Brainy person: Piracy is a 'great equalizer'

@Darth Kupi

The absolute worst side effect of the misconceptions about piracy in developing markets is the kind of arrogance it brings out in some folks. I mentioned once on a forum that for some developing countries piracy is the only way to access games at realistic prices. Some idiots went and said "maybe your people should quit playing games and develop themselves enough to afford games properly."

God, if only you could kill someone through the internets.

I don't understand how people can see piracy as anything but stealing. You can justify it left and right but unless you're illegally downloading food to feed your starving family you are stealing. And however awesome something like Civ IV is there isn't a possible point of contention anyone could invent that could convince me it's an essential part of being alive.

@Blind assassin
The very definition of theft requires someone to be deprived of property that they currently own and possess. You can believe that making a copy of something is morally wrong, but you would be factually incorrect to describe it as stealing.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theft
"the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it"

Even the US Supreme Court has realized this in their Dowling v. United States ruling where they said that copyright infringement, while illegal, can't be equated to theft.

He's a smart man. The primary reason I pirate, if at all, is because I'm too poor to be able to spare the money for something. (The other reason is to try something out before I choose to purchase it.) If I can afford something, and it's worth the money, then I'll definitely buy it. Unless there's DRM, that is.

Whether or not it is actually theft has little to do with the moral ramifications of the issue, which is that it is still just as wrong AS stealing. You are getting a product that you did not pay for, and you are doing so in an illegal manner, whether it is illegal because it is "theft" or not.

I mean, whether it qualifies as "theft" is unimportant, since most of the discussions have to do with whether it is right or wrong, or morally justifiable due to nutty DRM.

@ Aex

Actually, I said it wasn't possible to claim that stealing could be claimed as essential unless it was to avoid death. It's not acceptable but for someone to be saying that people steal games out of "necessity" and not because of lack of access is total bullshit.

@ Malkuth

The act of uploading is not theft in itself but downloading is. You're taking the property of a game company unlawfully. You don't have to be depriving someone of a finite item to be stealing from them. If you took $15 from someone's bank account every day for a year they probably wouldn't notice and their total bank balance would likely be higher than when you started taking money from them but you've still committed theft. As another example, if you steal schematics off a disc from another company but leave the original you've still committed theft despite not taking anything physical.

Not to mention that copyright infringement is just a legal distinction for a form of theft. Overtly aping ideas that someone owns is theft of a concept.

The inability of most people to get off the crutch of using convenient dictionary definitions makes me sad. Throwing out dictionary definitions on something that is pretty much a value judgment is a logical fallacy (it's called "appeal to authority" if you're wondering). Just to preempt complaints, define life in such a way that doesn't allow me to say that fire is alive. Or define crime in such a way that doesn't fall into moral traps or place the state above the law.

@Blind assassin

"You're taking the property of a game company unlawfully."

No, when someone does that they are downloading a copy of it. Nothing is being taken at all (a requirement for how theft has ALWAYS been defined). Unlawfully? Yes. Theft? Nope.



"If you took $15 from someone's bank account every day for a year they probably wouldn't notice and their total bank balance would likely be higher than when you started taking money from them but you've still committed theft. '

Keyword: "if you TOOK". It doesn't matter that $15 isn't a lot because you're are still depriving them of their property. A case of theft yes, but not an example of how piracy is theft.


"Not to mention that copyright infringement is just a legal distinction for a form of theft."

Wrong again. Theft refers exclusively to property rights. Copyrights exist for a completely different reason and infringing upon them isn't even remotely similar to theft.


"Overtly aping ideas that someone owns is theft of a concept."

No, it's how innovation in the market takes place or in bad cases plagiarism, but not a form of theft. You're straying from copyrights here though, as they offer no legal protections for "ideas" and instead only for creative works (a product of ideas).


"Just to preempt complaints, define life in such a way that doesn't allow me to say that fire is alive. Or define crime in such a way that doesn't fall into moral traps or place the state above the law."

Except you are making up completely new definitions for words out of thin air. Yeah, if you want you can say that fire is wet too, but don't demand people to take you seriously.
It's also funny how you demand everyone to use your definition and yours alone for the word theft. Saying that people should trust you, a total stranger, to a dictionary is a funny twist on "appeal to authority", eh?

"By saying that nothing is being taken when someone downloads a game is saying that the game exists everywhere independently of the data. You're taking data unlawfully. It's stealing."

Copying is different than taking. If you were to take the game then whoever previously had the game would lose it. Keep on failin'


"My point about taking money had nothing to do with the amount. It was to illustrate that even something material can be taken in such a way that it is relatively infinite and the victim is not being completely deprived of what is being taken. Also, in the case of electronic banking theft it would not be theft as you're trying to define it since nothing physical was stolen."

