The difference here is that you aren't losing money if there was none to begin with.  You may have a point if the person would have bought it anyways, but if they wouldn't, then they don't lose money, since the cost of producing that copy is near zero.

Take for example the instance in which someone pirates something who had no legal means of purchasing the product in the first place.  The company is not losing money because they made no effort to sell teh product to the person, and so could not have gained from it anyways.

I"m just saying that it's something different from theft.  Even if the person were to buy it later, you are preventing them from making something in the future.  To rob implies taking away current assets, but their current assets remain the same whether you pirate it or not.

 

Edit: To further elaborate on this distinction.  Let's say a thief took 50 dollars from someone.  Now, how much did the theif rob from him?  Many would say the thief stole 50 dollars, and that was the crime.  However, let's say that person would have invested the 50 dollars into an account earning 5% interest over 20 years compounded annually.  I believe that amounts to around 132 dollars.  Just because that 50 dollars could have become 132 dollars doesn't mean the thief stole 132 dollars.  He would be charged with the crime of stealing 50 dollars.

The cost is still there, cost is to the financial world, as heat is to the physics world.
You can't destroy it.

Minimizing doesn't get rid of it, it still costs the publisher.



I'm sorry if there is no legal way for someone to aquire the game in thier own country. If it can't be helped, It can't be helped. IT DOES NOT MAKE IT OK to take the game illegaly. EVER. Then again it only applies if thier country has laws making it illegal.



You are taking assets, you have taken a copy of thier game, a copy that can be converted into a currency ammount.

I did not argue that it would make it okay.   I'm merely stating that in this scenario, no money is being taken from the publisher, because the publisher had not way to acquire it.  Therefore, I argue that theft is not the proper term.

Actually, when someone pirates the game, it costs the publisher nothing, not even bandwidth, as the bandwidth is usually taken up by a third party.  That third party is having its bandwidth paid for legally (usually). 

There are a practical infinite number of copies that can be made.  If each copy were to actually have an asset value that is not zero, and since the number of copies is basically infinite (limited I guess by the total hard drive space by the world), then the assets would be worth infinite dollars.  I know of no company that has infinite dollars in assets.

You will always lose the arguments with pirates until you stop lying to yourselves for your own convenience.

Slight Dribble,,, I am a Canadian Woman, born and raised. Born and raised not to be predjudice,nor to slander,or intimidate. Which this thread has in abundance. Just because someone might download something they didn't have permission to. BLAH BLAH BLAH. Hasn't anyone ever bought something and didn't get what they paid for... with no support after you purchase it. And no refund in sight.... And so accordingly I should just figure, Oh Yeah. I know, I'll just go around insulting everybody.... And my 2 cents on it is, you can't put kids who download music and movies, in jail with hardened criminals.
And maybe I can't piss farther than you, but as far as weather goes I'd much rather have my weather than yours. And by the way, how's your health? Oh, and I understand why we need taxes, but I hate the abuse there also. Let's remember...It takes both the white and the black keys of the piano to play "The Star-Spangled Banner."

I'm uneducated in the legality of these matters, but to me piracy is, regardless of whether it is stealing, is actually as good (or bad) as stealing, in the moral sense.
Consider a hypothetical case: you have a company that decides to release a piece of software. They only have two copies of the software, and put it on their shelf. There are also only two potential customers.
One customer buys the product, and finds a way to make it available for free on the net. The other customer notices this availability, and has the choice of either buying the product from the company, or downloading it for free. Let us assume that he will obtain this product with certainty - it's just a question of his mode of obtaining it.
If he decides to download the product, he is obtaining material produced by this company, which the company wants to sell, for free. In effect, he is indirectly obtaining a good/service from the company, and refusing to pay for it. The company then loses the money that it should have obtained on that product.
In practice, this approach is flawed (IMO) in that the potential customers number more (considerably more) than two, so there will always be someone that can buy the product, so the product isn't technically a loss.
Morally, what is theft defined as? Is it simply obtaining something that requires payment, but not paying for it?
Take then an opposite way of looking at it. Assume a company has an infinite supply of software and an infinite potential customer base. If you go into their shop and shoplift that piece of software, is it theft? If it is, how is that different from downloading pirated material (not even considering the moral effects on the pirate himself).

