Spore/Mass Effect Requires A Virgin Sacrifice on Western Coast of Easter Island

[Ratman_tf]

We're talking about video games here. Also 12 million downloads does not mean that 12 million people purchased a copy.

I thought we were talking about copy protection... 

One of the best peices of advice I ever got was "If what you're doing isn't working, try something different."

It seems to me that copy protection is not working, and something different should be tried.

[Stephen Zepp]

Oh. Both sides of the argument are skipping most of the posts where the other side makes a perfectly good point and just replying to the silly shit and tangents because they're easier to "score" off. Why did I get a reply to the easy part I wrote about local laws in islamic countries and yet a lot of the harder stuff to argue against that I write gets skipped over?

I honestly do not believe I've heard a convincing argument that makes pirating software ethical. If I've missed one, I apologize.

I think this happens on the internet in general because

1) it's difficult to track all points, and people respond to the "squeaky wheel" (things they disagree with)
2) People feel conceding a point is a weakness. I try to concede when I've been convinced, but nobody's perfect ;) I honestly haven't been convinced one inch off of my position in this argument however. If someone can come up with a consistent moral stream of thought that makes it ok to pirate software, I'd be very interested in hearing it. (no, pirating something that you already own isn't in theory at least ethical in my opinion. Pragmatically of course, it's less "evil")

If you're making people like me (which I would suggest are the majority of f13 posters) refuse to buy your game, (or even decide to pirate it as an alternative) due to the DRM then you're fucking doing it wrong.

I hate DRM as much as the next guy, and while I'm regarding specifics, I will certainly say that in regards to the products my company sells, I'm firmly, 100% in the camp of making the engine products as freely available as is humanly possible.

I'd also like to point out that InstantAction was designed from the beginning to provide the best combination of user freedom (games are tied to your account, you can play them literally anwhere you wish--your home, your laptop, the library, your buddy's computer), and revenue protection (they are tied to an account).

This strategy was developed because we're a company made up of game players--hell, our CEO is the best Soul Caliber player in our entire company (well, he used to be, probably out of practice now). We hate DRM as game players, and we recognize it's a pain in the ass for consumers, and we planned around what we felt was the most mutually acceptable strategy.

[Margalis]

Here's a direct question for you--as far as I remember, you are a software developer. Following your line of logic, it's perfectly all right for anyone that contracts for your services (either as a full time employer, or a contractor directly) to refuse to pay you--and with your logic, that's perfectly ethical.

Software is not services. And when we engage in services contracts we don't say "our services come as-is and may not do anything", we agree to meet specific criteria and the customer pays us based on us meeting those. We don't make our customers pay in advance for a contract that says we don't actually have to deliver anything at all. We don't consider providing actual value optional.

The software I make is not crippleware loaded with abusive DRM that stops working after a few years. We include contractual guarantees that our software works (more or less) and that we'll respond to critical customer issues within hours. (Unlike in your industry, where you respond to customer issues - never) We schedule regular free maintenance releases specifically for addressing non-critical customer issues. For the most part we rely on our customers to be honest, we have a very minimal licensing scheme that is quite easy to abuse. It does not phone home, it does not restrict the number of installs, it's quite possible for someone to create a single fake license key then replicate our software as much as they want.

We also provide fully-featured no-cost evaluation versions that could easily be hacked into full versions. For all I know all of China already has pirated copies. It wouldn't surprise me.

I've personally fought attempts to make our software more "secure" precisely because it makes it more of a pain in the ass for legit users. And even on our website we've moved away from requiring logins and accounts for the same reason, barriers to entry are something we want to avoid, not erect. If some teenager who can't afford our software downloads a cracked copy I couldn't care less. That's not lost revenue, that's exposure.
---

People pirate. Deal with it. In your attempts to stop the people who pirate everything as a rule you are creating an environment where the pirated version is superior to the paid version - brilliant.

Again, F13 is not like most communities. If you can't find a way to get people from F13 to pay for your product you're fucked, because F13 is composed of people who will gladly give you money as long as you aren't ass-fucking them for their trouble. Your paying customers, the ones who want to support you, are telling you that your product sucks. (You being EA here, not Zepp)

Edit:

I honestly do not believe I've heard a convincing argument that makes pirating software ethical. If I've missed one, I apologize.

