Why are so many American games so up in arms against piracy?

[mike_intellivision]

I think I will express this in terms that the OP might understand.

Let's say you operate a subscription website. You need 100 paid users to make it viable. You have 200 users but it turns out only 75 of them are paying while the rest have gotten codes from their friends or hacked into the site. You are out of business and you've lost your investment.

I am not going to say that I have not had sometime in my past had illegal copies of games. But when I got out of school, I "went straight" and got rid of improper disks of PC games (some of which were given to me as a gift). Now, about the only "copies" that I have are of out-of-print games which cannot be acquired any other way -- which I think is very different than pirating current games (its gray vs. black).

Some of the arguments that others have put forth about "developing countries" sound valid -- but I out there two caveats. First, in many cases, the pirates and their customers can afford most of what they are seeking to get cheaply. Second, video games are very low in the NEEDS of life (they are an optional desire -- not a required necessity) -- in other words, this is not stealing a loaf of bread to eat but rather stealing a ROM to play in your spare time.

Mike from Morgantown