I was also because I had just read Atlas Shrugged.
But my mind was changed by the argument that intellectual property was misnamed, and should be called "imaginary property" because real property is something that can be deprived of.
If someone steals my chair I don't have a place to sit. If someone conjures a duplicate of my chair then I haven't lost anything, I still have a place to sit.
Yup. Not getting into whether digital piracy is good or justified, but one thing it certainly isn't is, specifically, theft.
At worst someone lost some potential profit, which is completely different. And even that argument has some holes, as often the people pirating would not be buying the games anyway, and some people buy games they like even after pirating them. Again, not saying piracy is good or bad, but even the argument that it cuts that far into potential profits isn't as clear as it may seem.
I was also because I had just read Atlas Shrugged.
But my mind was changed by the argument that intellectual property was misnamed, and should be called "imaginary property" because real property is something that can be deprived of.
If someone steals my chair I don't have a place to sit. If someone conjures a duplicate of my chair then I haven't lost anything, I still have a place to sit.
Yup. Not getting into whether digital piracy is good or justified, but one thing it certainly isn't is, specifically, theft.
At worst someone lost some potential profit, which is completely different. And even that argument has some holes, as often the people pirating would not be buying the games anyway, and some people buy games they like even after pirating them. Again, not saying piracy is good or bad, but even the argument that it cuts that far into potential profits isn't as clear as it may seem.
They haven't even lost any profit because the person who pirates your game was never going to buy it in the first place the vast majority of the time.