Piracy is not theft

Remove the bs region restrictions and there would be a lot less piracy...
Happy to pay for content not going to be denied by bs regional restrictions. No reason why they should exist.
 
wizardofid said:
Copyright is there to protect artistic freedoms and applies to every one, patents isn't there to protect artistic freedom it is there to protect intellectual skills and property.
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If no money changes hands and no one makes money from it..... how is the creator being done in financially?

In practice it's mostly corporations that can only think in terms of marketshare and direct profit that makes the biggest noise about this..... and these are the same entities that region or device lock.

wizardofid said:
As some one with 1000's of copyrights against my name that my livelihood depends on, you can go jump off a cliff........................
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On one hand that just proves your bias on the other hand..... since no one can legally use your assets to make money or even in open source or freeware projects without paying for it..... how are you disadvantaged if some hypothetical soul downloads it without paying for private use? He won't get either prestige (except in some insignificant bubble) or money from it.

Don't make the metallica mistake and piss off anyone that would have otherwise willingly thrown money at you.
 
rambo919 said:
If no money changes hands and no one makes money from it..... how is the creator being done in financially?

In practice it's mostly corporations that can only think in terms of marketshare and direct profit that makes the biggest noise about this..... and these are the same entities that region or device lock.


On one hand that just proves your bias on the other hand..... since no one can legally use your assets to make money or even in open source or freeware projects without paying for it..... how are you disadvantaged if some hypothetical soul downloads it without paying for private use? He won't get either prestige (except in some insignificant bubble) or money from it.

Don't make the metallica mistake and piss off anyone that would have otherwise willingly thrown money at you.
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My copyrights is neither region locked and it fact has regional pricing, as follows the steam guidelines and default regional pricing.

Well bud let's put it this way, steam takes a 30% cut after which the royalties are split 50/50 between the company that hold the license for me for the next 5 years, after which they can ask to extend the license or it reverts back to my. I am essentially still the copyright holder regardless.Now considering every one taking their cut and what Iam left with and regional pricing, 2-3 illegal downloads hurts, a lot.

The company's general license allows you to use the content in other engines, once it is used outside of the intended software and a freeware/open source game is published with the content, the content can then again be illegally used and essentially create a knock of effect if the program used doesn't protect the content.There is no way of knowing whether a game using the assets have legitimately acquired the content the further it moves down the chain. Meaning those 2-3 illegal downloads, copying to a friend working on the same project or an entire group could result in those 2-3 downloads spreading like wild fire and suddenly a 100 less sales directly or indirectly it does really matter.

Why buy it when you can just copy is from a friend.So I rather piss people off then risk of losing thousands of dollars as a result.

Let me put it this way I designed a single level game demo a few years ago for a competition, which won in the end and after some more tweaks and such was published with the software 2 or so years later another external game competition was run and some assclown decided to use my entire level to submit to the competition eventually after having found out on the day results were announced got disqualified as a result winning the 3rd or 4th price which would have bagged $4000.00 at the time. Additionally comp rules were you couldnt use a project or assets before the start of the comp.

Considering just how easy it was to physically steal another person's work and almost profit from it, I have zero problem pissing people off, you buy my art not because of who I am but rather because you like the art.If you want to play the man and not the ball that is your problem.

Considering 9 months was spend creating this project on steam and having to work my way up as artist to earn my stars over the course of 14 years before being able to successfully publish assets packages like this, Iam completely and entirely on Metallica's but considering they sell out stadium after stadium...being a dick isnt always a bad thing.

So yeah no.....
 
wizardofid said:
My Snip
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If you wanna see it that way fine..... I don't see the harm in someone who was never going to pay you either way grabs a copy..... not that I know what you would use such a thing for unless you use it in something commercial. If he uses it for practice to get money then that is something else and he is being unethical.

You can't loose what you never had or would have had, it's basically crying over spilt milk IMHO.

My view is still if you create something of worth to someone with a sense of honour, that someone will try to compensate you regardless of how he originally obtained a copy.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Ok, so now it is about what is allowed? Just because something is allowed or disallowed, doesn't make it either right or wrong. Half the laws out there are BS from an ethical point of view. Comparisons aside, the point is the same.

