Views on Piracy

[NFG]

My views on piracy are pretty simple.  

1. I can do it and you can't.
I know I'm gonna buy the games I like after I sample a pirated copy, but how can I trust you losers (And I use that in the general sense, not referring to the fine members of this forum) to do the same?  You don't live by my rules, I don't trust you to do what I consider to be the right thing.

2. Everyone does it.
I've got 20,000 ROMs.  I have a burned copy of Radiant Silvergun (but, in my defense, I don't know where it is and I couldn't play it if I wanted to, I lost my Saturn chip), and I used mIRC for five years before paying for it.  We all do it at some level, however:

3. You don't discuss it in public, among strangers!
It's only 'cool' to copy games for about the first week, after that it's old hat and your sense of smug satisfaction should be long fucking gone.  In the same way that people who come up to you at a party and talk about how much pot they smoke are big fucking losers talking about your piracy wants and needs with people you don't know in a public forum (be it IRC, the local EB, here or wherever) is damned stupid!  Do you yammer to strangers about how you stole a chocolate bar from 7-11 when the clerk was under the counter for a second?  Do you brag about how you got away from the rentacop in the mall after lifting that 8-year-old's skirt?  You're doing something that's technically illegal, keep it to your goddamned selves until you know you're among people with similar interests.

And that's my big complaint about piracy.  It's not the fact that you do it so much as I don't know you, you don't know me, yet somehow you're convinced (And again, I mean the general you, not YOU) you can discuss this shit with me?  Are we gonna talk about how we love to peel scabs next?  What's your favourite herpes cream?  When customers at my game store asked my if I sold mod chips, so that they ostensibly could stop giving me money, I was outraged for two reasons: That they thought I'd want to put myself out of business, and that they considered me one of their little buddy-buddies with whome they could openly discuss their thievery.  Get the fuck out of here!  What's wrong with you people!?  Hey kids, did you know your dad's a thief?  (I wonder how that one played out back in the car, and over dinner, heh heh).

Now you know.  =)

L.

[Endymion]

Hm.

Somebody's been asking you for copies of stuff, huh?

[Vertigo]

The rentacop saw me?

So anyway, I think this topic came up before. I haven't got a single current gen copied game at all, doesn't concern me in the slightest because I have a GC and XBox and have been playing games long enough to know what I'll like, bar the odd few surprises that will be pointed out to me by people whose opinions I trust. More often than not I will try to find a legal copy of something if I play a pirated version and like it. I have more important things to do with my time than sit and leech 9GB worth of disc image in order to look at it for 20 seconds and throw it in the pile. I would suggest to a lot of people to actually go to the shop and buy a new full-price game, any game of your choice, that you've never played before but think you'll like, then take it home and play it. Even if it's not the best in the genre, and let's face it, only one game can be and you own more than 10 games, right?, then at least because you spent the money on it, you'll play it for a lot more than 20 seconds, and you'll be sure to put it back in its box, not on the floor or in that 7th stack of DVD-Rs next to your keyboard.
Also remember; import modding is fine, burnt-disc modding is bad, even if it is Radiant Silvergun.
Buy a game, it'll do you the power of good.
This has been a party political broadcast by the My Broadband Isn't Big Enough And My Consoles Aren't Chipped And To Be Honest I'd Really Rather Go Outside In The Sun party.

[benzaldehyde]

I'll admit to some piracy in the past. Especially with the Saturn; I wanted to try some of the uber-cool games. I found Guardian Heroes, Burning Rangers, and Radiant Silvergun. I loved all three. I own GH and BR now, and will own RS when someone ponys up a copy on eBay with a damn spine card. Games like that can be a pretty big investment, and in such cases I'm a try before you buy sort. But I'm also a collector, and the thought of having pirated games doesn't sit well with me. Any games I've burned in the past I now have on kosher media, though not always for the same system. (Shenmue on DC/XBox, Rez on DC/PS2; Sega of America, you did wonderful things, but you'll always be judged for tripping near the finish line. :angry: )

While I'm lax to judge pirates of yesteryear's games, I certainly don't agree with copying this era's games, for the simple reason that you're draining revenue from the present economy. Besides, you can rent games that are out today.

[fragment]

ok, I have done it too. I have been waiting to get a copy of Policenauts, and got so anxious I ripped it. Well I am on the second disk right now, but still having the three disk Deluxe set imported from Japan! I don't even care if I beat it before it arrives, it will come with a nice little art book what not. I honestly think that pack-ins like that force people into buying the real deal. Look at the Lunar remakes for the PS1, you can download the CD's, but you can't download the Omake box! I still believe in buying instead of ripping, but I think game developers need to have better packaging for some games (ok certain games like sports don't need that) instead of just making a game, cheesy manual and lame box art.

