Bledd has pretty much summed it up.
We cannot allow the discussion of piracy on the forums, and ultimately any thread about watching stuff that isn't out here yet tends to result inevitably in piracy talk, or it is blatantly obvious that most of the people talking about the content have obtained it by less than legal means.
The rule was from memory originally mainly for games as people were taking the mickey ("my aunt/uncle/pet alligator bought it and sent it to me" being one justification that was common, although not very believable when the person talking about it was doing so days before the official release anywhere), but expanded to cover TV/Films when it it started to become more of a problem with them as well.
But so what? We same to be constantly falling into the idea that an admission of guilt is the same as committing the offence itself, which it blatantly isn't.
I've seen plenty of threads in other parts of the forum where things like taking drugs, or speeding, or violence have been discussed openly. Which is sensible, since the police aren't going to come beating the door down to find the addresses of posters on here because of that. Yet, if someone were to post "Where in Luton can I buy some decent cocaine?", that would, completely understandably, be locked and deleted instantly, as it would be pre-cursor to an illegal act.
That, to me, is how the piracy rules here should be. No-one should have to prove how they obtained something, or keep schtum until some magically legal release date appears. If you've seen a program, or played a game, talk about it. Because, as I've already said, there's a blatant difference between talking about stuff that has been obtained through piracy, and actually discussing
how to pirate it. I don't see how it would be much different to the no competitors rule.
Werewolf said:
With regards to spoiler tags, I doubt people would use them much, which combined with the general desire of the admins to keep the forum software as close to vanilla means that they are unlikely to be implemented and wouldn't have an affect on the rules anyway (I'd love spoiler tags for the Anime/Books threads).
That's a shame, as yeah, I think a spoiler tag would be great. I guess it's just a matter of people realising you can still blue your text at the moment. Down to the OPs to give good guidelines I suppose.
