Stop the Pirateing. ALL READ - Page 2

If somebody hacks a game and puts it on a P2P but nobody downloads it there is no issue. It's the millions who go to that site and download it to their PC (and most likely share it themselves) that cause the issue.

I'll have a little more fun with you and even argue that the people doing the cracking as a whole are less culpable than those doing the downloading as a whole. At least the cracker can make a real argument that they did what they did for legit reasons. Think of a no-CD crack. There are a lot of legit consumers out there that really would want such a thing and the person who creates it may be doing so with the honest game owner who doesn't want to use the CD in mind. The fact that other people use an otherwise harmless crack to avoid having to pay for the game themselves does not necessarily mean that the original cracker had ill intentions in mind when they created their work. Maybe they did or maybe they honestly bought the game and didn't want to have to use the cd, we can't really know. What we do know is that the people using it to pirate the game do have ill intentions in the way they use it. So who's more guilty, the person who made the crack that could be used for good or bad or the person who only uses it for bad?

oh no worries, it was my fault i should have been more clear. sorry if I came off kinda mean too, its just I was trying to make an innocent point, bad analogy or not, and I got flamed for it. Right now for some reason this guy pulp or w/e is still trying to flame me, even though at the very beginning of his conversation with me, he said he agrees with me... yeah Idk....

After you defending so many things hackers do to make stolen games readily available to other theives theres only one conclusion I can draw from this. You must pirate games, and or be a hacker that makes it readily available to theives. I'm sorry, thats just the way you come off because if your trying to be funny, your not, this is a serious situation, and I just read robwrights thread on how fallout 3 is already in thousands of piraters hands. To me, I wouldnt doubt if you had it in your hands right now. I dont respect people who flip flop their points of views as much as you and people who pirate, so I'm done.




(plus I gotta go to work lol) ROFLMAO

Unfortunatly Piracy can also be a good thing and companies like EA are not making good use of it or offering something simular. I was a pretty big PC gamer back in 1997-2001. Had pretty much all of the C & C titles, Homeworld, Fallout, Freespace, etc. Real life hit and we all know how that goes.
I recently discovered my box of old games and to say that a few of the disks are gone is an understatement. I have the CD keys but their is no real legitimate way to get these old games except through Piracy.
Between 2001-2005 I missed quite a few titles and understandably these games cannot be purchased. There is quite a few I missed out on that I would enjoy and if I could purchase I would but there isn't a way to do so. Once again someone like myself is left to turn to Piracy.
I would love to see all these companies get together and just create one website where you can purchase old games for a dollar or two. Right now all those games are just disappearing or would have disappeared had it not been for Piracy.
I do buy the current games that come out but what I find myself doing is turning to Bittorrent so I don't have to load a disk. I do have Game Jackal but with Vista it's just easier to have the game where I can I just click and paly. No hassle with Disks or looking for them. No scratched disk and my kids can play without bothering me to figure out how to get them to work.
I also found it irritating that a game I purchased was censored. I'm a 37 year old adult and I want to play the game the way the developers intended. The Witcher was a big deal for me. I have the US disk but I pirated the uncensored one not only to have the game the way it was intended but also so I could have the no disk feature.
Blizzard was pretty wonderful. All those old games from them I can just download and play. I like purchasing and putting the box up so the Orange Box was pretty sweet. Spore's DRM didn't bother me as the positives of no CD and easy installation made it well worth it. I am a little bothered by the fact I may not be able to play it 10 years down the road but even in that I don't see a problem.
Though Bittorrent has generated a lot of heat about easy access of Piracy the truth is that there is a need for a central data base of easily downloadable games, that are easy to install, and require no CD to play. If a company could do that with the option of being able to get the box and a registered key through the mail (they could even charge extra for it and I would pay for it) then I think you would see Piracy begin to decline greatly.
Most consumers would rather purchase and legally own a product than steal it. The fact that Piracy is so rampant is because the companies are not giving what the customer wants and there is a way for the customer to get what he wants. The fact that it is free is just a bonus.

