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Poll

The vote... In a sleeply drunk, probably wrongly written Haiku at 2 am;

This only gave grief
- 3 (6.1%)
Grakelin is not stupid
- 6 (12.2%)
Are you happier now?
- 1 (2%)
------ Haiku, the encore -----
- 17 (34.7%)
Disagreeing, Fine
- 0 (0%)
Why you make a fuzz 'bout it?
- 3 (6.1%)
Lets just be happy
- 19 (38.8%)

Total Members Voted: 48


Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 66

Author Topic: My problem with modern games.  (Read 127748 times)

Puck

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #15 on: January 21, 2010, 12:36:26 pm »

If you stick your hand in a hole and get stung by hundreds of ants, you don't take steps to make your hand less threatening to the ants and stick it back in, you just never stick your hand back in the hole.
There are people wearing bee beards, and there are companies that stopped using copy protection.

Stardock for instance. But to be honest, I hate the hoops they make me jump through, just to get a patch....

edit: also, fighting piracy doesnt necessarily mean using intrusive copy protection measures. For what it's worth they can fight pirates in the stores as well as on the high seas, just as long they stop being asses about it. 2010, remember? that DVD does NOT need to be in the drive all the time.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 12:40:13 pm by Puck »
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Cthulhu

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2010, 12:39:48 pm »

Not using copy protection might stop the white knight pirates (And even then I doubt it, since it's mostly just rationalizing their behavior) but it won't stop the maniacal cutlass-wielding pirates who don't care, and I can assure you Sins of a Solar Empire is pirated plenty.
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Puck

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2010, 12:40:43 pm »

Using copy protection never stopped anybody, apart from the true lamers. (Does that expression in this context still exist? When I was a kid it stood for ... "computer illiterate" or something like that)

Not using copy protection wouldnt shift the numbers that much, I believe. The few people that would copy games because it became that much easier are probably outweighed by those who would stop pirating because they DID just try to send a message.

the people that just pirated because they didnt want to or just couldnt pay, they would either way.

I say copy protection is a waste of time and money.

oh and:
Quote
(And even then I doubt it, since it's mostly just rationalizing their behavior)
I can only speak for myself, but wanna see a picture of my game shelf here? which is FULL of friggin original boxes? (Which I bought, btw, I didnt just steal em ;D) I can send you a screenshot of my folder with backups of nocd cracks to go with them, if you want  ;D (the thing about the backup folder actually is a lie. They are so small, I just redownload them, mostly, when I reinstall something, unless it was hard to find)

I mean, something is SERIOUSLY fucked up, when you have to be careful not to launch a game BEFORE you cracked it, because you have to fear it puts somehting ... not exactly beneficial on your harddrive... (at least most of them are so nice not to fuck up your system upon install, but upon initial launch, thus, seemingly deliberately, giving you the chance to actually do something about it)

edit: alright I think I'm done editing now  ;D Where's my eloquence when I need it... so many words to express so little.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 12:58:49 pm by Puck »
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Dwarf

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2010, 01:00:07 pm »

It has to end somewhere, and it'll suck if companies win the arms race.

It is impossible to create the perfect copy protection. Physically speaking, the only perfect protection is not to be readable at all.
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The Architect

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2010, 01:10:32 pm »

Impossible at the moment, perhaps. But you don't need perfection; you just need it to be too difficult to be rewarding. Think of all of the games that no one has cracked simply because they can't be bothered to go through the extreme hassle of passing their powerful protection and get a half-assed reward (like not being able to use online play properly).

Spoilered for mild language
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: I was torn between dumbed-down gameplay and mass murdering. Things like the enforced aim assist/sticky reticule any time you try to sit your sights still in MW2 get under my skin. They can take features like that and shove them in the most convenient personal orifice. If I wanted someone to move my aim off of my intended target for me, I'd turn on the existing aim feature that comes with the console or the one in the game settings.