Whether it's ethical isn't particularly interesting. It happens, and it's going to keep happening. That's why it's important to differentiate between the people who pirate because they always pirate from the people who pirate only what they can't afford to buy from the people who pirate only when the terms of use are too draconian.

I don't have any respect for someone who pirates everything. But I find it hard to get worked up when people pirate the odd game here and there because the DRM is ass-fucking. And whether or not that's ethical the world in increasingly filled with people like me.

[Mosesandstick]

Pay attention man--refuting the validity of an argument does not equate to supporting the position the argument was aimed against. Nowhere did I defend EULAS or copyright mechanisms--I said they weren't part of the discussion at hand (hence being a strawman).

It's not forced on you in any way, shape, or form. You can willingly choose to not enter the contract. Developers/publishers however cannot "choose" to have you not steal their property.

I wasn't focussing it on an argument for or against piracy in any form or way; I was responding to your statement that people willingly accept EULAs. Think about it this way:

1. You purchase good
2. You sign contract when you click accept on EULA

I'm no legal expert but when you purchase something that doesn't state the contract and are then required to sign a ridiculously one sided contract to get any benefit out of your goods something seems a bit unfair. The only reason why EULAs aren't a big issue is because (I think and hope) they are generally recognised as legal bullshit.

[Stephen Zepp]

Here's a direct question for you--as far as I remember, you are a software developer. Following your line of logic, it's perfectly all right for anyone that contracts for your services (either as a full time employer, or a contractor directly) to refuse to pay you--and with your logic, that's perfectly ethical.

Software is not services. And when we engage in services contracts we don't say "our services come as-is and may not do anything", we agree to meet specific criteria and the customer pays us based on us meeting those. We don't make our customers pay in advance for a contract that says we don't actually have to deliver anything at all. We don't consider providing actual value optional.

[snipped for brevity]

Good job outlining the differences--seriously (and I agree with you).

However, the differences don't negate the meta-question of the morality of those you contract with to refuse to pay because they choose to. If you accept that it's ok morally/ethically to pirate software product, then the same logic applies to pirating/stealing software services.

On your thoughts regarding DRM/EULAs, I personally agree with you. And I also personally hate the fact that EULAS contain such bullshit, unenforceable limitations...but having done the research myself and knowing that they are unenforceable in the first place, plus having done what I can at my company to establish a position of giving refunds to anyone who has a reasonable case (we do get people that buy the software, download and install, then immediately turn around and ask for a refund with the full intent of continuing to use the product), I don't let them bother me.

We're also arguing two different things--I'm arguing that individuals do not have a moral right to steal software because they don't like how it's packaged (because it has DRM in other words), and that continued to it's logical conclusion, the breakdown in morality decision making has devastating circumstances to society.

Many of you that currently think pirating is ok, for whatever reason, are probably going to have kids--and you'll probably demonstrate to them your belief in this situation. How are they going to be able to differentiate what's ok and what isn't if the moral logic is broken? See the "3rd grade murder plans", the "Fannysmackin'" episode, and dozens of other breakdowns in basic morality we see in our society today.

People pirate. Deal with it. In your attempts to stop the people who pirate everything as a rule you are creating an environment where the pirated version is superior to the paid version - brilliant.

Stipulated. My personal concern is not that people willingly break a law knowing it is wrong, but that they don't think it's wrong.

Again, F13 is not like most communities. If you can't find a way to get people from F13 to pay for your product you're fucked, because F13 is composed of people who will gladly give you money as long as you aren't ass-fucking them for their trouble. Your paying customers, the ones who want to support you, are telling you that your product sucks. (You being EA here, not Zepp)

Thanks for the clarification--because we (GG) do as much as we can to not be like EA--what they are doing is exactly why GG was founded in the first place.

[IainC]

Margalis, the EULA discussion is a sidetrack but regardless. You know why those limitations of warranty are there (or you should), you should also know that if a company did sell minesweeper but advertised it as a word processor their EULA wouldn't save them from the inevitable legal backlash. Yes, by taking the EULA to it's logical extreme, a company can sell you an blank disc and say 'well you agreed that you didn't expect it to work' but frankly only a company that was actively looking to go into receivership is likely to pull a stunt like that.

