Opinion Discussion: Is Piracy Theft?

[FreakOrama]

I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss. I'm not aiming to justify piracy of course. My aim is to have a talk on the definitions and facts on the matter, and would like to hear others opinion on it.

Here's a bunch of questions to get things going:

What's the definition of theft?
The definition of piracy?
Is borrowing a game, physical or digital, piracy, theft or neither?
Is Steam Family Sharing theft, piracy or neither? (keep in mind that two people can play at the same time with this feature, through specific simple steps)

My current opinion on the matter: Piracy is wrong, can be a breach of contract (license agreement), and it can be illegal, but it is not theft.

 

[lashman]

Piracy is wrong, and it can be illegal, but it is not theft.

i would agree with this one

 

[Derrick01]

I don't consider it theft because what exactly are you stealing? Data? Not even that, if anything you're just copying data someone uploaded illegally. And because of that last part it can be a very morally ambiguous thing. Technically something like wikileaks or anyone who acts as a whistleblower and uploads files that are illegally obtained could be doing the same thing. When CNN downloads a copy of that illegal info are they pirates? And if they are is it even a bad thing if it can lead to exposing wrong doing by a company or the government? Or is piracy and everything morally (and legally) wrong with it strictly limited to entertainment products?

...fuck I need to stop playing AC Odyssey and listening to Sokrates I'm becoming as annoying as him.

 

[NarohDethan]

Piracy will always be wrong, but I think it depends on what's being pirated.

I wouldnt give shit to anyone torrenting an old, obscure game that it is difficult to get legally (or at all), but, for instance, pirating Sekiro is a bad thing, as you're placing your own entertainment over the compensation devs deserve.

That being said, current copyright laws are ridiculous, and games should also enter the public domain.

 

[lashman]

That being said, current copyright laws are ridiculous, and games should also enter the public domain.

agreed ... 100%!

in fact - i've seen a pretty good video today:


doesn't really cover gaming ... but still - worth watching

 

[Eferis]

It's a violation and can be illegal depending on each country law on the matter but it's not theft. My position on it is that, even I don't pirate games because I think it's wrong and I have the means to buy them legitimately, piracy is what can always prevent companies from getting way too greedy and anti-consumers when approaching the PC market and it's also a way for those left behind by our society to be able to enjoy a pricey medium they might not be able to enjoy otherwise. So yeah, it's wrong but I'll never condemn it on a moral level and I'll always try to convince all those who can to buy games.

 

[Tizoc]

Piracy is illegal
Piracy is not theft
As GhostTrick once wrote, it is a service or availability issue
Ill tey to write more when im at my laptop

 

[PhaZZe]

Piracy is illegal
Piracy is not theft
As GhostTrick once wrote, it is a service or availability issue
Ill tey to write more when im at my laptop

this resume my instance
Is wrong pirate new games, some old game like NarohDethan says, no problem

 

[curi0usBystander]

I've never considered piracy theft. It just doesn't make sense, I mean you aren't taking anything away you just get a new copy.
That said It can be illegal or partially ilegal (as in it's ilegal to upload but not to download) depending of a country especific laws.
But this is mostly due to copyright laws (that will keep expanding the copyright length ad infinitum, thanks disney .... I guess).
In short:
Piracy != theft.
Piracy might be illegal (depending on the country).

 

[Prodigy]

That being said, current copyright laws are ridiculous, and games should also enter the public domain.

This should be brought up more, games being lost to time or never experienced because a developer/publisher goes under.

 

[Wibblewozzer]

I'll be the dissenting voice. I do consider piracy theft. I don't think it's different just because it's digital vs physical goods. I think arguments can be made as to why piracy/theft may be higher for certain products/regions/etc. but it's still just reasoning as to why people are stealing the product vs paying for it.

Now I'm not saying I don't disagree with people's decisions to pirate stuff in some cases and I've done it in my past (before I was old enough to work and afford to buy my own things). And if it were to be punished I wouldn't put it on the same level as some other theft.

And maybe I'm simply taking it too literally but I can't logically think of a way I would not think of piracy as theft.

 

[Dakath]

 

[Ge0force]

If the definition for theft is "taking something that costs money without paying for it", than yes, piracy should be considered as theft. I think the major reason why piracy is so wide spread is because it is so easy, and there's a very small chance to be caught.

