You talk about principle, yet your previous post states: "as for hackers that allowed this, let them never be allowed to own or touch any technology so he/she may not make piracy or any other immoral behavior possible." Tell me, is it not principle to be able to do what you want with the hardware that you PAID FOR? You were after all making that argument for this very reply. Hardware is more yours than software ever will be.

Do you think it's principle for the police to be wasting taxpayer's money to be Sony's lapdog whenever they wish to clench their corporate muscle to bully consumers? We are not a Corporate Oligarchy yet, but with the amount of willingness to be raped around here, we're close to it:

"I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison."

For what? Standing up against your corporate overlords? God help us if somebody dared to do that! Do a bit of research on politics, and you'll see that what you are fighting for is a commercial equivalent of censorship in China. 

First of all, please reply to my most previous post. I don't have much of a problem if you reply to early posts. That's cool but I put a lot of effort and time into my most previous post so I'd apprecaite it if you replied to it aswell. Also you not acknowledging that post suggests that you couldn't defend or forfiet that area of the discussion?

Secondly, I want to apologize to you because I think I used a bad tone earlier on, might be a bit hard to see but I feel convicted and regardless if you see it in my text, I wrote a bad tone. I don't want things getting out of hand. I don't want to get mad or you mad. But I'm not completely at fault for that... you keep going off-topic and it takes a long time to post sometimes and I don't like having to explain things that I really think are self-explanatory. And if you see a word that seems vague... but think there's a good chance that it's specificially meaning something specific (example: copying = piracy) then give my word choice the benefiet of the doubt please.

Now to answer you post

My literal understanding of what you said....

I don't think doing what you want with what you have paid for is principle (moral/good/honorable) because doing what you want isn't always principle (moral/good/honorable). Please re-read what I just stated 3 times or something because that statement explains a lot. Sooooooo I can do whatever I want with the product I purchased. But it isn't necessarily principle (moral/good/honorable) . I reply like that because "doing what you want" is a vague phrase...

If....... you however included a moral basis when you said that... then YES you can do whatever you want because if your on a moral basis then you would be excluding any evil things when you said that. IF that's what you meant then yes your right and I agree we can do whatever we want with our products (excluding evil things). And this is how I say it when I say "I can do whatever I want with my Super Mario Bros. cartidge"

All bases covered I think...

Again, I'm talking about piracy but in short reply and the last reply I want to give you for the Geohot case....

Literally, the way you said this... "bully" of course I'd agree with you, Sony or any other corporation shouldn't bully anyone. Do I think Sony is bullying, I don't know for sure. My stance and say on the Geohot case is my own... not Sony's stance, not Geohot's or anyone else. But that's not what were talking about atm.

I will end this with a slightly changed qoute from an earlier post I made.

The product (game) is not a disc, it is the digital information...

"A physical disc doesn't have to be in the picture for me to get a copy of x game... THE GAME does... which is the digital information. The game doesn't have to dissapear when I get it... but it does have to come to me without paying a dime. Why should doing something in a digital world HAVE to be so much like doing something in the physical world in order to be the same? It can't be.. they are two different worlds. Yet I can still communicate with you without talking ...  I can send a loved one money without actually sending money ... and I can commit theft without the product dissappearing."

EDIT: After revising this post and myself, I won't talk about this topic with anyone else except fordy. It will end with fordy because I realized... I keep pointing out that others are going off-topic yet I am the one who is off-topic technically because this thread is about Geohot's case. On the other hand what I'm talking about (piracy) is relevant because a lot of people have piracy on thier minds regarding Geohot's case so on that I think it's acceptable for me talk about it a bit but (enough is enough) I will limit myself to fordy and end it with him because primarily this is a thread about Geohots case.

Thanks for reading

US justice assassinated Sacco and Vanzetti, that were innocent, but did it ever sentence to death any mafia boss? It looks like money and power can buy justice...

Then I will reply to the previous post:

It looks like what you are arguing at is use of the game "in good faith". Once again, developers require something more stringent in terms of protecting their IP. However, pages and pages of "exceptions" are not needed in this case. I'm going to keep this as short and simple as I can:

Physical media (disc): Physical entity. Subject to theft (only if eg. you're stealing blank discs from a store)

Game: Conceptual entity. Patent laws apply, since the copyright is based on the game design itself, and not the code that makes the game. The proof for this is if for example, I remade a game that acted identical to a copyrigthed game, but with different code, I would still be in violation of copyright law. They're protecting their game IDEA, not the effort they took to write it to binary code. Copies are granted in the form of an End User License (EUL).

EUL: Physical entity. Subject to theft (say if you steal an actual game from a residence, you're stealing the owner's End User License.

When you purchase a game, you're still buying 100% physical entities. You're never buying the game itself. A small percentage goes to things such as case, manual, disc, etc., but the major cost is the EUL.

I'm not questioning your morals, but as I stated before, it's hard to make a defining decision on morals, because morals are based on individual's opinion. That's why I laugh when I hear somebody being called "immoral", because it does not mean that at all. It's means they have a differing set of morals to the accuser.

For example, there will be a big divide on the classic moral, "Steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family". None of them are wrong. However, society needs a stable foundation. It cannot operate on "I believe"s concerning such decisions. That's why the law IS there, as a defining set of morals for society to abide by.

