Is piracy a necessary evil?

[spankythehippo]

I got into this conversation with a few friends not too long ago. Is piracy a necessary evil? I said yes, and I'll elaborate.

As a kid, I always played games. I had a lot of pirated games. And games back then were pretty expensive. I don't think my parent's would have bought games for me at all, just because it was expensive. And if that happened, I would have played football or something to pass the time. But I don't play football. I play games. And I think those pirated games made me a gamer. If I didn't have games, I wouldn't have developed an interest in games. And if my parent's bought me 1 game, and only 1 game, I still wouldn't have become a gamer.

I don't pirate games any more. I buy them. Because I respect and admire the effort game developer's put in, so that I can walk around in a fantasy realm. Most of my friends that game, also buy games. And it turns out, they also pirated games a lot when they were kids.


BUT, and there's a big but (heheheh), DRM is a lot stricter compared to 10-20 years ago. Piracy isn't the same. Back then, we would burn CD's and share the CD-Key. And if you didn't know the CD-key, filling in the boxes with 0's always worked. So, would kid's of the current generation have that kind of liberty? I don't know many kids that know how to mount an ISO. It'll be harder for them to develop their interest in gaming, unless their parent's indulge their hobby. Which isn't that pricey, nowadays. But there are always kids who live with strict parents or live in disadvantaged homes. So is it fair for them? Speaking from a business perspective, kids are future consumers. Well, kids that understand the honour system. I'm pretty sure there are adults who pirate games exclusively.

A point to make against piracy is that games have a lot more replayability. From my stats in Minecraft, it says I've been playing for 36 days. That's 800+ hours. I never played that many hours of Dig Dug or Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion.


Anyways, what is your take on this? I would've said that piracy is a necessary evil for kids, but the whole DRM thing is swaying my vote.

[Beskar]

Back when I was younger, piracy was all the rage, especially in the console wars. The Playstation won in the local area as everyone had 'that uncle' who used to 'chip' their Playstations for £10 then sell games for £5 each. On the other-hand, I had an N64 and well, there were no pirated N64's due to fact no one had the equipment or resources. This trend continued on with the PS2 especially, meaning Playstation only got their market dominance because of the black market.

The thing is, many games are overpriced. You always have budget games at Triple-A prices (and most of tthe AAA are not worth it either) and you still have this now. As a responsible adult, I simply don't buy the games, or if the game is good but not worth the price, I would wait for a sale so it comes within a price range I feel is acceptable to purchase.

As for children, most of the 'Arcade'/Casual type games have been refocused to them. Which are usually priced around $5-10 but end of the day, the adults are expected to pay for these things. Like how you see six year olds with the latest iPhone.


As for any 'Good', there are the arguments that cracking games helps show developers they cannot simply fill their software with DRM nonsense which gimps over the legitimate user. However, there is the argument that without piracy, there would be no DRM... swings and round-abouts.

[Monk]

But there are always kids who live with strict parents or live in disadvantaged homes. So is it fair for them?

I know this is gonna make me sound authoritarian but... entertainment isn't a right, neither are games. If you've read between the lines of my posts you know my stance on Piracy, but you can't justify it by saying "but people can't afford games."

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Communist Monk has spoken:

It's a reality and it really sucks, but you will not die if you cannot play the new Halo, or watch the new Bond movie. Odds are if you cannot afford the mediums you enjoy that entertain you, you have much bigger issues you should be worrying about.

Or you're a kid. In which case either learn how to beg or get a rich girlfriend. Or boyfriend. I mean, whatever you want little dude/dudette.

[Beskar]

Piracy is like shoplifting. Only kids and criminally stupid adults think its okay.

Whilst that is correct, there is a huge demand for change within the system.

I know many people who would follow this example: Person A doesn't have access to X. So person A gains access to X by alternative methods. Once X comes available to purchase, person A buys it.

Person A is not fundamentally bad, they have clear intention to pay, in cases like these, it highlights the flaws within the system where Person A feels like he has to resort to such measures. There is even this example with Civilisation 5. "Person A buys X. X doesn't work. Person A gains access to X by alternative methods." The DRM restricted a lot of people at launch from playing the game they bought and the pirated version was far more stable.