[Guest]

Why are there so many copies or Radiant Silvergun on ebay with missing spinal card?
WHY I ASK!?!?!?!?!?! WHY?

[NFG]

it's "spine card" not spinal.  

That said, who cares if it has a spine card or not?  If you're only worried about how it looks on the shelf buy one without the CD and save a few bucks.

[Darkman]

<engage rant mode>
Well, it's good when you can buy any game you want (in US or western Europe, etc.). But in my country you either play "evil" CDs or you don't play at all. Let me explain - we don't have gameshops (we had one, but it went bust lately); the only place where you can buy a console is a consumer electronics store. And guess what? They don't sell games, only some accessories. Why no games you may ask? IMHO the retailers think that no one will buy them. This is where the infinite loop begins - no official games leave an area without competition for pirates to take over. And it�s been like that right from the early 90s (before that my country was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union by Russia). Sometimes an official game or two pops up somewhere in a PC store that also sells consoles (usually Sony crap). But generally, availability is laughable.
But enough about the situation in my country, I�ll tell you about my view on piracy. I think it stinks with a capital �S�. To remove the temptation to buy my games at a shady place, I bought a Gamecube this gen, which is supposedly unpiratable (sp?). It is much nicer to have a box and manual with a game, not some silly plastic bag with a lame photocopy of the front cover� If I could, I�d replace all my �evil� discs with legitimate ones. But that means I must travel to Germany or UK or someplace else. The trip would be too expensive for me.
You see, people use �evil� software not because they�re cheapskates. Sometimes it�s because of availability.
<rant over>
Feel free to ban me if I said something that violates the rules.

P.S. Almost forgot - the prices here are just nuts! A new PS2 game goes for  ~$100...

Darkman

[NFG]

How's the mail system in <your country here>?  Mail order importing is a great way to get cheap games, but in countries like Italy and the UK you've got a stupidly good chance of having your games go missing.

[Guest]

why pay like �90 for a game thats not in shops any more and thus you have to get off ebay or something. I mean will Treasure see any of my �90? No the wont, I only buy things if my money is going to the creators (thats why my entire music collection is bought because I've bought it all when the artist will get the money and its all from smaller labels.) However my gaming collection is mostly burnt because I want to pay the creators not some gimp on ebay whos only going to send me a tatty smashed box and greasy disk anyway. If theres a new game out I'll buy it from the shops but I don't really play new games these days.

[Endymion]

I'd love to see all the money that you've sent to game creators all by pirating their stuff.

[Darkman]

@Lawrence: I'm from Lithuania and the mail system here is horrible. You can be almost sure your package will be stolen, especially if it's coming from foreign countries. So the only way of shipping acceptable here are via UPS or DHL insured courrier services. But that can get really expensive... I'm better off going to Germany or France for games.

Oh, and another thing - why, oh why is game collecting spreading so fast? I get on eBay and see this - <some obscure game>, RARE! L@@K!!!, Buy Now <for some insanely huge price>...

[Endymion]

That's an ebay marketing tactic--an appeal to collectors, rather than actual collecting at work. If it were collecting, well you wouldn't be seeing it. Perhaps a game is not so commonly seen. This doesn't mean it's rare. But when someone has it complete with box and manual and any inserts in pristine mint condition they want to call it "rare" on ebay or whatever venue they sell it through--either due to it not being easily seen for sale (which could be because everyone hangs onto it, not because it's scarce) or due to some other pecularity of its condition or sale (all inserts intact, mint condition) or what have you.

It's a telling sign that so many of the "rare" tagged ebay items still end at low prices.

[Guest]

I'd love to see all the money that you've sent to game creators all by pirating their stuff.

Whats better? Me enjoying their old game and buying their next new one where they actually make money from it. Or me buying their old game of some twat selling old games for way more than they should be worth just so they can stuff their fat face with pizza then go rent some whores. Then me not having enough money to buy their new game.
One way the creators make money the other way some scambaby makes money.

[Endymion]

One way is that you could read the first post of the thread for comprehension and perhaps understand who wrote it, then take the hint that we don't want to hear about your justifications for your own personality, morality, and financial shortcomings. You not enjoying anything is pretty fine by me.

[Guest]

you've got to ask yourself does the person down at the music store like the idea of you downloading music? Does the person at the video store like the idea of you downloading movies?
So of course he's going to moan non-stop about it.
Hows the ivory tower working out for you then? I mean thats one hell of a ostentatious attitude you have there. I mean lets not forget this is a games forum so the only person you stand a chance of impressing is some hormonal angst ridden 14 year old.  Hope you enjoy wasting lots of money on greasy 2nd hand games.

Nice website shame about the forum rabble.

