Quote from whocares8128;509581:
And I find it funny how some people can label sharing a copy of something "stealing," as if all the people pirating things would otherwise pay full price for the products (were file sharing not so easy).
Note: I'm referring to intangible digital media. If it's "stealing", then lighting one candle with another is "stealing" as well (from Prometheus, who first stole it from Zeus, the content owner). (I say Prometheus because we all know Zeus would never license fire to mortals.)
Ah, the typical argument made by leechers. I knew someone would try to use it. :P Unfortunately for them, it doesn't work well at all if you pause and actually think about it.
And before I elaborate, I have to say that the flame argument is pretty cool, but it too does not work in the leechers' favour, if you think about it in a broader sense:
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]You see, there was a time when fire was a precious commodity. A village would often have a person specially in charge of maintaining a flame, 24/7, so that it could be always be available to the villagers when required. Naturally, some remote villages would not have this luxury, as without a means to start a flame from scratch, fire would be scarce.
Now imagine yourself living in such a place. You learn from travellers that there is a village, far away, that does have a fire, but getting there would require venturing into a forest where bandits dwell. D: As such, no one dares to leave and simply make do with what they have. You, however, decide that this could be a good business opportunity, despite being extremely risky. So you ditch your day job of working as a farmer, and set off on your quest to bring a fire back to your village. After a treacherous journey to the remote village, and several life-threatening encounters on your way back, you managed to bring the flame home.
You light a fire in your house, and tell the villagers that you would trade them fire for, say.. food, which you weren't able to obtain as you were on your journey. People don't like your prices, but they are really jealous of your fire, so every once in a while you'd come across someone with enough money (or food) saved up to buy a fire. But after selling to couple people, one of the customers decides to become the town "hero" by offering to light fires for free. Suddenly, many potential customers who were seriously considering in investing in a fire from you will go the other way.
Is this an acceptable outcome for the person who took the risk upon themselves? Clearly not.[/SPOILER]
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In the real world, piracy works in a very similar manner.
So, let's go back to the popular, yet extremely primitive claim made by intellectual property (IP) thieves: "Piracy is okay, as I wouldn't have paid for it anyway, and therefore there is no damage from lost sale."
Is there some truth to it? Sure, there is a tiny fraction, just like with everything else in life--but it's pretty insignificant when you look at the bigger picture. The biggest problem this kind of thinking poses to the IP owners is that it discourages purchases from potential customers. To understand this, you need to remember that when someone considers making a non-essential purchase, they always weigh how much they want the product vs what they believe is an acceptable cost. If the only way the product can be feasibly obtained is through legitimate purchase, then people are indeed forced to weigh that balance. Some will buy it because they want it and they don't mind the price. Many others, however will want to buy it, but will have to make an extra effort to save up cash for it (kid wants a new expensive games console).
But after Rich Kid and Hardworking Kid buy their games, they run into some Loser Kids who tell 'em that they wasted their money because they could have pirated instead, like so many people do all the time. And unlike with stealing from a physical store, the likelihood of getting caught is extremely low. Do you truly believe that the Rich Kid and the Hardworking Kid will legitimately buy the next game that comes out? Chances are that they will join the Loser Kids instead.
Lost sales, simple as that.
Another very real problem is that this kind of thinking discourages competition. For example, some forum teenager wants to make signatures, and they heard from their stupid friends that Photoshop is the best image editing software and should be used for this task, so they want to obtain it. Some will just go and pirate it. Others may be more responsible individuals and so they will go check its price at a store, and decide that there's no way they could ever afford it (reasonable, for an average teenager VS a $800 industrial-grade piece software), and therefore they'll pirate it.
But think about this for a bit. Is everyone entitled to having access to the best of the best, regardless of the cost? What about companies and products that cater to the more affordable price segments, trying to target said teenager?
An example would be software such as Paint Shop Pro. It used to be a very popular alternative to Photoshop, as I remember. Many of the indie game devs in my community would use it, since it provided most of Photoshop's functionality that they needed for their projects, but at a fraction of the cost. Unfortunately, as file "sharing" grew in popularity, JASC Software, the makers of PSP, were eventually bought out by Corel in 2004. PSP has since then been re-branded several times and I don't know if anyone still uses it. It's a shame, and this is just one case--there are many more.
So really,
just think and connect the dots.
Whether it's a digital copy or a physical theft, both translate into damages and lost sales, whether direct or indirect. Unfortunately, economic damage spreads out and affects other people, namely jobs in the industry, which is part of the motivation for the government to take stronger action against illegal file sharing.
In the end, the only reasonable thing IP thieves can say is that while they acknowledge that they cause damage to the IP owner, they don't care. They want their product and only care about their own entertainment, so they will continue to steal, for as long as it's feasible to do so.
This, I can understand and won't argue against. People are generally greedy and without proper enforcement of the law, there is no helping it.. human nature and all. Just look back at what happened during the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. No police presence meant lots of looting and raping.
What I will laugh at are people who try to morally justify their criminal actions. Bunch of idiots in denial. :P