Piracy

[GMforPowergamers]

GMforPowerGamers is proof that Lawful Neutral does indeed exist ;p

I would say Lawful GOOD...but since you didn't call me lawful stupid (since my own group does) I will not take it in a bad way..

Laws != morals. There are such a thing as bad laws. There are such a thing as stupid laws.

you missed part of this laws do not equal morals...but following laws IS moral... see I dissagree with laws...and am fine with you or anyone else doing the same, heck our system is based on it...if you want it changed go try to change it...don't break it...

Is smoking pot morally bad because it's illegal? Is drinking alcohol somehow morally better because it's legal for no logical or scientific reason?

Ok as I said I do neither...I also see no one as worse for you or anything of the like...but the law is the law...if you want to legalize pot there are ways to go about it...if you want to ban alchol same thing...just becuse you disagree doesn't make it ok to break it...but it does make it OK to try to get it changed...

Bad and stupid laws cannot be changed so long as you think of them as moral guidelines. Laws are a social contract, not a divine mandate, unless you're living in a theocracy, which I don't think any of us - aside from some Australians - are. And a social contract can be changed. Look at the Constitution - the ability to make amendments to it was put into place because of the general idea of "This stuff isn't ironclad. Situations change. Laws have to change with them."

again...fighting to change laws good...breaking them Bad...Breaking them then argueing that they don't apply becuse they are stupid is a big complaint I have...Heck if people said "I want X law xhanged...but I did the crime I will do the time" I would not throw a fit...but that is not the case here...heck most of the people who are pirateing I bet (just aguess) are not actively calling there senetors and writing congress to change the laws...they just break them...

The fight regarding piracy is, as I mentioned earlier, a complicated one.

Agreed...

As someone else brought up, copyright law is a relatively new thing.

with you so far...

And no matter how many laws you put down, piracy will never be stopped. Ever.

Neither will anyother law...makeing killing illegal wont sstop criminals from killing...infact the NRA has an intresting theory "If you outlaw guns only criminals will have them"




SO again to recap...if you knowing break the law, then complain about the consquinces (site taken down) maybe you need to rethink who you are mad at...
Also if you feel Laws need changing there are ways to go about it WITHOUT breaking them...

 

[Shadowsong666]

Neither will anyother law...makeing killing illegal wont sstop criminals from killing...infact the NRA has an intresting theory "If you outlaw guns only criminals will have them"

omg - thats really a bad choice for theorizing stuff. The NRA (aka National Rifle Association) puts down a theory that says that you need guns because if you don't have them, only the bad guys have them. How nice of them sponsoring themselves. If only the outlaws have the gun isn't that bad as long as you live in a social society. Criminal ratings with murder aren't necessary higher in countries where owning a weapon is against the law. Once we had a texan student here and boy was it fun to talk to him about how stupid it is to own a gun and that you don't need it. See, if someone breaks into your house, not having a gun, but finds it before you can get it - your more toast then you would be if he just had a knife. Emotionally harder to stab someone to death as to fire a shot out of a gun. The easier the killing - the faster it can happen. But funny how after a year managed to grab the idea that you don't need guns.

SO again to recap...if you knowing break the law, then complain about the consquinces (site taken down) maybe you need to rethink who you are mad at...
Also if you feel Laws need changing there are ways to go about it WITHOUT breaking them...

You are a person with a free will and no law can rob you of that.

Having the choice to break a law is right. It sometimes makes a statement. Consequences included.
Blindly following laws is not moral - its dumb. Its dumb as in "shutting my brain off" because i just live by the law. I can't and will not think in that simplistic patterns. Its not right and never will be (as long as utopia has not been established). Its just easier...

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I would say Lawful GOOD

you missed part of this laws do not equal morals...but following laws IS moral...

This is why you are Lawful Neutral. You don't care if a law is good or bad, merely that it is a law.

The problem is, your entire argument rests on this belief - and it is a belief, not a fact or theory, but a personal belief - that following the law is intrinsically a good thing.

The founding fathers of America would have some polite words with you. Or rather, some tar and feathers, ya damn royalist. ;p

Oh, and can we tread (Fnar fnar) away from the topic of gun ownership? I may live in one of the most liberal cities in the US, but I'm a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, and...well, things might get a bit tetchy of we go down the path of "YOU NEVER NEED GUNS EVER!" ;p

 

[Vanuslux]

While I'm definitely not going to make the case that pirating is morally right, I do have to take issue with the statement that breaking the law is automatically immoral. History is full of examples where breaking the law was the brave, heroic, and downright right thing to do. Of course, most of those examples are more along the lines of fighting serious but legal violations of basic human rights, like freeing slaves...not people behind their computers downloading other people's work without paying for it.

I dislike piracy in general...I'm just advising against sweeping statements that even breaking bad laws is immoral. Bad laws are never changed without people breaking them.

 

[grickherder]

again...fighting to change laws good...breaking them Bad...

The truth of the matter is that civil disobedience is the most effective way to effect change. If people just tried to change laws without breaking them, it's quite possible black people in the US would still have to give up bus seats to white passengers.