[NFG]

Guest, you're the one hiding behind a veil of anonymity and lashing out with vehement language.  If there's rabble to be found I suggest it's not Endymion.

[Vertigo]

If you'd really rather give the money to the creators of the game and are as militant as your post suggests, why don't you, when you buy a game second-hand, subtract the amount you paid from full price and send the developer a cheque for that amount so that you still pay only new price in total and the developer would actually probably get more than the cut they'd usually get if you bought it down the shops.

[Guest_Martin]

Please not that second post was by me and not guest. I just always forget to put my name in the box. :unsure:  

[atom]

Is it worth it for me to get in my car, spend 20 dollars in gas to get to buffalo, ny, and walk into a pawn shop, and put down 5-25 bucks for a sega cd title? No. Do i have a credit card, debit card, or the responsibilty to own one? No. Is anyone losing out on me not buying that game? No, the local pawn shop told me he threw them all out. Why should I pay some greedy jerk on ebay $70 for a copy of chrono trigger??? Did he have anything to do with making the game? NO!

Thats retro games.

New games? They are too expensive! I recently shelled out over 50 dollars to buy halo pc after hearing kid after kid brag about it on their xbox. I dont like the game, it was a waste of my money. Now some games are priced fairly, take half-life for example, you buy it and get like 5 games with it for free. I also bought American McGee's "Alice" for 10 bucks and it is an excellent game. Now, i dont own any pirated games that are not roms, thats because it is next to impossible to find them anyways.

You may think I am being selfish and disrespectful to the game creators. I myself am going to school for computer science and my dream would be to enter the gaming industry. If it were up to me, a brand NEW game would be 30 dollars, and then drop to 20 after 3 months.

Someone mentioned games being expensive on ebay for being mint condition. I bought PDark sealed for $5.99 at my local EBGames.

[Martin]

Is it worth it for me to get in my car, spend 20 dollars in gas to get to buffalo, ny, and walk into a pawn shop, and put down 5-25 bucks for a sega cd title? No. Do i have a credit card, debit card, or the responsibilty to own one? No. Is anyone losing out on me not buying that game? No, the local pawn shop told me he threw them all out. Why should I pay some greedy jerk on ebay $70 for a copy of chrono trigger??? Did he have anything to do with making the game? NO!

Thats retro games.

New games? They are too expensive! I recently shelled out over 50 dollars to buy halo pc after hearing kid after kid brag about it on their xbox. I dont like the game, it was a waste of my money. Now some games are priced fairly, take half-life for example, you buy it and get like 5 games with it for free. I also bought American McGee's "Alice" for 10 bucks and it is an excellent game. Now, i dont own any pirated games that are not roms, thats because it is next to impossible to find them anyways.

You may think I am being selfish and disrespectful to the game creators. I myself am going to school for computer science and my dream would be to enter the gaming industry. If it were up to me, a brand NEW game would be 30 dollars, and then drop to 20 after 3 months.

Someone mentioned games being expensive on ebay for being mint condition. I bought PDark sealed for $5.99 at my local EBGames.

You have lots of valid point in there...
But more than often the value of a game is set by the buyers themselves.. If lots of people want a game.. and there are only a few copeis floating around, then yes you are very liklley to have to pay more than $70  for it, the greedy jerk on ebay is just a pawn to the buyers.

Unless of course you go to one of those nice stupid peopole who'll sell you every SNES game they own for �5.

[Gord]

Why should I pay some greedy jerk on ebay $70 for a copy of chrono trigger???

http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/201250.asp

You could just buy a new copy for $20.

Thats retro games.

No, that's copyright infringement.  Retro-gaming is playing older games, not unlawfully duplicating them for free.  Plus in case you've been out of the loop, many of those older games have been repackaged for sale on newer systems such as new consoles and mobile phones.

New games? They are too expensive! I recently shelled out over 50 dollars to buy halo pc after hearing kid after kid brag about it on their xbox. I dont like the game, it was a waste of my money.

Send a bill to the kid who lied to you.  Or sell the game to someone else.

You may think I am being selfish and disrespectful to the game creators. I myself am going to school for computer science and my dream would be to enter the gaming industry. If it were up to me, a brand NEW game would be 30 dollars, and then drop to 20 after 3 months.

Simply because one day you want to be a game creator does not justify your indirectly stealing from them today.  Though rather than complain about the price of games, make a stand.  Explain why you have reached price limits.  Does a game that offers free-online play and an epic adventure justify breaching the $30 ceiling you've set?  Are all games created equal?

Vote with your dollars.  

Someone mentioned games being expensive on ebay for being mint condition. I bought PDark sealed for $5.99 at my local EBGames.