There are a few places that sell old games, but $10 seems to be the low end of price. I think publishers just don't want to deal with what does/doesn't work on current hardware and can't support those titles.

When they give them away I think they can get by without support, but if some people pay $5 for something, they'll demand hours and hours of support for it or threaten to sue. Been there, answered the phone, turned it over to the legal department.

You simply CANNOT play any steam games on VAC online servers. Maybe some actually manage to find a way, but it is very very limited.

For exemple, L4D is coming in a couple of weeks. I just KNOW that I won't be able to play online with a pirated version. Same for TF2. Oh, and what's that ? 20 $ for TF2, well thank you sir. Updates and new contents every months ? Thanks !

Funny story. I was playing single player Gears of War on PC, pirated version, and thought that it would be a kickass online coop-versus game. So i went the SAME DAY to get this game at my local EB gamestore. The game is there, 50$. Ok, knida expensive but I'll take it anyway ! The guy then tells me i need an XBOX LIVE ACCOUNT TO PLAY THIS GAME ONLINE. HAHA. I don't have and never will have this crappy gaming box, why should i pay for their services ? I simply laughed (with him, cuz he thought that was the stupidest **** ever) and replaced the game.

Behind him, i see TF2, 20$. Read some good reviews on this, played CS for a long time, I'll try it. I've been playing TF2 since then non-stop, every single day. And i can assure you that everybody that plays this game, on thousands of servers, did pay the full price.

Wow... I weep for the collective of humanity.

Cuddles, good post, no doubt that the entertainment industry as a whole is trying to figure out new ways to distribute their content. I think part of the problem is that game developers go out of business. So it's hard to get the rights to an old game, you have to figure out who owns the rights and then negotiate. And despite what a lot of people are saying, game developers go out of business all the time. Massive, makers of World in Conflict, could be another casualty. Just because EA is out there doesn't mean all game makers are flourishing, even EA is losing money! If EA can't make money, then it shows you how hard it is to make a profit in gaming.


Bashem, the "not-worth-it" argument has been used to defend piracy for years now and it's been completely destroyed as a valid argument. You have demos from companies who want to give you the opportunity to test the game. There are many games without demos, but NO ONE FORCES YOU TO PLAY THEM. If you don't want to take the risk of buying a game that's not worth it, then DON'T BUY, but please don't try to justify your thievery.

So you stole Spore and received three days of pleasure and gaming from it. After you already benefited, you decide that it's not worth $50 because you already received your entertainment!

If I'm a game developer, do I have any rights? Can I say, hey, this is my game. There are reviews of this game available as well as trailers and stuff. If you want to take the gamble, then you have to pay $50 to play the game. If $50 is too much of a risk to you, then please do not buy the game, do not try the game, you can wait later for more opinions and more reviews.

Do I have this right or is it all about you and your selfish myopic desires? YOU had to try the game BEFORE it was released! YOU STOLE the game and then decided not to compensate the developer because you already got your kicks! I don't believe any of your BS justification, because under your own twisted logic, you should then send in some money to EA for playing the game. It's not worth $50, but then how much is it worth? $30? $20? Even if it is one penny, you should send that money in if you're not just outright stealing the game. But did you? Did you even THINK about sending in some money? Of course not because thieves don't compensate their victims.

With any movie, any game, you take the risk that it's not "worth" the cost to you. No one forces you to take that risk. You can reduce that risk by waiting for more opinions, waiting for the price to come down which you know it will unless it's a really good game, then it takes a year at least. But if you're not willing to wait, then buy that game. Developers who routinely make bad games that aren't worth it will go out of business, they'll get a reputation. Again, there is no justification for what you did, it shows the twisted mentality of a thief, a criminal that society has no need for, a person who deserves punishment and needs reform.

honestly, they should just get rid of all these file sharing programs like utorrent, bitcomet, limewire, etc. it's gotten so bad that if you were to talk about one of these kinds of apps, the person you're talking to automatically thinks "illegal" or pirtating". they don't want you to use these apps for pirating, but there is no other use for them, yet nobody seems to care about that. it's ruining everything for the people who do it. i can understand doing it for songs or something. i mean, you can listen to them all day on youtube if you want, so why is that so bad to get them with limewire or something, but getting games with it is not righ.

