Pirates cause Funcom to stick to MMOs

[Volourn]

"But you just said he is giving away free copies of it""

I did no such thing.

Lending a copy to a friend is NOT piracy. Gifting a agme you bought to sonmeone also isn't theft.

Don't make shit up.

 

[Elhoim]

Funcom drops "offline" PC games
Piracy is to blame, apparently
Funcom, the developer behind the adventure game classics The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, have announced their decision to stop producing traditional, offline PC games, reports the Norwegian newspaper E24. Funcom, who previously have mentioned MMOs and adventure games as their primary focus, blames piracy as the reason for the decision.

According to Funcom's Trond Arne Aas, there had been over 200,000 illegal downloads of Dreamfall, even before its release last year. Also, he estimates that for each PC game that is sold, between 3 and 10 times as many is stolen, thus resulting in Funcom's decision to stop producing offline PC games.

No info was given on the recently announced Dreamfall chapters, although given the fact that the project has already gotten financial assistance from the Norwegian Film Fund, we have all reason to believe that they are still on schedule. However, this could result in PC gamers needing to have an active internet connection in order to verify the game's authenticity.

Funcom is no newcomer to online gaming, as they have already released Anarchy Online and countless add-ons. Also, Funcom has already mentioned the possibility of an online game set in the The Longest Journey universe. Their highly anticipated Age of Conan will be released for PC and Xbox360 later this year.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/newsitem.php?id=1409

Bullshit.

 

[crufty]

missed opportunity there. a magazine w/200k circulation makes a pretty penny with ads.

 

[Annonchinil]

Borrowing/Lending-one copy of the product in use per sale, if happens later on not as important; older games don't sell as well, can increase sales especially for multiplayer games
Pirating-Multiple copies in use with one or no sale.

Photocopying books-time consuming and cumbersome, doubt that anyone would buy a book if they only need a few pages, doesn’t hurt the industry, intellectual citations more important to author (most authors=poor).

Pirating a PC game- some annoying copy protection software that can be cracked

Seriously how come PC gamers buy such expensive graphic cards and then not buy games? If you think the game sucks or is not worth the money then don't play it, there is no need to download what you think are crappy games.

By the way Dreamfall is an example of why I think the PC gamin industry dropped from 2001 and onwards. Hyped by the release of new consoles the PC game developers began to change their gameplay to appeal to a different market. Whereas console companies used the new technology to further refine and improve their style of gaming the PC developers decided to allow inferior technology (consoles) and stupider market to change their design instead of using no technologies and techniques to further their own.
.

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Seriously how come PC gamers buy such expensive graphic cards and then not buy games? If you think the game sucks or is not worth the money then don't play it, there is no need to download what you think are crappy games.

There are places where economy is crap. They can maybe scrap enought money as to get an expensive graphic card, a one time investment, but then they do not want, or are able to, pay what is asked of them for the games they want to play. We can all go on an say "Then they should not play anything!" but that is a moral topic, and can be interpreted in too many different ways.

I know people that were months buying parts, little by little as they could manage to use a little less money to fulfil their basic needs, to put together a machine relatively able to play modern games. What i am going to do? Tell them not to play anything because so says the holy market? Nope. It is not like the company is selling fewer copies because of them.

And even if they did so, i wouldn't care less. I buy those games i buy because i want, not because is what i must do. If i do not do warez, is because i want not to, not because it is morally or legaly wrong. When i want, i do. If a company is so that it is putting their own interests over the interests of their public, so has the public right to put their own over those of the company.

But then, i am inclined towards paradigms that even the left hates with a passion.

Now you can proceed and flame my "apology of piracy" as you may desire.

 

[obediah]

Seriously how come PC gamers buy such expensive graphic cards and then not buy games? If you think the game sucks or is not worth the money then don't play it, there is no need to download what you think are crappy games.

Some pirates are just collectors. Some use it as an opportunity to play games they would never pay for, and some just want more they can afford (think kids with lots of free time and no income). Not that any of these are justification, just reasons.

My "seriously" question, is why did PC game makers decide to declare war on their customers? The recent PC games I've played: SE:V, NWN2, Prelude To Darkness, and UFO:Afterlight - all of them are incomplete and/or bugged all to hell. Of these PtD was free, SE:V I bought and played about oh 5 hours before banging my head against a wall to forget the horror it calls and interface, NWN2 I pirated and deleted about 1/3 of the way through in disgust, and UFO:Afterlight I pirated and despite the crash bugs, I went ahead and bought the import because I thought it was fun. I'll buy EUIII soon without pirating it first, just because Paradox has a history of at least patching their games, and since it's like the 1000th game in the series it should be pretty stable I'll also bite and buy GF4, and AoD assuming the shareware runs well.

