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Weird: The Anti-Force

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  • Weird: The Anti-Force

    I don't like piracy -- I buy music at iTunes for 99 cents and own almost every game I have -- so I'll just mention that first, but at the same time I view corporations as terribly inept so I find this ironic.

    The Setup

    I'm sure a lot of people remember Mame.dk, the site that had ROMs for the MAME arcade game emulator. Not actually legal to download a ROM for a arcade machine you don't own (and who owns one?? heh) but the games weren't for sale either so who are you hurting?

    Consequently Midway or someone sells those for $19.99 and includes a joystick.

    But the point is, someone owned the rights to the games but didn't do anything with it, people said "hey, it's dead let's share it", but it was technically illegal and I guess Nintendo or someone eventually put MAME.DK out of business because Nintendo wanted to protect their right to sit on their hands and not sell their own games.

    And, another example was Napster where they got shut down for sharing music -- which they shouldn't have been doing --- but at the same time music companies weren't interested in selling music on the internet either.

    And a 3rd example would be Home of the Underdogs, the site that has copies of games that aren't sold anywhere available in torrent form. Only hosts abandonware, but technically that is probably illegal.

    I'm not arguing the rightness or wrongness of any of this, but I guess if you treat what you "own" like an abandoned house and neglect it, a certain number of people will say "well, it isn't hurting anyone IF"

    I think the moral of the story is that if you own the rights to sell a product, maybe you ought to *gee* SELL THE PRODUCT!

    If you don't care to sell your product, others will assume that you have no interest in selling the product and will give it away for free. Kind of like how if you park your car somewhere and leave it for a month, the police are going to assume you abandoned it and tow it away.

    The Pirate Party in Sweden

    the Pirate Party had already existed for about half a year, but all this attention also gave wings in their sails, and they had thousands of new members in a matter of weeks. Suddenly, they had transformed into the largest party without parliament seats. In Sweden, you get seats in the parliament if you get four percent of the votes. As we speak, the Pirate Party has almost as many members as the Green Party, which is a party that supports the current government, and without them, the current government can’t maintain their majority This leads the Pirate Party to believe that if they get into the parliament they can fill such a vital role, and thereby make a big difference. Worth noting is that some unofficial gallups from various sources indicate that the Pirate Party is the most likely party for a Swedish first-time voter to choose on election day.
    http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pira...hanged-sweden/

    I find this interesting because I view the above as an economic supply/demand counter-force to corporations doing a terrible job of selling their own products.

    I expect that the what will happen in the next few years is that countries will start to change laws saying if you don't sell what you have copyright to, you lose it.

    I just mention this because an good example, something I saw at the qw.nu forum, was someone wanted to buy a Quake T-Shirt, but they aren't sold and making your own is illegal and someone selling them would be illegal too, but yet they aren't sold.

    Anyway, I just thought this was weird. I find it annoying how many things you can't actually buy, but you shouldn't steal it but you can't buy it either (old Quake add-ons and such, model editors and that kind of thing come to mind).

    In the mainstream population, after a while of that, "piracy" becomes commonplace as a necessity and then it spreads to include even products still available for sale.
    Quakeone.com - Being exactly one-half good and one-half evil has advantages. When a portal opens to the antimatter universe, my opposite is just me with a goatee.

    So while you guys all have to fight your anti-matter counterparts, me and my evil twin will be drinking a beer laughing at you guys ...

  • #2
    There is a level of Piracy that exists in all the annals of this underground home we call the internet, it can be considered a survival mechanism such as one may steal food for a starving family.

    But let's take this a step up, let's consider that that food could be acquired legally but at a cost greater than a normal person could afford or even that only a certain social class could purchase. This renders the situation a technicality prison, where technically the subject could buy/obtain the food, but in all reality cannot.

    A revolution is occuring because the internet in itself is another world, the flip side to our world so-to-speak. We do not know whether or not our world's law governs the internet, because its creation and ownership is long lost in the dusty pages of history. Another technicality prison, the internet technically belongs to CERN of Sweden, but that is by no means inforced as us revolutionaries living here underground would assume that the internet belongs to us much like the world belongs to everyone.

    I am by no means putting myself behind piracy, I severely frown upon it and use it as a final measure. Piracy in general has lead me to new discoveries and old treasures. It has saved my ass plenty of times when I had at one point bought the game and need a copy. While not a real case of piracy, the said case would be viewed as such.

