Indeed I will face the consequences of my actions, regardless of whether I accept them or not.

Many of the founding fathers of the current form of my country are still alive. They did not just question the, back then, current law. They also went against it and many spent years in jail.

They were not Niko-above the law. But they managed to stop the continuation of the previous dictatorship. I applaud them. Something similar will eventually happen to DMCA and current copyright and patent law.

Why? Because you don't like their rules? It's their choice to to market it and distribute it within the guidelines of the law the way they want. Just as it is for someone who wants to distribute their software as Open Source and make no profit what so ever. Just as it's Stardocks right not to use DRM on their software. Patent, copyright, IP, etc laws may need to be clearer and defined better...I can allow that some are just muddled crap...but laws designed to protect one individual from buying or monopolizing patents that create the software aren't the same as those that dictate how many copies of it you can or can not burn or how you distribute the finished product. 

If you invent a compound that you can utilize in tires that makes them absolutley puncture proof and leak resistant, and chose to distribute it through one individual auto manufacturer and then one specific car model, and not share that technology but secure a patent for it that would be your right. If you attached an EULA to it that people had to sign off on, binding them to your terms, that would be your right. If it said that should they use the tire on other auto than what you dictated the warranty was void and all bets were off, that would be your right. How could  it then be the governments or consumers right to tell you you have to distribute it for all cars, change the EULA, and honor your warranty no matter what? Is it just because it's out there and they think they have the right to determine how you share and distribute your creation or product because they disagree with you and think your being unfair? Does the auto manufacturer you excluded have the right to put their tires on their cars because it's better and get away with it by saying you're monopolizing the technology that you came up with to make them?

There are plenty of products offered to consumers that have no patent. Consumers keep buying them out of brand loyalty and the strength of the product. I would defend the individuals right to distribute their product as they see fit as much as my right not to purchase it. If their practice discourages brand loyalty, that's on them.  Just because a person disagrees with the rules of the game doesn't mean it's acceptable to break them. If I come off as accusing anyone in this thread of something or calling names, I apologize. What I am referring to is people who knowingly break the rules/law and want to call it a 'revolution' when in fact pirating exists mainly because people don't want to open their damn wallets to begin with and companies are forced to come up with the laws that others disagree with in order to protect what they have the right to protect. People are not downloading illegal copies of Shrek III that Joe Blow shot with his digital camera right off the movie screen because the DVD that hasn't even been released yet got scratched.

Oh, I don't know. Product liability laws? Lemon laws? Vague notions of gaining customer loyalty by not being a Randian Overlord. Another nice straw man you've constructed, since that clearly isn't what anyone is asking for. If I'm running Vista under Emulation on Ubuntu I hardly expect MS technical support to come to my rescue when a driver doesn't work. I'm saying I paid for a license to run Vista and thats what I'm going to do. 

Your personal experience with Windows XP doesn't really apply to the in-place upgrade editions of Windows 7 where they packed the full version on the DVD and just want you to purchase a new key over the internet, or for that matter Corporate OEM editions where IT buys one copy, and a pack of stickers to put on the machines.

Some might say if the rules are unjust, its actually a responsibility to do so. This isn't and shouldn't be seen as a moral justification for piracy. I'm arguing for a customer's right to legally use a product they purchased. Nothing more. The EULA could stipulate that they bequeath their soul and first born child to the IP holder, it wouldn't make it enforceable.

[quote}Oh, I don't know. Product liability laws? Lemon laws? Vague notions of gaining customer loyalty by not being a Randian Overlord.[/quote]

Liability ends when you sign the EULA agreeing not to install the tire on any other car and chose to violate it. Lemon law would not apply. How they generate or discourage customer loyalty is their choice. What peopel are asking for, who don't like the EULA of a product is that someone make them change it so they can do what they want with it. Someone to tell the distributor that they cannot dictate how to distribute their product just because they don't like the way it's done now. And that is fine to want that. Until it happens, violating it is still breaking the law just like driving over 55 is breaking the law until they raise the speed limit. The thing is, no matter how high they raise it, someone is still going to want to go faster just because the car can...and it's there right...and they can handle it..and their taxes pay the lawmakers and enforcers and for the actual roads and they should be allowed to drive any speed they see fit. But maybe he see's it as his responsibility to break the law to prove his point and drive up insurance rates and tie up courts arguing over $200.00 tickets that will cost the court thousands to prosecute... so maybe the court should just ignore it.

I don't see what the unreasonable burden is to the customer if you agree to the EULA.

It is what it is, I suppose. Pirating exists because the majority don't want to pay for the original product to begin with. That's why you can search a a site for software torrents and see 'crack' and 'keygen' after the title over and over and over.

