Just to make some things clear about Piracy

[Bibor]

I might be banned from forums for this statement, but fist hear me out. Its my privilege by the 1st amendment and I use it.

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Piracy is a theft of the commercial and creative rights of their respectful owners.
Piracy should not be encouraged.
No illegal copies or 3rd party sofware helping piracy should be allowed.

However,
From several locked (closed) posts i can tell - YOU ARE BEING PARANOID! AND IGNORANT!

Let me brief all of you Western citizens into not-so-old history.

1. When I was age 15 (12 years ago), I could not buy legal copies of games. Because our country did not import them. Pirate software was not illegal.

2. The first law in Croatia about computer software piracy took power 4 years ago.

3. In croatia, the average income of a family is 3500 kunas ($700). CIV3 still costs 400 kunas, Conquests cost 500 kunas. CIV3: Gold is not available. Go ahead and spend 1/3 of your salary for your kid to play CIV3.

4. I am a marketing manager of a computer sales company in Croatia. I have double of the salary above mentioned. I can *barely* afford legal games, but I do.
I managed to buy around 10 legal games in 4 years (including Colonization White label, SMAC Planetary pack, CIV3 and C3C).

And here in croatia things are going well, we can actually buy legal games. Even if it means that we will be hungry for the rest of the month.

So next time someone by accident mentions the word "crack", "cracked exe", "illegal copy", he's from Poland, is 14 years old and can afford a legal game only if he doesn't buy icecream for a year, please think twice about LOCKING THE THREAD AND/OR BANNING HIM FROM FORUMS.

I don't buy this BS about political correctness, we are here to play the game and to have some fun in this crazy world.
This is a CIV3 community, not a Firaxis(TM) Civilization 3(TM) community, or so i thought.

kirby out -

EDIT: OF course, I'm my anger I noticed only later that i posted in the wrong directory...

 

[MSTK]

I might be banned from forums for this statement, but fist hear me out. Its my privilege by the 1st amendment and I use it.

Actually, 1st amendment does not block prevention of free speach in private organizations...especially when you agreed to a TOS saying that you would not do it.

But I don't think this is illegal. You're not giving away anything, are you?

 

[Bibor]

Actually, 1st amendment does not block prevention of free speach in private organizations...especially when you agreed to a TOS saying that you would not do it.

But I don't think this is illegal. You're not giving away anything, are you?

This is not about me. I never use bad language nor do i use illegal CIV. It's not even a matter of rules (they are ok). Its about the misinterpretation/abuse of the rules (by moderators in this case).

-kirby

 

[MSTK]

So how is this against the TOS? (that you agreed to)

 

[Bibor]

I just read in the forum rules that "Freedom of speech" does not apply on Civfanatics. I agree, no one can curse, use bad words, bring up sexual or racial stuff etc.

But there is a difference between outright abuse, bullying or explicit language and someone who is playing an illegal copy of the game.

If you don't get it, there's no way I can't explain it.

Let me rephrase: Its illegal to drive through "yellow light", but sometimes you do it. Sometimes you even have to do it (to prevent an accident).
Another matter is if you kill a pederstrian because you are in a killing spree.

 

[MSTK]

I understand what you mean. I'm just wondering why your post was "illegal" in any way.

 

[Bibor]

*error* delete

 

[player1 fanatic]

Well, I feel your pain.

I from Serbia, had probably had even harder time, consdeirng that my coutry had sanctions several years ago.

With sanctions, no legal market, so only game market was a piracy. 5 or more years ago 99,9% of all sowtware in my country was piracy (0.01% mean that someone accidentaly bough sofware from abroad).

But, that piracy din't hurt nobody fiancialy. Since these was no market, aruthors didn't really lose any money on piracy. In fact, it was a free advertisment was future market.

If I didn't played pirated Civ1 and Civ2, I would never even consider buying legal Civ3 today (+PtW, +C3C).

Of course all this changed few years ago when laws got changed and legal software started to be imported.
Now, I can agree that piracy is bad, since the more pirated games are bought the less profit for the author.

Although games are still expensive (if you consider that salaries on Balakan are 10 times lower then America), now they are more accessable in legal ways. While I can afford the many can't, and that probably the reason why priacy still exsits (but is not so common as before).

The only thing I can't understand that for average Amerian 50$ is dirt cheap, so why some Amerians still buy pirated games? That's pure robbery!

 

[player1 fanatic]

And why there are no discount for foreign market?
That would be best way to solve piracy problem after all.
Better sell game for 15$, then not sell it at all due to piracy.

 

[MSTK]

$50 dollars is dirt cheap?

I think you've got the wrong CIA.

 

[toh6wy]

Of course, people can always *pretend* to be in this situation, and no one would be the wiser...

And I don't believe people should pirate games in any case - it's not like Civ3 is a basic need for survival or something. If you *really* want it, save up for it!

But games definitely should cost less according to a country's average income. That much I agree with 100%. Better 'n' getting a little for them then nothing.

And if you can buy 10 legal games in 4 years, then your typical Croatian can buy 5 legal games in 4 years. That's not too bad - about as often as *I* buy games on average, actually. Maybe even more often.

