If you're not going to buy it, you shouldn't get to own it for free. How's that for obvious morality? Maybe if they couldn't pirate those games they might have to buy them once in a while. Saying "I wouldn't have bought it anyway" isn't a valid argument, because we don't live in a world where piracy doesn't exist. If it didn't, who knows what you would have bought? Your game library would be much smaller, and you might be more open to game purchases. Again, without money changing hands, you are a leech to the industry. You don't stimulate its economy. You are a gamer, but contribute nothing to gaming. Without people to contribute, there would be no gaming. Pirates take for free what they haven't paid for. Used gamers always pay for their games, and that stimulates the gaming economy and benefits the developers indirectly.

If you guys are still arguing over this, I suggest you read my first post.

I don't know about the record industry thing. Some studies have shown tht people who pirate music also buy more music albums than non-pirates.

The only indirect benefit is because it gives money to middlemen. Any industry is better off without a middlemen, in fact if I can help the middle man go bankrupt I gladly will and anything that helps out the middleman isn't a god thing. As I siad, Valve is a shining example of an independent developer not in need of middlemen, hence with their games the second hand market is as useless as the pircy market. At least for their games.

Did I mention the law anywhere? The bolded part doesn't. Please, help me find it.

Unless you don't think that the right to property (without going into specifics or to what extent) is a basic human right...

Playing Bio Shock right now, so I'm gonna post this =P

Property rights is still a tricky business. We have the issue of intellectual property discussed right now, and that's still murky.

LOL.....thats hilarious. Pirates have destroyed the music industry. It took one dumbass kid in college to start a popular trend and now it has spread like wildfire and taken a famous musician and performers bread and butter. Pirates walk into movie theatres with camcorders, they share unlicensed music, They mod consoles and allow for old games to be emulated on them releasing owners of said product to relinquish their warranties (by choice) They made copies of VHS and DVD's and when you watch movies you already see a warning on the screen before the rating even starts not to copy the official tape or DVD. Pirates do it anyway. Show me these studies, because pirates have done nothing for the industry. I remember the days when top recording arstists sold hundreds of millions of records (in a healthy economy) and today they top artists can barely sell four to five million copies. It's just fucking sad. This is what happened to the industry once the internet arrived. I also heard in Japan the government is starting to want to crack down on pirates and ban their internet connection if caught. Microsoft bans people mercilessly who pirate copies of their 360 titles and try to play online. To see so many people playing Modern Warfare on PC with a no account of sales from NPD  is a fucking shame.

If we say that it's immoral because the producer didn't get any money, then what about giving away/gifting products? The developer gets no money.

Or if it's because the re-seller made money and benefited from selling the product, what if the re-seller just gave it away instead? If making money is the defining issue, then it'll be ok for people to copy and give away things (the biggest example would be medicine).

Violating intellectual property isn't defined as "benefiting from the works/products of others". If we're going to do that, holy shit, are we going to be validating a lot of other arguments and craziness.

That's absolutely too general.

Going back to the giving away example here's 4 scenarios:

Consumer owns a copy of a product, and sells it.

Consumer owns a copy of a product, and gives it away.

Consumer replicates a product, and sells it.

Consumer replicates a product, and gives it away.

10 seconds, intuitevely, tell me what you think is right and wrong.

Now, tell me if you see any contradictions.

Leaving that aside...

When we resell a copy of a software or game that we own, we're selling a physical property that we own. The developer doesn't own our discs anymore, and doesn't own the actual data or coding inside it. They own the RIGHT TO PRODUCE the [data/code/art/brand name/etc].

Um....rental stores are middlemen and they buy their games from the companies. Developers just never see royalties from rentals. Gamestop still sells new copies of games, but they majorly profit off of used games. Even though Gamestop are dicks I must credit them for the fact that they get very little return from helping Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo selling products. They only get money from products they own that they sell. In essence the industry still continues. Pirates are the major problem. Gamestops need to be regulated on to make sure they focus on new sales rather than used sales. Gamestop employees are trained to tell you to go for the used titles and people like to save money, so it is just common sense.

Why does everyone begin with the assumption, that supporting "the industry" is good, and hurting "the industry" is immoral? It's not like if it would hurt gaming itself!

Maybe piracy destroyed the music industry, but it didn't destroy music. Nothing destroys music. So if there is an easier, cheaper way to produce my copy of a song, why should I choose to give my money to a publisher company that exists solely to spend the incomes on expanding its own bureaucracy, and support hundreds of workers who do nothing but keep the older, more expensive and difficult production method alive, all this in the name of supporting a guy with a guitar who is already rich enough solely from concert tickets and other minor sources, to keep playing. 

Gaming is a bit trickier, as obviously, lonely starving visionaries can't create masterpieces without any funding, but the developers could still find alternative ways, like making less ridiculously expensive blockbusters, putting in ads, and after all these, maybe even sell them for a small price, or add microtransactions, or at least liberate 2-3 year old games from the copyright protection, that already brought in 99% of its expected incomes anyways, for us poor guys, as 2Dboy did with World of Goo (that trick gave them $100.000 in donations, ($2 by me, my first time spending on a game) several thousand new fans, and extremely good advertisement publicity) all that from giving it to people who weren't ready to pay for it.

You are right, pirating is not immoral or moral because it supports or hurts the industry. I don't understand why that's become the center of debate.

The main issue is intellectual property and property rights. I think that we shouldn't be allowed to use the creative works of another to replicate or produce for ourselves. However, once we own a physical property, because of our own rights to property, we can sell THAT physical copy. We cannot however, produce it ourselves.

The right to intellectual property is that of an idea. Because of that, developers have no right over our physical copies, and we do not have the right to utilize those ideas and create products on our own.

So this part is bullshit. Ok, you think the music industry sucks, etc. Just like you said, supporting it or not supporting it doesn't make it immoral. However, you still have no right to produce someone else's creative work on your own. It's their IP, and they can sell it for whatever price they want to. If you don't want to buy it, don't. But you are not entitled to their IP, just like game developers aren't entitled to your physical discs, after you bought them. Buying the CD doesn't give you rights to the song. Just like a coporation doesn't get the right to use a song for a commercial by just buying a $9.99 album.

Wait, so are you putting up an expectation for people who make creative works to do it for free? Sure you could say that it's an ideal, but you can't actually deny people their right to make profit off of their creative works by charging for it. Sure you can say that money can't buy quality, and screw competition, but the only way you can express that is by words and not paying. Pirating is not an way you can express that ideal, we have things called property rights, and you must respect them.

Imagine a world without property rights. Anarchy in that respect only. Forgetting being able to take anything from anybody, lets stick with IP. Medical companies have no incentive to fund research, it'll probably go to the government completely (whether you think that's good or bad is up to you), you'll have absolutely no clue what you're buying, as anyone can use the well known brand name and even designs (so you essentially have a bootleg market). Production value will go down (doesn't necessarily mean that the music or game will be worse. Just that the budgets will go down).

All 4 result in the developers gtting no money, all 4 are equally bad. Also yes you ae allowed to resell the physical copy, but that's just a CD. You however, are not alloed to resell the game itself, that is, the intellectual property. If you wipe the disk go ahead and resell it, but it would have to be blank.

@STAGE

Rental companies pay continuous royalties to the developers because they are using their intellectual propety, very much like how radio and music is.