24th June 2018 - Pirating Media

Today's Topic - 24th June 2018

Submitted by @chrys (jewel)(commissions open)

Is it ethical to pirate media? What about pirating media because it’s not available in your country, or otherwise unavailable to you? Pirating media because the creator has done questionable things, and you don’t want to support them through your wallet? Or just because you don’t have the money to buy the thing you want?

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Last Sunday at 3:04 PM
Depends on the context. If you have the money required to pay for the goods or service, and the means to aquire the goods it is only acceptable to pirate as a sort of 'demo'. ie, pirating a game playing it for a few hours then buying it because you enjoy it. If you can't afford it, pirate it then buy when you can if you liked it. If you can't get it due to region, and VPN's aren't working out for you, pirate away. Their fault for region locking their product. EDIT: Oh, also, if you can't separate a person from their creation/art, don't play or use their product or service at all ya dingus.(edited)
Mark C. P. | KZNE - Last Sunday at 3:16 PM
I'd say what allows and doesn't allow you to pirate media depends on if you can get set media in the first place at all.

Take the Eastern side of the wall back around the 80's and 90's. They  had the issue where they couldn't get any media legitimately from the other side, as it was either banned or just so expensive that no one could afford getting set legal games in a legitimate manner. Granted, piracy laws wasn't a thing back then, as one of the Polish developers of Darkwood attested with him noting that a "piracy shop" was just across a police station way back in the day.

But would I say that some of the ideals of then could hold up now? I'd say that highly depends. If, as back then, you can't get a game you like due to it being banned in your area, then I'd say that doing is rather morally grey. As in pirating it is not something I personally would advise you to do in such a situation, but I will not look down upon you for doing so.

The case is different if it is pirating a game from either: A honest indie developer, a game you have no problem getting access to by legitimate means and if it is a game you have no problem purchasing with your own money. In those cases, I'd say you are doing more harm than good by doing so, as they have made it such that their hard work can be paid for and played as intended. Some use the excuse of "wanting to try it out" before putting their money up to it, and I can't eliminate the old mentality of demos, but the more they are "demo-ing" the game for themselves, the more I feel like they are hurting the developers of the game they pirated.(edited)

Kirbs - Last Sunday at 3:19 PM
Are you pirating those things even when you have the ability to pay for those items? Then no, it is not ethical. It is not ethical because the people who have worked hard to manufacture that product will have been cheated. Even though you are using their product, they have gained no money from you.

Lemon - Last Sunday at 3:30 PM
Pirating is bad for the market. People pirate games insted of buying them leads to figures of demand which doesnt properly represent reality, resulting in them making games which wont appealdo hat audience, its counter productive really. If people dont buy the games they like or are intrested in, that will result in them not being created, because there is no profit in those games, and not enough people seem to care about them. I dont really think lack of money is a reason to pirate games. I may sound harsh. But the reality is that media isnt a necesity, but a luxory, a extremly efficient quality of life raising luxory, but a luxory none the less. And again, that just kicks the developer in that nuts. In varying amounts of strength. If the piece of media, you seek to consume, is literally only avalible through pirating however, i do think that is ok. As youre literally out of options and thats the sellers fault.

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Last Sunday at 3:58 PM
@Lemon I'd like to dispute one of your points. Whilst I believe pirating is mostly wrong, with a few acceptable/grey situations, the idea that piracy hurts the market has been studied and whilst most studies do not have conclusive evidence they do lean towards the opinion that they do not have an overall affect, because the majority of people that pirate a game wouldn't have bought it in the first place and those that would have will still provide advertisement, reccomending the game.

