Ethical p2p client question

[Erdrick Holmes]

I was playing some Genisis games last night o an emulator and I begane to think of a question on the ethics of software downloads.

There is a ton of games and other software that the companies no longer make and/or support. Take for example Doom 2, Id no longer makes that game anymore because they're working on other projects like Doom 3, etc. This concept is called "Abandonware" for all of you non-geeks out there. So my question is, should it be ok to download items on a p2p network that the companies no longer make anymore but if you went back five or ten years you'd have to buy it with cash in hand?

[Baloki]

Well it is legal to download them if you paid cash in hand for the game many a year ago, kept the game but sold the player. Then emulation is a legal option so you can play it again, cool eh?

[Yamaneko]

It's up to the company who made the product. They do what they wish, to a certain extent, otherwise we don't have capitalism.

[DeBlayde]

it's fine to play something you paid money for once upn a time, like Baloki says.

as for everything else, so long as you delete it from your computer less than 24 hours after download, you're still fine. but the fineprint says nothing about the backup CD's.

[Enoki]

That is a brilliant concept Joel, however I dont like paying for things I can get for free. I dont think downloading stuff like games and music is unethical. Its putting a dent in the outrageous salaries these companies are making and that lets them know what it feels like to be "the common man". I dont think theres a thing wrong with it.

[Dr Unne]

It's certainly not legal. Unless a company puts something into the public domain, their copyright lasts for, what, 70 years? I don't know how long exactly, but even the copyright on Atari games has yet to expire from what I know. It is legal, however, to back up something you purchased yourself, from what little I know of copyright law. I bought FF1 10 years ago or so. It would be legal for me to backup my ROM to my computer, if I had the means to do it. Is it legal to download a ROM someone ELSE backed up? I don't know. Even if the data is identical, I don't know if it still classifies as "backup". If you didn't ever pay for the game though, it's illegal to own it.

As far as ethics, if you pay for something, I think you have the right to do whatever you want with it, including copying an NES cart to your computer to play it that way. So far as downloading games you never paid for, you're taking the product of someone else's hard work and owning it and using it without compensating the person who created it. If you believe in human rights, specifically the right to own property, and the right to profit from things you produce, then it isn't ethical, no. A person should be able to decide how their own work is distributed. I can't decide for you that your game should be free just because I want it to be, unless the law says otherwise.

Now some people want to change copyright law to make copyrights expire much much sooner. For example 10 years. Some people argue that if a person can't conceivably make profit from something any longer, it should be make public domain so that society can benefit. If I write a really good book or video game, and I die 10 years after it's created, I can't even GIVE my consent to let that book or game enter the public domain any longer. And so eventually it will just cease to exist in any form; the law will protect my work right out of existence. If NES went out of business tomorrow, for example, old NES games would still not be public domain, so far as I know; they would NEVER be public domain, and if people respected the law, NES games would cease to exist, once all the current carts deteriorated and stopped working.

<i>as for everything else, so long as you delete it from your computer less than 24 hours after download, you're still fine</i> --DeBlayde

Sorry, that's pure myth, so far as I know.

<i>Its putting a dent in the outrageous salaries these companies are making and that lets them know what it feels like to be "the common man". I dont think theres a thing wrong with it.</i> --Enoki

So, say you were selling a car you own, and you decide you want $40,000 for it. Someone decides your price is too high; does that mean they can take your car for free, to teach you a lesson?

You have no RIGHT to own games and music. You have the right to buy it at the price people sell it for, and you also have the right not to pay for it, i.e. not to own it. You have no right to get everything you want for the price you want to pay.

[Bernhard]

Originally posted by Enoki
That is a brilliant concept Joel, however I dont like paying for things I can get for free.

I can get a lot of things for free. I want a new bike. I'll steal it. I want some pasta. I'll steal it. I want Call of Duty for the PC. I'll steal it. It's the exact same thing; you take something you haven't paid for. The fact that it's easier to get away with downloading something instead of stealing it physically doesn't make it any less morally wrong.

[Baloki]

The 24 hour thing is a unique loop-hole in UK law (and UK law only as far as I am aware), that anything you borrow or download may be used legally for 24 hours for testing and demonstration perposes.

Also, if you are dead Dr. Unne (following on from the example) and people do break the law and distribute your materials, then (this is again in the UK) there is no-one to follow up the problem. As only the copyright holder may sue.

Another silly fact, if you die your heir gains your copyright.

[MecaKane]

Originally posted by Bernhard
I can get a lot of things for free. I want a new bike. I'll steal it. I want some pasta. I'll steal it. I want Call of Duty for the PC. I'll steal it. It's the exact same thing; you take something you haven't paid for. The fact that it's easier to get away with downloading something instead of stealing it physically doesn't make it any less morally wrong.

Sure it does, the people who you stole the bike and pasta from don't have a bike or any pasta anymore. The company you stole Call of Duty from still has the same number of copies in stores as they did before you downloaded it. Doesn't make it terribly right, but it's not nearly as wrong as stopping someone from eating/riding/selling(if you stole from a store) something.

[Dr Unne]

Just because no one cares about you breaking the law, doesn't mean it's OK to do it. Maybe the State would prosecute you for breaking copyright law if the copyright owner is dead, I don't know. I do imagine that legitimate companies, say a book company, would refuse to mass-produce a 50-year-old book from an author who died but whose copyright still exists. I imagine that if Sony wanted to remake Pong in 1024-bit 5-D graphics for the PS3 and knew they'd make a million dollars off of it, they still wouldn't do it, because the copyright is still there, even if the business that created Pong originally no longer existed. If the law was different, then things might be different, and we might be enjoying many more and varied sorts of products.

[Baloki]

Or Pong reproduced in 12 billion infinate ways, its all too much. The future could be so different in so many different ways, yet for us it still seems the same in every respect, how unusual....

And stealing bicycles, that happens alot round here, people should buy bike locks.

[Dr Unne]

<i>The company you stole Call of Duty from still has the same number of copies in stores as they did before you downloaded it. Doesn't make it terribly right, but it's not nearly as wrong as stopping someone from eating/riding/selling(if you stole from a store) something.</i> --MecaKane

So what if you went into the local bookstore, took in a laptop and a portable scanner, and started scanning all the books in the store. The book store still owns the books. You just got the books for free (in digital format). Do you think that'd be theft either?

What if you went into a research facility, found the plans for a brand new top-secret car engine, and took digital photos of all the plans, and then left and used them to make your own engine. Do you think that'd be wrong? The original company still has their plans, after all. You didn't "steal" them in a physical sense. You just have a digital copy.

EDIT: Oops.

[Garland]

Apparently, stealing is OK, as long as you don't feel like paying for the item. We're sort of like 21st century Robin Hoods, stealing from the rich and all, except we don't give to the poor.

[Erdrick Holmes]

I think having a digital copy of something ok because it will never be as good as the physical exiting item. I mean I have a few dozen mp3's from Symphony X on my Harddrives but I would still go out and buy their CDs because the actualy physical item has a better value so after buying it I have a better satisfaction of owning the item.

Think of it this way lets say that as I grow up and I die, what happens to all of my stuff that I dont want buried with me? It gets given to somenbody else, and I'm long dead so how on earth would I know if some random stranger is taking it? Thats what I feel about abandonware. Lets just say that if Im done using something, somebody else can have it, hence forth with abandonware, Id is completly done with Doom I and no longer makes it anymore.

[MecaKane]

I think you got our posts and/or messages mixed up, Unne. x_X