-Why I Pirate- Is piracy justifiable?

[Euphoria14]

Mr Khan said:

Euphoria14 said:

So what is the harm in downloading it anyways? Did Nintendo lose money because I downloaded Xenoblade for my US Wii and Soma Bringer for my DSLite R4?

That's the tricky question of it. Would you have imported it if the piracy alternative were unavailable?

Though i must say what i acquire by these means is similar to your idea. I personally only pirate when the item is prohibitively difficult to even find legitimately. Three series have i ever torrented, SWAT Kats in 2008, Megas XLR also in 08, and Queen's Blade in 2010. SWAT Kats is currently only available on DVD through special order to Warner Bros and that only started in late 2010, Megas has never been rereleased anywhere, and Queen's Blade took about a year to come overseas in legitimate form.

And i ask; if it's so easy for pirates to do it, why aren't the companies doing it themselves and making some money? Especially in cases of older or more obscure series like SK and Megas, or of very niche series like Queen's Blade. And so often these pirates do all this for free (that is, not only free for consumers, but none of the crackers/translators/scanners/encoders are getting paid either), so imagine how much better it all could be if someone, with help from the actual rights-holder and the incentive of a paying job, could do all this.

Nope, seeing as how the Wii and DS are region-locked. Nintendo gave me no choice but to pirate a copy and/or void my console warranty just to play a game.

Personally though, in my case, 9 times out of 10 I rarely play beyond an hour or so of any game I pirate. Don't know why it is but for some reason I don't get much satisfaction from something I don't own the original disc for. of course Xenoblade happened to be a big exception, the game is phenomenal.

Just to put a positive spin on things, we can just say that thanks to people like me pirating the game the game recieved some real good word of mouth. My downloaded copy, followed by praise for the title in and out of the interwebs contributes to the pre-orders shown on the weekly charts. That is how I like to see it. A guy who would have most likely never bought it anyways ends up possibly helping the title sell, even if it is 1 or 2 copies.

If we can assume I lost them money, can't we also assume that I helped them make money?