Uhh, no, and if you'd read my post you'd understand why. There is another way to define it, copyright infringement. If the law doesn't need to differentiate between the two then why bother with a Copyright Act?

Since you suggest there is no other way to define it unless you condone it, I guess many legal systems condone piracy.

Edit: And again Morgyn beats me to the punch

God, I hate it when gamers use cars for ANY analogy. It hardly ever works.

I hope you don't read Slashdot

I'm like a posting ninja! =P

I understand your post completely.  If you read my post as well, you'll notice that I'm not focusing on copyright infringment vs. larceny.  They are different laws primarily because of the english common law roots of larceny having little in its language to support intellectual property because of the whole issue of "deprivation".  IP laws, alothough varying in great degrees worldwide, were put in place to protect property of the mind in the same manner that tangible, physical property is protected.  My point is that whether it is larceny or copyright infringment, if the user gains any benefit whatsoever from pirating (and they will get some amount of benefit, even if they play the game for 1 minute and decide they don't like it and delete it) it is still theft.  Period.  Again, in the eyes of the law, you have "stolen" and are punishable in a court of law.  We are splitting hairs here as you well know, but boil it down to the basics and don't overthink it.  We all know why IP laws exist...

Morgyn hit thing right on the head with the first post here.

The majority of mod chips are used for "backups" (read: pirated image rips.) True backups do have legal merit, which is why it is perfectly legal to make them. But this allows for a loophole which is exploited by ye swabby pirates.

But there are those, I'm included, who have only used modchips for the ease of playing imported games. This is the severe minority here.

I remember having one of the best DBZ games growing up, (Dragon Ball Z: Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu) before the series became a smash hit here in the States for my Playstation. Of which, I needed a mod chip for playing.

I also have a Dreamcast set up with a modchip that lets me play imported games without having to bother with the cumbersome boot disc cycle sequence, in order to attempt to get my DC to read an imported game.

I for one have been glad the likes of the DS and PS3 are region free, as mod chips in general, are really a big pain.

It looks like my little "Policy" turned into a lovely debate. I just want to say somethings on a more basic view point.

The first time I played Chrono Trigger, was on an emulator, before the 2000's even arrived. I loved the game. Absolutely adored it. A few years later, I found out my friend had the re-released game on the PS1. I played it, and loved it even more since it had all those extras (the load time I could go without though).

Do you want to know what I'll be doing when they inevitably put it on the VC? I'll be buying it, and playing through that damn great title again.

I ask you this:

How does that equate to a loss of a sale? I would have NEVER played the game had it not been for that emulator, nor would I have come to appreciate such a pure gem and work of art in gaming history.

Because I "pirated" or "stole", whatever you want to call it, many things have happened.

- I now avidly support Square by buying their products
- I experienced a timeless game, and show appreciation to those who made it
- I'll be buying the game as soon as I possible can in a fashion in which the parent company makes a profit.

One case of "stealing" made me pour in tons of money to that company in the long run because I KNOW they can produce quality games that I'd want to buy.

I have another, not as strong point, but still somewhat valid.

There is a sense of ownership to the games that you buy. When you pirate something, you don't feel that same sense of owning the game. You don't get that same drive or passion to play and beat it.

One thing that I've noticed is that when you pirate games, you don't necessarily play video games more than you'd think.

I devoted literally hundreds of hours into each DS game I own, but after I got a method of "pirating" for the DS, I've yet to devote over 2 hours into any pirated game (except Izuna, which I'll be buying when I get the chance- damn Atlus and their limited supply launches).

 But it isn't theft or stealing, you are just wanting to give it that name to make it sound worse (exactly how the RIAA and MPAA use it in their ads against piracy). I'll give a better example. Up until a few years ago it was illegal to format shift in Australia (and for some things it still is). So if I bought a CD and wanted to put it on my MP3 player, legally I couldn't (ignore the fact that literally millions of Australians would have been classed as criminals too). Now I don't think there are many people who would agree that me copying music I have purchased to another format so I can listen would class that as theft. Yet I still have commited copyright infringement.

In another example, what about people who backup their media in duristications that do not allow it? In Australia there are some pretty backwards laws regarding this which actually makes a lot of backups illegal. Yet once again I would be hard pressed to define this as theft.

What about items that are no longer for sale? If they aren't being sold then it is hard to put a value on them. What exactly has the producer lost when they aren't even selling their product? Sure I should go an get a 2nd hand copy, if that is even possible thanks to DRM, but that doesn't deliver money to the producer either. 

As for boiling down to the basics, in the eyes of the law (at least in the US) it definitely doesn't. From the Dowling vs. United States case which has become rather famous due to peer to peer and its possible application to set precident (although no case has needed to do this yet):

"The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud." link

Exactly as you said, the laws of larceny did not have enough support in its language to cover IP infringement. This is the exact reason we have a lot of words which while they mean similar things, imply different meanings.

@Shadow)OS.

Your points are exactly why the big companies get very little respect when the go citing numbers for loses in piracy. They always work the numbers to be as big as possible, reporting even possible case as a largest value loss. Add onto the fact they never take in other factor too. Long story short, from 1999 to 2001, the RIAA's members reduced the number of albums produced and the enonomy fell. So over that period of time, they reduced their catalog by 25% and only suffered a 4% loss in sales. That actually sounds like an increase in sales to me from a relative point of view. Linky for those interested further.

In regards to having access to pirated material and the 'time and value' in which they are worth you are perfectly right that you play less. A pirated games worth to you is close to 0. You might have invested some time or a small amount of money in getting it, but it is significantly less than the monetary loss (and even possibly time) you would have if you had gone to the store. Therefore, if I only get an hour or two (or don't even like the game at all) I haven't lost much. Whereas a game I've put $50+ dollars on (for us Australian who are suffering with US$80+ dollar games right now) I want to invest much more into because I have invested more money.

In regards to the DS and other systems that have smaller (byte wise) games, it is very easy to collect a massive collection. Looking this morning I see there are 1298 'scene acknowledge' DS roms 'available'. Now that entire set of roms, even uncompressed, would easily fit on any hard disk bought today. This bring the value of each game in the collection down even further because there is only so much time to allocate to each release.

Funnily enough, as you get older you have less and less time for gaming anyway. I'm only in my mid twenties and I already lack the time to play all the games I want. I have 5 GC games, 2 DS and 1 Wii game which I've purchased that the only reason the disc has been in the console was to check that it works. At least one of these I bought close to three years ago too. I keep saying I'll get to them at my next holidays, but I just never get around to them...

Piracy is terrible. It costs lives every year, and is a grave problem in many southeastern countries. I mean, armed capture and boarding of commercial and passenger ships is dangerous and immoral.

Oh wait, you mean copyright infrigement. That sounds totally like piracy. Please, stop refferring it to as theft, or piracy, or whatever term you want to call it. Its called copyright infringement - normally its a civil tort, though in special circumstances it is a criminal law. You wouldn't call vehicular manslaughter mass genocide, so don't misapply terms that are incorrect.