Cost-benefit analysis of piracy

To begin, I want to analyze piracy free from any ethical or normative judgments. Piracy is an act, and like any other act, it has costs and benefits. A utility calculation or a cost-benefit analysis shows that the material benefits far outweigh the minimal material costs of piracy. Entertainment media usually has a monetary price that must be paid in order to consume it, like buying tickets to watch a movie at the theater. On the other hand, given that the individual possesses the technical knowledge, the individual can receive the same entertainment for free if he chooses to pirate the media instead of buying it. While some individuals who pirate are caught and do pay fees, the probability of these negative consequences are very small. Given no other external factors, this cost-benefit analysis indicates that the materialistic benefits outweigh the materialistic costs.

Additionally, from a behavioral perspective, piracy makes sense. When a person commits piracy, they are immediately presented with the benefit of entertainment or utility. The behavior is immediately rewarded and reinforced. The costs are not immediately evident, and can be easily overlooked, because the probability of being caught and punished for pirating is very small. In contrast to the act of physically stealing the DVD of a movie, the act of illegally downloading the movie is much less risky and only entails the seemingly innocent pressing of buttons. When contemplating whether to physically steal another DVD of a movie, the person would weigh whether the entertainment benefit is really worth suffering the stress and energy as well as the high risk of being caught and punished by the law. When contemplating whether to illegally download a movie, the person would only need to weigh whether the entertainment benefit is greater than pressing some buttons. With such low risks and such immediate gratification, the behavior of piracy is easily engrained.

This cost-benefit analysis in a vacuum free from any external forces like ethics, morality, and religion sufficiently shows why piracy is so prevalent. It is easy and rewarding. However, people do not live in a vacuum.

The ethical factor

If piracy is theft, then it is unethical, immoral, and wrong. And it is indeed theft. All digital media whether film, music, ebooks, or games are products of another’s hard work. Just like a farmer’s crops or an author’s book, digital media would not exist but for the producer. Thus, similarly, the producer has taken ownership of digital media by production. Modern copyright and digital rights laws are evidence of this societal norm. So, if it is wrong, why do some people pirate digital media anyway?

When a person is given the choice between paying for the entertainment and consuming it for free, ethical principles clash with desire. In order to resolve cognitive dissonance, the discomfort caused by the clash of conflicting inner-beliefs, individuals will attempt to justify their actions and alter their beliefs (1). In the case of piracy, an individual might conclude that the producers of the entertainment media are already wealthy and do not need more money. Alternatively, the individual may decide that his financial circumstances do not allow him to pay for the products, forcing him to illegally obtain them. Ultimately, these justifications allow the individual to live more comfortably with their decision to pirate the product.

Justifying piracy

In addition to common justifications for any other ethical violations, piracy has a unique justification due to the unique nature of digital media. This unique justification is that the illegal downloading of digital media does not harm the producer, because it does not represent a loss of revenue for the producer of the game, movie, or song. Given the digital nature of entertainment media, a pirated copy of a game does not directly mean a loss of revenue equal to the price of the game. For example, when an item in the physical world, such as a watch, is stolen from a store, the store loses money that is equal to the sum of the cost of the watch and the profit from the sale of the watch. If the thief had not stolen the watch, the store could have sold it to someone else. In contrast, when an individual obtains a pirated copy of a digital media, the ability of the producer to sell a copy of the digital media to someone else is not inhibited in anyway. In other words, the benefits or entertainment experienced by the individual who chooses to pirate does not result in a loss for the producer. Those who have this justification would then conclude that piracy only has positive consequences.

This justification, unique to digital products, has two main deficiencies. First, piracy can lead to loss of revenue to the producer if a person who would have otherwise purchased the product chooses to pirate it. Aggregating all the individual acts of piracy can lead to a cumulative loss of revenue of many millions of dollars. Second, loss of revenue is not the only reason piracy is immoral. The primary reason why piracy is unethical is because it constitutes a taking of another property, violating another’s fundamental property rights. If a producer chooses to share its property with only those who pay for it, then the taking of that property without paying for it is a violation of fundamental property rights. An independent showing of damage or loss of revenue is not necessary to prove its wrongness.

Habit

Another possible explanation for the prevalence of piracy is habit. Once an individual has committed piracy, despite ethical prescriptive to the contrary, the individual experiences the benefits and joys of that piece of entertainment. As previously mentioned, this immediate reward can lead to a cycle that constantly reinforces the behavior until it has become habitual. The case study of the video game, Proun, can provide some insight.

