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Author Topic: Piracy....  (Read 7885 times)

HinterWelt

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Piracy....
« Reply #30 on: December 01, 2006, 12:03:30 AM »
Lots of things to address in this thread.

First, I have lots of free stuff on my site. So, if you do not get a special invitation to that free stuff then you need to look harder. Plenty of other companies do likewise.

As for piracy (yes, I will use that term), it is wrong. Plain and simple. If you are a starving man and steal bread to feed your family, you are still stealing. It is still wrong. If you are a gamer and download an illegal copy you are stealing. I will not get into a semantics debate, call it what you like, it is wrong. The copy does not belong to you, you did not purchase it. For me, as a writer, it is a violation of a personal and deep nature. IT is saying you do not respect me and my property enough to pay for a copy.

Piracy is wrong and if you want to rationalize it, that is fine, but it is still wrong.

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Spike

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« Reply #31 on: December 01, 2006, 12:16:26 AM »
Its not exactly that we disagree James.  I tend to play the devils advocate. Whenever I see an overwhelming consensus on an issue, any issue, I tend to start asking occasionally painful questions, both of my own beliefs and the beliefs of others.

Taking someone's stuff is theft, certainly. Taking someone's ideas... that's human nature. It's how we grow collectively.

Intellectual property is ideas. Books written are stuff.  See where the rift occurs? I certainly do.

There is a reason law recognises a significant difference between IP violations and theft. Conversations aren't so strict. We can call it theft and make our point, our stance even, perfectly clear.  

The victim of piracy doesn't lose anything. He loses potential. He loses exclusivity, but he still has what he did, he can still sell his product, he can still make money from it.   It is possible, and even accepted, that he might actually GAIN something from it.  

But you see, Levi isn't talking about lost dollars. He is talking about trust, which is where most of us lose track of his line of thought.  More, he's talking about an Ideology of sorts. If I make a joke to Johnny on the street about selling my soul to the devil, I might get a laugh.  If I make the same joke in Peter's Basilica I'll get a reaction very similar to Levi's in the thread that started all this.   Someone just stepped on his Fundamentals.

And all things being equal, that disturbs me.  Far more than the debate about the rightness or wrongness of IP, of piracy, or even the appropriateness of a joke about piracy in a forum populated by small press publishers.  It is the closing of the mind on a topic, and the acceptance of the same.




Or I could just be a doomsayer braying on the streets. :rolleyes:
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RPGPundit

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Piracy....
« Reply #32 on: December 01, 2006, 12:36:29 AM »
Quote from: Mr. Analytical
NDA's are about geeks playing at being business men... it's nothing to do with piracy.


Ah yes, the Great Imaginary Hordes of Corporate Ninjas.

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« Reply #33 on: December 01, 2006, 12:39:24 AM »
Quote from: James J Skach
Spike - you know I love you man - but I think you and I will disagree on this one.  To be honest, I'm not quite sure. Let's see.

It's theft, plain and simple.  I don't care if Joe would have bought the book or not.  It doesn't matter if Joe takes the pdf and never looks at it. None of that matters.

If I took a bottle of coke from a store without paying, I've stolen it.  Even if I intend to pay for it once I taste it to make sure I'll like it.  Even if I never intend to open it, but bury it in my back yard.  I'm a shoplifter.


And if you left the Coke in the store but used a magical Replicator machine to create a copy, and drank that copy?

Because that's more what we're talking about here...

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Spike

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« Reply #34 on: December 01, 2006, 12:41:31 AM »
Quote from: RPGPundit
And if you left the Coke in the store but used a magical Replicator machine to create a copy, and drank that copy?

Because that's more what we're talking about here...

RPGPundit



Ah, yes, the impact of Star Trek technology on civilization...

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hgjs

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« Reply #35 on: December 01, 2006, 01:01:02 AM »
Quote from: James J Skach
The fact is we have a concept, copyright.  The laws that implement it may be crappy (I think fair use is really the big sticking point, for me anyway) and may seem unfair, but they are the law.

And somebody talked about giving copies away and so forth.  The fact is, that decision is in the hands of the copyright owner, or his/her legal delegates.  It's the individual creator's choice (or to whomever that legal right has been assigned) – nobody else’s.


Maybe that's enough for you Lawful Neutral types, but the way I'm wired my thought process goes like this:

1. Do I feel guilty about this?
2. What are the likely consequences?

For me, the answers are "no" and "nothing at all."
 

Yamo

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« Reply #36 on: December 01, 2006, 01:17:25 AM »
My take:

It doesn't matter what anybody thinks or feels. File sharing is a permanent fact of life.

Vent your bile, feel nice and self-righteous for a sec, and then get over it.

If you're in the biz, vent your bile, feel nice and self-righteous for a sec, get over it, and then figure out how to get the free advertising factor working for you.

Anything else is academic. Angels on pinheads. Shameless dudes stroking their morality boners in public to no avail.

The real world need not respect your mores. Concentrate on living with what is.
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4. No win conditions.

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HinterWelt

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« Reply #37 on: December 01, 2006, 01:44:47 AM »
Quote from: Yamo
My take:

It doesn't matter what anybody thinks or feels. File sharing is a permanent fact of life.

Vent your bile, feel nice and self-righteous for a sec, and then get over it.

If you're in the biz, vent your bile, feel nice and self-righteous for a sec, get over it, and then figure out how to get the free advertising factor working for you.

