when is stealing right, or good?

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As already said, stealing is taking something somebody else paid, or has to pay for (in case of a shop). So somebody actually loses either money and/or an item.

With pirating there are several things:
-pirating commercial software
-pirating games and music

Pirating commmercial software isn't really the baddest thing IMO. The software is so expensive because companies can earn money when they use their license (e.g. developers using 3ds max to make the models for their game, then selling the game).
Now if some random dude pirates max and uses it for his own fun/to practice his skills then the developers of max don't really lose money, because the product wasn't designed for that 'customer' anyways.
The only bad thing is, that there are non-commercial/student licenses which are much cheaper than the commercial ones.

With games and music there are various reasons why people pirate them.
If it's because they don't want to spend money on it then it's some kind of theft. Because the companies definately lose money then.
 
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€50-€60? Wow, you're getting dragged over the rocks on that one. That's almost half again what I pay.

No matter which way you look at it, these software companies overprice all of their products. And a lot of the programs are majorly unreliable, and often crash, or are not fully compatible with Windows.
Uh... no. Not even close.
 
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frsrblch said:
€50-€60? Wow, you're getting dragged over the rocks on that one. That's almost half again what I pay.
Europe get ****ed with prices. Most console prices are tranferred 1:1 into €. (that makes +30%)
And games range from 45€ - almost 60€.
Depends on where you buy them.
 
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New PC games cost about €45-€50 here, and 360 games are €60. It's crazy, that's what it is.
 
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lol, and brits get shafted even more,

$40 for a game, is 40 euros, which means europe gets shafted
then england pays ?40 for the same game, which means we're paying about 3 times the original amount.

go figure.
 
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Yes, I understand the pirate logic: if you were never intending to by the product, then you weren't "really" stealing anything at all, and because digital information can't directly be given worth (since it is immaterial, unlike, say, a car) then it's effectively harmless.

But IMO Stealing is stealing, I mean there are certainly different levels, but to call piracy (I mean, look at the word) some kind of exception is delusional. I feel like most people excuse themselves because piracy is so rampant these days, but the fact is, -you are illegally obtaining work which other people have spent time and effort creating in order to sell.- IMO That goes under "stealing," whether you were intending to buy the product or not.

Even if a product is immaterial, it can still require PLENTY of material resources to create. People spend thousands, sometimes millions of dollars, as well as manpower, to create a video game, movie, software application, etc. The intention is that they make that money BACK through distribution of an otherwise immaterial thing, otherwise they'd never be able to make them at all. Just because there isn't a gigabytes-to-dollars conversion in what you're taking doesn't make it right or excusable in any way.

All this talk about intention to buy, intended customer, etc. doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change the reality of the situation. I mean I'm sure those little electric PowerWheels cars in Toys R Us aren't marketed for me, and I'd sure as hell never spend 1000 dollars just to get one, but I'd still get arrested for trying to drive one out the store.

That being said, I too shamelessly participate in piracy. >_>

I would however draw a line between stealing a product from a corporation and stealing some dude's motorcycle though, of course. When you steal a candy bar from the convenience store, you're nicking a little bit of some guy's profit margin. When you steal a guy's motorcycle, you're stealing his livelihood, and that's kinda messed up and personal. Sorry to hear that man.
 
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Onslaught said:
lol, and brits get shafted even more,

$40 for a game, is 40 euros, which means europe gets shafted
then england pays ?40 for the same game, which means we're paying about 3 times the original amount.

go figure.
That's what you get from not totally joining the European empire of awesomeness, you islander. :p

Hitokiri said:
[...]
But IMO Stealing is stealing, I mean there are certainly different levels, but to call piracy (I mean, look at the word) some kind of exception is delusional. I feel like most people excuse themselves because piracy is so rampant these days, but the fact is, -you are illegally obtaining work which other people have spent time and effort creating in order to sell.- IMO That goes under "stealing," whether you were intending to buy the product or not.
[...]
It still only damages the company if you would have bought it.

Pirating isn't right, but the "it damages the companies" isn't always true.
 
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frsrblch said:
?50-?60? Wow, you're getting dragged over the rocks on that one. That's almost half again what I pay.


Uh... no. Not even close.
Bro. I forgot to mention I'm talking about Adobe products and whatnot. Not games. Good day, sir.
 