When the software companies get fed up with the fight, they won't change the EULA..they'll chose to 'lease' the software instead and be able to dictate a lot more than the number of copies you can make (e.g. Net-Flix). Assuming all your arguments are valid from any legal standpoint, the majority of thieves are only hiding behind your argument and have no actual valid claim to it. Until you can separate them from ones such as yourself that have an argument, the EULAS will remain. Breaking the law will still be breaking the law. I am not arguing for the prosecution of everyone who breaks it. I even allow the laws may not be clear enough, allowing for loopholes. My problem is with the people who wanna take a leak on my shoes and tell me it's rain. We both know what it really is, so OWN it.

You're talking about your interpretation of the EULA and what you believe your rights to be regarding that interpretation, which I  happen to disagree with and view as the same as stealing or piracy which the law has interpreted the same way on some occasions as well as not. It's my right to interpret it my way as it is yours. Doesn't even fall into question who is right. My issue is with the people that want to hide behind your interpretation with no actual valid claim in order justify why they steal and call it 'sticking it to the man' instead of admitting what they are and what it really is. And the people I have an issue with are the ones who make up the majority. Bottom line, IMHO,  if a person chooses to exceed the speed limit because they feel they have the right to drive their vehicle they way they deem safe it's still speeding and they should just call it that and OWN it. If they don't like the law, they should change it. The difficulty with changing the laws surrounding the EULA is that the majority that want it changed are to wrapped up in stealing and sharing the stuff just because they can or out of greed, they leave the rest who feel there is an honest valid argument standing around with no other option than to break the law when they see fit. If it wasn't against the law, a person could start a web site and list what they are willing to 'share' with those that have damaged media and everyone would be transparent about it.

Any one could make an argument against any law. Maybe not all would be 'good' arguments.  The question comes up as to who has the right to interpret the law and willfully disregard it at their leisure because they deem it unfair and who doesn't? I guess it's easier than trying to change the law and a person gets that instant gratification by just taking what they want, laws be damned.

I'm glad you finally see the light and realize that I am right. It was inevitable. I only came to the realization myself that I am always right. That came with the same realization that I am just that fucking awesome. Knowing you now see that to has warmed the cockles of my heart and I am rejoicing in that knowledge as I bid you ado and wish you well.

The reason is that they do not have a natural right to it. Thomas Jefferson explains it better in a letter to Isaac McPherson:

"It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance.

By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it, but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property.

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices."

If you think Jefferson's way of handling patents is the right way to do so then we have reached an agreement.

Because people want something for nothing. Why, when there are so many free anti-virus programs available that get good solid reviews are there over 20000 people seeding and downloading Norton illegally? When there is Open Office and Google Documents is their over 10000 seeds and 5000 leeches in just one torrent for Microsoft Office? If Stardock is the exception to bad marketing, why is there over 10 pages of illegal torrents for Stardock  on just one site? Try searching for some of the artists MAster skins here and see how many Rapidshare downloads you can find.  People would rather get it for free than pay for it at all, it's that simple. Like I said, you all may have a valid argument, but if you think you are the majority in the world of EULA violations you're naive. You're a fraction of a fraction that barely makes a ripple in the pool. And until someone can get a handle on the rest, the developers and distributors will keep looking for ways to make it more difficult for people to pirate, steal, copy or whatever. Not much different than a judge who gets tired of seeing the same guy over and over for speeding and puts a block under his gas pedal so he CAN'T go over the damn speed limit and keep breaking the law.

Go ahead, keep doing the same thing over and over again trying to get different results. I'll check back with you in a few years and see if piracy is up or down. It's no wonder that you can't listen, you don't even bother to read. I don't violate EULA's as a general rule of a thumb. I don't buy used copies of software; I don't sell them. I don't lend people copies of my software either, and I buy my MP3s from places like amazon (not itunes). My aniti-virus and anti-malware programs are the free versions. The only time I've used a torrent on this build of mine was to get a beta copy of STO which Cryptic released itself. 

But like i said, keep going down the same narrow path and ask yourself why the direction never changes all while people are on the sidelines are telling you to take the fork in the road and stop screwing your paying customers, and you just might get more of them. But hey, what do I know right? I am just the enemy, oh wait, customer right?

So i am to believe that the 10 pages of people pirating Stardock software have the same issue you do and you're WRONG about Stardock being fair and that the other 50000 illegal torrents on just on page on one site are all because each of those people feel the same you do about the EULA? And how does this apply to the people illegally downloading MAster Skins, theatrical movies digitally filmed on a JVC Cam and uploaded to the internet, etc?

the number of illegal downloads speak for everything. With all of the open source alternatives available there is no cause for that many illegal torrents except to steal. There are versions of ObjectDesktop that go back to 2004 being torrented.  The numbers, the specific items being pirated do not support your reasoning.

You still can't listen or read can you? I don't know how  I can be wrong about Stardock being fair or not being fair since I didn't claim either stance. I don't think their method is perfect even if it is better than other methods. Here's what I do know which you, apparently, refuse to believe: YOUR METHOD DOES NOT WORK.

I am guessing you can't actually prove this position, but you'll hold onto it even as piracy rates soar, and your position continues to fail year after year. Yep, that's the company line. If it doesn't work, just shout the same shit over and again. Good plan.