Perfect Dark was available brand new at wholesale for $14US less than six months after it came out.  Supply far exceeded demand for it.  Though that is only unusual as Nintendo has a habit of not liquidating their published titles to try and maintain the value of their other games on the market.

Why don't you just say it?  You think older games should be easily available and carry a low price.  Great.  Move to Japan when you can download the games to your phone.  Borrow some money from your dad and set up a company in your country that does the same thing.  Hell, follow in the footsteps of Acclaim, Working Designs, EA, and a bazillion other companies and licence the games yourself and then sell them for whatever you want.  

Though all those options are considerably more difficult to arrange than just copying something for free.

[Martin]

He's talking about the SNES version of Chrono Triiger, not that stupid Rehash for the PiSSOne...
oops... :rolleyes:  

[Endymion]

Of course, all because you do not approve of the method, platform, or reissue of the game in question, this gives you complete rights to pirate and immunity to international laws, Berne convention et cetera et cetera on the matter.

Right?

[atom]

Yes Martin, I love the rare garage sale too.

Im trying to say is that some people are making a big deal out of the kind of piracy that companys dont give two cents about. Microsoft doesnt care if you pirate windows 1.0 and run it on your 12mhz pc. Nintendo doesnt really give a crap if you emulate excitebike on your gp32. I dont care if you take my skateboard I threw in the garbage 4 years ago.

And i wasnt trying to justify anything to you, I dont know why i posted in the first place and i dont really know why im posting now.

Gord, you must have grown up with mommy constantly shaking her finger at you. When I said retro games, i meant thats piracy of retro games... I think most people got it. Selling my copy of Halo would return me about 10 dollars of my 50 dollars. You have a problem with emulating roms but you have no problem with me billing a friend who recommended a game to me? You tell me to make a stand, and not pay for the games. Well wouldnt stealing them do so? Im not even doing that, like i said im just buying the cheaper ones, and the ones that look worth it to me.

But thanks for explaining the perfect dark situation to me.

[Martin]

Of course, all because you do not approve of the method, platform, or reissue of the game in question, this gives you complete rights to pirate and immunity to international laws, Berne convention et cetera et cetera on the matter.

Right?

I was not saying that.
Im just saying that under law the SNES and PlayStation versions of Chrono Trigger are viewed as the same titles.
They are both copy righted and trademarked under the same names.
And I never said that this gave me the right to pirate software... your making stuff up out of your head now...
I was just saying that the high prices for games on Ebay are the people who want the game's fault.
They want the game.. if they didnt want the game it wouldnt be worth anything. B)  

[Gord]

Nintendo doesnt really give a crap if you emulate excitebike on your gp32.

If Nintendo didn't care, they wouldn't have busted out the lawyers and brought them down onto people who were doing such acts.  They've even set up a patent to try and support their claims so to further shut down anyone who would do such a foolish act (in their opinion).

And i wasnt trying to justify anything to you, I dont know why i posted in the first place and i dont really know why im posting now.

Because you wish to morally justify your position.  You want us to say "yes, it's not wrong".

Gord, you must have grown up with mommy constantly shaking her finger at you. When I said retro games, i meant thats piracy of retro games... I think most people got it.

Are you suggesting that because others are committing unlawful acts it justifies your actions?

Selling my copy of Halo would return me about 10 dollars of my 50 dollars. You have a problem with emulating roms but you have no problem with me billing a friend who recommended a game to me?

No.  I was saying that if you believe that you were lied to, then take it up with the person who you believed lied to you rather than using the claimed laws as a shield to justify other unlawful acts.  

You tell me to make a stand, and not pay for the games. Well wouldnt stealing them do so? Im not even doing that, like i said im just buying the cheaper ones, and the ones that look worth it to me.

My point was not that you go steal games, but that if you feel that a game is priced higher than what you are willing to pay then you should simply have to do without.  If your mother needed a copy of ChronoTrigger to save her life in an operation within an hour but the only copy you could find was $20 more than the cash you had on hand, then you could use the moral justification argument.  But no such argument exists when all you want to do is play a game that sells for more than what you want to pay.

You've said you are buying the cheaper ones and unlawfully acquiring the more expensive ones, but that is ok because they are out of your price range.  That's not a defence.

But you've missed the point.  Lawrence simply said that everyone has copied something at some point, but that we don't go around bragging about it nor should we try to cling to some moral high ground that we are entitled to copy anything that we want simply because it costs more to buy than what we want to pay.  Your entire argument has been a tapdance trying to justify your unlawfully copying games that cost more than what you want to pay because you can't just admit that it's the primary reason.  We all see this, and you should too.

End the self-deception and the world will be a better place.

But thanks for explaining the perfect dark situation to me.

There are many secrets about the industry you will learn in time that are quite shocking.

