Maybe this should be kept a secret, but...

[Alec]

I´m positively impressed with your answers.

I´m going to be serious about this: I´ve bought 10 games in my entire life. I own a PC for 5 years and I played a lot of games, I had lots of them in my hard drive. I´m no different than the rest of the people around me. I earn 120.000 escudos a month and I live in my parents´s house. I could buy 2 games a month... but why? I have more important things on which to spend my money. I know that I´m being selfish about this and I´m ashamed at myself after listening to your opinions. Here in Portugal there isn´t so much concern about game developers as much as there is about programs and OS´s developers. (I´ve never bought a program, neither). Computer shops often sell computers with W98 or W2K, Office 2000 and sometimes an antivirus installed, with no license.

This is the reason why I introduced this thread - I wasn´t aware of what was going on in other countries, I´m a product of my culture, thus my behaviour.

Sorry, ID and Epic...

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Know what I mean?

[Himself]

I just don't play many games period, I think 99% of them suck or I've played them under a different name already. I couldn't be bothered with them, pirated or no. Games I really want to play I buy, games I am curious about, I download the demo. I only need the gist of what's it's about, 9 times out of ten I won't even finish the demo or even bother to play it, they are that bad.

Only game I can think of I want to play next is WarCraft 3, that's about it, whenever that comes out, should be a game worth the money, if it's not too buggy.

[slyfox]

No matter what the justification is, it all boils down to one point. Software piracy is stealing and stealing is wrong.

slyfox

[ahartman]

Wow - I just reread my post and I certainly didn't intend for it to sound so preachy.

I'm just as guilty as you guys (well, maybe as guilty as SOME of you guys...).

Sorry for the holier-than-thou tone of my post. The message still stands, though.

[Jon P. Inghram]

I remember a long time ago with our old C=64, just about everything we had was pirated. Don't blame me though, I was just a little kid at the time!

The only "pirated" software I have is a version of WinDVD that supports 4 speakers (I bought and downloaded the full version off of the WinDVD site, and then found out it didn't support 4 channel surround which was the only reason I bought it in the first place.)

Inbetween the C=64 and today, when we had an Amiga, my mom worked at a computer store, and we'd get to "test" games all the time. But we DIDN'T make copies, we'd just play them to see if they were worth getting. It was always cool to think, "Man, this game sounds really awesome!" and after playing it a while say "Thank GOD we didn't buy it..." (I.E. Diakatana)

[Brian R.]

I am with Gurm. I could write what he posted word for word.

[Gurm]

Ahartman and Slyfox:

I concur that it is probably morally wrong to pirate software. HOWEVER... explain to me, exactly, how me making an illegal copy of Microsoft Office Premium hurts Microsoft?

Please. By all means, explain.

I don't mean to get indignant, but honestly - unless my job paid for it, I would NEVER pay money for Excel, or Access, or Powerpoint, or Frontpage. Word, yes. I might spend the $75 to buy Word all by its lonesome. But that's really it. And Outlook is free... or it was at one point (when I downloaded it from MS's site). So how is that $500 NOT getting to Microsoft? Under no circumstances would I have ever paid for those programs.

Your argument delves into a gray area. Is the kid who sits on the roof of his house with his FM radio, so he can see the drive-in movie screen a criminal? Is he "stealing" money from the drive-in people?

Perhaps. But maybe the kid is broke. Or maybe his meager allowance was used for something important, like a new pair of sneakers or a new tire for his bike. Hmm?

Are people who take pictures or video of the rides in Disney World, even though there is supposed to be no photography there, STEALING from the Walt Disney company because they can't afford the lithographs of the rides or the prepackaged Disney video after spending $250 to get their family into the park? Perhaps.

I guess what I'm saying is that yes, in a world of absolute right and absolute wrong, piracy is wrong. However, I never would have known how cool video games were if not for piracy. My friend Craig had a C-64. He had thousands of pirated games. I never would have played Archon, or Bomberman, or Spy vs. Spy, or Zork, or any of a dozen other classic games that shaped the way I think about the world, because all we had for my Apple IIe was educational titles and Print Shop.

And what am I now, as a result? A video game programmer, among other things. I spend hundreds of dollars yearly on games.

And yeah, I download a few pirated games. But if I play it, I buy it - because I can afford it. When I was still in College, I didn't buy any games, because I didn't have any money. Very simple.

Oh well. This could go around forever. *sigh*

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[This message has been edited by Gurm (edited 05 August 2000).]

[ahartman]

Gurm,

You seem to have two points so I'll address them one at a time.

1) I wouldn't buy it anyway so MS isn't losing any money.

This is the most commonly heard excuse for piracy. The fact that you're using it makes it worth buying. Don't want to pay the full price? YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE. It's called supply & demand. You use it you pay for it, otherwise you're stealing it.

2) I can't afford it so I pirate it.

This is the most absurd thing I've ever read. If you can't afford to buy a computer game, I wonder why you're not stealing food to feed yourself. A computer is a luxury. If you're so poor that you can't afford a $40 game, you don't need to have a computer to play games on - there are other priorities you should be worrying about.

Being a developer of computer games, how would you feel if we all said "Man, Gurm's game is okay, but it's not worth the $40 he's charging - let's just pass it around on Murc." that would piss you off because you're not getting paid for your efforts.

I have a friend who is a musician. We got into a discussion about Napster and while he thinks the idea of digital music is the future, he disagrees with the way people are using Napster-type programs to steal from artists.

We always want to find a scapegoat - it's the nature of humans these days. No personal responsibility. Microsoft prices their stuff too high. Record companies are charging too much.

There are some things in life that are black & white. Stealing is one of them. You take it without paying for it, it's stealing. It's wrong.

