Quoting: scaine...

I... think we're agreeing on everything except some semantics on the names.

Probably not, but then again we are not talking about everything there is to say on the topic ^_~ . Sorry, I get really triggered on this topic, probably because of those annoying unskippable anti-piracy ads, the ones with "you wouldn't steal..."

I definitely agree that buying at shady sites is a bad thing (even if is legal). The chances of the dev. not seeing a single cent (even indirectly) of the purchase, or even being harmed by chargebacks from credit card fraud, are simply too high.

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Quoting: liamdaweJust needed to quote this again to give it some more light, because never has a hammer hit the nail on the head so damn hard.
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This sort of stuff will be posted on GOL in future, because I personally feel it's important to highlight, especially given the recent spate of increased pro-piracy comments on GOL which to be frank, piss me right off. This is a pro-legal website, that should have been clear since day-1 of us opening given our content.

Sorry for contributing to the derailment ^_^. Personally, I love your so-called off-topic articles even if I may not always agree (shocking, I know)

Pro-legal I don't care for so much, but I love it the site is pro-making-sure-the-devs-receive-money-so-they-get-rewarded-for-making-great-games, which is, after all, the reason those laws were created in the first place.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Colomboscaine: Piracy is not stealing. Stealing is taking from someone. Piracy is piracy. Its like listening to musician who is playing behind fence for audience that paid for it. Musican isn't directly losing anything, audience who paid for it isn't directly losing anything.

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But in the musician example above, we're not talking about piggy-backing a live performance, a closer example would be a copied CD. You're paying nothing for a perfect copy of what other people did pay for. You are stealing. This can't be debated. It just is.

Sure, there is nuance, but when people start talking about digital vs physical, that's just rationalisation for the fact that pirates deprive artists of revenue. Weren't going to buy it anyway, hence not a sale? Largely false, because if you weren't going to buy it anyway, then why did you pay peanuts for a pirate copy? Don't think it's worth the asking price? Wait for a sale, or debate that price.

But piracy is stealing. Fact.

Erm, no. Piracy is copyright infringement: breaking a legally enforced monopoly on copying.

There is something to be said for calling it stealing when copies are being sold, since in that case you can demonstrate the buyer was prepared to pay. Even then, the one buying it is not stealing, but buying 'stolen goods', and the seller is the one who is stealing.

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Quoting: Colombo...

Quicky post, since I don't have much time now.

I understand my own examples quite well, thank you ^_^

Sure, there are cookbooks for which you must pay, but there's no one stopping you from sharing the recipes contained therein. Same for theatre groups performing out of copyright plays. Still, more than enough people are prepared to pay for (quite high quality) versions to be able to fund the production.

The general availability of culture has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of the authors to charge for their work. But once people have culture in their hands/minds/computer, the author's control of it is a legal construct. The simple reality is that, without some stasi-level surveillance, people will share products of the mind. The implication of people owning ideas is restricting peoples freedom to share it, FORCING them to stop doing what has been a pillar to cultural development for thousands of years.

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Quoting: ColomboHowever, I would say that this idea is just plain wrong. Food, architecture, clothing... all those and many others are part of culture, but no one expect to get these things for free

Not quite - and this ties closely with how currently culture is organised into intellectual property. For example, you pay for food, but it is quite usual for recipes to be freely shared (similar to, say, how theatre groups can perform Shakespeare's plays) However, literature, music, films and video games are nowadays locked away into this legal framework which prohibits copying and insists that each and everyone who enjoys them pay a fee.

Don't mistake the idea of not charging each and every person individually with actually being free of charge.
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Back on topic, notice that even with my commie view on culture (^_^), if you participate you should make sure that when you want to contribute your contribution reaches the dev, so buying at shady sites like g2a should be a no-no.

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Its an interesting discussion - as I see it, roughly speaking, there seem to be two views clashing:

One side of the argument sees video games as goods/services. From this it easily follows that if you can't pay you don't get the stuff.

The other side of the argument sees video gaming as a cultural activity. Money barely enters the equations in this view: the street artist has to perform first, then if the audience liked it they pay, or not.

For myself, I sympathise much more with the second view. It seems to be much tougher on the artist since, if you adhere (maybe even partly) to the first view, they have to compete with free copies of their product. However, in the second view, if one is enjoying the culture, one makes sure to return a favour, which in modern times is making sure there's some money going to the artist in question when you can.

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Quoteyou’re not entitled to anything.

Sorry, but this is extremely offensive. Blocking off people from cultural activities because of their financial situation or location is simply wrong.

That said, I rather think there's sufficiently convenient alternatives to shady store fronts to make this point moot.

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It's a bit saddening, really. In the steam forum they're pretending to prefer to refund rather than leave unhappy costumers. At the same time log is refusing to refund kickstarter backers despite not providing a drm-free version to those backers.

Developers like this are extremely damaging to crowdfunding efforts.

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Here's a first for gog community requests:

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/remove_armello_drm_free_edition_from_the_catalog_please

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Quoting: ColomboSo why are people bitching about the last example even here? I thought that here is bit more intelligent community. But rather than intelligent posts, all I read here is just nonsensical bitching with make up reasons why it should be easy.

It's because the (support for the) DRM-free version got degraded after it was sold.

DRM-free was promised as far back as the kickstarter and, given how competitive that is, they may even not have succeeded without it.

Edit:
Just got it confirmed; kickstarter backers will NOT receive a refund (interestingly, still waiting for the drm-free version)

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