[krig]

Okay, so the problem that I'm seeing is that in your mind, you are equating a pirated copy with a lost sale. But that's an outdated and incorrect assumption, and hopefully one that time will deal with (when we've all grown up with infinite copies available from birth). A pirated copy is definitely not the same as a lost sale.

Plenty of people payed for and touted Minecraft, obviously. A huge category of people didn't pay, but still touted it.

Would that category of people have paid if piracy was impossible? Well, I've argued against that reality since making piracy impossible would most likely also make Minecraft impossible (since you'd have to distribute through government-approved channels). I don't see how someone could possibly create an independent product and be able to self-distribute if piracy is technically impossible. And arguably the environment that spawned and formed the successful indie game maker is heavily dependent on free and easy peer-to-peer sharing of information, code and software.

Secondly, clearly these people didn't have any moral issue with pirating the game while at the same time loving it. It may be bizarre to you, but a huge number of people will happily break the law if it's to their benefit, without feeling bad over lost sales. Most likely, these people wouldn't have paid even if they couldn't have had the game. They would just have gone without the game.

I'd even go so far as to say that generally acting in their own self interest with little regard to people outside their closest circle is a fundamental human behavioral constant, and it's shocking to me that this is so shocking to other people. You do know that children are starving to death in poor areas of the world? You certainly have the means to save at least one of them. Yet you don't, why? Because their plight is too remotely removed from you. You have no emotional connection to them.

Closing the emotional gap is key to exploiting the modern economy: see the success of pay-what-you-want schemes, where people end up paying more than they would have with a set price. I'd argue that this demonstrates another interesting detail: the humble bundle, which was available as pay-what-you-want, was heavily pirated! Why? It was essentially free already! Perhaps because people like to share, and the distribution model and the economic profit margins of the creator are both lesser forces than the innate emotional desires to have and to share.

[bluebridge]

I wouldn't equate a pirated copy with a lost sale, but that is an approach that the businesses behind SOPA/PIPA are doing and they are pursuing censorship as an end result. Whatever a pirate may say or intend, they are supporting their opponents argument for censorship in the form of, "lost sales."

Censorship is as morally baseless as piracy, but I do not like it either, and like piracy it has a negative effect on everyone.

Maybe sales would increase if something prevented piracy, maybe they wouldn't. I expect that they would increase a significant percentage, but probably not even close to 100%.

People everywhere act out of self interest all the time, not just some of the time, all the time. It's just that for some people self interest involves having the perception to see beyond the immediate benefit of an act. Others do not, and eat donuts until they have diabetes, sleep with their best friend's spouse, steal cars, and act on each impulse as soon as it arises.

That people act in ways that are short sighted and then try to explain away their shortsightedness is only human, but it's not admirable, and it does no public service.

I have nothing against anyone saying, "I breach the contract between provider and consumer. I'm a leech off of others labor. I inhibit growth that would otherwise occur. I take and give nothing back and then lie and say I would do otherwise if only X business did Y. I will only act fairly when forced to by a parent figure, which will probably be the government if I can get others to take on this attitude."

The same as I would have no problem with someone saying, "I'm a habitual liar and a cheat," versus someone saying, "I help people to be more careful and to investigate what it is told to them. I help people to be more cautious. I'm a Highwayman, a Bandit!"

I have long addressed the question of whether I'm going to live my life righting every wrong and looking for people to save. That I do not save kids in Africa, does not mean I haven't considered it. I live my life with integrity to what I value and I don't have to make elaborate arguments as to why, I just do the part that is mine.

The reason I'm shocked that Minecraft was pirated as you say, is that I see "pirates" complain that they would buy this product if it didn't have DRM or that product if the cost was reasonable. Here we have a project in its early stages that is valuable and made easy to attain. Will they support it. Will they help make it better? No, the lousy excuse is now exposure. And then, "Why isn't this thing finished yet!?" Ha, ha.

[krig]

I don't disagree with your viewpoint, but I think there are more ways of looking at it. Taking a systemic view instead of focusing on the specific transaction in question - that is, look at the pirate, not the piracy - might shed some light on why I think that ultimately, piracy is not a destructive force:

There is research showing that pirates, on average, spend more money on the things they pirate than non-pirates. While this may sound counter-intuitive, on reflection it makes sense. There are those who pirate for the sake of pirating, lets call them hoarders. They download everything they can, with no intention to ever pay for any of it. These are not potential customers. The other category of pirates are people who, lets take music for example, who really love music. They spend a lot of money on music each month, but they also have an active network trading music with other enthusiasts. In fact, this trading network is what provides feedback and drives their interest in music to begin with. So the piracy, the downloading of music that they engage in, is the fuel that drives their consumption up beyond that of a regular, law-abiding consumer.

I'm not saying that this is the only truth, but the statistical evidence from several studies done on musical piracy (I recall one in particular done in Holland) supports this view.

So in this case, your characterisation of the pirate as a leech is not an accurate account. In fact, this pirate is the perfect customer, and it is the piracy that made him.