Ah, that explains it. If you go back to my original post, you will find that I was talking about a comment on the article, and not about the actual article itself. It helps to have the full story so that we don't misunderstand each other. :)

They don't have to go to court to cost thousands, I'm not saying that none aren't quietly dropped, as you say, certainly weaker cases would be. But for every Jammie Thomas, of which you've heard, I bet there's a dozen or more that you haven't heard of but that cost that person a lot more than the proposed settlement. Even baring your teeth enough to get it dropped probably costs more than the settlement amount.
I know you were speaking about a whiny, self entitled twit's post. Most 13 year old kids are whiny, self entitled twits. The part I have an issue with is you seemed to imply (to me at least) that being unethical is never justified, to which I'm replying that that's a pretty silly standard. You're saying that the ethics outweigh the importance of whatever social benefit these kids derive. When this ethical quandary is so minor it actually bears little weight and may not actually outweigh the social benefits to these kids.

We're not talking the ethics of walking off with an obvious dying man's wallet stuffed with cash here, we're talking the ethics of playing a video game for free because you probably already blew all your other money on other video games... when you're 13.

I can pretty much forgive a 13 year old for doing that, especially since many will continue to spend a good portion of their income as they grow into adulthood on media of all types.

My ethical code does not allow me to condone theft. There are always going to be the rare exceptions to any rule, but those exceptions have to do with life and death matters (food/water/shelter) and not video games. I understand the social and personal value of video games since they play a very important role in my life, and have for a good long while. But, I also know that even if you can't own the game yourself, there are always legal means by which you can still engage in the gaming experience. In the case of TW2 (which was DRM free with a patch if bought off the shelf), the first idea that comes to mind is borrowing. That of course raises issues about 13 year olds even playing TW2, but that is a different story. When you can't borrow the game, there is always the option of playing it at a friend's house or watching your friend play. Both allow you to be participate in the social aspect without resorting to thievery. I still maintain that no matter your age, lack of money does not equate permission to steal. It just means that you have to get a little more creative, or learn to prioritize your purchases so that you are spending money on the things that you really want (and not per your example, blowing it on other things.)

I respect your right to posses a conflicting point of view, and at this point I believe that both of us have had a chance to have our say on the subject.

I'd just like to point out, they have been creative and followed the wisest path given their limited understanding of the world... and they're being savagely punished for a relatively minor mistake.

Jeff Vogel: "We all make mistakes, some people are just unlucky enough to be savagely punished for theirs."

Also, I certainly don't consider it "stealing" or "theft" and I'm rather tired of the industry's attempts to paint it as something to which it bears little resemblance (and no legal resemblance whatsoever). In point of fact, had it been theft, this would have been much better for these kids, in the US a first time infraction usually carries a maximum penalty of 200 dollars. And theft is an actual crime.

I've pirated on occasion as a teenager(no money/games not available anywhere for sale legally), and must say this won't accomplish anything but drive pirates to use different methods to aquire IP and avoid the legal net......i.e. download off a public computer to a flash drive/etc.

That said, how do we know that the PCs/IP addresses in question weren't used by others to download the protected works by others using those PCs than the PC's owners?

Also, (and not going for/against piracy or trying to by saying this but....) piracy will NEVER go away or be dramatically reduced by such tactics. As I said above, if one outlet is taken down or made to be unfavorable to those using such then new avenues will open up. And if some pirates are stopped more will pop up to take their place. Now you may dislike piracy or not, this doesn't change these facts.

Wait a sec. With all the widely available open wifi out there, people are dumb enough to use their own connection to steal digital content? I guess those caught are paying the Stupid Tax.

At any rate, if it's worth pirating, then it's worth paying for.

Those costs are just artificially crated ones(not required for the companies to run that is, like costs for paying employees who work for them or paying utilities needed to run their buildings).....they didn't NEED to create those costs by suing those people so why should the defendants be made to pay such high amounts?

IMO they should charge those being litigated the costs of the game and possibly a minimal lawyer cost.
To some companies, borrowing games is also unethical or "stealing"/copyright infringement. Just food for thought.

This article seems to point to CDP litigating individual persons, but some of you are saying that they're actually going after the people who run the torrent servers? Which is it? I would think it would be the former, since the actual game files are hosted on the file-sharing program users' computers, and not on any one central server. That's how torrents and P2P work, right?

