I hate this argument. There's plenty of mature games out there. Portal 2, Mass Effect, Bioshock. These are just three games off the top of my head that are definitely at a level of maturity with complex themes and sophisticated story-lines. Your post reeks of pseudo-elitism.

That's not fair. There are contractors who care. I've seen one. In fact, let me check something... um... yup, I dvr'd that episode of Ripley's Believe it or not. I'll see if I can find a clip of it on you tube and post it for ya.

I had the unfortunate experience of having to play 2 without my save file. It really irked me to find out a certain character I saved in the first game was dead in the second one because of this. I don't see why they don't give you the option of setting up the things you did in the first game for those players who don't have their save file. Is it really a big deal if someone lies and setups their data inaccurately?

Could mean the end of self-serve pumps.

I hate the word "could." It's so inconclusive. I always think of the Geico commercial. "15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on your car insurance." Yeah, and if I buy a lottery ticket, I could win millions of dollars. I probably won't, but I could.

I'm probably just being too cynical. This is an interesting development, and I should be more supportive. But I can't get excited when there's so much "could" in an article. Just not in my nature.

Could be fraud charges related less to them cheating, and more to them duping people into thinking they were applying for a job. But I'm not a lawyer.

You're right, but you're arguing semantics. I, too, take the position that it's possible there is a god, just like it's possible there are purple car driving monkeys, it's possible that we're all trapped in the matrix, or it's possible Gary Busey is god. Anything possible it the super pedantic philosophical sense. But we don't go around being super careful to say "I don't believe in purple car driving monkey but I recognize the possibility." No, we just say "Purple car driving monkeys don't exist." This whole tiptoeing around semantics that so many atheists and agnostics to really only gives ammunition to theists. It's okay to say "There is no god" in the same way as it's okay to say "there are no purple car driving monkeys". You don't always have to through in that awkward disclaimer.

Will this really pass in the senate? I'm hoping it wont.

Great for them. Seems a little unfair that "God" picks and chooses who he wants to prove his existence to, but it really does me no good if I can't replicate their proof, does it? I could tell you right now I've seen proof that purple car-driving monkeys exists. How much good would that do you?

But you are right that there are things I believe that are based on faith. For example, every time I go to a doctor, he gives me a diagnosis, and I accept on faith that he is giving me the right treatment. It could be called faith, as I don't have necessary education to really test is. But if it is faith, it's definitely not a blind faith. That's the difference between faith in a doctor and faith in a God. It's okay to be 95% sure that the doctor is right, and believe what he says, while still keeping your mind open to the possibilities that he could be wrong. But there is still evidence at hand to base my conclusions on, namely the fact that he's been to school, that his diagnosis makes sense, that its corroborated by other doctors, that going to the doctors has repeatedly ended up in the curing of my ailment. Sure, I can't prove 100% that the cream he's giving me for my rash is going to work, but that's not the evidence I'm basing decision on. It's all the other things.

This is how "faith based beliefs" SHOULD be made. I'd hardly even call it faith at that point. It's more reason then faith. In absence of proof, you weigh the evidence and come to a reasonable solution. But this is NOT how religious faith works. In spite of zero evidence, and even sometimes evidence clearly contradicting the doctrines entailed in religious beliefs, most theists believe 100% that there is a God (and incidentally, he hates gay people or he doesn't want you to eat meat or he wants you to pray five times a day, etc.). This is a blind faith based on nothing more than stories handed down through generations with no anchor in tangibility. In fact, it's so ambiguous that thousands of religions have been formed throughout history and no one religion has had any substantial argument capable of refuting another.

These ideas of belief are two very separate things. Blind faith in religion and faith in a doctor are not the same.

Sarcasm, hedwards. Learn it. Love it.

Not really though. Saying something does exist is not the same as saying something doesn't exist. If I said there are no such thing as purple monkeys who drive cars, the lack of evidence suggesting their existence would satisfy most people, especially as the claim is significantly outrageous. However, if I said there WERE purple monkeys who drive cars, people would become far more skeptical.

Lack of evidence that something exists IS a type of evidence that it doesn't exist. It's not full proof, of course, but if it's the only evidence one can go by, it's better to regard it than disregard it and claim the opposite. If that wasn't true, then all kinds of claims could be made including my purple monkey statement and it'd be just as reasonable to say "well, you can't prove it DOESN'T exist, so you're a fool for denying my claim that it does".

See, now we're just getting into semantics. If the discussion really should be whether or not copyright infringement is bad, why get hung up on definitions. I don't understand why people who pirate do this. They complain about the word steal, even though "stealing and idea" is a concept that's been around for a very long time. They complain about "pirate", even though pirate is merely a simple term we've created recently as it's easier than saying "downloaded software off the internet without paying for it." I suppose perhaps they complain because of the negative connotations applied to both terms, but I think that's a bit ridiculous. The fact is, such negative connotation would eventually come to any term you wanted to use, including copyright infringement. I could call it "puppy hugging" and eventually it'd still garner a negative connotation. "Gay" once meant "happy", right?

