1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The post in question has been brought to our attention. Don’t be so hasty to criticise.

Fair enough. Less haste is helpful.

-B

2 minutes ago, Farlis said:

Piracy is a reality

So is murder.  Your point?

3 minutes ago, Farlis said:

It was just the thing people did.

No, No and No...  It was just the thing that YOU did.  

6 minutes ago, btacon said:

So is murder.  Your point?

Hyperbole much?

My point is that I don't see a reason to not admit that I used to do it when I try to make a point about how I personally disagree with a decision to make buying a product for everybody more of a hassle on the false assumption that containing piracy will increase sales. I used to pirate so I thought I could give some insight into the thought process that goes into the decision to do it.

6 minutes ago, psolk said:

No, No and No...  It was just the thing that YOU did.  

If you want to believe that, sure. 😉

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by Farlis

11 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I will certainly not prostrate myself just so that some people can feel better for themselves. 

Wow. You really don't get it, do you...

15 minutes ago, Farlis said:

Well, I was making a point. I don't feel any regret on those days.

You admitted theft and from your recent posts I’m not convinced you wouldn’t do it again. You’re under the false impression stealing software isn’t theft. I can assure you it is.

Your position here at AvSim is still under consideration.

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You admitted theft and from your recent posts I’m not convinced you wouldn’t do it again. You’re under the false impression stealing software isn’t theft. I can assure you it is.

Your position here at AvSim is still under consideration.

Piracy is not theft. It is a copyright violation. The liking to theft was a marketing move of the software and film industry in the early 2000's to make it more palpable for the general public and the legislators so that more would be done to contain it and that the general public developed a sense of why it was wrong.

But legally it belongs into the same kind of copyright laws and infringements as using copyrighted music without paying the owner of the rights in a video on YouTube for example.

It's not theft, it is just not paying what is due.

I'm just not convinced that piracy is as damaging as the industry likes us all to believe.

Maybe that is personal bias because I was used to doing it from childhood onwards and during a time when it really did not as much damage as when the internet came along.

In the 90's when I was in Middleschool, no one bought games. You copied them from friends. The LucasArts Graphic Adventures, we had them all, and I don't remember anyone ever actually having bought any of them. That came later when they were re-released. That's when I bought them all. Kind of obsesively actually, I even bought them all over again as storage media went out of fashion and you had no way to play your old versions any longer.

Perhaps I'm too much looking it at from those days and can't see the damages it does in an age where you can transfer gigabytes within minutes.

 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Farlis said:

Piracy is not theft.

You’re in a hole. Stop digging.

2 minutes ago, Farlis said:

I'm just not convinced that piracy is as damaging as the industry likes us all to believe.

Its damaging if you invest money and time in development and the product is pirated. It could easily put a developer out of business.

The MP ROCKS!

dd

24 minutes ago, Farlis said:

It's not theft, it is just not paying what is due.

I'm just not convinced that piracy is as damaging as the industry likes us all to believe.

Well fortunately not everyone shares you lack of morals and values and some of us understand how the damage of revenue losses based on software theft can impact a business.   I'm not a developer but a large part of my income is software sales.  So yes, people feeling like stealing software is anything but theft or trying to justify away by "everyone did it" or the old no one gets hurt is a bunch of garbage I take very personally.   I had a large customer once who would buy support for one device and then load the code on thousands.  Wasn't theft to them either until they had a third party audit and had to pay millions in theft and damages.  

You know, just not paying what is due...   What a bunch of word garbage.  

I continue to sit here mind boggled at what you are posting.  

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by psolk

2 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

With this argument you would loose in court badly!

I don't think so, because I buy the stuff I want. Still, I'd think the court is on my side here when it comes to piracy.

  

27 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You’re in a hole. Stop digging.

I think it is not a good idea to bring "emotional point of views" into a discussion.

Piracy is illegal, it gets sanctioned. But is no theft by law, it is copyright infringement and clearly defined (if we just go by what the law tells us). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_is_theft (Read this article, maybe that it is where you are coming from. There was a campaign in the UK at some day, but the claim was obviously wrong).

But since I do see no goal to continue an emotional discussion (bummer that it can't be civil), I will stay out from this topic from now on.

You can say "I don't like piracy", "I think it's bad" and expect that people who do unlawful things get punished for it (that's why we have the law), but claiming wrong things will not help to discuss topics like that. And I think it should be allowed to talk over these things like adult people, without comparing piracy to murder or other hyperboles.

Edited October 6, 2025Oct 6 by roesti

18 minutes ago, Farlis said:

It's not theft, it is just not paying what is due.

That's certainly a thing to say.

I'm not even going to bother with analogies, but there are a few. 

Ultimately what you aren't considering is who this is affecting. You keep saying 'them', 'industry', etc. It's easy to detach yourself from what you're actually doing if you don't think of who this is affecting.

Imagine spending years of your life building something – 8 hours a day, thousands upon thousands of hours programming, working on art, bug fixes, sound recordings. You put it up for sale so that people can enjoy but also so you can be financially rewarded for all that hard work. So you can keep doing it as a job. 

And then someone cracks it, thousands of people download it for free. And then say ridiculous things right to your face – you should be okay with it! You should have known that people will pirate it! 

I'll say it again – pirated copies are lost revenue. If just a small fraction of those downloads could have purchased the product, that's money out of the devs pocket.

3 hours ago, Farlis said:

...I'm old enough to have lived through the C64 and Amiga 500 period as a child and of course we only pirated games back then and never bought any.

The first game I bought from my own money was "The secret of Monkey Island". My friends thought I was nuts that I was spending 100 bucks on a game. "You BUY games?!"

But piracy continued through my student years. You pirate what you can't afford but want to play nonetheless ...

Mind-boggling to read...especially the last sentence above...haven't seen anything like this here in 20 years ...

Some devs would pay to have their stuff hijacked with attribution.

dd