Comments on: Rightsholders Beware: Exercise Copyright at Your Own Risk

By: Ethics In Technology: Web2Rule | 40Tech

Ethics In Technology: Web2Rule | 40Tech — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:30:17 +0000

[...] a broad question, and one that is intensely debated in the realms of Privacy, Net Neutrality and Intellectual Property Rights. What about data manipulation, though? Where does that fit in to the ethical landscape? [...]

By: Evan

Evan — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:27:33 +0000

Thanks for your post. You make some interesting points.

That "double standard" is actually the point I was trying to make, maybe poorly written- that yes, I feel that taking something you don't pay for is stealing, but the industry has committed its share of wrongs, too. Just because one is wrong doesn't make the other right. If I buy food from the grocery store that turns out to taste nothing like advertised, I'm not going to start pilfering food from the store in the future, or look around before I buy it, and, if nobody is looking, start wolfing it down to see if I like it. But that is really a personal choice. I happen to think it is wrong. Your mileage may vary.

With very few exceptions, I don't buy games until I've read several reviews and talked to others who have played them, too, so I don't get suckered and have the bad taste in my mouth that you do from your bad experiences.

I commend you if you're buying the games after you try them and find that they are at least adequate, but there are too many people who don't do that, once they have the pirated version.

Although I don't agree, your comment does raise some good points. Thanks again for stopping by.

By: Mercestes

Mercestes — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:23:44 +0000

Double standard much? You refer to the music industries "backwards thinking" for selling copyrighted music, and say it took them "years to figure out that selling copyprotected music only taught people how to find unprotected music in illicit places" You say the movie industry *still* hasn't learned their lesson. And then you say anyone who has downloaded video games is a thief? I fail to see what the difference is.

What about the gaming industry's backwards thinking putting copy protections on games that are incompatible with 10-20% of the DVD-Drives in the market, resulting in legal, paid for copies to not work because they are unable to be validated? Or licensing and copy protections that prohibit us for forbid us to make back up copies, and then their utter refusual to provide new CDs/DVDs. I've got the manual to Pax Imperia. Good look getting those CDs.

Go buy a copy of the steaming pile of poo that "Two Worlds" is, and tell me who the thief is. Go pick up any incomplete, buggy, broken game when it's "hot off the shelf" before the 37th patch comes out and tell me who is defrauding whom. What about when Heroes V was advertised as multiplayer, had multiplayer requirements on the box, cited multiplayer on it's website, had a multiplayer button in the game, but the button was disabled??

I have been defrauded consistently when buying games. I get games that are broken, I get games that don't live up to the demo, don't live up to the artificial hype the put around it, don't live up to the reviews they wrote themselves on the box, I get games that are incomplete. And by the time I figure out I have been defraued (after I opened the box, opened the game, and put the CD in) I've forfeited my right to return the game or demand the product I paid for, because you can't return an opened game, even if you paid for Monster Truck 11 and got Rainbow Bright's Big Adventure.

Offer me some real legal protection from the gaming industry and then we can talk about pirate's being thieves. Until then, it's self preservation.

When was the last time you bought a song or a movie with a little message halfway through it that said, "Sorry, this product is not yet complete. Come back in 6-8 months and download the rest of it."

By: chilyn

chilyn — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 07:09:26 +0000

I always like to play devil's advocate with things like this. It provides for fun debate! For example, one might discuss the overall question of who is the real thief, the person who downloads a song, or the recording company who takes all of the money that would have been for the artist (a paltry sum, anyway, usually) and keeps it to recoup the money they spent patting said artist on the back for selling a million records (i.e “Congrats! Here's a new car!!! — that'll add another 3 years to your recouping costs before you see a dime of your own…”). Or perhaps the favourite: Why do you still charge an artist (and the consumer) breakage fees on royalties for digital songs — or even CDs, which rarely break, when the fee was set up for vinyl? Blah blah blah. Etc, etc. Yes, people shouldn't take advantage of the internet to acquire things for free that should be paid for, but until the industries that control these media realise that they need to change their model to match their changing situation (like all businesses, and all people) instead of railing against the universe to maintain their status quo, the system will remain broken and piracy will rise. That is just a simple fact. They are the cause of their own pain and the losses they suffer is because they cannot take their respective foots out of their respective asses long enough to see what is plainly in front of them. I say, if you don't know how to play in your current market, find someone who does and hire them, or go do something else.

All of this being a roundabout and hopefully stimulating way of saying that, Evan, I wholeheartedly agree with you. As a person with half a brain, and as a professional marketing-type, I would say the MLB should really take the time to put something more mellow in their pipe and should stop smoking the hard stuff…

It's bad for you.