So is Piracy a necessary evil? No it isn't.
Does examining piracy give the potential to demonstrate flaws within the system? It does.

Combat the root causes and piracy will go down. There will always be those who want something for nothing, but most are people who are willing to pay, thus should provide for ways to entice them to pay.

[Lemur]

The only way to fix those is for adult gamers to organize into actual consumer protection groups and boycotts.

I am 100% down with this. I've got my own blacklist of people I will not buy from (cough, cough, EA, cough), but I would love for us to band together into a group with real muscle.

[johnhughthom]

Do you know what I think is much worse than piracy? Coming into a forum which is seen as a fan site for a game series, and making a post that implies you are going to pirate the next release of the series, without actually stating it outright. Then bitching and whinging when the post is removed and you are infracted. That is basically cowardice, making a post that will make it look like the forum endorsed piracy, but still giving yourself an out to pretend you didn't intend to do that.

[Lemur]

Hmm, a group similar to this one, perhaps? I'm not much of a joiner, but I would happily sign, call, email, and maybe even do a little light marching in the name of open digital rights.

[Greyblades]

Do you know what I think is much worse than piracy? Coming into a forum which is seen as a fan site for a game series, and making a post that implies you are going to pirate the next release of the series, without actually stating it outright. Then bitching and whinging when the post is removed and you are infracted. That is basically cowardice, making a post that will make it look like the forum endorsed piracy, but still giving yourself an out to pretend you didn't intend to do that.

Seems like I missed some internet drama, assuming you arent making predictions about me.

As little weight as this assurance may have I'm not planning on pirating any new total war games, Sega and CA have been consistently good to me and assuming they dont pull a bioware I'm going to stick by my brand loyalty.

[Vuk]

Do you know what I think is much worse than piracy? Coming into a forum which is seen as a fan site for a game series, and making a post that implies you are going to pirate the next release of the series, without actually stating it outright. Then bitching and whinging when the post is removed and you are infracted. That is basically cowardice, making a post that will make it look like the forum endorsed piracy, but still giving yourself an out to pretend you didn't intend to do that.

Now who could you be whining about?

[spankythehippo]

I know this is gonna make me sound authoritarian but... entertainment isn't a right, neither are games. If you've read between the lines of my posts you know my stance on Piracy, but you can't justify it by saying "but people can't afford games."

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Communist Monk has spoken:

It's a reality and it really sucks, but you will not die if you cannot play the new Halo, or watch the new Bond movie, or read the next J.R.R Martin book. Odds are if you cannot afford the mediums you enjoy that entertain you, you have much bigger issues you should be worrying about.

Or you're a kid. In which case either learn how to beg or get a rich girlfriend. Or boyfriend. I mean, whatever you want little dude/dudette.

True, entertainment is not a right. But try to explain that to a kid. My point was that it wasn't difficult to obtain pirated games back in the day. The kids of that era are now adults, and most of them pay for games. How will we know what the next generation will do? I've seen today's kids. They seem a lot more ungrateful than when I was a kid.

Bigger issues to worry about? Kids don't pay rent. They don't pay the bills. They don't buy groceries. They don't worry about their family's monetary problems. Explaining to the average kid that money is an issue isn't that effective. Unless kids have become aware of the economy and their social status, I highly doubt they will truly understand the extent of their situation. Kids aren't that smart. I should know. I was a kid. Too bad I still have the mind of one.

I am slightly under the influence, so my train of thought is knackered.

[Greyblades]

I started pirating games when I was 14-15, I did it mostly to get 15/16/18 games that I could not get legally, regardless of monetary concerns. Fallout 3 I think was the first big game I downloaded, I loved it but I couldn't get it for hell or high water.