Mass murdering in out-of-place situations is irritating, in all kinds of media. I understand that sometimes red shirts have to die, but a lot of those writing the stories treat any unnamed or unseen person as a non-person.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 01:14:10 pm by The Architect »
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Cthulhu

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #20 on: January 21, 2010, 01:13:00 pm »


Quote
(And even then I doubt it, since it's mostly just rationalizing their behavior)
I can only speak for myself, but wanna see a picture of my game shelf here? which is FULL of friggin original boxes? (Which I bought, btw, I didnt just steal em ;D) I can send you a screenshot of my folder with backups of nocd cracks to go with them, if you want  ;D (the thing about the backup folder actually is a lie. They are so small, I just redownload them, mostly, when I reinstall something, unless it was hard to find)


Exactly, you can only speak for yourself.  One exception does not a rule break.  Lots of people may say they do it to send a message, but it's just rationalizing it.  If you're going to do it, do it.  Just don't pretend you're on some grand quest to rescue the hapless gamer from the big evil CEOs with their cigars and Scrooge McDuck-style money pools.
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Puck

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #21 on: January 21, 2010, 01:27:48 pm »

The point I made about our duty to pirate games these days still holds true, no matter if da man listens or not. Even not if you're trying to talk down on me like that.

edit: even if you dont have the money to actually buy a game and just steal em because you cant afford them, you can still believe in sending the right message. So you can actually go on a gamer saving quest AND do it for personal gain.

I dont think it's up to you to decide who does it for what reason. It's also quite preposterous to assume I rationalize theft  :D

Sure piracy is always theft, and abortion is always murder, it doesnt mean it aint right in some cases.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 01:44:51 pm by Puck »
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The Architect

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #22 on: January 21, 2010, 01:47:47 pm »

Theft is always wrong. The only message you can possibly send someone by stealing a commodity from them is that you're selfish and have no regard for them. Pirating is never justified, and theft is always wrong.
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Cthulhu

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #23 on: January 21, 2010, 01:50:04 pm »

The point I made about our duty to pirate games these days still holds true, no matter if da man listens or not. Even not if you're trying to talk down on me like that.

edit: even if you dont have the money to actually buy a game and just steal em because you cant afford them, you can still believe in sending the right message. So you can actually go on a gamer saving quest AND do it for personal gain.

I dont think it's up to you to decide who does it for what reason. It's also quite preposterous to assume I rationalize theft  :D

Sure piracy is always theft, and abortion is always murder, it doesnt mean it aint right in some cases.

The only message you send is "If you make games for PC, they'll be pirated."

I believe that you believe that you're doing the right thing and sending a powerful message that they will listen to, given time, but I know that you're doing neither.

And contrary to popular and immature belief, just because you don't like a rule or think it's unfair, you are not granted the right to violate it.
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Tilla

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #24 on: January 21, 2010, 01:56:58 pm »

The point I made about our duty to pirate games these days still holds true, no matter if da man listens or not. Even not if you're trying to talk down on me like that.

edit: even if you dont have the money to actually buy a game and just steal em because you cant afford them, you can still believe in sending the right message. So you can actually go on a gamer saving quest AND do it for personal gain.

I dont think it's up to you to decide who does it for what reason. It's also quite preposterous to assume I rationalize theft  :D

Sure piracy is always theft, and abortion is always murder, it doesnt mean it aint right in some cases.

The only message you send is "If you make games for PC, they'll be pirated."

I believe that you believe that you're doing the right thing and sending a powerful message that they will listen to, given time, but I know that you're doing neither.

And contrary to popular and immature belief, just because you don't like a rule or think it's unfair, you are not granted the right to violate it.

That last bit is completely false. It is a citizens DUTY to disobey unjust laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail (Suitably, MLK day just happened)
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Puck

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #25 on: January 21, 2010, 02:02:06 pm »

Quote
stuff from ctulhuhowyouspellit
nonono, you got me totally wrong.

I dont pirate games. I cba.

All I'm saying is, that it is actually our duty, as gamers, as thinking people. Theoretically speaking. A little mental exercise, if you will. Sure you can stop playing games altogether, if you dont want to put up with this crap.

But that just sends the message you dont like games.

I very clearly remember that the amount of pirated copies of certain games were used to point out how good they are. By the publishers themselves. So at least they get that. Sure, it would NEVER make it into the press that they get the rest of the message, but I believe some of them would actually understand it.

So let me put it this way:
I know that piracy is stealing and its bad for the industry and their consumers. But at the current state of affairs, I think it would be actually the right thing to do, which is a little bit weird.

