Piracy is just another word for stealing.

I do have to admit, I have done this in the past. I no longer do so. I have heard and said all the excuses that are out there. It still comes down to the same thing.

Stealing is Stealing whether its crap or gold.

PS Consumer sampling can be done by demos (most companies have them) or borrowing from friends.

My opinion on "piracy" is that we need a new word for it.  File-sharing is a better, more neutral word.  I understand that companies need to make money, but we also have to understand the realities of the world we now live in.  I myself am a game developer and I plan on actually distributing the game ourselves on torrent websites.  It is more exposure.  More people playing your game = a good thing. 

What companies have to do, instead of having DRM and trying to shut down torrent sites, is simply to offer better service than the pirates.  Updates, community, online features --- look to STEAM for an example.  I am a HUGE pirate, but often times I will buy products on Steam just because it's so convienient, and i know Gamestop isnt getting any of the money.

I know you guys have Impulse, I haven't tried that out yet, but I did pre-order your game.  The point being that even the biggest pirates like to give money to companies who are actually making interesting games - it's just that there arent many of them these days.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuull Shit!

Any human who is going to steal the fruits of other people's labours, enjoy them, and decide to give them no reward whatsoever deserves to be called more than just 'pirate'.

Most pirates aren't these Robin Hood types giving to the deserving, they are robbing bastards downloading tons of movies and games and only buying what they can't download.

hmm post 954 of this kind, but ill keep my post short

Piracy can both be good and bad.

Good in the way of advertishing

Bad in the way of lost profit

Now on a personal level, hmm i know this will continue in a "never ending discussion" as we all have our view points.

But to me piracy helps me choose what games im going to buy. Ever tried getting a game where you thought omg this is so bad, but the commecials said all these wonderful things, and you feel cheated. Or even gotten a game with some nasty copyprotection like the rootkit stuff on Bioshock?

Its like when you need a new car. You take it out for a spin to see if it suits you and to see if there are any problems with it.

As someone said above "Piracy is just another word for stealing." i do not agree with this.

Stealing is when you take a physical object that has a cost to produce copies.

Now with piracy you actually make a copy of something without it costing anything extra to produce. (I know ,i know, lots will say you cant use this as an argument but i do.) Therefor its no stealing.

Now morally speaking dont you think you should buy that copy if you like it? everyone gotta get food on the table.

I typed all this out before on the other thread Interview with Brad.. yada yada. So I'll just copy and paste since I'm laaazy. yeah yeah.. make the jokes.

There are multiple sides to piracy. I do pirate stuff, like music. I used to pirate games when I was a teenager. I pirated cuz I geniunely had no fucking money and no means of obtaining the materials otherwise (strict parents, no means of transportation, no job or ways to get money, and I'm not even kidding). I still remember when I was 16 and used to have to wait till my parents went to sleep and sneak on the pc at 12 am to play some old ass Sega games lol..

But now that I'm on my own and have a steady job and a steady paycheck, I pay for everything I have. I still pirate music simply cuz it's not worth it to me to pay for an album just to have one song that I like. And I fucking hate itunes.

I agree that the majority of pirates out there are just greedy bastards who are looking for ways to make or save a quick buck.. but don't forget the people out there who really doesn't have the money to afford these lavishes. And yes, it's easy to say to save.. but if you have to save $40 to buy a game.. it's pretty easy to see that the $40 doesn't come easy, and if you do have it, chances are you're gonna need it to pay for something more necessary.

So my stance is, piracy is wrong when the people pirating it can afford to pay for it but just doesn't want to, but for the ones that have no other ways.. be glad that they want and can enjoy your creation as well.. cuz that's what putting a game out there is for right? People's enjoyment?

BULLSHIT x 2!  Damn people!  Just because it's crap, doesn't give you the right to steal it!  I love how some pirates think they are on a righteous crusade against The Evil Corporate Overlords(TM)!  Get over yourselves.  Even if they did make good movies/games, you'd still pirate it.

if it's crap, I don't want to have to pay for it! My bf is forever pissed off that he paid $50 for a shitty Mirror's Edge game. We tried to get into it, it just fucking sucks! Worse $50 ever spent. Esp. since we're on a tight budget, I mean.. we could've spent that $50 on Dead Space! grrrrrrrr

A demo doesn't give the full effect of the game either! I tried the demo for the Plant Tycoon game and loved it! So I bought the game. IT SUCKED. Epic regret.