All that being said however, the EULA could contain incitement to violence and advocate genocide but that still doesn't mean that it's right to pirate the game, again it's simply more bullshit justification for why your moral code can be stretched around something that shouldn't even be an argument.

[Azazel]

I honestly do not believe I've heard a convincing argument that makes pirating software ethical. If I've missed one, I apologize.

I think this happens on the internet in general because

1) it's difficult to track all points, and people respond to the "squeaky wheel" (things they disagree with)
2) People feel conceding a point is a weakness. I try to concede when I've been convinced, but nobody's perfect ;) I honestly haven't been convinced one inch off of my position in this argument however. If someone can come up with a consistent moral stream of thought that makes it ok to pirate software, I'd be very interested in hearing it. (no, pirating something that you already own isn't in theory at least ethical in my opinion. Pragmatically of course, it's less "evil")

That's because the various arguments are all over the shop. Snakecharmer kept asking how people are being reamed by this DRM and when I explained to him why I never saw a reply.

I for example find software piracy to be "small w" wrong while beating that granny to death at the ATM is "large W" wrong. Your personal morality may be black and white, for others, we see things in shades of grey. Regradless, I don't pirate software anymore. The only way I would again would be in cases like Bioshock/Spore/Mass Effect in repsonse to the DRM being fucked up and really wanting to play the game.

However, we were discussing all kinds of copyright laws and infringment, such as limited rights and the moral rights of the IP creator (or owner) to declare how their product is used (this was I think from IainC in response to the 3 or 4 installs is a rental - not a purchase). I talked about showing a DVD in a school. Technically a breach of the "EULA" copyright declaration at the start of Videos and DVDs. Immoral?

[Mosesandstick]

We (generally) live in liberal, free market socities. If a consumer wants something and he can afford it, he gets it. We have consumer rights that protect our ability to purchase goods and services. When you're selling a good in a free market environment people expect that they can get it.

We are talking about the sale of games here, not the renting of games and not the licensing of games. We as consumers are saddled with expectations that are derived from our experiences and the laws that govern our societies.

It is this expectation that has led this generation to 'fix' the issues with whatever goods and services it purchases. If I'm going to buy food and I'm allergic to pickles, I ask for them not to be used. My iPod comes with this half broken piece of software called 'iTunes' (let's say hypothetically), I can find programs on the internet that will allow me to circumvent the requirement to use iTunes.

Thusly, when it comes to games we expect to get games that aren't saddled with extraneous, morally and legally dubious protection. People will practice what they see as their right (legally not sure whether this is a right) to obtain a good that doesn't have those limitations. Naturally this leads to piracy.

Piracy is a natural part of any market; piracy provides the goods and services the market refuses to provide. The pirated market is supposed to represent the desires of consumers and the folly of suppliers. It may sound wierd to say that people have the right to pirate but there are forms of piracy that simply represent the failure of the market. There is nothing 'immoral' about consumers excercising their rights.

The moral issues over the piracy of computer games are greatly confounded by the ideas of copyright infringement, theft of IP, etc. For most of us this is obviously immoral, but when it comes to 'our' (I use the term loosely) piracy we are not doing it to steal, we are merely trying to excercise our 'rights' as consumers and individuals in an imperfect market.

I could be wrong about a lot of this, I am know very little about economics and law. But as far as I know the forms of piracy that we are discussing here are based on the idea of suppliers failing and the consumers excercising their right to recieve a product the market should be supplying. Obviously there are external factors in such a decision,  and many of them have been discussed already.

I think the bottom line for many people is that the black market is the way in which consumers naturally express their desire to purchase a subsitute good without all the extra crap. No one wants to do it with the burdern of possibly being a thief and potentially harming those they want to reward (i.e. developers), but it is up to the market to adapt, not for the market to force its limitations on consumers.

[Kitsune]

Service is kinda the anti-software, as far as business deals go.  I provide service up-front, with no guarantee that my customer is going to give me a penny, because I guarantee satisfaction with the promise that they don't pay if they're unhappy with the work.  If I tried to offer them the same terms as an EULA offers consumers, I'd be out of business in a week; only an idiot would agree to those terms.