Eye-for-an-eye punishment is Old Testament law. But even in the New Testament, Christ said to turn the other cheek, as a moral, rather than legal, attitude. Furthermore, current democratic legal systems do not tend to follow the eye-for-an-eye point of view (certainly not for the case discussed here). Therefore, someone who decides to "have the right" to steal from EA has no legal grounding, unless you take the moral standpoint of the OT (a false position, considering its legality), in which case it is anyway refuted by Christ's moral advice to turn the other cheek. That person also has no moral grounding, using Christian (because you quoted a Christian text - unless you take a Jewish interpretation of it) morality, for the same reasons as above.

I find that it's often worth it to debate with someone even if you don't think his/her mind will change.  That's because, if I were to guess, the majority of the viewers of the argument are the lurkers, and often, if they haven't said anything, perhaps it's because they are on the fence or aren't certain.

I'm well aware of several instances when I've changed my view on certain subjects, when I've seen two or more people debating with each other even when neither side is giving in.

The way I see it, the software itself doesn't actually have a market value of 50 dollars because you have to take the black market into account which values that software at a near zero cost (mostly costs the time the pirate takes to obtain the copy). 

So, what's the 50 dollars selling you then?  Well, mostly its

1) *Authorized* use of the copy

2) Support to the developer that made it (in hopes that they will make more like games or updates)

3) Obtaining the product at a greater convenience including future patches (for certain DRM free digital download copies)

To me these three are enough for me to legally purchase the program provided that I were interested in the game in the first place (which if I weren't, I wouldn't even be pirating it in the first place).  I'm fully aware that if everyone were to pirate the game, number 2 would never occur and I wouldn't get future games from that place. 

So, in order to stop piracy, as I said, you need to either increase the incentives for that 50 dollars (remember the game just by itself is not enough incentive because the pirated copy has that too), or disincentives to pirate (which I feel is more difficult)

Resist urge to cite Technomancy from Shadowrun as if it were a real thing. I've been off for too long.

I don't belive you should put children in prison either, but such things shouldn't go unpunished. Its a crime yes but I don't think its one that should be one that lands you in prison on a first offense. 3 strike laws make sense. If you repeat the offense, the punishment for doing it should go up with each offense. If a youth ends up doing it enough that it lands the youth in juvenile holding, well yeah that'll happen. Doesn't have to be prison with hardned crimals tho.



I have no idea where you met your women, most of the women I meet from Canada are HOT.
They know how to keep you warm on a cold night......I'll leave it at that.



I guess your right about that, as long as people dillute themselves the argument will never end.

People need to get the "Robin Hood" fantasy OUT OF THIER HEADS.

Stealing from the rich, "they don't need it" "they won't miss it". IT'S STILL WRONG
The CEO of stardock is one example. Why is he the CEO of stardock? Well probably because he worked to get where he is.
We have words to describe the lifestyles of the rich. It is called LAVISH and LUXURY. Look them up you will learn they buy these things because they can afford to purchase them. Some even have established a buisness with enough money to ensure thier descendants never have to work.
DO NOT ENVY another man's belongings or lifestyle it is a waste of time.

Mother stealing food for her children? Not a good analogy.
You and your children will not starve to death if you don't steal software.

This is true; I agree completely.

Have to be careful about that though, as I read that quite often, by the third generation of inherited wealth, the descendents go bankrupt because of this fact.

I'm actually a little amused this happened. Haha, because I said their women are ugly! Come on. How could that be true? Not ALL of them. Just most.

You actually can put kids who steal in detention centers with other delinquent kids. You can put them in with adults if they do something horrible enough. Myself, I'd rather they had to join the marines. I personally watched a girl go to jail for stealing a t-shirt from a retail store. It was a happy time for me.

You might be able to piss farther than me. Who knows? You'd have to arc it or something though. Can you do a handstand?

I understand why you'd rather have inhabitable winter year round. People in Maine love it.

Why do you ask me about my health? I don't even get that one. Is it because our health care system isn't socialized? That's the way I like it. Much like the situation with piracy, socialized medicine reduces the incentive for doctors to do a good job. I value that incentive. Good luck getting a doctor to perform a surgery any time soon. But I'll buy your medicine. That's a good deal .

