If I go to a car dealership and take one of their cars without asking, drive it around for a week or two to see if I want to buy one or not, and then return it to the dealership is it stealing? Does anyone see what I'm getting at?
most people who pirate using key'gins,cracks,or just plain steeling files in order to have it won't buy it . that why people make key'gins and cracks. it is almost impossible to combat piracy because they can't take it of the net as fast as its being put there . i believe the f.b.i goes for the uploaders and the seeders. i believe thats what ape was getting at.
I was comparing the downloading of ROMs to try a game to see if you like it first to the car scenario.
The big difference however, the car dealership is phisically missing one car and cant demonstrate and/or sell this specific car. In the case of the downloaded rom, it's a digital duplicate.... so nobody is missing the origional. IMO you cant compare dl-ing roms/games with actual theft. I do believe however that a small percentage of the dl-ers might have bought what they have dled, if it wasn't availible as pirate download. But some others might buy, after having tested the pirate download... So we'll never know for 100% how big the impact is.
There are a million different arguments in the piracy debate and none of them are (or even can be) entirely right or wrong. The best solution I've come up with is to go by my own moral code.
I just don't give a fuck about anyone downloading a ROM for a system (and that includes old arcade games too) that's not current. It's not like the developers are losing money or anything since the game's not being sold anymore.
So what you're saying is... if you make something, like a game or movie or book, and then once it's not sold any more it becomes free? Because, like, copyrights and distribution rights are really only good as long as something is current.
I didn't say it becomes free, I said I don't give a fuck if someone downloads it because the developers get exactly the same amount of money from that SNES game you buy off eBay that they get when someone downloads the ROM.
There's intellectual property. And people did work to create the ideas in a game, the character designs, etc. And people worked to code it and test it. So when you download a ROM, you're stealing ideas, code, the work that went into that title, that SOMEBODY invested money in and OWNS THE RIGHT TO SELL OR NOT SELL IT, unless the copyright has expired and not been renewed.
And if you think that ROMS and pirate copies and stuff won't make a difference in the future, you're fooling yourself. We're only a few steps away from having download only games that are locked to a particular device or account. It's coming. And one of the major reasons is that people can't control themselves or they don't give a fuck.
It's doubtful that downloading 20-year-old games is going to make a little bit of difference, especially if they were only released in arcades to begin with, for example. I may not think that games become free after they're not sold anymore, but if they're not selling the damn games anymore, then to me they're fair game for downloading. Their loss. This is the whole principle behind abandonware.
If you still have the original, its not stolen. Copying is copying and theft is theft. Thats why we have copyright laws and theft laws. If they were the same, there would be no need for both. Despite what the music and movie labels are trying to teach ("Copying/Piracy = Theft!") through their endless campaigns and dvd intros, it just isnt. why try to make one into the other when its not, just to make it sound worse.
Err you might want to look again, were not a few steps only away from download only stuff been locked to a device or an account. Xbox live does it already & so does wiiware. Personally i have no problem with downloading DS roms & trying out the new stuff because if i happen to like it, i actually buy it. But then you may ask "well if i like it why don't i just buy it without downloading?" Importing from Japan nowdays is super expensive thanks to the crazy exchange rates at the moment theres no way im going to blow £40 on a ds game that i have just looked at screenshots of or a gameplay vid & some games are too advanced for my reading level so it's a good way of finding out if it's playable enough for me as the Japanese might be just too difficult in some. If i find a game i have downloaded is either shit or too hard to understand in Japanese then i just delete it off my flash cart, i don't have vast collections of roms on my pc, if it's crap why bother keeping it. I'm an extreme minority as game developers have benifitted from my piracy, there are a lot of games that i literally never knew existed till i saw the rom & after trying i went & ordered a brand new copy. Thats a sale they never would have had & i bought new as well, in fact the best example i have is game centre CX. Until that first came out on the ds i had no idea what it was or where it came from, i tried the rom & loved it so i went straight away & bought a copy but then i wanted more. Thanks to getting hooked on the game i also went & bought all the tv show dvd box sets from amazon Japan. So they got a shitload of money out of me & all to do with me downloading one rom. Take a look at my ds collection on here, 99.9% of those 150+ ds games were bought new, not everyone is as you describe.
It's easy to get upset about piracy and throwing that 'stealing argument' in but what about that dvd you imported from the States, or Hong Kong? Importing dvd's is also, technically, theft - Warner Bros USA only have the right to release a dvd in the States - If I import it to Italy (via Amazon, eBay, etc..) then Warner Europe are losing sales... People seem to think the world is one big global market - import it from X and you're fine, nobody bats an eyelid (even though you are damaging sales in YOUR territory) but download it? Then you're a sinner. Two stats one should never forget: The movie industry has been making record profits each and every year, just like the games industry. There is NO argument to prove that piracy is having some sort of 'profound negative effect' on either industry. Well, none that I've read about (and I've followed the piracy debate since the 1980's.) The average joe owns about 5 games (per console) and DOES go out and buy the legitimate product if it's available (i.e. most of the developed world). On the other hand, you can't say "Hey, those Chinese are pirating scum" because China isn't a market anyone can break into right now - It's like complaining that there aren't any game stores in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. Haven't we all gone over this issue a million times b4?
Copying is theft. I'm coming from the point of view of someone who owns international distribution rights and copyrights on many DVDs. And I'll tell you, the minute we find out someone is copying our titles, we call our lawyer because anytime anyone copies our films it takes money out of our pocket. By copying what I own the copyright to, you have stolen money from me.
Copying is not theft. No one has "stolen" money from you. Have they POSSIBLY stopped you from POSSIBLY earning that money in the future? maybe, if they would have bought it in the first place. otherwise you have lost NOTHING. No one has come and taken money from you that you already own - this is the point of theft, you need to be deprived of something you already own, not something you might possibly have gotten. Im not saying copying is right, as you can see from my post. Im just stating they are 2 different things, covered by 2 very different laws for 2 very different circumstances. here is the legal definition of theft: "A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". If you still have it, you have not been stolen from. Also, id like to point out - I am not arguing that copying doesnt hurt your business or deprived you of money. I am arguing that copying is not theft, which it isnt.
"A person is guilty of theft, if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it". In my case, the property would be the images (video) on the disk. When you buy a DVD or Blu-ray, you don't own the film. You have purchased the right to view the film as many times as you like. But you do not obtain the legal right to edit, copy, or transfer the film. Because how we make any money is based off of the number of copies SOLD in a 30 day period, if one was to copy the film and give the copies to interested parties who would have had the opportunity to purchase the film; but no will not because they now own a "copy" of it, you have deprived me of potential money. And beyond financial provisions, you have stolen and redistributed the images that I own. The only people who think copying is not theft are those who a) copy things, and/ or b) create nothing of public value in their own lives.
