I still dont see why pirates have to justify what they do, as many people in this thread have said they pirate things to experience them because they cannot. For example, I have pirated and played Mother 3. It was awesome. Why should I have denied myself the experience of that game? I cant control wether it was released in the US and after playing it, I can say that I am better off for playing it. Im not going to wait until im 40 years old to do this stuff, I'll just do it now and not feel guilty all at the same time.

Something that a lot of people seem to forget is that piracy can even help the sales of a certain movie/game. For example, I used to live in Greece and downloaded episodes of Legend of the Seeker. There was no legal way to watch the show and even if there was, I wouldn't have used it, because I didn't have a job (still a student) and I was not a big fan of the show. After the show got cancelled I bought all the books the series was based on, so that I could find out what happened next.

By watching the series, I feel like I didn't hurt ABC family (the producers of the show) and even helped the franchise a bit.

In a different, but somewhat similar case, a month ago I had a really bad cold and had to stay in bed during Christmas holidays (all by myself) and was feeling quite miserable. I decided to buy the dvd set of Firefly from amazon, but the delievery was estimated for well after Christmas and I didn't feel like waiting that long, since it was supposed to help me forget how awful I was feeling. So I downloaded the series and the movie the same day I ordered them from amazon. They were also quite cheap (I paid £12 for both).
Do you think that this is immoral?

I'm not suggetsing that piracy is ok; just that it's not all black and white.

Piracy isn't an issue the government should be worrying about. If they somehow manage to stop piracy, it doesn't mean I will start buying DVDs and CDs to watch movies and listen to music. It doesn't mean I will stock up on iTunes cards to buy music from iTunes. It means I will stop watching movies and listening to music.

Why do I pirate? Because these things aren't worth my money.

The only thing I buy are console games. Sure there's probably a way to pirate these games but it would be too complicated and it wouldn't let me play online.

Downloading and providing un-licensed product as well as discontinued product is the only justifiable form of pirating to me.

Intellectual property laws, licenses and copyright laws maintain monopolies and mainly benefit big corporations. Making a copy online is a breach of copyright laws. It is hard to enforce US copyright laws, patents and licenses until the whole world.

Why do I pirate? Because I like getting stuff for free and I save money.

Your copy was not even pirated since the product wasnt licensed here.

I'll admit I've done my fare share of file sharing, and I thought at first it wasn't such an issue.. Now I deeply regret it. People who pirate, are making it even harder for us paying customers to aqquire our entertainment in this already screwed up croc of an industry thanks to corporate conglomerates. Why should I have to pay extra for an existing feature that's locked in a videogame, or not be able to make extra copies (only for myself) from a digital copy that came with my dvd/bluray disc purchase? because companies aren't making money. I want ownership nothing else.

Though im not completely blaming piracy for this, bills like these aren't helping the cause. Its just a nuke ready to olbiterate everything in sight in order to kill the source. Thoes who use it without the intent of financial gain will lose the right to faire use. companies/studios that make fan-made (not for profit) videos like College Humor, Barely Pollitical and many others will probably be wiped out from exisitance. Celebrities like The Anrgy Video Game Nerd would no longer be around. This bill will just give corps. even more power on how we spend OUR OWN MONEY. This is why I hate services like Onlive and GameTap

Another reason why I stopped was because of ROMs, they're a bitch to play with PC controls.

I may not approve of piracy but I also don't approve of companies screwing us over with rediclous restrictions. Something has to be done.

I do pirate some things... but here's why. One, if I literally can't find something (usually a song) anywhere online, in stores, or wherever else, I'll just download it. That thankfully doesn't happen too much.

Two, if I already own a game, I may download it. The best example of this is the Pokemon games. I own every single one of the GBC/GBA games, and I have ROMs for quite a few of them. One has died, but the main reason is because I have my laptop with me far more often than my GBA. So, no one is losing money here. I already bought the game.

Three, if I don't want to buy a game, but would like to try it out to see if it's good (and there is no demo available), I'll pirate it. If I like it, I'll buy it. If I don't, I won't buy it. That's not necessarily the best justification... but I figure if I wasn't going to buy it anyway, it could end up working out better for the publisher/developer because if I do like it, I will buy it.

I admit, I pirate. Am I proud of it? Not really. I buy all my games brand new on my PS3 and have never tried to
jailbreak any of the current systems and handheld I own. When it comes to computer gaming, I don't want to spend the money to be honest. I have no excuses and I will no attempt to justify it, I just do it. All I can say is I do it to save money and to try games out. I pirated Skyrim, Deus Ex and Mass Effect 2 and didn't get very far those games because I didn't like them at all. After I finish a game, I usually delete them for space purposes.

I will probably get what's coming to me someday and I'm fine with that. It is what it is.

Damn, that is a monster post there! Haven't read it all yet, but from what I did, well said!

I pirate, and I have no qualms about it. Why?

Well for one, because I can, and I am hurting absolutely NO ONE in doing so, nor am I taking anything away. So what exactly is the problem? It's not like stealing where you are taking a PHYSICAL, tangible item from somebody else. This is purely digital. I view it more as sharing. The things I pirate have been willingly SHARED by people who have purchased the product legally and have taken the time to put the content online. Also, 99% of the things I pirate I wouldn't have bought anyway, (or if anything I probably would have bought it used), so I'm not taking potential revenue away because I wasn't going to buy their product anyway. That is why I pirated it in the first place.. I did not WANT to buy it, or at least I didn't want it ENOUGH to buy it.

Second, like the OP said, music, movies, and especially games, are WAY overpriced today. I simply can't afford to buy many of the things I want. And somehow I can't feel especially sorry for the multi-million dollar industries that normally produce this digital entertainment. A video game simply should not be $60, or even $50. I don't care how large or epic the game is, it is still just digital information on a disk. And now they're trying to nickel and dime us even more by not including the whole game at launch, and instead throwing out extra "downloadable content." So many games, assuming you buy new, you are really spending $60 + another $10-$20 for the entire game. Screw that! And CDs, especially in this day and age, should cost nowhere near $15 or even $10. You want people to buy your product? Create greater incentive. Add features that can't be downloaded like album art. If a particular band I liked released a CD for $6, chalked full of pretty and detailed album art, band bumper stickers, whatever, I would certainly buy it, and I bet many others would do the same.

Third, even with my pirating, I'm pretty sure I still spend far more money on movies, music, and games, than the average person. I still go to see movies, I buy band shirts, I go to concerts, and I still buy PLENTY of videogames and gaming hardware.

So yeah, this turned out much longer than I anticipated, I didn't realize I had that much to say about this issue, who knew :/