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Smith| said:
No, stealing software is different because you're not actually stealing it. You're just downloading a copy for yourself. It'd be like me going to your motorbike, seeing a "for sale" sign, and just making an exact copy of it. You lose potential money, yes, but not actual money.
Your analogy does not hold. If any amount of people could run up to said bike and use their own skills/knowledge to recreate and exact copy of it, what is the point of a company to produce such bikes? Just because a few people actually buy them?

When you download a copy of some software, you are not using your creative knowledge to recreate that program: you are stealing a copy of it. Your analogy would hold if a person was to rewrite an exact copy of the code used in the program. That would be the only way you could 'copy' a bike. When lots of people (in the thousands, maybe more depending on the software's popularity) steal a copy of that program, they reduce the profit and the ability of that company to continue to produce new, high quality programs in the future.

Stealing software is stealing just with less risks. I am, personally, not against pirating software. I am merely playing devil's advocate.
 
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Vegeta said:
Bro. I forgot to mention I'm talking about Adobe products and whatnot. Not games. Good day, sir.
The reason that such programs are so expensive is that you could make huge amounts of money if you commercially use that program.
The end customer for adobe products isn't little billy making DBZ sigs,
it's companies using these programs in a commercial way, for example making ads, web sites or other graphical stuff like that
(or 3d models for games in the case of 3d modelling programs).

You wouldn't sell something for 60$ when you know the guy who's going to buy it makes 5000$ using it.
 
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I actually vary for some reason. I really do not think there is a 100% foolproof reason why Piracy (in general) is not stealing while physical theft (in general) is.

The guy who stole your motorcycle took something AWAY from you (and I hope they catch him =/). Now I know morality doesn't play in this case in court, but for a guy to think "Hmm, I will take that expensive motorcycle. It's not mine, it's somebody elses, but I like it. Will he be upset? I don't give a ****, I don't know him" is terrible.

But what if he had some kind of emergency and the motorcycle was his only choice? Doesn' justify it, but to him it would seem necessary.

Now I do not pirate movies. One because it's very inconvient and just unnecessary for me, and two I suppose I am sympathetic towards the work itself.

Music, I'm less strict (Sorry Axman =(). If it is a song that is not found in stores or Itunes, I will download it. If it is 1-3 songs by an artist that you could find in the store/Itunes, I would download it. Because chances are, I will listen to it a lot for the next 2-3 weeks, and then listen to it occasionally. Full albums by artists on iTunes/in Stores I will buy though, since if I like it that much that I want ALL of them, I will pay.

Programs...It's complex for me. Last time I got a program for free, I felt guilty doing it and I was afraid the site I went to was installing spyware or something in the background. The X-box 360 is what, $300-$400? And some programs cost between $500 and $1000? Relatively, I could have more use in the X-Box than those programs, because maybe it's for something simple? It's an intangible tool that I can use to make something here and there because I do not work for a company, yet the 360 is full of hardware and has many uses depending on what game it is.

Now would the game be ok to steal since it's really data and only the disc is tangible? No, because it's at a resonable price (for now...$60 for a game is kinda rediculous) and honestly, it's not convient for me to copy a game. $600, for a program I would use when I need it, that can not even do everything I want and has it's share of bugs and crashes, is not reasonable for the user. Is it RIGHT to Pirate? No. But it also doesn't FEEL right buying it.

But for me, guilt is strong. I asked for an educational version of Photoshop CS2 for Christmas and I got it -_-. The potential use of it is great, but Idon't even use it once a week. And what happens when I get a new computer? Do I have to buy it again? (seriously someone tell me).
 
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ok, lets catagorise things, and then look at the seriousness of each crime:

Tools:
3dsmax
photoshop
a workbench
a lathe
a pnumatic pump
lightwave
a rolling pin
etc.etc.

and now, End producs produced with tools:
computer games
motorvehicles
bread
furnature
etc.etc.

now, of all things stolen, tools are looked upon as the worst things to steal. to take, or vandalise someones tools, is to take, or vandalise that persons livelihood. to take someones tools, is to stop that person from being able to produce an end product, which people need. so that he can make his own wage.

sure, a digital tool is digital, but it is still a tool.

to make a computer game, development teams need to be able to pay for programmers, artists, the tools to make their games etc. those dont come cheap. imagine if you will, that you have a team of 20 artists, and 10 programmers, each one wants in excess of $30,000 a year, to make your game. then you have to have, and maintain a building, which costs more money. you also neeed the equipment, and you need it to be "next gen".