    The bottem line, stealing is wrong, but in neccessity arises change. With the net neutrality act being challenged and our rights as citizens of the internet being taken at every path, we can hold some amount of respect for the "trolls" or "menaces" that instigate trouble or, much like myself, expose weakness through challenges to a failing integrity. We can thank ytmnd for what was at the time "world wide web war 1" against the actual pirates, the vermin at Ebaumsworld; an occurance that has become but a whisper in the dust.

    Growing up with the internet it its early waning years makes me a perfect onlooker to one of the biggest debates of the decade, if not the century. Suffice to say, the internet and us as citizens of the internet will be the deciding factor of the 21 century.

    Consider piracy just another bomb falling on this dangerous world we call home.

    EDIT- HOTU has a policy note about Abandonware, it is illegal, but they host the site in hope that the developer will ask them to take the link down, in turn, releasing the game from their own name once again.
    Last edited by Bank; 08-01-2006, 06:13 AM.
    "It's called being awesome, maybe you should try it." -Bank

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    • #3
      I'm always confused by this subject, it's such a giant gray area. You have to define when stealing is stealing.

      Is it stealing when a friend gives me his Quake CD?
      Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet?
      Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet when I own the CD?
      Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet if I LOST my CD? I had owned it at one time, but then I lost it. If I can't find it and did infact own it, isn't this "legal"?
      Is it stealing to break into a store grab a Quake CD and run out?

      I can only say yes to the last one being truely stealing.
      "It may disturb you. It scares the willies out of me. " -Slartibartfast

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      • #4
        Originally posted by IEEE 802.11
        I'm always confused by this subject, it's such a giant gray area. You have to define when stealing is stealing.

        Is it stealing when a friend gives me his Quake CD?
        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet?
        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet when I own the CD?
        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet if I LOST my CD? I had owned it at one time, but then I lost it. If I can't find it and did infact own it, isn't this "legal"?
        Is it stealing to break into a store grab a Quake CD and run out?

        I can only say yes to the last one being truely stealing.
        I'd be a bit less lenient.


        Is it stealing when a friend gives me his Quake CD?
        No, that is a legal transaction like anything else.

        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet?
        YES, because you are using a product that you do not own/did not pay for. It's not being "given" to you, as it is available to a vast quantity of people. If I burn a copy of a copywritten CD and make a thousand other copies in order to give them to a mass audience, that is most definitely illegal.

        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet when I own the CD?
        No it is not, because you have paid for the product. This is a touchy matter because virtual goods are infinately reproducable at no cost, unlike a real item. If you own a TV, you cannot just go to the store and take another TV just because you bought one.

        Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet if I LOST my CD? I had owned it at one time, but then I lost it. If I can't find it and did infact own it, isn't this "legal"?
        That is legal, because much like the above, you did buy the merchandise at one point, and are simply retrieving data that you lost. This again is a touchy matter because it concerns virtual goods.

        Is it stealing to break into a store grab a Quake CD and run out?
        Sure is, especially if you can still find a Quake CD in a store!
        "It's called being awesome, maybe you should try it." -Bank

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Bank
          Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet when I own the CD?
          No it is not, because you have paid for the product. This is a touchy matter because virtual goods are infinately reproducable at no cost, unlike a real item. If you own a TV, you cannot just go to the store and take another TV just because you bought one.
          I would like to add that most people do not read the licensing agreement when they install a progaram. Too may people only click next, next next to finally get the program installed.

          I am one of those people that take time to read what permissions I'm giving that company when installing their product. You'd be surprised on what permissions your giving. Anyhow, point being that the licensing agreement will sometimes have a clause stating if you can or cannot have a backup or copy of that product.


          Originally posted by Bank
          Is it stealing when I download Quake off the internet if I LOST my CD? I had owned it at one time, but then I lost it. If I can't find it and did infact own it, isn't this "legal"?
          T
          hat is legal, because much like the above, you did buy the merchandise at one point, and are simply retrieving data that you lost.

          This again is a touchy matter because it concerns virtual goods.

          My question would be: Do you have proof of purchase?

          {hypothetical} You know you bought the item. If in fact that some authoritive figure came knocking at your door because they found out you downloaded Quake and you stated that you lost the cd and that you still even have the case. They would most likely ignore that and ask for proof of purchase.

          I will find you... it's only a matter of time.

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