I get the whole morale role bout "stealing" and yada yada.. but in a realistic world where it's dog eat dog..I'm not going to empty my pocket to support a company when their shit sucks.

BTW: DemiGod rocks, I love the game and everything behind it. Best money ever spent too. I have no regrets buying this game what so ever, I'm even going to get a second copy so my bf and I can play MP against each other (once we get a 2nd comp). I have no problem paying for a great game and supporting a company with ideals such as Stardock.

*pounds shoe on table repeatedly*

More lame-ass attempts by criminals to foist their malicious activities on the public and make said disgusting activities "acceptable"!!!! You can float these moronic excuses all you want, but you are lawbreakers, and you deserve to be prosecuted. I cannot imagine how anyone can possibly be so obtuse as to expect anything short of a blatantly hostile response when you comtaminate this forum with your fetid, usless, mouldering tripe!!!!

You blithering, glue-sniffing skateboard-monkeys are the very purtid scum that took our metaverse server down with your criminal actions!!!! How dare you come HERE to THIS forum with your "information sharing" and your "faceless corporations"!!!!

Go back to the demigod forum with this addle-minded balderdash, you simpering maggots!

I'm afraid you appear to be the cretin.

We arn't talking about the individual, but the collective, the corperation. They provide a product (be it a game, a movie, an internet connection a microwave etc etc). The people behind that product have been paid for producing it already.

As for bringing down Stardocks servers, Frogboy has already admitted that was Stardocks fault for being stupid and doing things backwards.

Exactly, Employee's and Employers.

Employee's get paid to do what the Employers tell them too. If they do well they might get a bonus, a raise etc If they do badly they get fired.

Employers get paid by customers for their product. If their product is good, they make lots of money. If its bad, they lose money and go out of business.

There is nothing wrong with this picture, you seriously believe every Employer in the entertainment industry deserves to make a profit just so they can continue paying people even when the product they are peddling is a poor and inferior one? Why should they be any different from the countless car manufacturers who made poor cars and went bust, the local butchers that was closed down for selling bacteria ridden meat?

You might aswell just replace your posts with "Won't someone think of the chiiiiiildren!" for all the sense it makes.

Reasonable? well thats debatable, since there are so much "junk" out there that definitely are not worth the price they ask. Not to forget from all the cough... lies... cough commercials use to sell there products. Ever seen those channels past midnight who tries to sell something wonderful and its definitely the best in the world. When you actually get the stuff in your box and takes it out, it almost falls apart.

Thats how the digital world is as well. Just like this program i needed, so the first thing i did were google it and of course if found alot legally. Now these place haveing this program did not only contain what it was supposed to do, they contained malware/spyware, several other unwanted programs (i guess they were supposed to popup on xp but didnt as i used vista), some even contained virus... and they wanted 20-30 dollars for it... The next thing you can imagen what happend i pirated the exact same program and there it didnt contain any of those such things.

Okey they were abit on the extream side, but it happens everywhere and its getting worse.

Take a movie for an exsample, you see this awesome trailer and thinks dang, this movie i gotta buy, once you do, you find out what the trailer had where the 5min of action as you thought it would have for most of the movie. And there you sit with a DVD of a film that you never would have bought if you know before hand.

Of course certain things does have a aeasonable asking price for there film ect, if it is worth the money in your ears/eyes, but many times you are being mislead and "stole" your money for something you thought otherwise.

Sure they should get paid, like anyone else doing a job for a living, problem of today is that you can actually see this product in full before buying and then deside if you think if its really worth its "Reasonable" price. Maybe this is the problem, too much "junk" not getting sold anymore.

Wheres the moral truth a company should uphold for its customers? is it morally right for them to trick poor souls into buying stuff that are broken, not upholding what were promished?

Anyone who wants to argue against that are differently on the wrong path of ethics.

To put it short i believe there are 3 kinds of people, tho it may warry due to situations:

- True customers - those that buy products, based on trust or misguidance to the company

- The cautious customer - The one who may pirate to check it out, due to being afraid of being robbed of his or hers hard earned cash

- The thief - one who has no intension of buying a product, may even profit from the stolen.

hmm, i thought i would put this in "short" lol, i apologize for something is out of place, as im Danish so some may have been said abit wrong

You know, if you guys want to complain bout piracy and all that "enjoying artist work without paying for it" and yada yada yada.. then youtube ought to be banned.

enough said.

Fuck it, I've deleting two sarcastic comments now.  I'm just going to come right out and say it.  Don't make posts on the same bleeding subject as two other currently running threads.  Retards are everywhere...