It is different from stealing a physical object tho, because that object can't be sold to anyone else anymore. This is not true for digital piracy.

 

[Eferis]

I'll be the dissenting voice. I do consider piracy theft. I don't think it's different just because it's digital vs physical goods. I think arguments can be made as to why piracy/theft may be higher for certain products/regions/etc. but it's still just reasoning as to why people are stealing the product vs paying for it.

Now I'm not saying I don't disagree with people's decisions to pirate stuff in some cases and I've done it in my past (before I was old enough to work and afford to buy my own things). And if it were to be punished I wouldn't put it on the same level as some other theft.

And maybe I'm simply taking it too literally but I can't logically think of a way I would not think of piracy as theft.

Even if you compare it to physical products it's not actually theft according to the law in most countries. If you download something you're not unlawfully appropriating something that belonged to others but getting something someone else illegally put online (who's more similar to someone who distribuite counterfeit products). From the side of the one downloading a pirated software, it's more like something between purchasing a fake louis vitton purse (copyright infringement) and buying a stolen phone (supporting an illegal activity), which can be considered a different crime in some countries but not theft.

That's also why they always try to push on the distribution part when they persecute someone for piracy.

 

[crepuscule]

Piracy isn't theft as that requires you not only to take but also to deprive. You might say that piracy deprives a person of the money that they would otherwise have made. However that is only true because of government enforcement in the form of copyright. So it doesn't inherently deprive anyone of anything.
Piracy is obtaining an illegally created copy of some intellectual property. So yes by definition piracy is illegal. But is it immoral? That is essentially asking whether current copyright laws are moral. (Obviously this depends on the jurisdiction you are in as some things that may be legal in China are not in the EU and vice versa.)
In my opinion no one should be able to own ideas or art. However that doesn't mean copyright shouldn't exist because it does have a benefit. If a person is able to live on their creative work (as they have the exclusive right distribute it) they are more likely to create more of it. So I do think there should be a period of copyright but that the period that exists in EU/US law is far too long. I'd propose ten years.

One thing is for sure though. It is nice to be able to have this conversation on a gaming forum without fear of being banned for my opinion.

 

[Frecklestein]

It's too much of a grey area for me, as I understand why people do it. I don't think it's right if you're well off enough to comfortably afford the hobby.

Growing up poor as hell, I experienced some games, film and television that helped shaped me as a person in one form or another. That I wouldn't have otherwise been able to experience. When I have the money, I do support, and I try my best to go back and purchase games I played through after the fact. Piracy to me, personally, is more of an IOU. Or even at times a way for me to demo a game and see how well it runs before I make a purchase instead of spending money and playing steam's refund system.

 

[lashman]

Piracy to me, personally, is more of an IOU

yeah, pretty much ... i think i bought all the games i've pirated back in the day on steam and gog ... or at least the ones that are/were available on steam and gog ... LOTS of games

 

[Wibblewozzer]

Even if you compare it to physical products it's not actually theft according to the law in most countries. If you download something you're not unlawfully appropriating something that belonged to others but getting something someone else illegally put online (who's more similar to someone who distribuite counterfeit products). From the side of the one downloading a pirated software, it's more like something between purchasing a fake louis vitton purse (copyright infringement) and buying a stolen phone (supporting an illegal activity), which can be considered a different crime in some countries but not theft.

That's also why they always try to push on the distribution part when they persecute someone for piracy.

I can see your point when using the comparison of buying counterfeit products but in my mind that falls more in line with someone buying a direct clone of a game or something with stolen assets over direct piracy.

For now I still see piracy of a product as the same as physical theft.

The main counter I’m seeing right now that was posted above is the deprivation of the physical product from someone else as there’s a finite physical product but infinite downloadable. But then I’d still argue, as someone else did above, that it still falls under the definition of taking something that costs money without paying for it.

 

[Milena]

It shouldn't be legally considered equal as theft and I do believe that the various interested parties should look into creating a better service worldwide, instead of trying to stop piracy itself.

Here in Italy pretty much no one has an issue with pirating stuff. With Steam and the newest consoles, gaming-wise it got much better these past few years, but growing up I've never seen an original PS1 or PS2 game, not even in a store, and I was the only one among my friends with original PC games.

