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[Imban]

Originally Posted by Simon Atavax

Oh dear God, I just realized something!

The emotional intensity, the broken English, the irrational pleadings . . .

YOU are the 16-year-old kid from the Philippines!

(cue Alfred Hitchcock music here)

You know, obviously this was just a snarky response, but I find it sort of telling that you're basically accusing someone of being a Filipino because he's dumb.

I mean, I used to chat with said kid from the Philippines who's being sued by WotC now on basically a daily basis and he fits... pretty much none of what you just listed.

Originally Posted by Baron Opal

(snip... man, everything)

Alright, here's a clear example. Say I, being a dishonourable scoundrel, the lowest of villains, and the surest of blackguards, want to provide a comrade of mine with a new video game to try out because I think that he may like it. The game has a demo, but I am a blackguard and wrongdoing is my forte.

Now, in order to provide him with a copy, I could ambush a shipping truck, callously murder the deliverymen, and retrieve a copy to bring to my comrade. Alternatively, I could send him a copy of my disc using the internet messenger of my choice. Alternatively, I could sneak through the darkest night to his home and deliver my disc to him in person, that he may play it for a few hours while I nap to regain my strength for more villainy.

Regardless of these, I discover that my comrade is brainless and without soul, and detests the game! In fact, he only played the introductory dungeon from the demo before quitting and uninstalling it. While contemplating whether or not to execute him for his folly, I might also reflect upon the alternative methods I could have used to allow him to come to that conclusion.

Now, for chaos and evil, clearly nothing can top murdering a deliveryman and stealing the product! I've not only killed someone - unimportant, really, he was just a retail peon - I've removed a physical product from circulation that a store could easily have sold to someone willing to purchase it. Clearly if I was to act as a mere courier-boy and deliver the disc to him, this would be neither unlawful nor malicious, at least in most cases. So what of the case where I delivered it to him over the internet?!

At this thought I might stroke my goatee and consider. It is surely unlawful, as all save the inept and deceitful know, but is it truly villainous? Surely it is less harmful than shivving an unsuspecting delivery-boy and taking another copy of the disc from his cooling hands - I mean, I'd be setting GameStop back some time to hire and train a new employee, too! - but is it more harmful than conveying the disc in person?

After pondering for a while, I would contest not. While it is true that I was not deprived of my own access to the game while my comrade tested it, in the end there would have been very little practical difference from instructing him to download the demo, except for how this process of piracy was somewhat more appealing to him.

...as an aside, it is now that I should mention that my comrade of whom I have been speaking so long is actually a Slaad. In fact, being a Slaad, he probably wouldn't have paid for it anyway, because funding organized systems like corporations doesn't really... work for him. Alignment issues, you understand? I can't tell you for certain, of course, because Slaadi are notorious individualists and the truly chaotic thing to do might have been to giant frog his way to GameStop and purchase it on a whim.

So in practice, while the decision to send him a file over the internet would really work a modron into a babbling, steam-emitting rage at how I scoff at the laws of the country and proper protocol, it's not doing the direct harm of thievery.

(...I really need a Snidely Whiplash emoticon for this post.)

On a serious note, the only way that some people rationalize that it does is through a strange conception, that every consumer necessarily represents a potential sale at the asking price. While piracy certainly highlights that this is not the case, basic economics also does - the lower your asking price, the more consumers you will get, almost without exception. For instance, many people have some interest in seeing a movie, but not enough interest to watch it in theatres, so they wait for the movie to be aired on television, where it is in and of itself free, as it is included as part of a cost that they are already paying regardless.

For them, the asking price of the movie - say, $10 - is higher than the price that they value the movie at - say, $2 - so there simply is no sale to be lost unless the asking price dips to $2 or less.