Downloading Games

[JohnyRico]

What do you guys think about downloading games from torrent sites without paying for the retail version? I don't mean services like Steam. This came up in the Fallout 3 thread and just wondered what the general opinion of gamers is.

To me it's stealing even if it is only code.

[K PhaNTOM]

I actually do consider it stealing, just like the government stealing 700 Bil

Same thing goes for downloading movies, music and other software, they should really crack on those people... really lame

[Duke{CLR}]

I think it a sign of entitled brats who's parents wont give them any more money for video games. It's also the reason I have to put with SecurRom and other DRM stuff.

[Hammy]

I think you should be tied to a tree naked and have golf balls fired at your nethers from a pitching machine until you black out for doing this.

Not only do you rip off people's livlihoods when you do this, but you lower the rate of pay for the people who support the software industry while costing the public millions and millions of dollars each year thanks to the douchbags that spread virus's, trojans, and hacks via this medium of communication.

Buy legal software please.
It's the right thing to do and your nethers will thank you.

[paceman]

I think you should be tied to a tree naked and have golf balls fired at your nethers from a pitching machine until you black out for doing this.

Not only do you rip off people's livlihoods when you do this, but you lower the rate of pay for the people who support the software industry while costing the public millions and millions of dollars each year thanks to the douchbags that spread virus's, trojans, and hacks via this medium of communication.

Buy legal software please.
It's the right thing to do and your nethers will thank you.

I couldn't have said it any better.

[BigTwinky]

I think we need to be VERY careful in discussing stuff like this as the forum rules state that things like this should not be discussed

6) Warez or Illegal Software - Do not post or discuss illegal software, warez, and/or suggesting how to find it.

[mapes]

I think we need to be VERY careful in discussing stuff like this as the forum rules state that things like this should not be discussed

We're not discussing how to or where to but, more of the ethics and morals involved. At least that's my take on it.

Anyways I agree with those who have said it's stealing.

The thing that gets me though is the MPAA and the RIAA would like to ban technologies like bit torrent. Because that's the technologies that most people use to steal copyrighted material. This annoys me though because these technologies have plenty of legitimate uses. It's not the tech creators fault people use a tool to commit crimes. For example I routinly have to install Free BSD or Linux based OS's and I would rather download 5 freaking ISO's via bit torrent. Completely legal and free software and a good tech for distribution.

to be honest I didn't understand one lawsuit the RIAA won. There was service that you could rip your own CD's and upload the mp3's to. You could play it back from anywhere then. Your account was password protected. can anyone tell me how this was considered infringing?

[paceman]

I agree with your about the P2P programs. They legitimate uses also.

It you went by the RIAA you would have to also outlaw cars, because criminals use them as get-away vehicles.

[K PhaNTOM]

I don't think the MPAA and RIAA are doing enough, matter fact, they are doing almost nothing. There are thousands of fourms and bittorrent sites, clients, and hosts which should be shut down. It seems possible but I don't know what is wrong with them.

[BigTwinky]

We're not discussing how to or where to but, more of the ethics and morals involved. At least that's my take on it.

I totally see that, and its fine. I have seen a few similar discussions start to turn more towards the "how does this work" and the thread gets closed.

Just trying to be proactive and ensuring we have a great discussion

[BigTwinky]

I don't think the MPAA and RIAA are doing enough, matter fact, they are doing almost nothing. There are thousands of fourms and bittorrent sites, clients, and hosts which should be shut down. It seems possible but I don't know what is wrong with them.

I know a bunch of them are actually located in other countries. Might be a way of getting around laws in the US and such.

The internet is so vast its hard to have single rules to govern it all.

[Thrashdragon]

I know a bunch of them are actually located in other countries. Might be a way of getting around laws in the US and such.

The internet is so vast its hard to have single rules to govern it all.

The most popular torrent site (I'm not going to mention its name for obvious reasons, and if you illegally download you already know it anyway) is located outside of the US. The RIAA and MPAA brought enough political pressure to have them raided and shut down, but they had a backup site online within a day or two and have been running strong ever since.

My take on it? The industry has only themselves to blame, and here's why:

-Releasing overly hyped games that turn out to be garbage. A publisher that doesn't release a demo of the game until after release is just asking for it. If I see a majorly hyped game released without a demo, I automatically assume it's crap and they want the initial preorder sales rush before all the negative reviews start hitting.

-Copy protection that installs unwanted malware on your system, limits the number of installs, and in many cases won't let your legally purchased game run at all. This leads people to look for cracks, which leads them to downloading full games. I guess CD cracks are the gateway drug.

-I've read several interviews over the years where game developers insist that people don't want a game with a storyline that lasts more than 10 hours. Unless I'm purchasing a game solely for its multiplayer component, that's crap. One of the great things that PC games always had going for them over console games was their length and depth. 10 hours of entertainment isn't worth $50 to a lot of people. Give me an oldschool 60+ hour epic any day.

-As far as music goes, the RIAA waited way too long to fully embrace paid downloads as a viable revenue stream. By the time iTunes really got up and rolling, the major P2P services were already entrenched and people were used to getting their music that way. The fact that 99.9% of the music the major labels push is utter bollocks doesn't help either. Additionally, when the RIAA started awarding exclusive contracts for big box stores to carry their lineup, and letting them underprice CDs as loss leaders and squeezing the mom and pop music stores out, they shot themselves in the foot. If I want to buy a CD now, I either have to drive almost half an hour to the closest Best Buy and deal with surly sales clerks, or I can go to Walmart and buy the censored version. Or...I can download it instantly from a variety of illegal sources. If you make it easier for people to pirate than to buy it legitimately, guess what they're going to do? Sure, iTunes has alleviated this somewhat, but a lot of people don't want that bloated resource hog on their system, and you can't always find what you want on there.

That's just my two cents. Do I condone piracy? No. Do I understand what drives the majority of people to do it? Yep.

[mapes]

Thrash The site your referring to is able to stay up because they don't host any material/content at all. They are the equivalent of Google for bit torrent. If the police raided them they would find no copyrighted material at all.

I still think it's stealing however to download songs. However I think the RIAA is blowing damages way out of proportion. How can they sue someone for 20 K when they only downloaded 20 songs. that's 20 bucks on iTunes....

[Gimmie2]

Thrash The site your referring to is able to stay up because they don't host any material/content at all. They are the equivalent of Google for bit torrent. If the police raided them they would find no copyrighted material at all.

I still think it's stealing however to download songs. However I think the RIAA is blowing damages way out of proportion. How can they sue someone for 20 K when they only downloaded 20 songs. that's 20 bucks on iTunes....

totally agree, i think maybe 5X whatever the retail value of whatever they pirated, more if they are a repeat offender, or the value of the software is over 100$

[DougBob]

Just trying to be proactive and ensuring we have a great discussion

You were 100% correct to mention this BT, thank you so much

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Copy protection that installs unwanted malware on your system, limits the number of installs, and in many cases won't let your legally purchased game run at all. This leads people to look for cracks, which leads them to downloading full games. I guess CD cracks are the gateway drug.

This is the funny one that the game manufacturers just don't get. I agree with you on this one man. Their oblivious that is just upsets people and then the ones that don't care just go get it illegally. There is a lot of times I get upset, but I can't pirate because I started off programming and understand just how much work the poor coders put into this stuff and I respect that.