I don't mind buying media, I buy 150+ CDs a year, and buy a crapload of console games. I have a GBA emulator, and a ROM cart form my GBA SP, and I still buy GBA carts just because I like to support the people that makes things I like. I hardly ever watch movies, and to this day the only movie I've pirated was Oldboy to get a DVD-RIP before I got my region-free player, at the time, and I ordered it right after watching it.

So, I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll stop pirating games when the PC game industry stops trying to dump shit in my lap for $50. Every cog in the process from developers making shit, to publishers publishing shit, to retailers refusing to refund shit, to reviewers that gloss over whether or not the game actually works to publish whatever score their ad revenue justifies. It didn't used to be this way, even through we had much less information available when making a purcchase, games used to work, and reviewers exepcted them to work and would score accordingly, and retailers would refund a game if it didn't work.

Sadly the game industry is only going to get worse. Every MMORPG is less complete than the last at release. Pretty soon, I'll have a kid and won't feel justified in taking the risk of pirating games, which means I'll almost completely stop playing PC games. My PS2 has crashed once or twice in 6+ years, and my 360 crashes every 3-4 hours average. I assume the PS3 won't be any better. At least I have enough mediocre PS2 games to last me another 20 years or so.

 

[Drakron]

Software piracy existed for many years now ... I owned a ZX Specturn and only needed a double deck tape recorder to copy a game, floppy disks were also easy to copy.

I am talking pre-CD days piracy, before the Internet and now I have to read these morons using piracy as a excuse?

Also let me say this ... every illegal download does not equal a sale, just because someone downloads something does not mean he would buy it, its easy to use download numbers as a excuse because most people download games, play then for a time and delete then ... they had no interest in the game and would not buy it in the first place.

And those are illegal downloads, they do not mean loss of revenue not only because they could never link a download to a sale but because they not only do not lose a printed copy of the game.

Also lets not forget the real piracy, the people that make illegal copies of the game and sell it ... its easy to use a downloads because its easy to get the numbers but how about the numbers of pirated games that are sold?

And again I have to point out the whole "used games" market they also included ... by making such statement they want us to buy not a game but a "non transferable license" ... in short, you payed for it and cannot sell it.

The reason the market expanded but is on the declined is became more people are into games but the quality of games have declined ... in short more people buy less games.

Arguments over this will be long because this is not about piracy but the entire game industry that simply been doing a lot of wrong things for a long time ....

 

[Kraszu]

Also let me say this ... every illegal download does not equal a sale, just because someone downloads something does not mean he would buy it, its easy to use download numbers as a excuse because most people download games, play then for a time and delete then ... they had no interest in the game and would not buy it in the first place.

Yes thatit is completely retarded, haw can people believe that something that is free would be taken in as many copies as something that cost 50$.

 

[Elwro]

As for the USB dongle protection, it was used a few years ago in Cubase. And guess what, it didn't stop anyone from pirating it.

 

[obediah]

As for the USB dongle protection, it was used a few years ago in Cubase. And guess what, it didn't stop anyone from pirating it.

I think the USB dongle is purely about raising the bar. For a $50k/year science app, you're not worried about the warez scene, you're worried about some grad student installing it on a few extra machines to save some time or money. They look at the dongle and see an imposing barrier - the warez kids would take it as a challenge.

 

[Nightjed]

Pirates are the new universal excuse.
Lets say you are a big software company (lets call it Shicrosoft) and you want to make a really expensive piece of software (lets call it Pindows Vista), after giving your share holders a long speech about how it will sell like candy and how the customers will loooove all those so called features that basicly highjack the pc they tell you to go ahead. once you are in alpha stage, several years after the target, you think "hey, lets release this piece of crap and have the customers beta it for us", so you release it, then nobody in hell buys it, what are you going to tell your shareholders ? that you made the stupidest mistake in software history ? or that "pirates ate my baby!?" ?

