Some of my musings regarding piracy... There is a common misconception of crime against intelectual property, which puts commercial pirates and freeloading kids into one and the same basket, which is from the grounds up wrong. The trouble with intelectual property is that you can't simply assume gain and probability of purchase. A person downloading the game or a movie, is not alike person stealing bread of the shelf, but similar to someone who picks a magazine or newspaper left behind in a bus by original purchaser. Copyrighted material was not purchased by the second hand reader. The knowledge of the material was gained. For free. Does it mean the reader in question would go and support the rag in question in a newspaper stand otherwise? Was there a loss of revenue in effect? Should the original purchaser be punished for making the copyrighted material, the intelectual property available? Should the second reader be punished for gaining access to that property without fee to the copyright owner?
And then, there is the third side to piracy, which escapes just about everyone:
Not everyone remembers how the "scene" looked like in old days, long before torrents and napsters, long before binary usenets and hamachi shares. Not everyone remembers what drove people to spend their days couriering stuff around and what was gained in effect.
The original internet movie pirates, back in VCD times, weren't teenagers with a digital camera hidden under coat in "theater" somewhere in god forsaken part of Bronx as per Seinfeld parody, but rebelious guys releasing (for free) stuff which was pressed on silvers in far east countries. They were, in a manner of speaking, stealing from the real thieves. From companies and people making big money on US and later European streets flogging dodgy tapes and illegal video CDs with movies. The internet pirates would release it for free, before retailers would even receive their black market products from pressers. The internet pirates would often run into problems because of it. But well hidden under cloak of private ftps and chain of untracable couriers such was the character, the robbinhoodery of pir@tes pirating Pirates in those days.
By the end of the twentieth century, it was relatively common for big movies released in US to take long months before we saw them in UK. Around 1996/1997 you would often see VHS/DVD on shelf in US before the same movies were on release in cinemas across Europe.
People flying in from States would often have a chance to view, onboard the plane, movies that were "Comming soon to the screen near you" on posters where they landed. Even mega titles like Star Wars Episode 1 (1999) would take two long months before premiere in US and premiere in Leicester Square. TWO MONTHS! People in China were given chance to see it whooping SIX MONTHS after original release. 1.3 buuuuuiiiilllliiiiooooon people and you make them wait six months for Skywalker? No, no, no, no. You don't get to do that even if your name is Lucas. Low budget releases, like The Blair Witch Project would reach our shores in staggering 11 months after premiere in States! Talk about spoilers!
In 2002 Star Wars Episode II was shown in US and all around Europe in almost the same time (few hours difference). And the only reason for that was internet piracy.
It was the biggest win, the biggest gain of the VCD scene of nineties - the industry would stop screwing around with viewers and distributors and to large degree stop delaying releases in the world out of pure greed (late release after success in US usually meant higher distribution bids).
It's just the same with TV episodes these days. When you see series in UK TV starting with 2 or 3 week delay after US, rather than 9 - 20 month difference just few years ago, you know what created this situation for your viewing advantage and pleasure.
And just like Napster incident effectively clearing way for iTunes shown the industry there is a lot to be gained from new technologies I think the fact that we have Steam and EA downloads and electronic game services in general is only thanks to piracy. It shows that you can either miss the train completely or provide legal ways for people to do just the same - and many (as opposed to none otherwise) will gladly do it without feeling dirty, illegal and playing about with cracks and patches from dodgy places. Obviously, as every greedy structure, the industry often tries to rob the good, faithfull customers (latest Stream releases, ouch!), but it's only a matter of time when someone makes that piracy vs income graph and draw proper conclusions. In the next few years you will see downloadable movie releases, and revision of the fees for music. And downloadable TV archives. It wouldn't happen if there was no pressure. Action. Reaction.
or at least online games, with the whole cd-key thing, and other 'checking' programs, anti-TCC, Punkbuster.
it would really suck not playing it online, beings resricted to single player 
