YES. Because at no point have they given you permission to just download it and play it just to pay it.
No! The answer is no! Know why? Because they haven't lost money! Guess what? You can't LOSE money you didn't have in the first place!
1. What happens when no-one buys the game - or only one person - and everyone copies it?
Has that happened? Nope. Does everyone have the ability to copy games? You bet. Same place you get your music, as a matter of fact. Instead of searching for "Metallica", do a lil search for "Unreal Tournament" and see what pops up. Do people do that? Some do. Do these games continue to make assloads of profit? You bet.
What if the world ended tomorrow? What if the next plane you got on crash? What if, what if, what if? Live in the now. It doesn't happen. Let me know when it happens and you can have the honor of saying, "I told you so." Till then, don't use "What if's". They hold no water.
Company X starts off with 0 of my dollars.
The road is forked. Left, I can choose to download a game of theirs and never pay for it. Right: I can go on with my life, forget about the game, and buy something else.
No matter which road you take, Company X ends up with 0 of your dollars. If you take the left and download their game without paying, they end up with 0 of your dollars, but they aren't at a loss because you haven't actually taken anything from them except a POTENTIAL sale. POTENTIAL.
You are drowning in a sea of contradiction, my friend.
Are you seriously saying that you have a RIGHT to use commercial software that you haven't paid for?
If so, show me WHY.
Jesus fucking christ, are you an idiot? You're going off on some tangent about "having the right to use". When did I EVER fucking say I had the right to use it? Read the fucking subject: It costs $ 0.00 to copy the games. I didn't reply to a topic saying "We have the right to copy games we didn't pay for", did I? So stop fucking bringing up the right to use. Get back on topic, and that being it costs $0 to copy. We went through this on your last reply. I will spell it out for you AGAIN: I didn't say I have the right to use it. I'm saying that by using it, they aren't losing money IF I had no intention on buying it to begin with.
I feel sorry for people like you, I really do..
Guess what, son? People are gonna download without paying and... there's NOTHIN YOU CAN DO!
According to the dictionary definition they are equivalent. But go ahead... keep arguing to absurdity.
Um, no, not quite. It's absurd because you don't agree? The definition you put in bold said "The robbing of another by taking his writings." If you download a game, you are NOT robbing anyone. If I own a store and you walk in, steal a game, you're robbing ME because you actually took something I could've sold to someone else. If I download a game, you're assuming that *I* would have purchased that game. Look up the definition of robbery.
Want me to prove it? Hitman Contracts just came out for PS2. I have NO fucking idea what that game is. I know it's the third in the series, but I've never played any of them nor have I ever had the desire to. If I download that game and play it just to play it, I'm robbing them of a sale? No, because I've never had the slightest inkling EVER to buy a "hitman" game.
If you have no intention of buying it in the first place, what makes you think you have the right to have it anyway?
You don't.
You're 100% right. I never said I have a right to have it. I said no one's losing money because of it.
By taking it anyway - and using that lame argument to justify what you're doing - you are depriving the vendor of the sale of that game.
What lame argument? It's a perfectly valid one, albeit one you don't happen to agree with. How am I depriving the vendor of a sale of a game that I had no intention on buying in the first place? Now you're just contradicting yourself.
At this point, you're arguing on speculation: the "what if" side of the coin. You can't do that, it's just not logical.
You see, in civilized society we have this thing called "free trade" and the "marketplace". One of the ideas behind this free trade system is that the market is policed so that people don't take things anyway if they don't like the price they're being sold for.
If you're talking about physical items, that makes perfect sense. While I do understand your point, it just doesn't apply to what we're talking about here.
If you REALLLLLLLLLLY wanted that game, why didn't you pay for it?
Who knows. Perhaps I didn't have the money? Maybe I just didn't feel like it!
If you weren't willing to pay that much for it, then you should have just left it there - and NOT copied it. Instead you break the law.
Yes, it's against the law but... no one lost any money. I'm not saying it makes it right, I'm just saying it doesn't really matter.
