RE: Thoughts on torrent sites
October 3, 2014 at 6:14 am
(This post was last modified: October 3, 2014 at 6:33 am by Napoléon.)
(October 2, 2014 at 7:33 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: While I agree with the premise, Napo, I think you've oversimplified things.
Not really. Theft is a whole other ball game to piracy. They're two different things. The concept of stealing something and leaving someone without the original purchased product is way different to creating multiple copies of the purchased product.
Quote:If I spend x number of hours programming a game, say, and I put it up for sale on a site like Amazon, say, and Joe Schmo comes and buys it, but puts it up on Pirate Bay, and Joe Blow comes and downloads the tracker, that person is not stealing the game exactly, but he is stealing the profits from me, as he would have had to pay for my game were it not for the torrent service.
This is exactly what all the anti-piracy campaigns would have you believe. That people pirating are causing companies to lose out on sales. The simple fact is, it's total bollocks. When the RIAA was trying to take down Limewire, they estimated that $75 trillion dollars was 'lost' as a direct result of people using the service. How can that be? There's not even $75 trillion dollars in circulation in the entire world. How on earth then, does this equate to lost sales? Answer? There are no lost sales. It's a total myth. You can't comment on whether or not someone would otherwise purchase a product just because he's pirated it. In fact, there's been a few studies to show that piracy in some instances actually aids sales. Minecraft has been one of the most pirated video games ever, yet even the guy who created it acknowledges it probably wouldn't have been as successful without people pirating it. I pirated Minecraft, I probably wouldn't of ever played it otherwise. But since I pirated it I've bought it both for PC and PS3. That's 2 sales they've got as a direct result of piracy.
So in essence, ironically, it isn't as black and white as you make it out to be either. Piracy isn't only negative.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2...not-theft/
Article on Minecraft's Notch if you're interested.
Quote:If I make a product, put it up for sale, and someone takes it without paying for it, I think that's stealing, no matter how big a company I work for.
Who's oversimplifying here? You? Or me?
Taking a product implies something is lost in the process. You're transferring it from one person's ownership to another. However, with piracy, there is no loss. The original product remains in tact and in the hands of the guy who originally bought it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here touting the pro-piracy banner. I'm not going to ignore the fact that piracy in many cases is detrimental. But in many other cases it's not. And in general, it's far less of a 'crime' than people make it out to be. In fact, I really don't think it should be called a crime, but that's just my personal stance.
From a legal standpoint, ofcourse piracy is "stealing". But not all laws make sense, and they're always open to change. I'm not the only person who thinks the piracy laws in much of the world are retarded.
