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[Ragzouken]

I reserve the right to be suprised if someone is excessively fined or imprisoned at all for non-commercial piracy.

Well, that's your right.  But it seems a little silly to me.

People have already been sued, fined, and imprisoned for non-commercial piracy of music and movies.  Do you really, honestly think that software makers can be far away from doing what authors of other forms of IP are already doing?


Especially after enduring the taunts of the people performing the illegal activities, in threads like this one.  Just saying.

Still, I don't think anyone here could or would try to justify imprisonment or fines in the hundreds of thousands for household piracy. Even if I were wholly against piracy I'd be shocked and appalled at that level of punishment.

[Don Andy]

If you don't accept copyright law, that's fine.  But you have to understand that virtually everyone else in the world does accept it.  And you have to not be surprised when the rest of the world doesn't condone your actions.  Especially those of us whose work you're illegally taking. 

And you have to not be surprised when you're fined or imprisoned for your illegal actions.

Ehm, I'm certainly not arguing with the fact that it is basically forbidden in every country on this planet, but I think your giving the this specific law a bit more weight than it actually has.
It's not like they're dispatching SWAT teams to our houses to brutally bring us down. The worst I (for example) would get, would be the loss of pretty much all my technical equipment and a punch in the face from my father (since he would pay the fine, although I had to repay him, naturally). It would suck, but it wouldn't be life-destroying for me or anything (neither for my father, and he would pay the fine even if I told him not to, he's....financially secured).

Also, I think you're being a bit too optimistic about humanity in general. Virtually everyone in this world accepts copyright laws? Seriously? You don't actually believe that right? I'm not saying every second person on earth pirates stuff, but I'm pretty confident that virtually everybody has at one point in his life broken the copyright law in some way, and certainly didn't go to confession about it. I'm not saying the whole world is rotten, but it's not like everybody is a saint either.

Also, (and this is NOT addressing you personally, mewse, please don't misunderstand it), I'm also pretty sure that about 50% of the "pro-copyright" activists are scolding software pirates in one breath and then browse Frostwire for the newest songs of their favorite band in the other.
To be fair, I guess pretty much 50% of the pirates who say they got a reason or moral code to go with their pirating don't (I know there are much more than 50%, but those don't pretend to have on in the first place).
Uh, and if one of you guys (pirate or not) feels offended by the above paragraph, then I'm probably right. But I did not adress any of you guys directly here. I just made this guess based on my experience with people in general. The loudest activists against something are often the worst offenders, too.

Also, I like starting my paragraphs with "Also,..."

Ah, damn, this is probably going to drag me into a long and tiring argument again, that at the end will lead us right back to where we started.

[Paul Eres]

Still, I don't think anyone here could or would try to justify imprisonment or fines in the hundreds of thousands for household piracy. Even if I were wholly against piracy I'd be shocked and appalled at that level of punishment.

It depends on the type of piracy. If someone has made millions off of pirating things and then re-selling them (or even just making millions off of ad revenue like the people at The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites do), that punishment seems okay to me. If someone just downloaded some games, a more appropriate punishment would be a fine equal to or slightly larger than (so that it's not just thought of as "buying the game late") the price of the pirated games.

[Paul Eres]

But yeah, carry on. Plums. Aristotle believed they were part substance, part potentiality and part actuality. Which might mean that the word "potentiality" is not one of them Stephen Colbert words.

Yeah, but also

[mewse]

It's not like they're dispatching SWAT teams to our houses to brutally bring us down.

They don't dispatch SWAT teams to brutally bring down people who pirate music or movies, either.

But these people do get found and prosecuted.  Not everyone, of course, but there are obvious examples, and they do get hit with serious fines.

Bottom line:  It's illegal.  Everyone agrees it's illegal.  People do get prosecuted for it, and it's only likely to be more frequent.  It's counter-productive, as it only encourages companies to distrust their customers more and more.  And it makes creators of the stuff you like actively dislike you, the pirate.

But hey, if you're okay with all that, then that's your choice.  Just don't be surprised if I sue you when you pirate my work, or if I'm not overly polite to you in the forums.  

[Paul Eres]

It's too expensive to sue people over piracy though. It costs thousands of dollars to sue someone over something that only costs $15 or something. I think it's only done when the profits lost are substantial and the person being sued can afford to pay large fees, such as when middle-sized companies pirate Photoshop for their employees instead of buying copies (which happens pretty often).

[Ragzouken]

Still, I don't think anyone here could or would try to justify imprisonment or fines in the hundreds of thousands for household piracy. Even if I were wholly against piracy I'd be shocked and appalled at that level of punishment.

It depends on the type of piracy. If someone has made millions off of pirating things and then re-selling them (or even just making millions off of ad revenue like the people at The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites do), that punishment seems okay to me. If someone just downloaded some games, a more appropriate punishment would be a fine equal to or slightly larger than (so that it's not just thought of as "buying the game late") the price of the pirated games.

I can agree that commercial piracy could be deserving of those punishments, I wouldn't be so suprised if a commerical pirating operation was fined/imprisoned of course. In the case of pirate bay and torrent sites though I think they should have to prove they were making significant profit that went far beyond paying running costs or something.

