| Loophole in English piracy laws regarding games? | |
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Eica - Student  |
Before anyone accuses me of warez talk, I'm not using this thread as a way to promote or discuss particular warez, just talk about issues surrounding it. I've heard that technically downloading a copyright game via a P2P program is legal in the UK, provided that the client does not distribute it in any way. I looked into this, and found the laws regarding video game piracy in the UK. Quote: makes unauthorised copies e.g. burning music files or films on to CD-Rs or DVD-Rs; distributes, sells or hires out unauthorised copies of CDs, VCDs and DVDs; on a larger scale, distributes unauthorised copies as a commercial enterprise on the internet; possesses unauthorised copies with a view to distributing, selling or hiring these to other people; while not dealing commercially, distributes unauthorised copies of software packages, books, music, games, and films on such a scale as to have an measurable impact on the copyright owner's business. I don't think there have been any legal charges in the past towards people who have downloaded games from the internet in the United Kingdom in the past. So what does this all mean? Are there not proper laws in place to prevent the piracy of games? Discuss. (maturely please) _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed |
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Bubu - Hubbub 
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Quote: Piracy will, unfortunately, live on until we move to something that is absolutely un-crackable. There never will be something that is absolutely un-crackable. Probably the smartest thing they can do to combat piracy is move to pure online distribution. You pay online, download, and then burn, if you want, your own copies of movies, games, software, whatever. Most people "acquire" pirated material because they want it before it is legally available in their local game shop or video store, not because they are cheap bastards who don't want to pay for merchandise. If everything was available online for the same prices all at the same time, I bet piracy as we know it would quickly become a thing of the past. _______________ make install -not war |
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Buzz - Student 
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Quote: It doesn't work that way with the British Phonographic Industry though, they launched serveral legal battles a while back with a few downloaders of pirated music. It was designed as almost a scare tactic. Didn't work either. But who were the downloaders they were going after? Were they downloading massive numbers of song files? And then leaving them up for others to download off of them. Or were they purely just downloadin? And I really doubt any news story you will see on the matter gave any clarity in that. _______________ When you are going through Hell, keep going. -Sir Winston Churchill. Those who seek power and control of others, no matter the level, no matter the intentions, should never be given it. |
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Mic Den Octela - Student 
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The biggest problem, is that the clients are most often the ones who piratise the games. It's not hard for someone to copy a CD (i.e. make it into a backup) or DVD game and then accidentily leave a copy on their sunday market stall with a price tag on it. That doesn't mean that someone won't borrow a game off a friend and copy it for themselves. Again, a 'client' could also purchase a copied and 'cracked' game and still have the original. (Perhaps they want a backup to preserve their original.. Should you be that obssessed) Furthermore, what if a complete randomer just cracks his game and "forgetfully" leaves it in his P2P sharing program's shared folder. There are thousands more methods of acquiring a copied game... Piracy laws won't stop it, but encourage people to be more discreet and hence; developing more methods of getting these games to the aforementioned 'clients'. Piracy will, unfortunately, live on until we move to something that is absolutely un-crackable. _______________ -Padawan of Virtue -Brother of Menaxia, *|irael, Krynn Adept, Majno, Ris Win Juljul, DaMi3N, Beowulf, Dash Starlight, Carrock and Yuken Zalak Bartender at Munes bar. Sir Mic of Nippledom! Proudly beating Wang, since '07. (Crackdown) This comment was edited by Mic Den Octela on Jul 11 2006 06:09pm. |
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Eica - Student 
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It doesn't work that way with the British Phonographic Industry though, they launched serveral legal battles a while back with a few downloaders of pirated music. It was designed as almost a scare tactic. Didn't work either. _______________ Former padawan of RoseRed |
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Bubu - Hubbub
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The key to stopping piracy does not lie in stopping people who "acquire" it, but rather people who make it available. Kill it at the source. Which is why nobody has ever been busted for downloading. The same cannot be said about people who regularly upload material, however. P2P networks are kind of a grey area since everyone is connected supposedly on an equal level. There is no source to go after. But networks such as usenet have "contributors". People who regularly upload material. These people DO get caught from time to time. _______________ make install -not war |
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