When I became a recluse, pirating was a crutch that I think was responsable for me getting through the last two years of secondary school. Probably kept me from the highest level grades, but I was a kid, I didnt care and I was generally dissatisfied with schooling anyway. Were it not for the support for the home tutors I was given by the state I probably would have ended up with a maximum of D's. Anyway, pirating gave me games for no money, as I had little, and without having to go out in public, which was terrifying and otherwise unavoidable. When I found a game I really liked I saved up and got it "to support good developers" or however I justified it. Good games were infrequent so I didnt have to do that often, which suited me fine being an aformentioned recluse.

As I got older, out of school and into college, losing the revclusive-ness, being able to get higher rated games I started running out of proper excuses so falling back on the money issue more and more I kept pirating, because hey I'm a student, it's expected that I act like a cheap bastard. I kept on buying the good stuff: total war, mass effect, gal civ 2, SOASE but with getting older I found myself getting more aware of the outside world and ultimately more disillusioned. Constantly I learned about corporate evils, people being laid off for screw ups higher up the corporate ladder, SOPA and Protect IP, politicians screwing up every country. My sympathies for the rich and powerful was drying up is what I'm saying, and guess who it was that kept complaining about piracy. So with my concience assauged with practicallity and some small bit of spite I pirated on through college.

Then came March 6th 2012, piracy let me get mass effect 3 earlier than the EU release date, so I downloaded it and marathoned it, completeing it in two days. It broke something inside of me. Any patience and sympathy I had for game publishers went out the window and that the offending part apparantly originated from one of the office people instead of "the evil corporate overlords" basically put to rest any concerns I had about inadvertently harming the little guys, they can be undeserving just as easily.

My money woes have basically gone now but I still pirate games, I sympathise with indies enough to buy out of curtesy but I check the mainstream games out first. If they're worth my money I buy them, if they're not I dont care about them and I have afew suggestions where they can stick thier notions of potential profit loss. EA's not getting my money at all.

In my opinion, kids are justified because theyre kids, adults arent justifed but I dont care if they do. I dont pirate out of necessity, I do it out of spite and apathy.

[Myth]

Nothing wrong with piracy when it's about old games when their devs are long since out of business. I don't intend to pay money to some company like EA who just went and bought some legal rights to an old title, when the crew that actually created it will get nothing (since it's long been disbanded). Same about GOG, I don't need help with making a good old game run on my modern PC, the fans produce patches and mods for that, and actually regular old releases with fan patches work BETTER than most GOG games from what I read.

[TinCow]

I'll get one point out of the way before I go on to the rest of my post. Piracy is inevitable. Doesn't matter what anyone does to try and stop it, it will always exist.

I have pirated unbelievable amounts of games, music, and videos in my lifetime. I stopped pirating games several years ago (with an exception I'll note below), but I still pirate music, television shows, and movies. The reason I stopped pirating games, and still pirate the rest is convenience. Sure, lack of money was certainly an issue when I was much younger, but it hasn't been something that got even a momentary thought for me for a decade. I pirated because I did not want to wait for the product. I hate having to go to a store to get someone, let alone not being able to use it when it is most convenient to me. Once digital downloads became widespread, I had no reason to pirate games anymore. Steam and GoG download at speeds that basically get me the game faster than if I were to drive out to the store, buy the game, and drive back. Auto-patching and other such things from streaming services only make the decision even easier.

For movies and television, I have reduced my piracy, but not yet eliminated it. If something is available on Netflix or Amazon Instant Watch, I pay for it. I regularly pay $3-5 to rent films off of Amazon and I'm entirely satisfied with that situation. I pirate media when I can't get them on those services, or when they're only for sale on Amazon and not for rent. I think that's an old and busted business model and I say sucks to you and your 20th century mindset, MPAA! I also pirate TV shows when they're aired first in other countries before coming over here. I don't want to wait. Don't make me wait and I'll pay for it the normal way. My entire media center is configured to make this process super easy for me. I torrent media and then dump them into a specific folder on my home server which is configured to be accessible by my TiVo, which can stream any media ever created. Poof, 1080p perfection on a big-ass television with no effort on my part. Convenience!