Better?

edit: also thanks for the wiki link, to the poster  above me. Might look out of proportion when it comes to games (just as my abortion comparison) but sometimes you have to exaggerate a bit, to make stuff visible.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 02:07:21 pm by Puck »
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #26 on: January 21, 2010, 02:10:19 pm »

Quote
The only message you send is "If you make games for PC, they'll be pirated."
As if console games didn't get copied a lot

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Soulwynd

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #27 on: January 21, 2010, 02:13:33 pm »

First of all "consoletards" only "recently" got loading screens. I remember my NES days (Feck, they arent over, I still use it) when consoles were the ONLY thing WITHOUT loading screens.
True, I was referring to the cd+ generation of consoles. I never had any slow loading screens on computers back then however. Most things loaded pretty fast compared to nowadays. Perhaps I should have been more specific, I was talking about slow loading screens mostly. You see, I have a ps2 and it's horrible. I rarely even touch it anymore.

The nes and snes games era were good. They were treated with a bit more respect, I think. They were difficult, some were very arcade based, others had some decent level of complexity.

And it seems like a lost cause, call somebody dumb, and they rather feel insulted than to spend a minute thinking about their stupidity. But everybody is stupid in one way or another, the true harm comes when you cant admit this to yourself and hence block out a nice opportunity for personal growth.
True. I like some mindless games now and then. But I'm more concerned with the general loss of complexity and strategy required in the games. They don't seem challenging anymore. A fps trend even took away health bars (which weren't all that good to begin with) and replaced it with your view getting redder and then magically healing over time.

Half Life 1 is a prime example for a great game with linear gameplay and limited options.

What _I_ hate is:
.) roadblocks that look passable - in games that try to give you freedom. The rubble in FO3 is one of the worst offenders in my book. Soooooo bad, I cant believe it.

.) bad collision detection/hit boxes and/or the level design to go with it. It's 2010, damnit, this should have been obvious after "Ice Climber" ! I dont know why, but I played "Ratatouille". A game for kids (I suppose) in which you play a rat. You know, small furry. Pretty early in the game you come across a dog you have to outsmart someway. Cant remember what you have to do. I think on the left side, theres a small hole in some junk that is piled up. First association "I'm a rat! I'll go through there". Guess what, you cant. Pretty much ties into my prior hatething.

.) unskippable movie scenes. I love my intro, I love my atmosphere. But I want to be able to click it away, because sometimes, you know, I'M FRIGGIN SETTING EVERYTHING UP before I actually play it. Sometimes that includes killing the game and restarting it. Sometimes I like to play a game over and over again, maybe just because I enjoy a 10 minute part of it, somewhere 2 minutes into the game. Whatever the reason might be, nobody should force their friggin videos/logos on me. Common practice for EVERY FUCKING Ubisoft or EA game: find those *.bik files and delete everything that reeks of company logo/advertisement.

But all in all, even when I have a bad day, I can say I dont hate modern games too much... because I wouldnt even touch em with a ten foot pole these days  ;D
I liked HL1 as well, but HL2, not so much. I end up touching these new games. I need stress relief from work and life in general and old games can only be played so much before they annoy me. I mean, I love x-com and df, but I take breaks from them.

I really don't like the unskipabble cutscenes as well, same with the hit detection and lack of choices. Oh well.

Weakest argument ever.
Security is put in place as a response to transgressions. I find it infuriating yet amusing every time someone displays the outright idiocy to claim that piracy exists because of anti-piracy measures.

And with that- I'm out of this thread.
First of all, the few posts I've seen from you, you did the exact same thing. You went offensive and ran away. That's a sad behavior for anyone who claims to be right about their opinions.

Second of all, I do not believe it's a transgression at all. If you're gonna discuss morals and laws, you need to remember that one is personal, there's no absolute right or wrong, and the other is based on your government and often made and sustained by people with their own agendas and interests. So I do not agree with copyright and if someone tries to get me because of it, I will fight for what I think is right. As should we all.

Third. Even tho this is the internet, I'm not going to just let someone call me idiot just because they don't agree with me. Specially when they didn't even bother to think or read about what I said before replying. I did not say piracy exists because of anti-piracy. I said the methods of anti-piracy makes quite a few people prefer piracy. In fact, there are threads even here about it. But I don't doubt we bumped into it and you ran away just the same going rabblerabblerabble-I-AM-THE-LAW-rabblerabblerabble. You seem just like those christians when you say you think there's no god they go lalalal I'm not hearing, I don't believe you, goodbye heathen!

If you like a game, but dislike the copy protection (gasp, even legitimate customers dont want to put up with this crap!), stealing is the only way to go. Or do you really think they read your emails?
We should have everyone email 2k saying "Dear 2K, I'm not buying Bioshock 2 because you are using secuROM."