Like I said several times before, I'm not on a moral soapbox because I've used pirated programs before (my Apple II+ and Amiga days come to mind).

I'm just willing to admit that what I did was wrong. Absolutely wrong.

Andy

[Gurm]

Actually, here's the funny thing - until President Clinton signed that idiotic act into law last year, piracy WASN'T illegal. Funny that.

Not technically, anyway.

Neither is copying music.

For example, I can buy the latest Metallica CD, run a copy off on tape, and GIVE IT AWAY to my friends. Yes, that's right.

It's always been upheld in the Supreme Court. You're allowed to copy things if you don't make a profit.

Now if I make CD bootlegs and sell them for $1 each, I'm making money (nevermind how little) and that's VERY illegal.

CD Software, believe it or not, was the same way until recently.

*sigh*

Ok, now to get to the points:

----------------------------------

1. I wouldn't buy it...

You're missing the point. This is, indeed, one of the most common excuses for piracy. However, it's totally honest - isn't it?

If all of a sudden the Internet didn't exist anymore, and I couldn't get MS Office... I just wouldn't use it. Period. I have better things to do with my $500. Honestly.

It sounds insincere, but it's totally true. I just wouldn't use the software. And software that I use regularly, I buy. I actually own Office at the moment, because I find it important to my work. I actually own Visual Studio. I actually own Windows 2000. I actually own Winzip, ACDSee, and half a dozen other useful pieces of software that I bought online.

But you know what? That's because I can afford it. This brings us to point 2:

2. I can't afford it...

Let's be honest here. Computer software is too damn expensive. Games are routinely marketed at upwards of $50. Applications can be hundreds of dollars. It costs substantially more to buy the applications for your PC than it does to buy your PC nowadays.

There are some people that will always pirate software no matter what. Those people have a problem. Nobody would "steal" a copy of Diablo if Diablo were only $20. Period. But then the fatcats in distributing wouldn't make their money.

As for the music industry, that gets even more ludicrous. It's funny because I have seen many musicians and recording industry types defending the price of CD's lately. But when push came to shove, the 5 largest record companies in the world agreed in federal court to stop "fixing prices".

WHOA! You mean the $18.99 I was paying for a CD wasn't a fair price? Go figure!

Same thing with computer software. Does iD deserve $50 for Quake? Maybe. If you think so, then fine - buy it. But if iD deserves $20 for Quake, then why are we paying $50?

I know this is slim justification for pirating a game. And as I said, I no longer pirate games, except on a trial basis.

However, it's something to consider - isn't it?

Oh, well. I'm digressing. My point is this - you can't say that copying a computer program is an absolute moral wrong. It just isn't. It may be unethical, or illegal (depending on the circumstances), or distasteful.

But it's not WRONG.

I could contrive a dozen different scenarios in which it would be perfectly acceptable from a moral standpoint for someone to "steal" a copy of a computer program. I won't, because they'd be silly. But the fact that I can contrive such situations means that the morality of it is in question.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Pneumatic]

Of Course it is wrong to STEAL games. It is just that, a game. A form of entertainment. If you want to sell me a sob story about having to steal FOOD because you can't afford it, or squat in an abandond building because you cant afford to pay rent, I'll listen. But even then theft is theft. There are a lot of things that I would kinda like to have, but would rather not spend the money on (or just down right can't afford, Ferrari pops into mind). But since I can't or don't want to spend the money, it doesn't give me the right to steal it. If everyone did that there would be no new programs to steal because the companies that make the stuff would quit due to lack of funds. I am quite sure that the theft issue is built into the price of the software, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves for the high prices.

[This message has been edited by Kindness! (edited 06 August 2000).]

[Gurm]

Bull.

I LOVE it when people equate software piracy (or music piracy, or literature piracy) to grand theft auto.

Every single court in the world defines intellectual property as being 100% different from physical property.

And if I could make a duplicate copy of your Ferrari and drive off with it, that wouldn't be illegal either.

And I love it when people get on their moral high horse. You ever speed? Jaywalk? Swear in public? All illegal.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[ahartman]

How is it that YOU get to decide what someone else's product is worth? Can we extend that to all products?

The housing prices in Chicago are ridiculous - can I say that a 2-br condo in Lincoln Park isn't worth $350,000? No.

How about a gallon of orange juice. I think $5 is silly. But, I don't set the prices.

Here's something for you to think about as we discuss luxuries and necessities.

When I was in high school, I signed up for our yearly Thanksgiving food drive. I delivered about $100 worth of food items to needy families. As we were delivering to one family, I noticed that they had more hi-fi stuff and more home theater stuff than my family did and we all worked (yes, including us kids). You're telling me that they couldn't afford dinner for their family?

I agree with most of what you're saying, Gurm. However, I see it for what it is - rationalizing - making myself feel better about stealing something I'd rather not buy for any number of reasons.

[Gurm]

Ok, so let's take a different tack.

Rappers - thieves? Is their inclusion of remarkably familiar rhythms and sounds in their albums "theft"?

Other musicians sometimes seem to think so, but the courts are divided...

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Joel]

Sounds like to me that someone needs to refresh their memory on the copyright laws. I remember it saying something about duplication (except for personal use) and redistribution being illegal.

Joel

[Pneumatic]

I never said that I was above trying out a program that I didn't pay for. I have done it several times (who hasn't), but I am not going to tell you that it is the right thing to do. I guess what I was getting at is wrong is wrong no matter what the reason. The company wouldn't give you permission to do it if you asked, so it IS stealing. That isn't a "moral High horse", it's just the way it is.
P.S. I rarely drive the speed limit either (Sammy Hagar sings in background "I can't drive fifty-fiiiiiiiiiiive)

[This message has been edited by Kindness! (edited 06 August 2000).]