Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

I don't see how spreading FUD can be good. Piracy is copyright infringement. Theft is the act of taking something from someone unlawfully. When I take something from someone, he loses it. That's not the case with unathorised copying. You can argue about lost sales, but you can't prove anything, especially exact numbers. Movie critics should be put to jail, too, because they often cause much more lost sales to movie theaters. Software piracy is a crime with no victim, especially if the pirate is simply not able to purchase the thing.

It's not just money. In Poland, for example, online (abroad) payments are really hard to perform. Banks set prohibitive prices and require extra paperwork. It took me months to find a colleague whose father has a 'good enough' credit card. Not because I'm too young (22), but because it's a lot of beaurocracy and extra fees.
One thing piracy bashers consistently fail to mention is that vast majority of software pirates (especially gamers) are 13-17 years old. When you're older, studying, working (or both, like me) you don't have as much time for games. Guess what, you can't have a credit card if you're <18.

Piracy can work as a sort of advertisment, too.
And I think it was our beloved Bill who said he'd rather have people pirate windows than use linux. Charming, eh ?

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

I dont think that holds up but fine, change it to being illegal then. The thing is that most of the losses being avoided are by legal owners copying software for good friends (called casual copying) so most of the efforts to fight it are simple copy protection and clarity of the crime. Piracy isnt as big a subject, nor as big a crime effort as most people think. Also, this isnt an open enough forum to discuss piracy. Join me in the alt.hackers newsgroup (I host their site) and we can discuss it more.

Im older than computers. Ive been on the internet since before it was the internet. Ive heard all the argruments and seen all of the data. It doesnt amount to much.
(where can you not have a credit card if you are under 18?)

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

Actually, if you know where you can get a pirated version of the game, it might be worthwhile to point out to Shrapnel exactly where that is, so they can do something about it.
And no, I don't mean a lawsuit, they could just ask the website to remove the link, I think that the same was done with GalcivII and a website that hosted a link to a torrent for the game, where they asked the site to remove the links, and they were gone.

And since I just said that, a nice response from shrapnel telling us who to contact in this case would be nice (it could also say something like "We can't do anything so don't bother" or "WE'LL BURN YOU ALIVE")

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

As far as I'm informed most European banks would only give you a credit card once you're past 18 and have a job.

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

Hmm in the US anyone can get a credit card. Of course if you are under 18 and have to get your parents to sign for everything and they refuse, or you have zero credit rating, it might seem impossible but that doesnt mean there is a rule about it. Under those conditions anyone would have trouble getting a card but age has nothing to do with it. Just say your broke. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

I mentioned Star Dock http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Even so, a file I can make a CD from is fair enough, assuming I have a CD burner. The problem is not so much the download itself, as the protection methods in the Download - you can make a CD copy of HL2, but your still dependent on Steam being up to actually activate it.
There's also the whole ownership thing. I'd rather have a nice CD case, with a manual I can flick through on the train and whatever other goodies are shoved in there than a bunch of binary any day.
How about the developer who doesn't get paid because the game isn't selling? Or his kids & wife who lose their home because he lost his job? Like it or not, the second you pirate the game, your making yourself implicit in those kind of effects.

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

No they don't - not if a company is willing to see them put on bit-torrent.

Frankly, given the _major_ success of pkzip, list.exe, etc, on shareware (both Phil and Vernor made _millions_; also authors of Telix and at least a couple dozen more programs) I'm surprised that more niche publishers aren't willing to give it a try.

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

Eh, I once had a wonderful friend named Tho (The Homeless One) who went to college at 15. Never mind that life was a major struggle for her at that point (good looking / mature enough to be attractive to most guys/some girls, too young to drink or date them, too young to be taken seriously once people learned her age). Thing was, she was a college student at 15. Got about 10 pre-approved credit card offers, didn't require parental approval, income verification, anything. She was a bit more mature than most, didn't ruin her life with them - but imagine the ones like her that did.

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

How about the developer who doesn't get paid because the game isn't selling? Or his kids & wife who lose their home because he lost his job? Like it or not, the second you pirate the game, your making yourself implicit in those kind of effects.

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For Dog's sake, please bother yourself to _read_ something regarding copyright. If nothing else, the bit where copyright (and patents) were implemented to _encourage_ invention and creativity, not to stifle them.

Then note : if I _steal_ your car, you can't use it. You can't sell it. If I could _copy_ your car, you could still use it. You could still sell it. If I were the type to _pay_ for your car (or a song, book, game, that turns out to be a POS), I would have paid for it even after copying it. If I'm _not_ the type to pay for it, I wouldn't buy/pay for it anyway.

(Yes, over-simplification - if there is _free_ beer, and it is good beer, a large number of college age (and other) idiots are going to slurp it down, no matter what, even if there's _better_ beer that costs a nickel a glass. But we're not typing beer.)

In addition : pay attention to authors, game developers, and musical artists, many of whom say the _industry_ is the pirates/thieves. I've seen this from all three categories, but can only refer you to Courtney Love's "diatribe" on music piracy, in which she castigated BMG, Sony, etc, and _NOT_ the pirates.

Re: Downloadable retail needed?
 

The questions isn't whether copying information without an authorization to do so is or isn't "good" or "fair". The question is whether it qualifies as "theft".

It used to be - and most legal systems in the world are tailored to deal with this other, older world - that making a working copy of anything required money/skill/talent/effort/resources. Therefore, it was basically sufficient to punish the people who would take the physical object from someone else - with the exception of, essentially, texts (books, plays, whatever), which never cost that much to produce (as text, not as printed books).

Now, with the advent of "information technology", the situation has changed - some pieces of information can cost considerable amount of effort to produce, and virtually nothing to copy. The thing is, legal systems all over the world are way behind in catching up with this change - and we're stuck with improper words like "theft" to describe an activity that has major differences with what used to be called this; the thing with information being that (barring complex quantum mechanics setups) it can be duplicated perfectly at virtually no cost, and without depriving anyone of it.

But, basically, this is not the place for such discussions (and English, not being my main language, is not the most comfortable for me to hold such discussions).