Yes, let’s just confine ourselves to a world of stark blacks and whites. That guy over there that just shoplifted a loaf of bread? Yeah, he stole it; he’s EVIL. Behind bars with him, next to that serial rapist sitting in the corner. In fact, he’s just as bad as that serial rapist who’s going to be exectued tomorrow. Let’s kill him too, while we’re at it…
BTW, I’m looking at this from the distributor’s perspective. IMO, selling pirated copies of games is worse than distributing them freely (both are bad, but the degree is different, as explained above). A person that knowingly buys pirated products, however, is on the same level as a person that downloads them for free. The end damage is the same: the people who made the legitimate product aren’t receiving their dues for their hard work.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 10-17-2004).]
File sharing is 1000x better than buying a HK bootleg. Please don’t buy them. Consider not only the points already made above, but also that the money made on bootleg products support the illegal drug market in Hong Kong. Nothing could be more of an “anti-fan” action than buying a bootleg DVD or game. It’s one thing if you don’t know, but if you consider yourself a fan then you shouldn’t try to support such a criminal organization.
Be aware that there are some stores online that sell legit products mixed with bootlegs. Just because a place sells bootlegs doesn’t mean that everything they sell is bootlegs. I have never seen a bootleg version of an English language bishoujo game. If such a thing exists it would be news to me.
quote:
Originally posted by bishounen_blue:
Consider not only the points already made above, but also that the money made on bootleg products support the illegal drug market in Hong Kong.
I hadn't considered this. Good point. If profits from the sales are used to support more illegal activities (or increase human suffering in general) then buying bootlegs IS worse than P2P downloading.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 10-17-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by smog:
You guys who try to make file sharing look better than buying a hk dvd make me laugh.
Why? It is, insofar as bootleg DVDs are tied to organized crime. You CAN make the argument that's true of the filesharing program makers, but that's pushing it a bit far (especially since there are freeware tools without ads).
Of course, they're still both wrong in that you're pirating the material. But there ARE other negative effects to buying HK DVDs aside from piracy.
Personally, my attitude is ... rather odd, I think. I'm not willing to pay ANY price for a bootleg. Bootlegs must be free. I have no problem downloading, say, fansubs or out-of-print material. But the point of buying an original is to have a legitimate original, and bootleg copies lack that. If you buy a bootleg you're buying simply a copy, no different from any other - and I am not interested in paying for something I can download from the Internet for free.
[This message has been edited by Nandemonai (edited 10-17-2004).]
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
Personally, my attitude is ... rather odd, I think. I'm not willing to pay ANY price for a bootleg. Bootlegs must be free. I have no problem downloading, say, fansubs or out-of-print material. But the point of buying an original is to have a legitimate original, and bootleg copies lack that. If you buy a bootleg you're buying simply a copy, no different from any other - and I am not interested in paying for something I can download from the Internet for free.
Hardly odd...I think that's generally the public attitude. The problem is that filesharing is "addicting." Once you start getting things like fansubs that'll never make it over to the English market (and thus you will never buy), it's very easy to start downloading things that you might very well have bought if you hadn't downloaded it...
Err...this discussion is starting to advance into nebulous territories. I admit that I'm also into fansubs, but drawing that moral line can be somewhat...difficult. What do you guys think? Is fansubbing "wrong" just because the (Japanese) company's licensed work is being distributed without their consent?
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 10-17-2004).]
you guys are making me sick. bunch of friggan pirates that try to lable filesharing not as bad as a hk dvd. At the end you are still playing pirated software. You cheap bastards just got an easier way to get pirated stuff without paying for it.
How does downloading something not encourage piracy?
‘shakes his head’
quote:
Originally posted by smog:
you guys are making me sick. bunch of friggan pirates...
Let's keep this civil now. No need to go pointing fingers and deriding others over injured pride. I would say more, but I can't right now. I have to get some sleep.
If that place ain’t legit, there’s always the old stand-bys, like Right Stuf or AnimeNation- I’ve gotten my B-Games from them in the past. They tend to have special offers that pop up every so often for certain B-Game titles.
Yes, but they don’t regularly sell games for $35. Assuming the B-games on these pirated websites are legitimate, how come the pirates can sell them for less than the real stores?
