I think perhaps I failed to make my point clear.  I wasn't arguing FOR piracy, I was arguing against the anti-piracy arguments/claims.  What I'm trying to point out is that one of the primary arguments used by anti-piracy people is crap, and most people know it.  As with any debate the goal is to convince the other side you are right.  Using clear faulty arguments again and again won't convince people.  Also the industry needs to assess the reasons people pirate and deal with it appropriately.

It's similar to the the way children who are never taught WHY they shouldn't do something go wild when they leave home.  Threats of punishment are extremely inefficient at deterring behavior when the entity that is in charge of punishment goes away.  Piracy is an instance where the ability to punish the people is lacking.  So rather than threatening and trying to punish, education is a better approach, but of course that requires facts and proper arguments not the crap I always hear about "losing XXXX$ for ever pirated copy" which everyone knows is false, regardless of what should be.

Further, most people who pirate have some sort of justification they tell themselves and others (not saying it's legitimate) but people are extremely "gifted" at justifying their behavior so they can continue to believe they are 'good people'.  Some of these justifications I mentioned in my previous post, and the industry would be well served to pay attention to them and figure out which ones they can eliminate.  For example, the "try before you buy" justification can be easily dealt with through demos and honest marketing.  Make it so people aren't likely to buy a game and feel ripped off because they were misinformed about what the game was and had no ability prior to purchase to become adequately informed.  The "try before you buy" justification is not going to be appropriately dealt with through legal action.  That will only further increase the "us vs them" mentality a lot of people have.  If the industry goes around slapping people who are already feeling ignored and lied to this is not going to breed good will. 

As long as the industry is viewed as an "out-group" by the consumers they will suffer for it.  In-group and out-group dynamics are well documented in academic literature and one of the distinguishing features is that people have little to no sympathy, especially not empathy, for those belonging to out-groups.  Stardock is again an exception to this.  Frogboy makes a point to be considered part of the in-group of gamers rather than cutting himself off and being viewed as "one of them."

So to reiterate in short form, piracy = bad, many arguments against piracy = bad, solution to piracy = complicated and not just law suits all over.

So all in all in a nut shell. In order for it to stop the corporate idiots running the show have to do the right thing by people and we all know that isn't going to happen. Money talks period!

I read as I listen to Pandora Radio.

When is our beloved government going to take action and and sue game developers for the out-and-out fraud they inflict upon the gaming community every day?  I mean, hell, even the game Elemental doesn't match the box it came in, and obviously was shipped in an unfinished state.  When is Brad going to send me a $1500 check?

Bye

I'm finally going to weigh in on this.  I couldn't get through 10 pages of debate.

I'm a software pirate.  Not a distributor; a downloader.  You can feel however you want about that, myself, as a consumer, got tired of being defrauded by software developers almost all of the times I went to go buy a game.  I got tired of grabbing games based upon the screenshots on the box, only to find out the screenshots on the box are nigh on impossible to achieve with the game.  I got tired of "actual game play images" being digitally rendered movie cut-scenes that were not part of the other 90% of the 8-bit game I was playing.  Blizzard was really good at advertising cut scenes.  Except their games didn't suck, so I didn't care.  I did learn that "actual gameplay footage" didn't necessarily mean "my gameplay footage."  I was actually a reformed pirate, I stopped pirating games because of debates like these, until I picked up a copy of Two-Worlds.  "This is what oblivion should have been!"  It sounded good, until I realized they had written their own reviews of the game.  That was the last game I bought without knowing exactly what I was buying (Except for Elemental, obviously).

I pirated half-life, then bought 4 copies of it.  I pirated Heroes III, then bought 3 copies of that, 1 copy of Heroes IV, and 4 copies of Heroes V.  I *buy* Stardock games because they have resolved every problem and issue I've had with the gaming industry that drives me to piracy, the wrote the gamers bill of rights, I want to support their anti-DRM, customer service approach to gaming.   I *SUPPORT* Stardock's approach to the software gaming genre.  Honestly, they write the kind of shit that makes me pirate games, honestly.    I also own 2 copies of SINS and 2 copies of Elemental.  I support the studio even if I think most of their games suck.

If I buy a crap car, or better yet, a ferrarri with a VW Bug engine, I can return the car, I have civil recourse, I have lemon laws.  I take my car to a mechanic for an oil change and instead he pisses in my distributor, I have deceptive trade practices act.  I buy any product with mechanical or design flaws, defects or damage, I can return it for an exchange or refund.  Software is the *ONLY* product that's sight unseen.  Even in the movie industry (I don't pirate movies) I get trailers, teasers, commercials, I get free bits of the movie to give me an indication if I'll like the movie or not.  Even in movies, if the movie screws up, I can complain to the manager and get a free movie voucher.

