Well that was a nice big useless post.
And it makes me wonder if you downloaded Aquaria through pirating.
Okay, that wasa bit rude, but seriously, did YOU even tried looking it from another point of view? With pretty much every action I do, I look what concequences this may have, to whom, and if it's good or not. No, pirating is not good and can have bad concequences, but doesn't most of the time.
And that agreement in games is utter bullshit, I have taken several games, LIKE CnC, Red Alert 2, where I actually read the License agreement, and there was nothing no shit in that said I could actually request a new CD.
If it really matters that much to you, no, I did not pirate Aquaria, but I haven't bought it yet either. Only played the demo, but you're free to make any assumptions you want since I'll have no way to prove this to you. And I'm not attempting to drag your name through the mud, just using your speeches as an example to make my point. Because you're not the only one to have said or thought these things. A lot of people I knew in college believed the same things. And I did try to look at it from your point of view. Here is what you said:
I download movies because Cinema's are expensive, we used to pay 5f that's like.. 2.60€ now, you know what we pay for it nowadays? 12.50€ for the simple movies, while there are also movies of 15€ and 20€, so please, I really think I have all right to actually download 2 or 3 movies with every movie I watch in the Cinema, and I also buy A LOT of DVDs we have LOADS of them.
You buy "a lot of DVDs", got it. But I couldn't figure out how you can jump from that to "I have all right to actually download 2 or 3 movies". Why? Is it your personal mission in life to watch every movie ever made? Did you buy the wrong ones and wished you had gotten the ones you don't own instead? To me, it's just basically the same as believing, "I download movies because it's easy and free, and I'll never get caught". But it's so hard to get people to say this, because they don't want to admit that they're thieves! Do you see what I'm trying to say?
About the EULA, I didn't mean that it tells you how to order a new CD. I meant that there's usually a clause that says "Do not distribute this game, attempt to resell it, blah blah". I feel bad that you would have to pay for the game every time that you broke it, though I probably would also caution you to be more careful. If the game stops working and you didn't scratch it or break it, you can usually return it to the company for a cheap replacement. You may feel entitled to a free replacement via the Internet, but that doesn't make it right.
Doesn't have a consequence most of the time? Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? If you were really the only one committing piracy, then yeah, there isn't much of a consequence. But being part of a community (and let's face it, if you have access to downloadable material, you are one of them) means you have a much greater impact than any one individual. The nature of bittorrents means that you become another cog in the machine. This isn't something you can wash your hands free of because you're not as bad as the rest of them.
(All that said and done, I'm sure you're an okay guy in real life. I may feel a bit disappointed in the train of thought used to arrive at the result, but what's one anonymous guy's opinion matter on the Internet?)
I think claiming a moral imperative against pirating 'abandonware' is a bit much. Sure, anyone who attempts to make a legal distinction doesn't know what they're talking about, but leaving classics untouched at the whims of bean counters, particularly in an age where the selling of products for download is so effortless, strikes me as an entirely arbitrary proscription - the tenth commandment is not Thou Shalt Not Breach Copyright. I don't particularly feel that any other piracy is justifiable, but I'm not going to judge anyone in that regard. Unless they try to justify it
Well, trying to legitimize their actions is just a load of bologna. The disclaimers on these sites say things such as "It is legal to download this game if the company has gone out of business" or "You are authorized to download one copy to replace your own if you lost or broke yours". I remember claims on rom servers saying "You can download roms for 24 hours before being required to delete them". The hell? They're just confusing the ones who don't want to break any laws, and the real pirates are pretty much going to ignore it anyway. It's just wishful thinking and vain attempts to avoid lawsuits.
How many games would have been lost to the cosmos if someone wasn't keeping a backup copy of it somewhere? You could do a simple search for "roms" or "abandonware" and see huge lists of games you probably never even heard of. Now, if you were saving these games for posterity, that'd be a commendable effort. You'll be praised and lauded by others who appreciate the free exchange and preservation of data. It's like being the Internet version of Robin Hood or something. But these sites basically operate on the premise of, who's going to stop us? I'm not an accountant or lawyer, but I would be willing to guess that with these games being thrown around in disregard of copyright laws, it basically means that your copyright is worth jack shit. Why do we even have copyright laws then? Why do they have a 100 year lifespan and not just die with the company? (This is a whole different beast of a discussion though)
Maybe people who download abandonware consider themselves connoisseurs or historians or anti-copyright activists. Just realize that you're indulging in a guilty pleasure.
I thought that the basic point was that, if you torrent your a bad guy. Doesn't matter whether you torrent off EA or off Bit blot. Your still a pirate. Alphasoldier and Glamador tried to justify it, but as alpha explained later, he was just joking.
Fynn has kind of strayed off now, saying why we should not torrent as i understand it.
