Patience just doesn't seem to be an option when "instant gratification" is offered... so what's right or wrong, legal or illegal (and it is illegal to receive stolen goods) no longer matters because you can justify or rationalize the illegal act?

I have plenty of patience... i can wait my turn in a long row without problem...

What i don't accept is to have various row with various speed... obligate to use the slow row because i have not the US nationality !!! Or being in a row and when i reach the clerk windows, find a paper who say "we don't serve foreign people"...

Anyway, i am done here... seem that the "free world" is not so free after the curtain... seem that the "How many pirates are going to answer "yes, I pirate your software'?" will remain to 1 since the result is a menace of ban... better wrote nothing that lie about it...

Thoumsin....if 'Region Restrictions' can be demonstrated as racial discrimination they would be overturned in an instant.

The reality is that they are not.

BTW .... Megaupload is back up but without a domain name. FWIW

"Racketeering and money laundering'.....sounds like Big Al got out of the Booze and prostitution business....

Where's Elliot Ness when you need him? ....

OT

Here in Illinois all that stuff is just politics as usual.

"Illinois-Where the Governors make the license plates"

I've always been of the belief that if someone is going to steal something then they never planned on paying for it anyway, especially where games and mp3's and such is concerned. Why? Because I doubt most people steal because they like to. Also, when talking about pirated video games, they never have multiplayer functionality. Yet another point more particular with video games, the people/kids stealing them online are mostly doing it because they don't have the Money to pay for the games anyway. If they did they'd go out and buy them so they could have a fully functional game complete with customer support.

Before I had to start pouring all my income into health care issues I bought maybe 9 or 10 games a year at an average of maybe one $50 title a month or every other month. Of course there's also tons of other, much more important, bills that need paying. If something else comes up and money needs to be taken from somewhere else it's the budget set aside for luxuries that gets cut first and video games, when it really comes down to it, are of course a luxury.

90% of pirates aren't out there downloading stuff and then re-packaging it to try to sell it. They're doing it to try to entertain themselves above their actual means to do so. The only "lost sale" in my eyes where piracy is concerned is when in fact someone steals something with the express intent of making a profit from it. Some times in large cities here in the U.S. like New York you might see a small privately owned store selling pirated movies. I know there's a lot of that going on in other countries with movies. In many countries in Asia and the Mid East you can buy copies of pirated American films on street corners and even some of our troops over seas right now have pirated movies on base they watch every day that they themselves bought from street vendors. It's a sad fact in the industry but it happens. Pirated video games being re-packaged and sold, not so much.

People with corporate interests however see Every copy of their product that's out there that wasn't paid for as a "lost sale" because from their perspective a thief is a thief, whether they're stealing with the intent to make a profit like a crook, or whether they're stealing to stem the tide of their own boredom and to try to curb from feeling the realization of their own relative poverty, whatever the reason it doesn't matter to the person who paid to make what was stolen.

The ultimate solution to this will be an anti-piracy system made up of multiple steps with companies working together, but, I think what those trying to come up with solutions don't realize is that the majority of people out there doing the pirating aren't stealing to make a buck, yet they try to fit the penalty for the crime into the category of major thefts of thousands or even millions of dollars, which is why we end up with the parents of 12 year olds being sued for thousands of dollars by Metallica and movie companies suing private citizens who in their minds didn't do anything more wrong than J-Walking because they never made any money off their theft, they just wanted to feel entertained. In a twisted sense you could see it as stealing virtual food to feed a virtual family. That family being your addiction to entertainment and your sense of entitlement to it that those around you seem to have as well.

I think everyone gets to involved in this whole.. stop pipa sofa stuff.  

I know it's risky to support big brother.  But it's really the right thing to do.  What incentive is there to create something when it will just be "pirated" stolen from you.  

More reward = more Intellectual property fostered and created.

I'm guilty of "sharing" copyrighted stuff in the past.  And if they started putting more people in jail for doing it.  I wouldn't do it.  I don't see it as a crime.  I see it as speeding... which is a crime.. but not really lol.

Guys.  The patriot act is already in effect.  If they wanted to all they have to do is claim megaupload and torrent sites threaten national security... and the people behind them would join the ranks of "the Vaporised"    

I know the wording of the bills is ambigious, but hey, maybe we should have that as our battle cry.. not this hacker revolution.. anti government.. anti the man, pinko commi, what's yours is mine crap, to each according to their need.   

I very well may write a screenplay or a book, or a short scifi story one day.    (when i have a midlife crisis and no longer wish to squander my godgiven talents.. till then, it's swtor and wow for me.)

And if God forbid i create something worthwhile and marketable, i don't want people reading a sample, saying.. hmm.. interesting, then hopping on a torrent site and downloading all my work for no money... just b/c some dill whole, took pictures of every page of the work of literature and uploaded it to a site like megaupload.

O btw, on that note.. I've been looking for this "video" from Sinnistar dot com.. It's Sinnistar.comSimone  painful anal.. if anyone can find a video of that i would be ablidged.    I can't find it ANYWHERE.  

i've googled and loogled and looked through 20 + search engine pages and every link i investigate is closed.... 