Netflix and Sky Go helped a lot with stopping people pirating movies and tv series, especially Netflix with their possible account sharing.
Italy actually seems to be the country where Netflix accounts are shared the most and Sky Go is letting a lot of my friends leech their parent's accounts
I personally have 5 people (sisters, brothers and mother) leeching my Netflix subscription.

 

[fsdood]

I wouldnt give shit to anyone torrenting an old, obscure game that it is difficult to get legally (or at all), but, for instance, pirating Sekiro is a bad thing, as you're placing your own entertainment over the compensation devs deserve.

That being said, current copyright laws are ridiculous, and games should also enter the public domain.

Yeah I agree with this stance. If the game is abandonware, then I don't really care how they get it. Although I don't want the situation to be like Nintendo where they keep rereleasing the same game for over 25 years and you still have to pay for it each time. I am glad emulation and abandonware sites exist.

 

[Derrick01]

I can see your point when using the comparison of buying counterfeit products but in my mind that falls more in line with someone buying a direct clone of a game or something with stolen assets over direct piracy.

For now I still see piracy of a product as the same as physical theft.

The main counter I’m seeing right now that was posted above is the deprivation of the physical product from someone else as there’s a finite physical product but infinite downloadable. But then I’d still argue, as someone else did above, that it still falls under the definition of taking something that costs money without paying for it.

In regards to entertainment stuff I did always kind of view the theft/not theft debate as kind of splitting hairs. The end result is you're getting something for free that you know you're not supposed to have for free. Whether that's considered the legal definition of theft is kind of pointless to me when the act is basically the same thing.

What causes an issue in communities is so many people want to say it's a black and white problem when it's not though. Obviously a big part of emulation involves piracy (because lets be real who the hell still has their 30 year old NES games? If you do then great but be honest and admit 99% of people don't). And I would argue there's nothing wrong with that because we have no easy and acceptable way to play these older games now (thanks again for no VC on switch Nintendo). Some people just want to run their switch games, that they legally own, in 2019 settings instead of 2008 so they have to "pirate" them to do that.

Basically as with so many other controversial things on the internet it wouldn't be as much of a big deal if people were able to look at a topic and realize it's more nuanced then YOU DID/SAID ___ YOU'RE THE WORST.

 

[Tizoc]

I think y'all already said what I was gonna say :V

I'll say this at least: Piracy cannot be stopped, but what CAN be done is make such a product or service available for those that would've pirated it otherwise.
Like if HBO made it so that the first episode of GoT S8 was free and the service was expanded worldwide in advance, not only would they had generated more traffic to their service, but even if it is for a month or two, they'd get an extra influx of customers, who might be interested in the other stuff they offer, which in turn could have them sub to the service further.

Same can be said about games: Although Project EGG offers various 80s and 90s JP games, the site that offers them is all in Japanese, and at the very least in Chinese.
If they'd make it so that this version of their store were available in English, instead of pirating a specific ye olde game, someone may be interested in buying it for 500 Yen or wishlist the games they're interested in and buying it during a possible sale. Granted...they'd still possibly pirate that 800 KB sized game, but piracy does not necessarily eliminate the possibility of proper acquisition of a product or service, esp. nowadays that things can be more easily accessible.
So yes, that person would pirate that game, but at the same time BUY the game, even at a discount, due to their own personal reasons (consumer choice).

 

[lashman]

I think y'all already said what I was gonna say :V

I'll say this at least: Piracy cannot be stopped, but what CAN be done is make such a product or service available for those that would've pirated it otherwise.
Like if HBO made it so that the first episode of GoT S8 was free and the service was expanded worldwide in advance, not only would they had generated more traffic to their service, but even if it is for a month or two, they'd get an extra influx of customers, who might be interested in the other stuff they offer, which in turn could have them sub to the service further.

