Is downloading and playing the leaked Crysis 2 legal?

[HammerON]

Since we are not allowed to discuss ethics in the "Crysis 2 Leaked" thread, I thought I would start one where that is the topic of discussion.

My personal opinion is that it is piracy (thus illegal) and that you are using a product that you have no right to use. It is the property of Crytek and no matter how somenone wants to "spin it", they have not been given permission to use said property.

 

[AphexDreamer]

Well with out a doubt it not legal but I wouldn't say pirating it is the same as pirating Dead Space 2 or any other finished game.

Stealing is stealing but in this case its like stealing half an xbox 360 or a quarter of a ps3 or listening to a 5 min song with only 3 min of actual recording time and the parts that do play are out of tune, skip, stutter or don't make sense.

So bad? Sure? to What extent? Left to you to decide. Your getting something thats incomplete, which to the majority of the users, means crap other than getting a preview.

 

[HammerON]

I am talking about the leaked game at the moment. Sorry - I should have clarified that in the OP

 

[n-ster]

copying 50% of a book is plagarising, so stealing 50% of a game is stealing, simple as that. Not legal and I'm disappointed so many TPUers have downloaded it. There is a fine line between downloading a leaked beta and a full game.

 

[devguy]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I haven't had even the slightest inclination to download the Crysis 2 leak. I'm definitely pumped for the game, but I want to experience it in full DX11.

Still, if the game was leaked with DX11 support, I still wouldn't download it. But I am appalled with the relatively recent EA PC game price hike up to $60. All other companies still released their games at $50...

 

[Phxprovost]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I haven't had even the slightest inclination to download the Crysis 2 leak. I'm definitely pumped for the game

my thoughts on this

 

[jellyrole]

Everyone has different views on this, so why can't you just leave it at that?

Yes, clearly it's illegal and that can't be debated making the poll useless..

 

[Soylent Joe]

It's only illegal if you get caught

 

[Mussels]

the question in the OP is misleading.

you ask about downloading crysis 2, which is not - you should have specified the leaked alpha/beta, which is very different from a legal perspective, to a finalized game with DRM and copy protection.


I'll quote myself in the other thread here:

it could be, depending on laws.


around here, for it to be counted as piracy you have to prove that someone was disadvantaged by the alleged piracy.

Its hard to do so with this, as it is clearly nowhere near finished enough to be a substitute for the final product. no ones can play this long term, or play this and not bother with the full. its buggy, missing features, and crashes a lot.

can they lose money from it? no, not really. its far, FAR inferior to the finished product which isnt even for sale yet. so how are they disadvantaged? its almost free advertising, which is an advantage instead.

This is why in most cases of software piracy, they charge you with breaking the DRM/copy protection instead of outright piracy. Its much easier to prove and target (and it doesn't apply to this leaked beta, which doesn't have them)

it may well be immoral, but by definition (at least in my country) its not illegal. the only person to truly commit a crime, is the one who stole the game in the first place and uploaded it to the net.


If its not legal where you are, or you dont think its legal where you are - dont download it. remember that laws differ, and in some countries this year that hundreds of people were arrested for being in a room with a member of the opposite sex on valentines day without a chaperone. Laws differ, and you cant force laws in your region upon those in another, regardless of your beliefs.


edit: link NSFW, it has some erotic advertising on the site that i cant do anything about, as that page is the source of the article.

 

[erocker]

around here, for it to be counted as piracy you have to prove that someone was disadvantaged by the alleged piracy.
can they lose money from it?

Well, if someone from your country was caught, I'm sure EA and their team of laywers could definitely make a case that it is piracy and they are losing money from it. Most game companies have taken this stance.

 

[Mussels]

Well, if someone from your country was caught, I'm sure EA and their team of laywers could definitely make a case that it is piracy and they are losing money from it. Most game companies have taken this stance.

they could try, but so far (that i know of, or that i found in google) there is no precedent for piracy of a product not for sale yet, or a software product where they didnt use the cracking/removal of DRM as the major point in the case.