Proun, a low budget game, was released under the pay-what-you-want pricing method which allows consumers to legally obtain the product at whatever price they decide to pay including for zero dollars. In other words, people could legally get the game for free from the developer’s official website. Essentially, the developer removed monetary concerns from the utility calculation. According to the released statistics, approximately 40% of used copies were pirated (2). Individuals chose to pirate the game, despite being able to obtain the game legally for free.

The implication of the Proun case study is that price may not be the sole determinant for pirating behavior. A possible explanation for the observed pirating behavior could be that obtaining entertainment media through illegal means has become habitual to a significant portion of the population. Due to the low risks associated with piracy, individuals who have chosen to pirate media experience no consequences that would deter their actions, making piracy their normal means of acquiring any form of software, irrelevant of whether or not the software is free. In other words, habitual piracy has become legitimate in their eyes. After the initial act, the individual no longer considers the ethicality of their actions. Every subsequent act merely reinforces the habit.

References

1. See also Yerli, Selnur Hatice. “Cognitive Dissonance and the Psychology of Sin.” The Fountain 80, March-April 2011.
2. van Dongen, Joost. “Proun sales data revealed: Proun is a big success! Pay What You Want is not!.” <http://joostdevblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/proun-is-big-success-pay-what-you-want.html>

Electronic and video games are one of the most important branches of technology entertainment. During the last several decades, interactive video games have emerged as one of the most popular forms of entertainment, particularly among adolescents. Video game content is extremely varied. In addition to their entertainment value, reflected in their enormous popularity, video game proponents point to their constructive uses in education, medicine, and other fields.

However, some observers find certain game-playing trends disturbing. For example, newer generations of video games often feature graphic depictions of violence. This has intensified public concern of potential harmful effects.

Video Game Violence

Video games first appeared during the 1970s. In the last 3 decades, they have gone from bouncing a little white ball from side to side on a screen to virtual reality games in which one is a character in the game itself. Newly emerging on-line games enable a person to play and compete with many others in cyberspace. The majority of games developed with this evolving technology are entertaining, engaging, and appropriate for children.

One segment of the market, however, features violence as a theme. Its depiction of violence has evolved from early shooting games blasting mostly spaceships out of the sky to gory violence, where characters literally tear each other apart with all the realistic details accompanying the act. Many of these games often require the use of increasing levels and intensities of violence to advance through the levels. Thus, violence is used as a problem-solving technique.

Toys and Children

Toys are commonly associated with children. Technology has produced many electronic toys, more specifically, computer and video games. Since there is no extensive body of research on the effects of video game violence, some people state that it does not harm children. The same argument was used to defend television violence for more than 3 decades.

Others assert, theoretically, that video violence actually may benefit children, because it gives them an outlet for aggression. This “catharsis” hypothesis was advanced in the earliest days of the television violence debate, and even compared to the violent elements in literature and art. After many years of research, however, it was abandoned. In Shakespeare the violence is offstage; we see the effects and learn the evil of violence without seeing the act. Classic mystery dramas focus on crime solving, not crime commission; the chief weapon against the villain is intellect, not brute force; and a hero is selected for his or her strength of character, not his or her physical power to dominate. Today’s video game “heroes” often show a violent response as the only effective-and frequently first-response to any conflict.

Is There Any Impact?

There are a few reasons why the games are violent. One is economics: violent games really bring in the quarters for an arcade. Many modern games are designed to let a player fight for a certain amount of time, then compulsively buy more coins to continue. Another reason is that they let you do something that, in real life, is impossible, which is the whole idea of virtual reality and simulation anyway. If you want to unwind after a tough day at work, you cannot take your AK-47 and destroy McDonald’s. However, you can go to an arcade, sit down at an X-Men console, fight a few hundred bad guys and then leave thinking about your game instead of your worries.

Games are just that-games. But when applying these concepts to children, the picture changes, for young children are in immediate danger of copying antisocial behavior. Values are formed very early, and antisocial programming negatively impacts one’s respect for authority, for others, and for self. Given this, parents are asking what effect video violence has on their most frequent players: children 8 to 14 years old and younger.

Research is beginning to give us a picture of what these effects might be. Due to the recent arrival of ultra-violent video games, few studies are available. Research done by the Mediascope Nonprofit Organization shows that heavy exposure to entertainment violence negatively affects children.

Research done by the Media Analysis Laboratory in Simon Fraser University shows that 95 percent of teens surveyed had access to either a video game machine or a home computer, and a similar proportion (90 percent) said they owned at least some video games. The majority said that playing computer games produced a pleasant, exciting, challenging, and interesting experience. Many also felt gaming to be involving (77 percent) and sometimes frustrating (63 percent). Boys and girls experienced games differently, with boys more likely to associate positive emotions with play (e.g., pleasing, exciting, and involving) and girls more likely to associate negative emotions with play (e.g., frustrating, boring, and stressful).

