Piracy
I thought it would be interesting to see your views on piracy. Do you think it's alright under certain circumstances? Completely against it? No view? What about emulation? DRM?
Personally, i think it's okay, if and only if you have bought the exact copy of the game you are pirating. Say for backup purposes, convenience (all you games in one place, for handhelds etc) or if your game disc gets stolen/lost/broken, and it isn't available in retail anymore (out of print, and not in circulation in second hand shops).
Having said that, i've only downloaded one game (excluding digital games through here and steam) in the past 3 years.
Note: Do not post links to pirating sites. Do not flame people for having different opinions to you, just civilised arguements.
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I wouldn't do it if demos were easily distributed.
...Also, I have a flashcard for my DS. But same thing applies, besides the fact I usually keep playing the game on the card for easy storage purposes.
Personally, I know people who pirate alot, and it doesn't bother me what they do. Alot of games I've bought because they've shown me it, and the same goes for them too. Same with movies/tv shows.
As far as non-game media, my rules were a little more lax until recently. I started torrenting Heroes in the middle of the third season, after a friend forced me to borrow the first two seasons and got me hooked. It was the only way I had to catch up at the time. I finally caught up at the end of season 3, but I watched all of season 4 via torrent because it conflicted with other shows and the video quality was better than online streaming. However, 23 complaints from NBC Universal and my internet getting shut off for three days (though only because those complaints were going to an e-mail address that doesn't exist, so I never got them and thus never stopped what I was doing) was enough to get me to knock off that behavior.
These days, I pretty much only pirate old TV shows that don't have any sort of DVD release. At the moment, my torrent list contains Time Squad and seasons five and six of Power Rangers. Yes, I'm a sucker for nostalgia, and if I can't purchase it, I'll get it the only way I can.
This is what I do with music. I download a lot of music, but I own over 170 CD's legally (and plan to buy hundreds more), and many of these I wouldn't have even bought if it weren't for the ability to download.
But, as for games, I don't pirate them at all, I just don't. I think that much more work probably goes into video games. And, unlike music, if you're going to try out a game, you have to download the entire product, which is something that I feel bad about. Whereas, with music, I'll just download a portion of the songs from an album.
this and the newest episodes of Doctor Who. I like being able to talk about it with people from across the pond
That said, as comment on the quote: What I do this with is Super Nintendo games. Sure I could buy the new DS version or the PlayStation version (prolly not on that last one). But with the SNES I get gems like Magus: You got whacked cus you're week.
Also Radical Dreamers. Which I wouldn't be able to get at all any other way and understand it
I ended up downloading Escape last night (which is why i made this thread), as i had lost my PS2 version (i think my mum threw it out...), plus the convenience of not having to have th disc in the drive. It was the first game i'd pirated in 3 years (and probably my first non-snes/GB game)
I feel bad about being a pirate. I have downloaded games before. Usually they are action games I think I might like, and I use them as demos. If there is a game I know I want, and I keep track of during development, I will buy it when it comes out (any Telltale games, Star Wars stuff, lots of stuff on Steam, adventure games and the like...) - the games I torrent are ones I think look interesting but might not actually enjoy enough to invest time or money into. 90% of the games I've torrented I've played for 5 minutes, and never touched again and deleted (I remember a time when I bought games at Gamestop - Theif: the Dark Ages era - bought games all the time that I just, "Didn't like" and they let me return them for full credit...those were the days).
And if there is a game I play that I absolutely love, I'll buy...but not all the time. Most of the time if I like a game I'll play through it, and toss it.
I have downloaded music CDs in the past. I had a horrible DRM experience once: I bought a CD, and the album would not let me rip it to my hard drive. I tried for a long time and discovered it was part of the CD's DRM. I got mad and stopped buying CDs for a long long time. But now with the price of Amazon's mp3 store being so low, I've been buying them for the past year or so happily (see what happened there publishers? See what your DRM did?!)
The other thing I will download is TV shows. I don't watch too much TV, but I usually download the shows that I love watching, but missed the night before. If I can't Hulu it (Office, 30 Rock, Modern Family) I'll download it. I've also been downloading the latest season of the IT Crowd that is showing on the BBC in the UK right now. I've bought the previous seasons, and I'm downloading these until the DVDs hit the US, then I'll buy.
