It isn't. Software is subject to sales contracts like anything else. But no one is obligated to enter into such a contract: just because you want to sell me a copy of a game for $50 doesn't mean I have to get it from you, rather than from someone else who's offering it for free.
But the person who's offering it for free obviously does not have any legal distribution rights, so you're guilty of receiving stolen goods.
"It's wrong to harm people" is a general tenet of most systems of morality.
And yet, I have this feeling that illegally obtaining a work you have no right to, is conveniently not a part of this magical "morality" you refer to.
No, it's still quite clear. You're never obligated to buy a product from someone just because he really, really wants your money.
But you're not obligated to steal it either, so why do you?
You're just rephrasing what I said. You think they own a particular arrangement of toaster parts, and I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. You can't own an arrangement any more than you can own a color, or a length, or a weight. It's an attribute of a thing, not an actual thing.
Obviously you can, otherwise we wouldn't have a whole subset of laws specifying how you can and what you can do with it. But that's really irrelevent, since you didn't even address the argument.
It's not scarce; there's no justification for preventing me from using a certain arrangement of parts when it can't possibly interfere with anyone else's use of that same arrangement.
You're right about one thing: there's no justification for YOU to not steal property. We call that being selfish.
Once again, just because someone expends labor to draw up the original plans for the toaster, that doesn't mean they "own" that arrangement of parts.
Once again, it DOES, that's why there's laws for it.
Still having trouble seeing the difference between morality and legality, huh? That's a shame. Maybe when you're older you'll be able to grasp the distinction.
Still have trouble addressing arguments, being intelligent, and not being a criminal huh? Oh well, maybe that will all stop when you're dead.
Ha! No, sir, I'm not jealous, because that's what I do for a living. And amazingly enough, I don't need to sell copies in order to make a living as a developer.
You really need to break out of that fantasy world.
Yes, essentially, because they'd have no other choice. That would be the only way to get new games: paying developers to make them. And since everyone would still want new games, and still have money to spend on them, those developers would get paid.
If people today are willing to make a choice which could lead to fines or jail, I'm sure people in your fantasy world would have no problems hanging out for a few months while other people pay for the development of games you're too cheap to.
Once again, we've already established that there's nothing wrong with "interfering with the value" of another person's property, as long as you don't interfere with the actual property itself.
No, we haven't. YOU have this strange idea in your head that people care about physical property, when all they really care about is value. Reality is on a different page.
That's right (assuming you managed to obtain a copy of the book without trespassing, vandalism, theft, etc.).
Funny, I don't really see what you've lost physically by me trespassing? Because as YOU'VE established, nobody cares about anything except loss of physical property.
In that scenario, I made a big mistake when I agreed to get paid based on sales. Why would I do that, when I knew that someone could come along and distribute the book themselves?
Because there are laws there to protect you. Laws that you want to get rid of.
I know what my time is worth, and that figure has nothing to do with how many copies of my book eventually get sold; I should've demanded to get paid based on the time I spent writing, or paid a flat rate for writing the entire book.
Then you would have never had a job, because reality doesn't work like that.
From legitimate owners of the copy, from the creators, from retailers, from distributers, from all the men in the middle....still having trouble with this one I see. Quite clearly you are a self-centred little prick who is not capable of caring about other people, or even simply extending to the logical conclusion that if they continue to lose out, they won't bother, which means you lose out too. Like I said, you definitely earned the 'Me Generation' moniker, you don't need to keep proving it.
Ah, then I guess it's settled: game development is service work, and so game developers should charge for their time instead of per copy. After all, that's what everyone else does who provides a service, right? I'm so glad we were able to reach an agreement on this point!
Right, and they charge for their time by placing that time cost into a fixed value, so users who choose to take advantage of the service know exactly what they need to pay and, thanks to the CURRENT system, almost exactly what they will be getting for their dollars. It's great that you feel the same way!
But you know, I can't help but feel a little confused...I mean, not too long ago you were telling me how software developers are evil because they sell physical products (the plastic discs that magically appear with content on them) at highly inflated prices. Isn't that what you were implying when you said "you think designing games can never be profitable in itself, and the only way to make a profit is by providing an essentially worthless service that anyone can do for themselves: making and distributing copies" and "You pay a plumber for the time he spends working. He doesn't fix your pipes for free and then force you to buy an overpriced certificate so he can recoup his costs", or even "Can you think of any other market where the important service is hidden behind a curtain, and every customer who wants a piece of it is instead required to pay for something else they don't actually need?"? Of course, the easy answer to that is: name me a product, any product, in which you aren't paying for any portion of the "hidden behind a curtain" service that goes into making the product. Just one. Should be real easy, if what you say is true.