Jeanne B. Funk and her colleagues surveyed the video game habits of more than 900 teenagers, primarily fourth through eighth graders. They found that almost half of the favorite games chosen were of the fantasy violence or human violence type. Girls more often chose games with fantasy violence; boys preferred games with human violence.

A 1998 study examined thirty-three popular video games, and found that almost in 80 percent of them, kids preferred to have violence or aggression as part of the play. Almost half of this violence was directed toward other characters. Twenty-one percent of the games had violence toward women.

There seems to be an imitative effect of playing and observing video game violence, especially among young children. For example, researchers found that in a group of 5 to 7 year olds, children imitated during free play what they had just been exposed to on video games. Children playing active but nonviolent games reflected that in their play, while children playing games with violent themes showed more aggression. The followings facts are taken from Screen Smarts:A Family Guide to Media Literacy by Gloria DeGaetano and Kathleen Bander:

Violent video games send the following messages:

• Problems can be resolved quickly and with little personal investment.

• The best way to solve a problem is to eliminate its source.

• Problems are basically black or white, right or wrong.

• It is acceptable to immerse oneself in the video game’s rule-driven reality without questioning the rules.

• It is better to use instinctual, rather than thoughtful, responsible behaviors to react to problems.

• Personal imagination is not an important problem-solving skill.

In contrast, playing maze games, puzzles, and simulation or treasure hunt video games teaches children that:

• Problems are solved through patience, personal initiative, perseverance, tolerance, and flexibility.

• Gathering information requires work, and information must be analyzed carefully so that informed decisions can be made.

• Problem definition and solving require the use of complex skills.

• A solution in one instance might not be suitable in another one.

• It is important to use such critical and creative mental skills as planning actions, organizing information, predicting outcomes, experimenting with trial solutions, evaluating ideas, and analyzing solutions and their consequences.

• Use imagination and thinking abilities to cocreate, with the game’s writer, inventive situations.

• Use personally-generated, thoughtful responses to solve problems.

In Time magazine’s cyberguide, video games were classified according to their educational value and violence. The authors write that the most child-appropriate hardware is that which encourages them to think and formulate ideas. Games like Carmen San Diego and Where in the USA? make learning fun. Even though the battles are bloody, children learn fast with strategy games like Age of Empires and Warcraft, because looking ahead, plotting strategy, and husbanding resources are the only ways to win.

In any computer hardware store, you also will find a lot of so-called splatter games. Unfortunately, there is a huge diversity in choice for such games. Games like Doom and Quake put guns in the hands of players and reward them for blasting everything that moves. Residential Evil is nothing less than blowing off a zombie’s head and hacking off its limbs. Home computer games can be even more disturbing: I once saw a 14-year-old kid playing a game in which the winning creature actually urinates over its victim’s body.

Rating Systems and Other Alternatives

With the progress of technology and consequently video games, society began to express concern about growing violence. Funk et al’s report stated that in late 1993, video game and software manufacturers began discussing a rating system. Two eventually emerged: the video game system sponsored by the Interactive Digital Software Association (including Nintendo and Sega) and a set of age-based categories developed by Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) (formerly the Interactive Digital Software Ratings Board). They developed joint content-based guidelines for video games through the Recreational Software Advisory Council (RSAC).

The ESRB initially proposed four rating categories: Universal (appropriate for all ages), Teen (13 and older), Mature (17 and older), and Adults Only. The board then responded to the concerns of professionals, including the first author, that the categories were too broad at the lower age levels by adding an Early Childhood (ages 3 and older) category. The ESRB also changed Universal to K-A (Kids to Adult, suitable for 6 and older), and added content descriptors that give a general indication of the level of violence, sexual themes, and crude language.

Although such ranking and debating appears to be designed to stop producing violent games, their main purpose should be to let parents know exactly what they are buying. Parents usually purchase the software and decide what games their children will play. Many video games are toxic and inappropriate for children. The best antidote is to teach children to find such games repugnant.

It also is crucial to teach them nonaggressive problem solving techniques through discussions with adults about the consequences of using violence to solve problems. While living in Japan, I noticed that Japan has almost as much entertainment violence as the United States. However, Japanese society is far less violent. The key may be that Japanese films, television programs, and society as a whole tend to show the consequences of violent acts, whereas their American counterparts do not. Finally, trying to keep children from seeing violence in the home, community, and media is the most effective method of ensuring that they grow up mentally normal.

