Torture: No. Even Guantanamo isn't large enough to qualify as a crime against humanity
How many people can I torture before its a crime against humanity?
2? 4? 25? 1,000,000?
How many humans are there in a humanity, for that matter? I would say you need to torture EVERYONE before its actually a crime against humanity. By that reasoning genocide can't be a crime against humanity either, since by definition your only killing one group, and not the whole of humanity (as long as you don't commit suicide when your done, your still golden).
Sorry, torture, period, is a crime against humanity. It doesn't matter if you torture one person or a million.
Also; define murder. Killing civilians for no reason? Then we could consider all of Iraq, and much of Afghanistan, as murder. Even excepting some weak justification for there wars, we still are pretty wanton about our collateral damage.
And what the hell is does "justified by military or civilian necessity" mean? So if there is no real reason to be there, but we send the military anyway, then its fine and dandy.
Your using Bush logic, there are no war crimes unless someone else commits them, though WE can do the exact same things but are justified since we have a good reason, where they, the bad guys, don't, obviously. We aren't evil because we are America, and America isn't evil!
Ordering torture of enemy civilians is a war crime, as is kidnapping innocent people for no reason and holding them for protracted amounts of time without justification (see the German account in the leak, or read many accounts of Guantanamo or field prisons). Also NOT condemning torture, rape, or murder, and not acting to prevent it is pretty much the same thing as condoning it, especially when you know that the chance, opportunity, and environment for it exists.
I think he had a valid point though. You can read it as trolling, or you can read it saying "tastes change with age".
I found that I have this problem too, I was slowly finding that most games don't really hold my attention anymore. I was a bit bummed out about this, since I used to be an avid (perhaps to avid) gamer, and found myself pondering whether games themselves got worse the older I got, or if I was just moving past them. Tons of things I loved in my youth are no longer satisfying, not just games. Books and movies I used to love seem rather shallow and stupid now as well.
Its just natural aging. You are not the same person you used to be, events have happened, and you have grown, so its silly to assume that your tastes will remain the same.
I used to really enjoy games like WoW, but slowly I realized that I wasn't having fun. It was work. It was work populated by the lowest common denominator who get great joy about using naughty words like "tits", and think that calling someone "gay" is the height of witty repartee . I don't have the time and patience I once had for it. I used to enjoy most FPS/deathmatch type games, and found that I don't anymore. They are mostly "stealth" games, where I get to spend 6 hours staring at the back of a cover wall, and none of them have really innovated on Quake3 or UT2003. I still manage to enjoy a decent western RPG (totally lost patience for the drama and cut scene heavy Japanese ones, if I wanted annoying drama and characters I would read a Jane Austin novel), Dragon Age was fun, until they started spawning $6000 worth of DLC. Most games are hindered by being mainly console ports though, and I have less patience for working against the design elements than I used to. I have broader experiences, and greater means than I did as a teen or in my early 20s, so I have more alternatives to turn to when games start being arbitrarily frustrating.
The last game to actually get me to obsess over it (meaning play it for 6 straight hours without realizing it) was Minecraft. The honeymoon is slightly over, since I realized there is really nothing much to do after a bit, and the thrill of discovery wears off.
But generally I play for 5 hours, and move on to other, non-gaming, projects. I'm currently plotting a collaborative novel, and it is a bit more appealing and enticing than playing Call of Duty 2001: The Bigactionexplosionbangbanggogoteamamerica Odyssey, as is many other fun projects I have around the house. Instead of trying to avoid being tea-bagged by 13 years olds with more free time than me, I can go out to the local pub with some friends, or read one of the 50 or so books in my "to read" pile. Sometimes going for a nice long hike is more fun... Sometimes studying things just for fun is... etc... Your horizons expand with age. There is no shame in finding your appeal in video games waning.
I know several people downloading the audio or ebook versions of books they own.
Are they customers or not? Is this legal? Is it right?
They are customers of previous versions, but not current ones. It isn't legal, as far as I can tell. Is it right? Personally, I'm pretty sure it is.
This actually is a good example of ethics and law being wildly divergent, it is a shame you posted AC. I find straight piracy rather annoying, and while still harboring some gray areas it is probably mostly (ethically) wrong. Grabbing a game, or album you refuse to pay for is probably wrong in most cases, and deserves to be illegal. It probably is theft (no, not physical, but more inline with theft of service).
But I have no problem with format switching. I do know people who pirate ebooks which they already own the copy of, and I have no problem whatsoever with that. They bought it, they own it, and they can do what they want. Basically all they are doing is saving the time it would take to convert it themselves. Its like downloading a of a movie that you already own, there is no real loss.
I would say format switching is illegal, but completely ethical and moral.
I also have no problem with people pirating things that are old, as in the creator is dead, or disbanded, since banning that is against the theme of what copyright is for (promoting works, but if there is no artist there is no possible promotion), or pirating works past a certain age. I have no problem with using piracy to replace lost or broken (but previously purchased) media. I have no problem with using piracy to "try before you buy". Etc...
I do have a problem with piracy is it is just to get something for nothing. Its just greed then, and serves no other purpose but instant gratification at the cost of the creator. Or piracy for protest, since a simple boycott would do the job better, since with piracy you still show the desire, and often this is just an excuse (post-hoc) to justify being a greedy prick.
Many in the Senate are still stinging from the voter rebuke that just occurred, and the rest are not in a mood to pick a fight with the voters.
If they are stinging from it, they are morons. It happens every damn midterm, and every damn midterm people paint it as some big revolution, or some big protest. If, in two years, a Republican is sitting in the White House, two years later we will have a Democratic senate and house. Its how things work. It is a completely normal, and predictable, event.
Its actually shocking to me that the Republicans didn't get the Senate too.
I'm not a cheerleader for either side. They both have consistently failed us as a country, and have consistently failed to uphold their own stated ideologies. They are failures on pretty much every count. This latest wave of Republicans (with their "popular mandate", which really means 60% of local voters) will fail both the country and the people who voted for them too, just like the last wave of Democrats.
Yes, I'm cynical. I would stop, but trends always seem to back it up.
I find the partisan finger pointing to be amusing. For most of the things that screwed our civil liberties there has been wild bi-partisan support in the halls of congress, even if there has been ideological dissent from non-politicians in the streets. The Democrats and Republicans aren't working for you. No matter who your favorite is, and who you're hoping wins, they don't give two shits about you.
At best they think your some little insignifigant thing that must be cared for, since you don't know whats good for you. At middling they are looking out for their next election, and the amount of money they will need to win it (they will work for you, once they finish working against you for funding). At worst they are working wholly for their own self interests.
Perhaps worse still, and completely killing the viability of most third parties (and the very few actual tea party types), they might be working out of some "true ideology" that they hold sacred, consequences be damned since they are only focused on the big picture.
I do find McCartney to be the least interesting of the lot, though. Really Harrison and Ringo deserve more spotlight, but McCartney is a masterful self-promoter and thus overshadows everyone but Lennon.
I don't know if you can blame the Beatles for this. Half of them are dead, and one of them, for all intents and purposes, is uninterested. I would blame the label and other corporate sources, which has pretty much nothing to do with the music itself. Actually the band has nothing much to do with the music itself anymore. Who really cares if the band is a bunch of asshats, if they make good music?
And in the Beatles I pretty much only count one asshat.
My girlfriend's mom is addicted to never ending series of fantasy novels (lurid covers and all). She gleamed that I have similar tastes, and thus promotes a new contemporary fantasy series or novel to me every single time I talk to her. She is always disappointed, since I tell her I will read it, and read LoTR again, instead. I don't see a reason for really reading them, since most of the time they are nothing but an extended remix of Tolkien, will pretty much all the same elements and plots, but spread over 60000 books, and it seems most of their authors completely lack the ability to ever write and ending (Robert Jordan, I'm looking at your corpse).
This, to move on to other examples, is why Apocalypse Now! is the greatest Vietnam movie. On first watching it seems rather trite, but then you realize that it is the archetype of the genre, and that is why it seems so trite, everything that followed followed the form it set. Every character archetype, and environment has been copied so many times that it makes everything seem banal.
If all music has to stand on is rebellion, and once that aspect is gone it is not longer interesting, it was bad music to begin with. It was a purely cultural phenomena, meaning shallow and transient, meaning the people who listened to it were shallow and transient.
