US government finally admits most piracy estimates are bogus

[BW_JP]

This is just as invalid as the studies done previously. Piracy hurts different studios differently. In the case of someone like Activision (as a publisher) there is no harm at all. The market is saturated in the first place. In the case of say, Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture, it's a much bigger deal. Piracy is probably going to put him out of business.

It's all how you look at it. Core Wii games (non nintendo games, obviously) are pirated really heavily. PSP is basically dead due to piracy and PC software is also dead due to it. To say anything other is just insecurity on behalf of the individual.

It's not 1:1, it's not _direct_ profit loss, but it is loss, and depending on the platform it could be a big deal. No more heroes 1 for instance, was pirated over 1.4million times according to a few tracker sites that I checked, im sure theres more.. if only 10% of those people actually went out and bought the game.. well you know.

In any case, it is theft. As an educated person in engineering, who's studying copyright infringement by law it most certainly is, by moral, it most certainly is.

People on the internet try to hide behind this or that, but in the end, If there's no demo, you don't get to play it for free. Period. You can't walk into a theatre and watch half the movie and then decide not to pay. You can't eat half your meal and then decide not to pay. You cannot fill your car up half way with gas and then decide you don't like this product.

Just because it's digital -- just because it's not a physical object does not mean it has no value. Try going to a physcologist and leaving half way without paying. Think that's fair?

The people that produce these products -- the software in question, are humans. Who work, for an hourly rate. They work extremely hard. They go to (in most cases) an accredited university or college and spend 3-4 years studying and accumulating debt to work in this field. They get paid rather unfairly too, especially programmers -- and do it because they love it. Then the pirates walk around, take what they want, when they want, use it for as long as they want, and potentially do not pay. They are hard working people, just like the people doing anything else in the world. Just because the product is digital does not mean that suddenly its okay to steal.

If you pirate, doesn't matter why, you're a thief. End of discussion. If you end up buying it anyway, You're just covering your conscious. It's like stealing a car but then paying before the store knows its off the lot. You've made your amends, but you're still WRONG.