Well obviously the thread isn't about them.  They aren't technically doing something illegal.  Although, I do think they shouldn't discuss it.  I mean advocating people to go download something that is illegal does hurt the industry.  And people should feel a sort of guilt for doing that.  Not telling others to do it.

But for forums the discussion of how to download, distribute, and mod should be completely forbidden because it is against the law.  And proffessing to doing any of those should be an immediate perma ban.

@zucas

So if it's only telling ppl how to download, then it's cool?

What do you think?  This is a discussion not me tell you what is right.  

@Zucas

It's debatable whether piracy is hurting the game industry or the game industry is hurting itself.

Piracy economically speaking is basically direct competition. When a company fails to compete properly it's normally the companies fault. The fact is competition is hard. Yeah it's unlawful and unfair, but who said business was fair?

Some people actually pay for things even if they can get them for free. Just because they value the product or because they like the company or because they like the service or packaging.

Most... actually.

People are programmed to want to pay for something at what they see as a fair price, rather then aquire it illegally.

Well it is hurting the industry but ok.  But i don't care if it's hurting it or not... still violates copyrights which is against the law.  And copyright infringement is definitely a just law.  And yea business is unfair but that doesn't mean it should be unlawful as well.  Unlawful and unfair are not on the same boat. 

I thnk it's the same to either tell them where to go to download or distribute. 

But u said ppl who tell others how to download & distribute should be permabanned since it's against the law.  That's why i'm asking u what u think about ppl that just tell others how to download (not distribute).

Well it's a tough decision.  I'm trying to do it to where downloaders get their post moderated and distributors get perma banned becuase that's what most sites do.  If I had it my way any discussion of it should get ya banned.  Downloading something that is copyrighted is illegal... unless it's la P2P or some free service sharing thing.  Which, torrents, of course aren't.  I'm just surprised this site didn't have something like that in it... well it has something like that but doesn't explain it completely.  Most sites I've visited (especially my main forum which I have over 40,000 posts in) states any discussion of it whatsoever gets you banned. 

@Zucas

Copyright is permitted in the Constitution to benefit us not the creators.

Large companies have been lobbying for more control through Copyright law that disregard it's intended purpose, and they've been getting it under false assumptions. So it's not necessarily just anymore.

 Piracy is not stealing though. It is the closest easily referenced analogue, but that is not the true crime at work here. It is a denial of funding rather than taking someone's property. Pirating a game does not directly cost anyone anything. Everything that belonged to the victim of the crime is still theirs which causes a gray area to pop up. I know you likely are foaming at the mouth right now, but hear me out.

 Out of print games are the gray area in all of this. I will admit I have had to resort to this more than a few times. A lot of the times I have aquired games I already owned, and loved but the disc became un-usable for whatever reasons. In order to get those games back I have to support other people who probably never owned the game. Further I have been the person who never owned the old games. I cannot possibly offer my money to any of the people involved.

 I ask you, who is the victim in the above scenario? None of the developers or publishers have any income coming from these games. In many cases the developers have closed up shop much to my dismay. Is having their work out there in the ether a terrible crime? I can say with certainty that in once case (Masters of Orion 2) when a developer heard about an active community still playing his game he was thrilled. The fact that a game well over a decade old still had a fan following despite a sequel made him feel pretty good over all, and for understandable reasons. It is a great compliment to his skills.

 Yes there are clear areas with piracy. Anything remotely in-print, or even commonly sold at stores will cause some harm. Used games sales suck, but at least they tell retailers which games will be popular and give them a better estimate for how many copies of a game to initially order. Eventually though the games disapear, or become so rare that no substantial data can be gained from watching their sales. At that point pirating stops being a crime of any consequence. Until it can be clearly seen when that point hits, piracy will have a very large gray area for what is or is not ok.