This is why around 90% of punk sucks, even before 1979. This is why 90% of everything probably sucks, but we just don't realize it until the trend moves on. This is why most of the crap I listened to in high school (metal and grunge) has become JUST crap. It was only interesting in that specific cultural time and place, but was completely uninteresting. At best it was a reaction to some events that are no longer relevant, at midling it was a mere scene, and at worst an act of marketing and targeted demographics.
Some of it survived very well, meaning it has more to it than just a social trend, it was musically interesting, even beyond its cultural relevance. The Clash (pre-80's) survived, Zeppelin survived, Bob Dylan, and a large selection of classic blues survived. The Beatles, for the most part, did too. Well, they did if you weed McCartney's influence out of it, and focus mostly on the stuff created after some wonderful guy gave Lennon LSD. Some of it is just interesting, some of it is musically sound, and some of it is absolute crap and marketing.
A vast amount of the music I used to like bores me now, but there are some survivors. And I am long past my rebellious phases. Some of it was actually decent music in the long run.
Time generally weeds out all the shit. For every Beethoven there were 600000 guys fiddling with a piano who managed mild popularity, but later vanished.
I've never understood pre-ordering games, especially since the advent of online availability. Sure now you can get some shiny vanity widget for it (sometimes), but this is a rather modern invention (within the last 2-3 years, mostly), and generally these widgets don't really add to gameplay outside of, perhaps, showing some inconsequential anonymous online person that you discovered it before it was cool (with legions of other people slapping down $5 at Gamestop). The few times that pre-orders give functional in-game stuff, it generally unbalances the game (Dragon Age: Origins) and thus is generally not played with to begin with. There really isn't any benefit to availability anymore, even.
I pre-ordered the last World of Warcraft expansion, stood in line for it, etc.. But I could have easily just downloaded it from Blizzard the same day. The only reason I didn't was because the expansion previous to that wasn't available digitally for a bit of time after physical release, so I didn't quite trust that method, yet. If I was to actually buy the upcoming expansion (I probably won't) I would just wait until the next morning and grab it from Blizzard's online store. Especially since you can download the full expansion right now just to have it ready to experience the buggy, over queued , crashy joy of release night. Which is, actually, another thing that turned me off of release day rushes. The last WoW expansion was painful to play that evening. Even though I waited in line for an hour or two for it, with a bunch of sweaty antisocial geeks I couldn't really play it that night. The servers were terrible, and finally just down until the next day.
The only other game I pre-ordered in recent memory was Dragon Age: Origins, and I only did that less than two days from release and through Steam because I probably wouldn't have remember to buy it otherwise. Basically it was an impulse buy with no immediate pay off. I don't think I have used my gratis items since they completely unbalanced the game.
Also, there's no reason that both types of gameplay can't exist.
If they coexist, I have no problem. I just fear that they won't. The unbridled success of the Wii risks pushing all of the console manufacturers over to the "motion is awesome" camp, making all next generation consoles into a Wii clone.
I would also have no problem with my Wii if there was a way to allow me to play without motion as well. Make it optional and everything is fine.
I suppose it is a deep seated fear that tomorrow will suck more than today.
WTF did the IS do with Somalia? The genocides in Rwanda and Durfar? Oh yeah, we let it happen.
We invaded a country for no actual reason whatsoever, in hopes of political benefits, oil, family grudges, and/or posturing. None of which are worth the slightest loss of life, American or otherwise. Why invade Iraq, and not step for actual atrocities like the ones you mention? Oh, there is no money in it, no mythical glory.
There is no glory in being the aggressor. I am proud of America, but it is damn hard to be proud of our actions sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if we are the bad guy, the international Skeletor. Questioning our policies is NOT anti-American. Being against some of the boneheaded stuff we do is also not Anti-American. There is no shame in saying "Hey guys, you might be doing something stupid.".
Just because other people are sometimes stupid or wrong doesn't mean they lose the right to question others. There is something strange in that. We can be evil as long as we aren't as evil as someone else? This makes no sense to me.
"Yes I'm stupid, but thats okay because I'm not as stupid as you! nyah nyah nyah!" Meanwhile everyone walks off a cliff, but at least we get the distinction of walking off a slightly lower (yet equally fatal) one.
At least that one wasn't unilateral aggression (i.e. we did it for the UN), and we may have committed forces for an actual reason (unlike Iraq or what we turned Afghanistan into).
Not saying that the liberals are rosy on that front either, just a bit better than the Republicans or recent memory. Not that it is really hard to be better than Bush II, with his two pointless, mismanaged, expensive, wars that are being fought for no reason that I can discern.*
* I'm not anti-war. I am anti-stupid. I agreed with invading Afghanistan, up until the point where we started making things worse and not better (meaning the second we actually got there).
Or some people dislike the idea of it for the same reason my Wii has been sitting around forgotten and gather dust. I don't want to be "tricked" into being active and healthy, I want to sit on my sofa drinking Mountain Dew, eating Cheetos and vegging out. Its called relaxing, I often like to do it. When I'm in the mood to be active I will hop into my car, drive a couple minutes, and go hiking; or I will go to the gym and do actual, structured, exercise; or I will do yard work; or I will do something active, period. I really don't need my leisure activity to promote a healthy lifestyle. What next, books that have weights attached and have spring steel pages that take x amount of effort (scaled with readability level)? Movies with treadmills attacked to the motor that spins the DVD?
I fear a world (or the next console generation) where everything is based around gimmicky movement sensors.
Flailing around does not lead to immersion, nor does it increase the enjoyability of most games. Improving world design, stories, and gameplay in crease immersion. There is no shame in mashing "A". If anything, currently, movement sensors HURT immersion, since it is used like a crappy gimmick, and calls attention to itself ("flail your left arm! Aren't I clever, making you flail it, see movement! yes movement!!"), much like crappy 3D movies that feel the need to break the wall of the screen (ala Friday the 13th part 3) ("ZOMG, that machete is going to poke you in the eye, in the most headache inducing way!").
As a person on the left (pretty far left, since I still don't understand how being called "socialist" is a slander); Obama didn't give us anything. Giving money to giant, obscenely rich, corporations isn't socialism, and isn't a leftist goal. His health care bill is so far from the mark that it isn't funny. Actually his health care bill is also just a form of giving money to giant, obscenely rich, corporations as well (at gun point, as it were). His other big achievement was to say "tisk tisk" to the giant, obscenely rich, corporations that ruined our economy, while laying down no consequences or regulations that keep it from happening again.
Obama has done nothing for the left, except help it die a little more.
It can be argued that Obama did "reach across the aisles" for "Obamacare", and worked with the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats to get a decent compromise. And because of this the bill was watered down to the point of being worse than doing nothing, and the Republicans still voted along partisan lines against it. The generous side of my says that all of Obama's major actions were watered down and useless because of his love of compromise for the sake of compromise. I was worried about this when he got into office. Reaching across the aisles and compromise can be a good thing, but there are certain things you shouldn't do it for. Watering down your principles just so you can say you "reached across the aisles" is just silly.
Looking at the more recent Republican control, we can see that they have no problem shutting out their opposition to get things across. They never minded completely alienating Democrats to get their goals turned into policies. Republicans never minded using fillibusters to shut out Democrats, or using purely political, strategic, partisan votes.
Yes, there are tons of areas to compromise on, and yes I find it sickening when one party shuts out the opposition completely (since they are basically shitting on the other 50% of the U.S. population, which smells like a petite tyranny to me). But there are some issues that you should fight for. Healthcare reform was one of them, as was regulating financial markets to keep this sort of harm from happening again. Burning "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to the ground being another, since it is a human rights issue where political affiliation should play no role whatsoever (there is no possible compromise when human rights come to play).
Obama is as far to the left as Bush (pick one). Meaning he isn't, at all. He is a centrist. We in the US have pushed the spectrum so far to the right that even Reagan risks becoming a leftist.
The right, in the last 2 years, have pretty much tried to obstruct everything. Even when the Democrats have tried getting them on board they vote as a block against it. They very much are acting like the "party of no". It annoys the shit out of me. I HATE both parties, and I hate their ideology of only looking out for themselves, the American people be damned. I hate them taking being elected as some form of mythical "mandate" to go forth and inflict their views on everyone (generally on behalf of their corporate sponsors). Very few elections are won on a large majority. Even here in Arizona where the politics are very mono polar the Republicans generally win by 10% of the vote. 10% is not a mandate. Alienated 40% of the population is not an acceptable thing in any other circumstance outside of the current juvenile political environment.