Fatman Jo - Last Sunday at 4:52 PM
I'd like to share my opinion on this topic.So in South -East Asian countries where I am from piracy is a very common thing. As a a naive child I would buy pirated video games from vendors and dvd stores in shopping malls because I was too young to understand the concept of real/pirated content and I was just happy playing my games or watching movies at 1/10th the price. I couldn't possibly afford a $60 game when I was fourteen and I didn't even have a proper broadband connection until I was seventeen or eighteen so downloading games was not an option either. But now that I am older and a bit smarter plus I understand the value of games I tend to save up and stock up on games I support by buying them on discounts. However I will say that I genuinely only buy the games that I have pirated and  tested out for myself to see if I truly like them and these are usually games I haven't finished.  I think piracy for me has least help me experience the world of video games in the early stages so in a strange way I am grateful to it but as of now I am truly grateful to be able to appreciate the value of something truly worth it's asking price and be able to pay for it myself.


MentalSnowflake - Last Sunday at 4:53 PM
@TheSlyBrit [EU - PC]
On a big scale it might have little effect, but when you are a starter company and your product gets pirated that means, you might not be able to create that next, book, game, movie. Because the people funding your creative output aren't seeing the right numbers.

Maxios7 - Last Sunday at 4:59 PM
since pirating has a lot of effect on my gaming life I had a lot of mixed opinions on this. as my experience in a middle east country (or tbh, a very remote one) original copies were so rare that can't be even found, and instead there were these cheap CDs with pirated games (sometimes with missed content like music), but through time we used to it as "original copies" of the game, and after I knew about all the pirating thing I was in total shock.
yes, I feel guilty for playing these pirated ones but as a child in a third world country its hard to find something like games and consoles since almost no one cares about it here and not even knows what it is, so in this situation you can't place the judge on the person but more on the situation he's living.
yes, pirating is wrong, but sometimes as the guys above me mentioned that there is grey situations, like if someone wanted to try the game before even buy it.
and there is the situation that someone can't buy a specific game, but wanted to play it really much, an option is to pirate it and buy it later when he is able too.
the worst situation goes like if someone pirated a huge amount of expensive games and for some reason they sold it to the public in his place and made a profit out of it, like what happens in my country. in this situation the pirating becomes really bad first on the developers and second on the group of people who's buying it, not knowing where this came from and what its origins.
imo, I prefer if every game had a free demo to try out before buying the game, it would solve some conceptions about pirating.
also pirating could be really bad on indie developers, who spend more work as individuals and tries to make profit out of their work, a little amount of money as a respect of their hardwork wont be bad.
Maxios7 - Last Sunday at 5:05 PM
also there is  alot of FreeToPlay games that is open for anyone to play and enjoy. and some of them were really fun and enjoyable !

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Last Sunday at 5:57 PM
@MentalSnowflake Yeah, but my point is that said dev wasn't going to get that money anyway. If by chance, the one or two that would have bought it don't because of piracy, their word-of-mouth advertising will likely make up for that loss anyway. Although, I do agree that pirating from small companies and solo devs is significantly worse than pirating from like, EA or someone who wouldn't even notice.

Lemon - Last Sunday at 5:59 PM
@TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] i Can see that being the case. I guess you could instead read it as a, ”it Would probably be pretty bad If it got normalised”. Or something.

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Last Sunday at 6:02 PM
@Lemon Yeah, exactly. As is, piracy isn't overtly harmful. But, that's because it's not encouraged people only do it in limited circumstances and the people that do engage in the act likely are the kind of people that wouldn't buy the game otherwise. But, if it became normalised, or if people stopped trying to discourage it the result would likely be that small-scale studios go bankrupt and only fat-cats and corporate zombies could even think of running a dev studio.
Also, games would be swayed way more by shareholders as opposed to the audience