I think the "moral significance" of torrenting and pirating stems from the intentions of the torrenter. I know people who torrent for the simple reason that they don't feel like paying for something. Then there are people who have reasons aside from pure greed. If you're intention is to either pay for, or delete what you've downloaded once you've "demoed" it then I think it's equivalent to say, watching a movie on TV, or playing a game demo and then going out and buying the full version. It's all about what you INTEND at the time.
Wrong. Its not about what you intend. The means do not justify the ends, nor does the end justify the means. I dont give a damn what your reasons are for torrenting.
Ok, if he really was joking, I must have missed that, and I apologize. Sometimes it's hard to tell what a person means. If they add a smiley after a sentence, I can't tell if they're making a tongue-in-cheek comment, or just softening the impact of what they're really trying to say. The statement of not giving singers more money than they deserved seemed like one of those thought processes that I was addressing in my post.
The idea of being a bad guy is subjective. I don't really think anyone here thinks of themselves as a bad guy, and can argue that they'll leave this world a better place than it was. But if I get caught downloading the newest Pokemon game by the ESA, no argument in the world is going to exonerate me. When I was offering examples of why one shouldn't pirate, it was to try to show the effects of their actions. Whether it be showing a different side of the morality equation, or a cause and effect. I hate to be so blunt, but if one really believes that it's perfectly okay to pirate something and there aren't any consequences, then that person is truly naive. You could simply just go without whatever it is you want; not all desires are meant to be fulfilled.
If you played a game demo or watched a TV broadcast of a movie, it was because this was something the makers wanted you to have. If you download a movie to "demo" it, how is this any different than watching it without paying? What if you didn't like it? You don't end up paying for it, but have reaped the benefit of having watched it at least once. You basically got something for nothing. Surely you can see the problem with this. It's like holding the company's product hostage and saying, "I'll pay for it if I think it's worth it". This line of thought is only acceptable if you haven't obtained the product, and seems kind of silly when you've already gotten what you wanted, because you're holding all the cards now.
To me, there's a fundamental difference between saying, "I'm gonna download this because I'm just a cheap bastard who can't be arsed to pay for stuff" and "I'm gonna download this because it's not really hurting anyone, and I still go to church, donate to charity and pay my taxes". The former realizes that what he's doing is wrong and accepts his fate, but the latter has some sort of regret for his actions or doesn't want to face the responsibilities it entails. I don't want to imply that the hardened criminal is on a higher ethical tier than the man who steals food to survive. But whether you think that companies don't deserve money, or can't be bothered to do things the legitimate way, or even that you somehow deserve something, is not an honest excuse for these crimes. In our society, the poor man would receive a much lighter sentence, but is still viewed as a thief.
Whether it's games, movies, music, or anime, every time you download something without paying for it is a blow to the industry. Producers, publishers, middle-men, retailers and end-users are all part of the equation, and someone gets affected. One little freebie for yourself might not seem so wrong. But think of this analogy: water is still water at 99 degrees Celsius, and it's that last degree that makes all the difference. Everything tends to add up. Heh, almost like global warming.
What is the point I'm trying to make? If you pirated something, you did wrong. Just be honest to yourself. If you want to stay on the right side of the law, there's always alternatives available to you. But whenever you cross the line, it was your own choice to do it; no one forced you. And whether you want to admit it or not, it was done because it was the path of least resistance and greatest personal reward. It's easy to be a scofflaw when the odds of being punished are one in a million. It's human nature. It's a sad state of our society, but c'est la vie.
Like I said, I don't really care what you download or how often you do it. I don't want to be the morality police, though inkblob may have been close with the Jiminy comparison. It's a free country (or so I hear), and a free Internet. But don't sugar-coat your deeds like you're trying to balance some karmic scale. You relinquished your position on the right side of the law; don't try to claim you're still on the right side of ethics as well, unless it were a matter of life or death. Maybe it just confuses me how people can occasionally "dabble" in piracy and still try to appear as some model citizen. In my opinion, the less said about your piracy, the better.
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@Glamador:
I just saw your post while I was still editing mine. Yeah, it was long, but I just want to minimize the number of times I post, by saying all that I can at once. I can empathize with your position. We all want nice things, whether or not we can afford it. Being a full-time student can come with an enormous workload, with deadlines to meet and tons of stress to boot. Perhaps games and anime are better than sex and drugs (probably subject to change depending on who you ask). If given the choice between downloading a few games or shows, or having a depressed student drop out of school and have their life spiral downward, I'd be hard pressed to defend copyrights. But you've made it clear that you are content with this course of action. Anyway, piracy is simply weighing risk vs. reward.
I guess if you do realize that despite your predicament, your actions will still have an impact on the industries you love or depend on, then that's about all I can hope for. And you also realize that people will tend to indulge themselves before others, which helps clear up the distinction between an "Aquaria pirate" and the others. It's just a matter of perspective and priorities; we're not all saints. But we can still wag our fingers at each other.
