Mar 04, 2006

It is with some trepidation that I even post this here on my blog, but ultimately I believe it is a valid apologetic on the dangers of relativism as a world view. A debate on digital piracy is the vehicle of its delivery.

** Warning **

What follows is a long “discussion” with a member of a gaming forum that I belong to. It is point-counterpoint on an in depth conversation. Is it worth reading? I don’t know, I certainly felt it was worth writing. Normally I don’t get into things like this, but I was baited and couldn’t help myself. Its the only thing that I regret about the entire thing.

It started out innocently enough – I was browsing a topic looking for some information regarding a bug in a new game that I recently purchased. The tide of this particular topic turned to a debate regarding ditigal piracy – basically if pirating games is “OK” or not. I was literally in the midst of thinking “Oh, the crap you find on these stupid forums when someone brought the argument to a whole different level.

The line that hooked me was: “What are you, the typical bible pusher republican who thinks laws are above anything else?”

What? Huh? I jumped from my late night induced half-coma and without thinking, hit REPLY.

In the posts that follow, items in italics are things that the poster is quoting from someone else.

Here is his initial post in its entirety:

Stealing = Wrong.No gray areas.No, that’s wrong.
What are you, the typical bible pusher republican who thinks laws are above anything else?
There are plenty of fricken gray areas.A poor man stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family: Right or Wrong?Take some college level morality and philosophy classes, then get back to me.And the one thing that all you “Pir4t3s are EVil!111!” people never understand is this: I personally only download games that I’m unsure of whether or not they are going to be good. If I like it I always go out and buy it. If I do not like it, I delete the game from my hard drive and do not go out and buy it.

The thing you fail to see here is that Lucasarts or Petroglyph do not lose money at all.
If I don’t go out and buy it because I tried and disliked it there is no money to be “lost” because the money wasn’t even there in the first place.My method of pirating is the ultimate one because it’s bulletproof and “morally acceptable”.
It’s simple…if I like the product they’re offering I reward them by buying it always. If I don’t like the product their offering I don’t buy it.
So you jumping on my back about this is the same as saying Lucasarts lose money on car enthusiasts because they don’t know anything about games, so they don’t buy them.If a pirate chooses not to buy a game there is no money lost, because it’s as if this particular pirate was a person who never even knew about games in the first place…so he wouldn’t buy it.
How many times does this need to be said?Obviously the companies lose money on big scale pirating rings who produce huge amounts of CD/DVD’s and sell them illegally on the software black market.But as long as every pirate (on a personal level, not multiple people) followed my model the game companies would not lose a single cent, ever.

And now for my response:

Wow, that was rude and uncalled for…

How would you feel if someone called you a typical elitist democrat snob, whose belligerent air of supposed intelligence is really just a paltry cover for blatant humanist relativity?

Well, even if I step into your world of elastic morality, your comments are still ill mannered and ill thought out.

Look at your elitist attitude:

“Take some college level morality and philosophy classes, then get back to me.”
“My method of pirating is the ultimate one because it’s bulletproof and ‘morally acceptable’.”
“But as long as every pirate (on a personal level, not multiple people) followed my model…”

Beyond that, your argument is horribly flawed. First, it is convoluted by the fact that you still refer to yourself and others as pirates, indicating a basic nature of taking what isn’t yours. Second, you say that you always go out and buy each game that you enjoyed – the problem here is that you are the only one setting the standard. While I’m sure this fits quite nicely into your “everything’s relative” world-view, it just isn’t a realistic mark by which things can be properly measured. Doing as you please and changing the rules to accommodate your whim simply won’t work in a complex society.

In reality, you have NO idea what games you would or would not buy if you didn’t have the opportunity to pirate them for free – you can’t know, because you aren’t in that situation. You can speculate, but you could easily be wrong. If everyone followed your example, as you suggest, chances are that many of them would also get it wrong, resulting in a real loss for the game companies. And, a real loss for them will affect the entire industry because of basic economic reasons – taking utility without reward isn’t good for either side in the long run.

