|
|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
| STEALING: IS IT WRONG? |
| Always. |
|
22% |
[ 8 ] |
| Nah, not really |
|
45% |
[ 16 ] |
| Conscientious objector status |
|
31% |
[ 11 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 35 |
|
| Author |
Message |
shnozlak
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: pushing crates in the sewer level
|
 Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:33 pm |
  |
|
I think donmarco effectively ended the thread. Thats my opinion.
Honestly I have only bought used games for the last 9 months or so. But I'm one of those weird people who never got over their first system.
_________________
Mixtapes galore ~ VG MUSIC
ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ http://phantom-photon.tumblr.com/ |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
 |
BotageL
pretty anime princess
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: *fidget*
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:36 pm |
|
|
| DonMarco wrote: |
| That's a crap arguement. Or observation. I kinda just skimmed over the most of it. |
I can tell. You seem to think I'm actually arguing against used game sales, for one thing. What I was saying (and what you said too, here) is that companies hate used game sales because they don't make any money on it. My follow-up point was that, therefore, buying a used game should be (and often is) seen by the game company as being just as bad as downloading the game illegally from the Internet for free.
| Quote: |
| Games that usually aren't traded back are multiplayer games, role-playing games, big budget games with tons of replay value, and that little thing called... fun? |
You really haven't been in a Gamestop lately, have you?
| Quote: |
| My bad. I thought this was a thread where people weigh in on piracy!! Oops! |
You were arguing against selling pirated copies for a profit, which is something entirely different from illegally downloading the game personally from the Internet, which is what everyone else is arguing about.
_________________
http://www.mdgeist.com/ |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
SplashBeats
Guest
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:41 pm |
|
|
| you're arguing with a troll |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
dhex
Joined: 17 Jan 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:54 pm |
|
|
it's interesting to see the riaa and to a lesser degree game companies do a similar routine to the one that led to sony v. universal in 1980 something. a fun compare and contrast that with the grokster case might be worth some time.
_________________
 |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
BotageL
pretty anime princess
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: *fidget*
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:58 pm |
|
|
| SplashBeats wrote: |
| you're arguing with a troll |
I know, but who else is there to argue with?
_________________
http://www.mdgeist.com/ |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:40 pm |
|
|
| Talbain wrote: |
| CubaLibre wrote: |
A WoW account is an ongoing contractual agreement and it's part of the agreement's terms that you can't transfer your consideration onto another party. A WoW account is not your "property" at all, it's Blizzard's side of a deal you've made with them.
Gamestop's copy of MGS3 is property they own and it's their prerogative to give it to whomever they see fit. If they couldn't it wouldn't be "property" at all.
Of course, that's what makes IP so weird: no physical object to transfer, and the ability to make unlimited fungible copies. |
But why is a WoW account not my property, while a videogame such as MGS3 is my property? They're both just virtual collections of number sequences run through an interpreter, if we break it down.
The only argument that regularly comes up is that it's because the data is stored on Blizzard's servers, and therefore Blizzard has exclusive rights to the data. Yet I store my save data on a Sony Memory Card. Does that mean I don't have the rights to that data either, or do I only not have the rights to it if they say I don't?
Basically, what I want to know about this sort of thing is, who decides who owns what data, and why? If the companies are deciding, that's not going to be good for consumers, ever (and the banning of accounts which had no malicious intent is certainly evidence of this).
As an addendum, this "IP" malarkey gives me a headache.
Edit: Also, WoW's TOS or EULA allows/provides for transactions of ownership for an account. Interestingly though, you're still not allowed to change some of the initial user's settings, which is completely beyond me. |
Wait what? No, a WoW account is actually NOT numbers and data and sequences, it's a completely legal fiction. Blizzard is selling you the right to access their servers, a physical thing that they in fact do own. A WoW account has more in common with paying rent than buying a DVD with MGS3 on it.
Now, rent-paying tenants have possessory rights to their land even though they don't actually hold title. Currently, things like WoW accounts are seen as purely contractual and therefore such common law rights don't exist. The question is, how much is intellectual property like real property? Should you have default rights regarding your "possessory interest" to your particular account? Of course, what does that mean about the game at large? Is it a tenancy in common? If you don't like the way Shattrath is being run, could you force a partition, make Blizzard "auction off" the "property," and give you your 1/whateverth share? (What about people who only have level 20 characters on their accounts? Do they get a share of Shattrath, since they actually have never been there?) This is where stuff gets super murky and the analogies between IP and real property break down.
So, you can't just treat it like real property. But you can't just say it isn't property at all, or else the entire (Constitutionally protected!) idea of copyright is out the window. These days courts are trying to stretch old property regimes to new technological advances, but as we see the analogies begin to get really specious after a while. Eventually there's just going to have to be a truckload of legislation about it, but meanwhile courts have to deal with people cracking StarForce.