Please give me (and those reading this) an example on how the industry loses money on items that one had no intention on purchasing to begin with.
You're 100% dead on in stating that I have no RIGHT to have the items, but... we're talking profits here. We're talking about LOSING MONEY, which is all what it boils down to.
Everything that you've stated makes perfect sense when dealing with PHYSICAL items, but... starts to fall apart with circular logic once you introduce something that can be infinitely duplicated.
Downloading video games isn't robbing anyone of anything if you had no intention on buying it in the first place. You're assuming those who downloaded would've purchased either way, and that's not always the case. If I had no intention on buying a game and I download it, please explain (to those reading this thread) how they lost money. That logic is EXTREMELY flawed almost every which way you look at it.
You're thinking in black & white, and it's just not that simple.
I don't know why these posts get modded up. We all know that comparing copyright infringement to theft is like comparing apples to oranges. It's completely irrelevant and holds no water. It's a lame cop out used by the entertainment industry to make them look like the victim.
Piracy != Copyright Infringment, and I think your post just proved it.
"Lost profit" claims are based on the assumption that those who downloaded the games would've purchased them regardless without question. Of course, those of us with brains who can actually think realize that this isn't true.
I download 2-3 PS2 games a week, and to be quite honest, none of them have really been THAT good. Those are "lost sales/profit" to the industry, but again that's under the assumption that I would have purchased each and every one of those games regardless. I can assure you right here and now that I would NOT be buying $150 in video games every single week. That's half of a house payment right there.. at some point you gotta be realistic with this data. Even if I spent every last dime of my paychecks on video games, what about those games I DIDN'T purchase? If I downloaded them, it would be irrelevant as there's no possible way I could spend money I don't have.
A lot of people will take a black and white stance on this and say, "Well, you're playing those games without having paid for them.." Yes, you are 100% correct, however, the industry hasn't lost any money because of it.
The thing is, this is the fantastic difference about downloading vs. stealing an actual item: no one is losing money since the sale isn't a done deal. You might not agree with it, but it's the truth.
Earlier up the thread, you said I was "pro-spam" simply because I don't agree with others that spammers should get JAIL TIME. Therefore, your opinions mean nothing to me as you've demonstrated your failure to show any form of intelligence whatsoever.
You're just like those sheep who call people "traitors" or "un-american" for criticizing Bush.
I stated multiple times I'm NOT defending spam or spammers, but you people can't understand that your opinions are fucking EXTREME and uncalled for.
There has not been a single valid point in this entire thread (since I posted) about why spammers SHOULD get jail, other than the fact that "they cost others money". I posted a solution to this, and that being the same like they do for telemarketers. If you get a piece of spam, you should have the right to take them to court and get $500 per incident.. just like telemarketing calls. It WOULD work, too. If every spammer realized that for each unwanted piece of spam he sent that he'd have to pay the recipient $500, they'd fucking stop. Simple!
Again, you have no concept whatsoever of what incarceration is for. No matter how annoying you think spam is, putting someone behind bars is uncalled for. I'm also quite sure that if it was up to you, it'd be perfectly legal to torture and humiliate a spammer in public. Just because it annoys you doesn't give you the right to give it a punishment that in no way shape or form fits the crime.
So.. then handle it like they do with telemarketers: put the money in the pockets of the "victim". I'm sure if you got $500 for every violation that'd stop any unsolicited piece of email. If not, then you can look forward to getting some extra cash.
Ah, so now getting spam is equivalent to someone stealing your radio? Hehe:)
What "private property rights" is spam affecting, again?
I'd hate to see how you flip out when you get junk mail in real life! Do you call up these companies and threaten to sue? Do you make bomb threats against them? After all, they're eating up your time!!
Look, like I said in a reply above, that reason for why spam is bad is a lame one.
I don't advocate spam (and I know you sheep think I do simply because you don't agree with my opinion), but I know goddamn well, as someone who gets a few hundred pieces of spam a day, that it doesn't take THAT much time to delete them.
