step between 'piracy' and 'stealing'.

You knew perfectly well what I meant so what was all that? An attempt to support your "brain use"? Lets not waste more time please.

That's cyclical reasoning. Copyright violation is not legal and because of that we have laws making it not legal? If you see the real reason why copyright violation is not legal, why copyrights exist in the first place, then you say what I've been saying all along.

Now you're starting to use correct arguments. Namely utilitarian. You see, the point is not wether second-hand selling would become illegal, but why it would become illegal. All your arguments above won't make a jolt of difference if companies succesfully pass laws barrnig second-hand selling, such laws are almost never passed on utilitarian arguments but rather based on lies and powerful lobbies. As such, one can conceive a time where Second-Market sales do become illegal (yes, even for everything). That eBay will lose their business model is irrelevant as others will profit immensely.

If such an event does happen, according to your definition of 'stealing', second-market sales would equal theft. In this situation, you either have to define theft from utilitarian perspectives, in which case neither illegal file-sharing, nor illegal second-hand sales would be stealing, or you have to define it from a purely legal perspective, in which case both would and it would make a 'theft' apply very widely.

You're again basing yourself on what is legal, this is what we've been arguing above already so I won't rehash it.

This. Is. What. We're. Currently. Arguing!

You have not yet proven that piracy is theft. Supplying information that I've already refuted is not a case.

In the way you are using it, avoid has different meaning, which is what makes it an equivocation.

What you're saying is: Stealing is "avoiding payment". A copyright violation is "avoiding payment". Thus Copyright violation is stealing. This is equivocation because these two "avoiding payment" would be defined differently in each situation.

This is also logically invalid as the premises do not provide any support for the conclusion.

I know that phrases can be misunderstood, but the difference in our cases is that I wasn't making an attempt at equivocation.

NO!

This is not why copyrights exist as an ideal. This is what I've been saying all along and you've ignored me every time. Copyrights exist to promote creativity.

From Wikipedia:

Just from this point your subsequent argument fails.

You keep referring to what the law says as an argument, but I do not care what the law says, since I consider the law obsolete. This is a moral argument, not a legal argument.

Here's a simple answer, because copyright law gives the authors "exclusive rights to their writings", which means that you don't have the right to sell those writings yourself.

Either argue from the perspective of the law, or from "common sense". You can't have both. From a "common sense" perspective , copyrights and patents should have been revoked already.

You think I don't know your viewpoint by now?