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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PetriWessman" data-source="post: 2723861" data-attributes="member: 20228">We can debate about the ethics of the issue forever (and why not, it's an interesting issue). LIkewise for the legal viewpoints. But none of that matters to the question posed by this thread. It doesn't matter whether or not it's ethically ok. It doesn't matter whether or not it's legal. It doesn't matter how many copies of game X are available on L33tPirateNetX. It doesn't matter how many illegally copied PDFs Joe Random Loser has on his hard drive.All that matters is: what's the sum effect on sales?We have three types of illegal copies:1) Ones that aren't lost sales. These are the copies by guys who will copy anything "just to have a copy", who don't have cash, who think it's "kewl" to copy tons of stuff, who don't buy anything out of principle... whatever. The copies by people who would never have bought the actual product in any case. These are ethically annoying, especially if it's your game these goobs have copies of, but they don't matter to this issue.2) Ones that cause a sale. These are the cases where someone grabs a copy to preview the game, likes it, and goes out to buy a copy. These cases exist in fair numbers, I know of quite a few myself among the people I know. Call this number A.3) Ones that are lost sales. People who would have bought the game if they hadn't been able to get a copy for free. These cases also exist, naturally, and I know of some cases (though funnily enough in my case I know more type 2s). Call this number B.Now, how big is A and how big is B? That's the million-dollar question. Both are much bigger than zero, and I *suspect* B is bigger, butr have no idea how much. My educated guess is that the difference isn't significant, making this a zero-sum game, but that's just a guess based on looking at the people I know who are into rpgs. Your guess may very well be quite different.Things would be *so* much simpler if we knew ballpark figures for A and B.Things are further complicated by the fact that PDFs act as advertisement for games. Someone may well grab an illegal copy of Book A for a game (lost sale) but later buy Book B on impulse from a store because he actually liked Book A quite a lot. Again, I'm not trying to advocate piracy here. Just saying it's nowhere near a simple issue, when you get down to the practical isses and effects.</blockquote>

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