Do I feel bad about this? Sometimes. Will that stop me? No. Why? Because I won't play Assassin's Creed 2 with Ubisoft's ridiculous DRM, and chances are, I won't play the new Prince of Persia with their DRM this way ...so I'll have to wait until someone cracks with a torrent site. Would I buy it if the DRM were simpler and less restrictive. Hell yeah! I love those series. But the DRM is pushing me away. When I pay for a game/CD/movie, etc..I want to use it however the hell I want, and I will keep it within my household. but Ubisoft will point at something like this post and say, "SEE! THIS IS WHY WE HAVE TO DO WHAT WE DO!!!" And I point at their DRM and say, "SEE THIS IS WHY I DOWNLOAD!"
It's a cycle that won't be broken, and why more and more games will bypass the PC and go straight for consoles (Alan Wake? So sad that didn't come to PC...would have been a day one purchase for me - hoping Red Dead Redemption makes the jump, too).
I hope the Telltale people don't hate me now...
It seems to be victimless because we can't see the immediate effects and any effects it does have are contingent - nothing actually happens is a result of piracy. The main effect is that potential money isn't made (and sometimes money is lost). Because of the absence of a quantifiable outcome, it's easy to write off the damages as non existent.
I do pirate things from time to time, but I try to do it with a certain amount of thought. Games, for example, are usually off-limits unless it's a very successful game. This is because it's MUCH harder to make money from games compared to, say, movies. If a game grosses $1M, it's a huge success. If a movie grosses $1M, it's a huge flop.
I find it more favourable to download pirated movies since it isn't quite as damaging, but it's still worse to download movies that haven't done well at the box office.
As for music, I don't have as much of a problem with downloading it. An album takes much less work, money and pain to produce than movies or games do, so any loss isn't too bad. It's also better, in my opinion, if an artist makes money touring and through promotion rather than through record sales.
Piracy is okay if the data you pirate is no longer sold. Abandonware? I have no idea.
Emulation: Is piracy unless you own the original game and create the module etc. from your legal copy. E.g. ScummVM used with a legal version is not Piracy ihmo. (I last had to use it for the games in the Kings Quest Collection and the Space Quest collection I bought on steam).
DRM: There are DRM concepts that I personally don't mind. (Steam or the Ubisoft DRM) and others that make me avoid a game (3x install limitations and similar things and since I know steam even a simple disc-check).
Same here. There are DVDs for those shows but they have a different regional code. The show I am pirating is not even broadcasted here. Not even a translated version.
I remember being little and my parents giving me as a present some game in a box of floppies, and me thinking that was the only and normal way of buying games (and in fact right there and at that time, it was).
I got the sense that in other countries people selling pirated stuff are well hidden, and acting like a drug dealer, while in here you got people selling movies in the street next to a policeman or games being exposed at hardware stores.
Anyway, now wherever you are, it's more evident how buying digital goods its more like an option rather than the only thing to do. In the past you bought a game or a cd because it was the only thing you could do, now you buy something because you support it or because you tell yourself its the right thing, but not anymore because its the only way.
It's complex,
For now, piracy seems unstoppable and if the equilibrium of people downloading and people buying remains it will be all good, but if it grows to become a real threat then some things will have to change. Internet it's making a lot of business models to mutate. Only time will tell.
But, I do it with music, and games that are ONLY unavailable. There are some pretty old classics out there, and I don't want to start hunting on ebay. (other games end up not working, and I end up buying them, however) I do it with music because my family doesn't really get CDs anymore, and also people will end up putting whole albums on Youtube, which means millions of people listen to their favorite songs for free as well.
I also do it with movies, only because DVDs are just pushing the price of a $7 movie ticket to a $20 DVD.
The only reason people want to stop piracy is only so that they can make more money off of their merchandise. Is it really a win-win situation with piracy at an end? No, it's not. We (the consumers) would lose money, and then corporations would all get it.
It's more of a win-win with piracy, as we don't spend as much, and they gain a good amount of money.
Piracy would be completely useless with games if companies had you access them only from an online system. Say, Telltale Games?