[NFG]

I think it's worth pointing out that, as Gord suggested, there is no righteous moral reason for copying games.  The crux of the matter is simple, IMO: Games are luxury items.  You do not need them to survive, they are not food, clothing, or shelter.

(Note: when I say 'you' I mean it in the general sense.  Carry on...)

No matter how you justify it to yourself you are, in fact, breaking the law as it currently stands to obtain luxury items for yourself.  This cannot be percieved as anything but a greedy self-indulgent behaviour and it does technically make you a criminal.  Regardless of how you feel about it or how you justify it the law is clear on this fact; you've duplicated something you're not legally authorized to duplicate.

This is similar in my mind to the smug pot smoking assholes who claim that marijuana is harmless and the law is wrong so they're gonna smoke it anyway, no one's being hurt.  It's still fucking illegal, moron, and announcing your illegal actions in a crowded room of strangers - be we virtual or not - is tantamount to saying "I'm an idiot".  

Breaking the law is easy to do.  It's so easy children can do it.  Little children.  I'm talking about babies here.  Being proud of breaking a law that children can break and announcing it to strangers is like telling us you masturbate to children's TV shows.  We don't need to hear it!  Keep it amongst your friends in the pervert groups.

hrm...  This post has been rather long winded.  Here's my point:

Don't assume strangers are as willing to put up with your flimsy moral excuses as your friends are.  Keep your flagrant criminal behaviour to yourself, please, when you're on my forums.

Thanks!

[Martin]

Lol,
and remember that whether or not you are "Pirating" game by emulating/copying it is also affected by the games Liscence,
E.g.
You are allowed to make as many copies and emulate the original PDP1 version of Space War! as it permits you to in its liscence.

[Guest_grey]

Interesting thread.  One issue that Lawrence raised, that intrigues me, and appears hasn't been discussed is the issue of talking about piracy with others.

Well, be honest - piracy in a vacuum just doesn't work.  I mean, yes conceivably you could plan to rent every game in the world and copy them by hand, but how much is that really saving you anyway?  You need to communicate with others who share that interest.  While not as costly, collecting a rare ROM can be just as difficult as hunting down a rare game.

Especially when the rom is unreleased, and the game is some limited prototype or what have you).  Heck, in cases like that, how -else- are you going to ever experience that, piracy is the obvious answer - but you need to communicate with others in order to make it happen.  Heck, sometimes it's fascinating to track the warez scene as its own point of history - not so much the drama and wars, but to see what novel techniques were use to dump a game on hardware with no commercial copier, or to real an nfo explaining what the copy protection was and how they defeated it.  Those can be technical gems that appeal to a hardware head reverse engineer type, speaking about them can be a learning experience.

Speaking about the particulars in public (like any illicit activity) is stupid, it's like Fight Club, what were the first and second rules?  That said, you do need to have some sort of trusted circle that you can commiserate with, or you'll get nowhere.  I doubt any of the people here spend all their free time as wastoid high school warez couriers moving things around constantly, amassing collections (if you've ever seen 'otaku no video' you'll remember a person interviewed about VTR trading, who had thousands of tapes, but never watched them... whereas here we tend to seem like afficianados, savouring a good game and so on).

Communication with others about your interests is good, even if they're not always the things you're most proud of, or legal it helps to relate to other people on a human level.  We're not talking about rape and murder, we're not talking about even drugs which might mess up someone's physiology, and since I doubt anyone here makes mass copies, runs huge distro sites, and sells thousands of copies, we're not talking about massive fiduciary losses (I'm sorry, but no matter what they're charging for Radiant Silvergun with a spine card on Ebay, that fee is NOT going to Treasure to finance their future developments, even physical collecting fails to benefit anyone financially other than the seller).  That's not to say you should entreat leeches requesting the same crap all the time, but heck, it makes life easier if you run across someone who can hook you up.

I also don't think that any of us here stopped buying games or hardware and rely upon warez entirely.  Nor are we selling or profiting at all.  Going back to your pot allegory, the occasional loser pays for his scores, but I think the afficianados probably would grow their own, and keep it free.  They don't want leeches attracting attention, or hording a stash, but are happy to share freely with trusted individuals who do the same.  In the same way, I doubt anyone here supports bootleggers, or exposes themselves unnecessarily to the masses.  But that said, you're likely to have a friend or two you freely help out.

The problem is really more the communication.  Finding someone you trust to not take advantage, or turn something casual into something that it shouldn't be.  Especially nowadays with all the heat on copyright infringement, you don't need to be part of a warez elite to be worried about getting busted when the RIAA is sending supeonas to kids and grandmas who have mp3's, so if you have some rare roms, you similarly should be concerned about how and whom you share them.