I use Thunderbird, so half of them are filtered out with that. I have spamAssassin on my server, so another 25% are taken care of that way. Even if I had a full inbox of 400 emails, you select the first one, hold shift, and select the last one. Hit delete. All 400 are gone. Yeah, it might take 10-20 seconds to do it.
Sure, if you muliply 20 seconds by all the people who get spam and who delete it, you get a big number that appears to be what it costs employers, but in reality, it's not so black and white.
Yes, it was necessary. Everyone's reaction is just "send them to jail!" instead of realizing that THAT punishment doesn't fit the crime at all.
You're telling me that someone should get a year or two of their life taken away for spamming? Right.
Time wasted? What time wasted? There are DECENT (and free) spam filters built into Thunderbird. There are utilities like SpamAssassin. You're honestly telling me that you spend hours a day deleting spam? I doubt it. That's the SAME lame excuse that all hardcore anti-spam zealots use: it takes soooo much time.
Look, I get a few hundred spam a day. Yes, it's fucking IRRITATING as shit to see that I have new mail every 5-10 minutes only to have it be spam.. but it doesn't take time out of my day to delete it. Would I rather it not be there? Sure, but explaining to people that spam is wrong because of the "time" it takes to delete it is a bit absurd.
That's why you fine them a percentage of their assets.
Obviously $100,000 is nothing to someone who has 20 million, so that's why you up it to, say, 5 million.
Not sure if you understand this or not (and I'm sure you don't), but jail/prison (aka a Correctional Facility) is meant to hold and rehabilitate those who are a threat to society.
I hate spam as much as the next person, but PLEASE explain how it outright hurts the economy. Show me how the dent in the overall US Economy that was made because of spammers.
I don't care how you look at it, a spammer is not a threat to society. Crimes that AREN'T a threat to society should only be punishable by a fine.
Basically, the jist of the interview is that even though I purchased a DVD I can NOT run it on anything other than a "licensed" DVD player. Sorry, but they can kiss my fucking ass.
I'll play the DVDs *I* purchase in whatever I want to play them in. I don't care what the law states. I'm not one of these sheep that blindy follows it. If I want to make a DVD player out of my toaster, then honestly, I have every right to do so and there isn't much you can do about it.
Since they take on this attitude like I don't really own the movies I buy, then there's no reason for me to buy them. If they honestly think they can dictate what I do with my own property, well, then they can drop the price by 75%.
Since they won't do that, well, there's really no logical reason why I should spend money on something that technically isn't mine!
As soon as they change their tune, I will follow suit. Until then, I'll watch theatrical releases in the privacy of my own home, and my DVD collection will continue to grow purely from movies I copy from Netflix.
All JV admitted to is not knowing why Linux doesn't have any "licensed" players. Take a look at the rest of the dialogue... it's all circular logic. He contradicts himself left and right.
Get him to admit that the DMCA is wrong and then you'll have a point. Until then, he's ignorant.
The man CLEARLY has no clue as to what he's talking about.
Slashdot Mirror
YES. Because at no point have they given you permission to just download it and play it just to pay it.
No! The answer is no! Know why? Because they haven't lost money! Guess what? You can't LOSE money you didn't have in the first place!
1. What happens when no-one buys the game - or only one person - and everyone copies it?
Has that happened? Nope. Does everyone have the ability to copy games? You bet. Same place you get your music, as a matter of fact. Instead of searching for "Metallica", do a lil search for "Unreal Tournament" and see what pops up. Do people do that? Some do. Do these games continue to make assloads of profit? You bet.
What if the world ended tomorrow? What if the next plane you got on crash? What if, what if, what if? Live in the now. It doesn't happen. Let me know when it happens and you can have the honor of saying, "I told you so." Till then, don't use "What if's". They hold no water.
Company X starts off with 0 of my dollars.
The road is forked. Left, I can choose to download a game of theirs and never pay for it. Right: I can go on with my life, forget about the game, and buy something else.