Metallica obviously agrees with you.

way to break down the difference between theft and piracy... way too many people use the words interchangeably.

one of my main views of piracy has always been that the people enforcing it make it seem like it is theft from the person that makes said material. But if i buy something used ( as i often do if i find a used cd i want ) i'm not giving any money to the musician because its used, and the original purchase is the only thing they see any profit from.

oh the woes of the information age... if people could easily dub vinyls in the 70's they would have.

Love it when thieves try to hide behind semantics, stealing is taking something that doesn't belong to you without the owner's permission. Regardless of how you want to define theft, pirating is wrong, immoral, and illegal. That's the bottom line. You are taking and benefiting from someone else's hard work and depriving them of their deserved income. If I'm a game developer or musician, how am I supposed to make a living if everyone steals what I create?

Bashem, what another lame excuse. It's like a bank robber saying, "I deposited over $1500 in my account last month, and I paid $50 in overdraft fees while also having a CD at this bank! So what if I rob the cashier every once in a while? I do legitimate business with the bank!" What would a jury think of this defense? They would laugh, maybe they would find the robber not guilty due to insanity, clearly such a defense is so ridiculous that not even the most desperate defense lawyers would dream of using it.

Hey buddy, no one forces you to buy the games. But guess what? You get a lot of enjoyment from these games, that's why you keep on going back for more. Yeah I wish my car had a lifetime warranty and never broke down either. I wish that car makers would guarantee the car for life and pay for all maintenance too. You know how much I pay for routine maintenance? Why don't they make cars that never ever need repairs? I guess I should go and "borrow" a car, I return it after it breaks down. Hey, in the real world, that's grand theft auto and I'm a car thief if I do that. Blaming YOUR theft on the producer is just insanity.

Wow, 200 hours of enjoyment, and you still aren't willing to pay $50 for that? Let's see, a movie runs 2 hrs, that's 100 movies, and at $10 a movie, that's $1000 of entertainment if you go to the movies, even rental would cost you around $300. And you're still trying to justify your theft?

You are a thief, stop trying to justify your actions. You are not a good person, it's time to look in the mirror, you are a common criminal, no better than the pickpocket on the streets, except that you don't have the courage to do something like that where you can get caught.

You received a lot of enjoyment from the games you pirated. How it is fair that the people who spent months and millions to make the game get nothing in return? Why do those people who make the games get nothing while you get to play them? How is that fair in any system, by any code of ethics, by any moral belief, by any religion on Earth?

It's too bad you can't "afford" those games, but I bet that you can, you just don't want to pay for them because that means you have to cut expenses elsewhere. And in the end, these games are entertainment, you have no right to these games under ANY social philosophy, failed or otherwise. I want a lot of things I can't afford, like a beach front property, a Ferrari sports car, my own basketball team. You can't justify your actions, just admit you are a criminal and yes, society would be better off without your illegal and immoral actions.

Hey, I'm paying a lot for my apartment, how about I come over and share your space for nothing? You still get to sleep in your bed and have your place. Why would it matter if I share it, I can't afford my own space! There's plenty of room for both of us, I'll only use your bed, your stuff when you're not using them, it doesn't change anything does it? OF COURSE IT DOES! That's why we have property rights. That's why you can't go and use someone else's stuff if they're not using it. You aren't allowed to benefit from what someone else paid for without their permission. Otherwise people from you city could come into your room and use your stuff when you're not there. That's called trespassing and is banned in every society and country on Earth. From China to Russia to the USA, you can't go into someone else's home and use it without their permission. You have zero argument.

