[XOR]

But how are you getting "wrong files" and malware in this day and age.

malware creators have at times even managed to hijack servers and dump malware through official update system.

They are always developing new forms to evade detection. You gonna run an installer with custom patches, run a keygen or crack, etc. And none of that is gonna be compromised? Not sure how you can be 100% sure no malware is getting through.

It is official software from the official websites and you're given binary checksum to make sure the software is legit and the executable hasn't been compromised. Even the walled gardens of ios and android have sometimes been compromised by malware, even though I think all apps are individually reviewed before being let on the app stores. Doesn't seem like there's anyway to make sure an unknown executable from an unknown source isn't compromised.

 

[Cryptek]

I am a hypocrite when it comes to piracy. I have zero hang ups about pirating Film/TV/Music. The way I look at it, on the film front I have purchased a collection on VHS and then again on DVD and decided, fuck it, I am done rebuying content just so I can have access on a modern media player. Then tack on that many of the actors in said films are vocal about their beliefs, which most I find repugnant. So no want to give them any money (which sucks for the little people it impacts) Music, I honestly just dont consider "content" really, so I treat it like copying a blurb of text. Plus I grew up in the era where it was VERY common to just tape everything. Movies off HBO with VHS and music off the radio via cassette. And who didn't buy a second VHS player to copy tapes you rented form Blockbuster?


BUT, I do not pirate games. At all. And I suppose it is because I am being selfish in the regard as I only care here cuz its the industry I work in and wouldn't want my work ripped off.

Well you're honest lol.

So what about games that are not available anymore? Games that are OOP and difficult to find it terribly expensive from second hand sellers, etc?

I mean in that case nobody is hurt. Those developers and publishers no longer can benefit from those sales and only second hand sellers with outrageous asking prices get anything.

Edit: I just want to say I fully support buying games and supporting the developers and publishers and am against pirating games if the devs and publishers can still financially benefit.

I love sequels to games I love and the only that will happen is by financially supporting the creators. But old games and games that the makers can no longer benefit from is fair game when it comes to "piracy" imo.

 

[Arkam]

Well you're honest lol.

So what about games that are not available anymore? Games that are OOP and difficult to find it terribly expensive from second hand sellers, etc?

I mean in that case nobody is hurt. Those developers and publishers no longer can benefit from those sales and only second hand sellers with outrageous asking prices get anything.

Edit: I just want to say I fully support buying games and supporting the developers and publishers and am against pirating games if the devs and publishers can still financially benefit.

I love sequels to games I love and the only that will happen is by financially supporting the creators. But old games and games that the makers can no longer benefit from is fair game when it comes to "piracy" imo.

I can get behind pirating OOP games (and just about any OOP content). I mean right now I am over a barrel trying to find copies of the later books in the manga "I am a hero". 7 books deep of (i believe) 11. I have been looking for a year now. Getting close to grabbing a pirated digital copy just to finish the story.

 

[Cryptek]

I can get behind pirating OOP games (and just about any OOP content). I mean right now I am over a barrel trying to find copies of the later books in the manga "I am a hero". 7 books deep of (i believe) 11. I have been looking for a year now. Getting close to grabbing a pirated digital copy just to finish the story.

In that case, yeah we're on the same page it seems.

 

[Ascend]

When I was a teen, I pirated pretty much everything, including music, movies, games and software. I did not have the money to buy any of these things I pirated anyway, so, it's not like the companies were actually losing out on sales. In fact, I am of the opinion that piracy can actually contribute to a franchise's success and popularity. But it only happens if your stuff isn't garbage. For example, I pirated the Need for Speed Underground games and enjoyed them a lot. If they were actually for sale today, I would buy them, just to 'compensate'. But alas, they are not available, so, meh. That's EA's fault for not making their actually good games of old days available today.

Today, I generally don't really pirate games or software anymore, but there are exceptions. For one, I pirated Blur for PC. Why? I already bought the game on Xbox, and the prices for PC were atrocious, the great studio was imo prematurely closed down for doing nothing wrong, and I'm gonna buy your game a second time for only the publisher to get the rewards? Fuck that.
I must admit that if a game looks interesting but there is no way to try it, I would pirate it to see just how it is, and if I like it, I'd end up buying it. But in practice, I don't do that anymore, simply because there are way too many games, and my backlog is huge already.
On the software side, there's a lot of free alternatives for almost everything nowadays, so, piracy is mostly unnecessary. But if Windows starts bitching about its license while I have a valid license, I crack that shit immediately.

Music is a mixed bag. I am only willing to pay for high quality music. And with that I mean, the files must be HDR, which means at least 96 KHz, 24-bit, and have a loudness rating of preferably above 10, although 9 is passable. Don't let me buy stuff that is a mere 6 or 7, because it sounds like crap, and I'm not paying for that. And it must be in lossless format. Besides, how far does piracy go...? Does blocking YouTube ads while listening to music constitute piracy...? Because I definitely block every ad I can, and they aren't getting any revenue from me by doing that. Should I go to jail or be fined for that...?

