rumor has it id just removed Denuvo DRM from Doom (2016)

[alexyy]

10 hours ago, zMeul said:

piracy is not theft

 

distribution of a game is a copy of a copy

When people claim piracy is as serious as theft it makes me cringe so hard.

[AlTech]

8 minutes ago, alexyy said:

When people claim piracy is as serious as theft it makes me cringe so hard.

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

[Misanthrope]

11 hours ago, bgibbz said:

That is very flawed logic. If you dont want to pay for the game, dont get it! I for one know many people who would have bought a particular game, but instead chose to pirate. If you wanted a coke, you wouldnt just walk in to a store and steal it. You would either buy it or live with not having it. Piracy is no different from theft. 

No the logic is not "flawed". The word that you're looking for is counter-intuitive mostly because you're incorrectly equating software piracy to theft when it's a lot closer to counterfeiting: the original product is not removed from the owner an exact copy is made.

 

So since we established pirating a game doesn't removes a legit copy from a store then you cannot quantify each illegal download as a lost sale (something all publishers try to equate but it's as false as the Wage gap spewed by modern Feminists) because while one might prevent the other it does not definitively prevents the other like theft of physical products does. 

 

You could make the argument that there is no direct correlation between one's ability to pirate and one's ability to pay for an actual copy, but the correlation would not equal causation. There's simply too much nuance missing from this positions, too many variables that are not being considered at all.

 

All we can say is that piracy has never been consistently shown to diminish sales otherwise. That's the only fact that we know and that fact is accurate. Neither or the other false equivalencies (1.- Piracy = Theft and 2.- Pirates couldn't buy new products anyway) are irrelevant and completely unsupported by the available data which is a much more broad and simple conclusion: No correlation between increased piracy and decreased sales.

[jaggysnake57]

1 hour ago, laminutederire said:

Don't try to justify an absurd position. On a legal point of view it is theft. Otherwise we'd rob bank saying we weren't in it for the money, just to know how it was to have a million dollars in our bag, while still not be put in jail. No matter what the intent is, it is theft.

What you can question could however be: is it moral to do so? On that question,  it will never be moral, at least in Kant's meaning, since having your product stolen from you is not something you'd wish for. That leaves arguing that piracy is amoral. For it to be amoral, I'd argue that it is not like someone stealing food because they can't afford it and absolutely need it and couldn't do otherwise. Because in the case of games, it isn't essential for ones survival or anything to have played a particular game. Therefore they choose to go against the morality, so they stand in immorality, which they'd have to then assume.

1 keyboard warrior, come down of you moral high horse.....people like you piss me off.

2 you can not compare a physical item to a digital item in terms of theft. there 2 different things you take a pysical item and the owner has lost something, you copy a game that you would not purchase if you could not get it pirated and the owner has lost nothing. simple. as for the moral argument i have no problem ripping off companies that act like dicks

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, laminutederire said:

Don't try to justify an absurd position. On a legal point of view it is theft.

No, that's factually and verifiable incorrect: Different crime, different legal definition, different punishment. It's the exact opposite: Not theft at all. That's like saying "manslaughter is the same as murder!" No it is not: we go through great trouble to distinguish between the two for a reason, that reason being that they're actually not the same thing at all.

 

Make all the moralist arguments you want I won't disagree with those, but this "legal point of view" point it's completely false.

[Master Disaster]

I was having a debate with my inner monologue about whether this thread has descended into usual piracy/theft wars.....

 

I lost, my brain won.

 

Anyway apparently Denuvo stipulate in the contract that they'll protect the product for 3 months guaranteed and if its cracked before the 3 months is up the studio doesn't have to pay and can patch denuvo out of the product. Doom was cracked before the 3 months so Bethesda can patch it out and not pay for it.

[Misanthrope]

52 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

There is no such thing as a virtual store shelf. There is a store that sells key numbers which are generated by the publisher and they can be generated endlessly with the only limit being the length of the alfanumeric sequence itself which I'm pretty sure with the usual 16 digits with letters and numbers can create more copies than the number of atoms in the entire fucking universe.

 

The factors that needs to be looked at is people who pirate, people who buy and what's the overlap between those 2 studying their purchasing habits, socio-economical status, average income, tons of factors.

 

There is no such comprehensible study available for us today AFAIK so both the premises of "Pirates can't afford games anyway" and "Piracy reduces sales" are false. Both sides are wrong and are stating conclusions without supporting evidence.

