Illicit Downloaders Repent with Piracy Payback

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V8VENOM

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Yeah it's funny reading about pirates -- and Tom's is HUGE source of those pirates/theives -- lets be realistic, you ARE stealing.

Give money to kids in Africa -- is somehow connected to stealing software?? And why can't one do both?

That said, I agree that this "donation" web site sounds pretty "religious" sorta like a Catholic going to confession -- all is forgiven and lets go do it again?! But there again if someone is religious, they're obviously pretty confused about life anyway.

And who exactly are "corporate scumbags"? Are you refering to software engineers that spend 12-14hrs/day cranking out code, designing graphics, and testing/debugging, so as to provide some entertainment? Are these hard working folks the ones you consider "scumbags" -- maybe you need to look into the mirror to find the real scumbag.

And Tom's does NOTHING (yet) to folks that admit to it publically -- just wait to the lawyers start looking at Tom's site more closely.
 

maigo

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[citation][nom]kingeater[/nom]Why does this have the same feeling and definition so common with buying carbon credits? Hmmmm......[/citation]
more like buying carbon credits when your car wont pass emissions, but you keep driving illegaly
 

descendency

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[citation][nom]V8VENOM[/nom]And Tom's does NOTHING (yet) to folks that admit to it publically -- just wait to the lawyers start looking at Tom's site more closely.[/citation]
I'm only going to comment on this part, because the rest of it is purely ignorant.

If you think this is such an atrocity, why not call those lawyers and direct them this way. It's because you are just as brainless as the idiots who go on stage and talk about how kids in Africa are dying because we don't give enough money.

Have you ever seen the UN reports on where the money goes that you give to charities that are going to "help kids in Africa"? Straight into the dictators hands that are raping them in the first place.

Software piracy and stealing clothes are obviously different. Clothes can't be duplicated without additional resources consumed. Software can easily be duplicated without much effort and without any loss to the company (if you weren't going to buy it anyways). The reason the distinction is important is not that it justifies the act but that it shows that the business model is broken. They need to figure out a better way to make money.

I'll let you know as a student in software engineering who receives quite a large amount of free software from Microsoft and others, I will likely be a loyal customer for life, however as a future programmer, I hope they fix their broken business model so they can afford to pay me the $150-200+ dollars an hour I will be making.

And yes, these companies are doing immoral things. Have you ever heard that some portions of Windows was created with pirated software? Or how when Real DRM servers crashed, all of their clients lost their music? Or any number of other companies misbehaving. You don't own what you pay for, so until they start selling you what you pay for, I don't take that much issue with people pirating their software. I say this even though I've written well over 400,000 lines of code.
 

one-shot

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[citation][nom]thackstonns[/nom]No the correct analagy is if he built a copy of someones tv. only to find out that the exact copy didnt work, So he went out and bought one. So yeah as far as I am conserned its fair. and you are ridiculous. Piracy is not the same as stealing. When will people realize that.[/citation]

He didn't make the game, he found a game online and couldn't crack it. That does not equal making or building a game. If you try and commit a crime by taking someone's goods, regardless of if it worked, a crime was still committed.

A pirate is one who steals. Somalian Pirates, yes, they steal. I actually found a definition for you to help clear things up.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pirate

pirate (plural pirates)
1. A criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.

With that definition, we can safely assume that pirating does indeed equate to steal, unless the pirates plan on giving it back. I don't thing that is likely. I'm not innocent as I've stated, but people need to come to the reality that piracy is directly related to stealing. This is not at sea, however, if that's your rebuttal to the definition. Your flawed logic simply does not work.
 

dannyaa

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This is incredibly dumb. For one, people will see this as a way to download and then pay what they think it is worth. Two, it doesn't actually do any legitimate payback - it's not like you are going to donate $500 and then get sued for downloading illegal content and say "oh but I paid for that by donating!"

It doesn't go to the original copyright holder, and it doesn't show them where sales went.

IF YOU LIKED WHAT YOU STOLE GO BUY THE SAME ITEM IN A STORE!