Besides that, I could not sit down in front of a customer and offer, with a straight face, to take their money and then maybe or maybe not destroy their network, with no particular obligation on my part to do even a vaguely competent job, and no fault assigned to me if I screw up and set everything on fire.

[Stephen Zepp]

We (generally) live in liberal, free market socities. If a consumer wants something and he can afford it, he gets it. We have consumer rights that protect our ability to purchase goods and services. When you're selling a good in a free market environment people expect that they can get it.

We are talking about the sale of games here, not the renting of games and not the licensing of games. We as consumers are saddled with expectations that are derived from our experiences and the laws that govern our societies.

It is this expectation that has led this generation to 'fix' the issues with whatever goods and services it purchases. If I'm going to buy food and I'm allergic to pickles, I ask for them not to be used. My iPod comes with this half broken piece of software called 'iTunes' (let's say hypothetically), I can find programs on the internet that will allow me to circumvent the requirement to use iTunes.

Thusly, when it comes to games we expect to get games that aren't saddled with extraneous, morally and legally dubious protection. People will practice what they see as their right (legally not sure whether this is a right) to obtain a good that doesn't have those limitations. Naturally this leads to piracy.

Piracy is a natural part of any market; piracy provides the goods and services the market refuses to provide. The pirated market is supposed to represent the desires of consumers and the folly of suppliers. It may sound wierd to say that people have the right to pirate but there are forms of piracy that simply represent the failure of the market. There is nothing 'immoral' about consumers excercising their rights.

The moral issues over the piracy of computer games are greatly confounded by the ideas of copyright infringement, theft of IP, etc. For most of us this is obviously immoral, but when it comes to 'our' (I use the term loosely) piracy we are not doing it to steal, we are merely trying to excercise our 'rights' as consumers and individuals in an imperfect market.

I could be wrong about a lot of this, I am know very little about economics and law. But as far as I know the forms of piracy that we are discussing here are based on the idea of suppliers failing and the consumers excercising their right to recieve a product the market should be supplying. Obviously there are external factors in such a decision,  and many of them have been discussed already.

I think the bottom line for many people is that the black market is the way in which consumers naturally express their desire to purchase a subsitute good without all the extra crap. No one wants to do it with the burdern of possibly being a thief and potentially harming those they want to reward (i.e. developers), but it is up to the market to adapt, not for the market to force its limitations on consumers.

Best argument I've seen so far (only logical one from my perspective at least). I'm almost persuaded.

I realize it just sounds like self-promotion, and that the games currently available don't interest this particular market segment very much, but I honestly feel the strategy IA is implementing (in the long term picture, consider it Steam++ I guess, if you need a comparison) is going to work out.

Downside being of course it requires a constant internet connection for play, which of course is a show stopper for some (many?).

[Margalis]

We're also arguing two different things--I'm arguing that individuals do not have a moral right to steal software because they don't like how it's packaged (because it has DRM in other words), and that continued to it's logical conclusion, the breakdown in morality decision making has devastating circumstances to society.

I don't believe they have a "moral right" either, I just don't particularly care.

I recently downloaded Ultimate X-Men (the comic, all of them). I don't feel guilty. If it didn't suck ass I'd pay for it, just as I've paid for plenty of comics over the years. Nobody lost any revenue over what I did. Is what I did morally right? If it isn't it's no great shakes. There was no harm done to anyone, and any morality at play is very abstract.

I find it a little silly to construct a slippery-slope argument that ends with the downfall of civilization. In many cases people disobeying the law and/or listening to your own morality is a good thing. Was the Underground Railroad immoral? I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. And though I did download X-Men I'm not about to go out and murder a cop...that isn't the "logical conclusion" of piracy, any more than stopping in a crosswalk logically concludes in bank robbery.

People don't have the "moral right" to stop in a crosswalk or pirate something but I don't get worked up over either.

My personal rule is I never download/copy/pirate anything in a way that leads to lost revenue. Works for me and it's pretty hard to argue with on any practical level.

[WindupAtheist]

I went to a website the other day and watched part of a movie that I don't own on DVD.  I was never going to buy said movie in the first place, because it looked terrible and such was in fact the case.  The legal owner of that movie has experienced absolutely zero impact by way of my actions.

