MelasZepheos said:
And does the game designer/developer/creator get any money for that piracy, which they would had you paid for it? No, then theft.
Theft: The criminal act of taking another's property or services without consent.
In criminal law, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent. I suppose you included services there as to include digital "goods" as well. Ironically, this does not support your cause. You cannot "steal" somebody's services because services are not a tangible thing just like you can't steal digital goods because digital goods are not tangible things. You do not steal them, you make COPIES OF THEM.
MelasZepheos said:
They would make money off the game you bought, thus the money that the game would earn is their's, due to the copyright they hold on the game, by pirating the game you are taking their money without their consent. Theft.
How do you know that pirate would have bought the game? The majority of pirates are just people with a weak financial status. By removing piracy you're in no way boosting your sales.
MelasZepheos said:
Also, to say you lost respect for an entire adminstrationg because of this one issue is just childish, and if you can't engage with this subject on an adult level maybe you should stay away from it.
No. I lost respect for Obama's administration the moment they stated that they don't even know what the very thing they're fighting against is.
MelasZepheos said:
Copyright infringement is against the law in almost every first world country, thus you are a criminal if you are a pirate. One way or the other, when you pirate something you have broken the law (various international treaties and national laws to be precise) you would be treated the same as a thief anyway.
I don't care if pirates would be treated as thieves or not, that's the mistake of the law enforcers and that will be addressed. Also, criminal is just such a "strong" word. I mean, you aren't actually considering people who download intangible objects from the internet in the same league as Bob the rapist will you?
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Paragon Fury said:
What you are doing you pay $60 for a game is buying mission to see that game. It is the equivalent to buying a ticket to a game, movie or art show. Games sometimes even go a bit farther by letting you share your ticket or bring quests, but at the end of the day its still the developer/publishers show, and they have complete control over the whole proces. You aren't allowed to copy your ticket or sneak in, because that is stealing from the show; you're stealing the cost of the ticket, and not paying for the service/show you recieve.
Still not theft. It might be forgery, but forgery isn't theft.
Paragon Fury said:
But then you scale that up to the level of piracy, and now you have a large, very harmful problem. So many people stealing either the product or the admission into the product creates big losses for a company. Like it or not, you're stealing from their bottom line, and though you can argue technicalities until you're blue in the face and the last man/woman on Earth, what you're doing has the same end result as stealing, and therefore is considered the same thing.
Firstly, I will NEVER believe major corporations when they start talking about piracy. Until I see some numbers, evidence that those numbers are correct and evidence that they are barely making any profit due to piracy THAT'S the day when I'll get on my high heels and lead the crusade against pirates.
SECONDLY, forgery is a completely different thing to stealing. I'll use your ticket example as my own to make you understand.
Let's say little Johnny here wants to see a movie but he doesn't have the money. His friend Ben, however, has the money. So little Johnny thinks and thinks and finally comes up with the idea of falsifying the ticket. So he takes the ticket Ben bought, uses a copying machine and he's got himself a ticket! Ben and Johnny can finally enjoy the movie together. What a happy ending!
Let's say little Billy wants to see a movie but doesn't have the money to buy a ticket. His friend Johnny, however, broke his piggy bank and spend all of his hard earned money on that ticket. When Johnny showed Billy his ticket, Billy punched him in the face and stole his ticket. He went to the cinema and saw that movie. I hope it was worth it, Billy!
Do you now understand how there's a fundamental difference between stealing and forgery? Whilst stealing deprives someone of their privileges, forgery copies that privilege and gives it to others. They might have the same fundamental goal of gaining a privilege but the means by which they are doing this are fundamentally different. Forgery and theft are not the same thing.
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I'm not saying piracy is a good thing. I realize small indie developers sometimes suffer due to it but painting all pirates as assholes and criminals is a stretch to far. I mean for fucks sake, they're people like you and me and yet you judge them before you've even met them. Maybe some of them aren't even the targeted consumer or maybe some of them find the prices way to high and see piracy as a way to punish publishers for what they're doing. I don't know, but judging before you even meet them makes you no better than the same people you're describing.
