Thread: An Example of Ethical Piracy

Ok hypothetically I own a business that mods say your PSP or X Box and on top of that I offer a service to have the games that you own on your Hard Drive so that you no longer need to carry the discs. I would either need to reverse engineer the games to allow them to played this way or download them in this form. Either way I am breaking the License Agreement, would you consider this acceptable. Ethically I feel this is sound, however I doubt it would hold any substance against the laws concerning intellectual property. What are you opinions on this example?

Hmm. I agree with you Mr.Interent. I believe that you should be able to do what you want and give it to who you want when you buy a copy of a game. See for me, I have a playstation 3, xbox 360 and a wii. If a game comes out for all three systems, I believe that I should be able to purchase 1 game, and be able to burn a copy for the other 2 systems. I did purchase a game, so I should have the rights. I do this for systems, and since you cant modify a playstation 3, I buy the games, and burn them to xbox360. I also am thinking about opening a business, but I just do it for family and friends, I know I can bank making money, and offering burning services for their own games.

A company is entitled to it's own copyright policy. From what I have seen the standard is not to duplicate for gain, so as long as it's personal, I would assume there are no worries. But if the feds come to raid, you need to have evidence to support that it's your own duplication. Otherwise a "I misplaced it, or, threw it away" wouldn't work, your ass is going to jail.

Ummm, you mean like a legitimate tax paying business? In the US you'd be in prison so fast that your head would spin. Ethically you're fine, but that doesn't make a difference.

I believe you are within your rights to make a backup of a title that you own, in case the original disc gets scratched or destroyed.
The gray area for me is what if you make a backup and your original gets stolen?
Do you still have the right to play the backup? Or do you have to hunt down the thief and say 'hey pal, you forgot to steal the backup as well, its useless to me now'
LOL

Ethical piracy is an oxymoron. What Mr. Internet describes isn't actually piracy either. It is very legal to make back ups of your games.

The act of modifying the existing software is where the breach in law occurs. The compiled software is yours. When you 'open the box' and peak under the hood to tinker with it, that's where the law says 'uh-uh'. Because what you're in effect doing is exposing the company who created the software's intellectual property. Then you're modifying it. It's sort of like stealing the coca-cola formula and modifying it. Or backwards engineering it for a closer example. It's a trade secret and it's protected as IP.

What IPB is discussing surrounding buying 1 game for one system and pirating the same for different systems is illegal. The software written for each system is usually very different. It's basically like having Shakespere then paraphasing it in two different ways. Or writing it in French and German. Each version is a seperate and distinct peace of IP. Most game companies even go out of their way to make the games a little different (some have extra quests, cut scenes, different controls, better graphics) just to emphasize that distinction.

Lastly Sigma's question about owning, burning then losing the original is legal state of being. Someone stealing from you does not transfer rights of ownership to the thief. It's like handing over the pinkslip to a stolen car. You're burned copy is the defacto legit version and the orginal stolen is actually 'pirated'. A true reversal of fortunes!

I believe the law allows you to make backups of your films, games and music etc. A new DCMA addition was passed that makes life a bit easier too, I actually do make legit backups of xbox games as they get scratched easily.

I agree with diegocross on this subject. In all honesty if you own the hard copy you are entitled to make a backup provided you are not selling the backups or in our case placing them on sites such as BG or UG for games or PTN, IPT, GFT for movies etc.

My biggest concern is the fact that you are providing this service to others, that to me is a gray area as you are not the owner of such but are making a profit from doing so. In all honesty I believe you would be better off making a tutorial explaining how to do such be it from the hard copy or from the internet. We can always make a tutorial about anything and everything without risk of legal ramifications.

Just my opinion on such.

Don't fool ourselves,if it breaks the agreement,then it's piracy.So,it comes down to if it's ethical acceptable or not.
I believe that yes,we should be entitled to make copies in our hdd,or download multiple times an already purchased game and that the ones pushing people to piracy(ethically acceptable or not)is the gaming industry.They invent so many ways to protect the game while making it unstable and annoying as hell.Remember the ridiculous first drm security system,permanent connectivity to internet to be able to play a singleplayer game or the new fashion of dlc's.If I give 60 euros for a game I want it complete,I dont want to have to buy 3 euro stuff that's already implemented in the game but the smart managers thought to cut off and sell it separately.
To sum it up,I think with the current treatment we're experiencing from gaming companies,yes we can and we should make our gaming life easier.