Confession...

[Yuhaney]

I don't really agree with pirating indie games

Personally, I don't agree on pirating any games / programs / music / movies / or any other copyrighted stuff.

Crime is a crime. No matter if you steal from big company such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft or, in this case, Frictional Games, by pirating their product. Same thing is that you walk into your favourite store and put the same product into your pocket and walk away like nothing happened.

[Makar40]

I must admit as well that I pirate games. That being said, the great majority of games that I do this to are old ones, like Gabriel Knight, System Shock 1 and 2. Also the fact is, most of those games I owned at one point or another heh.

Now, to be fair there is really no excuse for piracy. Yes the majority of games that are released now are junk, but that doesnt change the fact that piracy is wrong. Telling ourselves that we pirate because most games are junk just helps us sleep better at night.

I will admit here and now....I pirated Amnesia. Then 1 day later, following my creed that "if the game is good, I will buy it", I bought it. And a worthy buy it was!

I will say, here in public, that I lol at people getting scared at movies, games, ect. Then I got to the part of Amnesia where I had to run from those water lurker things. Well, I just got past it, and had to save and exit to let the tension release. What a gem this game is and worth every damn legal penny! Frictional Games......you beat this pirate.

[iTIMMEH]

I don't really agree with pirating indie games

Personally, I don't agree on pirating any games / programs / music / movies / or any other copyrighted stuff.

Crime is a crime. No matter if you steal from big company such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft or, in this case, Frictional Games, by pirating their product. Same thing is that you walk into your favourite store and put the same product into your pocket and walk away like nothing happened.

Nope, illegal downloading is not analogous to walking into a shop and taking something without paying. Duplication is not theft.

If I go into a retailer with £30 and buy a game costing £30 and then take another game that looked interesting, the retailer has lost a physical product he could have sold. I have taken that item from circulation and he now can not sell it to someone else. This is theft, stealing, whatever you call it.

If I go to a digital distributor with £30 and buy a game, leaving me with £0 and then download another game illegally from elsewhere instead of buying it, the same number of products remain in circulation and I had no money to pay for it. Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft.

I do not condone piracy but if it is going to be addressed it needs to be done sensibly, and not by misrepresenting the facts. Inaccurate comparisons aren't going make anyone sit up and listen.

[Zanderat]

I don't really agree with pirating indie games

Personally, I don't agree on pirating any games / programs / music / movies / or any other copyrighted stuff.

Crime is a crime. No matter if you steal from big company such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft or, in this case, Frictional Games, by pirating their product. Same thing is that you walk into your favourite store and put the same product into your pocket and walk away like nothing happened.

Nope, illegal downloading is not analogous to walking into a shop and taking something without paying. Duplication is not theft.

If I go into a retailer with £30 and buy a game costing £30 and then take another game that looked interesting, the retailer has lost a physical product he could have sold. I have taken that item from circulation and he now can not sell it to someone else. This is theft, stealing, whatever you call it.

If I go to a digital distributor with £30 and buy a game, leaving me with £0 and then download another game illegally from elsewhere instead of buying it, the same number of products remain in circulation and I had no money to pay for it. Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft.

I do not condone piracy but if it is going to be addressed it needs to be done sensibly, and not by misrepresenting the facts. Inaccurate comparisons aren't going make anyone sit up and listen.

So how many games have YOU pirated? What a load of rationalization...........

Theft is theft.

[Sexbad]

I don't really agree with pirating indie games

Personally, I don't agree on pirating any games / programs / music / movies / or any other copyrighted stuff.

Crime is a crime. No matter if you steal from big company such as EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft or, in this case, Frictional Games, by pirating their product. Same thing is that you walk into your favourite store and put the same product into your pocket and walk away like nothing happened.

Nope, illegal downloading is not analogous to walking into a shop and taking something without paying. Duplication is not theft.

If I go into a retailer with £30 and buy a game costing £30 and then take another game that looked interesting, the retailer has lost a physical product he could have sold. I have taken that item from circulation and he now can not sell it to someone else. This is theft, stealing, whatever you call it.

If I go to a digital distributor with £30 and buy a game, leaving me with £0 and then download another game illegally from elsewhere instead of buying it, the same number of products remain in circulation and I had no money to pay for it. Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft.

I do not condone piracy but if it is going to be addressed it needs to be done sensibly, and not by misrepresenting the facts. Inaccurate comparisons aren't going make anyone sit up and listen.

By stealing a game digitally, you're right that a company is not losing anything, but they're not gaining anything either. If it's a good game then they deserve the money. Of course by playing and liking it you're not taking away from what they already have, but you definitely taking away financial potential.

[theakrab]

If I go to a digital distributor with £30 and buy a game, leaving me with £0 and then download another game illegally from elsewhere instead of buying it, the same number of products remain in circulation and I had no money to pay for it. Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft.

By that logic, one person could buy a game and get pirated copies for everyone else and nobody will be deprived of anything. Sounds silly doesn't it? That's because it is.
While you are right about not stealing any physical copies, you are in fact stealing by pirating. You're not stealing anything that was made in a factory, granted. But you ARE stealing many hours of hard work from people who have worked towards making a game. Imagine if everyone that worked towards making this game had to split those £30. This merry wonderland world you live in just doesn't exist. If it did, pirating wouldn't be portrayed as a problem or a crime.

[tacc]

Theft is theft.

Yep. And this is not theft. You can make up laws as much as you like but don't think they are in effect.

If you discuss anything anywhere then you should at least get your facts right.

In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft

You don't take it, you copy it. So it simply can't be theft no matter how often you repeat it.

Little question:
If you end up in a court, which is very unlikely, you will be charged with:
a, Theft
b, Copyright infringement

And guess what will earn you the harder punishment.

[iTIMMEH]

By that logic, one person could buy a game and get pirated copies for everyone else and nobody will be deprived of anything. Sounds silly doesn't it? That's because it is.

No that is not the same because you're distributing it free of charge to people who could have bought it. Which is, as someone else said, lost financial potential. There is no lost potential in my download because I had no more money to give.

Gamasutra has an article from 2008 where a casual games developer discusses piracy. You can read it here. That's accurate information, straight from the horses' mouth.

Here's an excerpt:

As we believe that we are decreasing the number of pirates downloading the game with our DRM fixes, combining the increased sales number together with the decreased downloads, we find 1 additional sale for every 1,000 less pirated downloads. Put another way, for every 1,000 pirated copies we eliminated, we created 1 additional sale.

True, those sales are important to an indie but it is a tiny percentage of downloaders. Piracy is not, on the whole, responsible for sinking developers.

And to the person that suggested I'm rationalising my behaviour: every game I play, I paid for. As I said, I don't condone piracy but if you're going to talk about it at least be realistic.

[Jinix]

"Quote" Nobody has been deprived of anything. This is not theft. "Unquote''
"Quote" You don't take it, you copy it. So it simply can't be theft no matter how often you repeat it. "Unquote''

The creators of the software have had their hard earned work taken without compensation so a bunch of thieves can play it for free? I don't see how it's NOT theft.

[iTIMMEH]

The creators of the software have had their hard earned work taken without compensation so a bunch of thieves can play it for free? I don't see how it's NOT theft.

Their work hasn't been 'taken', it has been duplicated. That isn't theft, it's copyright infringement. That doesn't make it any more palatable but piracy is not theft. The entertainment industry calls it 'theft' because it is more evocative and an easier concept to grasp but if they prosecute you, it will be using copyright law.