In civilised countries, you're innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on the accuser. It's the same as with god - saying "prove god doesn't exist" proves nothing. You can't prove that Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn't exist, either. And there are two proofs that Invisible Pink Unicorn exist. By logic - since we can't see her, she must be invisible. By heart - in our hearts we all know Invisible Pink Unicorn exists.

About "getting for free = stealing". Ask a child at kindergarten and he/she will point out holes in your reasoning. I'm overqualified to respond to this.

About OnLive - this is just silly. Let's assume for a moment you're right, and all client-side games magically disappear. What do we have now ? A vacuum. Demand for client-sided games. If demand is high enough, someone would pay for it. This is how freeware games are made today - someone pays for development of a game that's released for free.

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In a way, Stardock had it coming because they made the game in such way that playing is only possible on official servers. If servers were decentralized quake1-3 style, players (including pirates) would set up their own servers and wouldn't overload official servers. But that's an inconvenient truth.

Hmm, blaming the victim. Quite a popular theory. (mainly in countries that spit on human rights)

Companys say it's stealing because they claim they lose revenue because people that download it don't buy it. This ofcourse is complete bullshit.

1.) People that download games would by no means have bought the game if it was not possible to download.

2.) Being able to check out the game before buying works like advertisement, unless ofcourse the product is crap and the company should STFU in the first place. (This is the thing they are trying to protect themself against, because let's face it, most games that come out these days are utter shite, demigod excluded ofcourse)

3.) Since we have alreasy established that people who download do not count as people who would have bought the game otherwise there is actually no stealing involved because it concerns a copy of something.

I bought this game and am still waiting to be able to play online simply because of some retarded design flaw in the ordering system, making it so if a friend bought the game for you, the cd-key is registered to his account and not mine.. WTF does someone need 2 cd-keys for?

Human logic is very strange at times...

Can't prove a negative. It's your burden to prove that it is. You are admitting you can't prove that it is then.

This is, of course a rule created to miminize punishing innocent people. It's not to be mistaken for a law of logic or a complete legal argument.

Okay, I was not precise enough.

So let's break it down:

• Intentional? Yup. Very.
• Fraudulent? Yes.
• Personal property? Yup. The company owns the product.
• Without permission? Duh.
• Intent to convert it to the taker's use? Well, why else would you download it?

Are you "overqualified" enough to overrule a legal definition? Unlikely.

Yes, someone will pay for it. At vertical market prices. You want us to pay thousands of dollars for a game? Really?

Actually, we have not established this. All I have so far is a bad anecdote. Care to actually prove this somehow?

Sure you can. Negate it. But that's irrelevant, as there's nothing "positive" or "negative" about the statement - it is simply a denial of a definition, which can be disproved by showing that the definition matches the action.

Okay, i'll be bothered and fooled around with one more time.

JoeSchmo walks into eBay building downtown LA, sits at a computer, logs onto it and buys an auctioned item. Uses his legal Paypal account and sends the money out.

Six months later he still hasn't received a copy of that SOFTWARE he bought.

After contacting eBay, he gets the address of the thief. Jumps in his car, drives allllll the way to San Francisco, knocks at the door. Nobody is there, it's an empty floor expect for a portable computer plugged in.

Who spent money for nothing? Who got away with theft?

That's my proof, take it or leave it.

Some people are dumb enough to fall in such traps.

Go troll another gaming site. I'm through with criminals such as you and while you're in your cells serving jail times THEY must restrict access to the real & honest web.

A step further and what you get is this;

Human honesty is extremely rare sometimes...

Look to me its clear that no one here discusses the issue they just attack devils advocates and people that admitt they have pirated before.

I have to admitt some of you are good at debating but the fact still remains you can't stop piracy plain and simple, you can however take measures to make piracy less desirable than actual purchase of the game.  However as it stands with DRM it is LESS desirable to actually buy the game because you are stuck with a copy of the game infested with sometimes highly over-reaching software.

(ok now take your potshots at me instead of discussing the realivance of my statement.)

I'm honest about piracy and i get attacked... go figure it's rare to see.

Sadly enough that line of reasoning holds no water with SD products - the original topic of this thread.

Much like the metaphors and what ifs that everyone posts has no relavence to the actual discussion.  Anyways, there is a good reason that it happened to Demigod. No demo meant curious people not willing to pay for a game they know little about.

Onlive is a soon to be dead, very bad joke.  It's as much the future of gaming as I am the future world dictator.  I like the idea of exterminating half the population and ending the nonsense we've been putting up with since colonialism fucked everything to hell, but even I wouldn't give me the job.  Between the utterly ridiculous bandwidth requirements, the immutable reality of latency, and the massive server farm they'll need to run the shit, it's DOA.  That dumb fuckers with too much money to spend are going to try anyway isn't something new.  They might even make money off the disaster if their compression system is as advanced as they claim.

Assuming piracy is actually a problem, remote gaming isn't going to be the solution.  I've yet to actually see the supposed lost sales in a continually expanding industry that's still making money hand over fist in a world wide recession, so I think they're just full of shit to begin with.  If anything it's a saturated market.

The theft argument...  Again...  Stupid shit like this is why the pirates win just as many arguments as they lose.  I know, I'll make a STFU list!

If you're going to say someone with no money is costing a company money by not spending no money, STFU.

If you're going to whine about how it's just not fair and thus must be wrong anyway after the idiotic above statement has been thoroughly shredded, STFU.

If you're going to equate copyright infringement with physical theft despite the obvious lack of a physical object to steal, STFU.