This is what sickened me when the media decided to take the "Tea Party" seriously (which might go down as the greatest strategic move by the GOP ever). Basically you had a bunch of people saying that the vote of the other 50% of the population was completely invalid since it didn't follow their limited ideology.
The Democratic party has one dubious distinction over the Republicans, they don't actually have an ideology. They have no unifying rhetoric or dogma.
Sorry for the rant. I'm mad at politics today, and not because
I sure am glad people like you didn't exist back in the days of movies getting sound, color being added, new IMAX, technicolor, new computer generated scenery. We'd be stuck with sock puppets, still.
Except none of the things you state require me to wear silly glasses that barely fit (thanks to wearing glasses) a large portion of the population, and that gives another large portion a splitting head ache when worn for any period of time. Also the technologies you list qualitatively improved film, 3D is a gimick, pure and simple.
I have yet to see a 3D movie that is better than its 2D counterpart. If 3D is all you have to offer, you probably have a really bad movie.
Now if they had 3D that didn't require the glasses, I might be sold.
Why? I disagree, I think it is wrong. Now what? Are you going to say that your definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' are superior to mine?
Yes. Yes I am. I stated three times now that economic harm is the lesser of my points, and pretty much has almost nothing to do with anything. ETHICS is the point, not mere monetary gain.
Why? You call money "worthless paper" but base you entire value system around it. If you derive your ethics from currency (monetary harm), but call said currency "worthless", then your ethics are suspect.
You might not, but you have not provided any ethical argument FOR (positive argument) piracy at all, and you argument on why it isn't wrong (negative argument) is wholly based on the lack of economic harm.
Also, and I hate to bring up money again since you seem to be fixated on it, piracy is unsustainable. Pirates add nothing to anything. They do nothing for anyone. They are complete parasites that serve no purpose whatsoever. As such they are waste. And waste isn't useful, by definition.
Sounds like it is our illogical capitalistic society that is hurting them to me. Worthless paper should not be incentive.
Worthless paper = shelter, food, and the other basics of survival. Try living without "worthless paper" for a year, and see how things turn out for you. I personally like my collection of worthless paper, it allows me to survive and eke out some modicum of comfort (the laptop I'm writing this on was exchanged for worthless paper, btw, as is the computer your writing on.)
Worthless paper isn't. It is a symbolic entity representing work. The paper itself is silly, but culturally we add a common meaning to it. that meaning is symbolic, but necessary. Unless somehow, you expect the barter system to be viable, and then still your objects traded become symbolic of work in their relative value. This is inevitable and necessary.
Or at least it is until you can design a viable alternative economy devoid of "worthless paper" or other symbolic currencies. On that will still allow for complex works that you enjoy leaching.
Why? Is it because the artists would have received money for their works if the pirate would have given it to them? If so, the same could be said about someone who simply didn't buy it. The artist would have received their money if they did, which would be 'nice'. I don't see the problem here.
One difference between a pirate and someone who didn't spend money: the pirate gets to use it, where the person who abstained from purchasing didn't. There is no problem with completely abstaining, and you really can't equate that to the same thing as pirating. The pirate obviously desires the product, since he is using it, the person abstaining obviously doesn't since they refuse to buy/use it.
As I stated previously; economic harm and ethics aren't always the same thing. I'm more concerned about the ethics than giving publishers and artists money, though I think they do deserve it.
I haven't actually seen an argument for piracy being ethical yet, without resorting to economic harm, as if they were related. I over state, I have seen some, where piracy is used a form of protest, or for short-circuiting large labels in favor of engaging in activities that support the creator directly (because the large distributors act unethically). It doesn't seem that you are approaching this from this ideal, since you disregard creators as much as publishers.
If someone makes something I want, I think it is fair that they receive compensation, as a motive to create further work, and to show some bit of appreciation for their efforts, and to cover the time they spent in which they could be doing something more lucrative (if no one paid for it).
Which, when I pirate something, I don't take any of their time in the first place.
You do. They made a product, and expected to be compensated for the time and labor they spent doing it. Getting paid for labor is a very common thing in this world, you might even have the same expectations.
Imagine that someone recently bought a product from a store and decided to, for whatever reason, tell their friends (who were originally going to buy the product) not to buy it. They ultimately decide not to. They would have bought it otherwise (sort of similar to how a pirate might have if piracy didn't exist). Therefore, profit that the store could, potentially, have had was 'stolen'."
This is VERY different than piracy, since you actually bought the product to begin with. It really doesn't matter if you dissuade others from also buying it. Thats fine. They chose to opt completely out, and that is fine, and you exchanged money for services.
As stated, I really don't give two shits about economic harm, I care about the ethics.
Why SHOULD you pirate? That might be a better question than "why shouldn't you?".
Using it for free has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm saying. How are they inflicting harm upon these artists/companies? How does it hurt them if you use it for free if you don't even take anything from them? If you're not going to at least use a "potential profit" argument, you have nothing.
No, your not really inflicting harm. But that really isn't the point, since I'm not making an economic argument. I'm thinking more of the ethics of it. While it may not do direct harm to producers, piracy isn't really an ethical stance.
Though I'm still not sold on there being a complete lack of long-term economic harm. To risk verging on the "potential harm" argument, let me bring up two related points:
The Tragedy of the Commons and, more nebulously (touching on the ethical problem), Kant's categorical imperative. Both involve hypotheticals, so I admit neither is the strongest argument, especially if we consider immediate economic harm to by the highest form of harm. Both involve pondering a world where "everyone pirates", if everyone was to do so there would be no money, and therefore no production. This is rather self-evident. We should accept the production, and thus availably of products to be a good thing. Basically pure pirates (with the means but no intention to buy) are leaches, leaching off of paying customers. If there were no paying customers the leaches would collapse. So leaches completely depend on paying customers, since without them there would be no products. If more people become pirates, then there is less money for development of products (accepted as good). The ethical choice would then be to be a customer, since you benefit both yourself and the pirates (though they don't matter, since they add nothing to the system and are, in fact a bit of a drag to it).
Very simplistic. But it works for ethics. I really can't see an ethical argument for piracy. If there is one, please enlighten me.
I'd rather spend my money on things that aren't in an infinite supply. Things that I can't simply effortlessly copy without damaging anyone (technically, that would apply to everything you could copy).
But there is a limited supply, really. Lets switch abstractions: your not paying for the actual game, or software, your paying for the developers time. That is a limited supply, obviously, unless we start producing zombie coders. You, like in all services, are paying for someone else's time, effort, and training.
This is fun. Sorry, I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate on this.
I also find it odd that mere economics trump ethics. Just because no one is directly harmed, doesn't make actions okay. And just because there is no immediate harm doesn't mean there isn't harm in the larger picture.
It restricts what I can and can't do with the game I bought. Pirated copies don't have this problem. Extra features? Okay. Why aren't they optional instead of forced (you said yourself that they're tied to DRM).
I agree with you here, this is a problem with most DRM systems. DRM should feel natural, like it is in MMOs, or Stardock games (which don't have DRM, but patching and online support requires a purchase). I personally hate the online requirement of games still, since I generally like single player so having an always online connection seems to be waste.
Pirates don't actually take anything from anyone.
True, but trite. No, a single act of piracy does not equate to a lost sale, or map to a direct theft. Not all pirates would be customers, but a decent portion would be, so the equation is not 1 pirate = -1 sale, but there is some other ratio out there that is true (no good research on this...), and yes, sometimes piracy can lead to more business, but who knows if the lost sales and the added word of mouth equal each other.... Its murky. I don't have much sympathy for pirates, though, since I don't see them as being obligated to play any game.
I have no problem with people expecting pay for their work, digital or physical. This is how the world works, and I don't see this magically changing just because their slinging 1's and 0's together instead of bricks. Nor does it change just because the work is creative instead of something pratical and physical. A song writer and a mason both deserve to be paid for their efforts.
Oh, and, before you say "potential profit," let me say that it is impossible to steal money that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money (which is what 'stealing' potential profit really means). Also, absolutely everyone on the planet is 'guilty' of 'stealing' profit that others could, potentially, have had.
I wasn't going to. I agree it is a trite argument. But this still doesn't give pirates moral high ground.
