Quote:
Archonsod said:
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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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).