There was a topic about it a year ago or so, butI can:t seem to find it in the search anymore -_-
I just received G-collection’s reply:
"Hi,
Thank you for your report. Interact is in fact one of our distributors who used to order games from us in the past. I am assuming they are just trying to get rid of the existing stock fast by initiating a price drop on all of our products.
We sincerely thank you for your help in fighting piracy with us."
So I guess they’re all right (I haven’t checked if they pirate other things). I’ll repost the link.
Edit: No, I don’t see any pirated products in their line-up. Now might be the time to buy. Too bad I already ordered Private Nurse from PP…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 10-18-2004).]
This is very interesting.
My wallet will be happy if I get my manga shop to order it from there.
Fansubs… Well, I got the three first fansubbed episodes of Tokyo Underground on my PC. It took 23 hours to download (BitTorrent), so I don’t think I’ll download that much… I’m currently waiting for it to be translated. I want to buy my anime, not download it.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark_Shiki:
I just received G-collection's reply:"Interact is in fact one of our distributors who used to order games from us in the past."
It seems like this might be a limited time offer, from the way G-collections worded that. If you have your manga shop order up their stock, that might leave none for us. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/tongue.gif[/img] [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
quote:
If you have your manga shop order up their stock, that might leave none for us.
Nah, they won't order all the stock. They have had bishoujo games on sale for more than a year, at least, and it's not selling well, so they aren't going to restock. They only had one copy in stock at a time anyway.
But if I ask for it, they would be happy to order a bishoujo game to sell me.
It's strange that they used to be a customer of G-Collections. Come See Me Tonight 2 is a recent game...
So is Idols Galore!.
[This message has been edited by Benoit (edited 10-18-2004).]
[This message has been edited by Benoit (edited 10-18-2004).]
Oh no, people are talking about fansubs. Sigh… Okay, let me state the obvious: a fansub is a double-edged sword. They are meant to gather more interest in anime. In the case of Risky Safty, Anime Nation became aware of the show’s US fanbase because of fansubs. Fansubs help to create new fans. At the same time people can abuse them. I see BBS postings of people getting angry that a certain series was licenced because the fansub will not be completed. That’s crazy, because once the show is licenced the fansub as accomplished its goal. I watched Chobits and Samurai Deeper Kyo all the way through on fansub and I own both of those on DVD now. I watched Girls BRAVO on fansub and I have the R2 boxset on preorder! (comes out this friday!) I am always buying anime DVDs, and I never try to burn fansubs to CD to “get the series for free.” I do not count fansubs as part of an anime collection. I understand that not everyone has the same amount of money. But, I think that if you are willing to spend some money to buy anime on DVD that you already saw on fansub, you are a real fan.
Well it’s too bad I already have all of g-coll’s games. Damn guess that’s the downside of getting my games first…
quote:
Originally posted by bishounen_blue:
File sharing is 1000x better than buying a HK bootleg. Please don't buy them. Consider not only the points already made above, but also that the money made on bootleg products support the illegal drug market in Hong Kong.
.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark_Shiki:
[B] I hadn't considered this. Good point. If profits from the sales are used to support more illegal activities (or increase human suffering in general) then buying bootlegs IS worse than P2P downloading.B]
Trust me on this guys; the illegal drug market is pretty much what you would call a "profit center." I find it highly unlikely that the Evil Hong Kong Drug Lords are using pirated B-games to prop up their struggling drug business (or other unprofitable evil enterprises).
Paulish
------------------
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Eh…good point?
I think it’s more the principle of the matter than the magnitude of the effect. Although I’m quite sure this statement contradicts my usual effect-based thinking. Bah…
We were discussing pirated anime, however, rather than pirated b-games. Pirating anime is somewhat more widestream and lucrative, I would think. Case in point: do a search for a (popular) anime series on ebay, and observe the ratio of pirated products to legitimate ones. The ratio certainly doesn’t favor legitimacy…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 10-19-2004).]
Making a bootleg DVD can be very profitable, if not quite as much so as the drug trade. I mean, the profit margin is probably 30x at least, even for the cheap price they sell them for. It’s like printing money, basically.