The simple fact of the matter is that piracy is stealing – you may not agree, but I’m sure that Lucas Arts and the authorities in most countries would agree. You are trying to claim that stealing is OK in this particular situation because you want to try the game before you pay for it. I can understand your desire to do this and fortunately for everyone, most game companies understand this desire as well and provide demo versions of their software for this exact purpose. By what logic does your desire for evaluation give you carte blanche to step outside of this mechanism? Who are you to do as you please with someone else’s property?

Also, frankly, your choice of example in proving that gray areas exist – a starving man trying to feed his family – is simply in poor taste and denigrates those who really are hungry every day. You stealing a video game is hardly on the same level and besides being thoughtless, the hyperbole does nothing for your argument anyway.

People who speak in shades of gray never want to admit that at the ends of their spectrum, there is STILL black and white. Gray is impossible without them. To be sure, there are gray areas in life; this just isn’t one of them. Just because you feel justified in taking what doesn’t belong to you, doesn’t mean that it isn’t stealing.

In fact, the only people who can make that determination with 100% accuracy are the folks at Lucas Arts – because the software is their property. And, I think you know what they would say…

He then responded with a few posts that frankly raised my opinion of him quite a bit. I still disagreed with much of what was being said, but at least he started being civil. I won’t reprint his posts in their entirety, as I get most of them as quoted points in my response. If you REALLY want his complete posts, I’d be glad to send them to you, but I highly doubt any of you are that masochistic. Anyway, this is ME responding to him on the second go around.

To start, I would like to say a few things… First, I’m very glad you responded. Normally I stay out of these things, but I just couldn’t help myself. Call it poor judgment at 3:00am. Anyway, I was feeling that I had been too harsh on you, and I see now that you took my argument for what it was and not as an attack. I tried very hard to debate your points, not attack YOU.

Second, as you pointed out, I’m delighted that you have changed your tone and attitude to a level of civility and respect that is so often lacking in these forums. For that alone, I heartily applaud you! For what it’s worth, you have raised my estimation of you quite considerably, even if I still disagree with a number of your points. It’s only through respect and honest debate that those of differing minds can ever come to common ground.

Now, to still point out the error of your ways.

The funniest thing is that in the post below yours he actually admits to being one XD

He did, didn’t he? Still, I don’t think you were saying it with good intentions, now were you?How would I feel? Not that bad really, then I would correct you by saying that I’m not a democrat (some issues democrat, some issues republican), and that my intelligence is not “supposed” ^_^

I agree that these monikers are somewhat difficult to confine oneself to, but in a 2 party system it is what we are left with. Conservative and liberal are probably more descriptive, as they at least are more to the point. A republican like Schwarzenegger is vastly different than a Reagan, yet they are both called the same thing.And come on man, don’t harp on relativity

Ah, but I must, because it is at the heart of the issue. This is our disagreement, nothing more. You are doing something that when measured against your relativism, is permissible, even though it directly violates a core belief of most productive societies. You’re right, now that I peruse through it, it seems a bit elitist! It’s easy to go into “elitist” mode on Gamefaqs, where 60% of the population are uneducated 14 year olds who think they know everything.

HAHA! Ahem. Well, despite being less than respectful, I probably have been caught saying something like that on more than one occasion, so I’m the kettle and you are the pot.

Quite frankly I believe a certain degree of elitism is justified, if you think I’m bad you haven’t been around the boards much XD

Hey, are you using a non-sliding scale here? Hmmm… It appears that your elastic-measuring stick does indeed have its limits! But more seriously, I would say that these follow on posts have given me a much better overall opinion of you. While your original comments are a bit over the top (even to your own admission), I do not think that this is your demeanor in general – and for that, frankly, I’m thankful! Semantics.
If I call us: “Moral relativists confined to a certain category within the capitalistic machine” would you be happier?
No, wait! We’ll just call pirates “Care bears” from now on.