When you hire a plumber, the price you pay is based on his hourly rate. If he charges $50 an hour and he works for two hours, you owe him $100. He knows what his time is worth and charges at least enough to turn a profit no matter how long he works.
When you buy a game, you pay a fixed price. If two people buy a copy at $50 each, the developer makes $100. On the other hand, if 200 people buy a copy, the developer makes $10,000. But the developer has only done a fixed amount of labor! His costs are the same whether he sells 2 copies, 200 copies, or 2 million copies. Depending on the number of copies he sells, he might lose money, break even, or turn a profit. The price you pay per copy has no relation to the actual cost of development.
Yes that's exactly correct, that is a perfect legitimate way in which most services are different from development services. With development services, the developer (and other stakeholders) take a risk in doing all the work beforehand, without having any consumers commit to a sale. In this way, the advantages are:
-The stakeholders potentially stand to gain more to compensate for the risk they took. This is standard behaviour in any game theory.
-It encourages developers to aim to create better products to cater for the lack of pre-commitment
-In most cases, consumers know pretty much exactly what they are getting, at exactly what price
-Consumers are less likely to get stuck with shoddy work, undelivered promises, increased budget etc
The system is so advantageous that a whole set of laws was created to protect and encourage it it. In fact the only fatal flaw of such a system is people such as you: criminals. But of course you can hardly fault the system for that, since criminals will ruin pretty much any system. Even in your magical fantasy world, works can - and I guarantee you, will - be ruined by criminals. Only since you've decriminalised IP theft, there's nothing that can be done about it.
Still prepared to advocate piracy on the basis that it's ok, because surely the stakeholders are expecting the possibility of a loss, since that's just a possible result of taking such a big risk, right? Fine. Meanwhile, I'll just stand outside a casino and mug the winners, because hey, they're taking such huge risks with their money, surely they were expecting to lose it, it's not like I'm doing anything that couldn't have happened naturally anyway. And as you've so often implied, there's no moral difference between someone losing value naturally, and having it taken from them intentionally by force. Thanks for that!
Uh, because the seats smell bad and I have to smell that while I'm driving.
So? What's your physical loss? What's your loss of utility? You're not selling the car, what's your loss of value?
Please, keep up these personal insults. It's always fun to see someone thrashing around desperately after they've run out of arguments because their position is logically bankrupt.
Please, keep ignoring the arguments, dishing out insults, then acting surprised at any form of retaliation because you never really had a logical position in the first place and would rather just troll. That's why you responded to my initial argument with off-topic pro-pirate bullshit right? Please, just go back to your Facebook page and stop bothering the intelligent grown-ups.
but in the sense that the labor has been done.
But not been paid for, which is why the cost is transferred to the end product, even though that happens with EVERY product and you can't seem to grasp the oh-so-simple concept.
The developer wrote a game, uninvited, just like the lawnmower man cuts your grass without being invited.
But the developer didn't write the game for you. You just took it and benefited from it without paying for it.
You only have an obligation to pay if it was performed at your request.
No, you only have an obligation to pay if you CHOOSE to benefit from the work. News flash: that toaster was never made for you either, the manufacturer just went ahead and made it without your approval, and then they EXPECT you to pay for it if you wish to use it? The NERVE!
No, it's more like somebody has grown a field of grass, mowed it, taken care of it, brought it around to your house, and asked if you'd like to pay for it. You reject the offer, but then go back later and mug him and take the grass anyway. You've CHOSEN to benefit from the labour he put into the grass, but have refused to abide by the sales contract whereby you pay him for his effort.
No, I don't believe that, but it is pretty telling that you've chosen to make up easily-attacked beliefs and attribute them to me.
Really? So when you compare a game developer making a game and offering it for sale to anyone who wants to use it; to a guy coming around to your house, mowing your lawn, an act from which YOU, and only you, would personally benefit from; you don't see the self-righteousness in that?
Wait, what am I asking you for? That would be like asking a serial killer if they thought murder was wrong. Or, God forbid, asking a pirate why they think they are entitled to other people's work.