June 25, 2018

Silen - Last Monday at 8:17 AM
Since I know only about games and manga/anime, I'll talk about these two industries. As far as games are concerned, pirating has become somewhat of a good thing, because first and foremost, if someone is willing to pirate the game, most likely they wouldn't buy it even if they could. Games can gather a much larger audience because pirates spread the word around about how good the game is (just look at most good indie games, they're not giant just because people bought the game, I'm willing to bet at least a third of the playerbase got pirated versions). Hell, some companies even give out drm free versions to download on piratebay, because you can't stop pirating, you can only use it to your advantage. Is it ethical? Well it's basically theft, but at this point it's so widespread and unregulated that noone really cares whether it's morally right or wrong (though in my opinion it's more benefitial to companies, especially small ones, than detrimental).
On the other hand, anime industry is so garbage that it pretty much needed pirating to wake it up. For foreigners there were (and still are) only a handful of sites that provide streaming with english subs/dubs and these few sites actually buy out licenses, so to watch a certain series of anime, you might have to subscribe to another site to get ''legal'' access. Great for crunchyroll, that they implemented free streaming and get their revenue from ads, because the rest don't and it's absolutely horrible. I'd rather see pirates kill the sites if they refuse to provide better quality services, because as it is, pirating sites have better access, all the shows available and no bs fees. Manga barely even has legal access sites, so it's even worse (although I'm not sure if companies played monopoly with manga licenses the same way anime licenses are handled).(edited)

404 Error Nickname not found - Last Monday at 2:35 PM
@Silen I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. The producers of Game of Thones relized the advantages it can have and even admited to leaking episodes themselves. As for myself, I just dont have the income, but in order to indulge in my hobbies, I pirate games, and anime...I will say though that if I enjoy a game I WILL BUY IT the moment I can afford it, espically indy games, then others I will pourposly not pay for as a FU to the company (Im looking at you EA). As far as anime, I try to be as legit as I can, so I have a cruncyroll account, and Netflix, and Hulu, but there are animes that I want to see that are outside of those sources and are not accessable through normal means....so I torrent them.

3ternal_Blaze - Last Monday at 5:59 PM
1.) Is it ethical to pirate media?
 This is, in my opinion, dependent on the type of media. Taking revenue away from a deserving production team should not be taken lightly.

2.)What about pirating media because it’s not available in your country, or otherwise unavailable to you?
 I believe that people should be able to access any type of media. If the media is region blocked, it is denying peoples access to information. While pirating sensitive information may be 'unforgiveable' it can be said that keeping public information and media out of peoples' is a breach of rights.

3.)Pirating media because the creator has done questionable things, and you don’t want to support them through your wallet? Or just because you don’t have the money to buy the thing you want?
 In the case of EA, using a monopoly in the market to make as much money out of someone's hobby or interest as possible is purely disgusting. In the case of the ''second question" I myself have used sites like pirate bay to get games that i could not afford. Coming from a poorer background, the idea of getting these games for free enticed me, however, I used these methods in order to "demo" the game, where i would by the valid copy if I enjoyed the game and/or could afford it. I feel that money definitely places people into a situation where this would be morally acceptable for them

Leonardo Da Sidci - Last Monday at 6:21 PM
Pirating media is interesting as a subject. On one hand, the number of people working a project whether it's a film, music, games etc have worked long and hard to produce this content for informational, educational or entertainment purposes and deserver to be compensated. From a business perspective, there are people being employed to create this and those people deserve to earn from their work, in whatever field.

On the other hand, prices, region locks etc make it a lot harder for people to actually experience or enjoy that content.

I grew up as the internet came into fruition and being 13, wanting to watch a film and not having the £20 to buy a single DVD or movie ticket is kinda shit. Or even the £40-50 to buy a game when it came out. That's a lot of money and my parents had zero interest in spending that kind of money on what is essentially "a waste of time."

So pirating worked. It was cheaper and much more convenient to download movies and music and games than it was to go and buy them. Cracking games with generators was a lot easier than going to the store, having your age checked, coming home, installing and entering some CD code.

Nowadays, having access to money, buying games is obviously easier. But I completely get why people still pirate. I would still too if it wasn't easier to just go on steam, press buy and then download. If pirating games becomes easier than buying them from steam, I would 100% go back to pirating games.