[Gnarf]

That's kind of interesting. The Pirate Bay is making money from piracy. They make money from ads on their site and people come to their site to pirate things. So they're only making money from piracy indirectly, but it's very obvious that they are. At least I don't think anyone's denying that a lot of the traffic they're getting is like, people going there to be pirates that pirate things.

The Pirate Bay is, as far as I'm aware, not breaking any laws[1]. Yet all moral and ethics wise I have more of an issue with that than with some dumb kid downloading some shit game (which I still don't think is an incredibly nice thing to do). Which like, is illegal. Right? Not sure if I'm going anywhere with this, but. How do the "it's the law" guys feel about The Pirate Bay and that? Is it more alright to legally make money from piracy than to illegally do non-commercial piracy? Just interested like.



[1]: I dunno. Are they? I think they're not. I've certainly gotten the impression that they're not. What with how they got all police razzia'd and then they said that they were all doing legal things really and then they didn't go to jail or pay any fines and got their site up again and that.

[Bebop]

I might just add a little something about Steam. I think they're are doing with their system. It's hard to hack and there are more and more indie game coming in. I think it may become the safest for everybody.

(sorry for being out of subject or maybe repeating something)

[Dacke]

Since the copy-physical-things-discussion is coming back to life all the time, I feel I have to state the obvious. It is both practically and theoretically impossible to copy physical objects, you can only make new objects that are very, very similar to the original object. It is called the  "No cloning theorem".

Personally I also think that anyone has the right to make new objects that are similar to objects they have gotten from someone else, as long as the one creating the new item does all the work and supplies all the energy and materials needed to create the new object.

About the EULA vs. copyright discussion: The entire discussion was about whether it is immoral to pirate, independently of IP and copyright. It had nothing to do with whether it is legal or not, we all know it is through the power of copyright laws. The interesting point was made by Movius that it is possible to think that IP is silly political fiction but that we still need to (morally) respect the agreements made between creator and buyer.

[Paul Eres]

The no cloning theorem looks interesting, I'll read up on it.

Would it be any less or more moral if it were a contract than if it were copyright law, though? If an action does harm, it doesn't matter if you did harm by breaking a legal agreement or by breaking a law, or even if there were no law against it, the effect is the same. Copying something someone else made when you know they don't want you to do it and would prefer you buy it from them instead would be disrespectful regardless of what laws exist or don't exist, "rights" notwithstanding.

[Dacke]

Would it be any less or more moral if it were a contract than if it were copyright law, though?

If you don't believe in copyright, like Movious stated he didn't. Yes, it would make a difference.

If an action does harm, it doesn't matter if you did harm by breaking a legal agreement or by breaking a law, or even if there were no law against it, the effect is the same.

I think everyone agrees, at least on the "pirate side" of the discussion. Laws do not define what is moral. What many pirates disagree with is the statement that piracy results in a net negative effect. If piracy actually leads to more bad than good I'm prepared to be against it. (I am actually having this discussion to get a better understanding of the topic, not to preach piracy.)

Copying something someone else made when you know they don't want you to do it and would prefer you buy it from them instead would be disrespectful regardless of what laws exist or don't exist, "rights" notwithstanding.

That is the most compelling argument I've heard from the anti-piracy side so far.

I'm not sure it outweighs other aspects, though. Is the creator's right to feel disrespected fundamental enough for me having to respect it? Saying something bad about a game is also disrespectful against the creator, but in this case most people would agree that anyone is in their full right to say bad things anyway.

The big question would be: how disrespectful of someone can you be before it becomes immoral?

[Craig Stern]

Have you ever heard of something called The Tragedy of the Commons? (Here's a Wikipedia entry if you haven't.) Think of the commons, abstractly, as the ability of game developers to survive by making games. If everyone exploits the resource without paying for it, the resource will disappear. It's not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea. Creative work is legitimate work that should be compensated, and if it is not, the people that create will no longer be able to create.

Probably a better comparison would be the free rider problem. Because it's nearly impossible to deal with piracy as a small developer with limited resources, I think the best solution is simply to make browser-based games that can be played for free, and make money off advertising.

[Paul Eres]

"Is the creator's right to feel disrespected fundamental enough for me having to respect it?"

I don't understand why "rights" are being brought up in this context. What does a right to feel disrespected even mean? Instead of thinking about the question in terms of what you have the right to do, the argument should be about what you should do. Rights are just an abstraction. There are millions of things which people have the right to do, but should not do.

Most of the discussion so far is on whether pirates have the right to pirate, but that discussion won't have a resolution because rights are so abstract: some people feel they have the right to free health care, other people feel they do not: some people feel they have the right to illegal drugs, other people feel they do not, some people feel that unborn have the right not to be killed, other people feel that women have the right to an abortion. Likewise, some people feel that people who create works have the right to determine how those works are disseminated, other people feel that they have the right to copy without restrictions. For every right there's an opposing right which can be claimed.

But all of that stuff about who has the right to do what is overly abstract, largely irrelevant, probably unproveable, and obfuscating the question of whether piracy should be done on an individual level, whether it's beneficial for a person or not, and whether it's beneficial to a developer or not.

[Movius]

If you don't believe in copyright, like Movious stated he didn't. Yes, it would make a difference.

I didn't say that I don't believe in copyright. Just that it's an intrinsic property of ownership of a real physical object.