Not that it would work any. I don't think they realize that securom not only doesn't protect anything but also hurts them. Take stardock for example. Or introversion. They take the stance of never using any sort of protection and everyone takes them with better regard than they do, lets say, sony, atari, or EA. In fact, it seems to me people are starting to hate these big developers.

I also never buy a game I don't like. I can't even use the wallet argument, because honestly, I could buy every game I've ever played 3 times over and gift them to 4 other friends and it wouldn't hurt me one bit.

I'm just not going to endorse crap.

I play games for fun. Not for innovation, not for art, not for whatever technical BS you put in it. For fun.
Everyone plays games for their own reasons. I play mostly to relieve stress and because I love games. I mean, the first time I programmed something, 20 years ago, it was a game. I can't blame the indie community for trying to be different or doing something artistic, everyone has their reasons.

Muz has some good points about the indie game community.  There's a huge amount of elitism in it where people look down their noses because everyone's "stupid" because they play or buy this or that.
I think those people are part of the retards I mentioned. Just in an indie form.

Also, don't delude yourself, pirating games will not send a message to game companies that they should stop fighting it.
No, but I did my part by not giving crappy games money. Just like I recycle and try to use economic and environmental friendly things. Not that either will work out, but my conscience feels a bit better with me doing my part.

Not using copy protection might stop the white knight pirates (And even then I doubt it, since it's mostly just rationalizing their behavior) but it won't stop the maniacal cutlass-wielding pirates who don't care, and I can assure you Sins of a Solar Empire is pirated plenty.
You can't stop those people either way. But I think the best way is to make a good product. That will increase sales and people who pirated it and liked it, might as well buy it. The second best way is to offer non-intrusive online benefits. Like making an account on their site, logging in with your game and receive free DLC over time. They can verify keys and gives people more reasons to actually buy the game. Of course, pirates can work around it (read Dragon Age) but it's better than going authoritarian about it.

Also. I full demoed Sins, again, I hate stardock games (sad truth most people yell at me about), deleted after a couple days. If it were good, I would have gotten it. *shrugs* I love multiplayer, but I didn't like it to begin with.

Impossible at the moment, perhaps. But you don't need perfection; you just need it to be too difficult to be rewarding. Think of all of the games that no one has cracked simply because they can't be bothered to go through the extreme hassle of passing their powerful protection and get a half-assed reward (like not being able to use online play properly).

Spoilered for mild language
The more difficult something is, the more rewarding it is. Remember half-life 2 when it first came about? I swear, people had parties when they managed to crack the encryption system.

As for the spoilers. Well, the problem is, developers throw out biased media, biased reviews, and biased demos. It's kind of like going in the theaters before asking people who went if it was good and then regretting horribly. Except in this case, it's 10 times more expensive and 10 times more biased. You can't even trust review sites anymore. I mean, It's a nice pizza with a cheap bottle of wine and possibly some sex after type of money. Then you ask me, for some games, would I rather have the instant satisfaction of pizza, drinks, and company or would I rather have a game that wouldn't last a week?  Pizza wins every single time. If I think a game will last more than a week for me, I buy it.

Theft is always wrong. The only message you can possibly send someone by stealing a commodity from them is that you're selfish and have no regard for them. Pirating is never justified, and theft is always wrong.
I don't agree with copyright, therefore I do not believe it's theft.

The only message you send is "If you make games for PC, they'll be pirated."
You're out of the warez scene aren't you? It's much easier to pirate and play console games than PCs. No installation required, no chance of virus, no crack needed. Just burn, put it into your modded console and play.

In fact, that general belief of consoles being anti-piracy methods is completely wrong if you have access to certain things.

How it shows up in percentages, I do not know. If the developers get more money from consoles than PCs, I don't know. What I know for fact is that console games are downloaded more than pc games.

There's the whole issue of that a pirated game does not equals a sale as well. You can't claim that to be a loss. If someone didn't have access to a game, they might have not pirated nor bought it.