Movies? If I want to watch it, and it's not on Netflix, I pirate it. Simple as that. And any movie that I watched in theaters that I liked, chances are that I pirate it as well to simply have a copy. I'm definitely not buying discs, whether there's a pirated copy freely available or not.

 

[Test]

 

[Cryptek]

When I was a teen, I pirated pretty much everything, including music, movies, games and software. I did not have the money to buy any of these things I pirated anyway, so, it's not like the companies were actually losing out on sales. In fact, I am of the opinion that piracy can actually contribute to a franchise's success and popularity. But it only happens if your stuff isn't garbage. For example, I pirated the Need for Speed Underground games and enjoyed them a lot. If they were actually for sale today, I would buy them, just to 'compensate'. But alas, they are not available, so, meh. That's EA's fault for not making their actually good games of old days available today.

Today, I generally don't really pirate games or software anymore, but there are exceptions. For one, I pirated Blur for PC. Why? I already bought the game on Xbox, and the prices for PC were atrocious, the great studio was imo prematurely closed down for doing nothing wrong, and I'm gonna buy your game a second time for only the publisher to get the rewards? Fuck that.
I must admit that if a game looks interesting but there is no way to try it, I would pirate it to see just how it is, and if I like it, I'd end up buying it. But in practice, I don't do that anymore, simply because there are way too many games, and my backlog is huge already.
On the software side, there's a lot of free alternatives for almost everything nowadays, so, piracy is mostly unnecessary. But if Windows starts bitching about its license while I have a valid license, I crack that shit immediately.

Music is a mixed bag. I am only willing to pay for high quality music. And with that I mean, the files must be HDR, which means at least 96 KHz, 24-bit, and have a loudness rating of preferably above 10, although 9 is passable. Don't let me buy stuff that is a mere 6 or 7, because it sounds like crap, and I'm not paying for that. And it must be in lossless format. Besides, how far does piracy go...? Does blocking YouTube ads while listening to music constitute piracy...? Because I definitely block every ad I can, and they aren't getting any revenue from me by doing that. Should I go to jail or be fined for that...?

Movies? If I want to watch it, and it's not on Netflix, I pirate it. Simple as that. And any movie that I watched in theaters that I liked, chances are that I pirate it as well to simply have a copy. I'm definitely not buying discs, whether there's a pirated copy freely available or not.

You should check out CDPR's outlook and research on piracy.

They found people were more likely to pirate, crack and distribute games with DRM than those without, hence their policy of "FUCK DRM" and whatnot.

Their "no DRM" and "you buy it and it's your's to keep and backup" is why I unashamedly shill for them so damn much.

I know @gameragodzilla will agree and vouch for me on this.

In fact, I wish this was a new or future trend but sadly publishers and developers fear and want their DRM and Steam.

In a way, I have a hard time sympathizing with these companies.

 

[regawdless]

When I was young and had no moneyz, I pirated most games. As soon as I got a job and had a certain budget, I started buying all the games that I wanted.

I want to support the devs for their work and value the entertainment that these products give me. So I am gladly paying for it.

 

[Ornlu]

When I was young and had no moneyz, I pirated most games. As soon as I got a job and had a certain budget, I started buying all the games that I wanted.

I want to support the devs for their work and value the entertainment that these products give me. So I am gladly paying for it.

I think with the lack of demos and easy game rentals, people should be willing to "pirate before you buy" to try out things they might not otherwise ever discover.

Nobody wants to drop $60 on something that has like a 10% chance to be good.

 

[regawdless]

I think with the lack of demos and easy game rentals, people should be willing to "pirate before you buy" to try out things they might not otherwise ever discover.

Nobody wants to drop $60 on something that has like a 10% chance to be good.

On Steam you can buy it and play it for less than two hours. Which is way longer than most demos have ever been. If you don't like it, you can get a refund. I think there's something similar on Xbox, don't know about Sony.

 

[Zog]

On Steam you can buy it and play it for less than two hours. Which is way longer than most demos have ever been. If you don't like it, you can get a refund. I think there's something similar on Xbox, don't know about Sony.

You can't use Steam refunds as a demo service or they will cut you off.

 

[regawdless]

You can't use Steam refunds as a demo service or they will cut you off.

True. It's more like a fall back solution if you really don't like the game or there's something wrong from a technical perspective.

For me personally, it's not that big of an issue. There is so much information available on games, that you pretty much exactly know what you're getting. Long ass video reviews, let's plays etc.

It very, very rarely happens to me that I buy a game and really don't like it. But that's just me.

I have no issue with people pirating games if they then still support the devs by buying the games they like.