Same can be said about games: Although Project EGG offers various 80s and 90s JP games, the site that offers them is all in Japanese, and at the very least in Chinese.
If they'd make it so that this version of their store were available in English, instead of pirating a specific ye olde game, someone may be interested in buying it for 500 Yen or wishlist the games they're interested in and buying it during a possible sale. Granted...they'd still possibly pirate that 800 KB sized game, but piracy does not necessarily eliminate the possibility of proper acquisition of a product or service, esp. nowadays that things can be more easily accessible.
So yes, that person would pirate that game, but at the same time BUY the game, even at a discount, due to their own personal reasons (consumer choice).

so ... what you're saying, in short: use the carrot, not the stick

 

[Tizoc]

so ... what you're saying, in short: use the carrot, not the stick

Yes. Even if the donkey/horse/mule/rabbit/Daffy/whatever doesn't get attracted to the carrot at first, if it is a yummy carrot, it'll take it.

 

[lashman]

Yes. Even if the donkey/horse/mule/rabbit/Daffy/whatever doesn't get attracted to the carrot at first, if it is a yummy carrot, it'll take it.

yeah, exactly ... i 100% agree

just give people what they want at a price they're willing to pay

some (most?) people seem to think that everyone just wants everything for free ... but the truth is - people DO want to pay for stuff ... it just has to be at a price point they are comfortable with (especially if you consider purchasing power in each region)

 

[FreakOrama]

Popping my head again to expand on what I know what theft is:

Theft: The act of taking something without the consent of the owner.

With that in mind, if my friend bought a digital game (So now he/she is the owner of that purchased good), and he/she gave me a copy of his/her game (consent), then by definition that is not theft.

He/she would have possibly breached an agreement that he/she accepted upon purchasing the game, and that's what it is, a breach of contract, nothing else.

So, what is piracy?
The act of making a copy of something that you have legally bought (making you the owner of said copy), and providing that copy to someone else that has not bought it, and/or to obtain a copy of a product from someone that bought a copy of said product (The owner of the purchased copy).

Gist: Piracy is not theft, piracy is copying & distributing legally bought products.

Again, I'm not advocating for piracy, I just like cleaning/clearing up the definitions.

 

[Lashley]

It isn't theft. EU even did a study and came to the same conclusion.

 

[Alextended]

If it was theft we wouldn't need the term piracy.

Gist: Piracy is not theft, piracy is copying & distributing legally bought products.

Doesn't have to be legally bought product, it can be from another pirated (or even stolen, if someone took it from the factory/store/wherever/physically) copy.

 

[Eferis]

Popping my head again to expand on what I know what theft is:

Theft: The act of taking something without the consent of the owner.

With that in mind, if my friend bought a digital game (So now he/she is the owner of that purchased good), and he/she gave me a copy of his/her game (consent), then by definition that is not theft.

He/she would have possibly breached an agreement that he/she accepted upon purchasing the game, and that's what it is, a breach of contract, nothing else.

So, what is piracy?
The act of making a copy of something that you have legally bought (making you the owner of said copy), and providing that copy to someone else that has not bought it, and/or to obtain a copy of a product from someone that bought a copy of said product (The owner of the purchased copy).

Gist: Piracy is not theft, piracy is copying & distributing legally bought products.

Again, I'm not advocating for piracy, I just like cleaning/clearing up the definitions.

Exactly, nice analysis and I agree completely with it.

The act of sharing legally bought software is still illegal though, since you don't become the actual owner of digital media but just a licensed user and you cannot share the product without the consent of its provider.

So who's sharing the game, assuming they bought it legally, is breaking the agreement they accepted when purchasing the game (and this arguably applies to seeding torrents as well) while those downloading it (again, not through torrent for the aforementioned reason) are in a grey area that is hardly defined by law but it's definitely not theft.

 

[FreakOrama]

If it was theft we wouldn't need the term piracy.



Doesn't have to be legally bought product, it can be from another pirated (or even stolen, if someone took it from the factory/store/wherever/physically) copy.

True. If that was found out, it should be reported to the victim and legal authorities. (Although with digital, that would be stupidly hard unless the one who stole it is stupid x3)

If not known, then people are working with assumptions only, regarding random people offering copies. Regarding friends and family, it would be much easier to verify the legitimacy of purchase.

 

[goat]

I've always equated piracy with bootlegging concerts (which I used to do). It's a very morally grey area, but it isn't theft.

 

[sauce]

I think someone at Valve wrote an article that explained how piracy is a matter of distribution rather than theft. I wish I could find it, but I tend to agree with that take. People pirating either have no affordable way to pay for the service (e.g. regional currency making it too expensive, it's not distributed in their region, they're just can't afford it), or the service itself is botched (e.g. invasive DRM that hurts more than helps). Piracy is not easy, and people will go for the path of least resistance if they can, hence why Netflix got popular.