Every single time you decide to exercise your right as a consumer to not buy a product, you're 'stealing' profit that the artist/business could, potentially, have had if you would have bought it. That's just one example. I have many, many more.
This is true. But generally when I decide not to buy the product do I get to use it for free. When I decide to not buy something I am opting completely out. I didn't buy a Toyota today, does this mean I am granted the right to have it for free?
Yes, the real world/digital mapping sucks.
You went through a lot of work arguing against something I never posited.
If you don't want to pay money for a product, this is fine. But that doesn't mean it is okay to use it for free then. I have no problem with completely opting out. I decided not to pay money for the new Fallout game. This means I won't play it either, since it isn't interesting for me to fork over a small amount of money for, so it isn't interesting enough to play. By making that first choice "I will not give them money", did I somehow gain the right to play it for free? That doesn't make much sense.
To clarify, I hate DRM. I am a long time nerd, slashdotter, so I am suspicious of ANYTHING that attempts to limit my ability to use things however I want if and only if I purchase or own them. I was a very prideful pirate from the age of BBSs (I still have my original pirated Doom floppies around here somewhere) through college. And I really have no problem with pirating things for legitimate reasons (even if the powers that be don't recognize that legitimacy). I just lost my patience for people who think their somehow morally obligated to use software without paying.
If you can afford it, and you desire it enough to go through the effort of pirating it (which is often more complicated and annoying than a legitimate install) but refuse to pay for it, you really are no better than a thief, even if the concepts
Except there is no DRM that doesn't hamper gameplay.
Actually there is some. Having to enter a registration number is DRM, and it never really hampered much unless it was tied to annoying CD checks. Actually there has been a couple of annoyances (publisher printed wrong numbers, forgot to include them... etc...), but that happens with everything. There will never be a perfect DRM, because there never will be a perfect anything.
I have never had a problem with Steam, which is basically nothing more than a DRM platform.
Actually, Stardock might be closest to having it right. Their games have no actual DRM, but you lose access to patches, bugfixes, and online play. So you can pirate a game, and enjoy it, but you will never get the full, paid, experience.
Console games too. They by nature have DRM, since they are locked into one platform. Their very existence is DRM, but no one notices since DRM is such a part of their nature that we take it for granted.
And until they buy, it's still "before you buy".
Unless there is no intention of a sale, thus invalidating the whole "before" concept.
No, since DRM doesn't stop piracy, DRM cannot continue to exist because of "people like that".
Huh? Those clauses are really related. Whether or whether not DRM actually stops piracy has nothing to do the reason publishers use it, which is to stop piracy. Welcome to the irrational world, where things often make no objective, rational, sense. I can't sum up much in the human world with a syllogism. Publisher put DRM into games to hamper piracy, it doesn't matter if it doesn't, that is why it is there.
Another thing it exists for is raising the bar to piracy. If they make it difficult enough then less people will do it. The difficulty benefit equation will shift in their favor.
And DRM does have some uses, it mostly is an attempt to keep the game from being pirated quickly, yes it will eventually be broken, but can you stave off the pirates for a month?
I'm rather new at arguing FOR DRM. I am a slashdot user, and a long time geek, I am suspicious at all attempts to control products that I have bought. I find most forms of DRM to be annoying and harmful.
But I also think that there is might be a place for it. People aren't entitled to play games for free. There is no right to do this. And doing so does hurt publishers, to some extent, and much less than they claim it does, but there still is an effect. Why the hell should spoiled kids be entitled to leaching the work of others for free? If you can't afford it, don't buy it. If you don't want to support whoever, then you don't need to play their damn game.
There never is a NEED to play a damn video game, so there really isn't a valid reason (outside of trying before you buy to ensure capability and quality, since we don't have a legal avenue to do this) to pirate a game.
On the other hand, people put work into it, and deserve to be paid for it. I have absolutely no problem with people getting paid for their efforts, especially if I enjoyed it. I have zero sympathy for people who don't.
Perhaps I'm just getting old. I have no problem with piracy from BBSs through college. I even had some pride in it. But now I just think its stupid. Perhaps its because I have money now, or perhaps because I know what it is to work hard at something expecting pay (hint; most people wouldn't work without the pay element).
Yes, things get rather draconian, and often (most of the time) DRM is completely botched. Yes, the big publishers overstate their case. No, the government shouldn't be involved... etc... I'm not painting DRM as some awesome thing.
The eloquence and grasp at the depth of the situation astounds me.
Why isn't DRM worth the trade off for added features, if it doesn't hamper gameplay?
Why is any DRM unacceptable?
How is pirating something, flat out, okay? I endorse using piracy to try before you buy, or to replace something you purchased (the downside of DRM) but lost control of. If you have some perceived moral high ground I can see boycotting as a viable solution, but not flat out theft (I generally hate that mapping, but in this case it is pretty close to accurate, since you are getting something for nothing, for no perceivable reason outside of greed).
Are you one of those people who hate DRM because it hurts your ability to pirate things, but goes back and comes up with a post hoc rational of being some digial Robin Hood, the protector of everyone from the horrors of DRM, when actually your main motive is just getting free shit without paying the people who actually put effort into it?
Basically, DRM wouldn't exist without people like that.
As a long time Blizzard customer, I don't see this. I have bought every single game by Blizzard (except Broodwar, since Starcraft wasn't really my thing), and have yet to leave disappointed. Sure Starcraft isn't as awesome as I made it in my mind, but mainly because I remembered that I wasn't a huge fun of Starcraft to begin with (I was more in the Total Annihilation camp, and still am, give me the first Supreme Commander over SCII any day). Bnet2.0 was annoying at launch, but after a week they weeded out the bugs and I haven't really had any other problems with single player (my ego isn't strong enough to really do multi). I haven't noticed the lack of LAN play, since I haven't played in a LAN party since Quake 3.
DRM annoys the hell out of me, but I can live with it if there is a "value added" component, like Steam or Bnet. The convenience is worth the trade off. But then again I'm not really an idealist, DRM in itself isn't inherently wrong if implemented right. So far there hasn't been a perfect implementation, but Bnet and Steam are getting close. I am not idelistic enough to put off years of pleasure (if Diablo 3 is anything like Diablo 1 or 2) just because the DRM is a bit annoying. But then again I owned tons of games with REALLY annoying DRM (open your manual to page 37; what is the 5th word, in the seventh line of the 21st paragraph?), so just requiring an internet connection isn't terrible (not that you do, you just need them occasionally, and in offline mode some features don't work, like senseless achievements). I have a fairly dependable connection, it generally only goes down because my router is a little wonky. I can't resell my game... this is a bit annoying, but the last COMPUTER (as opposed to console) game I've resold was... Well... Icewind Dale? Selling PCs games is more annoying that not, since there are basically no resellers. I miss Electronic Boutiques PC used PC game section, but it will never come back.
Who actually buys used PC games anyways? A game thats been out awhile is usually $20-40. If your that value conscious why not just hit up The Pirate Bay? Or wait another year for it to hit the bargain bin for $9.99? If you want recourse for buying crappy games (recapping some value, instead of a straight exchange), pirate it before you buy it. I do this, and feel no moral qualms.
Sometimes Blizzard scares me, like with the increasing prevalence of micro payments in WoW, but so far there hasn't been any balance issues really, unlike in most of the other games that implement them. Their overhaul of WoW is a bit off-putting, but they've been making the game simpler since Burning Crusade, and the game is getting a bit long in the tooth. While making things simpler, they did fix my pet peeve about their development cycle, only focusing on the endgame and the "1337" end game raiders and PVPers. But I know I am one of those rare people who loved leveling more than raiding, I prefer my MMOs to be closer to single player, I suppose.
As for your last sentence (I would quote it, but Chrome is still at war with/.): Wait, your refusing to play a game just because of things that don't affect gameplay. If you don't buy games for gameplay, then what do you buy them for? If things don't affect gameplay, then who really cares?
Slashdot Mirror
Torture: No. Even Guantanamo isn't large enough to qualify as a crime against humanity
How many people can I torture before its a crime against humanity?
2? 4? 25? 1,000,000?
How many humans are there in a humanity, for that matter? I would say you need to torture EVERYONE before its actually a crime against humanity. By that reasoning genocide can't be a crime against humanity either, since by definition your only killing one group, and not the whole of humanity (as long as you don't commit suicide when your done, your still golden).
