Devil's Advocate?

When you steal a car... the car is no longer there

When you pirate software, the original copy is still there for people to use and buy.

When you pirate software you aren't taking anything.  You are copying something.

No different then say... taking a picture of the statue of liberty or making rice crispy treats by hand instead of buying them in the store.

The only difference is computer software is way easier to copy.

No one is saying it's ok for people to pirate games when they don't have the cash.  It's not.  What most people are saying is that the estimated economic damage from piracy is way overblown, because every download is considered a sale lost, whether that person had the money to buy it or even planned to play it.

people who pirate are not going to buy the games anyway.

 people who steal luxuary cars aren't going to buy them either...

Pirating is fine imo if you genuinely cannot afford the game. Now stealing a car is a lot more serious then a game (which are way overpirced imo) so that is wrong. Anyways, the piracy problem could be solved with anti-piracy ads like this:

Sure you are taking something.

It's just a lot more indirect so that you think in the end you aren't doing it....

Pirated games end up in added support cost, added hardware costs to support multiplayers servers, inflated internet traffic...

There is still an inflated cost...

 So it's ok to steal something if you can't afford it ?

Good rhetoric there...

How about stealing a pack of cookies at WallMart ?

Or the PS3 version of MGS4 at BestBuy ?

That's still ok ? Just wondering....

Sure you are.

You are stealing Intellectual property and there are laws against that.

Same way as if you were renting a DVD and making a copy of it...

As has already been explained, you aren't taking anything. To take something means that the owner would no longer have it. If a game is downloaded via P2P, then the owner still has the game. Taking or stealing would involve going into a store and removing a physical copy of the game.

As far as the inflated costs, it doesn't add the hardware costs for multiplayer servers because those playing with bootleg copies would have to go to a private server, nor does it increase support costs because it's just a game being copied. As far as inflated internet traffic, you're really grasping at straws.

Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with someone downloading digital media for their own personal use.

 Sure there is added cost.

The first thing people using pirated copies of games do is find a keygen so they can play the play the multiplayer version of the game.

As for added support, what percentage of the posts on EA or Activision support forums are made by pirates you think ?

Cause someone has to read those and they have a cost.

As for your argument, I could apply exactly the same to counterfeinting currency.

You only copy the dollar bill, you don't take anything from anyone. But in the end it's still a crime, the way pirating is....