Not true! He still has the ability to sell that very thing. It's just that people might not want it anymore once they have a better alternative. But that's business; you can't always expect that people will want to buy products from you. Buggy whip makers also found that although they still had the capability of selling buggy whips, it became harder to find customers who wanted buggy whips once cars became available.
Right. Because there's no legal or even moral difference between people not wanting your product because it's crap or because there's a better product available, and people not wanting your product because some moron broke into your store and destroyed all your products, or stole them and started selling them for lower prices or giving them away for free.
People continue using things that have little or no economic value (old appliances, for example), because they continue to provide utility.
Right, ok. It surely can't be because it would cost them more money to buy a new product that would, for them, do exactly the same thing, and that forces them to give up some of their personal value.
They also care about physical property, as you can see from the widely differing attitudes toward theft vs. copyright infringement (most P2P traders wouldn't consider shoplifting, for example, because they consider it immoral).
Oh, you mean pirates don't consider piracy to be morally wrong? I'm shocked!
In fact, people only care about value when they're buying or selling something. That's the only time value is important.
Too true. It's a shame, then, that people are ALWAYS buying or selling something. Unless you perhaps live in one of those self-sufficient hippie communes, or a remote African tribe or something.
Close, but not quite: you've mixed up cause and effect. Lots of people do it because there's nothing really wrong with it.
Close, but...nah, you're way off. People believe there's nothing wrong with it because they do it themselves and cognitive dissonance forces them to rationalise away any logic that states otherwise. The same is true of all criminals, you're nothing special.
I guess I'm still waiting for that person to come along, then. So far you've only managed to bring insults and bluster.
The whole point of your argument is that, rather than being a moral, law-abiding citizen, you'll just keep pirating until the whole industry and legal system changes just to suit your behaviour. Where I come from, that's called that extortion.
There's also these points I forgot to address last time:
With typical service work, nothing's hidden. A plumber's time is the scarce resource in that exchange: you could buy your own pipe fittings and such, but you'd still need his expertise to make them work. And that's exactly what he sells: his labor.
False. When you pay for the plumber's labour, you're also paying for his "hidden" expenses. How else do you think a plumber pays for all the tools they use? The van they drive? The fuel for it?
It's not like that demand is just going to sit around stewing. There won't be some dystopia where a bunch of angry gamers sit around with money and no games, a bunch of angry game developers sit around with ideas and no money, and the twain never do meet because copyright isn't there to bring them together through the magic of ridiculous lawsuits.
I did in fact address how this would fail in your fantasy world, but of course I glossed over an important fact: the context of the original argument was not based on your fantasy world, but in reality. So I pose the question again: If piracy is the legitimate market competing with the CURRENT games industry, what happens to the "competition" - piracy - when it pushes the legitimate industry out of the market? How would piracy survive if it is the legitimate competition you attribute it?
Oh, oh, this one's my favourite:
Funny, it sounds like you believe there's some moral or even legal obligation to pay for those services after they've been performed, but game development is somehow, inexplicably an exception to the rule.
Wow, you must have a short memory. Remember when we were talking about contracts, up there at the top of the post? That's where the "exception" comes from.
So why is software exempt from sales contracts?
It isn't. Software is subject to sales contracts like anything else.
Wow, that just blows my mind. It's hard to believe the human mind is capable of rationalising such disturbing conflicts.
You've also ignored, several times now, the idea of people valuing VALUE rather than material items. If it is the material items they value as you contiuously suggest, why the value of digital downloads? A digital economy? Information having monetary worth? Do you seriously not realise the stupidity of your argument where you're basically saying that people don't value Value itself, but they value physical items?
And I guess you're not a fan of subscription-based gaming then, since that wouldn't work in your fantasy world.
But hey, why listen to me? I'm just a regular person who happens to be vastly morally, logically and itellectually suprior to you, who isn't biased by conflict of interest and self-preservation (ie a willingness to justify my irrational, criminal behavior). It's totally unfair of me to totally destroy your fantasy argument merely because it makes no sense, wouldn't work, and even if it did, still wouldn't account for your criminal activities in the CURRENT world. It pains me to see someone as mentally disadvantaged as yourself take on someone way out of your league. Here Dorothy, let me throw you a bone: feel free to take on something a little more generic, it shouldn't be too hard to fight an argument that can't adapt or fight back. Meanwhile, us intellectual-like adults will be waiting right here for you to grow the fuck up and hopefully eventually become a moral, productive member of society. Studies suggest this may happen around about when you hit puberty.