[jaggysnake57]

9 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I was having a debate with my inner monologue about whether this thread has descended into usual piracy/theft wars.....

 

I lost, my brain won.

 

Anyway apparently Denuvo stipulate in the contract that they'll protect the product for 3 months guaranteed and if its cracked before the 3 months is up the studio doesn't have to pay and can patch denuvo out of the product. Doom was cracked before the 3 months so Bethesda can patch it out and not pay for it.

theres been a couple of denuvo games cracked before 3 months im sure of it

 

[Misanthrope]

9 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I was having a debate with my inner monologue about whether this thread has descended into usual piracy/theft wars.....

 

I lost, my brain won.

 

Anyway apparently Denuvo stipulate in the contract that they'll protect the product for 3 months guaranteed and if its cracked before the 3 months is up the studio doesn't have to pay and can patch denuvo out of the product. Doom was cracked before the 3 months so Bethesda can patch it out and not pay for it.

Come to think of it while a publisher might force the devs to put it in, a rogue dev could probably just crack it himself, discreetly leak it and get out of the contract that way.

 

Something to think about.

[VerticalDiscussions]

So they can get Doom 2016 now for free?

 

Easily?

[XenosTech]

I'm not even shame to say this... Any game I want to buy I'll 9/10 times pirate it first... Not going to spend all of that money in a game then I can't refund it because I spent over 2 hours playing... Fuck that.. a $60 usd game cost me $130 where I live, if I'm shelling out that kind of money for a single game I have to be enjoying this game. Shit don't even talk about the god damn dlc's that's what drive people to pirate games also. (Maybe one day we'll go back to the good old days when you got the whole game at launch and not a "base" that requires me to buy fucking dlc's to get the full experience)

[alexyy]

1 hour ago, AluminiumTech said:

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

I'll condone piracy any day of the week if owning it legally is impossible or just harder than it should be.

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, jaggysnake57 said:

 

Are you saying morality isn't worth the effort to think about it, making people like me obnoxious because we want an ideal in our life?

(By the way, I'm a warrior yes, but I tend to fight for my values

everywhere, so keyboard warrior isn't accurate)

They lose the value you consume. If it isn't worth anything, you wouldn't consume it.

It's like exactly like a physical product in the sense that it is equivalent to a service, which in economics can be seen as a product,  whether it is physical or not. That product has a value, and someone getting without paying is stealing that value from the content creator.

If they act like dicks, do like people like me, don't buy their products and don't pirate them. Just ignore them, they'll die on their own.

When you think about it, it's a vicious circle, you think they're ripping people off so you pirate their software, making them know they have to rip off even more people who actually pay in order to sustain themselves and so on. The more people in general will pay, the less expensive it'll get for everyone.

 

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

 

Well okay,  I admit that legally it may be gray since it is not technically a theft while still sharing every principle of it which is to take away a value from its rightful owner in a non consenting way. My bad for that, thank you for pointing it out.

[sof006]

12 hours ago, zMeul said:

why do you think people take to G2A, Kinguin for reduced price keys? because of the $ problem

 

gray market is a far bigger problem that actually hurts the publisher / developer

 

---

 

was it PC Gamer that did a survey few months back on the "piracy" issue?!?

what they found is "piracy" is predominant in low income regions and way less spread in rich ones - but there's one common reason people "pirate" ... price

This is the point where I agree with you.

[Monte_Carlo]

1 hour ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

So they can get Doom 2016 now for free?

 

Easily?

 

Yes.  Christmas is around the corner.  Shouldn't be too wild of a stocking stuffer.  

 

As for piracy.  Not worth the potential repercussions.  I just wait around for a price drop/sale to happen. 

[Unhelpful]

13 hours ago, Mark17 said:

Why should you encourage it is very difficult for developers to keep creating stuff if there sales drop because of piracy. I want them to keep making good games so I absolutely don't encourage it. 

 @zMeul is the resident low-tier troll who isn't obvious enough at trolling to actually be banned. Or he's just dumb as hell.

[suicidalfranco]

2 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

how is something that someone decided to buy and make a copy off now considered virtual store shelf?

gotta love the mental gymnastics going on here

[dragosudeki]

2 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

There is no such thing as a virtual store shelf. There is a store that sells key numbers which are generated by the publisher and they can be generated endlessly with the only limit being the length of the alfanumeric sequence itself which I'm pretty sure with the usual 16 digits with letters and numbers can create more copies than the number of atoms in the entire fucking universe.

