It is a net loss. But you can’t say that you had $200,000+ of piracy loss. Your expenditures exceeded profits. Just because people pirated your product doesn’t mean that your $500,000 investment goes down. Just because piracy goes down, doesn’t mean that the same number of sales are suddenly more than $300,000.
In basic terms.
Potential profit that isn’t met isn’t loss.
You can’t use hypothetical sales numbers to get rid of loss. It’s the same thing as saying ‘if I had a million more unit sales I would have been profitable’. Well ya that’s true. But that doesn’t mean that those million people who didn’t buy your product are creating loss. They are just potential customers who didn’t buy your product. Whether or not 3/4 of them or even ALL of them didn’t buy because they have a pirated version of your product is irrelevant.
I think it all boild down to: if piracy didn’t exist, would the people who pirate games nowadays buy the games? i think not.
Well that’s fine, since nobody would be abusing a service/product without paying for it. Because that’s what I think is wrong with piracy. You’re abusing some person or people for your own pleasure or fulfillment, without paying them for it. If you hire a gardener, you’re ought to pay him. If you hire a maid, you’re ought to pay her. If you want any paid service at all, you’re ought to pay for it. If you want to use a product, you’re ought to pay for it.
Piracy is illegal and I can fully understand why it’s illegal. I buy the things I like and want to buy, and I won’t use a full featured product or service without paying for it.
You still don’t get it…
When I used my example it was to say the company would lose no money from my actions.
They won’t get money from me even if i was unable to pirate their game.
So being able to pirate their game does not make them lose a customer because I wouldn’t spend money on their game in the first place.
I don’t care if you think that is wrong because that is not the point.
The point is that they are not losing any money if I was that kind of person.
Those are two different situations…
- You don’t pay for the game, and you don’t play it.
- You don’t pay for the game, but still play it.
In the first case, everything’s fine. You don’t like the game/company/price/whatever, so you don’t pay for it. This results in you not using the service the company provided. The company isn’t entitled to your $50 or whatever.
In the second case, you don’t like the game/company/price/whatever, so you don’t pay for it. However, you do play it, you do use the company’s service. At this point, the company is entitled to your $50, but you didn’t give it to them. So you effectively kept $50 away from them.
You can’t just justify by saying that if piracy didn’t exist, you wouldn’t buy it anyway. Since they’re two completely different scenarios. In one you’re just being someone who doesn’t want to use a product/service, in the other you’re being someone who abuses a service or product without paying for it.
you ought*
Woop, sorry, all my points are now officially invalid.
But they do not lose money from me because I was not a potential customer.
My argument is not about whether you think it is right or wrong.
It is that the company is not losing money from me.
They are because they lend you a service that was worth $50 and you didn’t pay them. They were supposed to get $50 but you didn’t give it to them. They “lost” the $50 they were supposed to get because you used their service.
They didn’t lose money because i would never pay for the service in the first place.
I was never a potential customer at all.
The action of me downloading it from the internet did not magically make them lose money.
If they were somehow able to make it impossible to pirate they will still not see me buying their game.
So either way they gain no money from me.
The argument is not whether you think they are entitled for payment or if it is right or wrong.
It is about losing money and they won’t lose any from me because I was never a potential customer.
You assumption is based on if I was willing to pay for the game which I am not.
So whether there is piracy or not they will still gain no expense from me.
Even so, your case is not the same as all cases of pirating. You can’t say all pirates would never buy the game if they couldn’t pirate it. I would go far enough to say that most cases of pirating are, in fact, potential customers lost.
Your argument sucks, because the bread was grown by someone else, and not a copy of another person’s bread. You’re not stealing for growing your own bread.
So I suggest pirates either pay up or make their own games. 
holy crap, thanks for catching my mistake- - I meant to say support masturbatory abstinence, or oppose masturbation.
I see, for a minute there I thought you actually meant what you said.
One of the reasons people pirate games is because they don’t have the money for it or they don’t want to spend money on it.
In other words, if pirating didn’t exist they still wouldn’t buy the game so there was no potentional “customer” in the first place.
[align=center][COLOR=‘Red’]WHO GIVES A FUCK, YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO CONVINCE EACH OTHER ANYWAY.[/SIZE][/align]
[COLOR=‘Red’]THEY STILL HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT TO USE THAT PRODUCT GOD DAMN IT!!!
AND YOU CUNTS SAY WE REPEAT THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!![/SIZE]
[COLOR=‘Red’][align=center]RED WAS MY IDEA.[/align][/SIZE]
But that wasn’t the point of the argument.
The point was that they lose no money.
It wasn’t about whether it was right or wrong.
And it took you twenty pages to realize that?