all that costs a lot of money. the same goes for people like Discreet, who make a lot of 3d applications. how much do you think their programming, customer support, management, building etc. costs? per year, i'd say they don't make a massive profit at all on their products, bearing in mind that companys only need to buy a licence for them once per year.

so before you say "if i wasn't going to buy it, it's not stealing". try and think, if you walked into a store, saw a tool on a shelf, which you dont actually need. lets say, some paper, and pens. you dont NEED those, but they would sure help you get better at art. so you want them. but you never intended to buy them.

does taking them make you a thief?

no... of course not. you ****ing idiot.
 
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Smith| said:
No, stealing software is different because you're not actually stealing it. You're just downloading a copy for yourself. It'd be like me going to your motorbike, seeing a "for sale" sign, and just making an exact copy of it. You lose potential money, yes, but not actual money.
No, it's stealing, and it's never right to take something that doesn't belong to you.

As an example/rant: Because of torrent hopping 13-year-old douchebags all over the internet people like me who went to college and worked hard to learn what we know are now screwed out of what was, in my case at least, a $40,000 education.

That's not including what I paid for the countless books, the money I lost not being able to work during certain parts of the year when school was busy, the amount of money I lost because I couldnt' get jobs because now a million people can put "Design" resumes together as long as they have ****ing Kazaa on Dad's laptop and mom's DSL connection.

Internet stealing is only justified because of the generation of prepubescent ****heads that populate forums like this (where they got something for free, and are hoping to find more) that think they are entitled to free **** just because. That is also partially responsible why every other kid in America is a good-for-nothing self-absorbed know-it-all prick.

Hell. Look at this forum and see for yourself. All of these sigs are made with pirated copies of photoshop. In fact, I bet I'm the only person on the whole board with a legitimate copy of any CS2 products (and even then, only because of school and my line of work).

Not to mention half the people here are below working age with no income and this so happens to be a website with a free game attached to it.

Piracy counts even if you aren't taking the item away from the person physically. The reason photoshop is so expensive is because it is built by a team of some of the best software people on the planet doing a lot of hard, time-consuming, costly work. When you download an illegal copy that is one less copy that is going to make back money.

Eventually, if piracy were to become prominent enough (like it is in Korea--94% of all software in Korea is pirated, I once read), then people would no longer be making a profit. On a large enough scale it is possible for this to cause enough decline that companies go out of business. Granted, this happens to the small fish first, but the same thing that happened at my (now former) newspaper company can happen to any large corporation; the income wains, so the quality of the product has to degrade as they cut staff and cut hours to save enough money to maintain a profit in order to keep corporate backing. So yeah, the company doesn't go out of business, and the guys at the top stay rich until it finally tanks (if it ever does). But ultimately the guy who gets screwed is the poor bastards on the bottom rung of the ladder, and every time you download **** somewhere somebody like me who was just trying to make a living gets **** on in order to compensate for people's selfish pirating douchebaggery.

So yeah, it ain't right to steal. Period.

As for programs that crash and dont' work right, etc, it's worth noting that I have all paid for software on my computer--yes, ALL of it--and I haven't had a crash outside of a game glitch/hardware problem in a long time. In fact I don't think I've ever had an application crash on me at all, that I can remember. So you get what you pay for. And if you downloaded something off of some complete stranger in Sakajawea off of BearShare then you still get what you pay for.
 
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SaiyanPrideXIX said:
Hell. Look at this forum and see for yourself. All of these sigs are made with pirated copies of photoshop. In fact, I bet I'm the only person on the whole board with a legitimate copy of any CS2 products (and even then, only because of school and my line of work).

Not to mention half the people here are below working age with no income and this so happens to be a website with a free game attached to it.
beg to differ, sorry.
 
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Pride, even though you have a legitimate copy, I bet you didn't pay the actual retail price for it? Because that's the only thing stopping me from going out to the store and buying it.
 
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People who do a law degree can go to the library, take out books, learn from them, and return them at no cost. If you're using the development software to learn, and not actually making a profit from such things, I see no difference.

