"Two mistakes:

-Saying EA is stealing. Are they really? If they are, you can go to court over it if you want.

-The whole "two wrongs make a right" philosophy. Sorry, but just because wrong to you does not give you the right to commit another wrong against them."

That be one "mistake" and one question. To go to court, I would have to let them steal from me in the first place, then I would have to expend vast quantities of a resource I don't have to get repaid for their theft. I'd prefer to skip such an endeavor. Small claims court perhaps, but even then I'd have to waste more time than a $50 game is worth, it would be more a penalizing act than actual recompense. That's assuming the judge wouldn't side with the DMCA.

If you find a recent EULA(I don't know when they took that particular stance, but it's in everything since at least Mass Effect) it will state that you are required by law to cease use and destroy all copies and materials if they decide to cease support of their product. When they shut that activation server down, Bioware won't be issuing a patch like they think they will, EA has a termination clause already covering the event. Would you call that theft? The DMCA calls it a legally binding agreement.

As far as my mistake goes, two wrongs made a right for thousands of years. Who are you to decide? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. There is no justice system more fair than one based on equality, what you do to someone else should be exactly what is done to you. The modern perversion of justice is a disgrace and an anathema to the principles it claims. There is nothing equal about 5 years in prison for murdering someone, or probation for raping children.

Since you missed it, software was free until 1997. Read copyright laws and court rulings more often. Distribution of copies was only illegal if you were doing so for profit. Some how I don't think Blizzard and ID Software were in the hardware business while they were becoming millionaires off Warcraft and Doom.

this is nonesense. this happened before cd burners and p2p

Psychoak, at least someon gets it!

P2P didn't create piracy, the internet existed before Napster. CD's were hardly the first medium to be easily copied either, Doom and Warcraft came on FLOPPIES. You didn't need to buy a "special" floppy reader to copy them either, all of them copied, even the disks the games came on could be written over in any generic floppy player. The CD is the odd one out that was copy proof at the start.

When those pre-civilization games were released in the early to mid 90's, all the shit was already there for distributing them to any schmuck with a modem. They didn't even need to hide their activities because it was legal. P2P came about specifically because it became illegal to sit shit on a server and let anyone that wanted to get it for free. You don't remember looking things up on the internet before 1997?

Learn first, speak after.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Software was NEVER FREE. Laws were passed on the entertainment industry in 1997, but Intelectual Property laws have existed for quite a while before.

At the very least pirates, educate yourself with something beyond a 6th grade education.

Is it piracy to download a game you couldn't have bought? (ie the game isn't for sale in your country)?

Yes, unless you paid the publisher in order to download it.

I said "download a game you couldn't have bought" (or paid for)

And i add, is it theft when you couldn't have bought it either even if you wanted?

Cause i mean, over here games tend to arrive over 3 months later so if there's no way to get it paying, it can't be called stealing...

Another grey area: Imagine I could have bought a digital distribution from the US, but cannot buy a digital distribution or physical copy where i live (and pay the adequate taxes to my government), if i downloaded a pirate copy, would i be doing anything wrong?

Cause you know... buying a game from abroad and not paying customs is called contraband. And contraband "IS" a crime.

Yes it is a crime unless you downloaded it directly from the publisher or from someone authorized to distribute the game by the publisher. Downloading a game and not paying the person who should be paid is theft.

But not paying taxes is also a crime too, if i'm forced to buy something from abroad so that i don't "steal" from the one who should get payed, i'm effectively a criminal for doing contraband.

So, i'm a criminal if i buy it, and i'm a criminal if i don't buy it.

This reminds me of a particular conundrum of mine.  Let's say you are at a burger place and someone orders a burger with no cheese and lettuce, but messed up and gave the person a burger with lettuce.  Upon realizing their mistake, they proceed to throw it away.  Here's where another one might ask if they could have the burger if it was going to be thrown away anyways.  However, the burger person doesn't want to do that, because he's afraid that if he gives the burger to that person, that person won't buy another burger because he'll be full. 

Now, the person might be willing to pay for the burger at a discounted price, but even then, the burger place loses money if the person would have paid full price for a regular burger (assuming that the marginal cost of making the burger were much smaller than the price of selling the burger). 

Now, if the person already ate something, or wouldn't otherwise pay full price for a burger, throwing away the burger is a lose lose situation for both sides.  Now, one question that I am curious about.  If the burger people threw away the burger and the trash bag outside, and if the burger were, let's say still perfectly edible (was in a box keeping the burger secure and there's no other trash in the bag), if someone were to take the burger in the dumpster, is it theft?

Now, in the realm of software and digital media, your supply is infinite, and the marginal cost per unit is near zero.  I don't consider piracy theft, because as has been stated many times before, you aren't taking something away from the owner.  I find it more akin to tresspassing because you are making unauthorized use of the media.  In general, it's still wrong, because if everyone pirated, there'd be practically no digital content because the incentive is taken away. 

Regarding the law of banning users who pirate, my main concern would be with possible abuse that could come about with this system.  If they can see what files you are downloading, that would be a pretty big breech in privacy, where even if you weren't doing anything wrong, a system would be in place that if corrupted could cause far more problems.  I would be very weary of such a law.

Ideally, the way you are going to solve piracy is not be selling the game itself for 50 dollars, because that can be acquired by for free using illegal means, but instead sell other goods and services, packaged with the game (like customer support for example) in a way that makes them worth the 50 dollars.  In essence, you are competing with a black market that undercuts your product by quite a bit, and this market seems very difficult to take down as long as there's such a high demand for its products.  Therefore, you have to be clever in making your product worth more somehow. 

I always think solutions to problems like these need to be relatively simple and elegant, otherwise too many problems come up.  Take for example if you have a container of water, and you want the water level to go down.  You can take a lid, and try to push that water down, but unless that lid is a perfect fit, the water will find ways of slipping through the openings and remain a their level.  However, if you just do something as simple as popping a hole at the exact height where you want the water to be, the water sets itself there automatically (as the water drains out until going lower than the whole).  A solution as is proposed here, seems a tad bit too complicated and inelegant, and I'm sure people will just find ways of slipping through the openings.

If you had the ability to download the game directly from the publisher, taxes would then come into account. If I bought something abroad, even downloading I get hit with service fees to cover the exchange of money. The goverment will get it taxes sure enough.

Having to wait months for games to be released in your region sucks.

Having to pay the extra ammount for the importing of goods to your country sucks to.

I doesn't make it ok to aquire them through illegal meens tho. But that only applies to YOU if your country has laws governing piracy downloads. If it doesn't, well then feel free to do whatever you want to then. Its downright impossible for a US company to prosecute someone in a forigen country for something that isn't a crime there.

Its still stealing.

Back when I was in highschool and worked during the summer at the local McDonalds we had an answer for that.

That burger is waste.
Its a loss for the company and needs to be discarded.
Even tho it's waste it's still physical inventory and needs to be accounted for. Eating waste is stealing.
You should not have made the mistake to begin with.
Giving away free food is stealing.
If the customer wants the burger they can pay for it, if the customer is not paying for food or has not paid for food then they are not customers.

Yes you are, Its called MONEY