Because morals aren't soley a "Will i get caught" venture.

No, I reported a teacher that did that, only because he called me an idiot for buying my games ...

Im not sure about to stores and stuff. But to other people I am fairly certain you cant. Do you live in america? I can be confused i dont follow up on this stuff lol

I live in the US.  I have a few used CD stores by me.

Meh, Well I am mistaken it would seem. I could have sworn. . . Oh well.

The rule is the same for any Intellectual Property, i.e movies, media, etc.

You can sell or transfer the "rights" to use the property to whomever you want. But duplicating the game, keeping a copy, then distributing it is where you get into trouble.

Just think of it as a book. You can buy a harry potter book, read it, then give it to your friend and that's just fine. You're just not allowed to photocopy it and then distribute the copies to people.

Advantages of Piracy

1)  It's fast.  Piracy is essentially direct download (via torrent or P2P) so unless the content is already available for direct download as is music now and some games via Steam, piracy is faster than ordering the game or going out and buying it.

2)  It requires little effort.  You don't have to go to the store or fill out an order form, you just find the file and you're good to go.

3)  It's free.  You save anywhere from $5 to a whopping $65 on everything you pirate.

4)  No DRM.  Pirated software is generally hassle-free.

Advantages of Legal Purchase

1)  You get the manual.  Games often come with extra media like manuals, maps, collectible cards, and more.  Buying it legally gives you extra goodies in the case of a lot of games.

2)  No hassle of storage.  You get the game and the case so you don't have to worry about storing one or more giant .iso files on your HDD or having to burn them to DVD.

3)  You care.  You're supporting the developers and all the people who worked hard to create the game by buying a copy.  You are increasing the likelihood of getting another game you like by supporting existing ones.

4)  Self respect.  You have it.

don't forget

5) It works. A pirated game is often times buggy or unpatched

6) no porn/spyware/viruses

7) liability - in the slim chance that you are investigated, all your stuff is legit and no one comes cracking down on you ^_^

8) Its just as fast (sometimes) games you can directly download (i.e. steam) come from dedicated servers and can be just as fast as P2P

Of course, now I have the hassle of storing a physical product instead. While I do like some of the goodies and having a physical copy anyway, it is much easier for me to keep an ISO on my HDD (which I make anyway even with the games I buy) than needing to store and search for physical media whenever I want to play the game.

Plus, I can always write a pirated game out to DVD without any hassle for minimal cost anyway.

5) A pirated game is usually only as buggy as the original. With an original, there is no guarentee the DRM isn't going to bite you. With a Pirated version, you only have to wait a day or two after the patch is released to be up to date again (assuming you don't have a nice Clone CD copy ready to go).

6) You need better sources if you are getting hit by nasties.