Now, I'm not equating civil disobedience to effect a change in copyright laws with ones of equality in terms of race-- the racial equality issues have much greater moral weight. But one thing that the rampant piracy of music, movies, books and pretty much everything else has done is shown content providers that the easy distribution of their content for low or no cost can be used to drive sales.

I'd say the piracy of the core books for 4th ed were/are an excellent form of unintential marketting that generated more revenue for WotC. WotC sends out cease and desist letters to blatant cases (like the power cards website) but I think those at WotC realize that going after those pirating D&D PDFs will only cost them money and accomplish nothing.

The piracy (civil disobeince) of the D&D books has produced positive change-- I can preview material in full before buying it and WotC gets more revenue. Breaking the law produced positive change.

Pirated, didn't like, didn't buy - no lost revenue, the customer didn't like the product.

Pirated, liked it, but didn't buy - lost revenue, the customer likes the product but isn't paying for it.

Pirated it, liked it, went out and bought it - gained revenue, the customer liked it and bought it.

Bought the book then pirated for pdf copy - gained revenue, the customer already bought the book

As long as the aggregate is a revenue increase (ie, #3 being larger than #2) the piracy is having a positive effect on WotC's ability to make money. It's a win-win situation where the customer has greater convenience and the producer is making more money.

 

[Shadowsong666]

Oh, and can we tread (Fnar fnar) away from the topic of gun ownership? I may live in one of the most liberal cities in the US, but I'm a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, and...well, things might get a bit tetchy of we go down the path of "YOU NEVER NEED GUNS EVER!" ;p

No problem with that - i just answered because of his example. I know that its not part of the discussion in general and should not be - as it almost always will lead to a political discussion. I don't have a problem with guns. Guns are fun even if they are no toys to play with.
But sorry, the example just didn't fit for me. selfpromoting somehow.

I think we didn't touch piracy in general with the last few comments. It went somehow more to a discussion about if its ok breaking laws or not.

I don't know what alignment i have - but i'm certainly not evil. I am just not a fan of following all laws just because they exist, ok?

 

[Shemeska]

Just as an aside to the thread:

There are a rather massive number of (presumably) pirated pdfs of books for various games floating around a few members of my group (generally used for quick reference at the table, and in many cases a physical copy of the book is owned, often prior to the pirating from what I've seen of their book collection).

Yet... the only thing the one big culprit has ever had happen to them was a C&D from Marvel Comics. Not the RIAA, not the MPAA, but Marvel. What's funny is that the comic book scans said person has given me over the years has made various comic companies a metric ton of money because it hooked me on about five or six comics I now have getting pulled at the local comic store for me.

Reading for pleasure on pdfs is hard on my eyes, so even if you gave me a free copy of a comic book scan or an rpg book, if I seriously like it and I would use it, I'll buy a print copy. White Wolf, Shadowrun, and others have made an obscene amount of money off of me in the past two years because of my being introduced to various books and/or game lines through pirated pdfs handed to me by members of my gaming group.

Judge as you will, but in this instance, the illegality of it all ultimately benefited all involved.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It´s the same with music etc.

These days I preview my music on youtube, and if i really like them, i go and buy it.

What we need is something like youtube to preview the books when beeing online... this would save us some time reading everything in the shop.

You can´t demnad that you buy something you have not been able to fully preview.
And when you want to fully use Amazon or any other online shop, there must be a preview system which allows you to check what you want to buy.

As long as this does not exist, pirated pdf´s help you to decide if something is worth its money or not. But as long it is illegal, even if that seems stupid to me, I will go to a shop and preview it there... as I do with CDs... (And I only buy CD´s in a shop, where I actually can preview them complete, not only in parts)

And when I am too busy to go to the shop, i don´t buy, even if I would gladly spend my money on a book I like.

I don´t know how many people only have books on pdfs, but i dare to say that most people who can afford buying the books do so, tose who pirate often can´t afford buing them... and those people often help advertising, so I don´t believe, piracy is a bad thing per se...

Also books these days are really expensive... 30$ is quite a lot, often increased production cost and shipping cost is used to excuse a price increase... tell me how that compares to pdf pricing...

 

[genshou]

This is an interesting poll.

Two-thirds-ish respondents have pirated stuff?

I knew it was rampant, but wow.

Seems like it's time for a new business model that uses piracy (somehow) to one's advantage. Maybe posting the pdfs for free, but gaining ad revenue from the site where they are posted. Or maybe have a coupon in the .pdf for $2 (or whatever) off the physical book to drum up sales.

Gives me something to think about....

Now we're talking.

 

[genshou]

Really? How did that internal conversation go? Something like this?

"What the heck is this crap? Roleplaying? Fantastic worlds? Player Characters? Dungeon Masters? Adventures!? Game books and dice? Exploration? Taking turns?! Oh Gods! What have those bastards done to D&D!" *shakes fist*

I'm betting it was something like that

Actually, more like this:
Jeez, what is this? They're making it sound like I couldn't do any of this with any previous edition of D&D, they're shoehorning what is Fun and Cool into their own definition while simultaneously knocking my definition as BadWrongFun, and they're writing to me like they expect me to have the intellect and maturity level of the average ten-year-old! All the stuff you mention is there in 4e, it's the design philosophies and attitudes that put me off. And that's something I could rewrite the books with the same mechanics and completely avoid.