When some industry type pompously asks me if I'd rob an old lady, or equates the above bit of movie-watching with reneging on a contract to pay for services rendered, all I hear is "I cannot admit that any form of piracy is harmless or else my face will melt to reveal the circuitry beneath, so I'm just gonna hope you're a fucking idiot who can't distinguish between things that hurt people and things that do not!  PLEASE TAKE NOTHING I SAY SERIOUSLY, I AM A FUCKING ROBOT!"

[Kitsune]

And speaking to Mr. Zepp as pertains to DRM:

Sony rootkits.
StarForce driver failures.
Dropped authentication servers.

If a company can release DRM that is not dangerous or inconvenient to a consumer, the consumer has no real reason to reject it.  However, as the above examples show, the actual DRM available on the market is far from such an ideal.  It's intrusive, poorly-coded, inconvenient, and a security threat.  There are older games that can't run on modern operating systems because their old DRM methods are incompatible.  And, years down the road, all of the software that relied on authentication servers will become unplayable.  It may be five, ten years from now, but why should I be unable to play the game I purchased because someone pulled the plug on the DRM servers?

I refuse to use any Steam-based games because I don't want the junkware sitting in my OS and gobbling my bandwidth.  Valve can go suck a goat, doubly so after they decided that they had every right to turn Counterstrike into an adware bonanza.  It's that attitude, that 'hey, we can change the rules whenever we like and you can't do a damn thing about it' that really sets my teeth on edge.  I would never dream of treating another person like that, and I'm not going to tolerate anyone who thinks they can do that to me.

[Mosesandstick]

My personal rule is I never download/copy/pirate anything in a way that leads to lost revenue. Works for me and it's pretty hard to argue with on any practical level.

I find the problem with this argument is that it becomes fairly easy to say you're not going to buy something when pirating it is so easy. With something with anal DRM it can be a pretty easy decision but how do you decide whether something fits into "Good enough to purchase", "good enough to enjoy", "good enough to enjoy if I'm not paying anything for it", "not good at all" or whatever categories exist in peoples' heads. Get deluded enough and people will just pirate everything and justify it as if they were not going to pay for it anyway. This is not supposed to be a critique of you, but merely something that (might) work for you doesn't necessarily apply to everyone else; the mechanisms used generally in our societies to determine whether something has worth is by voting with your wallet.

A relevent question in your case would be why download (and read?) something if you don't feel it is worth paying for. Or maybe you don't feel it's worth the full dollar amount?

[Azazel]

I used to do that when I was younger and had little disposable income.

As you can see, as my disposable income has increased, so have my purchases, including both new releases but also many of the titles I once was never going to pay for. How do I decide which ones to buy? The ones that were worth playing any length of time in, of course!

[Margalis]

To answer a specific question above, I downloaded X-Men because I knew the first few issues sucked, heard the rest sucked and was curious. And yes, they all sucked. I only read them for the sake of completeness and the hope they would get better, but I wasn't enjoying a second of it.

I do agree there are people who can justify pirating anything and everything. In college I knew a guy who had hundreds of gigs of pirated music that he regularly listened to. I would never do something like that, if I enjoy it at all I'll pay for it and even trying before I buy is the exception, not the rule. I'll generally only do that if I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it.

[K9]

Nobody lost any revenue over what I did. Is what I did morally right? If it isn't it's no great shakes. There was no harm done to anyone, and any morality at play is very abstract.

I'd say that parts of this are a fallacy, just because the amount you take seems insiginificant does not mean that no harm is done. I'd agree that comparing piracy to mugging an old lady is a poor analogy; it's more akin to what would happen if say one million, or ten million people each stole one cent from your bank account. At the level of the individual, what they have take is trivial, however the net effect is significantly larger.

In a more general sense (not directed at you Margalis) I feel that the "I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so I pirated it" argument is a very poor one; it suggests a very selfish attitude.

[Lantyssa]

In network security there is such a thing as making a system so secure that it either becomes worthless and unused, or more insecure than "inferior" methods because people start leaving little scraps of paper everywhere.  People start looking for methods to get what they want without the burden.

DRM is no different.  People either won't buy it, or they'll bypass it if it is annoying enough.  For some that will be cracking a legitimate copy, for others that will be pirating it.

