Regarding the forums, you can restrict forum users, at least in the support forums to those who have registered the game, and at least with stardock's system (from my understanding) the key is server generated and accounted for, so there is no code to crack.

Regarding updates, you are correct in that the pirates do get the updates for free, though from my understanding, it is somewhat more of a hassle for them to keep hunting those updates. But I will grant you that they do get tend to get that support for free, though at a somewhat greater inconvenience.

This is why I find it more similar to a kind of virtual tresspassing rather than theivery.

I know not all of you are ugly, but, now I'm not sure how your ladies go for a pee! I suppose kids with hardened criminals was slightly exagerated. Unless their parents brought them up in a damn good way! Or the polution,or growth hormones our animals are force fed,didn't affect them in utero. How can you even think you get the Hole picture? I guess yours is not to wonder why. But I can't help it. Oh and the best hackers get jobs in the government,windows,hired by ceo's,etc. Now if that ain't irony.
I don't condone anything illegal,but,there's definitely Grey in this Matter.....
My docs the Best. Thanks

The Problem is that you have actually successfully defined the *difference*, in economic terms between piracy and stealing.

Because Customer Number 2 has *three* option - he can buy it, he can pirate it from the 'net, . . . or he can steal (shoplift) it . . .

Now - if he buys it, then customer number three has nothing to buy. If he *steals* it, then customer # three has nothing to buy *and* the store and publisher get no money for it.

If he *pirates* it, then Customer # three gets to buy his copy - and the publisher gets the exact amount of money they would have gotten if customer # two had bought it in the first place.

And that (while vastly simplified) highlights the difference between Piracy and Theft. You can't sell me the merchandise someone stole from you. You *can* still sell me the merchandise someone pirated from you. It's not a minor distinction - in economic terms, it's all the difference in the world.

Among other things, it means I still get to *buy* my copy of Galactic Civilizations II, and two expansion packs, no matter *how* many copies were pirated.

Pirate one copy or a billion copies, the market for *honest* buyers, goes down exactly 0%.

Jonnan

And the irony of it all is that if piracy was made impossible, the amount of physical game, movie and music thefts from shops would probably rise dramatically (though of course not as much as the reduction in illegal downloading)

Ah! Well explained - I get your point there now
What about the other example, though? Granted that it's just as overly simplified as the first, if we assume infinite supply (as opposed to extremely limited supply, as in the first example), then shoplifting and pirating come to the same thing, right? I know that's not how it works, but could one say that piracy is theft at least in spirit i.e. the taking of something without due payment? (My position, to restate it, is that even if piracy isn't theft, then it is, morally - not necessarily legally - as bad as theft)

Good. People would be faced with the fact that their commiting a crime, and this will lower game prices by $5-10.

I hope the 4th time (going online illegally) means jail. If it was up to me, thieves would go to prison.

 

I'm inclined to agree with this.

However, if someone walks into BestBuy and snatches a copy of Windows Vista off the shelf and walks out, that is theft. But if they download it off the net, it's piracy. What's the difference?

The store paid for the copy (and thus loses money while publishers get the money anyway) and when you download it no one paid for it (both the store and the publisher don't make money BUT they don't lose anything)

So, are anti-piracy laws wrong, or will your no doubt righteous rage convince the authorities otherwise?

^ ^

I'm not going to say piracy is right, but I won't say it's absolutely wrong either.

I'm currently vacati- err, DEPLOYED to Guam, and I couldn't bring along a lot of games. Furthermore, even at my home station, I don't even have all the games I own in hard-copies. My BG2 CD2 disappeared ages ago, making the game unplayable (well, uninstallable). I left my CD copy of Deus Ex, Total Annihilation, at home in San Diego, and so on.

So in leiu of bringing fragile CDs around in a huge wallet, I downloaded a ton of .isos and threw them on an external HDD. If it weren't for piracy, I wouldn't be able to play Fallout 2, a game I've bought at some point or another. I refuse to be shackled to a CD, and I sure as hell can't wait for some tool to suggest I re-buy the game to 'support the developers' (someone always does every time I talk about my missing CDs).   

I also exceed the speed limit 90% of the time too, and my only justification for that is that I'm too god damn impatient to drive 45 mph.

And some of the bufoons around here would have you believe that somehow, piracy is worse than speeding.

IMO it's easy to say that downloading and using a piece of illegal software is theft (I mean the fact that you are using a serial number you didn't purchase ought to give that a way).

Where I think most people have issues is the fact that in all honesty what's the difference between downloading a movie/song or slipping a cd/tape in your stereo/VCR/DVD Burner and recording your content in that manner? As a teenager I spent hours upon hours of making tapes of the songs I wanted off the radio, then my friends and I would exchange tapes. Most also think what's the difference between passing an MP3 through the instant messenger and handing the cd over to my friend to let them make a copy (something I did frequently as a teen). My own parents had a huge collection of movies all recorded off of cable(that's not to say they didn't purchase movies either a few years ago when they moved they sold about 3000 movies all of which were bought at the store), and now you can burn them to CD instead of using a VCR. Everyone gets so caught up in the fact that it's online. I think they all forget that for years before the Internet people we're copying their media just in a different way.

While I understand that theft is theft and yes if you break the law you'll go to jail, I do think they are trying to enforce the un-enforceable. Eventually when enough people have sued due to "wrongful" Internet bans they will have to rethink this law.

Now I was a kid when VCR's first came out but I do remember people then becoming quite upset saying that it was wrong for people to be able to record their movies off of t.v. however that never went anywhere either.

Piracy is wrong, and it should be dealt with but I don't believe this is the answer.

I wonder how many people die needlessly each year just because people speed? You are right. No worse. But it's probably no better. I, for one, don't speed more than 5 mph over.

You don't have a clue. Nearly all *physical* property laws are state laws. Only if the stolen goods are transported over state borders does any sort of federal law become involved. Intellectual property laws are (mostly) handled by the federal government, as responsibility for such was explicitly given to Congress in the Constitution.

By the legal definition of theft, you are correct. Piracy is not theft, it is more akin to trespassing - which in many areas you can legally be SHOT for, if the owner catches you doing it. On a more practical level, though, piracy is the equivalent of sneaking into a movie theater. While you would be arrested for unlawfully being on the theater's property, the actual crime is "stealing" the movie experience.