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Re:Why I'm a Pirate by eropple on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @11:02AM (#3480318)
Well put. Ditto, say, a game developer. "Find another way" is great and all for games, if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework (or equivalent systems). "But you can sell a version with physical stuff that people want" is similarly silly - I'm not a model-maker or a map-maker, I write software and I'm not going to write software if the only way to make a living off of it is to sell tchotchkes. (And, without meaningful copyright, it's easy to duplicate whatever that thing is and sell it as if it were 'official' anyway.)

I'm trying very hard to avoid an ad-hominem, but I wonder how many people who espouse this "everything should be free" mindset actually create stuff and hurt themselves with this argument. Even software developers who strictly write software for other people benefit from copyright in a work-for-hire arrangement.

Re:Why I'm a Pirate by greiskul on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @01:48PM (#3481184)
"if you want a bunch of Facebook monstrosities welded into an always-online authentication framework" Is Steam such a system? If so, give me more of that, Steam is awesome, and proof that people will buy stuff if the original is better than the pirated copy.
Re:Why I'm a Pirate by eropple on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @03:17PM (#3481628)
Steam is awesome, sure. I buy all my PC games on Steam, and if it's not on Steam I won't even consider it. But I was thinking more along the lines of "freemium" or subscription-based software, neither of which I want anything to do with.

With Steam, you're still paying a one-time fee to purchase a license to use the software.