The one problem with this particular logic is that all too often the developer does end up giving the pirate support:

1. In the form of forum help. How many times have you read a forum post for help and "wondered"? It may be easy to spot the pirate posting on your forums, but you as the developer/community can't refuse them help without proof (which in many cases may be impossible to get).

2. Software patches/updates sometimes addressing issues brought to the forefront by the pirates themselves. The pirates always have ways of updating their software, along with the rest of us licensed users.

These support-efforts of the developers were paid for by the licensed user. The licensed user's dollar receives less mileage each time a pirate is successful.

As unfortunate as it is, it would be naive to expect that there aren't pirates playing SINS with us on ICO with "legitimate" accounts and receiving game-updates, forum-help etc. like the rest of us.

Social engineering is a hacker/cracker's best tool and some of them are damn good at it.

...just my .02 cents

the Monk

My beef with calling piracy "theft" is the fact that while it may be immoral and potentially harmful to the owner of the IP, it's far too different from physical theft to be directly comparable. Physical theft is very straight forward; you take something from someone, they no longer have it and you do. But if you pirate, say a movie, what exactly has the pirate "stolen"?

The main issue for me when it comes to calling downloading of media theft is the fact that there are multiple LEGAL ways for a person to enjoy the very same product without paying a single dime for it. Take a movie, for instance:

I could watch it over at a mate's place. This copy may or may not be legally acquired, but practically (not morally) this makes no difference as I (not my mate) still get the movie experience while the producer gets no additional payment from my enjoyment. I could have pirated it instead, and the same result would happen. I get experience, the producer gets nothing. One is legal, the other is not, but the result is exactly the same. There is no equivalent scenario in physical theft, so the comparison is in my opinion flawed.

I could watch it on TV either at home or at a friend's place. You could argue that the TV channel has paid for the rights to broadcast the movie, so no loss is involved and the IP owner is compensated. But it makes no practical difference for the producer if I watch the movie or not, there is no difference in income either way. If I download a movie that has been broadcast on my TV, am I still a thief?

Keeping in mind that I can get the experience for free legally, I'd argue that downloading media isn't "stealing" the experience it offers, but the ability to freely access it as you wish.

And this is where my major beef with today's increasing amount of draconic DRM comes in, be it in games, movies or music. The producers try to limit the access to a product, the very thing that I, in my opinion, was paying for in the first place. Not the experience, because that I could potentially get for free legally by visiting someone with this product. I'm paying for being able to access this product at will, and suddenly they want to restrict access to when I'm connected online, to when I'm at the "correct" PC (the definition of which apparently changes at the slightest provocation when I upgrade a part in my PC or the installation gets borked), etc etc. Is it any wonder that many choose not to pay for an inferior product (restricted access with DRM) when the pirates offer unlimited access for free?

Piracy is a problem. How big a problem and the actual loss caused by it (aka people who would have bought legally if piracy was not possible) is unknown, and in my opinion blown out of proportions, and most likely less than the amount of money that has globally been spent trying to stop it, both in direct expenses and loss of sales due to intrusive DRM/lawsuits chasing away actual customers.

Seriously, drop intrusive DRM, you're not primarily selling an experience, you're selling access. Don't try to sell a product inferior to the "free" version, and start to make being a paying customer better than being a pirate. When you can offer superior access and service over what pirates can offer, that's when you'll truly curb the piracy that matters to you; the lost sales. Stopping pirates who have no means of purchasing your product legally might make you feel good about yourself, but it's a royal waste of time and money.

Ah well, now I'm just ranting. For the record, yes piracy is wrong. Piracy is not theft, it's piracy. You've lost nothing, but you've gained nothing either. It's like watching a soccer match through binoculars on a hill above the football stadium instead of paying for a ticket. I guess we should position snipers on the hills now to deal with the filthy thieves. Because that's what this measure feels like. Downloaded an MP3? That's 1 year in prison and a $200,000 fine for you, kid. Good thing we were here to stop your destruction of the livelihood of working men and women.

Exaggerated slightly for dramatic effect, of course. But yeah, monitoring the net traffic of billions of people in order to stop a (most likely) small amount of lost sales, yeah, that's kinda overkill in my opinion.

Who the hell thinks these kids have the billions of dollars between them to spend on legal copies of the 5000 MP3s they've downloaded last month anyway?