Conclusion

This article points out how much our lives revolve around computerization. Computers dominate the lives of adults, children, and adolescents. At the same time, American youth have become increasingly involved in extremely violent crime, both as victims and offenders. Every aspect of our society, starting with parents, schools, and organizations to the mass media, the entertainment and software industries, and the federal government should be involved in controlling, rating and, if necessary, prohibiting interactive violent video and computer games. Not to sound too cliché, but it is our children who will have to adapt, live, and survive in this automated world. The “game medium” may be an obstacle in achieving their survival.

References

• DeGaetano, Gloria and Kathleen Bander. Screen Smarts: A Family Guide to Media Literacy. Boston: Honghton, 1996. (Taken from: Media Awareness Network. March 1999 ).
• Funk, Jeanne B., et. al. “Rating Electronic Games” Youth & Society (March 1999). (Taken from: Masterfile Premier. 24 May 1999 <http://gw11.epnet. com/st.asp?key=ehbeuwg&site= ehost>).
• Qnittner, Joshua. “Are Video Games Really So Bad?” Time (10 May 1999): 50-59.
• “The Social Effects of Electronic Interactive Games: An Annotated
• Bibliography.” Oct. 1998. (Taken from: Medioscope Network 25 May 1999 <http://www.mediaecope.org/vidbib.htm#Excerpts>.
• “Video Game Culture: Leisure and Play Preferences of B.C. Teens.” (Oct. 1998). Simon Fraser University. (Taken from: Media Awareness Network. 25 May 1999. http://www. media-awareness.ca/eng/issues/violence/resource/reports vgames.htm).

First of all, games and toys must help children to broaden their minds and become familiar with present and emerging technology. Thus, with some reservations, we would commend model and toy trains, planes, ships, robots and the like.

Secondly, in order to develop an aesthetic sense and a taste for art, children may be encouraged to play at decorating walls, doors and windows, designing book covers, arranging flowers and laying out gardens, etc.

Thirdly, children should be encouraged to use toys and play games that develop their design and constructive capabilities. Blocks of diverse sizes, shapes and colours, as well as other building toys’ for making houses, garages, bridges and the like, can be strongly recommended.

In later childhood and early youth, children will begin to ask for toys and amusements of different kinds. It is important for a responsible guardian to develop a taste in the young for games appropriate to their age. The games we have in mind can be roughly divided into two groups:

1 Those aiming at developing the aesthetic sense and constructive powers (For examples, see above); and

2 Those that train physical abilities and promote development of the body. Examples of the latter are sports such as running, swimming, riding, wrestling, archery, fencing and the so-called ‘martial arts’ (judo and karate are the best known).

Each of these sports (and other similar ones, according to the needs of the time and place) should be encouraged as they come within the circle of the permitted (halal) and are very effective in developing discipline and strength, balance and grace. Their value as entertainment and pastime is, as it were, an additional bonus. In adolescents, sports involving physical exertion and concentration help their bodily development and channel their energies. Older people can also benefit from such exercise which can prevent many of the ailments that arise from prolonged physical inactivity.

Among games and sports, archery, riding, swimming, and running merit special emphasis. They teach poise and confidence on land, water and air, qualities vital to the leaders and enterprising spirits every nation needs for its survival and prosperity.

Although in our tradition the ‘martial arts’ (judo, karate, etc.) receive little mention, they can certainly be recommended insofar as they do not contradict our moral principles and do not entail unacceptable risk of injury

Other games and sports might also be commended so long as they do not lead children to waste time or open ways to them way to commit sins. Games that involve gambling or betting are of course forbidden and can on no account be advised either for children or adults. However, we may note in passing, following the opinion of Imam Shafi’i, that chess is permissible unless played for money. Children who have a bent for that kind of mental activity could therefore be directed towards chess, until they reach adolescence.

Any kind of play or entertainment which counters or debases our ethics is unacceptable for both children and adults. Also, sounds and images, instruments and melodies, which arouse evil and lustful sentiments and so corrupt the soul are absolutely forbidden. It is unreasonable, and an unkindness to the young, to open the doors for them to forbidden entertainments while those within the circle of the permitted are quite satisfactory. The principal concern of education generally and, therefore, the principal concern of games and sports also, is to provide children with noble feelings and to keep them healthy spiritually as well as physically. It hardly needs saying that forbidden games and entertainments are not intended to raise children to humanity or to ennoble their feelings; rather, it is often the case that they have a negative, corrupting effect on their minds and spirits,

In sum, there is a need for moral awareness and guidance in the choice of entertainment, sports, games, and toys, just as in other elements of the education of the young. Failure to seek and provide such guidance will mean – instead of the healthy, balanced, morally sound and contented adults we desire to make of the young – exposing them to emotional and spiritual damage, with all the evil consequences for social life that follow therefrom.