Whoa! That's cheap! I want to live wherever you live. I just went to go see an animated movie on Sunday and it cost me $14. And it was a normal movie theater (not one with a pre-show and stuff). They didn't even have a student discount. Now I'm grumpy. Stupid high cost of living...
$7 is the student discount..
And could we please stay on topic?
Not an excuse to download it illegally in my opinion, though.
An album is released by a band I like but I wasn't keen on the first single from it.
A TV programme is being shown in another country with no hint at when (or even if) it may be available to legally watch in the UK.
Games that have no demo available - I can't afford to risk such high prices on something I can't sample beforehand. Steam really should do a one off time limited 'rental' for $5 that you can put towards the cost of the game.
In all of those situations I buy the thing I've downloaded if I like it. If I don't like, obviously I never listen to/watch/play it again.
Oh, and I'm totally 'for' emulation of old Mega Drive / SNES / etc games. I like to play them portably and aside from a few official compilations (which I legally own), there are no other ways to play them on PSP or DS.
Yes, but if records don't sell well the labels don't give the bands an opportunity to make another, no matter how many people buy tshirts at gigs.
But I couldn't because my IP isn't in France. And the songs aren't available in other stores.
My current plan is to buy them while I'm on a trip to France, but seriously, for things like that piracy makes so much sense to me. They're not even letting you buy the stuff legally, what are you supposed to do?
EDIT: oh, and I can't use a proxy because I have to download them through a program, not on the website itself.
You won't have to wait long, that's being rolled out in a MS Update next Tuesday.
As for music, I just download the a video from Youtube that has the music and convert it to an MP3. Is that really illegal? No. Someone posted the video on YouTube, no copyright infringements happen, and I am just being clever.
You won't get the same sound quality, however. It will, most of the time, sound fuzzy unless you've downloaded a high quality video.
Also, I don't know if they work as well as your method (as far as sound quality goes), but there are several websites that will convert a Youtube video directly into a downloadable MP3. I won't link any of these sites directly, but they're pretty easy to find with a simple Google search. It will save you a lot of time and effort if you decide to use it.
Haha! Agreed. By the way, that reminds me of this. I thought it was pretty funny, and it's on topic.
Try YouTube Downloader by BienneSoft. It lets you convert the video to a very high-quality MP3 after downloading. I have used it for a year now and no problems. I only use it for songs I can't get anywhere else, though(like the extended Power Rangers theme or Eric Cartman's Poker Face).
That's the one I actually USE! I just didn't see Hayden's post until now, but the music I downloaded off of it has been top-notch so far.
I'm pretty sure downloading an illegal youtube video is illegal. I'm not even sure if watching it is legal.
Many people put music up on Youtube. Even artists put up their own songs on Youtube (VEVO, much?). I'm pretty sure if it was illegal there would be a very small abundance of them.
And yes, some videos are legal and put by the artist, author, etc. But a lot of them are put in by whoever and are technically copyright infringement, whether they're considered worthy of being removed or a bigger pain in the ass to take care of than to let be.
Just because someone turns a blind eye to some shoplifting because the shoplifter's parents are good customers (for a quick example) doesn't make it legal.
Heh, you and I have very different ways of thinking. I personally love CD's; love the particular format. But I absolutely hate the whole idea of digital music, I consider iTunes evil
With CD's, there's so much more enjoyment and satisfaction to be had as opposed to just buying the music files. For me, having the physical product just feels so much better. I constantly hear people on this forum talk about 'putting the latest game in a series next to the other boxes on their shelf', because they enjoy having the physical product; having something that they can look at and feel. I feel the same way about CD's, I want to not only be able to listen to the music, but I also want to look at the cover artwork for minutes on end, I want to read the lyrics on the inside of the booklet, I want to be able scour through the personnel, photos and additional artwork that may be scattered throughout the booklet, and I want to be able to put a CD up on my shelf next to the rest of my collection after listening to it.
Digital music just doesn't have the same feeling about it, all you get is the music files. I know the music and the audio is the main thing that matters when you buy the product, but having the physical product is just a better experience overall. Yes, digital music is convenient as you can get music within minutes without leaving your computer chair, and yes, it may be cheaper at times (not always), but convenience and money are things that I am more than willing to sacrifice in order to have the physical product. I don't mind if I have to leave my home to purchase music, in fact, I would actually prefer to go out to a CD shop and browse through the music in there, buy the CD that I want, and then make a transaction with another human being, then come home and put the brand new album into the stereo. It feels more real, it doesn't feel virtual. I enjoy CD shops, I like being able to search around in the many other CD's in order to find what I'm looking for, it can lead to other discoveries. This doesn't happen as much with digital purchasing.