Making a copy is not stealing. It's stupid to say that you're stealing from a company's income. You cannot steal what never existed. In order to steal from a company's income, the company must have had that income in the first place and they must have lost it.

This is the most basic definition of theft - someone taking your schit without your permission and leaving nothing in it's place.

Theft | Definition, Penalties & Types | Britannica

Theft, in law, a general term covering a variety of specific types of stealing, including the crimes of larceny, robbery, and burglary. Theft is defined as the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com

Now we can debate the ethics around piracy, and whether it is right or wrong, but don't pretend that it's the same thing as theft...
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This is the biggest load of BS rationalisation ever. And complete cwap otherwise.

Companies spend hundreds of millions to produce what is, lately, mostly digital content.

But lets check this:

"You cannot steal what never existed" - Indeed. Nothing existed before people poured their sweat and tears into creating a digital product.

" In order to steal from a company's income, the company must have had that income in the first place and they must have lost it."

One of the dumbest things I have ever read here on this forum. I'm not even going to bother to explain how stupid this is.
 
wizardofid said:
My copyrights is neither region locked and it fact has regional pricing, as follows the steam guidelines and default regional pricing.

Well bud let's put it this way, steam takes a 30% cut after which the royalties are split 50/50 between the company that hold the license for me for the next 5 years, after which they can ask to extend the license or it reverts back to my. I am essentially still the copyright holder regardless.Now considering every one taking their cut and what Iam left with and regional pricing, 2-3 illegal downloads hurts, a lot.

The company's general license allows you to use the content in other engines, once it is used outside of the intended software and a freeware/open source game is published with the content, the content can then again be illegally used and essentially create a knock of effect if the program used doesn't protect the content.There is no way of knowing whether a game using the assets have legitimately acquired the content the further it moves down the chain. Meaning those 2-3 illegal downloads, copying to a friend working on the same project or an entire group could result in those 2-3 downloads spreading like wild fire and suddenly a 100 less sales directly or indirectly it does really matter.

Why buy it when you can just copy is from a friend.So I rather piss people off then risk of losing thousands of dollars as a result.

Let me put it this way I designed a single level game demo a few years ago for a competition, which won in the end and after some more tweaks and such was published with the software 2 or so years later another external game competition was run and some assclown decided to use my entire level to submit to the competition eventually after having found out on the day results were announced got disqualified as a result winning the 3rd or 4th price which would have bagged $4000.00 at the time. Additionally comp rules were you couldnt use a project or assets before the start of the comp.

Considering just how easy it was to physically steal another person's work and almost profit from it, I have zero problem pissing people off, you buy my art not because of who I am but rather because you like the art.If you want to play the man and not the ball that is your problem.

Considering 9 months was spend creating this project on steam and having to work my way up as artist to earn my stars over the course of 14 years before being able to successfully publish assets packages like this, Iam completely and entirely on Metallica's but considering they sell out stadium after stadium...being a dick isnt always a bad thing.

So yeah no.....
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Those are entirely different issues and not related to someone just downloading something for themselves. You are essentially selling distribution rights to those you are distributing to so shits gonna hit the fan somewhere.
 
Splinter said:
This is the biggest load of BS rationalisation ever. And complete cwap otherwise.

Companies spend hundreds of millions to produce what is, lately, mostly digital content.

But lets check this:

"You cannot steal what never existed" - Indeed. Nothing existed before people poured their sweat and tears into creating a digital product.

" In order to steal from a company's income, the company must have had that income in the first place and they must have lost it."

One of the dumbest things I have ever read here on this forum. I'm not even going to bother to explain how stupid this is.
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There's no rationalisation here, where do you see me defending piracy?

This is a debate about whether piracy constitutes theft. Piracy is not theft, piracy is piracy. Or are you going to argue against the definition of theft, as defined by pretty much every dictionary?

Try to keep up before going off on one of your tangents...
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
There's no rationalisation here, where do you see me defending piracy?

