"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

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.