[Letum]

OK...thinking hats on people!
Iv'e framed this argument in a snappy single paragraph before, but here
is the full version:

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Not quite, missing panel #1 where the pirates start the whole mess.

There are many, many bad things that can be blamed upon software
pirates. I do not want to appear to defend them from the things that they
are rightly to blame for.

That said, it really does not make good sense to blame pirates for poor
and increasingly invasive DRM systems.

From my understanding, your argument runs like this:

Premise 1) Piracy causes the need for more intrusive DRM systems.
Premise 2) If you cause the need for something, then you are to blame for it.
Conclusion: Therefore, piracy is to blame for more intrusive DRM systems.

On the face of it, that looks like a good argument.

Premise 1 is clearly true because if there was no piracy, there would be no DRM.
Premise 2 looks like it is true, so we will accept that.
And the conclusion defiantly follows from the premises.

However, this kind of argument can cause absurdities in more than one
way. I'm only going to look at the first way absurdity can arise, because
the second way is a little more complex and I don't want to get to bogged
down too much.

The first way is that it can be used for things like this:

Premise 1) Merchant shipping causes the need for submarine warfare
against merchant shipping.
Premise 2) If you cause the need for something, then you are to blame for it.
Conclusion: Therefore, merchant shipping is to blame for more submarine
warfare against merchant shipping.

Again, Premise 1 is clearly true because if there was no merchant shipping,
there would be no submarine warfare against merchant shipping.
Premise 2 looks like it is true, so we will accept that.
And the conclusion defiantly follows from the premises.

However, in this case the conclusion is ridiculous.

How can that be if the form of the argument is the same as in the piracy
argument and the premises both appear to be true? We must have gone
wrong somewhere, but where? To find out we will have to look at all the
aspects of the argument carefully.

Could it be that the very form the argument takes is faulty?
Well, the argument takes the form:

Premise 1) X causes the need for Y
Premise 2) If you cause the need for something, then you are to blame for it.
Conclusion: Therefore, X is to blame for Y

I think it is clear that the form of your argument is perfectly sound.
As long as premise 1&2 are both true, the conclusion is defiantly also true.

It must be either premise 1 or 2 that are at fault.

So what about premise 1 from the piracy argument; is that true?

Premise 1) Piracy causes the need for more intrusive DRM systems.

That's not strictly true for two reasons, but neither of these reasons are
utterly insurmountable.
The two problems are as follows:1) The first problem with premise 1 is
that it's not clear that piracy causes a need for intrusive DRM systems. It
no doubt causes a desire for DRM systems, but is that desire a "need"?
Having a "need" is when you have no other option and it's clear that
games companies have at least one other option; they could go out of
business. It could also be argued that there are other options that don't
include going out of business OR invasive DRM.

Perhaps we should change the argument to:

Premise 1) Piracy causes the desire for more intrusive DRM systems.
Premise 2) If you cause the desire for something, then you are to blame for it.

That has a bit less of a kick to it.

That said, going out of business is not much of an option(!) and even if
there are other options, other than invasive DRM open to games
companies, that isn't certain.

So even tho I think that even if the word "need" isn't strictly true, I don't
think it's outrageous. Arguments could be made for and against it, but I'm
willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and leave it as it is.

2) The second problem with premise 1 is that it's not clear that piracy does
cause the need for intrusive DRM systems because although all companies
suffer from piracy, not all of them have intrusive DRM systems.

Then again, maybe those companies that don't have intrusive DRM
systems are all about to go out of business because they do need it, they
just don't know it yet.

I'm sure you will agree that good arguments could be made one way and
the other. I might argue one way, your self and ubisoft might argue
another way.

Again, in this case also, I can benefit of the doubt and assume that piracy
does indeed cause the need for intrusive DRM systems.

Premise 1 from the Merchant shipping argument faces similar problems.
It could be argued that there are other options open to win a war than
submarine warfare against merchant shipping (i.e. just loose the war).
It could also be argued that you don't need to use submarine warfare
against merchant shipping to win a war.
I think it only fair that if we are giving the piracy argument the benefit of
the doubt over these issues, we should also be giving the same
allowances to similar arguments.

In conclusion, although premise 1 is, in both cases, is not problem free, the
problems are not utterly insurmountable. Good arguments can be made
both ways.


We are left with the only one other option to explain how this kind of
argument can produce ridiculous conclusions: there must be something
wrong with premise 2.

Premise 2) If you cause the need for something, then you are to blame for it.

All arguments that use this premise can be shown to produce similar
arguments that have ridiculous conclusions. It can not be an ethical rule
because it lacks universality. We can't just say that premise 2 becomes
true when it is used in this argument, but premise 2 becomes false when it
is used in another argument. The truth of any premise can't change like
that. It must be wrong and therefore, arguments that use it must also be
unsound, even if the form of the argument is valid.