Wow.
 
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people have a go at me for pirateing stuff
until i point out one simple fact
i once pirated lotr :conquest for the pc
after beating the game into the ground in about 7 hours i decided that i would never play that total pile of crap again for as long as i live
guess what if i went out and bought that game i would have wasted $40
and the dev's might have thought all the sales means make and even WORSE sequel
*shakes head* such a terrible game {honestly a balrog killing all the hobbits HOW DO U SCREW THIS UP?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?}and thanks to P2P i was able to save my money instead of waste it on that pile of crap
 

anamaniac

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[citation][nom]one-shot[/nom]So you're saying you should be innocent if you stole someone's TV only to find out it didn't work when you got it home. Then you went out and bought a new one. You still committed a crime. I'm not innocent either, but your statement is ridiculous.[/citation]
Really?
I had issues with Mass Effect on PC too, so I just went and bought it for console... (The ultimate way to force pirates to pay? Make a PC port so shitty they have to buy the console version?)
I figure I ppayed my dues, so fuck off.

I pirate. Infact, in the last 24 hours, I have pirated 28 gigs of software.
The only inmoral thing I find is that my upload is only 1/20 my download, so my upload ratio is only 0.5 on average, so that makes me feel guilty.

I ain't paying a cent to this.
 

r0x0r

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Good idea, but 2 things need addressing:

1) Website needs to be treated like an amnesty zone, because quite frankly, the copyright owners should be grateful that they're getting anything from pirates.

2) How about making it so that the money goes to the artists instead of the "benficiaries"?
 
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I live in Spain and here we got a tax on CDs, HDDs which goes to the copyright holders (SGAE: Spanish Author's General Society). Only people who get some kind of lucrative (ads on web pages...) get prosecuted. It's a complex situation because law is harder for downloading a CD than stealing that CD on a shop. Situation has changed a lot in 50 or 100 years (the addressable audience has multiplied by hundreds factor). And it's sad to see how music doubled its revenues when CDs were first introduced and the music world wasted that money on marketing tricks (in place of supporting independent and not so profitable music). Its sad to see how Napster was an student initiative (music distributors were already earning lot of money with CDs and did not need to search for a new bussiness opportunity... iTunes was 5 to 10 years late). Now they cry... and threaten society (anyone seen an DSL connection ad which claims you can download music...) to an extent that is not admissible (heard of a hundred thousands fine for 24 downloaded songs, you mean that when I steal a CD from a music store I don't steal the music on it rights ? I know that is not that easy...
 

santeana

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[citation][nom]gekko668[/nom]I'm smelling a lawsuits coming for that guy from the Riaa and MPAA.[/citation]
Actually, It's more like he COPIED their TV. So no harm, no foul. ;)
 

santeana

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[citation][nom]one-shot[/nom]So you're saying you should be innocent if you stole someone's TV only to find out it didn't work when you got it home. Then you went out and bought a new one. You still committed a crime. I'm not innocent either, but your statement is ridiculous.[/citation]


sorry.... hit the wrong quote button.

Toms, you really need to add an edit button in these forums.
 

ukgooey

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@ one-shot

You have a bit of a point but making it the way you're making it is making you sound like a bit of a tool. On the whole I disagree with you but you aren't completely wrong.

It is definitely not stealing in its conventional form. I'm afraid that is bullshit. If I steal your wallet, I have your wallet and you don't. If I copy your code, I have copied your code. You still have it, and I have a copy of your intellectual property.

Don't get me wrong, you aren't the only person who is wrong here and I understand the sentiment, but the over use of the word 'stealing' and the connotation it brings with it will just alienate people. And then they will listen to fuck all you have to say.

Just as a matter of interest, if you have a fucking cool haircut, and I think "wow, that is a fucking cool haircut", and ask my hairdresser to duplicate your expensive mop, does that mean I have stolen from your hairdresser? Don't flame this comment. I was just musing.

