Er...no.

Stardock has a zero tolerance for warez use/users.

I'm possibly leading the score-card in warez-user exiling ...not sure though...depends on the prevalence in the Gaming corner of SD's realm....

Ok, well, that makes more sense. But what I said is still true. How is that going to help you, really? The banned user will just occupy time better by stealing sins of a solar empire.

I'm sorry SlyDrivel, but pirates are not the ones who are "making the games crappier", it's the game companies. I don't know about you, but I've been playing games since the days of Atari and Commodore 64.
I remember playing first RTS games to hit the market, or the first FPS, I remember fondly adventure games such as Maniac Mansion, Warcraft, Dune, games with massive amounts of original content such as Albion or incredibly huge sandboxes such as Daggerfall.
Games which took the risk of being original and broke outside of the envelope.

How many RTS-es we have today, how many FPS action "next-gen-whatnot" shooters? Are you telling me these unoriginal rehashes of things said-and-done have been created because of pirates?

If pirates actually do ruin big businesses, I think we will see an *increase* in originality, because only the geeks in their garages will be making games, like in the olden days. Only now they can make them a little prettier.
As it stands, the big companies are not run by developers (rare exceptions exist) but by accountants. Which are known to dislike risky moves which involve large sums of money. So they put a damper on all sorts of creative movement, instead calling a new control scheme "next-gen" and focusing on things tried-and-true, with the abovementioned results.
So don't blame pirates for unoriginality in the gaming industry. You can blame pirates for all sorts of things, but not this.

And by the way, I *hope* you didn't just call me a pirate a few posts above. Just because I advocate a different angle of approach to the problem does not make me a pirate. That sort of knee-jerk thinking is exactly why the allmighty government is unable to deal with the problems our society is facing, ones much larger than piracy at that.

It'll be funny to see black-hat hackers getting their neighbors banned if this sort of thing takes off. Then no one will have Internet, yay! Incoming ISP company closures.

I always find it funny this sort of crucification of people who dowload pirated games generally done at game developers forum's.

It's obvious that if people don't download them, games will stop being pirated (well not really but we can do this simplification for this specific scenario).

It's also obvious that if you arrest all drug addicts/consumers, trafficking will stop (this one effectively in all scenarios).

So why is should we pursue ppl who download stuff, and don't pursue ppl who consume or are addicted to drugs?

Drug addiction is far worse for the society than "virtually" hurting game developers/movie industry/music industry's income.

---

There are some notable differences between the 2 (luxury addictive through pleasure vs luxury addictive through chemical substances)

But the reason why the lesser evil is hardly fought and the bigger evil isn't is simple:

If drug comsumption stopped alltogether, the economic benefits gained from it would be somewhat intangible.

If downloading stuff stopped alltogether, copyright owners would see a slight improve in income.

Drug addicts [mostly] hurt themselves...if they are silly enough then good luck to them.

Piracy on the other hand hurts others...and NOT the pirate <--- they tend to profit instead.

As to the 'we' ....druggies, etc has no relevance to either this thread OR the website it's on, whereas Piracy is actually what the thread is about...and...the site is within the affected industry....

Way back at the dawn of time there were LP's.Methods were devised to record them.It was argued then that it would collapse the music industry.It hasn't happened yet.Was I a criminal if I recorded an LP and gave it to a friend ?
By the letter of the law,probably so.Was I a thief?I don't think so,I made no agreement with the record company.
If I make copies and sell them,or redistribute them to the general public, paid or free,is that stealing? Yes,I think it is and I know it's wrong.
Now zip to modern times.I have a DVD recorder.Am I stealing if I record something off satellite(I pay for the service after all)and send it to a friend or family member? Again,I don't think I am.
How about uploading it on the net,available to anyone?That's redistribution,not sharing.Now the line has been crossed.
Private use and sharing lines were drawn long ago,but they constantly move and have been for the most part unenforceable.It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the courts.
I am only referring here to audio or video,licensed software is an entirely different matter.If you agree to a EULA,you should abide by it.That's my 2c worth.