We've had this convo before though :x

I also think you like to forget there are potential benefits from such things, being free, people definitely will try it, I personally don't think 1 month is enough to really decide whether any kind of development software is worth it, I used photoshop when i was 14 and i didn't have a ****in clue back then, and after getting confused several times I didn't touch it for another year. Then slowly, more and more i used it, the more I couldn't do without it, then I decided that a career in that direction is what I think is right for me. You could look at it as I should never have had that chance, or you could look upon it as it being a great way to bring people to the industry, and in overall, once it's a profession, you have to buy it, there's no way around that, and therefore I'll be throwing money into adobe's lap until I stop working or something better comes along, not to mention it'd be company contracts, worth thousands, so in a way, I'd have payed more to them then I would have ever if it wasn't available in that way. To my knowledge the only thing development software companies care about is if people are using their software to make a profit. I mean, there was a discussion a while back on these forums about mp3's, killing profits etc, how wrong it was, then you look at the band Arctic Monkey's who left their music free to download when they were bring out their first album and they're now one of the biggest names in England.

Stealing and internet piracy isn't clear cut, depends completely on the use, the genre, the medium, whether its music, film, games or development software, It's all relevant and should be looked upon as a separate issue. I think its short-sighted of people to think of this merely of a case of fundamental morality. Knowledge, and development of entire industries are now actually in the hands of the people, at the touch of buttons, and we can see how big it's growing.

Bad news about the bike, but I think this should have illustrated to you the difference, not the similarities between piracy and possession theft.

However, maybe I just want to justify my actions. I do think I've got some pretty good logical points on the matter though, and they shouldn't be ignored.
 
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meh, piracy isn't the same thing as theft,

people who call it so, assume that people who have downloaded the programs/files would have paid for them had the option to download not been presented to them.

and i can safely say that that is never the case,

any file that i have ever downloaded, i wouldn't have actually paid for.

so did they lose any money by me downloading it? certainly not.
they wouldnt have gotten anything from me anyways,

btw who was it who sent me a crack for max 6,7 and THEN 8? hmmmmm, i wonder who that couldve been.

i smell irony =P


so before you say "if i wasn't going to buy it, it's not stealing". try and think, if you walked into a store, saw a tool on a shelf, which you dont actually need. lets say, some paper, and pens. you dont NEED those, but they would sure help you get better at art. so you want them. but you never intended to buy them.

does taking them make you a thief?
ummm, thats kinda different.

if you physically steal something from a store, nobody can ever buy it ever again (unless you put it back =P)

software on the other hand is virtual data, no matter how many people download it it is still available for whoever wants to download or legally purchase it, no matter how many times it changes hands
 
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nuttzy said:
meh, piracy isn't the same thing as theft,

people who call it so, assume that people who have downloaded the programs/files would have paid for them had the option to download not been presented to them.

and i can safely say that that is never the case,

any file that i have ever downloaded, i wouldn't have actually paid for.

so did they lose any money by me downloading it? certainly not.
they wouldnt have gotten anything from me anyways,

btw who was it who sent me a crack for max 6,7 and THEN 8? hmmmmm, i wonder who that couldve been.

i smell irony =P




ummm, thats kinda different.

if you physically steal something from a store, nobody can ever buy it ever again (unless you put it back =P)

software on the other hand is virtual data, no matter how many people download it it is still available for whoever wants to download or legally purchase it, no matter how many times it changes hands


Not everyone is like you. There are many people that only did not buy several expensive programs simply because they could download them. My dad is one of them. I would have bought several programs and movies had I not access to their pirated forms.

If you walk into a Borders, pick out a book, photocopy, bind it, and walk out without paying anything, that is the equivalent to what pirated programs are. If you do that, they will not let you out of the store. They consider it stealing - unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material. And it is.
 
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If you walk into a Borders, pick out a book, photocopy, bind it, and walk out without paying anything, that is the equivalent to what pirated programs are. If you do that, they will not let you out of the store. They consider it stealing - unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material. And it is.
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I do that all the time with textbooks from the library, because textbook companies are money grubbing bastards extorting money from students. Calculus hasn't changed in hundreds of years, and yet every other year or so they release a new version of each textbook, thereby making it so you can't buy a used book, and can't offload last years textbook, as all the problem questions have been changed.

That being said, you're right, it's copyright infringement, but they don't consider it stealing, they consider it copyright infringement. You don't see many college students in the states getting sued for "theft" by the RIAA.
 

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