I think Simone got porn remorse... and decided to somehow block the video and go back to school.

No, it isn't.

People will always find a way to lie, cheat, and steal if they're so inclined. If this is impacting one's ability to get paid for his work, then he's within his rights to do what he feels necessary to prevent it within existing constraints of the law. But that right starts and ends with your product and those who come in contact with it.

The government does not need more power. Nor do content creators need the power to act as judge, jury, and executioner. There are already means to deal with infringements through due processes, and those processes exist for good reason; the ability to act unilaterally inevitably leads to abuses.

I say this as an enterprise software developer: any means of enforcement which impacts the freedoms or rights of anyone other than you, your customers, and those specifically infringing on your rights are not acceptable. Period.

Your rights do not outweigh those of anyone else.

Raven! So good to see you... hope you're doing better, mate.

Belief is one thing, facts another...

"Ourcentral thesis is that consumers: (a) believe that they do less harm if their failure to pay prevents a seller from recovering FC than if they fail to help a seller recoup VC; ( are more likely to risk not paying for a product the less harm they perceive not paying would cause; and therefore (c) feel less obligated and are less likely to pay voluntarily for a product that entails a high FC and low VC (e.g., software) as compared to a high VC and low FC (e.g., jewelry), holding total cost and average cost (AC) constant." - http://www.chicagobooth.edu/pdf/whyarepeoplesoprone.pdf

This blog might shed more light as well: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/pirate-software1.htm

"xperts in disciplines ranging from economics to sociology to psychology have examined the motivations behind software piracy. There's no globally accepted explanation for software piracy. But experts in multiple disciplines have suggested a host of factors that contribute to a person's decision to steal software....Research into the matter suggests that many software pirates steal programs regardless of the software's price tag. The economic factor provides the pirate with a means to justify his or her actions but it isn't a real motivator. Studies suggest that people view digital property differently than physical property. They don't place as great a value on software as they would a physical object like a car. In addition, they think that stealing software isn't the same as taking a physical object because they're making a copy of a program rather than taking a physical object. Because they perceive software to have less value than physical objects, stealing software doesn't raise the same ethical concerns as grand theft auto [source: Crowell, et al].

Well said.

So right on so many levels. Well said, kryo.

Thanks Doc . Not doing too much "better" sadly. Hopefully though that'll change on the 1st of next month when I see my new doctor now that I have some health insurance.

Back on topic though,

True, people do tend to not place as high a value on things digital. Economic factors though I think are a big factor for people who simply don't have the means or income but still pirate things. Maybe I'm just still naive enough to think that if given another option people won't inherently do something they know and feel is wrong, like stealing, whether it's stealing something physical or something immaterial that still holds value.

When I look at it from a kind of "Hippie" perspective I see the main flaw in our society as human greed. Everyone wants to get "paid". People don't do things because they want to or because it makes them happy to do it. They do what they do in many cases because they have to, because they have no other way to provide for themselves and their loved ones because like everyone else they need money to pay for their living and well being, food and shelter, and entertainment and luxuries. I hope one day we get to a Star-Trek type way of thinking where everyone does what they want to do because they enjoy it and not because they're motivated by greed and profit.

I think that the physicist Michio Kaku is a physicist because he enjoys physics, not because he thinks it will make him a millionaire or a rock star. Just like Frogboy makes games because he enjoys playing games. It makes him happy. If everything we needed to survive was provided for everyone's lives would be better and different from what we have now. People would do the jobs they want or like and there would always be someone to do it. Even doing something like being a refuse collector. I'm sure there are tons of environmentalists out there who would collect their neighborhoods garbage and take it to the dump and even do our recycling for us because they love the environment. If everything else, like food and shelter and a nice car and entertainment was provided for them, they happily do their job.

If food were free think of how much waste and stress on the planet we have now would stop. People who grow the food wouldn't grow more than it takes to actually feed the population because the excess would go to waste because there wouldn't be someone there wanting to buy it. How much food and other resources are thrown away in countries around the world every day? I know perfectly good food gets thrown away here in the U.S. every day and I'm sure it happens in every other modern industrial country in the world as well. We grow and use more than what we need because a value is perceived on the excess we produce.

Problems don't arise in this system until someone starts thinking they deserve more than someone else. They think they're job is harder so they should have a nicer house than their neighbor or a better car. Greed fucks the whole thing up when it could run smoothly and have everyone taken care of. If I could snap my fingers and set the world to rights I would get rid of the concepts of money and human greed. Everyone would do what they love and not have to worry about having food or a nice house. Brad would keep making games because he loves games. People in the military would be in it because they love their country. People who build houses would do it because they enjoy the challenge of building houses and innovating new designs. People who pick ferns would do it because they love plants, etc etc.

Of course we'll never see this world until our technology can magically provide for everyone like it does on Star Trek, but honestly, we don't need to wait that long to make a system like that one, without money and greed, actually work. We don't need the technology to solves our greed problem for us, we need to get rid of the greed to begin with.