Morality doesn't matter because a large enough swath of people aren't going to stop for what your opinion of right and wrong is.  They will, however, do what's necessary to play a fun game, and if a company makes the barrier to entry too high, that means piracy instead of sales.

[Lantyssa]

How come no one's posted this yet?

[WindupAtheist]

I don't feel like companies are entitled to fuck me.  Like if I pirate something and enjoy it, sure, I'll buy it.  I like having a movie in a box on the shelf that I can take out and stick into any old DVD player.  But if I pirate something and it blows?  That money I didn't pay for the privilege of learning that it blows?  Yeah, fuck you, movie studio.  I beat you and your shitty product.

[SnakeCharmer]

Oh, Snakecharmer. Did you read my reply last page on how legitimate users are being bent over/inconvenienced by this particular copy protection? You didn't reply to that at all. And I'm asking in a non-confrontational sense.

No, I missed it (530 am ftl).

Anyway, so people are freaking out about having to verify it after 4 (or however many) installs?  My response to it is just kinda a 'meh, /shrug.  Big deal.'

How about this...

Can we agree that it is in fact theft no matter what?
Can we also agree that if there was a better way to do it - less starforce type DRM, for example, something truly non-invasive - you'd be on board with DRM and other anti-piracy measures?

[Azazel]

Oh, Snakecharmer. Did you read my reply last page on how legitimate users are being bent over/inconvenienced by this particular copy protection? You didn't reply to that at all. And I'm asking in a non-confrontational sense.

No, I missed it (530 am ftl).

Anyway, so people are freaking out about having to verify it after 4 (or however many) installs?  My response to it is just kinda a 'meh, /shrug.  Big deal.'

How about this...

Can we agree that it is in fact theft no matter what?
Can we also agree that if there was a better way to do it - less starforce type DRM, for example, something truly non-invasive - you'd be on board with DRM and other anti-piracy measures?

It verifies every install. After #3 they want you to ring up EA and ask them to let you install the software that you legitimately bought and own a copy of. "on a case-by-case basis". That's quite frankly, bullshit, and it's cost them a sale of each of those two games (plus Bioshock).

If they remove it, I'll buy them. If they don't remove it, I won't buy either, and so whether I decide to pirate them or not affects noone but myself.



We can agree that it's theft in terms of IP piracy. I'll outright admit that I'm willing to be that thief as well if I really, really want to play that/those game(s) without dealing with DRM of that level of suckitude. I have a personal distinction between piracy theft and tangible object theft, particularly in a situation where I am unwilling or unable to purchase the software because of a reason that satisfies my own self.

I'll do better than agree with you on the point of less invasive DRM. Scroll to the almost-bottom of page 4 of this thread and try to work out how many of those games I've bought legitimately have some form of DRM that's not fuck-you-in-the-arse-level DRM on them. I'm not some kiddy warez-collector-entitlement-whore-pirate, I'm the kind of guy who supports software development. And I'm the kind of guy being shit on by this type of DRM.

[Krakrok]

I'd also like to point out that InstantAction was designed from the beginning to provide the best combination of user freedom (games are tied to your account, you can play them literally anwhere you wish--your home, your laptop, the library, your buddy's computer), and revenue protection (they are tied to an account).

The problem I have with paying for instant downloads  are when I buy a game I want the box. Paying money for a file doesn't do anything for me and therefore I never do. On the flip side I have no problem paying for an Eve subscription and a Netflix subscription because they are services. I don't buy movies because I don't care about owning movies. I buy games because game boxes have a nostalgia value for me.

[Jimbo]

Hey didn't the automobile industry try and regulate its safety features, but it took Ralph Nader to bring in consumer advocates and get good things going?

Used book, used video games, used movies, used music, used cars, etc...except used PC games, and that it is horrible to return a PC game to a store after you open it, then the makers of the game want to fuck with my computer, then they wonder why people are tired of it.

I buy lots of video games, but it is getting stupid on the PC side, while I can buy, sell, or rent Xbox 360/PSIII/Wii and so on to my hears content. And oh yeah, I don't have to worry that if I buy a console game it won't screw up my console with its stuff it installs. And yes there is piracy on console, has been around for a long time (while stationed in the Phillipines, I could stroll down town A.C. and buy all kinds of pirated stuff), and isn't going away.