Many people feel the same way with books, they like the look, the feel, the smell, and not just the text inside. They like to go to book shops, and search for what they're looking for. That's because it's physical and it's real. It's a better experience than reading books or magazine articles online. I feel this way about many things; not just CD's, but movies, magazines, books, games among other things. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, I know that many other people would much rather have physical items. This is why so many people were requesting the Voodoo Cards from 'Tales of Monkey Island' to be released on actual card for purchase. Of course, we had images of the Voodoo Cards online, but what were those compared to the real thing? Having the real thing/s means that you own a collector's item, having the digital version means that you don't have a collector's item; you have a virtual copy that will always be available through the net and will never become obsolete. I guess this is half the reason why a CD collection is much more impressive than a music library on you computer (and, also, what happens if your entire music collection is on your computer, and it suddenly crashes?).
As, for the 'hard to carry around' thing, you don't actually have to carry them around, you can extract them (as you said, Avistew) and have a digital alternative which you can then put onto your iPod. And I don't see how the extraction is any slower than downoading the music (legally). Also, with this method, you have a physical backup for your digital music, and a digital backup for your physical music. The fact is that there are benefits to having CD's, more-so [I think] than having a digital music collection. I know that many individuals prefer buying digital music (for reasons already mentioned), and I have no objection to those people who prefer to purchase their music this way; it is entirely up to them. However, I do fear that, with a higher percentage of people buying digital music online, that fewer and fewer artists and bands will choose to even bother releasing physical versions of their albums. This isn't something that I want to happen, I want to be able to buy my favourite bands music off of racks and stands, and not off of the net. I don't want CD shops and physical music distribution to die on account of digital music (not a probability, but a possibility). I enjoy physical music too much, I like the days when a major artist releases their new album and hundreds rush out to buy it on the first day. Those days are great, and that's another thing that I wouldn't want to lose.
Anyway, I realize that I may be going overboard here, so I won't ramble on any further, but I do know that I am one of many who feels this way about music and it method of distribution. Just in case anybody gets the notion that I'm attacking and criticizing the way that they buy their music, let me assure you that I am not, I'm just putting forward my personal opinion.
And, Avistew, don't worry, this whole post wasn't entirely targeted at your post, but it was targeted at the topic in general.
And, to the rest of you, sorry if this is slightly off topic.
Hehe, don't worry, I was expecting to have that reaction the whole way through typing that post
I always loved poking around in CD shops, mainly because I never know what I want until I see it. Then, all the CD shops in my area closed down. Since the choices remaining are driving for an hour, amazon (or other websites), or iTunes I usually just choose iTunes because gas money/shipping isn't involved. But it took me awhile. Some albums I'll probably still buy a hard copy just to complete a set (packrat mentality
Music: I download music via torrent only when
Movies: I do not download torrent copies of movies at all if I can find a streaming version online, and in either case it must be an obscure movie that I remember watching once from long ago but doubt Blockbuster has, or a movie that I'm unsure if it's any good (eg. Defending Your Life for example of an old obscure movie, Epic Movie and Butterfly Effect 2 as examples of movies I wasn't sure were any good.) I do not intentionally keep local copies of movies found either way, and when I find locally cached copies I delete them shortly afterward.
I have been known to rent movies from Amazon On Demand (eg. Superman: The Movie), but sometimes movies I look for aren't available there.
TV Shows: I do not download torrent copies of TV shows at all if I can find a streaming version online, and then in either case only do so to catch up on a current series that I missed episodes for or an old series that is no longer running... or Star Trek. ...I do have to admit having watched every episode of every series of Star Trek at least once, and those from any other Trek series except TOS I have seen numerous times, but I also know where to find most any Trek episode from streaming video websites, so that also applies to my first statement.
As for TV, i just watch whats available for free on the likes of iplayer, youtube (on official TV channels) and seesaw. (i.e. i watch them on those sites)