No matter which road you take, Company X ends up with 0 of your dollars. If you take the left and download their game without paying, they end up with 0 of your dollars, but they aren't at a loss because you haven't actually taken anything from them except a POTENTIAL sale. POTENTIAL.
You are drowning in a sea of contradiction, my friend.
Are you seriously saying that you have a RIGHT to use commercial software that you haven't paid for?
If so, show me WHY.
Jesus fucking christ, are you an idiot? You're going off on some tangent about "having the right to use". When did I EVER fucking say I had the right to use it? Read the fucking subject: It costs $ 0.00 to copy the games. I didn't reply to a topic saying "We have the right to copy games we didn't pay for", did I? So stop fucking bringing up the right to use. Get back on topic, and that being it costs $0 to copy. We went through this on your last reply. I will spell it out for you AGAIN: I didn't say I have the right to use it. I'm saying that by using it, they aren't losing money IF I had no intention on buying it to begin with.
I feel sorry for people like you, I really do..
Guess what, son? People are gonna download without paying and... there's NOTHIN YOU CAN DO!
Ouch. I'd hate to see the price tag on pacman!
According to the dictionary definition they are equivalent. But go ahead... keep arguing to absurdity.
... starts to fall apart with circular logic once you introduce something that can be infinitely duplicated.
Um, no, not quite. It's absurd because you don't agree? The definition you put in bold said "The robbing of another by taking his writings." If you download a game, you are NOT robbing anyone. If I own a store and you walk in, steal a game, you're robbing ME because you actually took something I could've sold to someone else. If I download a game, you're assuming that *I* would have purchased that game. Look up the definition of robbery.
Want me to prove it? Hitman Contracts just came out for PS2. I have NO fucking idea what that game is. I know it's the third in the series, but I've never played any of them nor have I ever had the desire to. If I download that game and play it just to play it, I'm robbing them of a sale? No, because I've never had the slightest inkling EVER to buy a "hitman" game.
If you have no intention of buying it in the first place, what makes you think you have the right to have it anyway?
You don't.
You're 100% right. I never said I have a right to have it. I said no one's losing money because of it.
By taking it anyway - and using that lame argument to justify what you're doing - you are depriving the vendor of the sale of that game.
What lame argument? It's a perfectly valid one, albeit one you don't happen to agree with. How am I depriving the vendor of a sale of a game that I had no intention on buying in the first place? Now you're just contradicting yourself.
At this point, you're arguing on speculation: the "what if" side of the coin. You can't do that, it's just not logical.
You see, in civilized society we have this thing called "free trade" and the "marketplace". One of the ideas behind this free trade system is that the market is policed so that people don't take things anyway if they don't like the price they're being sold for.
If you're talking about physical items, that makes perfect sense. While I do understand your point, it just doesn't apply to what we're talking about here.
If you REALLLLLLLLLLY wanted that game, why didn't you pay for it?
Who knows. Perhaps I didn't have the money? Maybe I just didn't feel like it!
If you weren't willing to pay that much for it, then you should have just left it there - and NOT copied it. Instead you break the law.
Yes, it's against the law but... no one lost any money. I'm not saying it makes it right, I'm just saying it doesn't really matter.
Please give me (and those reading this) an example on how the industry loses money on items that one had no intention on purchasing to begin with.
You're 100% dead on in stating that I have no RIGHT to have the items, but... we're talking profits here. We're talking about LOSING MONEY, which is all what it boils down to.
Everything that you've stated makes perfect sense when dealing with PHYSICAL items, but
Keyword: robbing.
Downloading video games isn't robbing anyone of anything if you had no intention on buying it in the first place. You're assuming those who downloaded would've purchased either way, and that's not always the case. If I had no intention on buying a game and I download it, please explain (to those reading this thread) how they lost money. That logic is EXTREMELY flawed almost every which way you look at it.
You're thinking in black & white, and it's just not that simple.
I don't know why these posts get modded up. We all know that comparing copyright infringement to theft is like comparing apples to oranges. It's completely irrelevant and holds no water. It's a lame cop out used by the entertainment industry to make them look like the victim.