Go to hell. I was having a legitimate arguement while he was trying to get his jollies off of defending the right to pirate video games. If you are to weep, weep for yourself

I wasn't defending piracy. I was defending mature and responsible users from the immature and irresponsible. It annoys me to no end when people suggest that because some can't control themselves that everybody else should be restricted. Just like the guy who says that file sharing should be "gotten rid of" you are both trying to pass off the blame. It's not the cracks, it's not the file sharing services it's the people downloading the games who are creating this problem. You guys sound like junkies trying to blame their problems on the dealer. Whereas the junkie may have a semi-legit, albeit lame excuse that the dealer does pressure them into using, I've never heard of anybody "pushing" piracy. Those who download games do so solely of their own volition.
As a responsible adult who purchases all of his own games I don't want to have my right to sharing files over the internet or my rights to do as I please with data I have in my own home being restricted because of other morons out there. I'm against piracy but I do not need to defend that positions - it's well documented in these forums. But that said I'd rather see a gaming company go under due to piracy than see a file sharing service be banned. I'd also rather see game companies take their own aggressive methods to prevent piracy within their own software rather than seeing individuals targeted for what they do with data within their own home.
I'm sorry if you can't understand a more nuanced position than just good-bad, black-white, but I'm as interested (if not more so) in protecting my own rights than protecting game companies. Personally I like the freedom and wild-wild west element of the internet. Yes it does come with some negatives, but the positives are so great that I would want to trade them for heavy legislation and restrictions.

Well Voidnull, I'm not sure if you misunderstood my position, but I'm in favor of companies taking measures like DRM to combat piracy BECAUSE it gives users freedom. That is the freedom to choose whether or not to buy a game with DRM. Depending on how consumers exercise that freedom, companies will either have to reply accordingly or fail.
What I don't want to see happen is for ISPs to block P2P usage. Or for individuals to be punished for cracking a game or making some other sort of mod (I want to stress individuals - meaning those doing so on their own solely for non-profit reasons). I also do not want my internet activity being monitored without reasonable cause.
It's really a matter of freedom of speech. Because that's actually what we are talking about - communicating information. That doesn't mean anything goes. In cases where there is an obvious intent to cause damages action should be taken (the old "you can't scream fire in a crowded theater" ). But in general things should be set up to err in favor of freedom of speech not in restricting it. Game companies have to deal with that and I'm willing to accept DRM as their vessel to do so.

Be carefull not to confuse DRM with encroaching on the rights of users. Unless it's something that is hidden and unknown to the consumer then there is nothing wrong in my book with whatever they do at least as far as consumer rights goes. You may not like limited activation and that's fine, simply do as you say and do not buy the game. But nobody is encroaching on your rights, unless you think you have the right to enjoy a particular game which I would have to argue with.

A strict limit to the number of installs that is not disclosed could be seen as violating consumer rights. But only limiting the number of simultanious installs, which is where this think is trending, is perfectly within reason. I believe with Far Cry 2 you will be able to revoke installs and have up to 5 simultanious installations. I think that is perfectly reasonable as long as you can have the game installed on at least 1 PC at anytime.

***Edit***

I also just want to point out that this type of limited installations with the ability to revoke installations DOES NOT affect honest second hand sales. Bioshock had the same system and I had no issue selling the first copy of that game that I bought (and neither did the buyer). The only people affected would be those who buy the game, install it, make a copy and then try to resell it while keeping a copy/install to themselves.

also, it doesnt matter what kind of drm or protection game developers put on a game, hackers always find a way around it by reprogramming the start-up. so saying how I rebuttled my own opinion (a long time ago) it was just getting dragged out for a long time for no reason. you cant stop hackers from hacking games, people just need to stop in general.

Piracy will never end just like murder and other negligible acts. I'm not comparing the two, merely pointing out something that will only never exist in an utopian society.

OP: I did not see why UBI Soft delayed End War, but I sincerely doubt piracy was the main issue at hand. It is not unheard of for games to be delayed 3 or 6 months, especially big titles with ambitious aims. Where did you come about this conclusion (simply because you hear it's going to have DRM?)? I believe the main goal of any developer is the quality of their product - if it's not going to be fit for release, they push it back if their publisher allows for it, try to cut a corner if it's of reasonable quality, or downright kill a project if it doesn't appear to be going anywhere. Adding a DRM package to a game title should not cause a release delay, especially on a title that is still far from going Gold.