IRC and ftp should die, silcnet.org has a nice encrypted replacement, and similarly, MUTE is encrypted p2p, and there's the good old ssh, scp and sftp protocols too.  That said, no one uses them widely for piracy, and they're not necessarily the most efficient way to communicate, or trade things. But for those you trust - it's a better way of doing things (unless you're fortunate enough to live near friends that you can just hang out in person and geek out with vidgames to a deeper level).

I don't have time or desire to become some warez trading kiddy, but I do think that communicating and making connection with people of similar interests is worthwhile, whether or not the interest is legal is less important IMHO.  Just look at the DMCA, or  the Piracy Act that they're trying to pass.  Fair use is going down the tubes, Copyright duration and patent abuse are screwing everyone over.  Frankly, if the law is changed to say that I can't record a tv program or something, well, screw the law.  I'm not saying I'm going to run around and flagrantly violate it, selling copies on the street or whatever, but seriously - when they want to attach criminal, rather than civil pentalties, to say something as trivial as having a copy of a britney spears song - it's not the people who pirate casually that need scolding.

All that said, I don't hang out on irc, I don't keep in touch with people who could help grow my collection - I just don't have time to commit to that sort of thing.  It would be nice to drop a line in with someone every now and then and lend a hand and get something in return, but I have a job, a family and very little spare time.  I'm not warezing it up, but I don't see a problem with it, and if I met the right people, I'd gladly share privately with people I trusted.

[Chuplayer]

Frankly, if the law is changed to say that I can't record a tv program or something, well, screw the law.

Actually, isn't that already illegal? Nobody cares to enforce it, but I'm pretty sure it's been illegal for a long time.

[NFG]

Everything guest-grey said is excellent, and I totally agree.  I'd just like to add that, when you're off looking for roms or whatever, be sure you're in the company of like-minded individuals before you ask or - if you're unsure - ask about the policies of asking.  It's only common sense.  =)

[gannon]

This is a little off topic, but what are your views on the DMCA and it's enforcement?

[grey]

chuplayer: The laws and times are changing, but at least when the legality of VCR's were contested, personal copies for private non commercial use were deigned to be within the realms of fair use.  If you look at some of the case examples found at http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ you'll note that examples cited where recorded works were not considered within the realms of fair use when no direct profit was involved were predominantly when used in commerical broadcast segments (e.g. taking a 90 second clip for a news piece).  IANAL, but it looks like once you get to those points though, it all boils down to court cases and trial by trial verdicts.  If recording programs for private use was outright outlawed, VCR's, TIVO's and the like would have stopped being manufactured (which is what the MPAA attempted to have do unsuccessfully in the 1980's primarily iirc), and would likely be 'black' market items in the way that modchips and satellite hacking equipment is now.

More recently, the broadcast industry in the US (though other places will follow suit I'm sure) seems to be trying to take away recording rights again by imposing HDCP for digital HDTV broadcasts, and trying to treat these HDTV signals as something new and different, and thus they want to regulate them differently.  People here should know that d-RGB isn't much different than a-RGB as far as quality goes anyway (heck older dRGB stuff was a P.I.T.A.), so it's all just crappy mumbojumbo excuses to pull the wool over the public's eyes.  One interesting loophole though, is that if there are devices purchased prior to the date outlined by the FCC, they can continue to be used.  For more info on that see http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/
Sadly, I know of no devices which defeat HDCP flags.  Something like this is similar to what you'd want, but it doesn't deal with hdcp at all http://www.networkpromktg.com/dvi_to_vga_convertor.htm worst of all, several years ago, noted a noted crytpographic analyst Niels Ferguson posited how to defeat hdcp flags, but will not release his findings due to fear of the DMCA, see http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/cia.html  I've found one other place with some proposed attacks here http://angelfire.com/realm/keithirwin/HDCPAttacks.html , but nothing physical, that can be bought, "legally" before the FCC deadline.

Not to sound too Orwellian, as laws are written by man - but large multinational corporations with great amounts of wealth, are lobbying heavily (and finding suitable pawns/puppets in US government like Oren Hatch and Powell, and Ashcroft and Lieberman) to effectively remove rights from people when it comes to digital technology.  IP laws need to be reanalyzed, and unfortunately, if we as citizens, and users just sit back and let corporations and politicians do the analysis, we are going to get screwed.  Today's technology allows for a greater exchange of information than ever in our history, but industry is trying to ratchet down on it as they want to profit from these exchanges, even as the costs to conduct information exchange begin to approach zero.

[atom]

Hey i got bored reading all the babble, but i just wanted to point out that i dont pirate retail games at all. I only download abandonware (roms). Their seemed to be a little confusion up there with the finger pointing thanks,

Ive been in a bad mood lately so sorry to those  that care if i came across arrogant. What grey said is exactly what i was TRYING to say.