Yeah, something physical is stolen. While many money transfers take place electronically there is still the actual paper bills that back it up. Even then, the person is losing access to THEIR money. You continue to demonstrate that you have no idea what theft is. It isn't about someone gaining something when they shouldn't, it's about the victim losing something that they have.


"How would copying other people be considered innovative? I'm talking exclusively about cases of intentional plagiarism which involves a conscious knowledge of an existing product and then making something incredibly similar with the intent of usurping the same target market. And you're entire point there was just knit-picking. Once an idea has the patent on it as far as I and the law would be concerned anything similar that is produced would be stealing that concept. Whether it has been turned into a "creative work" is irrelevant, primarily if there was intent to turn it into an actual product."

The entire economy of the planet comes from basing works off previous ones. Your flawed logic comes from thinking that invention is the most important step while in reality it is taking that invention and going on to innovate that's the important step. What's really incredible is that you demonstrate that you don't even know what competition is. Competition is about doing something that someone has already done but doing is better. Exactly what you described.


"And I never said that the definition I never gave was correct (I mean seriously, I never gave a single specific definition of anything in my entire comment)"

You defined piracy as a form of theft. If you didn't you wouldn't of argued against me. While I have presented actual arguments to defend my position all you've done is present half-baked (and sometimes absurd) analogies while complaining about how I'm not playing fair.


"And I never said that the definition I never gave was correct (I mean seriously, I never gave a single specific definition of anything in my entire comment) and that anyone should follow it. I stated that relying solely on a book was logically fallacious and that people should learn to think for themselves in how to define things that aren`t static definitions. If we were debating on what constituted an apricot then the dictionary would shut down the debate fast but since theft is partially a value judgment a dictionary can`t be seen as a reliable method of defining it."

So you're entire argument this whole time was you crying over how I used the dictionary to back up my argument? Did you even have an argument in the first place? Because every excuse for an argument you've presented show far doesn't even hold up to common sense. Hey though, just so you can sleep better at night let's just not take the dictionary as an authoritative source but as just some guy's opinion. Would you like to actually try and argue against it or will you just keep on complaining about how it doesn't count because it violates your rules?


"In short, no, it isn`t a funny twist in the least and you`re avoiding my point entirely by focusing on points I never made in the first place. And you`re committing the appeal to authority again by throwing the status of dictionary out there again. If you went a little further in how you dismissed me I`d say you were also going ad hominem against me as well."

I guess I was right then. You never had much of an argument in the first place. You've pretty much entirely stopped arguing over whether or not piracy is theft and now you're just grasping at straws.



Would you like to return to your very first statement? You said "I don't understand how people can see piracy as anything but stealing."
Well to answer your question it's very simple: People see piracy as not being a form of theft by actually understanding what the word means and how it has always been used. Oh wait, would you like to pull another made up definition out of your hat now?

@RWarrior1CO: Yes, we do live in a moral vacuum. The reason you don't go out on a killing spree is because you don't want to deal with the legal ramifications, not because you feel it is wrong. Because as you say "you always wanted to do it."

greed? seriously? greed means that you have a "excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions." of which piracy does not. Your common pirate does not take money for what s/he shares, s/he does it for free and I'm willing to bet that they don't hang on to anything long after they're done with it.

Yes, I do think you download music, seemingly because you have narrowed your scope of piracy to "PC gaming."

So if you think judging people is fun don't even bother coming to me talking about morals.

and @ Blind assassin: No, piracy is not theft. Theft requires that something be lost. Your example about the bank and money does not hold up because you are actually physically decreasing a numerical amount. Whereas with piracy no one loses anything except an opportunity to make money and depriving someone of an opportunity technically isn't even illegal otherwise (insert generic store chain) would technically be (illegally) stealing customers from (insert competing generic store chain).

Lastly, trying to fault someone for using the definition of a word to ensure that you properly speak our language? Come on now. He wasn't even justifying piracy, he was saying use the right word.

sorry for triple post, but I think this last part needs to be said:

piracy wouldn't even be a big deal if our pathetic society didn't put so much weight into money, it is kind of the source of every problem we have YA KNO?

While I'd superficially agree with his assessment of pirates as people who download what they cannot buy due to price or availability, as in my experience most pirates are either teenagers or foreigners, but wtf "users, if given the proper access point for content they want, will buy original instead of resorting to piracy" is absolutely, 100% wrong. It flies in the face of the first point. You cannot get blood from the pirate stone.