As for Family Sharing, idk, is Redbox theft or piracy? Was Blockbuster in the 90s? Was lending your physical copy of a game to a friend at school?

 

[lashman]

As for Family Sharing, idk, is Redbox theft or piracy? Was Blockbuster in the 90s? Was lending your physical copy of a game to a friend at school?

i imagine big publishers would like to think it is

 

[gabbo]

As for Family Sharing, idk, is Redbox theft or piracy? Was Blockbuster in the 90s? Was lending your physical copy of a game to a friend at school?

Given that Nintendo took Blockbuster to court to stop the idea of rentals in the 80s and lost, it's not illegal, but boy would publishers like to, and mostly have ,killed the idea of it. They'd also say that lending a copy likely breaks the EULA and thus is illegal, but is likely not binding in any court you'd take such an argument into to.

All that said, I don't think piracy is theft as you'r not reducing the number of physical items available to others or removing items from others possession, but it may be a legal grey area. You own the plastic disk/book/commodity but not the [digital] content in or on it, which is what a consumer is paying to license access to. Creators deserve compensation, but if a game is completely missing from marketplace (Which happens more and more for pre-digital titles as time goes on), piracy is often all that's left and for preservation I see less issue with it.

 

[low-G]

The laws are written so anti-consumer. Like, for example, if you own a digital copy of a game but want to play that game emulated on PC. That's technically piracy. But I believe it is morally fine and not at all theft to do that. Acquiring a game that is no longer sold without paying some 3rd party owner is not morally wrong nor theft.

I haven't pirated any game in over a decade, probably decades at this point, but I don't even think it is very immoral or anything. I'm not quite a digital anarchist or anything, but I hope society eventually works this stuff out amicably without corporations just washing everyone's brains.

The only thing I think is very wrong is SELLING stuff you don't have any right to sell (bootlegging; specifically, selling illegal copies of games (or anything) or even other people's work (like a business taking someone's emulator or art and putting it in a sold product). That actually makes me mad. Put those people in jail for 50 years.

 

[Kvik]

It is my firm believe that piracy isn't theft. It is a copyright infringement. I'm not even going to include morality consideration into what constitute theft or piracy, since I never felt a humanist construct such as morality has any bearing when dealing with intellectual properties issue.

Consider the following scenario:

A copyright infringement happens when I make a copy of my ROMs and distributed it in a private torrent site. Since I am not the IP owner and I don't have their express permission to make copies with intent to distribute, that means I'm committing a copyright infringement. Anybody who has access to this site and downloading the ROMs I just uploaded are also committing copyright infringement. If I'm seeding these ROMs forever, everybody who has downloaded the ROMs I shared for the entire lifetime of the torrent are also committing copyright infringement.

I bought the ROMs with my own money. The people who benefits from the ROMs I shared in the scenario above are not thieves, because I still own the original cartridges, CD-ROMs and DVDs of the ROMs I shared, therefore I did not suffer any loss of assets. This is the main difference between piracy and theft.

I would never admonish someone for pirating. However, I take issue with individuals who makes money out of facilitating piracy. It's fine to take donations for covering a torrent site's server costs, for example. Selling a CFW which has been forked out of an Open Source software with its sole purpose is to allow piracy is not.

 

[texhnolyze]

I believe piracy is indeed theft in a way, because you're basically stealing the right to consume the products without paying. We can't directly compare it to physical products because we're talking about digital ones here. Also, people who pirate are less likely to buy the product after consuming it.

It's not the "1 pirated copy = 1 less sales" argument, but I think there's still a correlation there. I'm speaking as someone from a high piracy rate country. The gaming community here are more likely to buy online-based games and/or Denuvo-protected ones, because they're not piratable (or used to, in Denuvo case). People can afford to buy games, but not all. At the same time, people also want to play the games as soon as possible. After they're done playing the pirated games, there's very little reason for them to buy and replay them soon. They probably buy the game later at some point. There's this term that people use a lot here, "Redeeming our sin". It's when you finally buy a game that you pirated before, but usually after it received a huge discount. It's not as bad as not buying the game at all, but it's still wrong.