 

[gameragodzilla]

You should check out CDPR's outlook and research on piracy.

They found people were more likely to pirate, crack and distribute games with DRM than those without, hence their policy of "FUCK DRM" and whatnot.

Their "no DRM" and "you buy it and it's your's to keep and backup" is why I unashamedly shill for them so damn much.

I know @gameragodzilla will agree and vouch for me on this.

In fact, I wish this was a new or future trend but sadly publishers and developers fear and want their DRM and Steam.

In a way, I have a hard time sympathizing with these companies.

Yeah DRM free games are the best. I generally don't pirate them because I know I can buy the product and still have something working.

Nowadays, the only stuff I will pirate are stuff that's out of print. It's kind of sad that piracy is one of the best ways to preserve games at the moment due to all the legal nonsense surrounding certain titles. I can only play No One Lives Forever via piracy, for example. Aliens vs. Predator 2, as well. Luckily, games do come back sometimes. I pirated Soldier of Fortune 1 and 2 when they were out of print, but now they're available on GOG. I insta-bought them.

 

[Ascend]

The first place I look for a game is GOG. I like that they are DRM free. Only if it's not available there, will I go check other stores.

But GOG do have to improve some of their stuff. There are some games that get an upgraded version, and you either need to buy the whole thing, or you're stuck with the old. But that's the only complaint I have. That is another occasion where I pirate. If I cannot buy just the expansion, but have to buy the whole thing again to get the extra content, I pirate the extra content. Sorry, not sorry.

 

[Cryptek]

Yeah DRM free games are the best. I generally don't pirate them because I know I can buy the product and still have something working.

Nowadays, the only stuff I will pirate are stuff that's out of print. It's kind of sad that piracy is one of the best ways to preserve games at the moment due to all the legal nonsense surrounding certain titles. I can only play No One Lives Forever via piracy, for example. Aliens vs. Predator 2, as well. Luckily, games do come back sometimes. I pirated Soldier of Fortune 1 and 2 when they were out of print, but now they're available on GOG. I insta-bought them.

Yup that's exactly what I was saying above. But I feel when it's an OOP game, for example, I would not even call it stealing or pirating.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

If I can pay for the license on a reasonably accessible platform I will. If I literally cannot pay the rights-holder for access then I have no moral quandary.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

My typical stance is the "best of both worlds" where I get a physical copy of the game in question so that I can own it for collection purposes and a digital version of the same game for playing purposes. However, there's been times where the game is absurdly expensive because the market percieves them as rare games, so in that case I'd just pirate it. Also there are other cases where sometimes it's convienient to download a ROM for a quick fix in an emulator and such...like how badass is it that I can play RE4, both the Gamecube and Wii versions, off my phone working with their actual controllers as well! That being said, these days I'm kinda more reserved on piracy than I was when younger. Back then I'd do it more frequently and often, whereas these days even though I can, I backed off it to a degree

 

[cryptoadam]

Been in the game for years. Remember back in the day having those cable boxes, then graduated to HU Cards and satelite dishes, then it was Napster and VCDs, graduated to DVD burning, then torrents, then KODI, then MOBDRO and the like, and now onto IPTV.

I mean I make no allusions about it, Piracy is piracy its for all intents purposes stealing but ces't la vie. Just make a better mouse trap.

But ya I am not into paying for movies/TV etc...

Now my thing is IPTV. I have about 7 different accounts that I switch between and will try out new ones every few weeks.

I would share but I think its against the rules.

 

[Ascend]

I don't really put piracy in the same category as stealing. If I steal your car, you literally lose the object. If I pirate something, I have a copy that I got through non-official means. You still retain your copy.

Piracy is closer to patent infringement than to stealing, because you're using something you don't have the license to use.

 

[lock2k]

Starlink Is Just Another ISP When it Comes to Piracy - ExtremeTech

One Starlink subscriber shared a warning letter they got for running torrents on the connection, and it could have been written by any of the traditional ground-based ISPs.

www.extremetech.com

 

[Ascend]

Starlink Is Just Another ISP When it Comes to Piracy - ExtremeTech

One Starlink subscriber shared a warning letter they got for running torrents on the connection, and it could have been written by any of the traditional ground-based ISPs.

www.extremetech.com

Good to know. Oh well. We still have VPNs.

 

[Test]

Starlink Is Just Another ISP When it Comes to Piracy - ExtremeTech

One Starlink subscriber shared a warning letter they got for running torrents on the connection, and it could have been written by any of the traditional ground-based ISPs.

www.extremetech.com

they are gonna get hounded unless they play ball because a successful starlink means the end of telcos (even high pop won't matter after some time)

the piracy thing for me has always been are you poor? if the answer if yes then sail the high seas and crush your fucking enemies along the way. if you are locked to a stable income and can afford disposable expenditures, buy the thing.