Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Everything is a valid topic for discussion Geo. Having a bad day?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">As I said in my subsequent post, I was not really clear on what I meant by that. Of course anyone is free to discuss whatever they want. What I meant was there is no question that it is wrong. There is no reason to debate whether morally it is ok to copy software without permission and give it away when there is no question from a moral standpoint it is not ok.

Geoschmo

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

I had this dilemma myself earlier this year. I wanted to introduce a new friend to the most compelling and addictive 4x game that has been developed to date -- IMHO. Fortunately, I had both SE4 AND Gold. I never play non-Gold anymore, so I loaned that to him. He has now purchased Gold AND SE3 (he loves older games), I have my non-Gold CD back, and I was (hypothetically) legal the entire time having long ago uninstalled non-Gold. Certainly not applicable in all situations, but it was a simple and elegant solution for me. I work in IT and spent MONTHS getting the small firm I previously worked for completely legal,license- wise a couple of years back.

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

Again, everything is open to discussion. Your view is not necessarily the view of everyone else on the planet, you know.

Remember, morality is relative.

[ July 11, 2003, 19:14: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, legality is relative. Morality is absolute. If morality is not absolute it is not morality at all, it's just opinion.

And again I didn't say you couldn't discuss it. But you can talk about it all you want and it won't change what's right and wrong.

Geoschmo

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

On a sub-set of the issue: EULAs can go ! me as far as I'm concered. It says I can only have it on one computer at once? Too frigging bad. I only -use- one at a time, and no one else uses my laptop, so that's a reasonable use.

My opinion is that true piracy (copying a game you would buy, then NOT buying it) is bad. ROMs, burning copies, transfering to other media- all stuff the companies often try to stop- isn't. Why should Nintendo care if I play Earthbound on my PC instead of my SNES? I own the cartridge and the system anyway.

Same with music CDs. If I can't burn, I don't buy, because all my music is in MP3 form in playlists. Mostly because most of it is (legally) free downloaded anyway.

Most of the "piracy prevention software" out there does anything but. It just impedes the legal user- Morrowind's, for example, was hacked before the game was released, and it cuts the framerate by 10-15 FPS for most people. Or Windows XP's activation; that was broken too.

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

No, Geo, morality is indeed relative. Different cultures view things differently. The values judged are the same, but the (moral) judgement is not the same. Is it wrong to sacrifice 1000+ prisoners of war when dedicating a new temple? Not if you are an Aztec! This is an extreme example, but it illustrates my point, which is valid on all moral issues, no matter how minor.

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

OK, now I understand why some of you believe such a move would be wrong. I'd say Slynky's post was the clearest. Even if you cover all the 'nots' - you're not making a profit, you're not making a permanent copy, you're not harming the company's profit or potential profit - it's still wrong, because you accepted the EULA when you got your copy and you're not abiding by it. In other words, you had an agreement with the software company, which you have broken without their consent.

That being said, there are some things we take for granted. One of them is that EULAs are immutable and non-negotiable. Now if a user comes up with a use for the software which ultimately benefits the company, he should get in touch with them (assuming they're the kind of company that listens to its customers). Who knows, someday someone might invent a license model that is less restrictive without increasing the risk of piracy.

Edit : I agree with Fyron, morality is relative and culture-dependent. The world is working towards having a unified moral code - probably that of the West - but we are not there yet.

Here's a well-known example : Suicide in modern society -> immoral and cowardly. Suicide in feudal Japan -> honorable.

[ July 11, 2003, 19:43: Message edited by: Erax ]

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

EULAs are not actually legally enforceable. You can make as many copies of any CD as you want. As long as you do not distribute the copies, it is 100% legal, as they are backup copies. If you really want, you can go make 150000 copies of your Windows CD. As long as you keep every Last one, Microsoft can not do anything to you.

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It is called the GNU public use liscense, used with open-source software packages. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Philosophical Quandry: Piracy
 

So Fyron, why even bother asking the question? What does it matter whether anyone here thinks it's ok if you burn a copy of Se4 and give it away. Since the Aztecs killed people without giving it a second thought you have permission to do whatever you want. Why stop at piracy. Why not get a gun go steal a copy from someone else. It will save you the trouble of copying it.

You can do whatever you want and no one can say you are wrong for it because the Aztecs killed people. With no moral absoltues you can do absolutly whatever you want.