Like many people have pointed out, this is not a cut and dried (ha ha, I'm so fucking funny!) situation. And when pirates are fined ridiculous sums of wedge for downloading a few tunes, it just shows 'them' to be the real thieves.

P.S. I have had the misfortune on occasion to catch Cribs on the telly. The depravation is hard to take. These fuckers can hardly afford a square meal! Makes me wanna go out and spend a boatload of cash on a piece of digital shit on a disc so these poor unfortunates don't have to sell one of their Hummers to get by.
 

descendency

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Corporate greed isn't a bad thing. It's when a corporation takes actions that *hurts* it's consumer that is bad.

Take DRM for example. Once a DRM server is turned off, the company has hurt customer.

If a company wants money, they should have to provide a good or service that consumers want. Greed is what motivates them to do so. If it weren't for greed, we'd be stuck with people doing stuff "because they care"... and quite frankly, when "caring" comes into place, the quality goes down. It hurts to have to believe this, but just look around. What "caring" agency gets anything done? How are tree huggers, animal rights activist, and other such agencies doing?
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]thackstonns[/nom]No the correct analagy is if he built a copy of someones tv. only to find out that the exact copy didnt work, So he went out and bought one. So yeah as far as I am conserned its fair. and you are ridiculous. Piracy is not the same as stealing. When will people realize that.[/citation]


what you just said is the dumbest thing ever

piracy is a KIND of theft, the oldest definition of piracy is theft on the ocean, piracy on the digital "sea" is the same case you are taking somehting you didn't pay for , it is theft plain and simple you degenerate. it does damage NOT to the big corprates but to teh little guys they employ , sure you may hurt the big guy's pockets pirating , but it are the sammler guys that get laid off from multiple industries becasue of that loss. The fact taht you and many toher degenerates catagorize piracy as being less offensive than theft makes me sick. when you pirate something you might as well walk in and take about 1000 poeple's homes from them . it has this same effect when companies are layign employees off.
you can argue "but it wasn't me that layed them off" all you want , but truth is, piracy gives big wigs all the excuse they need to "cut back" on company expenses ..(ie lay off poor joe smoe that makes way less than they do).

quite hoenstly i think piracy offenders should get nothing less than 5 years jail time , because believe it or not , the generation fo slack ass degenerates that think pirate behaivor is approprieate ,m has laid off just as many hard working poeple as the economioc down turn has. In face if there wasnt this slack ass generation our economy might be doing better.. but oh working hard and living with in your own means , would be just to much trouble for you ..



I've lost all compassion i had for slack ass degenerates like your self when i realized i'm going to have 10x times the trouble getting a job when i get out of school .. because of scum like you, get a life , get a job and stop robbing hard workign poeple.
 

descendency

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Modern Piracy is simply not the same. When a pirate in the past would rob a ship, the ship owners could count (on the hand) the amount of damage that was done to them. (Ship, gold, etc)

Software IP owners can not enumerate the loss that pirates cause.

Software pirating is closer to software sharing than it is to actual piracy. Sure, it's illegal, but they are clearly not the same kind of illegal action. One is merited by actual damages and the other is "potential" damages (there is no guarantee that the "pirate" would buy the software anyways). It's illegal because the internet has made sharing possible between two people who don't even have to know anything about one another.

However, I don't agree with making it illegal. I think businesses should have to adapt their business model to work with the internet and not in spite of it.

Look at Google. How do they make money? They provide free searches, free email, free video hosting, free calling service, and free everything else. Google is exploiting their brand by charging to advertise. They built a business model around the internet.
 

TemjinGold

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I know the "Is piracy stealing" debate has been beaten to death but to all you folks that still try to rationalize how piracy isn't stealing, looking it up in the dictionary. Stealing is "taking something that's not yours." Nowhere in the definition is there a clause for "the other guy no longer has it" or "you can count how much you lost." Plain and simple, stealing is taking something that ain't yours and that's exactly what piracy is. I'm not here to judge you if you pirate but at least have the balls to not make excuses about how it's different.
 
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