Basically, I think you're definition of the word "steal" is more narrow than it has historically been. As I said, stealing an idea is a concept that came around long before the internet. And my post was not offtopic at all. It was attempt to explain to you how human created social constructs can have legitimacy. "Thought as property" is a human created social construct. The use of property without consent is theft, regardless of it's tangibility. This is how it's defined. But again, it's really just semantics. If you want to call it "puppy hugging" to make yourself feel better, than so be it.

You don't buy that "social agreement" bullshit? So, what then, you live in a cabin in the woods all by your lonesome? If not, then you really DO buy it, cause it drives our lives. Kill someone? Go to jail. Grow up a child in America? Go to school. Destroy someone's property? Get sued and be forced to compensate. These are all social contracts enforced by people upon people.

You chose winking to illustrate how absurd the concept of ownership can be, as an analogy for copy right infringement. I agree, the concept of owning winking seems fairly ludicrous to me. But then, the concept of owning land probably seemed ludicrous at one time. The concept of owning airwaves probably seemed ludicrous at one time. The thought that I can be held liable for mere words might seem ludicrous, until you examine the reasons we've made it so. But we function as a society, and we set up social constructs to assure the prosperity and organization of that society. You can claim all you want that copy right infringement is a false institution. Technically, you'd be right. But that claim is meaningless given that so many other organization you partake of could be satisfied by the same reasoning. I doubt if someone murdered your wife you'd be comfortable with the claim that "crime and punishment is a false, man-made institution."

As for the specific point you made concerning the actual possession of an item, how does that work with land? Why is it that we allow a businessman to own a coal mine if he's not actually in the mine digging out coal? And what about my specific example concerning your summer home. Would you be fine letting others into your house without your consent during the winter? If you're not using it, then you've not lost possession, right?

But in truth, these examples are unnecessary. We've decided, as a society, that ideas can be owned. It's not a recent idea, either. It's easy to demonstrate historically. As a societal construct, it holds as much legitimacy as any other institution enforced only through human action. Perhaps owning a wink is a ludicrous idea. I'll concede to that point. But should owning a wink ever become necessary for the growth or well-being of society, then you can bet I'll be on board with the human construct built to enforce it. Hopefully, it'll never come to that. *wink

First, he conceded "BSA numbers are certainly overstated," so you're being a bit harsh.

Second, your assumption that "people who can't afford your software not paying for your software is not a lost sale" is a reductionist approach to the problem. Perhaps the person downloading the software cant afford it at the time, but could later. Their motivation to pay for it later is severely decreased if they've already obtained the product. Also, what about competition? Perhaps they couldn't afford the piece of software they had their eyes on, but could afford a lesser, even free copy of software that performed the same task? Ironically, the software pirate in this case hurting everyone as the cheaper software could be gaining a larger portion of the market, thus forcing the prices down in general, but instead denies the competing service the income.

Really, I could come up with a dozen or so other hypothetical arguments to show how ""people who can't afford your software not paying for your software" could still have negative affects on the company creating the software or the industry as a whole, but at the end of the day I doubt it will convince you. Beside, at the end of the day, even if I stipulated 100% that no negative economic impact was felt by piracy, there's still the principal. A person who contributes positively to society deserves to be compensated. A person who does not doesn't deserve to partake of those non-essential services. If you want software (or anything non-essential, for that matter), you should contribute something back.

"As an intangible thing that ceases to be scarce once first published, information doesn't belong to anybody, either. It cannot be anyone's property, regardless of any fictional legal constructions."

Sure it can. In the same way that physical property can. I mean, there's no real tangible reason a person should be able to own a piece of land. There's no natural construct keeping me from occupying someone's summer home in the winter. After all, as you said yourself, there's no physical loss in me doing so. The house will still be there for them in the summer, right? The only construct present to prevent me from doing that is the one created by our society. If a squirrel drops an acorn in the forest and another squirrel scoops it up, there's no court of law to determine who the rightful owner of the acorn is. But in human society, there is. Why? Because we recognize the efficiency and benefit of such a system.

The same could be said of intellectual property. It exists in the same manner, as a construct of our society, because in general our society agrees people who create intellectually valuable ideas deserve to be compensated for them, both to reward and to motivate. Is the system perfect? Doubtful. But I don't think "IP isn't real" is really a constructive argument. Unless you're willing to extend that logic to ALL societal constructs that don't exist naturally, then you might want to think of a different argument.