Does this count as piracy?

Having read that excellent tweakguides article on piracy, I'm filled with self righteous indignation about pirates, and wanted to get the boards opinion on the few things I've done that are technically piracy to check that I'm not being a massive hypocrite:

• Accepted and watched some dvds of television programmes on three occasions. One I couldn't get because I couldn't get the channel it was on, one I couldn't get because my cable was broken when it started and one I just forgot about till half way through the series. All I would have watched live / recorded had I been able to (although most I would have fast forwarded the ad breaks on)
• Torrented planescape torment because I couldn't find a legitimate release anywhere, but will buy from good old games if and when it's on the catalogue and did buy the original release (not sure what I've done with it though).
• Downloaded some old and obscure music from file sharing sites after being unable to find the vinyl anywhere or any digital releases, although did try the legal routes for a while and even emailed the record label to ask if they had any sources available

Overall I don't think I should feel bad about any of those, I'm always happy to support media providers (although I will fast forward a lot of ad breaks). They are technically wrong though, do they count?

The only one of those that's "iffy" by my ethics is PS:T, simply because it's readily available. That said, it might not be so easy to track down in the UK, in which case my position would change to match scenario #3.

Over-the-air tv is fair game in my mind. There's no such thing as residual ad revenue, so there's no loss. That's no different than taping songs off the radio (not many of us tapes the radio commercials, either), which has been legally cleared, at least on my side of the pond.

By the letter of the law, you're toast on the music. I gave you a pass because I have the same ethical stance on it--OOP stuff doesn't deprive the artist of royalties, and can actually generate enough interest to support reprints (I've seen that happen a few times, albeit mostly with small independent releases) which make the artist and publisher a few bucks they might not have known they could get.

I'm not going to completely exonerate you on PS:T. Last time I looked, the purchasable game was indeed still available. I've posted links several times to a site that sells it and ships internationally. It is expensive, though, I grant, and since you bought the original release, at least the devs got something initially. Who knows where the money goes now that Black Isle is history.

OTOH, the TV and music stuff sounds pretty harmless to me.

If you really bought the original game when it was released, and lost the CDs or the CDs was broken, I have no problem with you downloading the game. If you sold it or gave it to someone else it is another story in my book though.

All in all if that is all you did, even if I am very strict on pirates, I think you could be proud of yourself, you did less than most.

The story of how I got my planescape torment is worth to be told. I took a course in "Digital Publishing" and got good friends with an older guy who had a son. One day he told me "I bought this game to my son and we couldn't make sense out of it, would you like to have it?", then he gave me Planescape Torment, the CD's and the manual, but unfortunally no box.


Anyway, my criteria for actually buying a product would be that it must be accessible and I must know that people who contributed to the product actually get paid.

I have pretty much no moral issues with downloading a title that isn't easily available through other channels. For this, filesharing is actually preserving and making culture accessible in a way that no other systems could. For instance, I have downloaded movies such as The Stone Tape (1972) and The Woman in Black (1989). I wont even bother to find such titles through legal means.

For old and obscure music, I sometimes find them on youtube. I have a very rare taste and there are plenty of old songs which really cannot be bought at all.

The same goes for the kind of games called "abandonware". Sure, there are games that are accessible still. Elvira 1 & 2 and Waxworks can be bought from the developers website, but many of the "oldies" arent. I am a fan of classic gaming. For me, it's nostalgia, a part of my childhood. Most old games cannot be purchased at all, including ancient arcadegames. Downloading dumped roms etc doesn't hurt the developer at all. I do not see emulation as killing the business, but rather keeping history alive. I had a similar problem with some ancient RPG books from the late 80'ies, produced by a company that doesn't exist. I just wanted them as a part of my "nostalgic museum".

Then there's the case with developers that simply doesn't exist anymore. Now, I actually WANT to get my hands on Troikas games part of my collection, but while that would benefit ME, it wouldn't benefit the developers at all, since Troika doesn't exist anymore. I will eventually get them through Amazon. I already have Arcanum. Same goes with Black Isle. When I bought all black isle games I did so for ME, but it was weird because I knew that the developers wouldn't get a penny.

Music and videos have alternative ways to make huge amounts of money like theaters and concerts. Games dont really have anything comperable. Also it doesnt really take tens of millions of euros for artis/band to make an album so the production costs of music are lower too.

However if you can d/l music / video for say 50 - 400 cents for cd / movie / tv season it would be pretty reasonable to do so instead of d/l illegally. Where I live it costs 4-5 times more to d/l movie than go rent it physically so it doesnt make much sense to use such services. Once they become more cheap perhaps people will start to use them in masse.

I dont really like the idea of byuing dvds (I watch them only once) but renting yes if its as easy as d/l. I dont listen to music much at all so I have no opinnion of that.

As for planescape if you are a rpg fan I think youre suppose to own one working legal copy no matter what.