 

[gabbo]

I believe piracy is indeed theft in a way, because you're basically stealing the right to consume the products without paying. We can't directly compare it to physical products because we're talking about digital ones here. Also, people who pirate are less likely to buy the product after consuming it.

It's not the "1 pirated copy = 1 less sales" argument, but I think there's still a correlation there. I'm speaking as someone from a high piracy rate country. The gaming community here are more likely to buy online-based games and/or Denuvo-protected ones, because they're not piratable (or used to, in Denuvo case). People can afford to buy games, but not all. At the same time, people also want to play the games as soon as possible. After they're done playing the pirated games, there's very little reason for them to buy and replay them soon. They probably buy the game later at some point. There's this term that people use a lot here, "Redeeming our sin". It's when you finally buy a game that you pirated before, but usually after it received a huge discount. It's not as bad as not buying the game at all, but it's still wrong.

Have many laws on theft been updated to provide language appropriate for digital content? I'm pretty sure the verbiage is still based on the idea of it being like a physical product.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

Eh.

1. Piracy is functionally digital theft. No, it's not "taking away" a physical good, but by that strict of a definition, no digital crime could ever be theft. If a corporation hacks a competitor to get proprietary market research, aside from obviously being corporate espionage, wouldn't that be a kind of theft? Sure, they're not depriving their competitor of a physical cache of data that can't be replaced, but they are still taking something that does not belong to them legally. Which would seem to be stealing, which is the definition of theft.
2. Derrick01 is right that this entire "theft or not" debate is splitting hairs, and it's a complete red herring for an actual discussion on piracy. We all know that at the end of the day, piracy is about getting something that you're don't have the right to own. If that isn't technically theft, whatever. Say I'm a Font designer, and I see you going around uploading my TTF files to torrent sites, I don't think it really matters to me whether you're falling under a strict definition of traditional "theft" or not. It's still going to fell as wrong to me as if you walked into a store and stole a CD with those same fonts on them, and no dweeb on the internet going "ACKCHYUALLY, you're not a victim of theft" is going to make me feel better.
3. Piracy is almost always a service issue. In any customer-market relationship, some basic amount of theft is basically a baked in risk. Anything beyond that basic level of theft is usually an external service issue.
4. Not all piracy is equally immoral. If someone is "stealing" abandonware, then in that case, nothing is "really" being stolen because the product isn't actually on a market. So in that case, at worst you're "stealing" from a second-hand market seller. To which I think most people would say "Meh."
5. The bigger problem underlying discussions of entertainment piracy, that pretty much no one actually wants to talk about, is reforming copyright laws. I continually find it insane that Disney got to (and still gets to) profit off of retelling public domain fairy tales, but the damn Mouse still hasn't passed into the public use. It's completely unnatural at a societal level and completely out of step with basically all of human history to let people control these kinds of things for so long.

There's a really interesting high-concept level discussion to have about piracy or copyright laws, but "theft or not" isn't it.

 

[Le Pertti]

The legality has been discussed already, so I'll just add how I feel about it. I don't feel piracy is wrong. Maybe it's my anarchistic instincts but I genuinely don't feel it's wrong. Maybe it also is me growing up in Sweden where we tend to be very generous with sharing of culture and information.

I am a photographer and thus can have piracy done against me, meaning people who pirate my stuff, everyone can see my stuff of course but I'm talking about someone using my stuff without paying and I actually don't have a problem with it as long as they don't make money of it and give me credit if I find out. So I guess my stance is, piracy isn't wrong as long as it's personal and not done to make money for yourself, because then it's theft because you are taking money that should go to the creator.

That said, I don't really pirate. I buy all my games, I have Spotify and an unlimited cinema card, so I'm set.

 

[Nappael]

Piracy is copyright infringement, illegal, in the majority of cases morally wrong (but in my opinion there are clear exceptions for hard to find out of print games, or if you are from a poor part of the world where companies don't even want to do business with you). But it is not theft.

 

[Alextended]

The legality has been discussed already, so I'll just add how I feel about it. I don't feel piracy is wrong. Maybe it's my anarchistic instincts but I genuinely don't feel it's wrong. Maybe it also is me growing up in Sweden where we tend to be very generous with sharing of culture and information.