As for adapting to a changing world/environment, I believe many developers have changed - though it is not always for the better of the industry or gamers at large. One of these shifts as been a greater focus on the MMO cash cow. I play MMOs so I certainly understand their attraction and the quality of games out there in the market, but there are also plenty of completely horrible MMO attempts that I have little doubt were driven more for money than producing a good product. These developers/publishers loss sight - they saw a system for making money and went from there, when they should have made a good product then determined how to make money from it. The MMO / subscription based service obviously cannot work for all types of games though, it is clearly almost mutually exclusive to MMORPGs because frankly, other genres do not offer the type of advancement systems, large scale worlds or content to justify paying a monthly fee. We saw failed attempts due to this genre isolation in games like Planetside which tried to fuse a FPS with a skill advancement system (it was a good effort). However, the model of an online account system where a player needs to logon remained and from that we got Steam. We're seeing more developers (like EA) some imagined we'd never see a title on Steam slowly test the waters there.

The reasons many of these large publishers are slow to adopt Steam is simple. Some hope to produce their own versions, since they are large enough to as a means of keeping more of the profits for themselves. EA for example offers digital downloads from their online store as well - it's obviously not Steam, it's more of a Direct2Drive type store front, but shows they're trying to edge into this market space. The other reason most of these large companies don't hop on to a new pre-established successful distribution method is because they are deeply entrenched as a CD/DVD publisher (they print CD/DVDs and packaging) and distribution chain (they supply retail stores stock). This is the same thing you see in the music industry. These companies struggle [and resist] the shift of their role in their business market, often due to the fact they will make less money. A clear example of this is Blizzard-Activision (ie Vivendi-Activision) whose core business belonged to Vivendi Universal, which Universal Music falls under. The reason for the business cross-over between games and music is as I mentioned - the companies business is/was a CD/DVD publisher and distributor - yes, they invest in game developers and music artist, but one should view these are a means to gain exclusive rights to their products and publishing the media. A company like Vivendi sees little or no benefit from shifting to digital distribution [in the semi-near term] because the restructuring cost for their business is so high, and they have little or no experience in it. And back to point #1, they feel they are large enough to profit from eventually adopting their own digital distribution system if needed. (Universial Music in fact has [or perhaps had] their own online music store and are [or were not] on iTunes [depending on how well said online store did].)

So what does this have to do with DRM? Everything. If these giant CD/DVD publishers are able to secure their products on these media formats, they feel can continue to do what they have always been doing in markets which they have cornered and completely dominated instead of trying to fight uphill battles against a new strong competitor [Steam, iTunes] in a market sector they have little knowledge or experience.

Where the DRM issue breaks down is that basically all major forms that are enforced on hard media [CD/DVD] harm or restrict legit consumers and have little to no effect on pirates. For me, at this point, this is where any and all discussions or arguments over piracy should end or diverge because they've become separate matters. The only link is that DRM is supposedly meant to prevent piracy, so in some terms they need to be discussed together. Pirates are not the ones complaining about DRM though, they easily bypass it thanks to a few knowledgeable members of their community. Legit consumers on the other hand have to deal with the overly restrictive, even abusive nature of these DRM packages - it's a consumer rights issue for many as they feel they should have more access to products they paid for. I for one have played [installed] good games many times over the years, some upwards of 10 times since their release. Image if you will common popular titles with serious longevity like Diablo (II) and Starcraft (last I logged onto battlenet there were still 11,000 players in Starcraft, it's freakin like 10 years old) with DRM 3 or 5 installs.

One of the largest concerns I have regarding piracy, DRM and consumers is how these companies are measuring piracy. I have serious doubts about their methods, statistics and perception of this data, especially in this new cross-platform market. Then there are things like bycotts.

Just to get it out of the way, console games can be pirated too, however, it requires more effort by individuals than on the PC side. For now, lets dismiss piracy as a reason for developers going to the console. More than likely, it's money from a large, measurable demographic consumer base [ie they know if you own a console, it is extremely likely you play games] and [not to be meant offensive to console owners, I have all 3 new ones myself] tend to make questionable purchases making even bad games small block busters in terms of sales. How this effects the PC market is when you come out with staggered releases of a game for console first, then PC weeks or month later. Most serious gamers own multiple platforms and it's unlikely they'll purchase a single title on more than one platform, so often this purchase decision comes down to first-come-first-[and only]served. Humans do not like to wait for something, especially when it's available somewhere else now. How a publisher perceives this sales data worries me. If a console version is out first and sales 4 million copies and a month later the PC version comes out and sales 1 million - does this mean the PC market is small? Not to me, but when some guy in a corner office is looking at simple sales figures, he might think so.

