Piracy is a form of theft you are stealing their intellectual property even if you are not stealing a physical copy of the disc. Now as for causes of it is something else entirely. The prices they charge in many cases and in many places are outrageous. When I was in Israel I saw Ratchet and Clank Future Quest for Booty in disc form for what would be the equivalent of $100 yet it's on the PSN in the US for $15. This is one clear example of a game being way over priced since its not a full game just a short one yet in Israel they would be paying the same price as they would for regular for games which is still $40 more than games are in the US

Piracy isnt theft. Its copyright infringement. While both are crimes, one is a crime due to the fact that we live in a society controlled by the wealthy.

Actually software, music, etc piracy arent theft, they are copyright infringement.

Intelletual Property is a joke. You have no idea how flawed it is.

This happened a few years ago. John Carmack, being abadass as he always is, alone comes up with some new algorith. However some other company also came up with it at basically the same time. They patented it first so Carmack kinda screwed. Please tell me oh wise person, to who does the intellectual propety belong to then?

Face it, Intellectual Property laws are a joke, and defining anything by them is also a joke.

Exactly. If we must define it as theft, so as to make it easier for some to understand the relationship, then its a lot like stealing a joke or an idea. It may have orignated from a single source, but once its out there people will do with it what they want.

What if you pirate something that you did not intend to buy in the first place?


I pirated a copy of Ninja Gaiden Black for the original Xbox, i was never a fan, but after playing that game i bought NG2 later after it came out. Pirating actually made me a fan of a series i would otherwise have never played.

I know that this is ridiculous but I'm bored so;

Here's what you should do, go onto a p2p progam and download 10 songs illegally. Call the police, and tell them your overwhelming guilt has forced you confess to downloading 10 songs illegally. I'm pretty sure they'll laugh at you.

Now, go into a store and steal 10 CD's, call the police, and tell them you stole the CD's from a store. See what they do then.

For your example, you wouldn't be telling the cops, you'd be telling the RIAA.  FYI, this is what happens.

Except that I said cops, and meant cops. Police enforce the law and punish those who break it, does the RIAA have those powers? Not so much.

The RIAA does those lawsuits to make examples of people and try to scare other pirates. If they had really cared about ending piracy why not get someone with a 2 tb external HDD filled with illegal music who ripped all their music and shared it over a P2P program?

But, this is all dependent on where you live anyways, in Canada piracy isn't condoned but they never seek pirates, or arrest them.

But this copyright infringement(cri) isn't "piracy" ...

piracy according to Wikipedia is: ".. a war-like act committed by a non-state actor, especially robbery or criminal violence committed at sea, on water, or sometimes on shore. It does not normally include crimes on board a vessel among passengers or crew. The term has been used to refer to raids across land borders by non-state actors."

So to use this word for some simple cri is way over the top.

That sig should read "software copyright infringements are neither theft nor piracy", as right now it seems to say that it wasn't a small crime (I don't know if the english language/law has that difference, but in german/german law cri wouldn't even be considered a "crime", but a "trivial offence" or a "delict" or sth. like that) like theft, but rather sth. that's even worse than robbery, lol.

@ superchunk )

"a thief who deserves their hands cut"

I always felt there was sth. wrong with people who demand draconian penalties.