Sorry, torture, period, is a crime against humanity. It doesn't matter if you torture one person or a million.
Also; define murder. Killing civilians for no reason? Then we could consider all of Iraq, and much of Afghanistan, as murder. Even excepting some weak justification for there wars, we still are pretty wanton about our collateral damage.
And what the hell is does "justified by military or civilian necessity" mean? So if there is no real reason to be there, but we send the military anyway, then its fine and dandy.
Your using Bush logic, there are no war crimes unless someone else commits them, though WE can do the exact same things but are justified since we have a good reason, where they, the bad guys, don't, obviously. We aren't evil because we are America, and America isn't evil!
Ordering torture of enemy civilians is a war crime, as is kidnapping innocent people for no reason and holding them for protracted amounts of time without justification (see the German account in the leak, or read many accounts of Guantanamo or field prisons). Also NOT condemning torture, rape, or murder, and not acting to prevent it is pretty much the same thing as condoning it, especially when you know that the chance, opportunity, and environment for it exists.
I think he had a valid point though. You can read it as trolling, or you can read it saying "tastes change with age".
I found that I have this problem too, I was slowly finding that most games don't really hold my attention anymore. I was a bit bummed out about this, since I used to be an avid (perhaps to avid) gamer, and found myself pondering whether games themselves got worse the older I got, or if I was just moving past them. Tons of things I loved in my youth are no longer satisfying, not just games. Books and movies I used to love seem rather shallow and stupid now as well.
Its just natural aging. You are not the same person you used to be, events have happened, and you have grown, so its silly to assume that your tastes will remain the same.
I used to really enjoy games like WoW, but slowly I realized that I wasn't having fun. It was work. It was work populated by the lowest common denominator who get great joy about using naughty words like "tits", and think that calling someone "gay" is the height of witty repartee . I don't have the time and patience I once had for it. I used to enjoy most FPS/deathmatch type games, and found that I don't anymore. They are mostly "stealth" games, where I get to spend 6 hours staring at the back of a cover wall, and none of them have really innovated on Quake3 or UT2003. I still manage to enjoy a decent western RPG (totally lost patience for the drama and cut scene heavy Japanese ones, if I wanted annoying drama and characters I would read a Jane Austin novel), Dragon Age was fun, until they started spawning $6000 worth of DLC. Most games are hindered by being mainly console ports though, and I have less patience for working against the design elements than I used to. I have broader experiences, and greater means than I did as a teen or in my early 20s, so I have more alternatives to turn to when games start being arbitrarily frustrating.
The last game to actually get me to obsess over it (meaning play it for 6 straight hours without realizing it) was Minecraft. The honeymoon is slightly over, since I realized there is really nothing much to do after a bit, and the thrill of discovery wears off.
But generally I play for 5 hours, and move on to other, non-gaming, projects. I'm currently plotting a collaborative novel, and it is a bit more appealing and enticing than playing Call of Duty 2001: The Bigactionexplosionbangbanggogoteamamerica Odyssey, as is many other fun projects I have around the house. Instead of trying to avoid being tea-bagged by 13 years olds with more free time than me, I can go out to the local pub with some friends, or read one of the 50 or so books in my "to read" pile. Sometimes going for a nice long hike is more fun... Sometimes studying things just for fun is... etc... Your horizons expand with age. There is no shame in finding your appeal in video games waning.
I know several people downloading the audio or ebook versions of books they own.
Are they customers or not? Is this legal? Is it right?
They are customers of previous versions, but not current ones. It isn't legal, as far as I can tell. Is it right? Personally, I'm pretty sure it is.
This actually is a good example of ethics and law being wildly divergent, it is a shame you posted AC. I find straight piracy rather annoying, and while still harboring some gray areas it is probably mostly (ethically) wrong. Grabbing a game, or album you refuse to pay for is probably wrong in most cases, and deserves to be illegal. It probably is theft (no, not physical, but more inline with theft of service).
But I have no problem with format switching. I do know people who pirate ebooks which they already own the copy of, and I have no problem whatsoever with that. They bought it, they own it, and they can do what they want. Basically all they are doing is saving the time it would take to convert it themselves. Its like downloading a of a movie that you already own, there is no real loss.
I would say format switching is illegal, but completely ethical and moral.
I also have no problem with people pirating things that are old, as in the creator is dead, or disbanded, since banning that is against the theme of what copyright is for (promoting works, but if there is no artist there is no possible promotion), or pirating works past a certain age. I have no problem with using piracy to replace lost or broken (but previously purchased) media. I have no problem with using piracy to "try before you buy". Etc...
I do have a problem with piracy is it is just to get something for nothing. Its just greed then, and serves no other purpose but instant gratification at the cost of the creator. Or piracy for protest, since a simple boycott would do the job better, since with piracy you still show the desire, and often this is just an excuse (post-hoc) to justify being a greedy prick.
Is a 12" computer really a netbook anymore? Isn't it just an underspeced laptop?
I used to own a 12" iBook, I don't ever recall referring to it as a netbook.
Netbooks used to mean a very small, compact, laptop that used small amounts of power. Now it means what?
I'm still shopping around for something under 8" (and not with bezels for up to 11" screens). That doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
Many in the Senate are still stinging from the voter rebuke that just occurred, and the rest are not in a mood to pick a fight with the voters.
If they are stinging from it, they are morons. It happens every damn midterm, and every damn midterm people paint it as some big revolution, or some big protest. If, in two years, a Republican is sitting in the White House, two years later we will have a Democratic senate and house. Its how things work. It is a completely normal, and predictable, event.
Its actually shocking to me that the Republicans didn't get the Senate too.
I'm not a cheerleader for either side. They both have consistently failed us as a country, and have consistently failed to uphold their own stated ideologies. They are failures on pretty much every count. This latest wave of Republicans (with their "popular mandate", which really means 60% of local voters) will fail both the country and the people who voted for them too, just like the last wave of Democrats.
Yes, I'm cynical. I would stop, but trends always seem to back it up.
I find the partisan finger pointing to be amusing. For most of the things that screwed our civil liberties there has been wild bi-partisan support in the halls of congress, even if there has been ideological dissent from non-politicians in the streets. The Democrats and Republicans aren't working for you. No matter who your favorite is, and who you're hoping wins, they don't give two shits about you.
At best they think your some little insignifigant thing that must be cared for, since you don't know whats good for you. At middling they are looking out for their next election, and the amount of money they will need to win it (they will work for you, once they finish working against you for funding). At worst they are working wholly for their own self interests.
Perhaps worse still, and completely killing the viability of most third parties (and the very few actual tea party types), they might be working out of some "true ideology" that they hold sacred, consequences be damned since they are only focused on the big picture.
God I hate American politics.
Your perception makes me speechless.
Well, outside of that (and this) blurb.
Well said, actually.
I do find McCartney to be the least interesting of the lot, though. Really Harrison and Ringo deserve more spotlight, but McCartney is a masterful self-promoter and thus overshadows everyone but Lennon.
I don't know if you can blame the Beatles for this. Half of them are dead, and one of them, for all intents and purposes, is uninterested. I would blame the label and other corporate sources, which has pretty much nothing to do with the music itself. Actually the band has nothing much to do with the music itself anymore. Who really cares if the band is a bunch of asshats, if they make good music?
And in the Beatles I pretty much only count one asshat.
My girlfriend's mom is addicted to never ending series of fantasy novels (lurid covers and all). She gleamed that I have similar tastes, and thus promotes a new contemporary fantasy series or novel to me every single time I talk to her. She is always disappointed, since I tell her I will read it, and read LoTR again, instead. I don't see a reason for really reading them, since most of the time they are nothing but an extended remix of Tolkien, will pretty much all the same elements and plots, but spread over 60000 books, and it seems most of their authors completely lack the ability to ever write and ending (Robert Jordan, I'm looking at your corpse).
This, to move on to other examples, is why Apocalypse Now! is the greatest Vietnam movie. On first watching it seems rather trite, but then you realize that it is the archetype of the genre, and that is why it seems so trite, everything that followed followed the form it set. Every character archetype, and environment has been copied so many times that it makes everything seem banal.
If all music has to stand on is rebellion, and once that aspect is gone it is not longer interesting, it was bad music to begin with. It was a purely cultural phenomena, meaning shallow and transient, meaning the people who listened to it were shallow and transient.