Bycotting a title likely has a similar error of perception based on collected data because there is no clear way to measure the number of consumers who would have purchased your product if it had no included DRM. Thus, I think if you are going to bycott a title, you need to make it clear to a company you are doing so and why. Likely on a title like Spore, what EA sees is this:
* Relatively good sales figures (despite bad critic reviews of the game) but not as high as they zealous belief of many millions of sales.
* High Piracy in the 10,000 - 100,000 perhaps maybe even 1,000,000 who knows by their matrices.
* 5,000 bad reviews on Amazon because of DRM.
* 5,000 bad reviews / # of people who purchased games = 0.02% consumers don't like the DRM being used.
* Game still being pirated so clearly EA needs DRM to protect their products (even though it doesn't work).

Lastly, few companies have acknowledged the fact there are multiple degrees of pirates. This is an important factor to consider when you are projecting sales and also determining "damages" to your company, particularly with piracy gone digital. I'm not going to break it down as much as I could but there are at least two types of pirates:
#1 People who will NEVER buy a game and will not buy your game even if you can prevent piracy.
#2 People who may purchase your game if you can prevent piracy.

Regardless of which, it is not a straight 1:1 conversion of pirates to consumers who will buy your game or who would have bought you game. When you don't have to pay for something, you're more willing to experiment and give things a try. Lets see... $20 for a flight at a wine tasting or FREE wine tasting... This is something that there is no way to measure accurately, but at least acknowledging it as a factor and taking it into account drastically changes one's "loss" numbers. I'm personally very tired of hearing about piracy (and having it affect me) from companies who clearly [and falsely] believe that every title they produce should be a multi-million copy smash hit. Just because somebody is willing to pirate your game does not mean they'd be willing to buy it - they obviously didn't.

On a slightly different note, I've seen Rob mention this before as being his opinion and I have also seen a developer say almost the same thing - a company that doesn't publish a demo of their game (one of the reasons people state as to why they downloaded a pirated version - to try it and see if it works on their computer) it is the company's fault on this account. I noted that Activision stated that they saw a ridiculous number of people playing COD4 online using pirated copies. I own the game myself and certainly agree it's one of the best FPS in a long time and while it as an exceptionally great single player rarely seen in a FPS, I feel the real quality test of an FPS is it's multiplayer. COD4 is great here as well. [If I understood the statement correctly] This statement by them to me begs the question: Why did/do they even allow pirated copies of COD4 to function in multiplayer? When it's single-player or isolated to a LAN, I can understand, but online... The game industry has long been able to prevent such things.

I think I'll conclude my epic post on that.

Str8ballistik, it is almost impossible to figure out who did the original crack. But would you be in favor of arresting and prosecuting people who spread and allow games to be pirated? Let's say you find a person with Spore and he's making it available on a PtP network, so he's distributing the game like a drug dealer dishing out crack . I guess you would be in favor of busting this guy and sending him to Federal prison (assume this is a Federal crime)?

In my opinion, doing something like that would curtail piracy by a very big margin. People take costs into consideration. If there's a chance that I could go to jail for pirating and making available stuff on PtP (P2P) networks, then I might not do it. Lots of pot smokers don't grow weed because they know it means years in the slammer if they get caught. If there were criminal penalties for pirating (yes very difficult and hard to execute, how do we know an installed software is pirated? Should we go after people who might not understand they shouldn't install a program from a disc their friend lent them?) people would think twice.

