if I play a game and I genuinely enjoy it and think wow this really is worth the money, I will go out and buy it and support that developer because I think they should make more good games, but if I play a game, that's terrible and wasn't worth the £40 I payed for it, then I will not buy it, since why the hell would I want that developers churning out more **** games that get in the way of decent games.

Many argue that since I've already played a game I've pretty much robbed it, but it's like buying a most products, the consumer has an amount of time to return it if there not happy. So what's wrong with me doing this? Since I can't afford to go pay for something to find out its utter ****. And reviews aren't all they turn out to be

Oh yes! I would. As soon as 3D printers will be available and able to print of different materials, I would download a car. Problem?

the market will make huge corrections for that; commodity (material) prices will likely spike up.

The fact is that lawbreaking is a very entrenched custom in the United States. Oklahoma is named the Sooner State because it was inhabited largely by people who emigrated before it was legally permissible. Of course we know about Indian lands illegally usurped when written agreements with the US government were violated. You may have heard of Prohibition, which was abandoned because so many people openly violated the US Constitution. More recently, have you checked typical speeds on freeways? I would say some people are going above the limits.

So, violating laws that are seen as inconvenient or just plain wrong, or evading prices that are just too high is completely consistent with American character. Oh, have you noticed anyone dealing with Amazon because it allows them to evade state taxes? Another example.

Piracy is completely within the system, it is a known quantity, and some software developers depend on it. Any company that doesn't consider it a fact of life is just delusional. Companies tolerate piracy to a certain extent and adopt strategies to wean customers away from their pirated copies. Companies do not "just say no" to piracy. They deal with it, fight it, try to overcome it, but they know that some aspects of piracy are good for them and they try to take advantage of those aspects.

check em

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...e-solution.ars

"A source of material content owned solely by the writer dev"

I dont understand this.
Me downloading it without buying it in no way means I didnt want it in the first place, I didnt want to buy it, not not want it. If I wasnt going to buy it anyway, they have lost no sale- they never had a sale.

Hi there, we've almost 400 posts from that reply

My current argument is that as long as there is desire to use/try an app/game, then it's just a matter of tweaking the price, availability and protection (DRM) to get people to pay for the experience/use.

If people would still take the time and effort to hunt/search/copy for that particular app, then they are a potential customer that's likely 'available for negotiation'.

Most games are like books/movies, that you get most of the value as you watch/play/experience it the first time. While apps/utilities are like tools, where you can get repeat values of it through its lifespan.

I can see the point of someone wanting to try a tool before buying it, but the argument is different for movies/games; and studios release trailers and game demos to address this issue for the most part.

I would also argue that there is a similarity (in terms of the evolution of values) of someone who says:

"I only want to try that game/watch that movie (once) to see if it's worth paying for."

with:

"I only want to try and eat this dish once, to see if it's worth paying for".

(Yes, the software does not decrease/get contaminated as the food, but there is similarity in potential of a 'sale' to someone who is 'curious/interested/hungry' vs when he's already full (already seen the movie, experienced the game, sated his curiousity).

demos, demos, demos.

Your utopian arguments are sort of fun to indulge, but you lose all credibility with a statement like that. The Earth and its resources are finite. They only appear infinite on a very discrete, select basis. A basis that ignores other people and especially future generations. The best we can do is manage our consumption (and especially production) so that we don't consume faster than resources are replenished or made newly available.

Problem is, we are already at or close to a disastrous tipping point. You're right on one count: such an event will make money obsolete. But the period of anarchy preceding the next emergence of order will make current ivory tower theoreticians beg for the corruption of our money-driven world.