Quoting: emphy

Quoting: BlackBloodRum

Quoting: emphyand so-called pirates become dicks who don't want to contribute, as opposed to clever consumers going for the superior products at lower prices.

Yeah, pirates are terrible people. Don't tolerate them, actually we should give them all the death sentence.

Great way of selectively quoting out of context, I applaud your great righteous misreading skills. ^_~

I was messing around and joking.

Well...I do have some boxed games and some of these are Games for Windows live games. Which require a connection to that service. Which isn't there anymore.

Same counts for some games which require activation via internet or phone.

But to be honest, I often grab the GOG version as it is convenient that way.

But it is comical that physical PS3 games often have a better chance of working than their PC counterparts.

As I often mention, the EU Piracy Displacement Study found that pirates actually have a bigger legitimate games collection, on average.

Of course the bigger publishers would rather that you didn't know that.

Quoting: robvvAs I often mention, the EU Piracy Displacement Study found that pirates actually have a bigger legitimate games collection, on average.

Of course the bigger publishers would rather that you didn't know that.

I guess they didn't count me.

I just don't agree with the premise here. Sharing culture and knowledge needs no justification. Though I guess sometimes copyright is justifiable.

Quoting: eldakingI just don't agree with the premise here. Sharing culture and knowledge needs no justification. Though I guess sometimes copyright is justifiable.

So you're saying if you make something that took you hundreds of hours using your talent that not many people have you should be obliged to give it away for everyone to benefit from?

Copyright is totally justified, it should be fully up to the creator how it's to be used. And it mostly is.

However, in the western world, these protections are occasionaly taken way too far, with creators (or rather companies that stand in for them) profiting way too much and having way too much power over individuals who don't adhere to the rules they set.

Quoting: damarrin

Quoting: eldakingI just don't agree with the premise here. Sharing culture and knowledge needs no justification. Though I guess sometimes copyright is justifiable.

So you're saying if you make something that took you hundreds of hours using your talent that not many people have you should be obliged to give it away for everyone to benefit from?

Copyright is totally justified, it should be fully up to the creator how it's to be used. And it mostly is.

However, in the western world, these protections are occasionaly taken way too far, with creators (or rather companies that stand in for them) profiting way too much and having way too much power over individuals who don't adhere to the rules they set.

No, I'm absolutely not saying that, do not fabricate stuff and attribute to me in bad faith. As a good practice don't even start arguments with "so you are saying", because unless you are directly quoting it is not true. Ask if I agree with your conclusions, or state what you think are the conclusions from my points.

Pirate copies are not generally "given away by creators", they are shared by others, generally after the author charged money from it at least once. Despite the existence of free pirate copies, authors continue to charge money for their work. The creator isn't "obliged" to do anything; I just don't think they should be given rights that severely detract from public interest (and that as a matter of fact are insufficient and ineffective at their stated purpose: few creators can actually sue violators, it does not block exploitation by publishers, and creators aren't well supported during the process of creation).

Copyright is very much not the same as the moral rights of the author, and in fact is often in direct conflict with those: the ability to completely sell your rights to your creation is extremely vile, and helps nothing but the exploitation of creators.

I believe in the public good of public libraries, the public domain, archiving initiatives, fan creations, derived works, and other ways to make culture and knowledge widely available to all, even if they don't directly reward the original creator. Sharing copies is, as has been widely repeated, not the same as "stealing": the creator loses nothing, they just don't gain something that maybe they should have, but was never actually theirs.

I believe what is called "piracy", a vague concept defined solely by it's opposite (piracy is that which violates copyright), is not substantially different from fundamental rights that everyone enjoys: sharing information with their friends and family, free access to knowledge, active participation in their culture by debating and building upon what they experience. Restricting these freedoms, enclosing the cultural commons, is an unacceptable compromise.

Thus, I believe that starting from the premise that violation of copyright (piracy) is fundamentally wrong, even though copyright is known to be unfair, is a flawed assumption. Searching for justifications for copyright violation, rather than looking for flaws in copyright, is an inversion of logic: rather than a law being created and then followed, it assumes the law just is, and anything not covered by the law is exceptional.

Edit: typos and grammar mistakes

Last edited by eldaking on 24 October 2024 at 5:03 pm UTC

There's a lot that's wrong with the law, sure, I think everyone here knows this. But OP wasn't just asking about copyright law in its current form, this is more a question of ethics. Do you think creators shouldn't have any control over how they monetize their work in order to make a living?

Some control of course, which is why I said cheekily that sometimes copyright is justifiable, and later I pointed the difference between copyright and the author's moral rights (which were implied to be a good thing).

But in terms of ethics, questioning the law should be the less controversial stance; neither condoning crimes (that should not be illegal, but are) nor condone unjust laws.

Never mind the law at all. Is it ethical to not pay for something the creator wants to get paid for?