I am a photographer and thus can have piracy done against me, meaning people who pirate my stuff, everyone can see my stuff of course but I'm talking about someone using my stuff without paying and I actually don't have a problem with it as long as they don't make money of it and give me credit if I find out. So I guess my stance is, piracy isn't wrong as long as it's personal and not done to make money for yourself, because then it's theft because you are taking money that should go to the creator.

That said, I don't really pirate. I buy all my games, I have Spotify and an unlimited cinema card, so I'm set.

What do you mean people can pirate your stuff? If you took a photo and a newspaper or something bought it off you and put it on their paper in an article and on their site then anyone seeing those and saving them or making copies off that and hanging it on their wall isn't really pirating. Of course they still can't profit off doing that, that would be illegal I imagine, but doing that stuff is not piracy. But if you have a site where you actually sell your photos and anyone who wants them in higher resolution as digital files or whatever after seeing a preview can pay to download those, or if you sell prints of the high resolution files, then if someone goes to a torrent site to download your high resolution stuff instead of pay for it, whether he wants to print them or not bypassing your service, that's piracy. Though if he just downloads and prints your freely available low resolution preview I don't think that's piracy either.

I'm not challenging you or anything, just asking for clarification to see if you really encounter piracy or if what you encounter is somewhat different, still potentially harmful to you but not necessarily piracy that can be compared 1:1 with game piracy so that your opinion on it comes from real experience or not.

 

[Le Pertti]

What do you mean people can pirate your stuff? If you took a photo and a newspaper or something bought it off you and put it on their paper in an article and on their site then anyone seeing those and saving them or making copies off that and hanging it on their wall isn't really pirating. Of course they still can't profit off doing that, that would be illegal, but doing that stuff is not piracy. But if you have a site where you actually sell your photos and anyone who wants them in higher resolution as digital files or whatever after seeing a preview can pay to download those, or if you sell prints of the high resolution files, then if someone goes to a torrent site to download your high resolution stuff instead of pay for it, that's piracy. Though if he just downloads and prints your freely available low resolution preview I don't think that's piracy either. Not challenging you or anything, just asking for clarification to see if you really encounter piracy or if what you encounter is somewhat different, still potentially harmful to your business in some ways but not necessarily piracy that can be compared 1:1 with game piracy so that your opinion on it comes from real experience or not.

No one can use my photos without either paying or expressed consent. I'm not talking about someone looking at or saving an article or having a desktop wallpaper, I'm talking about someone sharing like using on their blog, forum post and such, printing a poster, all noncommercial uses. Sure it's kind of apples and oranges, all I was saying was that I'm not oblivious to the pain of having your stuff being used without authorization and that it would be hypocritical of me to not be ok with it if it happened to me.

 

[Alextended]

It totally wasn't okay with me when I was writing gaming (mostly mod,hereare afew snapshots of it from web archive, I did update to a more comlex design at one point but web archive completely breaks that version, this version only loses some small elements) stuff on my own site and more popular pages (the likes of planet half-life, hl2files which was part of the filefront network, others) copy pasted pretty much everything once they found out about me without any mention of the source. But then they did profit off it via ads and such, or for all I know their writers or at least editors got paid or used it to get into paying positions. I never got anywhere with any, super unprofessional every one of them, at most I managed a rewording of the occasional piece in a way that still made it super obvious, while telling me I don't own the news, the source is the original mod page or forum, or whatever else. I was probably the first of those to start a regular "quick news bits" report bunching up community stuff that didn't deserve a full news post of their own each as otherwise the bigger pages only cared to report the more hard hitting stuff from all the popular mods that everyone knew about already anyway and they even copied the exact title initially, haha. I was working like 16 hours a day following every single site and forum in existence on my dial up to make sure I caught everything as that's all I had going for me, becoming a comprehensive news resource for people who really cared about everything that had to do with mods, rather than display talent in witty writing or whatever, and they took everything by just visiting my site a few times a day. Pricks. Sometimes they sourced my exclusives (interviews or whatever media) and still copy pasted the whole lot on their own post about it until told off at which point it was too late to matter. But it's different to piracy.

Edit: wow, checking other snapshots I at one point had a lik-sang banner advertising (for EU I guess) the US copy of Final Fantasy XII PS2 as brand new. I'm old.