My "seriously" question, is why did PC game makers decide to declare war on their customers? The recent PC games I've played: SE:V, NWN2, Prelude To Darkness, and UFO:Afterlight - all of them are incomplete and/or bugged all to hell. Of these PtD was free, SE:V I bought and played about oh 5 hours before banging my head against a wall to forget the horror it calls and interface, NWN2 I pirated and deleted about 1/3 of the way through in disgust, and UFO:Afterlight I pirated and despite the crash bugs, I went ahead and bought the import because I thought it was fun.

...

So, I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll stop pirating games when the PC game industry stops trying to dump shit in my lap for $50. Every cog in the process from developers making shit, to publishers publishing shit, to retailers refusing to refund shit, to reviewers that gloss over whether or not the game actually works to publish whatever score their ad revenue justifies. It didn't used to be this way, even through we had much less information available when making a purcchase, games used to work, and reviewers exepcted them to work and would score accordingly, and retailers would refund a game if it didn't work.

Sadly the game industry is only going to get worse. Every MMORPG is less complete than the last at release. Pretty soon, I'll have a kid and won't feel justified in taking the risk of pirating games, which means I'll almost completely stop playing PC games. My PS2 has crashed once or twice in 6+ years, and my 360 crashes every 3-4 hours average. I assume the PS3 won't be any better. At least I have enough mediocre PS2 games to last me another 20 years or so.

what i love is that nowadays most games dont have demos, even those that do, if they suck then the company makes sure you understand how the game will be "nothing like the demo" (lionheart comes to mind), the only information you have to choose the games are extremebly positively biased previews, even more biased reviews and even mooooore biased videos/pictures.
Then when you finally decide to buy a game there is a 99.9999% chance it will suck ass.

whats the only certain way to check for a game before buying it ? testing it
and how is the only way to test a release version before buying ? either playing it at a friend's (i dont know about you but this one is a lot more difficult to use than 10 years ago) or downloading it

and after downloading it and playing it and realizing how its a pos youll never buy it, of course they would be pissed

 

[bylam]

Topic is misleading. Funcom are not sticking to MMO's, they are sticking to online validation ala MS/Valve/Bioware e.t.c.
Good move IMO.

 

[MacBone]

No it isn't. As long as you're making the copy for your own personal use, it's called Fair Use. Why else would libraries have tons of photocopiers around for patrons to use?

By law, I can make a copy of a portion of a book for fair use, but in no way am I allowed to copy the entire book unless it's unavailable, either due to prohibitive cost or to rarity. Here's more information about fair use and photocopying.

Copying a complete work from the library collection is prohibited unless the work is not available at a "fair price." This is generally the case when the work is out of print and used copies are not available at a reasonable price. If a work, located within the library's collection, is available at a reasonable price, the library may reproduce one article or other contribution to a copyrighted collection or periodical issue, or a small part of any other copyrighted work, for example, a chapter from a book. This right to copy does not apply if the library is aware that the copying of a work (available at a fair price) is systematic.

 

[Jed]

Well I'll be damned. Think they police it, though? At any rate, if I could check a game out, I wouldn't need to pirate it to see if it's worth a shit.

 

[dojoteef]

I mentioned this on another forum, but I think it is useful in this conversation as well.

Funcom mentioned that there are 3-10 pirated copies of a game for every legitimate copy purchased. Maybe the market is just saying that the price of goods is too high.

Imagine if instead of selling the games for $50 a pop, you sold them for 1/3rd the cost, ~ $17. How many more people would you attract to the table? If the figure really is as high as 10, how many people would go through the trouble of pirating the game if they could just buy it at $5 without any additional hassle?

Now add just a dollar of mark-up on it. Make it sell for $6 and suddenly you are making an order of magnitude more money than selling at the $50 price point. Could that be what the market is trying to tell developers and publishers?

Of course their figures for the number of pirated copies could be pulled from a straw hat for all I know.

 

[Nightjed]

I mentioned this on another forum, but I think it is useful in this conversation as well.

Funcom mentioned that there are 3-10 pirated copies of a game for every legitimate copy purchased. Maybe the market is just saying that the price of goods is too high.

Imagine if instead of selling the games for $50 a pop, you sold them for 1/3rd the cost, ~ $17. How many more people would you attract to the table? If the figure really is as high as 10, how many people would go through the trouble of pirating the game if they could just buy it at $5 without any additional hassle?

Now add just a dollar of mark-up on it. Make it sell for $6 and suddenly you are making an order of magnitude more money than selling at the $50 price point. Could that be what the market is trying to tell developers and publishers?