 

The factors that needs to be looked at is people who pirate, people who buy and what's the overlap between those 2 studying their purchasing habits, socio-economical status, average income, tons of factors.

 

There is no such comprehensible study available for us today AFAIK so both the premises of "Pirates can't afford games anyway" and "Piracy reduces sales" are false. Both sides are wrong and are stating conclusions without supporting evidence.

Just to add to your points, I am one who pirates games that have not got me interested enough to buy, but interested enough to want to check it out. There's been many occasions where I have bought the said pirated game afterwards because it I found out I would enjoy it (whether it be right away or after waiting for a better sale or more content). If I spend a lot of time playing a pirated game, I almost always just buy the games right away.

Maybe if there was an actual proper refunding for games, then I would be more into buying the game to try it out (Steam's refund policy is not that great and doesn't apply to keys bought on other sites like GMG, HumbleBundle, etc.). Physical products you can usually return after a month or week (does not track usage, unless its visible you broke it in which warranty may just kick in instead) if you don't like it, but digital games do not have the same system.

[Bouzoo]

So,  Doom on GOG by any chance? I'll be buying it on holiday sale but if GOG has it... 

[Murdoch]

11 hours ago, laminutederire said:

Don't try to justify an absurd position. On a legal point of view it is theft. Otherwise we'd rob bank saying we weren't in it for the money, just to know how it was to have a million dollars in our bag, while still not be put in jail. No matter what the intent is, it is theft.

 

 

I don't think this has been pointed out in blatant terms yet...

 

In a legal sense it's not defined as theft, it's defined as copyright infringement.

 

 

[laminutederire]

12 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

In moral sense it is theft, since copyright infringement is the equivalent of theft for intellectual property, and it is the same as patent infringement in a way. Meaning that it's okay to Crack a game but never play it on a cracked version, because if you do you violate the right of exploitation. Intellectual property has been booming because it has become important to have laws for it since recently. There was a time, if you stole people ideas, it eventually came out and you lost all credibility. That's why some mathematician had a bad reputation back in the days. Then we invented patents to let people exploit an idea while still assuring the inventor was credited and duly compensated. Finally we invented copyrights, because entertainment exploitation is simply consuming and detaining said entertainment, and we had to use those so that people stop stealing other people creative ideas. In conclusion, it is semantically different, but legally it is just the continuation because people are ass holes and don't want to respect other people ideas for what they're worth. 

 

[Misanthrope]

5 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

In moral sense it is theft, since copyright infringement is the equivalent of theft for intellectual property, and it is the same as patent infringement in a way. Meaning that it's okay to Crack a game but never play it on a cracked version, because if you do you violate the right of exploitation. Intellectual property has been booming because it has become important to have laws for it since recently. There was a time, if you stole people ideas, it eventually came out and you lost all credibility. That's why some mathematician had a bad reputation back in the days. Then we invented patents to let people exploit an idea while still assuring the inventor was credited and duly compensated. Finally we invented copyrights, because entertainment exploitation is simply consuming and detaining said entertainment, and we had to use those so that people stop stealing other people creative ideas. In conclusion, it is semantically different, but legally it is just the continuation because people are ass holes and don't want to respect other people ideas for what they're worth. 

 

1) You have someone who steals an object from his rightful owner and the rightful owner now is without his property

2) You have someone that copies a product from a store and does not pay the store or manufacturer.

 

Are they both morally wrong? I'd say so. Are they morally equivalent? No: 1) is simply more damaging. For this to work at all you need to look at groups that procure and release the pirated copies. And even then they're not morally comparable to actual pirates because their counterfeiting doesn't usually nets them any monetary gain whatsoever. They facilitate the circumvention of copyrighted material so others can use it (and even potentially sell it) but they very rarely sell it themselves.

 

Most people in the western world actually don't see a real impact from "piracy" of games simply because there's no profit involved. You have to come to places like here in Mexico or China where there's people actually selling counterfeit copies of software for actual money to say "Ok THAT is morally comparable to theft" and I would even say it's worst than theft since it can potentially damage a brand and their sales a lot more than going through the trouble of stealing a product and reselling it.

 

Just because there's things that are all morally reprehensible doesn't means they're equally as morally reprehensible in any level because of the damage they do and because of the intent of the person. We don't just say "You're a killer" we say

 

1) You're a vehicular manslaughterer

2) You're a man slaughtered

3) You're guilty of murder in the second degree

4) You're guilty of murder in the first degree.