Well, yes it is semantics, but they are important in any debate – if we aren’t talking the same language then our meanings are lost upon each other. Most of the world views a pirate as someone who takes what isn’t rightly theirs, so in that frame, I guess I would be happier if you spelled out your definition.Never did I claim to speak on everyone’s behalf. No, but you advocate that everyone does the same thing.

I’ve repeatedly stated that I’m only for this kind of thing if people go out and buy the games to support good companies.

Again, the problem is that your definitions are subjective – that won’t work in an argument like this, as your solution must work for both sides. Oddly enough, though you seem to chafe against “the capitalistic machine”, it provides exactly what you are looking for – a way to reward those companies who provide content that you appreciate and a way to punish those who don’t. The only thing is that your relativism puts a wrench in those workings, as you are the sole judge of when you pay for utility, regardless of the rights or desires of the providing company.

I was talking about me specifically, and as long as I set this standard for myself, I have the personal moral high ground.

Maybe that allows you to sleep at night, but in the end it is meaningless – the rest of the world views your actions as illegal. I can say that 2+2 is 5, but it doesn’t make it so. Your “moral high ground” is nothing but a pile of sand that won’t hold up to the weight.I’m an regular member of society who works and contributes just like everybody else. I abide by societies laws that are actually important for its functioning and well being of its inhabitants. Just because I pirate a game now and then doesn’t mean I “do as I please” and change the rules to “accommodate my whim”.

I don’t doubt that you feel that you are law abiding “where it counts”, but your statement also again proves your convoluted argument. You acknowledge that you are abiding by CERTAIN laws, laws that you deem important for the well being of society’s inhabitants. Those that you deem unimportant, you have no qualms about sidestepping. Exactly how is that not “doing as you please”? You are claiming that you are doing nothing wrong, yet you are (at your own admission) violating certain decrees of the land in which you live. How is that not sidestepping the rules to “accommodate your whim”? The only reason why you say this is because you have not experienced any consequences of your actions. That doesn’t mean they aren’t wrong.Relativism naturally leads to the decay of organized society. You say it’s OK to pirate software, and your neighbor says it OK to take your TV. You may not agree with him, because he is robbing you of the use of it, but that doesn’t matter, because he is using HIS relative scale of morality and simply disregards yours. Now you can’t watch TV and it’s your own logic that did it to you. Society only works if we all play by the same rules. I know – I can hear you now saying that a game is only a “copy” and no one else’s utility is removed by your use of it so the TV analogy doesn’t fit. I’ll get to that in a minute, but for now all I will say is, here you go again using a definition of what is permissible based on your own tolerance for social irresponsibility. I could have easily used an argument of stealing cable, or something like that, but I chose not to. I specifically use the example of a TV because I must push you to the point of getting to something that you DON’T agree with, so that you can see how things look from my side of the argument. You can see how relativism doesn’t work in my example because it directly robs you of something that is rightly yours. But, that’s the problem with relativism as a world view – it then applies to EVERYTHING. You can’t take it out and use it only when it serves your purpose – your fellow man, who is most certainly not guaranteed to be altruistic will simply do the same thing, and in many cases your desires are at odds with each other. What then?

Do you really want a relative society? I highly doubt it, when you think about what that truly means in the long run.I beg to differ. I would still be the same person would I not? I would still read reviews, have the same tastes, know what games I would buy and wouldn’t buy. And if by any chance I didn’t even play games because I couldn’t pirate them, well…the game companies would never get my money…instead of getting it most of the time. Yes, you may be the same person, but your situation would be greatly changed. Now, games that you are on the fence about, you simply pirate and make your decision about after the fact. In the absence of pirating, there is a very good chance that you would buy games (because of curiosity or simple desire for entertainment) that you would never pay for after you have pirated a copy. You simply use the game and determine if it meets some arbitrary, changing level of quality based upon how you feel that day – but if you couldn’t do that, you would end up spending money on things that you later regretted. Thus my point about you speculating…You’re right, I can’t expect the masses to be as smart and methodical about this as I am ^_^
But seriously….I’d say that if they at least tried to follow my model we would decrease game industry losses by 70% or more. Agreed, I would certainly rather have a pirate who does try to reward the companies that make good games rather than one who simply screws everybody at will. I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing that your ability to judge what you would pay for in the absence of piracy is highly suspect, and as such you are robbing game companies of their rightful consideration.Of course the authorities and the publishers would agree, they’re the ones getting my money

Or not, as the case seems to occasionally be.

