Archaon6044 said:
the pirated game has to have come from somewhere, and that somewhere is going to be a purchased copy of the software in question. the money has gone to the publishers and developers.
the pirated copies are just available incarnations of that software that have been made available to the onloine comunity.
money for the software has already changed hands. the only thing being lost is store sales of the software.
not a valid legal argument.
all software (including every CD in every box ever) is just a copy of the original, you pay for the right to copy it. its the same for software as it is for things like music, print media, TV or films. there is allways one 'master copy' and you buy copys of that master. this argument has long be settled and all the specious arguments that justify stealing have been ruled on ages ago atleast here in the states.
the makers of software not only have the rights to sell copys of that software they aslo have a right to controll distribution. the only thing that hasent REALLY been settled yet is so called 'fair use'.
do i as a buyer have a right too allow someone else to access my purchase. the obvious answer is yes, but there comes a point when my being able to do what i choose with my copy comes into conflict with the companys right to make money off their work. its pretty cimple for me actualy , if you dont KNOW and have a long standing established relationship of some kind with the person that is making a copy of your CD than its not fair use.
good luck trying to write that into law though. i can just see a 14 year old school kid being brought into court and having to convince a judge that this other kid they let use their copy of HALO was really his BFF for atleast a year, with the game company summoning witnesses saying that the other kid was a new transfer and the first kid couldnt have possable known him for that long.
companys are often stupid and greedy, consumers are mostly stupid as well as greedy, and generaly the only ones that actualy win in a situation like this is the lawyers.
for right now piracy is just the cost of doing business, you can either come up with a new business model or waste time trying to fix the old one by trying to stop piracy, but thas kinda like trying to hold back the tide or stop the sun in its orbit.
simple truth is we are either going to have to come up with some way to impose laws and regulations on the web, or most forms of media will die out as we know them. a basic rule of life is that people wont PAY for something they can get for free.
ive watched this very topic evolve over the last 10 years or so. hell the topic has evolved with my OWN thinking, i started out shocked and a bit miffed at the 'scum' that would pirate. but even at first there was a little voice in my head that was just miffed that i couldnt (at the time) do it and admired the pirats that could. now years later i COULD do it but choose not too, and whats worse from the industry point of view, there is now actual cases where i SUPPORT piracy, (such as with Spore). give it another 10 years and maybe my last bit of 'morality' will be totaly gone and ill join the rest of the world in thinking that just because i cant afford something that im still entitled too it anyhow even if it means i have to dream up some lame excuse that no one with an ounce of brains doesnt see through instiantly to justify it, like the person i quoted tryed to do.