In the subject of warez and game pricing, I think this might be a good reading:
http://2dboy.com/2009/10/19/birthday-sale-results/


Also, I'm sorry this degenerated to another piracy chatter. -_-

And cthulhu, is everyone's right to even die for what they think is right. You can't stop that, no matter what law you put up there. Governments get overthrown, contested, fixed. Even america, not too long ago you had a civil war, remember? Laws are arbitrary and often get contested and changed. They often fail too.
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Sir Pseudonymous

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #28 on: January 21, 2010, 02:17:06 pm »

The truth is that assholes have forced yet another hassle on the rest of us by being assholes. If there weren't so many selfish assholes in the world, there are a ton of things we wouldn't have to go through in our daily lives. Stop stealing games and support the people who earn their living by making them for you. You don't have the right to bitch about them trying to reap the reward of their hard work, whether they did something the way you like it or not. Anyone who isn't willing to pay the asking price for a game doesn't want it enough to deserve having it, and if you steal it for any reason at all you're just a thief. Nothing glorified, not some kind of idealist or someone who is making a point. You're just a thief and you should be ashamed of it.
Actually, if you *stole* the game, the people who made it have already been paid, and it's only the retail store you stole it from that eats the loss. Publishers don't give a shit about people *stealing* their games, because you'd be stealing them from someone who bought it. They've even made the boxes nice and small too, it's like they're asking people to *steal* them. ::)

Trying to label "freely obtaining a costless copy instead of paying some exorbitant sum to an asshole publisher" as "stealing" is slanderous and intellectually dishonest. Torrenting a game doesn't cost its creator anything (which is quite sad, in some cases... it would be wonderful to be able bankrupt Kotick by just sitting and downloading MW2 over and over, or perhaps even just moving it back and forth between two harddrives... >:D), and it doesn't deprive them of anything except some theoretical sum which you may or may not possess, which may or may not have been spent on something as frivolous and overpriced as the newest gilded shovelware from EA. Hell, this thread is "new games are are all shit", and while that's an extremely flawed premise, I don't believe I've played more than a handful of games that were actually *worth* what they cost (or would have cost had I bought them, but the fact that it's trash is quite a bit more painful when you've shelled out $50 for it), and all of those were on steam (not to say I haven't bought horrible trash off steam, things so fucking bad I regret the few dollars they cost to no end >:| ).
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LeoLeonardoIII

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Re: My problem with modern games.
« Reply #29 on: January 21, 2010, 02:19:37 pm »

Voted All of the above.

The main thing I can't get past with DRM / draconian copy protection is that the pirates all have games without it. The honest user has to deal with all the garbage: the system instability and insecurity from the DRM rootkit, the server validation (maybe he doesn't have internet access, maybe the authentication servers go down forever later), the bandwidth traffic and system slowdowns from DRM running, etc.

So they poison their software to stop piracy, but the pirates clean the software within days and happily use their safe version. The honest customer who pays for the game is the only one who gets poisoned.

That seems pretty stupid and wrong to me.

Furthermore, copyright law.
TL;DR: Copyright shouldn't last forever. We need to balance the needs of the author to get paid, and the needs of society to absorb, use, remix, and take inspiration from the work.

Copyright law should provide artists / authors / etc. with the protection neccessary to derive benefit from their work. This is not the same as trademark, which is ostensibly meant to keep fake products with your label from ruining your reputation. But with copyright, if someone knew anyone could steal his work, he would have no reason to create, and we would suffer as a society and a nation.

A copyright that lasts 50 years is perfectly fine for making it so the creator can get his paychecks. Even saying it lasts until he dies is acceptable, though with longevity getting better and better it's probably better to give a clause of "100 years from creation, or until the creator's death, whichever comes first".

The problem is the corporation. A company doesn't die. If anything, it goes bankrupt and its assets are bought by someone else. Or it merges into another company and so does not actually end. And corporations want to derive as much benefit as possible whether it makes sense or not, whether it's ethical or not. Because at the root, a corporation is not a thinking entity (though the law grants it a sort of personhood), and it has no morality. The corporate officers can Nuremberg Defense their way out of any ethical squabbles.

We currently have a really long copyright duration, because of Mickey Mouse. Disney lobbies Congress to extend copyright every time the copyright for Mickey Mouse is about to expire. And Congress accepts the lobbying, pockets it, and votes yes.

Basically it means unless something changes, nothing that was created for hire after Mickey Mouse will fall out of copyright.

But society needs things to fall out of copyright. Our filmmakers need to have free alternatives to big music royalty payments. Our programmers need to learn from the coding practices of their grandfathers. We're rapidly moving toward a culture none of us own, a "don't touch" museum, rather than something that is part of us and fully accessible.

EDIT: I second the point that piracy does not equal theft. It's a new thing, a little like the old theft but different, and we need to label it properly. Calling piracy theft is about as accurate as calling it vandalism or fraud or negligence. It just isn't.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2010, 02:24:39 pm by LeoLeonardoIII »
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