If someone pirates a DVD, they had to remove the protection to do so - and i'm sure in the USA those fines are stupidly high like they are here, so that that alone is enough to send the pirates to jail, without having to prove anything else (such as an actual piracy claim)

 

[AltecV1]

its nice to see the world at different shades of grey and not just black and white

 

[AphexDreamer]

they could try, but so far (that i know of, or that i found in google) there is no precedent for piracy of a product not for sale yet, or a software product where they didnt use the cracking/removal of DRM as the major point in the case.


If someone pirates a DVD, they had to remove the protection to do so - and i'm sure in the USA those fines are stupidly high like they are here, so that that alone is enough to send the pirates to jail, without having to prove anything else (such as an actual piracy claim)

Well if anything maybe its a patent infringement?

I don't know law in technical terms or for where you live but that sounds relevant lol.

 

[streetfighter 2]

@ mussels - you may get lucky in Austria (near Portugal) with your DRM argument, but in the USA I'm pretty damn sure it's illegal. I would assume this relates to a persons right to sell or not sell their property, which means obtaining (or copying) it without permission would be illegal. I'm not dredging up legal bits to support my argument because that's boring. Where's twilyth at?

 

[Mussels]

its nice to see the world at different shades of grey and not just black and white

i think thats why its such a hot topic, people find it hard to realise there is a middle ground. some think you're either against piracy, or you are a pirate.
they dont realise that its not piracy in some countries (and hell, unless they're a lawyer how would they know for sure?), and that this particular instance is very, very different to pirating a game normally.
I agree that IF this is illegal where you are, dont download it. but if its not, why shouldnt you? this does far less harm than downloading a completed finalized game and cracking it.


oh and i finally thought of a reply to a comment someone else made, that this is like copying half a book - they said it was still illegal/plagiarism, because you copied half the book without permission.

This is copying half of an early manuscript, 6 months before the book was for sale. you know the key points wont change, but many revisions, changes, and additions will be made.
it would be illegal to steal the script and share it - but is it illegal to read it, so long as you dont attempt to sell it for money, *or copy it and try to sell it as your own?

(*in the games world, that would be making your own game to rip it off before the game was released... which would be pretty hard to do in such a short time)

Well if anything maybe its a patent infringement?

I don't know law in technical terms or for where you live but that sounds relevant lol.

doesnt patents usually have to deal with something you're selling yourself, using ideas or technology someone else patented? you dont get charged with patent infringment for downloading and cracking a game, so how would it apply to here?

 

[AphexDreamer]

doesnt patents usually have to deal with something you're selling yourself, using ideas or technology someone else patented? you dont get charged with patent infringment for downloading and cracking a game, so how would it apply to here?

IDK lol, I'm just playing Devil's advocate here


I still like my analogy better. " Its like listening to a 5 min song with only 3 min of it actually having been recorded and the parts that do play are out of tune, skip, stutter or don't make sense."

Also.. What are we to do if the people from Crytek did intentionally leaked it but didn't want anyone knowing they did?
Food for thought.

 

[Brandenburg]

it may well be immoral, but by definition (at least in my country) its not illegal. the only person to truly commit a crime, is the one who stole the game in the first place and uploaded it to the net.

hmm.. Your argument/analogy is weak 1st and for most... Knowledge of a crime is the same as committing the crime IMO.. If I buy goods from a dude and they are stolen.. Is that not a crime?..I fail to see the difference... The fact that this was an early release is immaterial and DAMN sure would not use such a defense in a court of law..

as for the dude that stole the game.. isn't this theft of trade secrets. Just curious.. Seams like it could be considered that..

And the company could definitely say that they lost revenue for the bad press from people playing an early version of the game.. Will they.. Na.. They will just let the situation blow over, try to limit the damage, and tighten up the controls a bit to prevent this from happening again...About the only thing they can do at this point..

Ill close in saying I don't really care either way other than the apparent hypocrisy on the matter of pirating...

 

[streetfighter 2]

Also.. What are we to do if the people from Crytek did intentionally leaked it but didn't want anyone knowing they did?

Make comments like this?

