The music, movie and gaming industries are growing inspite of it. It is actually helping out by giving entertainers and labels more exposure, and many companies are using this to thier advantage, especially in markets where releases are limited or nonexistent. Maybe Im mistaken but I like to think of it this way.

I'm not gonna make a big long crusade post about it, but I think pirates are beneath me. Plain and simple.

I've turned over the concept in my mind many times over the years, and these seem to be the underlying threads of thought in most discussions:

- Copyright infringement is not the same as theft, because nobody is deprived of anything when a copy is made (i.e. the flow of information is not a zero-sum game; theft implies otherwise) - this leads to debates about lost income over potential sales
- Loss of "potential sales" is difficult to prove, as one cannot prove that any given pirated piece of software would otherwise have translated into a sale at the price point of $0 vs $50
- The industry's approach of DRM is wrongheaded, because pirates find ways to circumvent them quite trivially, leaving the paying customers to bear the brunt (i.e. they punish those who pay them for the actions of those who don't)
- The fundamental issue goes back to the fact that information, and thus software, is naturally abundant thanks to the nature of digital storage; any scarcity is artificial, and easily overcome
- General failure to resolve the problem of piracy after several decades suggests our current approach to software development is flawed in some way; however, it seems nobody has been able to pinpoint that flaw to date, or at least a way of correcting it that everyone can accept

Really, it deprives the developers? I never knew Miyamoto, Kojima and Cliff B. had trouble putting food on the table for their families? Heck, even the anonymous programmers of these projects earn 50-80 grand a year. Damn, pirates are really making these dev's dirt poor.

haha nice post DTG, I agree.


They all know priacy exists, hence they would factor all that crap in. Developers already know what kind of sale figures they are expecting before a product launches. That is how they set their development budgets for projects.

It all depends. I usually buy good games or games I know I will play for quite some time and enjoy it.

I download them though, PC games only for a variety of reason. One being to see if my computer can handle the game if a developer did not release a demo. I will also download when I'm sort of interested in the game but will never play it for full price. So I justify it for myself that a devs game is either unplayed and not-payed for (therefore losing exposure) or play it and then only stift him out of some money.
Some games I bought legally afterwards though because after playing the pirated version I decided that it's good enough to have an official version.