Opinions and Law of Torrents, for games you already own.

unknownsock · 1 Apr 2010 at 09:53

I've always wondered about this.
Several of my discs have been lost or scratched over the years.
Warcraft 3 which has a scratch in the disc, MoH:AA, lost the second disc, and Dead space i left in a rig i built for someone.

Now to get around this i just torrented the games, personally i don't see the problem, i use my own CD codes, still have the retail boxes and manuals for proof etc. But i always see people on forums, claiming this is still illegal? Seems abit absurd to me really, as from my point of view i have the so called licenses to play them.

Is this actually illegal?
Also when developers claim piracy figures do they just add all the maximum downloads of a torrent and claim the maximum number?

Disjunto · 1 Apr 2010 at 09:59

The illegal part of torrents is sharing unauthorized copies of the program. it doesn't matter if you own the program of not, torrenting it is illegal. If you download the games WITHOUT uploading to anyone, then you're fine

Tombstone · 1 Apr 2010 at 09:59

I imagine it would depend, if you are uploading whilst torrenting then you are sharing the files, thus I can see why it would be claimed as being illegal.

If not, then I imagine its ok as you have already paid for the license for the software.

Most software companies also offer to send out replacement CDs in the event of damage, often for just p&p costs.

Mp4 · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:03

& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

gurusan · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:14

So use private ssl trackers

spudbynight · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:19

Mp4 said:
& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

Sauce?

robgmun · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:20

Mp4 said:
& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

If that's the case then they've been very quite with me for the past 3 years

FoxEye · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:22

As mentioned, there are two illegal parts to torrenting:

1. the uploading part
2. as you didn't make the copy yourself from your own personal media, the copy you obtain is illegal.

2. is pretty much nonsense, but 1. is the kicker.

Although you may own the game, someone you upload to is almost guaranteed not to. Therefore you're aiding someone else's illegal activity.

unknownsock · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:22

Never thought of turning the uploads off, can't say i really use it much to notice.

Mp4 said:
& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

Never knew that, ill have to look out from now on then

gurusan · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:22

It's happened on a few occasions where people DL movies from public trackers

one such example:
http://forum.mininova.org/index.php?showtopic=235039787

iviv · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:38

unknownsock said:
Warcraft 3 which has a scratch in the disc.

Slightly OT, but you can go onto Blizzard's website, create/sign in to your battle.net account, and you can tie your CD key to the account, which then lets you download the game as often as you like:

Tefal · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:41

unknownsock said:
I've always wondered about this.
Several of my discs have been lost or scratched over the years.
Warcraft 3 which has a scratch in the disc, MoH:AA, lost the second disc, and Dead space i left in a rig i built for someone.

Now to get around this i just torrented the games, personally i don't see the problem, i use my own CD codes, still have the retail boxes and manuals for proof etc. But i always see people on forums, claiming this is still illegal? Seems abit absurd to me really, as from my point of view i have the so called licenses to play them.

Is this actually illegal?

Yes because when you torrent you are uploading.

That's why it's always people with torrents getting screwed for fines in piracy cases.

FTPs and newzgroups are left alone because they only download which they can't really get more than the price of the game from you in fines from.

Tombstone said:
I imagine it would depend, if you are uploading whilst torrenting then you are sharing the files, thus I can see why it would be claimed as being illegal.

If not, then I imagine its ok as you have already paid for the license for the software.

Most software companies also offer to send out replacement CDs in the event of damage, often for just p&p costs.

while you are legally allowed to make a single digital back up copy of any software or media you buy, you cannot do this if doing so requires you to remove or bypass DRM.

The laws here are utterly retarded now.

Tefal · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:42

Mp4 said:
& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

Be* never complained when i used torrents? :confused:

ah well

*hugs newsgroup account and ssl*

mame · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:47

I've never seen a difinitive answer to this. Even in the Amiga days, there were disk copying kits being sold with the use of backing-up games that you own. Anyone remember the cyclone? It had a dongle that you placed between the external floppy drive and the Amiga to bypass most copy protections. It was a very grey area but to be fair, full price games cost £25.99 (and that was a lot of money then

a days wages for many people) and disks didn't wear very well. When we got to the point that most games were between 4-11 floppies, there was a fair old chance that one for them would fail.

Langlest · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:50

the thing i want to know is where do you stand when you only uploaded a small percentage of a file? if for example a game was a 4gig iso and you only uploaded 20% of it then what you uploaded alone would be useless, can you get done for this? or is it only when you have 100% seeded a file that you break the law

Frapple · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:52

Thing is with torrents, you're actually sharing the data with someone else when you're uploading, therefore have a problem.

I don't see any problem with downloading a backup copy if the DVD can't be ripped successfully.

Tefal · 1 Apr 2010 at 10:54

Langlest said:
the thing i want to know is where do you stand when you only uploaded a small percentage of a file? if for example a game was a 4gig iso and you only uploaded 20% of it then what you uploaded alone would be useless, can you get done for this? or is it only when you have 100% seeded a file that you break the law

Yopu might be able to get away with that counting as 1 copy when you only upload it to a single person.

But in all likley hood your 20% would have gone to dozens/hundreds of people (depending on popularity of the torrent) and i think they get you for every one.

jak731 · 1 Apr 2010 at 11:02

Mp4 said:
& Some ISP's track torrent downloading (Be* do for a fact)

Unless you have a good source to back this up I don't believe it. Different companies continually port scan ips to see if people are torrenting then contact the isp, it is not the isp that tracks what you are doing.
Using something like peerblock can make this a wasted effort on their part.

The whole situation is ridiculous at the moment.

spudbynight · 1 Apr 2010 at 11:33

I wouldn't be surprised if Be* monitored the type of traffic over their network. (ie http/ftp/torrents) but that is the extent of it. The idea that they can and are tracking the individual torrents people download is bonkers.

Disjunto · 1 Apr 2010 at 11:35

FoxEye said:
As mentioned, there are two illegal parts to torrenting:

1. the uploading part
2. as you didn't make the copy yourself from your own personal media, the copy you obtain is illegal.

2. is pretty much nonsense, but 1. is the kicker.

Although you may own the game, someone you upload to is almost guaranteed not to. Therefore you're aiding someone else's illegal activity.

2 is crap, it's not illegal to own a counterfeit item, the person who gave/sold the item to you is the one in trouble (for distributing it). The same applies to (c) law afaik. They only ever go after uploaders, because it is only uploaders that have broken the law, the problem with torrenting is that EVERYONE is an uploader (unless you use a leech only client, which means you deserve a slap from the piracy community)