On this gaming forum, it was brought up that pirating was legal in this one country - and I don't mean Long John Silver, lol. I mean, people downloading and distributing (for pay or free) copyrighted goods. Anyway, a lot of people feel this stuff should be legal because - once you own it - it's yours, right?
Is pirating legal? Should it be?
- Thread starter Jason76
- Start date
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Bryn
You're not meaning China, are you? Piracy is rampant down there.
It was Bulgaria. No offense to @Keranov Anyway, piracy is rampant worldwide, and of course, in nations where games, movies etc. would be more expensive (due to the exchange rate).
Joshua Farrell
FP's Housekeeper
Piracy should never be legal, regardless of the intentions, even if it is because of "good intentions". Ripping stuff hurts the producer of the item, because the item doesn't generate a needed sale that allows the copyright owner to know how many people have a legal copy, and how many people they reach with it.
It's definitely hard to enforce (in some ways, in other ways not so hard), but I don't think it should be legal or encouraged. Paying for media, whatever that may be, helps support those involved in making it. And that goes beyond the starring actors and leading directors/producers that are making bank already. All those people in the credits of a movie or on the back cover of an album are depending on sales to make a living. Pirating prevents them from getting as many sales.
There's already a thread for this lol
Also, I hear that China doesn't particularly care about copyright.
It's not surprising though, as copyright would put their people at a disadvantage with other nations.
It's a fairly rational decision for a country to make, to be honest.
I do hear they have a problem with counterfeit goods though.
As for copyright in the US, etc:
You do have to keep in mind that the copyright terms have gotten absurdly long, something like life plus 120 years. Why? Because of Disney's lobbying so that Mickey Mouse will never fall into the public domain.
Also, I hear that China doesn't particularly care about copyright.
It's not surprising though, as copyright would put their people at a disadvantage with other nations.
It's a fairly rational decision for a country to make, to be honest.
I do hear they have a problem with counterfeit goods though.
As for copyright in the US, etc:
You do have to keep in mind that the copyright terms have gotten absurdly long, something like life plus 120 years. Why? Because of Disney's lobbying so that Mickey Mouse will never fall into the public domain.
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Also, anyone familiar with UBB? It was a paid software released during the 90s.
I cannot write a converter for that without a copy of the source-code to figure out how it works due to copyright law.
There are quite a few big boards with like four million posts apiece which are quite literally stuck on UBB.classic, unless they pay to update to the latest version of UBB, which incidentally I don't think anyone has converters for either.
UBB.classic stores data in flat files rather than a database in an undocumented way, so it's quite a drama in particular. It even used to be the #1 forum software at one point.
I cannot write a converter for that without a copy of the source-code to figure out how it works due to copyright law.
There are quite a few big boards with like four million posts apiece which are quite literally stuck on UBB.classic, unless they pay to update to the latest version of UBB, which incidentally I don't think anyone has converters for either.
UBB.classic stores data in flat files rather than a database in an undocumented way, so it's quite a drama in particular. It even used to be the #1 forum software at one point.
I disagree with pirating, but a lot of times with stuff, it's tough follow copyrights. I mean, it's very easy to copy someone's music, their writing, their themes (take Doh Theme accusations). How can we even tell what is absolutely original - as if that really exists?
OK, is what I'm discussing pirating? Not sure what it's called!
OK, is what I'm discussing pirating? Not sure what it's called!
Generally, piracy is there where people don't have enough money to buy the software/game they want. If the prices everywhere are the same as in Russia, I don't think there will be any problems with piracy anymore.
Should piracy be made legal, no. That's just nonsense...it's theft. However, is it going to stop? Of course not. You cannot stop people from doing what they want. Sure, there are laws in place to discourage it and forms of anti-pirating in software, games and other medias but it's always going to be there. Just because it's illegal, it doesn't mean it's still going to happen. It's just really hard to enforce.
No, its very illegal? /thread?
Why is this even a thing..
But seriously: its illegal and it should be. If I spent hundreds of hours writing a program and/or game and someone took it and started giving out for free, I'd like to be able to pursue legal action.
Is that gonna stop me from pirating the odd thing though? Hell no.
Im sort of a huge hypocrite
Why is this even a thing..
But seriously: its illegal and it should be. If I spent hundreds of hours writing a program and/or game and someone took it and started giving out for free, I'd like to be able to pursue legal action.
Is that gonna stop me from pirating the odd thing though? Hell no.
Im sort of a huge hypocrite
In that case, people have to rake in as much as they can legally - knowing they cannot stop some pirate. I mean, not everybody can find unlawful places to find stuff.
OK, I still find it unbelievable that people still justify pirating - even if they come from nations where it costs way more to buy things. OK, they might say that - but if they were the ones creating stuff, it would be a different story!
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One of the reasons for it is that people see your work as essentially worthless, it's one of those curious things which came about from the ad driven model of the web where everything is given out for free and people kinda get used to it.
This isn't helped when you have a competitor who essentially does the same thing as you do, but for next to nothing, but without the odd bell and whistle, or so it would look on the surface.
And to be perfectly frank, a lot of the markets are so saturated that unless you're writing a program or a game with the possibility of it flopping in mind, then you may be in for some pretty big disappointments.
On the other-hand, if you're able to spin a project around from being the "failure" to being a shining part of your portfolio, then that'll add value to your brand and self as people will see that you know what you're doing and believe me when I say that there are a lot of people who really, really do not know what they are doing.
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