Benedict said:

Having read that excellent tweakguides article on piracy, I'm filled with self righteous indignation about pirates, and wanted to get the boards opinion on the few things I've done that are technically piracy to check that I'm not being a massive hypocrite:

• Accepted and watched some dvds of television programmes on three occasions. One I couldn't get because I couldn't get the channel it was on, one I couldn't get because my cable was broken when it started and one I just forgot about till half way through the series. All I would have watched live / recorded had I been able to (although most I would have fast forwarded the ad breaks on)
• Torrented planescape torment because I couldn't find a legitimate release anywhere, but will buy from good old games if and when it's on the catalogue and did buy the original release (not sure what I've done with it though).
• Downloaded some old and obscure music from file sharing sites after being unable to find the vinyl anywhere or any digital releases, although did try the legal routes for a while and even emailed the record label to ask if they had any sources available

Overall I don't think I should feel bad about any of those, I'm always happy to support media providers (although I will fast forward a lot of ad breaks). They are technically wrong though, do they count?

Click to expand...

Yes, and I'm sure you'll burn in hell for it... in an especially nasty hell that's reserved for child molesters and file sharers.

I looked all over and could not find Ps:T anywhere that looked remotely legit and wasn't well over the original price (I tried eBay and Amazon, and in both cases the sale prices were well over $50). So I torrented it as well. I'll buy it if I ever see it or it's available on GOG, but I'm not paying $50+ for a used copy that won't even go to the guys (or company) that created it anyway.

I torrent a lot of TV shows, but I have a policy: I only torrent shows that I already receive on my Dish and I only do it if it's a show I want to watch on my Archos. The Archos will actually transfer shows from the Dish DVR, but on SD. Which is fine for watching them on the Archos, but that means that you have to record it in SD, which means that I have to know beforehand that I am planning to watch it on my Archos and set it to record in SD (It won't transcode it down during the transfer). That's fine for shows like Stargate Atlantis or Southpark that I know my wife has no interest in watching, but for other shows, sometimes she'll want to watch, sometimes not. Sometimes I'm too busy with work to watch, so she watches without me.

If there was an option where I could download these shows (even with commercials) from the networks sites, or even for shows I always watch on the Archos, where I could subscribe to the season and download it I would. The only option I've seen are on Amazon and iTunes and neither are compatible with anything but their own players (software or hardware).

From the OP's list, I would say that only three is true piracy, but even that is questionable since you went out of your way to find a legal means.

GothicGothicness said:

If you really bought the original game when it was released, and lost the CDs or the CDs was broken, I have no problem with you downloading the game. If you sold it or gave it to someone else it is another story in my book though.

All in all if that is all you did, even if I am very strict on pirates, I think you could be proud of yourself, you did less than most.

Click to expand...

Nope, never got round to selling anything, the disks are probably sitting around somewhere at my parents house, far easier to torrent than to buy again.

blatantninja said:

From the OP's list, I would say that only three is true piracy, but even that is questionable since you went out of your way to find a legal means.

Click to expand...

I've always felt that it's only if piracy is interfering with artists revenue streams then it's clearly wrong, where no legal route to compensate the artist for their work exists leaving it a choice between piracy or simply doing without the media then I find it hard to feel guilty.

I did wait for a while as well to give them plenty of time to decide to upload their back catalogue, but while lots of other labels did they didn't and said they had no plans to, and even said they had no way of accepting money when I asked if there was any way I could pay while pirating it.

The right answer depends on legal system of each country and how such legal system deals with these issues (which may vary) and then the answer has legal and moral aspects which may not be the same too.

From legal point of view something could be considered to be a piracy in GB, but not in Czech Republic, although for example we have a very strict law in this case (where user has very little freedoms). But our law in this case is in principle a manifestation of European Directives, so yours law should be similar.

In general, you have more freedoms in terms of audio, video etc, and less in terms of software. In general, you should be allowed for examle to download a music CD, or a movie from net (even if you haven't bought it) for your own personal use, but you should be strictly prohibited to share it further. So, if you had downloaded a music CD (in form of mp3) from P2P, you would have broken the law because you would have been uploading at the same time too, i.e. sharing, which is not allowed.

In terms of software, as I suggested above, software is completely a different chapter. The proprietary software isn't allowed to be downloaded and used without proper purchase at all.

But this is all much more complex and there are x exceptions and as I have already typed above, situation may and likely differs state by state..

So, I think, the main question you should ask yourself is how you personallly judge your actions from a moral point of view, according to your conscience.

shadow_hk said:

So, I think, the main question you should ask yourself is how you personallly judge your actions from a moral point of view, according to your conscience.

Click to expand...

Personally I'm absolutely fine with it, I do my best to ensure that artists in some way receive payment for the media of theirs that I enjoy and only pirate in instances where I've been unable (even with a fair level of effort) to find legal alternatives.

But I know that objectivity is always hard, I could just be doing what I want and rationalising it to myself afterwards to make myself feel moral, I was curious to get some opinions from others to check that I wasn't kidding myself about it.