Convenience is such a big deal for me that I've even pirated some games that I own and have the discs for because I can't be bothered to dig through the CD cases and find them, then do all the disc swapping. Far easier to use a pirated version of Baldur's Gate I than to dig out my old 5 disc version. Music is kind of an outlier for me. There are super-convenient places to get music, but I guess I pirate out of habit now. That said, I download almost no music anymore. I listen to Sirius, Pandora, and podcasts for 95% of my audio listening time. I'd like to blame my loathing of the RIAA for pirating the other 5%, but the reality is I have no reason, it's just habit.

For the rest though, offer me a superior product that is easier than piracy and I will use it. If getting my entertainment the legitimate way is harder than piracy, you will not be getting my money.

[FoxLeLay]

Piracy is like shoplifting. Only kids and criminally stupid adults think its okay.

100% true. Even though some games may be very expensive, there is no need to pirate it because one doesn't want to fork over the money for it.

[Lemur]

Pet peeve for me is when people confuse delivery platforms with piracy.

For example, I work for a media company, and sometimes we need to distribute HUGE files. Bittorrent is a lovely tool for this, especially if the distribution needs to be across a large organization/more than one organization.

Likewise, when I want to download a large mod such as DarthMod Empire, or a multi-gigabyte Linux distro, torrenting is reliable, convenient, and doesn't cough up blood if I need to pause it.

So ... yeah. Please don't confuse a platform with an activity. FTP does not equal piracy. Torrenting does not equal piracy.

And to go vaguely back on-topic:

Piracy will always be with us. But as Netflix has demonstrated in market after market, a cheap and convenient alternative will put a massive dent in the problem.

[TinCow]

Piracy will always be with us. But as Netflix has demonstrated in market after market, a cheap and convenient alternative will put a massive dent in the problem.

Media is actually the area in which I think piracy is the biggest problem at the moment. Digital distribution has already become the norm for the games industry, and that will only become more true over the next few years. Television is still very much behind the curve though. I cannot count the number of television shows that I have pirated en masse to catch up on, and then moved over to watching them on live broadcasts. By doing this, I went from being a non-watcher of the program to a watcher, but I only got there because of piracy. While some shows can be watched quickly and in bulk on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, many shows aren't on those services and even when they are it's very common for the most recent season to be missing, particularly if it's currently airing. This system really should be a no-brainer. Give me a way to stream all past episodes of your show, including the episode that aired 4 days ago, so that I can get up to speed. If your service is convenient enough, I'd even tolerate the commercials. Win-win for everyone... so why aren't very many places doing this?

[Veho Nex]

so why aren't very many places doing this?

Because its logical and makes sense.

[lars573]

Media is actually the area in which I think piracy is the biggest problem at the moment. Digital distribution has already become the norm for the games industry, and that will only become more true over the next few years. Television is still very much behind the curve though. I cannot count the number of television shows that I have pirated en masse to catch up on, and then moved over to watching them on live broadcasts. By doing this, I went from being a non-watcher of the program to a watcher, but I only got there because of piracy. While some shows can be watched quickly and in bulk on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, many shows aren't on those services and even when they are it's very common for the most recent season to be missing, particularly if it's currently airing. This system really should be a no-brainer. Give me a way to stream all past episodes of your show, including the episode that aired 4 days ago, so that I can get up to speed. If your service is convenient enough, I'd even tolerate the commercials. Win-win for everyone... so why aren't very many places doing this?

That's a simple explanation. What's a quick and simple (from a corporate view point) thing with movies is an unholy quagmire with TV. With a movie you have a studio that financed it's creation, and a distribution company that put it on screens around the world. And are usually subsidiaries of the same corporate overlords. So putting a movie on a streaming service involves one company giving it's approval. Increasingly with TV you have multiple companies in multiple countries with their finger in a shows financial pie. And with that financial stake comes broadcast rights. Which can amount to a veto. For examples looks at any Sy-Fy original series. All of them are either co-production with the major Canadian media companies (Shaw and Bell) or were produced by those companies and SyFy bought in for US broadcast rights. Also you have the reality that any US produced TV series is going to have foreign broadcast sales. And then they wait 6 months or so (with the exception of Canada) to actually broadcast it.



Also for a current season episode you have to go to the channel website for a stream. Which is another reason it's not on Netflix right away.