This is why around 90% of punk sucks, even before 1979. This is why 90% of everything probably sucks, but we just don't realize it until the trend moves on. This is why most of the crap I listened to in high school (metal and grunge) has become JUST crap. It was only interesting in that specific cultural time and place, but was completely uninteresting. At best it was a reaction to some events that are no longer relevant, at midling it was a mere scene, and at worst an act of marketing and targeted demographics.
Some of it survived very well, meaning it has more to it than just a social trend, it was musically interesting, even beyond its cultural relevance. The Clash (pre-80's) survived, Zeppelin survived, Bob Dylan, and a large selection of classic blues survived. The Beatles, for the most part, did too. Well, they did if you weed McCartney's influence out of it, and focus mostly on the stuff created after some wonderful guy gave Lennon LSD. Some of it is just interesting, some of it is musically sound, and some of it is absolute crap and marketing.
A vast amount of the music I used to like bores me now, but there are some survivors. And I am long past my rebellious phases. Some of it was actually decent music in the long run.
Time generally weeds out all the shit. For every Beethoven there were 600000 guys fiddling with a piano who managed mild popularity, but later vanished.
I've never understood pre-ordering games, especially since the advent of online availability. Sure now you can get some shiny vanity widget for it (sometimes), but this is a rather modern invention (within the last 2-3 years, mostly), and generally these widgets don't really add to gameplay outside of, perhaps, showing some inconsequential anonymous online person that you discovered it before it was cool (with legions of other people slapping down $5 at Gamestop). The few times that pre-orders give functional in-game stuff, it generally unbalances the game (Dragon Age: Origins) and thus is generally not played with to begin with. There really isn't any benefit to availability anymore, even.
I pre-ordered the last World of Warcraft expansion, stood in line for it, etc.. But I could have easily just downloaded it from Blizzard the same day. The only reason I didn't was because the expansion previous to that wasn't available digitally for a bit of time after physical release, so I didn't quite trust that method, yet. If I was to actually buy the upcoming expansion (I probably won't) I would just wait until the next morning and grab it from Blizzard's online store. Especially since you can download the full expansion right now just to have it ready to experience the buggy, over queued , crashy joy of release night. Which is, actually, another thing that turned me off of release day rushes. The last WoW expansion was painful to play that evening. Even though I waited in line for an hour or two for it, with a bunch of sweaty antisocial geeks I couldn't really play it that night. The servers were terrible, and finally just down until the next day.
The only other game I pre-ordered in recent memory was Dragon Age: Origins, and I only did that less than two days from release and through Steam because I probably wouldn't have remember to buy it otherwise. Basically it was an impulse buy with no immediate pay off. I don't think I have used my gratis items since they completely unbalanced the game.
Also, there's no reason that both types of gameplay can't exist.
If they coexist, I have no problem. I just fear that they won't. The unbridled success of the Wii risks pushing all of the console manufacturers over to the "motion is awesome" camp, making all next generation consoles into a Wii clone.
I would also have no problem with my Wii if there was a way to allow me to play without motion as well. Make it optional and everything is fine.
I suppose it is a deep seated fear that tomorrow will suck more than today.
WTF did the IS do with Somalia? The genocides in Rwanda and Durfar? Oh yeah, we let it happen.
We invaded a country for no actual reason whatsoever, in hopes of political benefits, oil, family grudges, and/or posturing. None of which are worth the slightest loss of life, American or otherwise. Why invade Iraq, and not step for actual atrocities like the ones you mention? Oh, there is no money in it, no mythical glory.
There is no glory in being the aggressor. I am proud of America, but it is damn hard to be proud of our actions sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if we are the bad guy, the international Skeletor. Questioning our policies is NOT anti-American. Being against some of the boneheaded stuff we do is also not Anti-American. There is no shame in saying "Hey guys, you might be doing something stupid.".
Just because other people are sometimes stupid or wrong doesn't mean they lose the right to question others. There is something strange in that. We can be evil as long as we aren't as evil as someone else? This makes no sense to me.
"Yes I'm stupid, but thats okay because I'm not as stupid as you! nyah nyah nyah!" Meanwhile everyone walks off a cliff, but at least we get the distinction of walking off a slightly lower (yet equally fatal) one.
At least that one wasn't unilateral aggression (i.e. we did it for the UN), and we may have committed forces for an actual reason (unlike Iraq or what we turned Afghanistan into).
Not saying that the liberals are rosy on that front either, just a bit better than the Republicans or recent memory. Not that it is really hard to be better than Bush II, with his two pointless, mismanaged, expensive, wars that are being fought for no reason that I can discern.*
* I'm not anti-war. I am anti-stupid. I agreed with invading Afghanistan, up until the point where we started making things worse and not better (meaning the second we actually got there).
Or some people dislike the idea of it for the same reason my Wii has been sitting around forgotten and gather dust. I don't want to be "tricked" into being active and healthy, I want to sit on my sofa drinking Mountain Dew, eating Cheetos and vegging out. Its called relaxing, I often like to do it. When I'm in the mood to be active I will hop into my car, drive a couple minutes, and go hiking; or I will go to the gym and do actual, structured, exercise; or I will do yard work; or I will do something active, period. I really don't need my leisure activity to promote a healthy lifestyle. What next, books that have weights attached and have spring steel pages that take x amount of effort (scaled with readability level)? Movies with treadmills attacked to the motor that spins the DVD?
I fear a world (or the next console generation) where everything is based around gimmicky movement sensors.
Flailing around does not lead to immersion, nor does it increase the enjoyability of most games. Improving world design, stories, and gameplay in crease immersion. There is no shame in mashing "A". If anything, currently, movement sensors HURT immersion, since it is used like a crappy gimmick, and calls attention to itself ("flail your left arm! Aren't I clever, making you flail it, see movement! yes movement!!"), much like crappy 3D movies that feel the need to break the wall of the screen (ala Friday the 13th part 3) ("ZOMG, that machete is going to poke you in the eye, in the most headache inducing way!").
As a person on the left (pretty far left, since I still don't understand how being called "socialist" is a slander); Obama didn't give us anything. Giving money to giant, obscenely rich, corporations isn't socialism, and isn't a leftist goal. His health care bill is so far from the mark that it isn't funny. Actually his health care bill is also just a form of giving money to giant, obscenely rich, corporations as well (at gun point, as it were). His other big achievement was to say "tisk tisk" to the giant, obscenely rich, corporations that ruined our economy, while laying down no consequences or regulations that keep it from happening again.
Obama has done nothing for the left, except help it die a little more.
It can be argued that Obama did "reach across the aisles" for "Obamacare", and worked with the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats to get a decent compromise. And because of this the bill was watered down to the point of being worse than doing nothing, and the Republicans still voted along partisan lines against it. The generous side of my says that all of Obama's major actions were watered down and useless because of his love of compromise for the sake of compromise. I was worried about this when he got into office. Reaching across the aisles and compromise can be a good thing, but there are certain things you shouldn't do it for. Watering down your principles just so you can say you "reached across the aisles" is just silly.
Looking at the more recent Republican control, we can see that they have no problem shutting out their opposition to get things across. They never minded completely alienating Democrats to get their goals turned into policies. Republicans never minded using fillibusters to shut out Democrats, or using purely political, strategic, partisan votes.
Yes, there are tons of areas to compromise on, and yes I find it sickening when one party shuts out the opposition completely (since they are basically shitting on the other 50% of the U.S. population, which smells like a petite tyranny to me). But there are some issues that you should fight for. Healthcare reform was one of them, as was regulating financial markets to keep this sort of harm from happening again. Burning "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to the ground being another, since it is a human rights issue where political affiliation should play no role whatsoever (there is no possible compromise when human rights come to play).
Obama is as far to the left as Bush (pick one). Meaning he isn't, at all. He is a centrist. We in the US have pushed the spectrum so far to the right that even Reagan risks becoming a leftist.
The right, in the last 2 years, have pretty much tried to obstruct everything. Even when the Democrats have tried getting them on board they vote as a block against it. They very much are acting like the "party of no". It annoys the shit out of me. I HATE both parties, and I hate their ideology of only looking out for themselves, the American people be damned. I hate them taking being elected as some form of mythical "mandate" to go forth and inflict their views on everyone (generally on behalf of their corporate sponsors). Very few elections are won on a large majority. Even here in Arizona where the politics are very mono polar the Republicans generally win by 10% of the vote. 10% is not a mandate. Alienated 40% of the population is not an acceptable thing in any other circumstance outside of the current juvenile political environment.