 

[Bibor]

Actually I was somewhat involved in 1st legalization of games in croatia. The main problem with lesser prices (adapted to market) is that then the worst situation would happen.
Imported goods that cost $50 in US would cost $15 here. However, who can stop the merchants to sell the goods back and make HUGE amounts of money.
My idea (several years ago) was that a "bulk" product should be sold in small BNP countries, with separate packaging that would obviously be "for this market only".

However, I was young then and noone took me seriously...

My fist post on this thread however, was not about piracy per se, but about treatment of certain words used in forums. It reminds me of Columbine. No one can say the word "Columbine" in US because it's a forbidden word. I bet if someone in the US would say at work "I will turn this company into a second Columbine, I swear" my best guess that he would be prosecuted the same second (and lose job of course), and he would loose the trial. Now that's paranoia.

-kirby

 

[microbe]

Actually, 1st amendment does not block prevention of free speach in private organizations...especially when you agreed to a TOS saying that you would not do it.

Huh? How could he have agreed to it without buying it first?

 

[Yaype]

Huh? How could he have agreed to it without buying it first?

That was in reference to joining CFC, not to buying Civ3.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

yeah 50$ being dirt cheap, its a matter of what people are used to.

Indeed, compared to prizes in your country, it is dirt cheap (i live in holland btw, where 50$ is just as "dirt cheap" as in the US)

And when i was 12-16 or so and had no income of myself, i had no other choise than to copy software (my parents always were against computers) Luckily, that was in the time of the floppy disk , but i immagine there still are many kids who have litte other options than to get illegal software.

And now, game software is actually the only software i buy legal.

Games have very good replayability nowadays, so i buy like 1 game every 3 months (+some of those cheap oldies that cost 5$ a piece) i have enough to play. Also do legal games now have a quality vs price that looks good to me, i know the efforts needed to make a game (though i also know game producers can make LOADS of money), most companies offer online services and include manuals, maps etc with their games. That all makes it worth for me buying them legal. This only goes for a few game campanies / game series though. I will buy everything from blizzard and civilisation series without having even seen the game (i dont know what else firaxis makes so cant say that for the whole company like with blizzard). Other games though i do still download illegally before buying them simply because i need to see if they are worth it (if i am bored within a week, it is not) I think that is reasonable.

Other software is a totally different matter for me though. Microsoft software is so rediculously expensive i am definately not gonna buy it. Profesional software like compilers or cad programs are obviously even much more unaffordable as they can cost several 1000's $.

Music also is a different matter. If you like music, you wont be satisfied with 100 cd's because soon you will have heard all of them so often and you really need new cd's. Buying a decent legal music collection is pretty unaffordable for me. Also do i share the common feeling record companies are pure rip off with production costs for a cd being less than 1$ (vs sale prizes over 20$) and the artists getting almost nothing of it. If cd prizes would be halved, i'd buy them legal. As of now, i rarely buy legal cd's. I might do so when i have a well paying job (i just finished being student 2 weeks ago, now being bachelor in computer science and looking for a job) If i will be buying legal cd's for 20$ though, that is not because i think the makers deserve it or anything alike, only because i hate all those cd's that look like **** with my handwriting and sometimes dont work in my car cd player

Do you guys who advocate buying legal games also buy all your music legal ? (if you are a real music fan that listenes music like 10 hours a day) and do you have legal versions of windows office and whatever other software you use?
For me the boundaries of what is affordable i just explained, i know they are like that for many people. For some it might be higher, but for others it is lower. Some people are too yough to have an income, some simply arent gifted or lucky enough to have gotten an education and work at mcdonalds for 500 a month, and others simply live in less prosperous countries.
You cannot judge those unless out of principal, you have NOTHING illegal. (without being filthy rich so that such a "principal" is very easy to have)

Moderator Action: WackenOpenAir - 3 days for vulgarity.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Deo Invicto]

From what i see this is a privately owned site.. so if they wish to ban/delete anyone they have the right to and we can all do nothing but follow the rules.

 

[Turner]

Let me put it this way....

Piracy is illegal in the US. Period. Does that stop it from happening? No, of course not.

We here at Civfanatics (and by we, I mean the posters, mods and admins) have come to have a good relationship with the people at Firaxis and Atari. We appreciate that relationship, and certainly do not want to do anything that would jepordize it. Should suddenly CFC start to condone piracy, that would end up harming both Firaxis and Atari by taking away revenue that these companies would earn. Some don't care. Some wouldn't mind seeing Firaxis and/or Atari 'hurt'. Some feel that pirating a couple of games from them simply wouldn't hurt the company at all, as they've already sold millions of copies of the game. And by CFC condoning piracy and hurting Firaxis/Atari, we would be putting our relationship in jepordy. They would stop coming here, and all the insider info we get, all the thanks and support they give us in return, would go away. Obviously, that's not something that we here at CFC want to happen.

Now, you can try to justify piracy by saying the software is too expensive. You can try to justify it by saying that mom and dad don't let me buy computer games. You can try to justifiy it all you want. In the end, it's still illegal, and discussion of it is not allowed at CFC. If you don't like it, don't let the door hit your butt on the way out. We don't need that here, and we won't tolerate it. Period. End of story.

Thread closed.