Of course their figures for the number of pirated copies could be pulled from a straw hat for all I know.

well, just look at the google vs viacom thingy
ppl keep putting up episodes and movie clips, maybe they are telling that the world is ripe for direct net tv, hell, when i have a free hour at college i just fire up youtube and find something to watch.
they should just encode the ads into the video and post it, but omg, those series are such works of art that they have to be sold as if they were worth their weight in platinum, there is no way they can allow some strangers that actually like the damn thing to post clips that are actually doing free marketing for it, oh no, they have to pay

and lets not mention that youtube video quality is complete crap and nobody in hell would collect clips on that quality so that if you really liked something you would buy the dvd anyway

edit: btw, does fair use apply to software nowadays ? i thought things like steam made you sign another kind of license so that you dont actually "own" then game, you are licensing it and you have a limited installation attempts before paying again

 

[aries202]

I don't think you can say that 200,000 illegal downloads of the game is equal or similar to a possible profit or revenu lost from said 200,000 games.

It's not as if the 200,000 people who have illegaly downloaded the game, Dreamfall, would have bought it anyway. (this is not a support of nor is it an encouragement for piracy).

My take on this is that what's really was planned all along Sad, this is . As I understand it, Dreamfall (DF) has a sort of cliff hanger ending?

This means that, imo, Dreamfall was planned as a vehicle for hauling people into the Dreamfall universe, so they would get into the universe and be willing to pay online for Dreamfall: Chapters.

In a rather lengthy post at the site mentioned above, I have said something about this. I shall spare you for the boring details, but I will say that maybe Funcom and its ducth investor group Stelthold, should ask themselves why I did see
Dreamfall in the bargain bin selling for only Euro 9,95 (approx. 14,95 dollars) last time I visited my
local game's shop.

Maybe just maybe it could be that Funcom did make a not so great game ? (or a game that didn't appeal to to the adventure game's main audience, older women over 45+ or so)

That said, I wish Funcom the very best. They'll probably need it.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Oh noes, the pretty princess has been cornered. You can't have it both ways, you either have to define theft as:

1) Taking something from a person without just and accepted compensation.

In which case digital piracy isn't theft. You've taken nothing from anyone, you've merely copied it. Downloading a CD is clearly not theft, while taking a CD from a store clearly is.

Actually, that would be theft. You have taken something from someone (their intellectual property) without compensation. If it wasn't theft, then I'd be able to take anyone's movie script and turn it into a movie without their permission because clearly, I didn't actually take anything from them. Likewise, I could take a book and turn that into a movie without the author's permission because I haven't actually taken "something" from them. I could even write my own "Harry Potter" books and sell them. Doing any of those things "wouldn't harm anyone".

The problem here is, like most of the Socialist Eurotrash that frequents this forum, you don't accept that intellectual property is a "something". Cue argument about evil drug companies, Microsoft etc...

2) Gaining value for something without the creator being compensated

Now digital piracy is theft. But so is borrowing a movie, renting a video game, buying a used copy of a game, etc... All rob the people responsible for the creation of any compensation for your enjoyment.

Here, I'd alter your definition to: Gaining value for something without the agreement of the legal owner.

If a Library has a legal agreement that it can rent copies of the product out to many people, then that's not theft. It has an agreement with the legal owner that it's allowed to do so. If I purchase a product from a company, therefore becoming the legal owner, then I'm allowed to sell that or lend it to friends etc...

The problems that raises (if I'm the legal owner, why can't I legally create copies?) has already been covered by the software industry ever since it was conceived. You don't own the software. You have a license to use a copy of it. That's why everything you've ever installed asks you "Do you accept the End User License Agreement (EULA)?" and if you don't, it doesn't let you install it. Quite simply, irrespective of anyone's legal arguments to the contrary, you don't own shit when it comes to software. You therefore have no legal right to do anything with it other than what the license allows you to.

If that concept upsets you, think of it as nothing different to a Driver's Licence. Just because you bought a car, doesn't mean you're allowed to drive it. Likewise, just because you have a Driver's Licence, doesn't mean someone's going to give you a car to drive.

Before you accuse me of using a false dilemma, I invite you to write a definition for theft that clearly demarcates these and isn't obvious rubish.

