Quote:
Originally Posted by Flashpoint
So let me get this straight.
I make a video game. I put it in a store. A guy buys it and bit torrents it. I make no money because everyone on bit torrent gets it for free, and doesn't buy it.
So downloading is a victimless crime because the store still has their copy, and could potentially sell it?
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You're assuming that everyone who illegally downloaded your game would otherwise have purchased it if it wasn't available on a torrent. That's a very flawed assumption.
I purchase
all my software now that I'm working and can afford to pay for it, but during my university years when I was a starving student, I pirated games and other software all the time. The thing is, though, I wouldn't have been a legal paying customer for that software even if internet piracy didn't exist -- I simply couldn't afford it. Whether I pirated it or not, no software publisher would have seen a dime from me. Yes, it was still copyright infringement and yes it was still illegal, but unlike the scenario where someone walks into a brick & mortor store and steals a boxed copy off the shelf, nobody is being deprived of a sale when someone who wouldn't purchase the software anyway decides to pirate it.