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Yes, and it should be punished under theft.

Yes, and it should be punished under copyright law.

Yes, but it shouldn't be punished.

Certain cases are crimes.

I feel ambivalent towards piracy being a crime.

No, but it should be punished.

No, it is a natural part of a consumer's routine.

No, not at all.

Other

Don't Care / View Poll

[Grakelin]

@Aqizzar: Some ISPs send off a warning e-mail the first time they notice you uploading something, but they never do anything.

[smigenboger]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if video games have an added tax just because they're 'addictive and bad for your health'. I'm already upset that tanning salons have been targeted with an additional 10% tax in Ohio, with no reason other than 'because it's bad for you'. That and kids under 18 will have to go to a clinically-driven tanning bed to have the same services available today.

For some relation, people 13 and over are allowed to have botox and enhancement surgery at any place, with no additional taxes.

You can have botox, but you cannot tan. Once more for good measure, the gov't would rather have kids have botox treatments than tan.

[Grakelin]

Entertainment media should be taxed, if only lightly, during times of recession because they tend to spike whenever the economy faces adversity. In Ontario we pay an 'Amusement' tax of about 7% whenever we go to the movie theatre.

[Virex]

Entertainment media should be taxed, if only lightly, during times of recession because they tend to spike whenever the economy faces adversity. In Ontario we pay an 'Amusement' tax of about 7% whenever we go to the movie theatre.

Doesn't that already work because entertainemnt falls in the higher VAT catagory? Just increasing that catagory would have the same effect without the hassle of raising extra taxes.

Also, Sean, I never knew there was a way to ban people over the age of 21 from getting a paypall account. Unless you want to claim you don't have a credit card, in which case I'm wondering how you're being payed?

[Leafsnail]

I quite like it when online games give you the option to fill out surveys and stuff to get you premium content.  Doing it in a way that avoids transactions really helps (often it's the inconvenience of buying rather than the actual price that puts people off) but of course I'm too young to do surveys too .

[quinnr]

Games with surveys make me happy.
So happy.

[MrWiggles]

Is there any citation to those studies about the loss sale due to piracy? Any time I've tried looking for that stuff, I just find that its quite hard to tell how much the of a sale loss it is, and always have been.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Also, Sean, I never knew there was a way to ban people over the age of 21 from getting a paypall account. Unless you want to claim you don't have a credit card, in which case I'm wondering how you're being payed?

I'm russian. In addition to that, I'm working in a family business (might not be the right term, but I call it like I see it). There's no reason for me to have a credit card.

edit: apart from getting the ability to make online transactions, of course, but other than getting a donation through to Toady, I don't see a use for that ability. I could order a DSi from a russian online store and pay for it with cash, through one of those omni-payment consoles for cellular and internet services. I would, since my old GBA-SP is all but breaking apart, but we're quite short on money as-is, anyway. So, there.

[Armok]

Information wants to be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Come, komrades, and fight for the right to keep the post sacristy economy that the internet naturally is! Viva la revulution!

[Sir Pseudonymous]

I was making a point against the idea that people pirate games because they´re medicore games that they don´t want to spend money on or because of the intrusive DRM. The polar oposit of such games has a realy high percentage of pirated games, which to me indicates that people will pirate anything. That idea is reforced by what happened to the humble indy bundle. It goes to show that the `noble pirates` who only pirate medicore games and fight the fight against the big companies are a pretty small minority...

What happened to The Humble Indy Bundle? Other than it making 1.2 mil.

Because those offering it didn't think they needed to put protection on the server (who's gonna pirate something worth a penny anyway?), someone found a realy easy backdoor that only needed a single CLI command. As a result 25% of the downloads from the official site were illegal.

You do realize that's likely greatly understating the impact of people with multiple computers/dynamic IPs? The dev who wrote about that said as much himself.

[MrWiggles]

I think arguing that pirates wouldn't have bought their software anyway is somewhat fallacious. Is it okay to sneak into a movie theater because you wouldn't have paid for the film anyway, and the screen isn't worn by you watching it? How about breaking into someone's house if you don't steal or damage anything? Besides, if they aren't going to buy the object in question, why are they pirating it in the first place? They must WANT it, right?

The point is brought up due to the fact that the primary argument made in favor of DRM is that every pirate is a lost sale; ergo piracy is actually costing the developers money.

This has recently been proven to be absolute bullshit, which is why people tend to get uppity when someone starts screaming "BUT PIRACY IS COSTING THE INDUSTRY REAL DOLLARS", because, as it turns out, piracy isn't costing the industry anything at all.
Ironically, some more recent numbers released by various publishers and developers heavily suggest that restrictive DRM, unlike piracy, does in fact cost sales.


Does the fact that piracy is a null-transaction change the fact that it is copyright infringement and thus a crime? Nope. Technically it's stil a crime. And technically so is jaywalking.

So if your paycheck is suppose to be 500 dollars, but instead its 490 you wouldn't be upset? Its been ten dollar shorts for years that all those ten dollars are adding up to something noticeable?

The money is not being taking from them true, but not giving them the money is the same as taking it.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That definition, as in the OP, is one sided self serving drivel. Theft is taking items without the owner consent. Depriving access to the items only really counts toward the severity of the theft.

Utility Theft, Cable Theft, Internet Usage theft are all theft even though they dont deprive others from the item, it still taking the item without warrant.

[Virex]

I was making a point against the idea that people pirate games because they´re medicore games that they don´t want to spend money on or because of the intrusive DRM. The polar oposit of such games has a realy high percentage of pirated games, which to me indicates that people will pirate anything. That idea is reforced by what happened to the humble indy bundle. It goes to show that the `noble pirates` who only pirate medicore games and fight the fight against the big companies are a pretty small minority...

What happened to The Humble Indy Bundle? Other than it making 1.2 mil.

Because those offering it didn't think they needed to put protection on the server (who's gonna pirate something worth a penny anyway?), someone found a realy easy backdoor that only needed a single CLI command. As a result 25% of the downloads from the official site were illegal.

You do realize that's likely greatly understating the impact of people with multiple computers/dynamic IPs? The dev who wrote about that said as much himself.

I'm just providing the figures and stories. I'll admit it was an oversight on my part to not note that down though. Thanks for the heads-up.

[fenrif]

The money is not being taking from them true, but not giving them the money is the same as taking it.

If you follow that logic then porsche and ferrari should be suing me any minute for not buying all their expensive sports cars.

[MrWiggles]

The money is not being taking from them true, but not giving them the money is the same as taking it.

If you follow that logic then porsche and ferrari should be suing me any minute for not buying all their expensive sports cars.

That depends; do you have a porsche or ferrari without the issuer consent?

[quinnr]

What about downloading Portal, because it is currently free...but you have to install stupid Steam. I don't want steam