This is what sickened me when the media decided to take the "Tea Party" seriously (which might go down as the greatest strategic move by the GOP ever). Basically you had a bunch of people saying that the vote of the other 50% of the population was completely invalid since it didn't follow their limited ideology.
The Democratic party has one dubious distinction over the Republicans, they don't actually have an ideology. They have no unifying rhetoric or dogma.
Sorry for the rant. I'm mad at politics today, and not because
I sure am glad people like you didn't exist back in the days of movies getting sound, color being added, new IMAX, technicolor, new computer generated scenery. We'd be stuck with sock puppets, still.
Except none of the things you state require me to wear silly glasses that barely fit (thanks to wearing glasses) a large portion of the population, and that gives another large portion a splitting head ache when worn for any period of time. Also the technologies you list qualitatively improved film, 3D is a gimick, pure and simple.
I have yet to see a 3D movie that is better than its 2D counterpart. If 3D is all you have to offer, you probably have a really bad movie.
Now if they had 3D that didn't require the glasses, I might be sold.
Why? I disagree, I think it is wrong. Now what? Are you going to say that your definitions of 'right' and 'wrong' are superior to mine?
Yes. Yes I am. I stated three times now that economic harm is the lesser of my points, and pretty much has almost nothing to do with anything. ETHICS is the point, not mere monetary gain.
Why? You call money "worthless paper" but base you entire value system around it. If you derive your ethics from currency (monetary harm), but call said currency "worthless", then your ethics are suspect.
You might not, but you have not provided any ethical argument FOR (positive argument) piracy at all, and you argument on why it isn't wrong (negative argument) is wholly based on the lack of economic harm.
Also, and I hate to bring up money again since you seem to be fixated on it, piracy is unsustainable. Pirates add nothing to anything. They do nothing for anyone. They are complete parasites that serve no purpose whatsoever. As such they are waste. And waste isn't useful, by definition.
Sounds like it is our illogical capitalistic society that is hurting them to me. Worthless paper should not be incentive.
Worthless paper = shelter, food, and the other basics of survival. Try living without "worthless paper" for a year, and see how things turn out for you. I personally like my collection of worthless paper, it allows me to survive and eke out some modicum of comfort (the laptop I'm writing this on was exchanged for worthless paper, btw, as is the computer your writing on.)
Worthless paper isn't. It is a symbolic entity representing work. The paper itself is silly, but culturally we add a common meaning to it. that meaning is symbolic, but necessary. Unless somehow, you expect the barter system to be viable, and then still your objects traded become symbolic of work in their relative value. This is inevitable and necessary.
Or at least it is until you can design a viable alternative economy devoid of "worthless paper" or other symbolic currencies. On that will still allow for complex works that you enjoy leaching.
Why? Is it because the artists would have received money for their works if the pirate would have given it to them? If so, the same could be said about someone who simply didn't buy it. The artist would have received their money if they did, which would be 'nice'. I don't see the problem here.
One difference between a pirate and someone who didn't spend money: the pirate gets to use it, where the person who abstained from purchasing didn't. There is no problem with completely abstaining, and you really can't equate that to the same thing as pirating. The pirate obviously desires the product, since he is using it, the person abstaining obviously doesn't since they refuse to buy/use it.
As I stated previously; economic harm and ethics aren't always the same thing. I'm more concerned about the ethics than giving publishers and artists money, though I think they do deserve it.
I haven't actually seen an argument for piracy being ethical yet, without resorting to economic harm, as if they were related. I over state, I have seen some, where piracy is used a form of protest, or for short-circuiting large labels in favor of engaging in activities that support the creator directly (because the large distributors act unethically). It doesn't seem that you are approaching this from this ideal, since you disregard creators as much as publishers.
If someone makes something I want, I think it is fair that they receive compensation, as a motive to create further work, and to show some bit of appreciation for their efforts, and to cover the time they spent in which they could be doing something more lucrative (if no one paid for it).
Which, when I pirate something, I don't take any of their time in the first place.
You do. They made a product, and expected to be compensated for the time and labor they spent doing it. Getting paid for labor is a very common thing in this world, you might even have the same expectations.
Imagine that someone recently bought a product from a store and decided to, for whatever reason, tell their friends (who were originally going to buy the product) not to buy it. They ultimately decide not to. They would have bought it otherwise (sort of similar to how a pirate might have if piracy didn't exist). Therefore, profit that the store could, potentially, have had was 'stolen'."
This is VERY different than piracy, since you actually bought the product to begin with. It really doesn't matter if you dissuade others from also buying it. Thats fine. They chose to opt completely out, and that is fine, and you exchanged money for services.
As stated, I really don't give two shits about economic harm, I care about the ethics.
Why SHOULD you pirate? That might be a better question than "why shouldn't you?".
Using it for free has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm saying. How are they inflicting harm upon these artists/companies? How does it hurt them if you use it for free if you don't even take anything from them? If you're not going to at least use a "potential profit" argument, you have nothing.
No, your not really inflicting harm. But that really isn't the point, since I'm not making an economic argument. I'm thinking more of the ethics of it. While it may not do direct harm to producers, piracy isn't really an ethical stance.
Though I'm still not sold on there being a complete lack of long-term economic harm. To risk verging on the "potential harm" argument, let me bring up two related points:
The Tragedy of the Commons and, more nebulously (touching on the ethical problem), Kant's categorical imperative. Both involve hypotheticals, so I admit neither is the strongest argument, especially if we consider immediate economic harm to by the highest form of harm. Both involve pondering a world where "everyone pirates", if everyone was to do so there would be no money, and therefore no production. This is rather self-evident. We should accept the production, and thus availably of products to be a good thing. Basically pure pirates (with the means but no intention to buy) are leaches, leaching off of paying customers. If there were no paying customers the leaches would collapse. So leaches completely depend on paying customers, since without them there would be no products. If more people become pirates, then there is less money for development of products (accepted as good). The ethical choice would then be to be a customer, since you benefit both yourself and the pirates (though they don't matter, since they add nothing to the system and are, in fact a bit of a drag to it).
Very simplistic. But it works for ethics. I really can't see an ethical argument for piracy. If there is one, please enlighten me.
I'd rather spend my money on things that aren't in an infinite supply. Things that I can't simply effortlessly copy without damaging anyone (technically, that would apply to everything you could copy).
But there is a limited supply, really. Lets switch abstractions: your not paying for the actual game, or software, your paying for the developers time. That is a limited supply, obviously, unless we start producing zombie coders. You, like in all services, are paying for someone else's time, effort, and training.
This is fun. Sorry, I'm being a bit of a devil's advocate on this.
I also find it odd that mere economics trump ethics. Just because no one is directly harmed, doesn't make actions okay. And just because there is no immediate harm doesn't mean there isn't harm in the larger picture.
It restricts what I can and can't do with the game I bought. Pirated copies don't have this problem. Extra features? Okay. Why aren't they optional instead of forced (you said yourself that they're tied to DRM).
I agree with you here, this is a problem with most DRM systems. DRM should feel natural, like it is in MMOs, or Stardock games (which don't have DRM, but patching and online support requires a purchase). I personally hate the online requirement of games still, since I generally like single player so having an always online connection seems to be waste.
Pirates don't actually take anything from anyone.
True, but trite. No, a single act of piracy does not equate to a lost sale, or map to a direct theft. Not all pirates would be customers, but a decent portion would be, so the equation is not 1 pirate = -1 sale, but there is some other ratio out there that is true (no good research on this...), and yes, sometimes piracy can lead to more business, but who knows if the lost sales and the added word of mouth equal each other.... Its murky. I don't have much sympathy for pirates, though, since I don't see them as being obligated to play any game.
I have no problem with people expecting pay for their work, digital or physical. This is how the world works, and I don't see this magically changing just because their slinging 1's and 0's together instead of bricks. Nor does it change just because the work is creative instead of something pratical and physical. A song writer and a mason both deserve to be paid for their efforts.