As far as music and games, all the music I listen to is on Spotify and the most films I want to watch are on netflix/prime. And if there is something I really want to watch and isn't available, then it's just easier to torrent that shit.
sexy1
Plus things like region locks, price gouging, poor performance issues and all that, would make anyone wary.

Is there a solution to piracy? God no. I doubt there ever will. Anyone who does have the means to pay for something and doesn't, was never going to be a sale anyway for the businesses that are worried about piracy
sexy1

June 26, 2018

Mala(rare candy) - Last Tuesday at 12:00 AM
I pirate everything, cause I'm jobless and broke. Ill keep doing it till forever probably.

There are some things that I cant justify as a purchase. I feel bad when I download photoshop and then do some nice things with it for example but at the same time if I didnt have the option to pirate it I would just not get it at all considering how little I use it.

Back in the day when internet flat rates werent a thing I didnt pirate anything but I didnt buy games on mass anyway.  When I did buy them it was always hit or miss which as a person that expects quality when they buy something that costs 60€, that was extremly infuriating.

Now it has turned into a sort of necesity considering I spend 90% of my day playing pirated games. Well I do have some games that are free or that ppl got me (thank you @Leonardo Da Sidci) that I enjoy very much as well. They kind of keep me busy and relatively sane... I dont know what I would do without them when the alternative is literally not having them and being in pain all the time.

Its pretty scary to think of how life would be for me if all those nice russian crackers wouldn't be doing what they are doing.(edited)

June 27, 2018

Shieldy (book recommendations?) - Yesterday at 12:29 PM
I’m impressed by the number of people who pirate games as a demo and buy the game later on. I pirate media because I can’t afford it, but I have no intention of buying it when I start earning money. I grew up in a home that wasn’t too poor, but we somewhat struggled. Spending money on games really was a waste of money. No way my parents would entertain that.

Piracy is theft. Even if media is region locked you are still “stealing” it. The lack of accessibility doesn’t change that. Usually the argument against piracy is a moral one or a legal one. Problem is normal people can be comfortable doing amoral and illegal stuff I suppose. Some people cheat on their wives, some vandalise, some steal from indie devs.

Only with Steam have I found a genuine advantage to buying games legitimately. It can be more convenient than pirating, and with less risk. Your games are arranged neatly, they have reviews from people who put money into the game and there’s a sense of community. Basically, people will buy games if it’s better to buy them.
badcom333 - Yesterday at 5:08 PM
If you dont have money then pirate it, simple. Its not really a crime, there is far more serious subjects. Personally i buy only on sales, cause this isnt even my money to be honest, so... You can support small indie teams, i dont care about giants like beth or ea. They greedy and probably dont pay too much to average worker anyway.
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June 28, 2018
Xenken - Today at 1:54 AM
Firstly, a crime shouldn't be dismissed at a glance just for being "small", as the maintenance of civil society involves treating crime seriously regardless of size. (Imagine if no one cared if you get stolen from in public because there are bigger crimes to work on.)
Secondly, just because a company is big and has a large overall profit doesn't mean that it won't be affected by thievery of it's product. Futhermore, we don't know what the reaction for a company might be if it does take a minor or major blow from practices such as these. (Maybe a shrinking bottom line just causes average workers to get laid off).
Consequence-based morality is already a tenuous idea before we add in the hard to predict nature of the actual consequence.
and I understand the idea of someone who could otherwise literally never access the product pirating.
but, thanks mostly in part to my particular P.O.V, I never see that. All the pirates I know just pirate because they don't want to work for the value that they'd have to exchange otherwise.(edited)

Xenken - Today at 2:02 AM
and even in the more acceptable first case, I don't think pirating should be seen as ok because of lack of access for the same reason I don't think stealing is ok even when the thief is poor: it still effectively punishes the victim without their buy in. Is it a problem that would need to be fixed? Probably, but this is not the way to do it.