Piracy != Copyright Infringment, and I think your post just proved it.
"Lost profit" claims are based on the assumption that those who downloaded the games would've purchased them regardless without question. Of course, those of us with brains who can actually think realize that this isn't true.
I download 2-3 PS2 games a week, and to be quite honest, none of them have really been THAT good. Those are "lost sales/profit" to the industry, but again that's under the assumption that I would have purchased each and every one of those games regardless. I can assure you right here and now that I would NOT be buying $150 in video games every single week. That's half of a house payment right there.. at some point you gotta be realistic with this data. Even if I spent every last dime of my paychecks on video games, what about those games I DIDN'T purchase? If I downloaded them, it would be irrelevant as there's no possible way I could spend money I don't have.
A lot of people will take a black and white stance on this and say, "Well, you're playing those games without having paid for them.." Yes, you are 100% correct, however, the industry hasn't lost any money because of it.
The thing is, this is the fantastic difference about downloading vs. stealing an actual item: no one is losing money since the sale isn't a done deal. You might not agree with it, but it's the truth.
hahahaha, so a differing opinion is trolling now?
woo. Sorry, you lose. Move on, thanks!
And you defend that, you PoS.
Easy!
Earlier up the thread, you said I was "pro-spam" simply because I don't agree with others that spammers should get JAIL TIME. Therefore, your opinions mean nothing to me as you've demonstrated your failure to show any form of intelligence whatsoever.
You're just like those sheep who call people "traitors" or "un-american" for criticizing Bush.
I stated multiple times I'm NOT defending spam or spammers, but you people can't understand that your opinions are fucking EXTREME and uncalled for.
There has not been a single valid point in this entire thread (since I posted) about why spammers SHOULD get jail, other than the fact that "they cost others money". I posted a solution to this, and that being the same like they do for telemarketers. If you get a piece of spam, you should have the right to take them to court and get $500 per incident.. just like telemarketing calls. It WOULD work, too. If every spammer realized that for each unwanted piece of spam he sent that he'd have to pay the recipient $500, they'd fucking stop. Simple!
Again, you have no concept whatsoever of what incarceration is for. No matter how annoying you think spam is, putting someone behind bars is uncalled for. I'm also quite sure that if it was up to you, it'd be perfectly legal to torture and humiliate a spammer in public. Just because it annoys you doesn't give you the right to give it a punishment that in no way shape or form fits the crime.
Haha, so now I'm pro-spam?
Goddamn you are STUPID.
Hey, if they think that paying me $500 for every piece of spam is "cost of doing business", then so be it.
I'm sure you wouldn't complain either!
So.. then handle it like they do with telemarketers: put the money in the pockets of the "victim". I'm sure if you got $500 for every violation that'd stop any unsolicited piece of email. If not, then you can look forward to getting some extra cash.
...ok, I still haven't seen a valid point as to why these people should get jail time because of it.
Ah, so now getting spam is equivalent to someone stealing your radio? Hehe :)
What "private property rights" is spam affecting, again?
I'd hate to see how you flip out when you get junk mail in real life! Do you call up these companies and threaten to sue? Do you make bomb threats against them? After all, they're eating up your time!!
Crazy zealots...
Don't bother replying, because I won't be reading it.
Cry me a fucking river.
Sorry that you can't see how your logic is flawed. Better luck next time.
Look, like I said in a reply above, that reason for why spam is bad is a lame one.
I don't advocate spam (and I know you sheep think I do simply because you don't agree with my opinion), but I know goddamn well, as someone who gets a few hundred pieces of spam a day, that it doesn't take THAT much time to delete them.
I use Thunderbird, so half of them are filtered out with that. I have spamAssassin on my server, so another 25% are taken care of that way. Even if I had a full inbox of 400 emails, you select the first one, hold shift, and select the last one. Hit delete. All 400 are gone. Yeah, it might take 10-20 seconds to do it.
Sure, if you muliply 20 seconds by all the people who get spam and who delete it, you get a big number that appears to be what it costs employers, but in reality, it's not so black and white.
