Ethics regarding Piracy.

[RicoADF]

Ethical but does that make it legal?

The EULA and most laws allow a backup copy to be burnt incase of damage, it's illegal to pirate the game (aka give it out to friends) not backup the disc. I've read through a few EULA's and often they say "you are allowed to make 1 (one) copy for the purpose of backup" yada yada, besides no court would charge you for it.

EDIT: Assuming you keep the origional packaging/copy. However at the end of the day the store is required by law to replace your damaged copy. They can't refuse.

 

[OutforEC]

To be totally honest up-front, I probably have a much more hardline stance against piracy than most people since to me it isn't some nebulous concept in cyberspace, it's a cold hard ***** that takes money from the pockets of those I care about. So if you're looking for approval, you'll likely not get it from me. However, everyone has their own morals and ethics and it is up to each individual to work within their own sense of right and wrong. If you think it's justified in a particular situation, I'm not going to argue to try to change your mind.

Even in the instance of a hardline stance against piracy, is it really piracy to download a copy of something you paid for?

The way I see it, it's no different than if you just made an iso of the disk to free up physical space. As long as you actually pay for the thing, there's really no reason you can't go out and download a copy.

I concur that if you legally own a copy that it is within your rights. However, it isn't within the rights of the person seeding it, so it still advocates piracy.