 

We recognize there's different degrees of culpability and intent behind each of this 4 distinctly different crimes and we punish accordingly with different sentences. Recognizing that piracy isn't theft, even morally speaking, is also important.

We have a set of 

[NovusBal]

Owh boy an opinionated topic, i'm sure the comments will be nice and civil

 

*reads up*

 

Nevermind!

 

Although, my own opinion is as follows, if I think I want a game I pirate it, if I enjoyed it I'll buy it, it's that simple.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 12/8/2016 at 11:41 AM, laminutederire said:

Don't try to justify an absurd position. On a legal point of view it is theft.

 

On 12/8/2016 at 0:41 PM, AluminiumTech said:

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

This is of course simply not true, but it has already been extensively explained in this thread so many times I guess doing it one more time is pointless.

Theft = stealing a tangible product

Piracy = uploading copyright-protected material

 

On 12/8/2016 at 2:50 PM, laminutederire said:

They lose the value you consume. If it isn't worth anything, you wouldn't consume it.

It's like exactly like a physical product in the sense that it is equivalent to a service, which in economics can be seen as a product,  whether it is physical or not. That product has a value, and someone getting without paying is stealing that value from the content creator.

 

No, really, you are describing it exactly the way it isn't. That's the key difference between rival goods (the ones that, if I consume, you son't) and non-rival goods (the ones that, if I consume, you can still consume the same). And copyright protects non-rival goods, which can never be stolen the way physical goods can. A physical good and a service are different types of goods, and both can be private (rival) or public (non-rival) goods. Theft is about depriving you of your property, not about having fun for free. Enjoying value for free is not theft, and it's not part of the definition of theft. It's what we all wish was possible

And it's very simple to see why it isn't: according to your definition, we are all stealing the wheel. We are stealing algebra. We are using the vast majority of human inventions for free. Don't we enjoy using them? Doesn't Ford profit from selling cars with wheels? Why don't they pay anyone for the use of the wheel then? Are they thieves?

Obviously, we son't pay for that because there is no legal copyright established for old inventions, and even copyright-era inventions can have a finite protection. Like music or literature, that is only granted copyright for a number of years, and then anyone can create copies for free. Does it mean "theft" is ilegal for a while and then becomes legal? The answer, of course, is no: it's never theft, but it can be copyright infringement, and it's only copyright infringement for as long as the law grants a monopoly on copies.

 

It's not a different legal entity for no reason: it is a different crime because it involves a different type of good and a different type of action. It's just not the same.

 

Quote

Well okay,  I admit that legally it may be gray since it is not technically a theft while still sharing every principle of it which is to take away a value from its rightful owner in a non consenting way. My bad for that, thank you for pointing it out.

It's good to see that's cleared out  

 

3 hours ago, laminutederire said:

In moral sense it is theft, since copyright infringement is the equivalent of theft for intellectual property, and it is the same as patent infringement in a way. 

Yes, it is practically the same as patent infringement. That also means that is nothing like theft.

Importantly, copyright infringement is not the equivalent of intelectual property theft: that is plagiarism. If I upload copies of U2 songs, I'm violating their legal monopoly rights to create and distribute copies of their songs (which they may have sold to someone else). I'm not changing the intelectual property of the songs; in fact, I'm uploading them as U2 songs, and people download them because of that. Instead, if I rename all the songs and present them as mine, claiming this is my new exciting music instead of U2 songs, or even if I record slightly different versions of the same without giving any credit, and upload those, then I'm "stealing" intelectual property, or more accurately, incurring in plagiarism. As you can see, the mathematicians' example you gave is exactly an example of plagiarism, not copyright infringement. 

[RagnarokDel]

On 07/12/2016 at 8:06 PM, bgibbz said:

exactly.... if you cant afford it, sucks! Work and save up money like the rest of us!

Let's say I'm a minimum wage employee, I now have to work 3 more hours to get a AAA title game because the canadian dollar tanked. Obviously I dont do that because I wait for sales but it's still more expensive. I have pirated things to try them and then acquired them when I liked the game. Example: Fallout New Vegas, Civ6, the first Witcher.

On 08/12/2016 at 6:41 AM, AluminiumTech said:

Good Job.

 

Theft = Stealing a Tangible Product which physically exists.

 

Piracy = Stealing a digital product which is sitting on a virtual store shelf.

 

Both are bad and should not be condoned.

You shouldnt be able to copy files on your SSD. /s