Either way, it doesn't justify jail time.
Yes, it was necessary. Everyone's reaction is just "send them to jail!" instead of realizing that THAT punishment doesn't fit the crime at all.
You're telling me that someone should get a year or two of their life taken away for spamming? Right.
Time wasted? What time wasted? There are DECENT (and free) spam filters built into Thunderbird. There are utilities like SpamAssassin. You're honestly telling me that you spend hours a day deleting spam? I doubt it. That's the SAME lame excuse that all hardcore anti-spam zealots use: it takes soooo much time.
Look, I get a few hundred spam a day. Yes, it's fucking IRRITATING as shit to see that I have new mail every 5-10 minutes only to have it be spam.. but it doesn't take time out of my day to delete it. Would I rather it not be there? Sure, but explaining to people that spam is wrong because of the "time" it takes to delete it is a bit absurd.
That's why you fine them a percentage of their assets. Obviously $100,000 is nothing to someone who has 20 million, so that's why you up it to, say, 5 million.
Not sure if you understand this or not (and I'm sure you don't), but jail/prison (aka a Correctional Facility) is meant to hold and rehabilitate those who are a threat to society.
I hate spam as much as the next person, but PLEASE explain how it outright hurts the economy. Show me how the dent in the overall US Economy that was made because of spammers.
I don't care how you look at it, a spammer is not a threat to society. Crimes that AREN'T a threat to society should only be punishable by a fine.
Your ignorance is just mind numbing.
Yes, *I* know that, YOU know that, but does... HE know that? *points to GWB* ;)
What kinda fuzzy math you doin?
Don't you mean a 0.000437% chance?
Love,
George W. Bush
Hmm... 100 CD-Rs vs... 100 CDs @ $15 each? Wow, tough choice.
:)
Piracy tax is very small. Let's just say it's $100. $130 for 100 CDs is still better than outright buying them
An interview with fuckwad Valenti, and now more RIAA lawsuits! Woweee!
They're sure doing a good job into scaring me... scaring me so much that tonight, I'm gonna be downloading more than normal!
Got Movies?
Got Music?
I do NOW, and so can you! Aim your middle fingers at them and grin, because this is the best weapon against 'em.
This shit pisses me off.
Basically, the jist of the interview is that even though I purchased a DVD I can NOT run it on anything other than a "licensed" DVD player. Sorry, but they can kiss my fucking ass.
I'll play the DVDs *I* purchase in whatever I want to play them in. I don't care what the law states. I'm not one of these sheep that blindy follows it. If I want to make a DVD player out of my toaster, then honestly, I have every right to do so and there isn't much you can do about it.
Since they take on this attitude like I don't really own the movies I buy, then there's no reason for me to buy them. If they honestly think they can dictate what I do with my own property, well, then they can drop the price by 75%.
Since they won't do that, well, there's really no logical reason why I should spend money on something that technically isn't mine!
As soon as they change their tune, I will follow suit. Until then, I'll watch theatrical releases in the privacy of my own home, and my DVD collection will continue to grow purely from movies I copy from Netflix.
Sorry, Jack! Better luck next time.
All JV admitted to is not knowing why Linux doesn't have any "licensed" players. Take a look at the rest of the dialogue... it's all circular logic. He contradicts himself left and right.
Get him to admit that the DMCA is wrong and then you'll have a point. Until then, he's ignorant.
The man CLEARLY has no clue as to what he's talking about.
He's smart? How do you figure? From the sounds of it... he's pretty damn ignorant! How can you even begin to say a man like that is smart?
Since everyone is getting away with posting obvious shit like:
/etc. (hence the name "etc-update")"
"Update your system with 'emerge sync' and then 'emerge -DUu world'"
and
"Don't forget to run etc-update after you upgrade; that way you can merge any changes to the config files in
I figured I'd take part in some karma whoring of my own: GENTOO IS A LINUX DISTRO!!! omg!!!!!! I bet you DIDN'T KNOW THAT!!!
Now give me my fucking karma.