The battle is joined!
LIEK HELL!!!!! 
Please leave us keep our heads, shall we? There is no reason that we can not discuss this reasonably.
The truth.
Go find a goddamned definition of stealing, like here http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/steal or in another, more reputable dictionary since people tend to not to trust in wiki sources.
This, Krice, is exactly the type of confusion I sought to avert.
What confusion? That piracy IS or ISN'T stealing? Piracy doesn't deprive anyone of anything, except companies of a part of their
predicted income. Income which was only predicted and never came to fruition, and as such, can't be stolen, since it doesn't exist.
Stealing deprives the victim of the stolen good. Which piracy DOESN'T. Also, loss of benefits != damage. The complete loss of the ability to make benefits, or at least more than 50% of it, can be considered a damage. Not earning $ 18000 out of several foreseeable millions of income, because of unauthorized copying, isn't damage. It's having a too optimistic prediction.
If those benefits were owed the company, it is still a wrong, whether you call it damage or not.
It's illegal. Killing people is both immoral and illegal, but in some modern states the death penalty exists, which I find barbaric. Morality and legality are not one and the same.
You just said it yourself, "You would have got money". Would. Not had. A fortiori, nobody can rob you of what you don't have yet, because that's a logical impossibility.
Which is exactly why it isn't stealing by your definition, but it isn't the less an injustice.
By terms of distributive justice, it's actually better than fair. It's even pareto efficient: nobody gets worse, and at least somebody gets better.
Charging 70€ for a PS3 game (for instance), now that's stealing, I don't care who many people are working behind, every media bussiness is making an obscene profit out of videos, videogames, music, or whatever.
Perhaps it is you that should look up the definition of theft! Charging for one's goods could never be considered stealing, as those goods did not belong to the public in the first place. If you do not think that their products are worth the price, do not buy them. Your unwillingness to pay does not justify breaking the agreements you make.
Yes, it's not theft, I was speaking metaphorically, but the agreement is made upon purchasing the digital media, also, the whole "you're not buying this disk you're buying a license to use it" is a legalese contraption that limits your ownership of a physical item.
Also, think about this: Do you think the PSX or the NDS would have ever accomplished their outstanding success without being easily hacked systems? There are people who buy a console only because they are going to mod chip or flash it or whatever. Which, in that case, is a net gain for the company. Do you think that the vulnerability factors in the first GTA for PSP, or in a certain Zelda title for WII, don't boost their sales figures?
This is all irrelevant. We are not discussing "easily hacked" systems, and any benefits that would be yielded the company from piracy (and you're just guessing that there are such), does not make piracy less a wrong.
I don't concur. I know many people who wouldn't have bought a lot of gaming systems so happily if it weren't for their vulnerabilities. And probably, so do you (knowing people like that).
Organized piracy is a thing: you're taking something that's not yours and making a profit of it, plus it falls into organized crime. Private piracy is a different thing altogether.
You must clarify this statement, for the very definition of piracy is unauthorized copying and distribution.
With intent of black market monetary profit. That's the difference.
Do you really want us to feel bad for Microsoft for pirating a windoze copy, which costs in the order of 100€ in a store? Do you want us to feel bad for pirating Adobe Photoshop, which costs the FREAKING amount of 1.001.82€??! Do you want us to feel bad for downloading a music CD from fifteen years ago which we aren't going to buy anyway? Do you want us to feel bad for watching on the internet series that are already being aired on TV, or even worse, that aren't being aired anymore? Do you want me to feel bad for refusing to pay 7€ for going to a theater to see the latest canned franchise movie?
Yes, we do. Here is a counter question: do you really want us to feel sorry for you because you don't want to buy those products?
No, I don't.
Krice, I would be *very* surprised if you hadn't, ever, copied anything without paying. Copying, fuck, COPYING!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 I can unauthorizedly copy your latest CAD program, I can't copy your diesel CAR. So please go and throw away every VHS and audio cassette that's growing dust in your house, or you will corrupt your immortal soul and deprive the company honchos of the whores and coke they crave to lengthen their undeath.
What Krice has or has not done is irrelevant, for, if Krice had committed piracy, it would not be the less a wrong. The rest of this just doesn't seem to make any perceptible sense.
Okay.
Piracy is worng? Piracy is wrong? The FUCK is piracy wrong. As long as the companies keep making obscene money from selling plastic disks which cost them probably CENTS, I'm all for piracy.
Your justification for piracy is that you think the companies make too much money? Very well, how much is too much in your opinion? You would deprive them of what is theirs by right just because they make more money than you do?
It's theirs by right because they hold sway to determine what rights they have. The problem isn't that they make more money, the problem is that it's blown out of proportion to the effort and money they put in. It may not be unjust, but it is
unfair. Do you know that with a flat benefit rate of 20% for everyone, for every transaction, people would still be able to actually become rich?
They don't make enough money? Well, tough luck, I DON'T MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO BUY THEIR OVERPRICED PRODUCTS, EITHER. If I had a five-figure income I would take the trouble to go and buy them, instead of only being able to buy second-hand material and cheapo newspaper releases.
Poverty doesn't give one leave to take what he will from the rest of society. Such is gravely arrogant thinking.
I'm not taking what I want from the rest of the society (since I'm not depriving anyone of anything), I'm duplicating for my personal use a digital resource.
Companies don't want to offer their products at reasonable prices?
Tell me, who decides what is a reasonable price? You? Why not let consumers decide? If they do not consider it worth the price, why do they purchase it?