Roqua was responsible for the best attempt so far. He was just pissed that someone else might get to play a game for free that he paid for, and thought it was unfair. Very honest, and entertaining but piss poor ground for law.

Actually it's a fairly reasonable basis for law. Law is derived from "that which is laid down". IE: A set of rules. Rules are set by the society they come from according to the wishes of that society and what's deemed acceptable at the time. It's why divorce used to be a bad thing and why we used to be allowed to own slaves yet aren't anymore and so on. All that's happened with regards to software is a bunch of Socialists have arisen. Socialists who have trouble comprehending the concept of businesses averaging the cost of development for a product out over the lifetime of that product.

Despite the delusions that many of you here hold, software isn't produced without cost and that cost needs to be recouped. Preferably with enough profit to repay the funds that were used to develop the product in the first place, with enough left over to fund further products.

Also, under Capitalism, people pay for products according to what those products are worth to the market or are valued at by the seller. They don't necessarily pay what it actually cost to produce that product. As an example, do you really think Coca-Cola costs $2 a bottle to produce? Chances are it costs little more than a few cents. Before you go off on your "companies are teh evil" tangent, which I know you're biting at the bit to do, it also leads to situations like Bugatti selling the Veyron for one fifth of what it actually costs to make.

Like most markets though, some people simply aren't willing to pay the price that's asked and expect someone (the Government, evil corporations, Flying Spaghetti Monster) to help them out of their terrible, oppressed hardship by giving it to them for free.

With all of that said, I still think Funcom are full of shit for blaming piracy, and most of you here are full of shit for not accepting that piracy is theft.

 

[obediah]

Oh noes, the pretty princess has been cornered. You can't have it both ways, you either have to define theft as:

1) Taking something from a person without just and accepted compensation.

In which case digital piracy isn't theft. You've taken nothing from anyone, you've merely copied it. Downloading a CD is clearly not theft, while taking a CD from a store clearly is.

Actually, that would be theft. You have taken something from someone (their intellectual property) without compensation. If it wasn't theft, then I'd be able to take anyone's movie script and turn it into a movie without their permission because clearly,

By your illogic, punching someone in the face is theft, because otherwise I'd be able to punch anyone in the face. Piracy is illegal, but it's not theft.

2) Gaining value for something without the creator being compensated

Now digital piracy is theft. But so is borrowing a movie, renting a video game, buying a used copy of a game, etc... All rob the people responsible for the creation of any compensation for your enjoyment.

Here, I'd alter your definition to: Gaining value for something without the agreement of the legal owner.

You haven't changed anything. The publisher is the "legal owner" since customer are only buying a license to use. So buying used games or buying them is stealing unless the publisher gives you permission.

I didn't even read the rest of your ignorant tripe.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Actually, that would be theft. You have taken something from someone (their intellectual property) without compensation. If it wasn't theft, then I'd be able to take anyone's movie script and turn it into a movie without their permission because clearly,

By your illogic, punching someone in the face is theft, because otherwise I'd be able to punch anyone in the face. Piracy is illegal, but it's not theft.

I like how you cut the quote short. Look what happens when we add what you cut off, back onto the sentence: I didn't actually take anything from them. We're talking about theft here. Not physical abuse. Notice how all the examples I talked about involved taking someone elses intellectual property? You clearly need a ride on the clue train so as a helpful reminder, taking property of any type is theft.

Here's a lovely quote from Wikipedia for you about the Victorian (Australia) Crimes Act:

• Appropriation - defined at s.73(4) of the Crimes Act 1958 as the assumption of any of the owners rights. It does not have be all the owner's rights, as long as at least one right has been assumed (Stein v Henshall). If the owner gave their consent to the appropriation there cannot be an appropriation (Baruday v R). However, if this consent is obtained by deception, this consent is vitiated.

Only a mentally deficient moron would misinterpret that. After all, in what way does that have anything to do with punching anyone in the face? For starters, it's not what we're talking about and secondly, we have a separate law for that.

Here, I'd alter your definition to: Gaining value for something without the agreement of the legal owner.

You haven't changed anything. The publisher is the "legal owner" since customer are only buying a license to use. So buying used games or buying them is stealing unless the publisher gives you permission.

Which they do through the EULA. If you'd bothered reading, you'd have known that too.

I didn't even read the rest of your ignorant tripe.

If you didn't read it, how could you presume it's ignorant? Either you're the one being ignorant or you're just a liar. So, which is it? Either way, it's a pity. You clearly would've learned something if you had.