Yes the fair use thing is very good for vcr people. I hope it doesnt apply in the upcoming years for things like tivo, they rip out the commercials! Thats lots of advertisement money gone down the drain!

[benzaldehyde]

My problem with the voracious defense of materials displayed by many companies, including the major players in video games today, is the restriction of information and learning of/from said information.

The aforementioned example of Niels Ferguson is one such example of this restriction. As a cryptographer, he is an academic and a scientist. However, because a corporation(s) stands to lose from his study, he is essentially forbidden from publishing an article for academic purposes. The DMCA had the intention of protecting authors (i.e. corporate copyright holders), but instead can be used to bully down academic progress in the field of information technology. This is, of course, a normal response from your common corporate entity; rather than confronting and addressing a problem, they seek to stifle any mention (and possible solution to) the problem itself.

This is not too far outside the realm of electronic entertainment, as one could consider gaming to be a less-vital subset of IT. Emulation has done vast good for the spreading of new experiences previously withheld us by publishers.

One story: In the Summer of 1999, two translation projects were completed. Patches were released for Seiken Densetsu 3 and Final Fantasy 5. Of course, I downloaded each and played the hell out of them. In doing so, I used the roms and the emulators, and thus broke the law.

My issue is that, without the ubiquitous emulator, American gamers would never have seen an English release of SD3 (we saw a passable FF5 translation on the PS1). Even though laws were broken, important (well, to me, anyway) new experiences were shared with me and countless others. I have difficulty balancing the good against the bad here, as I surely would have purchased the game had it been released here. However, I know absolutely no Japanese, and at the time I had no money. (I only recently purchased the game a few months ago.) Could we say the company (i.e. Square) forfeited any profits (intentionally or not) stemming from an American distribution of their release by ignoring their stateside fanbase?

It would seem that in some cases, when the corporations do not provide as the consumer desires, the consumer will go elsewhere. Of course, with that control by the company being eroded in even a economically harmless manner (such as the distribution of older roms), the natural survival instinct of the company will be to defend it's comparatively worthless intellectual property for little or no reason. Under law, an American corporation (don't know about a Japanese form, though I wouldn't be surprised by any similarities) is bound to act only in the interest of investors. Thus, we see a witch hunt to extend copyrights ad infinitum and decimate any free exchange of (what should be) public domain.

([US] Constitutionally there should only be (I think) a seven year ownership of copyright. Of course, many corporations, using an odd interpretation of the 13th Amendment, can be counted as individuals. Using lobbied copyright laws, they can then keep their copyright for some 20 years after the death of the copyright holder, which it being a corporation, means forever.)

So, at least in America, we shouldn't have any trouble trading around roms from the SNES days. Rather than allow the natural progression from profitability to public domain, though, corporations still fight, and not always in the neatest of manners. Nintendo is trying to stifle the development of emulation through use of submarine patents. Sony sued Bleem out of existence, but were only able to over BIOS issues and abuse of the DMCA (but, are there any good uses for the DMCA?). Luckily, the ability to safely reverse-engineer is sacrosanct, for now...

Thus, my question is not if the legality of emulation, but the basis for our copyright laws in general. Of course, video games would fall in with music, books, etc. Yes, it is illegal, but would these laws stand up to a jury nullification if ever used in court? I can't say for sure. Mind you, I don't advocate the illicit copying of recent releases, as these would still be covered pursuant to the original Constitutional spirit of giving the authors/musicians/developers time to make a profit.

However, the needless maintainence of copyright over old material is a waste and detrimental to the growing history of video gaming. The time has come that we can look back and appreciate past efforts in development. I hold the position that it would be more beneficial to allow the free exchange of older games so that a new generation can experience them without needless hassle. I'd much rather see my younger friends play such an older release than to have some corporate overlord sleep better at night knowing he has complete control over a gaming legacy.

Thus, my end point is that (coming from an educator's point of view) we have a means of sharing a rich and varied past, though such aims would be negated by unfair (and unconstitutional) copyright rules that, on their merits alone, have superficial legality themselves. I'd say such experiences belong to gamers now. We shouldn't have to defend a large and very wealthy video-gaming infrastructure; it should be content with maximizing profits in the here and now and not worrying about quashing the exchange of a library it no longer has any need to control.

Well, that's my yarn. Please pardon any inconsistencies or errors I've made. I try to proofread, but stuff still gets by me. Remember that this is in the spirit of debate, so don't anyone get offended now. Also, it's very American-centric, so I beg the pardon of non-US folks. :lol:

[grey]

benzaldehyde: yeah, copyright law needs some major reforms.  Sadly, the reforms that have been made (thanks to Disney lobbying) in the US have -increased- the duration of copyright.  See: http://www.maineandasmus.com/mickey.htm for a brief excerpt of the types of extensions that have been made to copyright law.