I'm wondering - how enforceable are the EU resolutions going to be?

For people in the EU buying EU products it will be very enforceable.

For people not in the EU buying products not in the EU, the EU doesn't care.

But what about when the product is American and the person buying is in the EU, or when the product was made in the EU and the person is in the USA? This could lead to a lot of clashes over international law.

Same goes with any other country - and throw into the mess that some countries have different opinions of how much international laws affect them. Even in the USA, there's a lot of debate about how involved we should be with international organizations (some which we even helped create, such as the UN), and whether or not international "laws" should supersede our own laws and regulations.

Well, capitalism is going on a downward spiral and money will be cancelled eventually so we are not going to have to worry about this sort of thing. A hearty pat on the back and an applause from the audience for a game well made will be pay enough, eh?

Oh, and by the way, while the blasted thing is still about, pirates do not make profit. There are some who try to, like those who sell pirated games on DVD's and such, but for the most part those are not real pirates (people who essentially "hack" games in order to remove or circumvent DRM). Just thought to point that out.

You could call them "digital commies" or somesuch though...

A pebble in the pond from the peanut gallery .....

Cast your minds back a few years ago when that intro clip appeared on virtually all DVDs at the time about the kid in the bedroom turning on the PC, and we then got 30secs worth of "Piracy is theft", flashing logos, pics, dire threats etc etc, and all the associated rationale. After a while it got on my nerves "of course its friggin theft - go away I want to watch the damn movie .... grrr" (on most DVDs it was set so you could not skip it), although later some DVD Players got round that.

Totally illogically, that dam video clip bugged the hell out of me, got real paranoid about it at one time

Anyway, my son was a record producer at the time, and I related my reaction to him, and he chuckled. In his circles it was quite a topic of discussion, as it appears that research showed that a large number of teenagers were not aware it was actually theft, not just messing about, justifying peripheral issues, or trolling the usual excuses, they really were not aware it was theft as an overall principle ........ The video clip was released to combat that.

I found that mind blowing, unreal .... still do. With that mindset, its hardly surprising emotions run high about this, also indicates a "back to basics" approach is needed somewhere along the line. Would not stop piracy of course, but at least you get the chance to leave the start line on the issue ....

Regards
Zy

They are very aware, deep down inside.

But I wouldn't be aware that shoplifting was theft if there were no police.

Kryo asked the following question: "Is banning pirates from the internet going too far, or is it justified?"

My compairison clearly aimed at it, if our politicians (i'm in the EU) try to tackle a small problem with an axe while using a scissors to tackling a big problem, it clearly shows how disproportioned the measure is. The reason why such measure is even talked about is because there are plenty of lobbys for one side, and none for the other. As such, (specially aimed at the ethic or morals referred previously) where's the ethic in such disparity?

As for druggies [Mostly]hurting themselves... well, when they fall ill, it's the society that pays, not sure how's the wellfare over in the US, but in europe it's mostly statewise (doesn't rely on insurances), so when a druggie needs hospitalar assistance, i have to pay for the services. Not to mention that the economic loss of lives is far greater than the economic loss of income, specially cause i don't believe that removing piracy would have such a big effect on revenue as the industry thinks.

Besides, there's 2 types of pirates you're putting together on the same basket (erroneously), people who download, and people who crack/illegally distribute products. There's no doubts about what the latter is, but the former isn't quite on the same level is he? I mean, without cracked games (for instance) you could download all the games you wanted, they wouldn't work...

Wow .... if you really mean that literally, I find that amazing .... why not ?

That kind of backs up the video .... parental and school education starts the ball rolling, police should only be enforcement, not educators.

Regards
Zy

I think he forgot the sarcasm tags.

I didn't honestly think they were necessary. But it's really ironic when you think that pirates are the kind of people who will both deny that they would do it and then do it when the police actually go on strike. It has happened in the past. Look at the Boston Police strike, for example.