Pirating RPGs. (And were not talking "arggg" pirate stuff here.)

[Voadam]

This argument is always trotted out, and it just doesn't wash. There is no amount of marketing that can hypnotize people into buying stuff they don't really like.

You've never seen a trailer to a movie, thought you would like it, then after buying a ticket and seeing the movie decided you really didn't like it?

 

[Spell]

very VERY OT, but this guy needs an answer!

Okay, I admit it. I liked Britney Spears' single "Everytime" enough that I went out and bought the CD. I like it. It was a nice tune. It gave me pleasure to listen to it.

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!!! ANATEMA!!!!

Alright! There you go! Are you happy now?

it's the worse day of my life! :_( man, you hurt me!

ok, serious mode, now.

Does it give you satisfaction that a succession of total arguments has forced a liked and respected 36 year-old man to totally humiliate himself in this way before the entire bloody world?

well, everybody has their guilty pleasures.
seriously, i had no problem with britney spears IF it was really her singing on the records. christina aguilera, for example, is really singing her stuff. i still don't like it, and i wouldn't buy it to save my life, but i'm ok with that.

britney spear's voice is VERY VERY glossly produced. when it's not double traked (a technique that, alone, enriches artificially the voice... it can also be used to put somebody else's voice in the mix, so that the final master sounds different from the original voice), it's processed through so many effects that i wonder how close it is to ther real performance.
mind you there's outher people out there with a crappy voice. first name to come to my mind: billie holiday. she had the shittiest voice ever. but when you heard her, you were moved by her performance. and you still are.

britney can't sing, doesn't write her songs, doesn't play any instrument. whatever you like about her act, it's not her, it's somebody else (the tune is written by someone else, the music is played by someone else, her body and face had chaged through platic jobs... maybe the dance is really her thing? i don't know, and frankly i don't care!)

 

[AntiStateQuixote]

So you've worked for a month, not been paid, and had thousands of people benefit from that month of work?

No, I have not . . . and I suspect that neither have you. That was not your original premise.

What if someone asked you to work for a day, a week, or a month before they hired you? After all, maybe they want to try you out before they pay you. Would you agree to such an arrangement?

Yes, I have worked for several hours or more (in one case over 20 billable hours) on an evauation basis before I was hired.

Keep in mind that several of my own PDFs represent a day to a week of work. And the bigger projects -- like Frostburn -- represent many months of work. What you're saying is that it's okay for a dozen people to work for you for a month at no pay and you'll decide at the end of that time if they're worth paying or not.

Keep in mind that you don't collect all of your income from a single person buying a single copy of your work. You collect an extraordinarily small amount of your income (I hope) from each individual copy of a single work you do. If someone checks out one of your pdfs from a p2p site and does not buy it you haven't lost all of the income you would have received from creating that pdf. You have only lost the income from one POTENTIAL sale, which is not that much money.

Now, if this happened to a HUGE degree with all of your work all of the time . . . now you're talking about working a week or a month (or more) for free. That would be absolutely terrible.

As I understand it you are fairly successful in the pdf publications (congratualtions!), so the analogy doesn't stand: one person "stealing" one of your pdfs does not equate to a loss of even a day's income for you, probably, much less a week or a month.

 

[Spell]

oh! i was forgetting...

If I run naked down Oxford Street with a rose sticking out of my arse will you stop saying arguing about the precise legal definition of the word "theft"?

i never intended to try to legally define anything, because i'm not a lawyer. that said, if you still want to make that Oxford street run, i'll be back in england soon... i promise that, for a film of that to show to my band mantes and friends (males and females, rest assured!), i will stop arguing about anything!
(well, for a couple of days, at least! )

 

[Sammael]

What if someone asked you to work for a day, a week, or a month before they hired you? After all, maybe they want to try you out before they pay you. Would you agree to such an arrangement?

Er... that's standard practice where I live. Anywhere from two weeks up to three months. If the employer is feeling particularly generous, he'll pay you something for the "trial period," but most don't even do that.

 

[Voadam]

If I run naked down Oxford Street with a rose sticking out of my arse will you stop saying arguing about the precise legal definition of the word "theft"?

Nope. Somehow that offer is not as tempting as you apparently think it is

So, if somebody was copying answers in a college exam they are unfairly mooching off of someone else's work, taking something that is not theirs, and detrimenting everyone if the grade is on a curve. I would call that cheating deserving of being expelled as well as calling it an immoral action. But if somebody called it theft and said that was a good way to discuss the issue of unauthorized copying I'd disagree.

 

[Spell]

Keep in mind that you don't collect all of your income from a single person buying a single copy of your work.

oh, c'mon, he should know very well where his money comes from, shouldn't he?

besides, on a loosely related note (not related directly to you Brent), i think this discussion is on the verge of derailing in an exercise of repetition and name calling. i will stop posting. if you have anything to say, PM me. hopefully, it will be something intelligent.

 

[Iku Rex]

Do you truly need to be deliberately dense to try to support your arguments? It kind of shows how hollow and worthless your position is when you do that.

Do you truly need to be deliberately insulting when your claims are exposed as manipulative nonsense? It kind of shows how hollow and worthless your position is when you do that.

Also, would you mind explaining "my position" to me? I've always been curious about mind-reading psychics like yourself.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Nope. Somehow that offer is not as tempting as you apparently think it is

So, if somebody was copying answers in a college exam they are unfairly mooching off of someone else's work, taking something that is not theirs, and detrimenting everyone if the grade is on a curve. I would call that cheating deserving of being expelled as well as calling it an immoral action. But if somebody called it theft and said that was a good way to discuss the issue of unauthorized copying I'd disagree.

Well it's interesting that you say that because your example does actually illustrate the difference between the legal definition of the crime of "theft" and the common word usage of the word "theft", and its associated words.

Cheating in an exam in clearly not legal theft.

But from a language point of view I can easily imagine a boy in a schoolroom noticing that the child sitting next to him is copying his answers and shouting out, "Miss! He's stealing my answers!"

As a further example of where legal and language uses of the word differ, if someone were to break into my car, I'd say that my car "had been stolen!"

(Actually, I'd probably say that some "'s stolen my ing car!" but that's by the by).

But technically, under UK law, the "thief" has not stolen my car, because it's only theft if you intend to permantly deprive someone of their property, and when someone drives off in your car there's no proof that they intend to do that - they might just be joyriders who want to go for a drive, and who will dump your car when they've finished it.

It was to close this legal "loophole" that a specfic offence of "taking without the owner's consent" was created (which is why the police talk about "TWOCing").

But if I told someone that a guy was a thief because he'd stolen my car, and they started lecturing me that he wasn't guilty of theft but of TWOCing, and that it was wrong of me to try and confuse the issue by using an incorrect legal term - well I'd be likely to get a tad pissed off.

 

[James Heard]

Do we really need to have pages and pages of this going on at ENWorld? Seriously, this turns into this more surely than a political discussion (because it's essentially political) and never ever simply stays polite and civil. I wish that any time someone wanted to discuss piracy they'd literally have to pull a funny hat and parrot out of their behind and convince a moderator to wave it past the "no pirate" moderation system. Or that everyone could just settle things without becoming complete jerks and endlessly repeating the same smug things over and over again.