 

[kingcomrade]

I can't speak for everyone else, but I'll stop pirating games when the PC game industry stops trying to dump shit in my lap for $50.

QFT. I don't pirate much but I agree with the sentiment.

 

[Goliath]

Actually, that would be theft. You have taken something from someone (their intellectual property) without compensation. If it wasn't theft, then I'd be able to take anyone's movie script and turn it into a movie without their permission because clearly, I didn't actually take anything from them. Likewise, I could take a book and turn that into a movie without the author's permission because I haven't actually taken "something" from them. I could even write my own "Harry Potter" books and sell them. Doing any of those things "wouldn't harm anyone".

This discussion feels almost Orwellian, with the supporters of the "IP" nonsense trying again and again to redefine the meaning of the word "theft". Theft means taking something away from someone. No laughable brainwashing attempt will ever convince me - or any other sane person - otherwise.
The only "damage" "piracy" may cause is limiting the ability of the producer to profit from his creation. That is something entirely different from theft. Competition does the same thing (reducing your profits), so if you might as well try to outlaw competition.
Of course, if you look at who are the most aggressive lobbyists for all the newfangled "IP" crap: Microsoft, Viacom, etc. you will see that they are either monopolist or oligopolist/cartel corporations so outlawing competition might not be to far off.

 

[DarkSign]

IP is not nonsense - despite your ravings of being sane. If you have ever, personally, struggled to come up with an original story, drawing, or other purely creative thing, you'd know that ideas themselves can be both unique and full of hard-earned work.

The idea that copying something means you're not taking it from someone is complete rubbish. The fact that I own something and put my hard work into creating something of value means that I should get to decide if a copy of my work is distributed or even made. If I dont want you doing it, you're on crack if you think I should be forced to give you the value of my hard work for free. So copying is just as bad as taking an original.

If you erode property rights all of society will devolve into chaos.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

This discussion feels almost Orwellian, with the supporters of the "IP" nonsense trying again and again to redefine the meaning of the word "theft". Theft means taking something away from someone. No laughable brainwashing attempt will ever convince me - or any other sane person - otherwise.

Let's make this real simple for the mentally deficient Eurotrash:

1. You have a copy of a computer game / software / book.
   
2. Did you acquire it legally?
   
3. If you didn't, it was stolen (stealing is defined as "taking without permission or right").
   
4. Stealing is also known as theft ("to commit or practice theft").

You have no permission or right to have software in your possession that is under an EULA which you haven't agreed to (or which you or someone else has violated to make the copy you have). If it's freeware or open source, those are of course different things. In that case, you have the permission to make copies under certain circumstances. But if the license doesn't give you permission to make copies, any copies you make are done without that permission or right.

The only "damage" "piracy" may cause is limiting the ability of the producer to profit from his creation. That is something entirely different from theft.

Have you taken something from someone? Yes. You've taken a copy of a computer game. Theft is "the act of taking something from someone unlawfully". It's that simple folks. You can try and weasel out of it or argue that it doesn't hurt anyone as much as you like. It's still theft.

What I'm amused by is this argument that you'll quite happily call yourselves "pirates" and admit to "piracy" but that somehow, piracy is not theft. Go look up the origin of "pirate" and you'll find two things. Firstly, you''ll see that you've got even less in common with the original pirates than you do with thieves (pirate means "one who attacks"). Secondly, you'll realise that what you do have in common is that pirates were all about stealing, robbing and looting. You and I both know that the only reason software thieves accept being called "pirates" is because pirate sounds cool, whereas "thief" doesn't.

Competition does the same thing (reducing your profits), so if you might as well try to outlaw competition.

What constitutes "theft" is irrelevant to how much the item is worth, how much it cost to produce or whether or not anyone was harmed. All that matters is that it was acquired without permission. Competitors legally produce their goods and give consumers a choice as to which product they want. Thieves don't. Thieves don't do anything for society except help themselves. That's why theft is bad and competition is good. Come on, you're the Socialist, surely you see that?

Of course, if you look at who are the most aggressive lobbyists for all the newfangled "IP" crap: Microsoft, Viacom, etc. you will see that they are either monopolist or oligopolist/cartel corporations so outlawing competition might not be to far off.

"Corporations are evil" argument? Check.

 

[Fez]

What do they charge you with in the courts for it? That should settle the argument.