I think it's individual persons, and yes torrents are mostly decentralized as you said.

And here I am, still wondering why Cheese went off the deep end like this. :(

Cheese did say some things I disagree with in the OP post, but still......remember that from time to time such rants are posted on varying things on gog, and this isn't the first instance. Like the EA expansion debacle, the EA EULA incident, the reboot event, etc.

Sometimes it's warranted and sometimes it isn't......it's up to the individual to decide and weigh in on, I think, as to whether or not those bringing up such hold any water in their accusations.

I made some completely in-no-way-expert calculations about these costs to find pirates based on the article Zeewolf linked to.

They filed a suit against 4,577 people, but for these calculations I'm going to use the earlier, smaller amount of 2,049. They're (presumably) asking them for $1,500 each. That's $3,073,500. I don't know how these things work, so I'm just going to assume that the costs of the acts of looking into a tracker database or whatever and sending email to ISPs cannot go beyond a total of one million dollars. Now we have at least $2,073,500 left unaccounted for, but mentioned as "damages/expenses caused by those guys and finding them". The 2,097 people pirated Far Cry movie, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's worth $20, so that adds up to $41,940. Still $2,031,560 unaccounted for. Now these lawyers are professionals, so contacting some ISPs via email shouldn't take more than 5 lawyers, and I'm going to assume writing this email with an attachment file with info from a tracker takes them 8 hours a day for 2 working weeks (perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that as it's computer info stuff, it's pretty much automated, and hence my assumption is generous). That's a total of 400 work hours, and if there are no other expenses, each lawyer gets a wage of $5,078.9 per hour.

Doesn't sound entirely reasonable. Perhaps I missed something vital, like how expensive it is to send (probably automatically) personalized copy paste letters to people. Most likely I'm entirely wrong (I really have no idea how it works), but my point is that the amounts they ask for are ridiculous even if it actually costs that much, and I don't think it's fair to put their self made costs on people. It's like buying ridiculously expensive cameras made of gold and platinum to bust people for jaywalking and then giving fines of $5,000 because the cost of catching 'em was so high.

Agree on the self made costs. And yes, you're being very generous with your figures on most counts & they are making an obscene amount of money(the lawyers and game companies) over their costs on these extortion rackets....but lawyers gotta lawyer, right?

I would agree with that, if it was easier to get caught. If there is only a small chance you'll get a letter for months of downloading, many people may figure they still "save" money compared to buying the products they are pirating, if the fee was just e.g. 2x the price of a new game. The scare factor has to be high enough to not to even try it.

But if all PC game publishers were like GOG, would you still have the same patronage? Or do we simply give GOG extra credit because they are so different from the mainstream? I bought Witcher 1-2 when I didn't yet have hardware to play them, and that definitely is not something I'd normally do.

As a GOG customer, I don't feel alienated at all if their parent company goes after the pirates any way they can, in fact I have always wished they would heavy-handedly go after the a-holes who are sharing whole GOG game collections on torrent sites, like reported elsewhere. When Ubisoft does the same when people try to crack the draconian DRM on games they have bought, then yes I feel alienated, but then I don't consider these people actual pirates, just customers who try to make their game more user-friendly. My solution to that dilemma is not to buy (nor pirate) games whose DRM I dislike.

Remembering my own youth when I had (e.g. cartridge based) home computer and gaming systems where piracy was simply not possible, somehow I was able to cough up some money to new games every now and then (sometimes buying together with my brother(s), ask my parents for a gift etc.).

While, at the same time, my C=64 owning friends didn't buy practically any games, but got all of them free. Were they lower on money than me? No, pretty much on the contrary.

In that sense it'd be interesting to see if all PC gaming really went to something like OnLive, where piracy is not possible. Then we would see if all the people who claim they wouldn't have bought games anyway really stop gaming altogether. Maybe some do, but probably not all.

I agree though that (young) people still have only a certain amount of money to use on games. Thus, if the publishers e.g. curb second-hand sales (so that people can't recoup some money from the games they bought as new, in order to buy even newer games), and at the same time they will not lower the prices of their games. that will mean many people simply have to buy less games, ie. the publishers don't necessarily get that much extra profit by curbing e.g. second-hand sales.

Piracy is a bit different issue because it allows everyone playing without a dime towards the publishers. Of course you could argue that many people would then simply opt for freeware games and still not buy any games. Maybe some would, some wouldn't.