Maybe some law that allows prosecution of people who engage in piracy on PtP networks only. That is only if the prosecution can prove you pirated on a PtP network can you be sent to jail. I suppose the law would have to include ways to allow police/FBI to track and trace files off of PtP networks, I don't know if this is even possible, but if it is, then they would have to fiigure out the physical location of that pirated software and conduct a raid. If they find the pirated copy along with a PtP network installed, a person would be subject to a maximum of 1 year in jail plus $10,000 fine, and he would be subject to civil penalties as well (The software company could demand $250,000 per pirated work from you). I believe this system would eliminate most pirating, who would want to take the chance of 1 year in jail plus $260,000 just to pirate a $50 game? However there would be a huge loss of privacy.

I wished someone would explain this to our Congress and Federal Reserve.

In my opinion, I wish developers would stop/slow down on advancing graphics. To me, I think they've come far enough. Give up some graphics, save a buck, and make better gameplay. Please? Then we wouldn't have to pirate to see how well a game runs on our PC.

That's a good question buts there's a couple of ways to look at it. One is to simply say that it's freedom of speech and would should not be pro-actively regulating speech because something bad may come of it. The KKK has been around in the US for 150 years and nothing good has ever come from them. But their right to speech is still protected and often times defend most vigorously by people who truly hate what they stand for.

But I don't see P2P as being completely harmful or even completely useless. My file sharing days go back to using BBSs and newsgroups when literally sending a text document was considered file sharing and I can say that the reason there's not a lot of good uses for P2P is that most of them having started there but eventually grew into their own entities. Things YouTube, blogs, social networking even forums like this really all got their start with the basic user-to-user file sharing model. If 15 years ago laws were passed to stop the unfiltered sharing of information from computer user to user we would probably not have some of these things. So what's the next great thing that will come out of this? I'm not sure - if I was I wouldn't be wasting my time here - but I'd rather not chance killing it to protect corporate interest.

One very good legit thing I've seen taking advantage of P2P (mostly with torrents rather than straight clients like Limewire) is open source software. Unlike big companies who have the dough to pay for big fast servers to house files for their users, open source developers often turn to torrents to help delivery their software. Every try and download a large Linux distro directly a server? Maybe you get lucky, or maybe you have to wait 16 hours. Even Fedora one of the largest and most popular flavors of free Linux offers a torrent for their software right on the main download sight (actually it's the first option). Also since a lot of these open source projects are not centralized P2P allows for individual users to spread their own versions or upgrades.

Who's to say they are not already doing so? In the early days of battlenet I remember there being suspicion that Blizzard or some third party was doing just that in a cheat-patch that was floating around the game.
But seriously there's a couple of issues here. The first is 'what do you mean by virus?'. A computer virus usually implies that it will spread across networks and cause damage even to computers which were never used for piracy. The scope and level of damaged incurred would raise serious issues. Would it be far for a game company to retaliate against a pirated game by opening a serious security threat on a large network of computers? Also what if a user could prove that the virus game from the game company hidden in a crack for their own game. They could argue that knew beforehand that it game from that company and believed it to be a legit patch for the game but it then caused damage to there PC. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that if a game company were to do what you suggest they would be playing with fire. Personally it wouldn't offend me if they did so, but it would be stupid from the standpoint of what could happen if it blows back on them.

@ azxcvbnm321
Lol you crack me up with your rant, you are an angry bunny! I am a crim then in your book! look out cos im watching you right now, my sweaty face pressed up against your bedroom window.....
As I said in a previous post, Software developers lob us a pile of cr@p for $50. Then you find out for yourself it is cr@p and you try and return it because of right to return goods that were not of merchantable quality, (im from the uk so not sure if same law is in USA). But you cant, you will never get a return on a cr@ppy product. So download beforehand off a torrent if you like then you DO buy especially for online play! Demos are rarely any good, if a company wanted to relase a good demo of the game put the full version on it with a 1 week expiry. (terrorists and rapists will probably hack it tho) As I said before bought COD4 completed single player (6hours?) then went and bought the game to play online! Steam is awesome and the way forward for deveoplers, no piracy, no cheaters (well not many anyway), constant updates and a central point of access to purchase new games and updates. I have loads bought through steam, I also bought spore, what a crock of $hite that was. Try before you buy people.