Pretty much everyone pirates in some way, watching movies uploaded to YouTube, downloading roms for old games, scanlations of manga, downloading entire games. Everyone knows its a crime, but people of all communities have their bunch who try to justify it in some way. Many of these people have double standards too.
A major one in gaming is the piracy of indie games. While I don’t care if someone pirates a game by EA, Sony, or some other multi-million dollar company, my opinion changes completely if someone pirates an indie game, which I liken to knocking over a kid’s lemonade stand. The piracy issue of indie games is especially a problem in Japan, as such games have a very limited run, sometimes only at a single convention, but you get people who think that it’s “okay” to pirate doujin games as they are called in Japan for some bizarre reason.
A citable example of a double standard, a site dedicated to discussion of Doujin games has zero problem having a stickied thread with dozens of direct-download independantly-made games, sometimes on the same day or the day after they’re released, has rules against commercial titles and other material, which in the words of the site administrator “is to prevent potential issues the site could encounter legally as well as to keep our members out of trouble”. Nevermind that piracy is illegal in most first-world countries and carries very hefty penalties.
Even though these games will likely never see western shores due to content, copyright issues (many doujin games are based on pre-existing IPs, such as Battle Moon Wars being based on Type-Moon, and the Touhou fangames based on the series created by ZUN), or the developers simply not caring, it hardly justifies pirating the content. A similar thought process is held by those who scan and translate entire volumes of manga or subtitle entire series’ or movies from Japan.
On other forums, if you mention pirating Assassin’s Creed, nobody will lift an eyebrow. Pirate Terraria, Minecraft, or any other indie game? The entire forumbase will turn it into a one-sided flamewar while dispatching regular lynch mobs to your house. At the same time these same sites give kudos to The Pirate Bay for circumventing a recent anti-piracy measure by Belgium or showing great support when they are pulled into courts.
In the end, people who pirate are stealing, but there are many reasons people do pirate and try to justify. Censorship of content in their country, excessive DRM, one region getting better features and editions than their own, region locking, or the game getting a deliberately limited run are all reasons that I’ve heard. The worst part is, games honestly aren’t that expensive for the number of hours you can get out of some of them. I still play games I bought ten years ago. DRM seems to be a rather big reason for people to pirate when it causes them problems, but when that happens, I can’t really blame them.
Chris Hernandez
DRM justifies a crack not piracy in my opinion.
Also, I would justify piracy by the logic that all mediums are oversaturated with quality content and even the richest person would not have enough time to enjoy them all, so sure companies go out of business and lose their jobs but at least it will force the few remaining companies to make AAAA quality games or nothing, either way I’m happy.
Anon
If something is completely unavailable in America, it’s not really pirating to get a copy/crack of it, especially things like the solo-print run game you mentioned. My standard has always been “If I can’t buy it, get it some other way”. I usually try to buy things, but when I can’t track something down to give the legitimate person money for it, I feel no harm in just simply downloading it. Games that are no longer for sale/in print fall into that category, especially if the company has gone under completely.
Adam
Please, copying is not stealing. This is why we have the word piracy instead of theft. Use some common sense.
An illegal copy of a game you can’t buy in your country is not money lost for the developer, it’s free publicity.
We have different words for piracy and theft since it’s different things. While theft always mean that you will lose something, it’s not the same for homemade copies. A free copy of something you wouldn’t buy isn’t a loss for the developer.
Is it piracy to tape something of the radio? Is it piracy to tape something from TV and fast forward the commercials?
This is not a black or white issue.
Rian Quenlin
What about when you buy a pirated copy from someone, taking money out of both the developer and retailer pockets and putting it into the pocket of someone making a very tidy profit because of the extremely low cost of buying CDs?
Chris Hernandez
I think piracy is synonymous with theft, as pirates of antiquity are thieves and that is where the term piracy comes from.
selling a pirated game is the worst and most pirate like thing to do. But downloading a game that is not attainable by any other method is perfectly acceptable in my books.
Also, EB Games are borderline thieves, or any other used game retailer. But there will always be budget conscious consumers.
Cory
This is actually the legal standard, as well, at least in the US. If it can’t be purchased in your market, it isn’t piracy.
Rian Quenlin
Really? That’s a rather bold claim, got a citation on that?
76
Viacom which is CBS which owns/ed cnet and downloads.com where the exclusive distributors of file sharing software and they promoted piracy by paying there employees to do reviews on the apps and advising ppl where and how to obtain pirated software… as well as how to remove DRM.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc