Saturn price suggestion

[ExCyber]

Since it appears both DC and SS software are under copyright protection, why do people still justify their actions by saying stealing is ok (Since they can't aford to do otherwise)

That's not always the motive. Some of the games in question are rather difficult to find now (obviously more Saturn games fall into this category than Dreamcast games), and to some people the emotional gratification of owning an original isn't really that important - they just want to play the games without the hassle of finding an original somewhere.

expecialy when laws clearly say otherwise?

I suspect that most people in the U.S. (and it wouldn't surprise me if this is true of people in other countries as well) generally don't have a very good idea what the law actually *says*, but rather get their sense of the law through a combination of "common sense" (the obvious rule of thumb being "If it directly harms someone else, it's probably illegal") and hearsay. There are a number of myths that regularly circulate regarding copyright law, including:

- It's not copyrighted if there's no copyright notice.

- It's not infringement if you delete it within 24 hours.

- It's not copyrighted anymore if the author/publisher isn't selling it.

- It's not infringement if no money was charged.

- It's infringement if someone steals my idea.

etc.

I think people find it easy to infringe copyrights because:

- They don't really know what the law says anyway, so it's easy to convince themselves that what they're doing is either not prohibited, or specifically allowed by some exception.

- The author isn't directly involved in it, so any possible harm could only be thought of in an abstract way.

- Related to the previous point, many people see "corporations" (governments probably fall under this too) as being some kind of vast, nebulous entities that won't really be harmed by it. This attitude seems to be common enough that bigger corporations end up needing security measures to prevent internal theft.

- It's usually a lot faster and easier to grab something from an immediately present friend than to go through the official channels.

- The recent attitudes of some parties toward the "piracy problem" leaves some people feeling that they're being treated as pirates by default (Windows XP Product Activation and audio CD copy protection being two recent examples), so why not just do it?

- Some people just get a kick out of being a 31337 I113g41 w4r3z d00d! D0wn wi7 d4 m4n! 😛

I'm sure I've missed some reasons and made an unfair generalization or two, but that's my sense of things at the moment.

 

[Falstaf]

Ooh! Sorry I'm late to this discussion....I was downloading a 3do game.😉 Why invite problems. The fact is that sega has activily pursued legal action against websites that offer dc games. Saturn they dont seem to care about. Where I live it has become very difficult to find Saturn games, not to mention the other systems talked about on this message board. If you feel strongly that this is wrong, then dont do it. But I have a feeling that this is more of an ethical/philisophical discussion than anything else. If you google you can ind sites that do offer dc games. But, as I said, wht nvite problems here.

 

[slinga]

Damnit because it's free

 

[mal]

As falstaff says, if you have a problem with downloading games from FTPs, don't do it.

I still find it incredible that owners of bootleg copies of games can question the legitimacy of downloading games from FTPs.

You think that Saturn FTPs harm copyright holders or people reselling games? How about bootleggers? Atleast the FTPs don't make money from the games that they pirate.

 

[Falstaf]

Not only do they not make money, but they lose money in the form of admin time, equipt maintenance, isp fees & ect. So it really could be considered an altruistic act on their part to offer this service.

 

[Ratamahatta]

I see pirated games as a try before you buy type of thing, personally I had a copied version of lunar, I liked it so I bought it. Thats just the way I see it, if people try reselling original copies of games, and someone already had the game copied and they liked it, sure they'd go out and buy it because they'd prefer to have an original copy of the game instead of a copy because of personal value.

 

[Ratamahatta]

I simply tell people like that to go to ####, if a game company makes a crappy game and I dont feel like buying it, its their loss, they shoulda made the game a #### of a lot better.

 

[Harlech]

I can't justify spending money on a system that is not going to go where it intentionally was meant to go, shit I bet there is a big hole behind some towns full of saturn games that were thrown away after some time, #### Mac did that, or was it Atari, none the less someone threw hundreds of machines in a hole because they ceased to support it anymore... Now if I had the option to pay Sega for a game that was out of date, I would do it, but I am not going to shell out $50 bucks for a game on a SS when I can get a game for the #### PS2 or my computer for that much. I wasn't much of a Saturn fan up until half a year ago, and what FTP's do for me is to keep a system alive. I live an hour from the closest second hand video store, and thier selection consists of Nights into Dreams and Fighters Megamix, which I bought both of.. And I Have bought stuff of ebay, but the bottom line is there is no way I am going to pay more than $10 or $15 usd for a used game. The FTP's keep the saturn alive, kill the FTP's, kill interest in one of Sega's blessings in disguise...

You can take my opinion of leave it, but if you leave it back away facing me or else I will shove it up your ass as soon as you turn around...

(Edited by Harlech at 10:19 pm on Mar. 10, 2002)

 

[Falstaf]

I'm with Ratamahatta. I would much rather have the original. Of the 70+ SS games I now have, only 4 are copies. And my Saturn is not modded.......yet. I have yet to download one game from the ftp's here. But I recognize the service they provide, one that, while controversial to some, has become very necessary to many here as they can no longer find games any other way. Is it totally ethical? Let's be real and call a spade a spade. Probably not under strictly legal terms. But I can't see myself telling others that they should not use this source, sometimes the only source available to them. Especially when at some point I myself may find it necessary to do the same.

Harlech....so much anger in one so young! Been watching too many prison flicks?🙂

 

[mal]

Quote: from falstaff on 2:51 pm on Mar. 11, 2002

I'm with Ratamahatta. I would much rather have the original. Of the 70+ SS games I now have, only 4 are copies. And my Saturn is not modded.......yet. I have yet to download one game from the ftp's here.