 

[Mivey]

Just from a purely legal view it's nothing more or less than license abuse. After all, you don't own software (unless you wrote it yourself, or an employee of you did for you), you merely hold a license for it.

I can understand, however, why someone who lives from writing software or developing games, would think of it as theft. You are "stealing" the very thing they make their livelihood from. Of course, this only applies if you are in a position where you can pay for it. If the game isn't sold in your region, or absolutely insanely priced, then it's hard to argue that every pirate could be transformed into a sale. That's why I never trust numbers trying to verify how much was "lost" due to piracy, or bullshit talk about how "90%" of PC gamers are pirates. That's a service issue, price your games so that can people can buy them without going through a hassle.

 

[FireEmoji]

It's digital theft.

We understand it's different; but we can still use the same words. You don't actually buy anything real, but do we avoid using the term "bought" with digital products? No, we just use it knowing that the world of digital products is different and move on with our conversations.

And guess what.. are you REALLY pirating anything with software piracy? I mean it's not like the term PIRATE didn't have a meaning before, that doesn't perfectly apply to the digital world.. and yet here we all are discussing software piracy and somehow understan each other. We can play this game all day; what is the hang up with using an analogous term in this one instance when it comes to discussing digital products?

 

[FreakOrama]

Just to up the discussion a bit with a different example. Thoughts on 3D scanning and printing:

Someone bought a physical 3D figure, scanned it, and 3D printed a copy for a friend who asked for one, and that copy is pretty much the same as the original.

Is this theft? Are either of the two thieves?

 

[Durante]

I'd argue that "copyright infringement" is the term that should be used, even in general forum circumstances.
Because that's what it is.

"Theft" inherently associates the act with depriving someone of access to something, which does not happen in copyright infringement.

Then, do I consider copyright infringement ethically wrong?
That depends on the situation. In most cases, yes it is wrong.
However, if e.g. some game is caught in licensing hell with some holding company, and you can't buy it in any way where its original creators will benefit, then by all means download it. (I'm familiar with the "resale value" and "intellectual property" arguments against this point of view; I don't care for them)

 

[lashman]

I'd argue that "copyright infringement" is the term that should be used, even in general forum circumstances.
Because that's what it is.

"Theft" inherently associates the act with depriving someone of access to something, which does not happen in copyright infringement.

Then, do I consider copyright infringement ethically wrong?
That depends on the situation. In most cases, yes it is wrong.
However, if e.g. some game is caught in licensing hell with some holding company, and you can't buy it in any way where its original creators will benefit, then by all means download it. (I'm familiar with the "resale value" and "intellectual property" arguments against this point of view; I don't care for them)

yeah, i'd have to agree with this as well

well said

 

[QFNS]

I'd argue that "copyright infringement" is the term that should be used, even in general forum circumstances.
Because that's what it is.

"Theft" inherently associates the act with depriving someone of access to something, which does not happen in copyright infringement.

Then, do I consider copyright infringement ethically wrong?
That depends on the situation. In most cases, yes it is wrong.
However, if e.g. some game is caught in licensing hell with some holding company, and you can't buy it in any way where its original creators will benefit, then by all means download it. (I'm familiar with the "resale value" and "intellectual property" arguments against this point of view; I don't care for them)

This seems like a sensible way to look at things. Piracy isn't theft, but it very likely is copyright infringement. Copyright Infringement is illegal and a crime (how much of one depends on your location, US/Europe/China/other countries all have different rules on this stuff and international treaties may or may not apply).

The morality behind that infringement depends on a whole host of factors that some people above have detailed and I don't care to think about all of them right now. Safe to say there is a moral component to it and it could be morally just to pirate something, but in the vast majority of cases it won't be, The moral component is almost impossible to justify when the game is still for sale. If it's out of print or unpurchasable for whatever reason, there is probably more a discussion to be had. Morality is weird.

All this is really just a handwave around the issue that the idea of "theft" doesn't make a whole lot of sense when speaking about digital goods. Society either needs to come up with a new term (copyright infringement? eTheft?) to encompass the idea that nothing is being lost or taken, but an illegal copy is being made. Copyright Infringement as a term is too broad and Piracy as a whole only deals with a small-ish section of what that term is talking about.