Anything else is academic. Angels on pinheads. Shameless dudes stroking their morality boners in public to no avail.

The real world need not respect your mores. Concentrate on living with what is.


Let me stress that I accept piracy is here. Let me also point out that child molestation is in the world, will be forever and has been since the dawn of time. Does a thing existing in a permanent way mean I must accept it? Never. I am sorry if this equate to moral navel gazing for some but I find it offensive much the way robbing a man of his dignity is offensive. Will it mean the end of the world? No, but one should have morals and espouse them whenever possible. Piracy is a personal violation and should be treated as such.

That said, the business man in me is not overly concerned about it. Yes, that may seem hypocritical of me but create something of your own, then have it stolen from you. It will give you perspective.

Bill
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Spike

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« Reply #38 on: December 01, 2006, 01:45:03 AM »
I'm a little disappointed in myself for not addressing this earlier, and quite a bit dissappointed in allayouse for not beating me to the point.


In the original post that started all of this, and in most of our discussions we've talked about someone giving away files.

Giving away. A very important distinction.

Of course, the haters don't want to bring the guys selling the game into the equation because by contrast the give away guys look pretty fucking clean. Everyone can agree selling copies of someone's book is bad piracy.

Giving someone a copy of a file? Not so clear. I mean, what if I give my buddy my physical book for a few days, knowing he's just gonna scan it in and keep a copy?

See, some people think it's sharing. Sharing is good, its personal. Some people think its theft. Mostly people hoping to make a sale out of it. But what if I knew my buddy there never bought books? Maybe he doesn't have the money for them (ignore the value of the computer for the moment here...) or maybe he doesn't have shelfspace in his house. He borrows books indefinitly to play games... having him scan it relieves the burden on me to fight with him to get my shit back.

Oh, but files are different.

How?  If anything, Files cost the producer LESS, essentially nothing.  

When you lump in ordinary sharing behavior with money grubbing piracy you get 14 year old girls sued by RCA records for listening to a bootleg Eminem song she got from her best girl friend.

Claims that the industry, that is gaming, is a much smaller marketplace with less room for that shit is not really addressing it at all. Unless you think gamers are inherently special people with special rules, that is.

Yamo has it right when he says it's a fact of life, deal with it.   How you deal with it may vary, but simply crying foul over every mention of it is rather pointless.

Semantic debates, however, are fun... those guys can carry on at will. ;)
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Yamo

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« Reply #39 on: December 01, 2006, 02:03:28 AM »
Quote from: HinterWelt
Let me also point out that child molestation is in the world...

I stopped reading right here.

You could not have stumbled worse if you'd brought Nazis into it.

Bad. Taste.
In order to qualify as a roleplaying game, a game design must feature:

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4. No win conditions.

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HinterWelt

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« Reply #40 on: December 01, 2006, 02:10:35 AM »
Quote from: Spike

Yamo has it right when he says it's a fact of life, deal with it.   How you deal with it may vary, but simply crying foul over every mention of it is rather pointless.

I disagree. Pointing out the immorality of the action raises awareness and fosters discussion. I believe this is good. I may not convince anyone but I will not be silent and just take it. This I do based on my own moral standards.

As a business man, it just is not practical for me to sue every person who steals my work. In this sense, I live with it. Does it keep me up at night? No. When people start mouthing off about "victimless crime" and how it is pointless to say anything, hell yes I will say something. Even if I just get you to laugh about what I have said next time you download an illegal game then I have started the process of you thinking about what you are doing. It may never take root but it is my hope that if I can get the ball rolling you will at least consider what you do.

Now, I am not an absolutist by a long shot. If your buddy wants to look over a n e-book, fine. Let him have it for a couple of days and just like one of you print books ask for it back. He can just delete it, easy and all. You want to sell it to him, delete it off your drive. I know this is a lot of trust (oh, I used THAT word) but it is a risk I am willing to take.

In the end, I think most publishers (beyond making a profit and making fun games), just want gamers to respect the money, effort and time that has gone into these games (some more than others).

Bill
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HinterWelt

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« Reply #41 on: December 01, 2006, 02:11:44 AM »
Quote from: Yamo
I stopped reading right here.

You could not have stumbled worse if you'd brought Nazis into it.

Bad. Taste.

But it got your attention. Now maybe you have an idea of how I feel when you say "Deal with it".

Bill
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« Reply #42 on: December 01, 2006, 02:25:48 AM »
Quote from: HinterWelt
But it got your attention.

No, it ended my attention and precluded my respect.
In order to qualify as a roleplaying game, a game design must feature:

1. A traditional player/GM relationship.
2. No set story or plot.
3. No live action aspect.
4. No win conditions.

Don't like it? Too bad.

Click here to visit the Intenet's only dedicated forum for Fudge and Fate fans!

Levi Kornelsen

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« Reply #43 on: December 01, 2006, 03:59:14 AM »
Bill;

I gotta say, I'm not a fan of the comparison either.  And I'm weird about the whole bootlegging thing.

Christmas Ape

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« Reply #44 on: December 01, 2006, 04:30:56 AM »
Quote from: HinterWelt
But it got your attention. Now maybe you have an idea of how I feel when you say "Deal with it".

Bill
If you genuinely feel that was a good and well-reasoned comparison, on par with the scale of the discussion, you should stop talking before your thoughts harm the rest of us. More later as I consider the actual intelligent thoughts going on here.
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