Quote: from falstaff on 2:49 pm on Mar. 10, 2002

Ooh! Sorry I'm late to this discussion....I was downloading a 3do game.😉

*Ahem*

How many of them have you downloaded? 😉

(Edited by mal at 12:02 am on Mar. 12, 2002)

 

[Falstaf]

That was a joke,actually. A bit of a smart ass comment but I did start to download a 1 3do game from elportal but with my 56k it just plainly takes too long. I will be upgrading to cable soon. Who know's? There are some games I might download if it is the only way I can obtain them. My point stays the same though. I won't be redundant about it.

 

[Trenton net]

Just from a technical standpoint 🙂, does that mean from what people have said, if your not willing to pay for it, you can just copy it? Isn't that still wrong? Surlly some people can see the problems with the "Do as you feel" thing.

 

[Cecilia Chen]

Supergrom --> I agree, I hate "fr33 g4m3z" people. They are same people who ask questions like "a 4 in 1 can play backups right?". I don't know why so many people answer them, or pretend they are newbies to help them out.

I probably have binders, binders and more binders of rare (In north amarican eyes) Asian/Japanese/Chinese game disks, but why should I even bother to exctract them, just so some "L33t" group can steal it and turn it into a "Warez" asian release?

 

[Falstaf]

As stated above I personally would always rather have the original.

As to being ethical or wrong? That's benn covered quite extensively. But Please...let's stop the self rightous posturing as noted in the last two comments. I refer you once again to mal's comments on hipocracy. If you can't see this then too bad for you. Maybe a little maturity is in order.(this from a 38 yr old man who still plays video games?) The reality is that buying bootleg games is much more unethical than offering the games for free to those who live in an area where they are no longer available or have been priced out of they're reach. Bootlegs are a true and total breech of the copywrite laws as they are produced and sold for personal gain and by buting them you are directly contributing to true game piracy, the manufacture, copying and sale of copywrited material that does not belong to you. This is not done on the ftp's listed here and would not be tolerated by the members or admin's of segaxtreme, by their own rules, according to my understanding of said rules.

As far as free games people or leachers, as they are often called....no one likes them. And many don't like those who can afford to purchase the original disks when they are available. Note: original disks.......not chinese silver bootlegs! There I've gone and done it. Been redundant unecessarily. What an ass!

 

[Harlech]

I agree with Falstaff, what is seen here is an over abundance of misunderstanding of a culture. I would much rather have the original game, and would share anything that I had to anyone else who wanted it. But its one of those things, I am not going to put up a rare ISO and be like, you have to pay me 5 dollars to download it off of my FTP! To have a FTP and to give away ISO's is to give back to a community that likes to see things thrive, you shut down the FTP's, and things would deteriorate away, part of Sega xtreme would dissapear, and there wouldn't be as much to talk about, as lots of us couldn't get some of the games that the FTP's allow, and then it would spread to places like E-bay, the Saturn way of life would collapse as we know it! AHHHHHHHH!! hehe

 

[ExCyber]

what is seen here is an over abundance of misunderstanding of a culture.

So far, it looks more to me like it's an attempt at getting some kind of interesting discussion going via the Socratic method (There's probably some other example of this technique that predates Socrates, but I was brought up with the good old European tradition of history). Of course, this is pretty much borderline troll/flamebait material as well, depending on how you read it, and it's starting to get a tiny bit repetetive.

Just from a technical standpoint, does that mean from what people have said, if your not willing to pay for it, you can just copy it?

The primary problem is not being willing or unwilling to pay for it, it's being able to find the games with a reasonable amount of effort. Without buying a plane ticket to Japan or lurking on eBay for months, the average Saturn fan isn't going to be able to pick up a copy of, say, Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru. Then there's the matter of compensating the author - to wit, buying used or "obsolete" games generally doesn't. Considering this, why is it necessarily wrong to obtain a copy through unauthorized channels? I'll take this opportunity to remind you that those of us so inclined will probably have great-grandchildren (if not great-great-grandchildren, depending on the variables) before the copyright period on any Saturn game expires, and if the current trend of extending terms continues, chances are that most of us will expire before the copyrights do. All the while, the game industry keeps running on its beloved five-year obsolecense cycle, and with each new generation more games fall out of distribution. Is there no point at which it's reasonable to do something about it?

Supergrom --> I agree, I hate "fr33 g4m3z" people. They are same people who ask questions like "a 4 in 1 can play backups right?".

No, those people actually have a Saturn and are interested in not messing it up. The fr33 g4m3z folks are the ones who assume that because games are getting passed around, there must be a near-perfect Saturn emu hidden somewhere...

why should I even bother to exctract them, just so some "L33t" group can steal it and turn it into a "Warez" asian release?

This isn't exactly an epidemic problem in the SX community, and if your primary motivation is to take credit for ripping it, then IMO you're in it for the wrong reason.

 

[Ringwraith]

"Fiddy Bucks CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

[mal]

Quote: from Ringwraith on 10:26 am on Mar. 13, 2002

"Fiddy Bucks CASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Thank you for your thoughtful response. It's interesting to here your perspective on the matter.

Hey Ratamahatta, I think your title's exclusivity is under threat! 😉

 

[Falstaf]

Nah! Ratamahatta's title is safe. as he pointed out in another thread, there is still dolt, dumb-ass ect. open. I personally have been thinking of changing mine to "old fart" as I believe I am close, if not, the elder statesman of segaxtreme.😎

 

[Curtis]

Quote: from falstaff on 12:41 pm on Mar. 13, 2002

Nah! Ratamahatta's title is safe. as he pointed out in another thread, there is still dolt, dumb-ass ect. open. I personally have been thinking of changing mine to "old fart" as I believe I am close, if not, the elder statesman of segaxtreme.😎

Careful what you wish for...😉