The same way that stealing shit from Tesco is considered more ethical by most than stealing from a corner shop.

EDIT: Not that I do either of those, I'd be bricking it for weeks after thinking i'd get caught

The fact that Tesco won't miss the money you steal from them doesn't mean they won't miss money from everyone stealing from them.

Even if you were the only person in the world that stole from them, the fact that they are bloated doesn't mean they deserve it. It doesn't justify your actions.

Come on, this is kiddie morality here.

I agree that it's silly to argue that piracy is morally right just to justify doing it, but I don't feel terrible about doing it either. I see lots of people say that they pirate stuff to see what it's like, and buy it if they think it's a worthwhile purchase. There are lots of people who just wouldn't be buying something at all, but actually end up buying it after trying it out. Obviously, anecdotes like that aren't any sort of justification for piracy in general, but there's a definite trend there.

Some people would pirate a cracked DRM game if it's a better experience than paying for DRM that punishes paying customers and doesn't affect pirates. I never pirate games actually, but THAT is the one example where I couldn't possibly feel bad about pirating in any way.

I don't believe that piracy can ever be considered morally right, but neither can it can take the majority of the blame for damaging an industry that fails to adapt to the internet and lobbies to create legislation which restricts people's freedom online instead. Pragmatically, I just don't care about piracy.

Very true, though with Tesco they cannot sell that product you've nicked, with piracy they still can

No, no, NO. I am tired of people comparing digital distribution to retail in "piracy is fine" arguments. There are literally infinite available copies of a DD game. Attempting to use the "it doesn't diminish their stock" argument is therefore absolutely meaningless.

Nobody is going to buy that same packet of Cheetos you nicked from Tesco. And nobody is going to buy that same copy of Modern Warfare you pirated. That doesn't necessarily mean a lost sale overall, it just means you can't compare digital thieves favourably to a physical thief.

They are never going to run out of digital copies. Saying that you haven't deprived anyone of a copy is always going to be true, whether you bought it or pirated it. It's just... it's just a non-argument.

My wording is terrible, so I'll just direct you to the Piracy trilogy of Jimquisition episodes which explains it much better.

Please no. If I wanted to listen to fat arrogant faggots then...

well

I'd watch a lot more online 'celebrities'.

Jim is a celeb? News to me. (and in case you didn't realize, he is actually playing a character in that series. He isn't that arrogant really. Well, maybe a bit.)

The point is that he's wrong, and we've made very compelling, and honest arguments in this thread that point that out.

I think at times, old Jimmy can be funny, not in his old episodes though...needs to lose 100 lbs too. Fuck.

The way games were pirated in the late 90s affected some new features in new games. Such as multiplayer modes (regardless of genre), 'always online' social features and DLC. Personally I am fond of DLC because it means if you want a little bit extra of a game, you can get it. I must admit though, I am not fond of DLC which is already on the disc. I much prefer Rock Band DLC where if a brand new song comes out, players can download it for a reasonable price. Hardware consoles now have "firmware" which periodically update to block cheaters and stop roms working.

Pirating movies which are in the cinema seems pointless to me, since you get a washed out picture and bad sound. DVD rips of movies however are much more desirable, and naturally are one of the most downloaded things.

Now that you've explained piracy could you explain to me this Oddworld thing?

No problem, you see it all started when I have nothing to write here so I'll just work in binary. 0101010110101010111001110101010111001111010101011100111

1010101011100111101010101101010101110011110101010111001111100111110101010111001110111001110101010111 0011010101011100111111010101011110101010111001111010101011100111001111010101011100111101010101110011 1101010101110011110101010111001111

pirate pirate ARRRRR ME HEARTYS
SHIVER ME TIMBERS AND A BOTTLE O' RUM

i do that all the time. piracy is great.

Man fuck piracy

Attaboy.

right on.

straight edge forever.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...raightedge.jpg

Man fuck? Ew.

Men? Ewww

Cartoon ponies? Yay!

Piracy huh?

I always get stuck between Gruier and Grunhilde.

Best reason for pirating anything: http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-...irateddvd1.png

I promise you. I PROMISE you that this never plays a part in a person's decision to steal movies. This is merely another way for the thief to tell themself that what they are doing is okay. Which is bullshit.

It also misses off several steps before “insert DVD”.

Such as “find download that is not a virus, is well-seeded and is of decent quality” and “wait several hours for download to finish”.

It does seem to miss that part, yeah. But when someone is trying as hard as they can to justify their clearly unethical behavior, niceties such as "honesty" are usually left at the side of the road.

I can honestly say I hate DVD menus with a passion. But it's not something I would pirate a film for just so I can avoid them.

Off-topic: I also hate those "You wouldn't steal a car, so why would you steal a film?" messages.

Obligatory.

It's a stupid campaign. How the hell could they know I wouldn't steal a car, eh?!

I've never seen the correlation between stealing a car and stealing a film. You aren't directly damaging someone's life by downloading Fast Five, for example. Unlike if you were to steal someone's car or purse.

Ho boy

Here we go again!

*Comedy jingle*

That is honestly the worst attempt at trying to justify the pirating of DVDs I have ever seen.

I don't know. Havoc's reason of "It isn't any good, so I'm going to steal it" was pretty mind blowing. But yeah, that picture was dumb as shit.

It's not as bad as the pig one. Wait a sec

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2758/...b50f1b48_o.jpg

Oh Christ. I once wrote an entire essay on all of the things wrong with that image.

The problem is that illegal downloading isn't just a few bad apples actively seeking to screw over hard working people, it's more like an inevitable result caused by the accepted definition of "theft" (and all the usual implications it carries) being applied to a medium in which it isn't compatible.

The arguments justifying piracy are simplistic because they stick to the way people naturally think about theft, ie. theft = depriving someone else of their property for your own gain. The vast majority of people aren't going to adapt their moral systems to the relatively new possibilities of the internet in such a short space of time, and the producers of the products being pirated have for the most part none nothing to adapt to the situation in a sensible manner, choosing to punish pirates and paying customers alike instead of creating a business model which actually works on the internet.

What business model would that be?

Well, it might be bringing up an entirely different debate, but treating digital media as a service instead of a product seems to have worked for things like Steam and Netflix. I'm not saying those have solved the issue of piracy completely, and I know some people dislike Steam for various reasons, but those companies are at least treating the internet like a new marketplace rather than a problem that they wish would go away.

It's a fair point that making everything available through these services may help some, but a lot companies do this already, and their products still get pirated. However, I do think that the business model of subscription services probably is the most viable solution to this problem.

We have to understand though, that it's difficult for a company who is having their product stolen thousands of times a day to not want to penalize someone for this. They will eventually have to find better ways of dealing with this, but let's just not forget that they aren't really the problem here, and that they didn't create the situation. New internet morality is just another way of justifying faulty ethics, and is not a reasonable excuse.

I have not read a single post in this thread - this response is virgin.

I cannot condone piracy :D

Alcar....

When I download music, I listen to it first. Then, if it's good I'll buy the cd (even if I never listen to it again) and if it's bad, I'll delete it. I do the same with video games (ps1), I had a lot of copies when I was a kid but now that I have money, I'm trying to buy them all, even if I never play them. A donation system would be great for musicians.

Raise your hand if you believe these stories.