This is a debate about whether piracy constitutes theft. Piracy is not theft, piracy is piracy. Or are you going to argue against the definition of theft, as defined by pretty much every dictionary?

Try to keep up before going off on one of your tangents...
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I see you ignored what I said specifically about your specific posts.

And every dictionary you will refer to was produced when?
 
Splinter said:
I see you ignored what I said specifically about your specific posts.

And every dictionary you will refer to was produced when?
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Cool story, still not theft.

Not going to bother responding to your drunken insults about dumb this and stupid that. If you are incapable of responding properly, then don't expect a proper response...
 
rambo919 said:
If you wanna see it that way fine..... I don't see the harm in someone who was never going to pay you either way grabs a copy..... not that I know what you would use such a thing for unless you use it in something commercial. If he uses it for practice to get money then that is something else and he is being unethical.

You can't loose what you never had or would have had, it's basically crying over spilt milk IMHO.

My view is still if you create something of worth to someone with a sense of honour, that someone will try to compensate you regardless of how he originally obtained a copy.
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In the mean time I have to eat and have a roof over my head, right. ?One illegal download never stays one....You are talking about hypothetical, considering you neither in or aware of the game development profession. Art is a hot commodity, every opportunity to get more art is always pounced on.

I have been in this industry for close to 21 years now and freelancing with the current company close to 16 years. Illegal usage of artwork in commercial games by indies are a given. Textures and models are expensive and often have restrictions with regards to how they are used.

That includes software creating game art, most game development software have resorted to industry standard of monthly or yearly subscriptions it isnt the cheapest professions to get into either especially in the highly competitive marks it already is, sure it can be done with free tools, but these often don't have the same control and functionality of professional tools.

Bar that you often require commercial licenses to sell art work created in these software applications as well.Considering the costs involved getting involved in game development in the first place illegal usage of art work for private and commercial indie projects even going as far as selling these assets separately illegally.

Artists do loose out on thousands of dollars each year as a results of piracy, commercial usage of assets is rife, unlike a published song from a popular band artwork can be lost in a sea of a thousand different indie games published each year, it is quite easy to take a asset some one created and apply a new texture on it or use a image editing program and modify the texture. Even going as far as slightly editing the asset it self.So tracing is nearly impossible unless the assclown is lazy, most are even aren't even aware of people using art illegally or profiting from it.

Just google game art work being stolen and people profiting from others work.Your assumptions are wrong game art is constantly being illegally used and people are profiting from it.Considering the high costs and the amount of time involved and skill requirement for creating game assets it isnt going away any time soon.

Let's not forget people using your game ideas and assets in the creation of their own original work.Android store is rife with stolen games and app ideas.
 
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Mike Hoxbig said:
Cool story, still not theft.

Not going to bother responding to your drunken insults about dumb this and stupid that. If you are incapable of responding properly, then don't expect a proper response...
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Oh dear. Here we go again. If you think I'm drunk, you should be able to take advantage of that. Or am I able to take you apart intellectually even while drunk?

Simply put - we are discussing why you think it's not theft. You raised examples of why you thought it was not; I am telling you it's a load of BS.

Attack the argument - not the person.
 
wizardofid said:
Just google game art work being stolen and people profiting from others work.Your assumptions are wrong game art is constantly being illegally used and people are profiting from it.Considering the high costs and the amount of time involved and skill requirement for creating game assets it isnt going away any time soon.
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And that is different from private use.... the two are not the same thing.

wizardofid said:
Let's not forget people using your game ideas and assets in the creation of their own original work.Android store is rife with stolen games and app ideas.
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It's a myth that having the idea first get's you rich.... it's implementation that does that.
 
rambo919 said:
And that is different from private use.... the two are not the same thing.


It's a myth that having the idea first get's you rich.... it's implementation that does that.
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But you said hypothetically private use, you and I know that isnt how the world works, there is going to be indirect and direct losses regardless.If there is a person that uses it for private use there is equally someone using it for profit.So your hypothetical question is BS there is always losses at some point or another.

Your not intentionally doing it, but your posts come across as piracy never hurts anyone, if you are implying it, then shyte dude South Africa is the safest place in the world.
 
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