Nothing is taken.
I’ve never pirated a videogame, but I pirate music all the time. The reason being simply that I don’t have enough money to enjoy all of the music that I want to. There’s also a bit of the bitterness towards the music establishmnt going on. I’ve been a musician all my life, and it sometimes sickens me to see how commercialized the whole music industry has become. There’s also a bit of that South Park episode… the one where P. Diddy or someone’s son wants his own private island for his birthday, but because of filthy pirates, he’s not going to get it.
Anything that is data, aka transferable as ones and zeros, is not a tangible product. It is not scarce, and it is infinitely reproducible regardless of physical resources.
Near zero scarcity = near zero value.
When and if our civilization makes it to a resource based economy, things that do not require physical resources to manufacture will have a near zero cost to the individual.
The concept of intellectual property and patents will be discarded in favor of mass cooperative, open source, and pay-what-you-want models.
In short, those that get all thier ones and zeros for free are living in the future. 
Well I’m telling you that you can’t take any more quotes from anyone here for use in any of your future posts.
Is that stealing?
This but for a bit different reasons. I’m complitely isolated from any obscure to mid-famous bands because where I live. Oh and digital transfer can go fuck itself.
Also the fact that my music collection would’ve costed me tens of thousands.
My only excuse for pirating is that the games are really really expensive in my country, and before I buy a game, I really want to try it… Anyway most of the games have really short or boring single player modes, so eventually people gonna buy the games if they want to play online wich is much more fun.
Steam doesn’t have a return policy as far as I know…
edit: yup: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4938-WTDF-9465
I sometimes pirate expensive programs (Vegas, After effects, etc.) I don’t like doing it, but there really is no other way for me.
Both.
If it’s on steam on sale, or reasonably priced, I usually buy it, I don’t really play many games to begin with.
Music I buy a lot of and because I enjoy a lot of music, I can’t exactly afford to buy all of it. The smaller artists I generally support though.
Movies are crazy overpriced, and I see my fair share in theaters (one every month or two), so I just download those.
So yeah, I do pirate, but I do support each of the industries in their own way.
The “I pirate because things get too expensive” argument gets old fast.
The reason prices are going up is because there’s so much pirating going on, so to make the same profit as last year or the year before that, they have to up the price. Sure, you might just say “Pft, as if they need the profit”… They probably don’t… But they’re businesses, their sole purpose is to offer goods for a high enough so they can make profit.
And besides, I really don’t think €7-9 for a DVD and CD is all that much. At least that’s how much they go for over here… Unless it’s a new release. And even still! I bought Watchmen for €9 during the holidays. Sure, it’s not a tinbox collector’s edition with fancy extras, but I never check the extras anyway.
Or maybe it’s because they know they can get away with pricing their products so high. I mean, look at MW2, it’s insanely priced and everyone bought it.
Dude beleive me, that’s the truth, ofcourse I always look forward to buy my favourite games, but hell the prices are insane… For example I really wanted to buy orange box, but when it came out it was too much for me…
Well I wouldn’t know. Last game I played was Episode 2, and that was bloody cheap, considering the entire package (Orange Box for €29).
I used to pirate all the time, but I don’t anymore.
I have free alternatives for every program I use (except Windows). It’s easier anyway, no need to bother with cracks or anything, I barely download music anymore, and I rarely watch movies anyway.
I do still pirate TV shows, because buying it on DVD really is too fucking expensive, if it’s available in the first place.
Here’s my music collection :retard:
Yea, open source makes it MUCH easier to stay legit when it comes to software. By 2020 the retail market for software will pretty much dissapear completely (10 years is enough time for developers to “copy” some of the more difficult to develop software that has yet to be turned open source. Throw google in there developing awesome shit all the time and you’ve got a formula for epic win )
The data is patented and copyrighted which makes all the difference.
Your post isn’t patented or have any copyrights so no it is not. I love it when people try to avoid it by something like that or try to say that Jesus was pirating bread.
How the hell is Orange Box expensive? At its most expensive level, its 12 bucks a game. How can you go wrong with that?
So if something is against the law, it is immoral? And vice versa?
That’s pretty dangerous territory, considering the history of law and order over the past 1000 years.
Frankly copyright is on the verge of becoming completely useless, and the creation of copyleft and the creative commons signal that there are already viable alternatives growing at a rapid rate.
Patents do promote innovation to some extent, but they also ensure the proliferation of thousands of useless iterations of the same product (that are generally inferior to the initial-but-patented design, causing waste and economic instability) and prevent those that wish to expand and improve on a specific design do so without fear of prosecution.
Worse still, they are now patenting concepts and genes, allowing companies to own things that are fundemental parts of every human beings existence. Someone patenting a gene is like someone owning a piece of every human being on earth. Its ridiculous, but its happening.