no it's clearly the people who choose to break the law that do the illegal thing.
if I choose to shoot a person, it's me that's done something illegal, not the shop who sold me the gun.
same as if I choose to download something it's me choosing to break the law, not the site that gave the the torrent.
Quite, that figure gets me as well.
Whilst I agree that just because a piece of software is downloaded a lot, it doesn't mean that the people would have bought it, but it doesn't make downloading it any less legal.
but at the same time the companies that make the software shouldnt bitch and moan about lost sales, or suggest that people 'cost' them a lost sale.
Office is a prize example. how many of you have microsoft office? i'll be a fair few, how many paid for it? i'll bet much less than the people who have it.
and if you couldn't pirate it, well I think that most people would actually just switch to using either wordpad, or go out and get a free copy of open office.
I guess the point is that just because you can get a copy for free by downloading it, it doesn't mean that you should.
if you like it enough to steal it, then you should like it enough to pay for it surely. or seek out a free, or at least less costly alternative?
again I agree, it's not that piracy is on the up, it's that it can be more effectively monitored now.
copying a CD was the way that piracy used to happen, and the manufacturers never saw this, now that they can monitor torrents they are whining that more people than ever before pirate software. I'd hazard a guess that a few more, but not millions more than would have gotten a copy of the game by copying their friends CD, or by stealing a copy of office from work or stuff like that.
anyway, just because you can download a copy, and regardless of whether you'd have bought it, or could have bought it, that doesn't make piracy any more legal... or mean that you can link to torrent files here...
as a bit of a pro piracy thing, it's not hard to grasp the fact that the reason that programs such as office as the de-facto standard is because of their abundance,
it used to be that was determined by the workplace, people learned how to use the program at work, so when they wanted to use it at home it made sense to buy the same thing that they'd just learned how to use -rather than learning something new.
now that there are more PCs in homes than there are in work places I suspect that it works the other way around.
Business have to use windows, and have to use MS office because it's what the people already know, it's what they have at home and what they want to use at work, what they feel comfortable with.
companies like Microsoft should be looking at piracy from the other angle, they should be actively encouraging people to download free copies of office for 'personal' use, so that they can reach complete saturation, and be the thing that everyone knows, then they should be saying that for 'business' use you have to pay.
if everyone decided to follow the law and not steal windows, not steal office, then we'd all be sat at home playing games in linux, when you wanted to do your school work, or your home finances or write a letter you;d be using open office, you'd get used to it, and know and love it.
then when you went to work or school you'd want that there, you'd find that you were slower and less productive on an unfamiliar OS, or office packages. so you'd want your work/school to be using Linux/open office because it's what you knew and what you preferred.
as illegal as piracy is, and as much as the industry likes to cry about it, piracy is helping the prolification of products into the homes of ordinary people, where it spreads to the work place,
try before you buy downloads are actually driving game sales as people try it, like it and buy it,
the same with music sales, there is no way that I'll spend £15 on a new album to find out if I like a band, but I'll happily spend that on music that I know that i'll like and get a lot of enjoyment out of.