Patents on the other hand, in the US tend to expire after 20 years (even if you're still alive), but you can file for extensions iirc.  One notable case in recent years sn the case of the RSA patent (since that's one that comes to mind), there had been some transfer of ownership on the patent since the original filing, so they couldn't get an extension (if memory serves that is, I had a friend working at RSA at the time).  But, again - if you look at what sorts of legislation has been trying to get through in the EU with respect to patent changes, again the people who deal with this stuff on a daily basis, are not the ones who get their voices heard, instead greedy megacorps are laying down the law.

The DMCA is basically being used as a gag order against legitimate research IMO.  And it's like the old saying, "Locks on doors only keep honest people honest" so you have people like Ferguson, or Dug Song, or Niels Provos self-censoring their legitimate, academic oriented research.  Meanwhile, bad guys are still doing bad things.

In general you see media attention of megacorps forcing law enforcement to drop the hammer on legitimate researchers (e.g. Adobe nailing Elcomsoft's Skylarov when he came to give a talk on how their protection mechanisms were flawed), since that's who is out there publishing with their own name and is easy to make an example of.  Apparently it's far too much effort for Adobe to be arsed to sic the law on commercial bootleggers who are actually profiting from pirating their products, when they can instead bring the heat on a legitimate and respected researcher who (prior to DMCA and other shitty legislation) had no reason to hide his work, since he was doing it for legitimate purposes.

This goes back to the part about conversation... and I'm not talking about kiddie warez trading.

In light of current and future legistlation, now is a very bad time to be publically working on many kinds of circumvention technlogies.  That said, it is simultaneously imperitive to publically fight against such legislations, and I would say, just as important to covertly work on technologies which continue to circumvent DRM, TCPA, HDCP and other protection technologies which are becoming mainstream.

So, the public outcry about legislation is easy.  Communicating with others about potentially illegal topics privately on the other hand is much more difficult (particularly when you have huge cash cow organizations both private [as in the case of hired goons by the RIAA and MPAA tapping traffic with devices like this: http://eff.org/share/audible_magic.php ] and federal [your traditional, FBI, NSA and echelon who are even less encumbered with what they can do thanks to the mother farging Patriot Act]).  Anyone interested in such discussions should be actively researching technologies like I mentioned previously like MUTE, silc, tor, privoxy and  realistically perhaps even more draconian systems.

That said, it becomes a problem to on the one hand espouse using such encrypting and anonymising technologies, and still get people who might be a bit to public in their activities to switch over to them.  And, until more people do switch over to them, there's little activity to even draw them to them, since they offer increased security, privacy & anonymity, but they don't offer the same content, yet.

Oh, and that said - there's still the question of, maybe even in light of crappy Orwellian legislation and organizations, that discourse about circuvention technologies -SHOULD- still remain public (there's no doubt that in my ethics it should) not because the people have no fear of prosecution, but rather this information needs to be disseminated more widely so that people are aware of it and can fight against it without being privy to some guarded sector.  While vidgames may be a rather trivial daily concern, publication of books such as Hacking the Xbox are actually great stands in that respect that people can rally around and learn from, and perhaps we need more examples like that than we do hiding in the shadows trying to put together pieces of the puzzle independantly when we could collaborate together more quickly and effectively..

[grey]

http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt

That's another good read on the subject.

Also references this: http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc
(not quite as fun reading but still good)

[Guest]

I personally lost interest in "downloads" a long time ago, mostly because I hardly play anymore. I own several hundreeds store purchased games, and at least 1/3 of them are extremely lame. I just tought it could be fun due to nice box art or a favorable review online. Often it's not the case. And I do own all the games that I enjoyed and completed until the end, because I felt a moral obligation towards developers/publishers, who brought quality content to me.

So basically I say that piracy is a complicated issue. It's mostly bad, but it's also good, because fewer people will buy crap game after "trying it", and more people will buy a good game based on brand new IP, because they liked downloaded copy first.

[Vertigo]

Just heard an interesting statistic on the radio.
7% of worldwide goods traded are counterfeit. This includes everything from dodgy clothes to computer software and DVDs to fake drugs.
The estimated amount spent works out to about US$100 per person each year if you average it out.

The thing that shits me though is that people think piracy is just game software, when it plainly isn't and even worse is the guys who come around to your workplace with a basket full of DVDs that are obviously knock-offs and the spastics that buy them because they can't see past the "�3 is cheaper than �10" logic that their brains run on and realise what the actual consequences are of their selfish acts.

It's especially scary that a member of your family could be seriously ill when they're travelling and the drugs they take are counterfeit so have no or a negative effect.