Except they don't decide the price, the price is decided by the seller. Sometimes not even the seller, but the provider: You can't sell a PS3 any price you want if you own a retail store, you know? You have to keep at a fixed price. They purchase it because they want it, and because they can afford it, not because they think it's worth the price.
Well, WHIM OF THE MARKET, if your product doesn't appeal to the audiences enough, swallow it like a man. It's the power and money-hungry companies, along with their political puppets, that have thrown us into the current crisis, so I say SCREW THEM.
If one cannot afford their product, he should swallow it like a man. Also, I'm afraid you shall have to tell us which crisis you mean and evidence that companies have thrown us into it.
If you can't see this for yourself, I'm not going to spell it out. Sorry =(
God damn it all!
edit: Now go and erase my post for breaking forum rules. That I would find reasonable.
Most of what derrogatory things you said was directed at corporations and not a forum member, so I think you're fine. No need to get upset, Psiweapon. We can have a discussion on the matter without getting hot under the collar, so to speak.
It could be construed as encouragement of illegal behavior
But still, my previous post represents what I believe in about this issue, and srsly guise, I couldn't care less about big companies and their benefits. Why? Because they already care about themselves too much, to have *others* take care of their preferences. Of course, for persons who have a vested interest in them (like e.g. being an employee, no need to go to the financial rank) it's perfectly understandable that they worry about the unauthorized copying issue.
Do you see the irony here? You say that they care too much for themselves, but only because they will not freely give you what they have created.
Not because they won't freely give me what they have created, but because they abuse their already bloated power.
And probably, I believe in a kind of justice different from some people here. Well, to be honest probably we all have a different view of what justice is.
Certainly, but your sense of justice seems to be riddled with double standards and inconsistencies.
Opposite positions tend to mirror one another.
I'm *tired* of all the hyper-capitalist shit we're experiencing lately. When a business has reached a certain point in profitability, the only way to boost it is to provide a worse service.
You shall have to provide evidence that a business must be run this way, for I doubt you know much about business, save that you percieve it to be an evil.
The evil of business is proportional to its size. Think the faulty vessel of one of the Fukushima reactors. It was faulty, but very expensive, so it was put in place in order to save costs.
Banks play casino with everyone's money, lose, and then governments are supposed to back them with MOAR MONIES.
What does this have to do with software piracy?
Repression of software piracy stems from the overzealous protection of the entertainment industry, which is a sin of the current capitalist governments.
The big companies, with the help of their political puppets (or collaborators) will eat away every one of our rights and public benefits if left to their own resources. I belive in the public sector, social welfare and a number of other things I've always lived with, which are slowly being eroded by the passion of privatization (does that word even exist?)
Why do you suppose that public officials are more trustworthy than private companies? At least companies give you the option to simply not purchase their products. Taxes are compulsory, and, if you don't like how they spend it, you can do nothing to stop it.
Do I have to suppose the contrary? Taxes are compulsory, but are spent on things I and my fellow citizen can enjoy
freely afterwards. Even if they couldn't afford it, were them market offered. Taxes aren't in place for the one who can pay them, but for the one who needs that which the taxes pay.
I'm very happy to still be able to download free stuffs from the internet. In fact, it rocks my socks, because it's miraculous, and Square and Sony and Nintendo and a host of other entertainment media companies are still alive and kicking, and aren't going to die any day of piracy-caused starvation, no matter how much they try to convince us to the contrary.
Do you honestly think that the fact a company can survive piracy mean that piracy is not unjust? Would you steal from a man because he could afford it?
Yes, I honestly think it. A company is not a man, and this is bringing again the piracy !=/= theft issue.
But we're not only talking videogames, we're talking about music - with mafia-like organizations like the puñetera SGAE here, which charges you for having a TV in your pub, or a radio in your barber shop, when these are things that cost 0 to everybody to begin with (excluding cable and power fees).
I'm not really sure what this means.
It means that you have to pay a tax (the state's privilege) to a private company, for letting your customers hear your radio (a radio you already paid and which is airing a broadcast)
Unauthorized copying is an injustice? It goes against my intuition, but I'm willing to concede it for the argument's sake.
What do you mean "for the argument's sake"? Is it or is it not unjust?
An agreement, however partial, can't be made without the parts making. If you want me to clarify it, even more, to me it feels like a deserved injustice. Companies aren't people, and as such cannot suffer.
Earning a salary that could feed 500.000 of your retired employees, for the rest of their lives, is an injustice?
No. If they have provided a product for which people have chosen to pay, why call it injustice?
Trying to better your social standing and income is fair competition. Making your life worth several thousands of other lives is humiliation. And we all live in this system, even you and me. If company and governmental honchos were each half as rich, everyone in the world could be several times as rich as before. Hell, we could all work three hours a day and live in paradise. It's the obscenity of it all what is hard to get for the average citizen who defends that system. But it's clear for me that it's main beneficiaries not only get it, but bask in it.
Of fucking course yes. At least in my book. And that's why I have no pity with people in such a position, their brands and their products.
Don't blame them. They have not forced anyone to buy anything. Regard their customers with contempt, for it is they that have willingly supplied the companies with the money they have.
With contempt, after they've had their minds bombarded with a thousand and one forged promises of satisfaction, broadcasted in the hundreds of TV and radio stations, and plastered everywhere? What should I regard those directives with, admiration? I refuse.
I mean no malice, Psiweapon, but I really must challenge your views.
No malice perceived, at all. You're doing what you must, and so am I. In that, we agree.
edit: I missed one answer.
