Software piracy good or bad?

[The Mullet of G]

With the impending release of Vice City on PC it was only a matter of time before it was ripped and made available to download, the game wont be out in the shops for another 4 or 5 days but it was available to download from last night along with other titles like Enter The Matrix (The Matrix game) this is also the case with music and movie releases, with them often becoming available to download before there release date, but is this a good thing or a bad thing?

[Ben]

Matrix Reloaded movie was also on the net well ahead of cinema release, I hear Bit Torrent has been a good application to get it with lightening speed.

I think there is a usefulness in being able to obtain post-release stuff on the net - games especially tend to vanish from most places over time. I don't agree with all this much-hyped pre-release piracy though, jeez, give the authors a chance to make money.

[The Mullet of G]

Yeah been hearing good things about Bit Torrent myself, not tried it yet though, and yeah Matrix Reloaded has been available for a good few days now, but most of the copies going about are of a quality only matched by the films ending, not that I downloaded it mind, I kinda agree with what your saying with letting the authors make some money, but it does work both ways I think, for years and years people have been getting ripped of in the form of overly inflated prices and underinflated goods, since the dawn of games consoles companys legally had the right to blatantly rip people off, I'm not saying that piracy is right or that anyone should do it for that matter, but I do think that the software companies/film companies/music companies have now only got themselves to blame for the current situation, due to years of scandelous prices a lot of people are no longer willing to pay £40 for Fifa 2085 or £20 for Matrix Regurgitated part 10, but they aren't too fussy bout buying it from there mate Shadey Bob for £3, in summary if the big entertainment companies had heeded the warning signs early on and dropped prices accordingly the situation may have been different but instead they kept on milking us and fuelled the fires of discontent even more.


*Disclaimer piracy is and always will be wrong so don't do it (I typed that bit as I saw the RIAA van pulling up ouside my house) :p