Digital Piracy

Note: Sorry I'm late, but my time suddenly became extremely limited, So I might reply late and I might reply shortly. So if there are some major holes in my case it's most likely because I'm writing my arguments as quickly as I can without proof-reading. Ladies and gentlemen, The origin of the word Piracy comes from the simple root “To steal at sea” and a Pirate was someone that attacked ships at sea and stole whatever they could find aboard that might make them a quick buck. The use of the word has since then moved a bit; The ships are now digital creations, riding the seven seas of the internet. The pirates sit now behind the safety of their computers, gazing at the treasures that lazily float from ship to ship, pirate to pirate and desktop to desktop. Whenever a company releases a valuable product and expects a few dollars for their effort you can almost always be certain that there will someone be around to sneak around a few extra copies without paying royalty, someone that won't for their little life pay for the products they want. Piracy in my opinion is a crime, it's an infringement of copyright and by extension it can also fall under the classification of theft, with a little twist on it. It is a theft where the damage might not be as clear as regular theft, but it is still theft. Let me explain:Normally when you think about theft you imagine someone going to a store. There he sees a game he or she wants. He assures himself that nobody is looking, walks up to the game and snatches it. The thief hides it in his coat and casually moves on and walks out. Who is the victim here? The store, because this is a lost copy, it is $60 that will not be retrieved and are flown out the window. Given enough of these thefts and the store is loosing incredible amounts of money just because someone couldn't resist the shiny temptation that sat on the shelf. On the Internet the act of stealing works a bit different. Here we have the thief, and he sees a shiny game he wants sitting on the store shelf. Instead of actually paying for the disc that sits there for $60, he goes to the ally behind the store and for no charges gets handed a copy of the disc from an unknown man and goes home. Is this not theft? The store still lost the $60, because the man did not pay for the copy and yet still took it. Given enough of these and the store, or the developer, is loosing incredible amounts of money, again. The shocking part is, over 70% of those that receive this illegal copy don't consider themselves to be doing anything wrong. “But this isn't actually hurting anyone, is it? I mean, a Pirate wouldn't have bought the material anyway meaning no money was really lost!”This is simply false, because it can and will affect the artist (during the remainder of the debate I'll use this term collectively over musical artists, film producers, software developers and others that produce digital content for a commercial profit). Albeit no official record exist giving a clear overview over the act due to its nature there are other ways to estimate the financial losses caused by piracy. Riaa pointed out that since the first big p2p company Napster made it's debut the sales of music in the US dropped 47%, resulting in a loss of 6.9 billion dollars1. Of course it it illogical to blame every cent on the internet, but for now we will assume that it is so for simplicity. That's a lot of money that is lost. Perhaps a few thousand dollars isn't that bad if we're discussing large AA companies that make several millions from each products; but when we're talking about small independent companies. They cannot afford to have 47% of their income, a 100% income is barely enough for rent. If an indie company releases a hit game for instance, it automatic becomes a target for piracy. A copy here and copy there aren't maybe too big of a damage, but if everyone would think about it in that light that indie will soon go bankrupt without any chance of revival. Ladies and gentlemen, each copy is potential money lost; even if there is still another copy still at the store the man that copied it is still a valuable good that someone is enjoying without giving anything back in return. It may not be illegal everywhere, and it may be of various reasons that you're downloading pirated content, but it is still unethical. Just like you wouldn't want to work for someone without fair payment you shouldn't deny someone his/her fair payment because you couldn't be bothered to spend a bit for your entertainment. 1 ) http://www.riaa.com...