My real point in bringing in the legal question is: none of us have any real insight on the legal question. So, let's all ignore it and instead focus on the moral question, which is, anyway, far more interesting.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me. |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:02 pm |
|
|
If we're just talking moral arguments, it really does break down to: is stealing bad? The ultimate answer is probably somewhere in the "sometimes" category, which is at least as murky as the legal argument.
_________________
 |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
BenoitRen
I bought RAM
Joined: 05 Jan 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:54 pm |
|
|
I think piracy is bad, and we wouldn't be arguing about this if we weren't able to copy all that content because it happens to be digital.
One argument I often see for downloading an older game instead of acquiring it second-hand is that the original company won't ever see that money. But they ignore that this purchase injects money back into the economy.
_________________
Get Xenoblade Chronicles!
| udoschuermann wrote: |
| Whenever I read things like "id like to by a new car," I cringe inside, imagine some grunting ape who happened across a keyboard, and move on without thinking about the attempted message. |
|
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:59 pm |
|
|
| BenoitRen wrote: |
I think piracy is bad, and we wouldn't be arguing about this if we weren't able to copy all that content because it happens to be digital.
One argument I often see for downloading an older game instead of acquiring it second-hand is that the original company won't ever see that money. But they ignore that this purchase injects money back into the economy. |
I think the more usual argument is that copies simply aren't attainable after a point, unless you're willing to spend an arm and a leg to acquire them.
Also, you spending your money injects money into the economy, regardless of who's getting it, so that point is moot.
_________________
|
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
Hot Stott Bot
banned
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:05 am |
|
|
| Guys, I'm pretty sure my point in this thread was the only one that matters. |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
BotageL
pretty anime princess
Joined: 04 Dec 2006
Location: *fidget*
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:29 am |
|
|
| Hot Stott Bot wrote: |
| Guys, I'm pretty sure my point in this thread was the only one that matters. |
Mr. Mustache executes this form of attention-seeking with more class.
_________________
http://www.mdgeist.com/ |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
EmX
banned
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 4:01 am |
|
|
| hot stott bott is probably this forum's best candidate for a girlban |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
CubaLibre
the road lawyer
Joined: 02 Mar 2007
Location: Balmer
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:16 am |
|
|
| Talbain wrote: |
| If we're just talking moral arguments, it really does break down to: is stealing bad? The ultimate answer is probably somewhere in the "sometimes" category, which is at least as murky as the legal argument. |
Yeah, but it's way more fun to talk about with other people, because the legal question is just a murky matter of fact, whereas the moral question can be dialectically approached for the benefit of all.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me. |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
Hot Stott Bot
banned
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:00 am |
|
|
| BotageL wrote: |
| Hot Stott Bot wrote: |
| Guys, I'm pretty sure my point in this thread was the only one that matters. |
Mr. Mustache executes this form of attention-seeking with more class. |
It wasn't attention-seeking. I made a post on the first page, read the rest of the posts, and quite genuinely think that my original point still stands, which is to question the value of attempting to make a moral value-judgement about piracy in the first place, and as the rest of the thread has been an attempt to do just that I would say that my point in this thread is stlil the only one that really matters.
I was merely trying to remind people of that concisely, but if you're so dense that you look at it as "just attention getting" and force me to write out all this explanation... then so be it.
(Note: that's not to say that it would be dense to disagree with me. If you want to do that, that's perfectly valid. I'm saying it is dense to think that my post was mere attention whoring. It is just I got no discussion on the point and wanted to bring it back up, and I thought that line alone sufficiently conveyed my meaning.) |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
SplashBeats
Guest
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 6:38 am |
|
|
| please excuse botageL, someone took him off his leash a while ago and he's been shitting all over the place |
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
Talbain
Joined: 14 Jan 2007
|
| Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:12 pm |
|
|
| CubaLibre wrote: |
| Talbain wrote: |
| If we're just talking moral arguments, it really does break down to: is stealing bad? The ultimate answer is probably somewhere in the "sometimes" category, which is at least as murky as the legal argument. |
Yeah, but it's way more fun to talk about with other people, because the legal question is just a murky matter of fact, whereas the moral question can be dialectically approached for the benefit of all. |
Yes, but most people already have their minds made up about moral questions. Debate tends to lead to arguments that lead to nowhere as a result, typified by semantic argumentation (and there's been a lot of that in this thread).
Hot Stott Bot, your answer to the question of piracy lacks any grounds for justification. It's just a loop that any type of thievery can be fit into. Your argument makes no differentiation between a person stealing bread to survive or help their family survive and a person breaking into someone's house to make a quick buck. Fit this into a pirating framework, and it could be argued that a person using another's work to create a greater work is no more justified than someone who's just hoarding the work because they feel an impetus to "have" that media.
_________________
|
|
| Filter / Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