This thread is about a legal question, not about Crytek's motives or our conspiracy theories. In the USA I can design and build anything I want and it's my right to NOT sell it, just as much as it's my right to sell it. This means if someone copies the blueprints or an early prototype for my widget then they're free to steal my mechanism (unless it's patented), but they're still violating my copyright because they obtained the copyrighted blueprints/prototype without permission.

Publication is not necessary for copyright protection.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html#published

 

[alexsubri]

all jokes aside, i believe if you are pirating and then reselling pirated goods then its more illegal. Yes downloading a leaked BETA can be considering illegal, but its just a BETA, there is no disclosure or Terms of Service you are signing before you play it. Besides, EA has a lot to learn from this. They have been very hush hush on who actually leaked it in the first place. The bottom line is, it is so hard to stop Piracy. I do agree to a certain extent that it isn't fair for the consumer's who are willing to pay. But, Piracy is getting more and more popular these day's. BTW Bulletstorm just leaked (Besides Killzone3). EA needs to get their shit together.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Who cares if it's legal. I'm much more bothered by the thought of it being discussed on here period. Historically this doesn't go well on any tech forum.

Every single one of us has broken some law at some point, highly likely by choice, and probably continuing to do so now. Yet some stand around picking and choosing which ones they deem ok to break, and which are "wrong". Getting all moral-fag on people's asses because they personally think breaking law B is worse than law C. Well fudge you, there's plenty that would agree breaking law C is worse. Now that it's all flipped around they can be the victim of hollow moral scrutiny.

Here's a common situation. Someone here either directly or inadvertently reveals they pirated something. Cue someone coming along and saying something to the effect of "you very bad, I spit at your feet with disgust". And naturally, a very large portion of the time this person will have broken many laws themselves. A common one would be speeding. It could easily be argued that speeding endangers lives, where as piracy does not. Now who gets to stand on the higher moral ground? All these discussions do is embarrass the morally over zealous and or ostracize whatever poor schmuck revealed his particular law breaking habits.

Despite all the big words and convoluted excuses, accusations and thanks button clicks thrown around in these discussion they ultimately boil down to a big fat waste of time that changes squat about anyone's opinion on anything. As such, I believe this picture is the only thing that ever needs to be posted in such a ridiculous discussion.

 

[submicron]

Who cares if it's legal. I'm much more bothered by the thought of it being discussed on here period. Historically this doesn't go well on any tech forum.

Every single one of us has broken some law at some point, highly likely by choice, and probably continuing to do so now. Yet some stand around picking and choosing which ones they deem ok to break, and which are "wrong". Getting all moral-fag on people's asses because they personally think breaking law B is worse than law C. Well fudge you, there's plenty that would agree breaking law C is worse. Now that it's all flipped around they can be the victim of hollow moral scrutiny.

Here's a common situation. Someone here either directly or inadvertently reveals they pirated something. Cue someone coming along and saying something to the effect of "you very bad, I spit at your feet with disgust". And naturally, a very large portion of the time this person will have broken many laws themselves. A common one would be speeding. It could easily be argued that speeding endangers lives, where as piracy does not. Now who gets to stand on the higher moral ground? All these discussions do is embarrass the morally over zealous and or ostracize whatever poor schmuck revealed his particular law breaking habits.

Despite all the big words and convoluted excuses, accusations and thanks button clicks thrown around in these discussion they ultimately boil down to a big fat waste of time that changes squat about anyone's opinion on anything. As such, I believe this picture is the only thing that ever needs to be posted in such a ridiculous discussions.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/ChevyCobb/cartman-i-do-what-i-want.jpg

Enough said!

 

[n-ster]

Who cares if it's legal. I'm much more bothered by the thought of it being discussed on here period. Historically this doesn't go well on any tech forum.

Every single one of us has broken some law at some point, highly likely by choice, and probably continuing to do so now. Yet some stand around picking and choosing which ones they deem ok to break, and which are "wrong". Getting all moral-fag on people's asses because they personally think breaking law B is worse than law C. Well fudge you, there's plenty that would agree breaking law C is worse. Now that it's all flipped around they can be the victim of hollow moral scrutiny.