Oh, and, before you say "potential profit," let me say that it is impossible to steal money that only exists in the future of an alternate dimension where the artist/business made more money (which is what 'stealing' potential profit really means). Also, absolutely everyone on the planet is 'guilty' of 'stealing' profit that others could, potentially, have had.
I wasn't going to. I agree it is a trite argument. But this still doesn't give pirates moral high ground.
Every single time you decide to exercise your right as a consumer to not buy a product, you're 'stealing' profit that the artist/business could, potentially, have had if you would have bought it. That's just one example. I have many, many more.
This is true. But generally when I decide not to buy the product do I get to use it for free. When I decide to not buy something I am opting completely out. I didn't buy a Toyota today, does this mean I am granted the right to have it for free?
Yes, the real world/digital mapping sucks.
You went through a lot of work arguing against something I never posited.
If you don't want to pay money for a product, this is fine. But that doesn't mean it is okay to use it for free then. I have no problem with completely opting out. I decided not to pay money for the new Fallout game. This means I won't play it either, since it isn't interesting for me to fork over a small amount of money for, so it isn't interesting enough to play. By making that first choice "I will not give them money", did I somehow gain the right to play it for free? That doesn't make much sense.
To clarify, I hate DRM. I am a long time nerd, slashdotter, so I am suspicious of ANYTHING that attempts to limit my ability to use things however I want if and only if I purchase or own them. I was a very prideful pirate from the age of BBSs (I still have my original pirated Doom floppies around here somewhere) through college. And I really have no problem with pirating things for legitimate reasons (even if the powers that be don't recognize that legitimacy). I just lost my patience for people who think their somehow morally obligated to use software without paying.
If you can afford it, and you desire it enough to go through the effort of pirating it (which is often more complicated and annoying than a legitimate install) but refuse to pay for it, you really are no better than a thief, even if the concepts
Except there is no DRM that doesn't hamper gameplay.
Actually there is some. Having to enter a registration number is DRM, and it never really hampered much unless it was tied to annoying CD checks. Actually there has been a couple of annoyances (publisher printed wrong numbers, forgot to include them... etc...), but that happens with everything. There will never be a perfect DRM, because there never will be a perfect anything.
I have never had a problem with Steam, which is basically nothing more than a DRM platform.
Actually, Stardock might be closest to having it right. Their games have no actual DRM, but you lose access to patches, bugfixes, and online play. So you can pirate a game, and enjoy it, but you will never get the full, paid, experience.
Console games too. They by nature have DRM, since they are locked into one platform. Their very existence is DRM, but no one notices since DRM is such a part of their nature that we take it for granted.
And until they buy, it's still "before you buy".
Unless there is no intention of a sale, thus invalidating the whole "before" concept.
No, since DRM doesn't stop piracy, DRM cannot continue to exist because of "people like that".
Huh? Those clauses are really related. Whether or whether not DRM actually stops piracy has nothing to do the reason publishers use it, which is to stop piracy. Welcome to the irrational world, where things often make no objective, rational, sense. I can't sum up much in the human world with a syllogism. Publisher put DRM into games to hamper piracy, it doesn't matter if it doesn't, that is why it is there.
Another thing it exists for is raising the bar to piracy. If they make it difficult enough then less people will do it. The difficulty benefit equation will shift in their favor.
And DRM does have some uses, it mostly is an attempt to keep the game from being pirated quickly, yes it will eventually be broken, but can you stave off the pirates for a month?
I'm rather new at arguing FOR DRM. I am a slashdot user, and a long time geek, I am suspicious at all attempts to control products that I have bought. I find most forms of DRM to be annoying and harmful.
But I also think that there is might be a place for it. People aren't entitled to play games for free. There is no right to do this. And doing so does hurt publishers, to some extent, and much less than they claim it does, but there still is an effect. Why the hell should spoiled kids be entitled to leaching the work of others for free? If you can't afford it, don't buy it. If you don't want to support whoever, then you don't need to play their damn game.
There never is a NEED to play a damn video game, so there really isn't a valid reason (outside of trying before you buy to ensure capability and quality, since we don't have a legal avenue to do this) to pirate a game.
On the other hand, people put work into it, and deserve to be paid for it. I have absolutely no problem with people getting paid for their efforts, especially if I enjoyed it. I have zero sympathy for people who don't.
Perhaps I'm just getting old. I have no problem with piracy from BBSs through college. I even had some pride in it. But now I just think its stupid. Perhaps its because I have money now, or perhaps because I know what it is to work hard at something expecting pay (hint; most people wouldn't work without the pay element).
Yes, things get rather draconian, and often (most of the time) DRM is completely botched. Yes, the big publishers overstate their case. No, the government shouldn't be involved... etc... I'm not painting DRM as some awesome thing.
The eloquence and grasp at the depth of the situation astounds me.
Why isn't DRM worth the trade off for added features, if it doesn't hamper gameplay?
Why is any DRM unacceptable?
How is pirating something, flat out, okay? I endorse using piracy to try before you buy, or to replace something you purchased (the downside of DRM) but lost control of. If you have some perceived moral high ground I can see boycotting as a viable solution, but not flat out theft (I generally hate that mapping, but in this case it is pretty close to accurate, since you are getting something for nothing, for no perceivable reason outside of greed).
Are you one of those people who hate DRM because it hurts your ability to pirate things, but goes back and comes up with a post hoc rational of being some digial Robin Hood, the protector of everyone from the horrors of DRM, when actually your main motive is just getting free shit without paying the people who actually put effort into it?
Basically, DRM wouldn't exist without people like that.
As a long time Blizzard customer, I don't see this. I have bought every single game by Blizzard (except Broodwar, since Starcraft wasn't really my thing), and have yet to leave disappointed. Sure Starcraft isn't as awesome as I made it in my mind, but mainly because I remembered that I wasn't a huge fun of Starcraft to begin with (I was more in the Total Annihilation camp, and still am, give me the first Supreme Commander over SCII any day). Bnet2.0 was annoying at launch, but after a week they weeded out the bugs and I haven't really had any other problems with single player (my ego isn't strong enough to really do multi). I haven't noticed the lack of LAN play, since I haven't played in a LAN party since Quake 3.
DRM annoys the hell out of me, but I can live with it if there is a "value added" component, like Steam or Bnet. The convenience is worth the trade off. But then again I'm not really an idealist, DRM in itself isn't inherently wrong if implemented right. So far there hasn't been a perfect implementation, but Bnet and Steam are getting close. I am not idelistic enough to put off years of pleasure (if Diablo 3 is anything like Diablo 1 or 2) just because the DRM is a bit annoying. But then again I owned tons of games with REALLY annoying DRM (open your manual to page 37; what is the 5th word, in the seventh line of the 21st paragraph?), so just requiring an internet connection isn't terrible (not that you do, you just need them occasionally, and in offline mode some features don't work, like senseless achievements). I have a fairly dependable connection, it generally only goes down because my router is a little wonky. I can't resell my game... this is a bit annoying, but the last COMPUTER (as opposed to console) game I've resold was... Well... Icewind Dale? Selling PCs games is more annoying that not, since there are basically no resellers. I miss Electronic Boutiques PC used PC game section, but it will never come back.
Who actually buys used PC games anyways? A game thats been out awhile is usually $20-40. If your that value conscious why not just hit up The Pirate Bay? Or wait another year for it to hit the bargain bin for $9.99? If you want recourse for buying crappy games (recapping some value, instead of a straight exchange), pirate it before you buy it. I do this, and feel no moral qualms.
Sometimes Blizzard scares me, like with the increasing prevalence of micro payments in WoW, but so far there hasn't been any balance issues really, unlike in most of the other games that implement them. Their overhaul of WoW is a bit off-putting, but they've been making the game simpler since Burning Crusade, and the game is getting a bit long in the tooth. While making things simpler, they did fix my pet peeve about their development cycle, only focusing on the endgame and the "1337" end game raiders and PVPers. But I know I am one of those rare people who loved leveling more than raiding, I prefer my MMOs to be closer to single player, I suppose.
As for your last sentence (I would quote it, but Chrome is still at war with /.): Wait, your refusing to play a game just because of things that don't affect gameplay. If you don't buy games for gameplay, then what do you buy them for? If things don't affect gameplay, then who really cares?
To other people, a "liberal" is someone who believes in liberty, in letting everyone do their own thing, in a minimalist government.
Your conflating liberalism with libertarianism. You can be both. You can be neither. You can pick one and not the other.