If you're going to be just as retarded and say intellectual property is the same thing as property, STFU.

Just because someone doesn't deserve something, and this is about as subjective as subjective gets, doesn't mean you have to play wounded gazelle and bawl about it till someone rips your throat out to shut you up.  Envy is envy, get over it.  Stick to reality and you wont look like a bigger prick than the pirate, unless you have diplomatic skills in line with mine.  In which case you are a prick, and it's a pleasure to meet you.

Kinda difficult to be honest to a person that is honest about being dishonest.

Let's say we have a man that beats his wife and boasts about it - sure, he is being honest, but that doesn't make his actions any more right.

Did you read what I wrote about OnLive in an earlier post?

Which statement would that be? I'm still waiting for you to say something relevant. So far, you have not answered what I pointed out about OnLive in an earlier post.

Probably. But it illustrates that such technology is possible.

Agreed, I don't want to see this solution happen.

Let's not pave the way to that future.

No.

Take a deep breath, walk around the block once, have a good deep cold drink, rest in bed for 10 min while clearing your mind - and come back and re-read your post and what you just said.

This is all true (though more likely "minimal" sales lost rather than "zero"): the "theft" term is a misnomer used by the software industry because "copyright infringement" doesn't evoke the response they'd like in the general public.

However yawnworthy the term "copyright infringement" might be though, and however much the copyright laws are also abused by the big boys in the market, copyright infringement is still a crime. Effectively owning a copy of a game you didn't get permission from the makers for (however indirectly) is wrong. The makers might not technically lose anything, not even profit in most cases, but that does not make it right. Or legal.

The makers of "intellectual property" (yawn...) deserve compensation for people enjoying the fruits of their labour. This is a societal norm established to encourage the (often costly in time/money) development of more "intellectual property" (snore...) for everybody to enjoy in the future. Since societal norms rarely enforce themselves, this is backed up in the law. Violating the law has known consequences. One of them is being called a criminal. Even when the person involved is not a thief, they're still a criminal. Then again, the term "notorious copyright infringer" would probably cure insomnia in even a judge... 

Onlive is a failure, simple as that. Why? Easy good luck not going over your bandwidth cap, and people will not catch on with onlive, I know many people who would rather have a actually console or computer to play on. Also good luck with mods with Onlive, I see you fail at thinking things through.

And once agian you prove that piracy is not actually stealing, your example involues a PHYISCAL item. So again, tell me how torrents is stealing? It's not. You just fail.

There is the rub. Society is not "writing" the laws anymore. Special interest (read as vested interest) is doing it for us via the best Congress that money can buy. Sadly enough for some, more and more people are joining the copyfighter cause (read as quickly becoming the new norm) as a direct result of the bullshit laws being passed by said noble institution of the people.

The answer is for games companies to stop wasting money. E.G. Demigod Maps. They don't have to be that detailed. Then, you can retail your game for less, given that it's impossible to recover that money.

DRM promotes piracy, not by any other method, but simply how you can't sell your game. I would sell World of Warcraft, BioShock, a bunch of them. Now, I won't put my money down for any game. If you buy a DVD or Blu-ray, there's even less stopping you pirating it. But you don't get a CD-key with your DVD. I bought Transformers blu-ray, didn't like it. Price went up, and I'm going to re-sell it for a profit. Next time I go to buy a Blu-ray, I'll take that chance. Games? Forget it.

Frankly, buying Demigod has taught me, why I don't buy new games anymore. Broken multiplayer. Poor balance. But I can't recoup any of that.

A great example of how it should be done is Valve and their free weekends for games like UT3 and L4D. That's a chance to really play the game before putting money down. That's how it should be done. I played UT3 for the free weekend, didn't really enjoy it, didn't buy it. I played L4D on a free day or weekend, enjoyed it, bought it. 

I bought Supreme Commander and FA, and it turned out great, so I thought that perhaps I could start buying again. But no.

Let me add to the STFU list, then:

If you defend someone like tommyth3cat, who clearly DOES have the money to buy games and chooses not to, STFU. All of your arguments about not depriving anyone of income based on the pirate's inability to pay fail when the pirate could pay, but is just an asshat. And if you try some stupid bullshit about "well, I can only afford X number of games per month," please die in a fire.

If you pirate a game to "try before you buy" before any reviews are out, even if there is no demo, STFU. Waiting a week to get reviews, gameplay videos, etc would not have damaged the gameplay experience for you, and would almost certainly have answered whatever questions you had.

If you feel you should be entitled to play all games regardless of your ability to pay, STFU. There are lots of things we'd all like to do and can't afford. Grow the fuck up.

If you think piracy by people with the ability to pay is not stealing the income copyright law was designed to provide the creators, STFU. Join reality before you open your mouth.

Funny, that's exactly the argument I make when people use poor game quality to justify piracy. Your opinion about whether they deserve to get paid for that work is entirely irrelevant.

Now, if anyone can find anything worth discussing that doesn't fall under either of those STFU lists, please continue the topic. Otherwise we can continue the sanctimonious ass vs whining criminal act for all of eternity.

Ahehe, in my opinion, one way to start stoping the piracy, and start calling it what it really is-THEFT.

I've never understood why they use a "fancy" term like Pirate for Thief.

@cobraA1

You are most skilled at flapping your mouth and not really saying anything. Just keep arguing with yourself because I'm not wasting my time typing up responses to your dribble.  If you want me to actually answer your questions then you can show me some common fucking decency and not lob insults at me in every reply.

Truest statement I've seen so far about how these piracy discussions pan out.