Let’s just go halfway and say that piracy is a slightly less than legal way of aquiring something, but not full blown stealing, the property rights of IP can be debated (We’ll get to this later).

Ok, I’m sorry, that makes me laugh. Classify the crime if you will, but one can no more be “slightly illegal” than one can be “slightly pregnant”. It is one or the other, and unfortunately for your argument, this is one area where you simply don’t get to choose. Your only recourse is where you choose to live…Correct. They do offer demos, usually containing about 20%… …fleshed out demos that I just go by the demo and don’t pirate.

We’ll get into this when we talk about IP, but suffice it to say that it is up to the game company to decide how it will demo its product. Make your decision solely on this, because that is what they choose to give you. If you do so and still get burned, you’ll know better next time when you consider a game from that company. Just because some companies hide crappy games behind less that revealing demos, does not give you the right to pirate their product. You get to vote with your dollars, that’s your only right.Not to mention my piracy is very limited because I never stray from my own genres and I don’t play games that often, I’d say I pirate a game every 6 months. That’s a discussion for another time though.

Honestly, I suspected that it was fairly limited… But, see my previous statement about being “slightly pregnant”. Tsss…not once did I equatestealing a loaf of bread for your starving family to aquiring a luxury good such as a video game. It’s simply a means to show that gray areas exist, it doesn’t matter how different or exaggarated the variables are.
Obviously this kind of proof for gray areas is needed, as evidenced by our cute little republican who posted after you Ah, yes… I knew your intention when you made the reference; I just wasn’t feeling charitable at the time. The point that I was getting at was that it doesn’t make your case for you at all, and is therefore useless. Why doesn’t it make your case? Because the man is still stealing. Yes, we can understand his choice because of the extenuating circumstances, but that doesn’t change that he has broken the law. It’s just that the extenuating circumstances make it so that his actions are understandable. A court would probably convict him of the crime and commute his sentence. This isn’t a gray area at all. This happens all the time, even in business – companies are convicted of crimes and fined $1.00 usually because there wasn’t an intention to disobey the law. On either front, this doesn’t help your argument – you don’t have extenuating circumstances, and it IS your intention to disobey the law.Correction: Their intellectual property. They don’t own anything tangible. This is a debate that’s raged for eons.
All that’s being “stolen” is information, add to the fact that we aren’t removing something from someone elses possession and you’re going to have a hard time labeling it as “OMG THEFT!”.
Again I feel the need to reiterate that when a pirate, pirates a new version of this information is spawned from nothingness. It never existed beforehand. Nobody has lost their property in any way shape or form.
It’s more akin to borrowing a car, putting it in a fantastic machine that makes a perfect clone, and then giving the car back, the car salesman never lost a cent and he’s free to go about his business.
Now of course you’ll say: “Well if everybody did that the car salesman would go out of business!” Ah, yes indeed, but remember what I said? I’m following my formula here, and I don’t condone wide scale piracy as in selling millions of burned CD’s for 2 cents (Asia and Russia I’m looking in your direction), that is what hurts the industry you see…not an American college student getting a game from the Internet once in a while.