Here's a common situation. Someone here either directly or inadvertently reveals they pirated something. Cue someone coming along and saying something to the effect of "you very bad, I spit at your feet with disgust". And naturally, a very large portion of the time this person will have broken many laws themselves. A common one would be speeding. It could easily be argued that speeding endangers lives, where as piracy does not. Now who gets to stand on the higher moral ground? All these discussions do is embarrass the morally over zealous and or ostracize whatever poor schmuck revealed his particular law breaking habits.

Despite all the big words and convoluted excuses, accusations and thanks button clicks thrown around in these discussion they ultimately boil down to a big fat waste of time that changes squat about anyone's opinion on anything. As such, I believe this picture is the only thing that ever needs to be posted in such a ridiculous discussions.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y225/ChevyCobb/cartman-i-do-what-i-want.jpg

Some people actually live without breaking the law, at least not too many times. I for one do not break many laws. Just because others break laws doesn't mean it is OK to break it

So what if someone who doe speeding says that pirating is breaking the law anyways? it does not mean it is OK to do so

 

[streetfighter 2]

All laws are not morals.

All morals are not laws.

I think many people confuse this.

The question in this thread, "Is downloading and playing Crysis 2 legal?" is a legal question, not an ethical one. The answer to that question is almost trivial in the USA: NO.

If the question were phrased, "Is downloading and playing Crysis 2 immoral?" I would have to say that is debatable, as pretty much anything in ethics is. If you're from the USA, you're aware that our citizens have a proud history of ignoring laws which they disagree with. Whether breaking a law is ethical, is also up for discussion. . .

Besides the ethical questions there are economic, sociological and business issues to be resolved.

Furthermore I consider all of these topics to be fascinating and mind-bogglingly complicated.
http://musicbusinessresearch.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/paper-felix-oberholzer-gee.pdf
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374223130/?tag=tec06d-20
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html
http://www.demos.co.uk/files/DemosMusicsurvey.ppt
http://mortimer.fas.harvard.edu/concerts_01oct2010.pdf
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Those links are not representative of my opinion, just a sampling of my repository on the subject.

 

[n-ster]

All laws are not morals.

All morals are not laws.

I think many people confuse this.

The question in this thread, "Is downloading and playing Crysis 2 legal?" is a legal question, not an ethical one. The answer to that question is almost trivial in the USA: NO.

If the question were phrased, "Is downloading and playing Crysis 2 immoral?" I would have to say that is debatable, as pretty much anything in ethics is. If you're from the USA, you're aware that our citizens have a proud history of ignoring laws which they disagree with. Whether breaking a law is ethical, is also up for discussion. . .

Besides the ethical questions there are economic, sociological and business issues to be resolved.

Furthermore I consider all of these topics to be fascinating and mind-bogglingly complicated.
http://musicbusinessresearch.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/paper-felix-oberholzer-gee.pdf
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374223130/?tag=tec06d-20
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html
http://www.demos.co.uk/files/DemosMusicsurvey.ppt
http://mortimer.fas.harvard.edu/concerts_01oct2010.pdf
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Those links are not representative of my opinion, just a sampling of my repository on the subject.

I don't see how stealing part of a game is morally correct

 

[qubit]

There seem to be two questions here:

1 Legality: no, as defined by law in most places, it's not legal.
2 Morality: is it really so bad to do it? Does it cause the software house financial damage or whip up interest? These are grey areas and can be discussed for hours without any conclusion. The fact is that copyright law has been skewed heavily in creator's interests, because they're rich and powerful.

Finally, having a so-called "pirate" copy is not stealing, no matter how big media corporations try to spin it. It's infringement, which is different. You are simply going against their wishes.

The basic difference is that if you take a physical item, the owner no longer has it. If you take a digital copy, you both have it. That's why it's a copy. Therefore you haven't stolen it. If you were to move the file from their computers to yours, that would be stealing, because they no longer have it.

Two great sites that talk about all this are:

www.p2pnet.net

www.techdirt.com