About acting out in good faith... it's actually all we really do need in society. I do agree the developers need protection on the physical manfistations of evil acts but if acting rightly in good faith was something we all did... we wouldn't need any protection what so ever in everything but society isn't perfect and even with detterants like laws and punishments people still try and do accomplish evil things. So in reality acting out rightly in good faith is really all we have. Evil is best stopped at the heart before it ever manfists itself physically... I think stopping an evil act is in a way already a failure to us as a society. Good faith is all we really do have... the physical detterrants are just that detterants. I'm not saying the physical manfistations of evil are not important... just that the inner evil inside someone that caused it is much more important because that is the root. (You don't have to comment on this because I basically agree on needed protection to deter theft but disagree on your tone on the good faith part, you seemed to not give it enough credit. I just thought it was important to point that out to you and anyone else who reads this)

We already went through the law a few times. You can read my responses about the law in other posts .

A copy of the game can be taken without being payed for... theft can be committed in the digital world. The code is the product. Granted we are buying the physical disc aswell but that's barely worth mentioning since that's not why we bought the disc, the disc is only a holder of the product and that definitely isn't where the true value of the whole is... we bought it for the game.The copy of the game , the product costs 60$.

A pirate can get a game, a product without paying... that's theft. It's pretty straight forward.

I'm not basing my morals on my opinion. My opinion would be very much like yours if I made my own. I'm basing it on God's word. Basically God see's evil not only in the physical but in the heart. That's why I do take the physical manfistations of evil seriously... but I also know that the inner causes of it like selfishness, pride etc etc is not only important, even more important. That's why defining theft by the physical definition is not all there is to it because evil starts in your "heart"...also  theft has to do with more then just physical items... time can be stolen. An employeer can hire a worker to work for 8 hours and the worker doesn't work for 2 of those hours. The worker has essentially stolen 2 hours of work time. That's why it's easy for me to understand that piracy is theft because theft doesn't have to do with just physical items.

I believe morality is objective. Thinking morality is subjective would mean Hitler was justified somehow in all the evils he caused... I don't see it. I can understand the pyscopath thought he was right... but never that truly was right

I think the bottom line is that we both realize that theft is an evil thing. You recognized it from the beginning of our talk and didn't question it as non-existent. What you did question however is that if piracy is theft or not. I answered everything you have given me, somethings more then once...You haven't shown me any reason why I'd think piracy isn't theft... the arguments you made were non-existent and you simply have to just accept it and that's truly all that's left you not accepting the truth. Piracy is a form of theft, it's not done the same as in the physical world but it definitely can be done.

"Yet I can still communicate with you without talking ...  I can send a loved one money without actually sending money ... and I can commit theft without the product disappearing."

^^^

Think that will be my new signature or part of it... it sums it up.

How dumb does this rumour/slander look, now that all is over...

People believe what they want to believe.

Probably not half as dumb as the people who donated to geohotz, but yes, still pretty dumb

Oh my god. Are you seriously this ignorant in real life? I've told you several times how piract is NOT direct theft, yet you seem to be making no justification towards it, merely parading around chanting "I am right. I am right".

Listen, I have tried my absolute best to make it as simple as possible to understand, yet it still seems too complex for you, so I'm taking a different approach. What exactly ARE you stealing when you pirate? And do NOT say the game itself. As I have mentioned before, the game does not belong to the copier to begin with. It belongs to nobody but the patent holder. Piracy is using software without a license. It is NOT THEFT.

Now, on the subject of morality. Given your example, keep in mind that Hitler did not get up one day and say "You know what? I think I'm going to be evil". In fact, I cannot think of one sane person who thinks that way. Hitler's goal was for the good of his people, but his actions towards that goal were morally reprehensible. Every action has good and bad things about it, some more than others.

What about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What about America's iron fist dealings with the middle east to force the collapse of the Soviet Union? What about the invasion of Iraq? Give me your stance on these, and I can give you a perfectly good set of morals opposing those that you mention.

I just want to make one thing clear that may be a misunderstanding. I never intended to convince you that we own games the way developers do. So if you think that that’s what I have been doing, wrong no, not what I was saying. I did say we own games, just not how developers do.

Answer to your question...

“What exactly ARE you stealing when you pirate?”

Basically, what customers pay for... which you use the law to define... a user license. You can recognize that user license as much as you want but it’s undeniable that you are being sold a copy of the game with your purchase. It’s irrefutable to say otherwise. A copy of the game is what is being sold, is that all that is being sold? No, it may also include the game’s case, manual, a warranty, a user license to play, could be a limited edition, and anything else I may have not have mentioned. The point is a copy of the game is the star of the show. A copy of a game is what pirates are gaining without paying … and so I easily recognize that as theft because it’s something that should be paid for. This is regarding only pirates. Still not making sense? … Just go back to the first statement I made “Basically, what customers pay for”

I think this might be as clear as I can possibly be. Please reply to what I said in the above paragraph. It is theft.

(sigh)

About morality… I personally think you have a lot to learn about it considering your stance and you defending Hitler speaks for itself but anyways we don’t need to talk about it in general for this topic [piracy/theft] because you recognized theft (and piracy) from the beginning [period]  I touched upon what I thought about morality only because you mentioned it, so you wouldn’t think I was ignoring you. But then I said quote “ I think the bottom line is that we both realize that theft is an evil thing. You recognized it from the beginning of our talk and didn't question it as non-existent. What you did question however is that if piracy is theft or not." I thought I made it clear with that statement that we didn’t have to go into it.

So please reply to the things I said above the (sigh) You just need to accept it already, we’ve all made mistakes, and thought we were doing things right when in reality we weren’t.