I want game developers to get what is due them, I want them to protect their investment, but they can not screw with my gear or tell me I can not make a back up of something.

[NiX]

I used to do that when I was younger and had little disposable income.

This is me. I'm way too strapped for cash to be able to buy every game that I want to play, which isn't many as it is. When I do get the opportunity, I go out and buy the games I pirate. Most the time when I don't is in the case that the only possible way to obtain the game, because it's older, is to buy it pre-owned.

There's no way to legitimize pirating software and I'm well aware of what I'm doing when I do it. But, there's something about not having to leave my apartment to do it that makes any repercussions less influential in deterring me.

[Sky]

If they remove it, I'll buy them. If they don't remove it, I won't buy either, and so whether I decide to pirate them or not affects noone but myself.

The problem with this rationale is that it does not matter. If I decide to grow a couple pot plants and smoke in the privacy of my home, it affects nobody but me. But it's still illegal and I still would have to deal with the consequences and I was caught breaking the law. Because software piracy is breaking the law. Everything else is rationalizing the reasons for breaking the law.

[ajax34i]

I thought we were trying to convince them to remove the DRM, by making a big issue about it and arguing heatedly for many pages.

[IainC]

I thought we were trying to convince them to remove the DRM, by making a big issue about it and arguing heatedly for many pages.

Funnily enough making a big issue about it has already had more of an effect in this particular case than the millions of illegal downloads since the birth of P2P services.

[schild]

If they remove it, I'll buy them. If they don't remove it, I won't buy either, and so whether I decide to pirate them or not affects noone but myself.

The problem with this rationale is that it does not matter. If I decide to grow a couple pot plants and smoke in the privacy of my home, it affects nobody but me. But it's still illegal and I still would have to deal with the consequences and I was caught breaking the law. Because software piracy is breaking the law. Everything else is rationalizing the reasons for breaking the law.

I don't rationalize speeding. And there's no reason to rationalize piracy. Unless you're a big pussy that doesn't like things free and easy and needs to involve feelings and right and wrong into everything they do.

This coming from the guy who GUARANTEED spent more money on games than anyone here last year. And the year before. And the year before.

You don't need to rationalize this sort of shit. Stupid laws are stupid.

The fact Zepp thinks there's some kind of moral conflict with breaking that law is just mind blowing.

I understand wanting to stop a pirate that steals things and copies them and resells them. That makes sense. I have a huge, massive, stinking problem with that. But your casual torrenter? Fuck that.

On the note: DRM is the number one way to make me look at "alternative methods" to playing your game.

I absolutely DISLIKED Mass Effect on the 360 when I played it - yet I was still going to drop the $50 on the PC version. Sight unseen. Day 1. $50. Now? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO. I'm sorry but EA is definitely still in their 1 step forward 2 steps back mode and it pisses me off that they just can't even get their shit together, even if Riccitello is 5 steps forward from previous execs. Too bad he's chipping away at that.

[ajax34i]

Funnily enough making a big issue about it has already had more of an effect in this particular case than the millions of illegal downloads since the birth of P2P services.

Ah, so we've achieved the opposite of what we were going for.

[schild]

Also, on the topic of this specific EA thing. It seems they're trying to act like a sneaky little asshole kid.

EA: "Alright guys, we're selling candy, but we want you to give us 3 things before you buy the candy. Your soul, your asshole, and your first-born. We'll abuse all three."

Gamers: "Well gee guys, I don't know. The soul is a little too much."

EA: "Ok, we'll take away that soul bit, now bent over and sit your child in a chair over there."

Gamers: "Ok!"

Taking away the phone home all the time still doesn't correct the 3 installations. So, fuck them. Fuck them right hard.

[Mosesandstick]

People are going way too overboard on the whole morality thing.

As I said from my post earlier and as is reinforced by people bringing up P2P downloads; piracy and the black market provide a service that legit markets are failing to provide (I'm ignoring money completely here).