OK, now to this issue. Maybe it’s because you haven’t graduated yet, and that you have more classes to take, but your understanding of IP is limited at best. I don’t say that to be rude, but rather as trying to understand where you are getting such a, hmm…twisted…view of IP law. I’m not happy with the word, but I can’t think of another one at the moment. Anyway… This has not been a debate for eons – the rights of IP holders are not debated. What constitutes IP can be debated, and fair use can be debated, but the rights of those who have IP are not in question. Even ask the Free Software Foundation, one of the most aggressive groups when it comes to relaxing IP rights – they don’t argue the rights of a software manufacturer to their IP, what they want is for it to be freely useable. Even THEY grant a LICENSE, which is proof positive that IP rights are here to stay. How else could society function? To not do so would be to completely remove the primary incentive for progress in many sciences.

And, don’t think that the two items that are open for debate offer you any help. Pirating a game doesn’t fall into either debatable area, so this really doesn’t help your argument at all.I’ll continue to try and show you why you aren’t making any sense using your own analogy of cloning the car.What about the person who researched, funded and manufactured the fantastic machine that you used to clone the car? You may not be robbing the person who provided the car to be cloned, but you are most certainly robbing the person who took the risk of developing the machine to do it. They did so fully expecting to be compensated for the use of their property and you haven’t done so. Even if the incremental cost of you cloning the car is nothing to the machine’s owner, it doesn’t change the fact that you wanted the cloned car and you didn’t pay for the right to USE IT.Bringing it back to reality, this is actually a good segue into software End User Licenses. When you “buy a game”, you don’t in fact own the game at all – you only purchase the right to USE it – the software remains the property of the company that manufactured it. The fact that you choose to ignore the law of the land is again incidental – you are stealing the “right to use” that someone else is expecting to be paid for. They invest time, effort and money into making the software and are taking a substantial risk by doing so. That is why they expect to be compensated for the right to use their property.Can you see how your argument crumbles in on itself? The same thing can be said about sneaking into a movie theater to watch a film in a half filled auditorium, or stealing cable from your neighbor’s line, or a number of any other scenarios like this, where you are sidestepping the grant of a “right to use”. It’s all stealing.And don’t think that your actions don’t have consequences – I’m not talking about you going to jail or being fined, though that may happen one day. I’m talking about the fact that many IP holders are now fighting back by attacking what we DO have the right to do, which is make a facsimile of the IP as long as it falls into “fair use”. That’s what the entire “Digital Rights Management” is all about – attacking fair use. They don’t want me to be able to copy the content that I have a right to use, because they are afraid of you stealing it. If they weren’t afraid of that, they wouldn’t be going down this road.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t support IP holders in that fight. I think its wrong on many fronts, the least of which is shackling the legal user because of the actions of the illegal.\

My point is more to show how your actions are not done in a vacuum and do indeed have real world consequences, even if you don’t feel them just yet.I’ll be as rude as I want to be towards the “lessers” that deserve it…. Ahh, and you were doing so well! Haha!Nice talking to you anyway (seriously, I enjoy a good debate)… Now on THAT we agree. P.S. Miloandrew deserves even more praise after I just discovered that he’s a gamespotter…I was amazed that such a well thought out, readable post could be made by someone of their kind.
Pleasantly surprised my friend…pleasantly surprised At least you ended well. Seriously though, thank you for the compliment. I’m glad that we can have a discussion like this. Nothing bothers me more than people who can’t back up their positions with a well thought out apologetic. Even though I don’t agree with a lot of what you have said, I sincerely applaud you for stepping up to the plate to make your case and am glad that you consider me your friend. The feeling is officially mutual. While I have no right to do so, I would like to ask a favor – please thinkabout what I’ve said before simply reacting to it. If you do, I think you’ll see that your initial argument really does fall apart under the strain of required proof. There is no harm in that, nor is there harm in having the initial belief. There is harm however in continuing to espouse something that is known to be wrong simply because you can’t humble yourself to say that you were initially mistaken. Empires have fallen to the hubris-ate-nemesis cycle – I hope you don’t.

I’m not saying that you have to agree with me – I’m just asking you to be completely sure you that you don’t, before you respond.

Well, kudos to you if you read this far. Point made.