🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:23:57 +0000, pc games <pcgame...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>We know PIRATES are extremely damaging for PC Games cause they steal
>PC Games and by doing that reduce the so needed income developers need
>to stay in business and create more games.
>But are pirates the only ones that reduce sales and reduce income of
>developers?
>
>Let me give you 3 example of "fictional" PC Gamers called "John",
>"James" and "Jim"
>
>"John" story
>John enjoys very much PC Games, he buys them all, one day a friend of
>his asked him to lend him a game he has cause he enjoyed very much the
>demo and he accepted it.
>By lending his game to a friend "John" reduced that games sale by one
>unit cause his friend should have instead bought his own unit
>
>"James" story
>James enjoys very much PC Games, he buys them all, but one day he
>decided to try out the 2nd hand market in one of his games in which he
>already made a backup for himself, so he sold one of his games in the
>used 2nd hand market to another PC Gamer
>By selling in the used 2nd hand "James" reduced that games sale by one
>unit cause the buyer should have instead bought it new


"should have"?  What does that even mean?  What sort of moral
imperative does *the buyer* (not James -- he didn't destroy his
backup, so he has almost certainly violated the licensing agreement)
have to buy it new?  

If I buy a used car, am I depriving the car company of sales because I
didn't buy it new?  Of course I am, but would anyone in their right
mind say that I "should have" bought new, that I have vbiolated some
ethical or legal code?

In fact, you hurt the gaming industry whenever you fail to buy a game
because you don't think you'll like it, or when you only buy one copy
of a game because you only need one.

Scenario 4: 

Jules wants a copy of PC Game, but he's a little short on cash.  So he
waits 6 months until he finds a copy of the game in the Bargain Bin
for a fraction of the original cost.  The gaming industry is hurt
because he was able to get full enjhoyment out of the game at a
fraction of the cost. He should have bought it at full price.


In no other field (I mean ,except music and movies) is what one
"ought" to ponly up so speciously linked to unquantifyable notions
like usage and enjoyment.  There's a prevailing attitude that "You
should not get the enjoyment of the game unless you pay for it".  It
would be insane to make that sort of claim in the same way about other
things -- I'm depriving the sofa industry of its profits if I let
other people sit on my Incredibly Comby Sofa?

There is clearly a difference in the (egregiously misnamed)
"intellectual property" from the other sort -- the nonexclusivity
changes how the models have to work.  But linking it to some sort of
moralistic "You should pay for the pleasure you get" *undermines that
very point*.  If "intellectual property" is property, then I as the
buyer can *do with it as I wish*  The seller has NO RIGHTS TO IT AT
ALL once the money has changed hands.  I can copy it, resell it, play
frisbee with it, take it apart to see how it works ,whatever.  That's
fine by me.

If Intellectual Property *isn't* property, if it's something like a
service, that's fine by me too.  It behaves according to a different,
but still valid set of rules.It's nonexclusive, which means that my
having it doesn't mean others can't have it at the same time.  I may
have to buy the same service more than once.  I have certain rights of
recompense if I don't like how the service as performed.  And you can
not steal a service that hasn't been performed. I don't rob my barber
if I cut my own hair.  I don't rob my mechanic when I change my own oil.


This is not an issue about "Who's hurting the gaming industry".  We
don't have any responsibility to take care of the gaming industry.
We're not robbing them of sales -- THOSE SALES DO NOT EXIST TO BE
STOLEN.  If they're not selling, it is because *they have failed* to
compell people to buy.  

In none of these examples has the person involved "hurt the game
industry" in a way fundamentally different than I hurt the game
industry because I decide I do not want to buy a particular game (or
because I decide to boycott it altogether).  SO sure, everyone hurts
the industry, because no one buys every game.  But when you try to
make up examples singling out particular classes of the industry
failed to profit based on this whole idea of "The game industry didn't
make any money off you, but you had fun anyway", you're trying to say
that the industry is in the business of selling *fun* -- that's a
service.  And taking it without permission is not unlike sneaking into
an amusement park (I don't think anyone would call that stealing,
though they also wouldn't say it's legal).  So fine, it's a service.
It's not a product. Services can't be copyrighted.