It's not like I can pre-order a car and they ship me a frame with no engine because it's not ready yet.  It's not like I go to a movie matine' and find out the third reel is missing because of production costs, and they'll sell it to me at full movie price later as an expansion pack.  Even in the business sector, with desktop publishing, programming IDEs, etc. you get a complete and finished product.  Yes, it's buggy, it has patches, but it's *DONE*.  (with the exception of Windows Millenium).  The Software Gaming sector is the only sector which it's deemed acceptable for some reason to defraud it's consumers with unmet expectations and misleading advertisments.  Only the software gaming sector is able to sell us an unfinished product at full market price, then sell us pieces of the finished product, not once, but 3 times at full market price 3 times over.

Jafo can be an ass all he wants, go ahead and scream about how illegal it is.  Selling me a turd wrapped up in an apple skin is fraud, which is illegal, both civilly and criminally, except the law protects your right to shit in an apple skin and sell it to me without me even being able to see the apple, and giving me no recourse to return the apple or even demand the apple I was expecting.  The only recourse I have is to transfer your shit (apple skin and all) unto a new stooge.

There is only so many bites I'm willing to take out of your shit-apples before I pilfer that shit, cut it up, and make sure it's an apple inside before I purchase it.  You can QQ all you want about theft, law, right/wrong, you give me civil recourse and laws that protect me from software fraud, then I'll eat my pirate words.

Stardock did exactly that with their gamer bill of rights.  That's why I'm buying your shit-apples, even if I hate them.  I put my money where my mouth is.  I don't pirate your crap.  I pirate the other guys' crap that's trying to rip me off with their shovelware.  If they have demos, I download the demos.  The software developer is *giving* me exactly what I want, the opportunity to try out their game before I fork over a boatload of cash sight-unseen.  Fair game, fair call.  I download demos a lot.  If you're not openly advertising where I can get a demo of your game before I fork over cash sight unseen, I'll *find* a demo somewhere.  If that demo happens to be full featured....  If I like the game, I'll buy it.  If I'm still playing the demo 2 weeks later, I'll buy it.  If I delete your demo off my HDD after 2 hours of gameplay, you haven't earned my $50.  Sorry.  Try harder next time.

I can say right now, I have no pirated software on my computer *at this moment.*  Why?  Because I bought everything worth taking up space on my HDD.

I can say I either previewed a demo, played a friend's copy, or illegally downloaded every legal piece of video game software I have on my PC right now before I purchased it too.

You can call it criminal all you want.  I call it self-defense.

"So this is how liberty dies:  With thunderous applause."  Keep clapping guys.

I admire your courage, it took guts to be that honest here, and you do make some valid points.

As a software developer, let me say something that might shock a lot of people here: under certain circumstances, software piracy might actually HELP the little guy (the small developer companies). Believe it or not, but a common saying within the software developers community is "You know you've 'made it' when your software gets cracked for the first time".

You see, most smaller software development companies don't have the budget (or the know-how) to make marketing campaigns. You can make the best thing under the sun and it will still be as if it never existed if nobody knows about it. Also, since you can't get everybody to like your stuff (because we are all different), the whole thing is a numbers game: another common (if a bit innacurate) saying in the developers community is that out of 100 people who download your stuff, one will buy it (and 1% is a good percentage, trust me).

This percentage will also vary greatly according to who you are targeting. Distribute your software in China, and your download vs. buyers rate will be nearly 0%. Distribute your software on a community related to what you do, and the percentage might climb to 10% or higher.

Thus, promoting his stuff is one of the most important thing a software developer can do. Until a software company reaches a certain level, it is VERY difficult to get other people (other sites, blogs, news sites, etc...) talking about their stuff, no matter how good the things they do are. There is just 'too much noise' on the Internet, with everybody shouting at the same time in an attempt to get noticed.

So, with 1% in mind, if only 1,000 people download your game/utility/whatever in a month, only 10 people will buy it. 10 sales per month are not enough to make a living. But if 10,000 people download your software, 100 will buy it, things are getting better and if you really love what you do you can now make a living out of it, even if not a very decent one. Lets say this is the norm for the small software developer.

If 100,000 people download your software, on the other hand, 1,000 people will buy it, and that latter number is a whole different ball game. For a small, relatively unknown software company, it is VERY, VERY, hard to get 100,000 people to notice you every month. Usually the numbers are much lower.

Now, with software piracy, the percentage of downloaders vs. buyers will be reduced exponentially. It will no longer be 1%, but, say (and I'm making this up), 0.1%. So, to make the same 1,000 sales, you will now need to reach a million people. On the other hand, because of the nature of software piracy, you don't have to do anything to promote your stuff: the warez community will do it for you. So, instead of reaching only 10,000 people, you might end up reaching a million. At 0.1%, that's 1,000 sales in a single month. If you sell your software for $20 a pop, that's $20,000 right there.

