33% of you are pirates

[Grey Acumen]

I'm actually surprised that it's that low. The precedent had already been set by being able to record using cassette and VCR tapes. I'm willing to bet that if recordable CDs and DVDs hadn't come out, that VCR tapes would still be in common use.

However, in these efforts to get CD and DVD established as standard formats, they suddenly realized "oh snap! DVDs don't degrade the way VCR tapes do, so if they make a copy of a DVD, it'll look just as good as the real thing! We'd better find some way to make it illegal to copy DVDs."

So now we have "licensing" as opposed to buying, so that we can tell the difference between owning a product completely and owning the right to use a product for specific purposes. Which actually brings up a very interesting point.
When you install a PC game or almost any PC software, you just about always have a licensing agreement come up that you have to check as being read and agreed to in order to instal. Usually this points out the fact that you don't own the product you bought, only the right to use it, as is and generally unmodified. This also typically lists out the right to burn a copy of the disc in question to use as a backup (though I typically use the original as the backup, so that the burned disc gets the wear and tear, not the original)
However, I don't recall ever seeing this on a console game. Which really brings into question whether a simple backup of a game really is piracy.

The ethical side of this is just as murky as the legal side. I don't condone piracy, but at the same time, there is the issue that when funds are tight, games are NOT necessities, they are entertainment. I don't have the money to burn to be able to risk renting and buying various games that I "hope" I'll enjoy. I can't return a game to the store for a refund if I didn't have fun playing it.
I have actually gone from owning a pirated game (friend had a burned backup of psychonauts that he let me install from) and after playing through a level. I went out and bought a legal copy, just because I was enjoying it enough that it had easily fallen in my "worth buying" list.
However this is probably one of the lightest examples of pirating that can be given, since I also have gametap, which offers psychonauts legally as a free download. However the gametap version inexplicably crashes at the intro scene.
Another good example is Gunstar Heroes, which I was first introduced to as a genesis rom, and when I saw it on Virtual Console, I grabbed it. I never would have even looked at it from the name, and no screenshot I've ever seen of the game has been compelling enough to get me to be willing to play it, but by having it free, I was willing to fool around with it for a while with no expectations and found out i really enjoyed it.
On the other side, I can hardly claim to have been compelled to go out and buy every single game I've enjoyed playing the rom of. Like I said, I just don't have the money, but I do usually make a point to push those games that I've enjoyed if anyone asks me. I also try to avoid the "hey, you don't need to pay for that game, just get the rom" thing, which I find that rather distasteful. If I enjoyed a game, whether I bought it or played it for free, I'm going to recommend people attempt to buy it if they are capable of it.

The real problem is that nobody that are the main vocal heads of either point are being reasonable about the issue. On one side you have the people who want it so that as long as you don't make money off of it, copying games and movies is totally fine (and then you have the people who want to be able to make money off of it too) however on the other side, you have these goofballs claiming that ripping a disc that they own to their ipod, or backing up their DVDs so they don't have to worry about their cheapo $20 DVD player having a catastrophic failure on them, should be considered illegal.

So it's murky. It may be illegal, but it's still going to happen, the important thing is cutting back on the people who are trying to make a profit from the pirating or are trying to specifically undercut legal sales as I had previously mentioned with the "don't buy that, get the rom" issue.