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Kaldor wrote:Plastictrees, I agree entirely with what you're saying. But I also believe we have entered a new phase of economics where the customer has a much greater say over what the acceptable price for many items should be. Movies and music are the two biggest examples. I don't believe the prices set by the industry accurately represent the value of the property, and as such I feel morally justified in taking it for less than that.

This is the attitude expressed by many in favour of recasting, and it boggles the mind, to be honest.

If someone creates a product, they are entitled, as the owner of that product, to charge whatever they choose to charge for it. For all my complaints about GW pricing in Australia, my objection is to the inconsistent pricing, not to the actual prices themselves.

If you don't feel that the price is fair for the product, you have the choice to not buy it. What on earth leads you to think that it is morally acceptable instead to just take it? I could never justify paying $300000 for a car... but I don't feel that makes it morally acceptable for me to steal one from a Ferrari dealership.

This lets the industry know that their pricing is unreasonable, and drives market change.

So does not buying the product... and that option doesn't involve potential lawsuits.

So downloading a movie because I think the price is unreasonable is not at all the same thing as stealing a Ferrari because the price is unreasonable.

While the law agrees that they are technically not the same thing, the end result is that in both cases you have a product that you have not paid the original owner for... which means they are deprived of the sale value of that item.

The end result is the same.

I don't think it's reasonable or realistic anymore to expect people to continue to either pay prices they feel are unreasonable, or to simply go without.

Why not?

Why should you be entitled to something just because you don't want to pay for it?

Kaldor, your philosophical/economical statement is spot on for the modern customer/business world.

If GW was a reasonable business in their pricing system, this would not be an issue. Their job, as a business, is to treat their customers right and not lose customer loyalty to bad business practices.

Edit:

Piracy is not the same as stealing.
Copying music or casting a model is using your own material to make a copy of something else that is already purchased.
Stealing is taking something without paying for it.

((these arguments after the edit are not about the money)))

The idea of something is not something that can be stolen. Once shared, an idea is open and free. Essentially, there is no difference between casting something and sculpting it as your own.

lets say you have a bolt gun sitting in front of you.
Options

1)Casting it (TERRIBLE OH NO)
or
2)Sculpting your own.

So you choose option two and make your own out of gluing bits of plastic together. In a skillful moment, you realize that the self sculpted one is exactly the same as the casted one.
Many people have said, "go ahead and sculpt your own (then you won't be a monster)", and make your own plastic gun out of your own materials and borrow someone else's intellectual property.

Why is sculpting the same bit legal while casting one is illegal? (and for some, immoral.)

Douglaspocock wrote:Kaldor, your philosophical/economical statement is spot on for the modern customer/business world.

If GW was a reasonable business in their pricing system, this would not be an issue. Their job, as a business, is to treat their customers right and not lose customer loyalty to bad business practices.

Because people weren't casting whole armies in the 90s? This is essentially what I'm taking issue with in this thread, the idea that people are being "driven" to recasting by GWs pricing or that that pricing makes piracy morally justifiable. I'm not saying that GWs prices are where I'd want them to be, I'm not saying they're too high or too low, I'm saying it's completely irrelevant. The existence of multiple excellent alternative products makes it super duper irrelevant. Which is very irrelevant indeed.

insaniak wrote:Why should you be entitled to something just because you don't want to pay for it?

I do want to pay for it. Just not that much.

I am entitled to anything I want, for a reasonable price. Provided, of course, that I'm not actually committing theft. Why shouldn't I be?

Douglaspocock wrote:

Copying music or casting a model is using your own material to make a copy of something else that is already purchased.

You need to stop making this connection. Downloading music is not making a copy of music that _you've_ already purchased (unless you're very weird). By the same token, you don't need to make fifty illegal copies of an album for personal use.
Recasting on the other hand is usually based on models that the caster has purchased, but in this case you DO need fifty copies of that thing to play whatever army you are playing.
There is no useful comparison here.

You are not entitled to have a thing (which I make) for free because I choose to sell it for more than you want to pay.

What each person views as reasonable can legitimately differ. But it's the view of the person who makes it that takes precedence. If I don't agree with GW's pricing, I can choose not to pay it. I can't legitimately choose to steal their products instead.

At this point I think we've covered the arguments sufficiently. We cannot support illegal acts or allow them to be publicly supported on the site.

Locking.