As a software developer, I know one of my best months was when a very high profile warez site placed an entry for the *shareware* version of Winstep Xtreme by mistake! Of course, the numbers would probably have been much lower if it had actually been a cracked copy, but it still demonstrates what I am saying.

How do you think Microsoft Windows got to be the standard OS for billions of people worldwide? Because, at one point, it was also the most pirated software on earth. OEMs, retailers and big companies still had to license the OS from Microsoft, but the average Joe just grabbed the installation disk from a friend.

Of course, once a company reaches a certain level and everybody knows about their stuff, it no longer needs the exposure provided by the warez community. At this point, the difference between 1% and 0.1% is indeed pure loss of revenue.

Now, does this mean I condone software piracy? Of course not!

I'm just pointing another side of the coin that nobody talks about (yeah, I wonder why you'll never hear the RIAA saying this, hehe). In my opinion, the real danger of software piracy is that it gives people a feeling of entitlement, a 'why should I pay for it if I can get if for free'.

If piracy becomes the norm, then nobody will value software or music or whatever anymore, even the people who would normally pay for the stuff they get. And that is why piracy must be fought at all costs, but NOT by charging the *end user* ridiculous fines. I think the fight against software piracy (and many other issues that plague our society) should start in our schools, by educating our kids and teaching them to value the effort of others. That they, too, can get there if they work hard enough.

At most, organizations like the RIAA should go to the source, i.e.; after those who actually *crack* the software, and those who distribute and profit from piracy by putting advertisements on their sites.

Software piracy, like smoking cigarrettes, is actually a cultural thing, after all. In China, for instance, NOBODY will buy your software because they have a different culture where software piracy is accepted and even encouraged. No Western software company will ever make it in China until this way of seeing things changes. But can it be changed? Of course it can - look at what happened with smoking in the US (and is now happening in other countries), where smoking is now frowned upon instead of being regarded as a symbol of style and independence (i.e. the Marlboro man). That's a good thing because smoking is bad for your health and for your pocket (and I'm a heavy smoker, by the way ).

I sincerely hope not (and I would be *very* surprised if you were, hehe). I like the way you think, and a debate is only a debate when you have two or more opposing/different views.

Jafo, indeed, whatever reasons anybody comes up with, they are really just racionalizations/excuses to something everyone knows deep down to be 'wrong'.

But Mercestes attitude is a healthy one: he realizes and admits that software pirates are, in reallity, shooting themselves in the foot, as, for piracy to exist, there must be something to pirate, and for that, software developers need to be able to make a living on what they do. If a disease kills the patient, the disease will die too.

In the end, he does buy the software he likes even though he wouldn't need to - and that is actually more common that we, software developers, would like to admit.

Even my post pointing out some 'hidden' benefits of software piracy is not to be interpreted as 'Oh, you see, even a software developer admited piracy is good because...'. The benefits are not intended, they are just a by-product.

If getting a lot of exposure might be good for the unkown artist, the likes of Maddona really have no need for it anymore.

I think he knows. I identified myself with 'As a software developer...' hehe.

And talking about being hurt by pirates, there is a certain Russian idiot I would like to put my hands on. Make him feel my pain. If you're reading this - and you know who you are - I have your IP address, you hear?!! lol

Oh My f***ing God! The USA are going to estradate all the Chinese!

You guys don't take these fairy tales seriously do you? The US government will fine a few parents that have no idea what their kids are doing, inflict a little more pain to some poor family, amidst this crisis. Then go back to take care of their useless wars in some country their citizen have never heard about. 

Starkers, perhaps this satirical article from The Onion will demonstrate for you, the ONLY way we could get our elected representatives to provide us with better, because voting them out of office doesn't change anything: American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-people-hire-highpowered-lobbyist-to-push,18204/

It seems to me, if people have to hire powerful lobbyists to get politicians to listen, American politics needs to be completely dismantled and rebuilt totally from the ground up, with absolutely no former politicians, parties or party members to be admitted whatsoever. If it takes a lobbyist to reach a representative and make them sit up and take notice, then currently, the 'so-called' elected representatives are NOT there to serve, they're there purely to feather their own nests.  

No wonder i hate f**ken politicians so much... they're all tainted by greed/tarred with the same brush.

Its all about freedom of information, mainstream media is failing to influence people because you can get the facts on the internet, if you think that only file sharing sites will be hit, wait a month and see if you can find any sites about 9/11 or any other conspiracy site.

If some kid downloads a $20 music cd from some site he is going to get sued, if the same kid stole the music cd from a store, he would get a slap on the wrist.