It is the nature of the markets that we live in that people will circumvent markets to receive the goods and services they want; its the way our system is supposed to work. If people are using the black market it is a natural indication that something is wrong with the legal markets. There will always be people who will pirate things for the wrong reasons but when you're talking about segments of the 'normal' population doing it, it is because they are trying to do what is right for them. Huge segments of our society (this varies depending on where you live obv.) are based on using our self interest to reach an optimal path. You can blame people for being immoral and 'stealing' property, but under the whims of a market economy the black market is a SIGN that legit markets are doing something wrong. The fact that games companies wonder why piracy is increasing when they are causing it is incredibly baffling, especially with the publishers. Well not really; they're just a bunch of greedy cunts.

Analogy with P2P services: The main one here is obviously music. I wish I had some data to back me up (or otherwise I look like a bit of a dumbass) but I'm guessing so far iTunes music store has been pretty succesful (wiki gives me a figure of 4 billion songs sold). P2P music provided a convenient and efficient way for people to get music. There were and still are lots of people who download music illegally ranging from kids who will probably never buy anything to people who  just want to listen to a whole album to see if its worth it. The fact is that now there are legitimate ways (though still tainted by DRM) of purchasing music online people *magically* do it. Turns out that perhaps every one of those bastards who was pirating music before might not have been that immoral.

[Morat20]

One of us missed something in his meaning--hopefully he will clarify.

I took what he said as it being a bad thing that we took our own morality over the societies' morality, not a good thing--but you seem to think he's agreeing wth you, implying it's fine and dandy to do so.

Morat?

I didn't make a moral judgement about it at all.

However, the very root of civil disobedience is that personal morality trumphs societal morality. Civil disobediance proper also reinforces the notion that societal morality (at least in the form of laws) are very important in of themselves, and should not be broken lightly -- which is quite true.

It's a decision not everyone has to make -- a large number of people are quite content to go through life with the the belief that "Morality" and "law" are identical, rather than law being a societal effort to enforce morality (and contracts. Can't forget contracts!).

Human history is full of people who placed their personal moral decisions above the law, even above society's consensus morality -- often with the intent of ultimately changing the law, but in the short-term at least because they felt obeying the law or staying silent in the face of poor moral choices by their society was immoral in of itself.

I'm not promoting anarchy -- civil disobediance, to me, seems to be a good guide as to how to uphold personal morality when it conflicts with society's morals or laws.

[Phildo]

While I feel like he and I disagree widely on this issue, Zepp is absolutely right about one thing: there is a tremendous sense of entitlement going on here in regards to the pirating issue.  Veruca Salt wants her golden goose now, dammit!  Pirating software, as Snakecharmer said, is stealing.

I also like Morat's point about civil disobedience, but I'm not sure how apt it is in this case.  Sure, you disagree with a law or the EULA or whatnot, but does that give you the right to pirate software?  The actual financial damage of software piracy is muddied by propaganda on both sides to the point where so we can't know the actual effect, but let's assume that it DOES harm the software companies at least a little.  So you're doing some small, tiny, infinitesimal amount of damage to someone else by stealing from them.  The only question not is whether or not it's moral to attempt to hurt the evil, capitalist corporation (because we're NOT discussing Garage Games here, we're discussing EA) because they're evil and want to screw US over.  And fuck arguing morality, everyone is going to disagree anyway.

My own personal opinion is that the best way to hurt EA is to NOT PLAY THEIR GAMES AT ALL AND STOP DISCUSSING THEM WITH EITHER FROTH OR VENOM.  Generating more buzz for a product from a company that has repeatedly, publicly screwed over consumers, its employees and damn near everyone else it gets its hands on is the wrong approach.

Let's all go ride bikes or something until (certain) game companies decide that they want us to play PC games again.

[Samwise]

Yes it is 'alright for you to play the game you've paid for'. Without a doubt. If you buy a game you should be able to play that game. Nobody is ever going to argue against that.

I don't agree (as you noted) that you have the right to redress that via piracy for the reasons I've already explained.

So even though I have paid for the game, downloading a copy of it that is playable (so that I can, you know, play it) counts as piracy and I do not have the right to do that.  Correct?

In other words, paying for the game does not give me the right to play it.  And piracy in fact has nothing to do with money spent or money lost or money stolen, or the fact that I BOUGHT THE PRODUCT would make it impossible for me to "pirate" it.

The next time somebody tries to make an inane comparison between "piracy" and actual theft, I can point them at this post and say "nuh-uh."  Thank you for that.