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> Games released via Steam have shown evidence that when a singleplayer game is unavailable as a torrent for free, then people will pay for it. The counterargument to this is that most people who torrent wouldn't pay for it anyway. But I assert that there is a third class of people: those who first check to see if it's available for free, and if not, pay for it.

What about the fourth classification of people who search for a way to buy something and who torrent it when it's not available?

Don't forget the weird restrictions placed on regional DVDs by the industry, and the laws that prevent me from converting my player to a multiregion device.

I'll add a 5th class. Those who pay, can't use the crap they get for some reason, so torrent a functional version. I fit this category often. Got out a Sopranos series. DVDs wouldn't play over airplay for some DRM reason, and torrenting was quicker than ripping. Another time it was getting a Windows install onto a MacBook Air was so painful that a torrent was easier than some horrid workaround that involved a 4 hour drive to get a disc and a disc drive as no legal method of getting a download was available (from memory it was Widows 7 about a year and a half ago, but have struck the issue of having no legal download available with legacy Widows versions at other times too).

> "...it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing."

It's not hard. A critical aspect of property theft is the deprivation of property experienced by the victim. IP "theft" lacks this aspect entirely. Using the term in this way makes you no better than the CEO of Turner Broadcasting who claims that not watching advertisements constitutes "stealing" of TV.

Call it "sampling" or "counterfeiting" if you want, but "theft" is misapplication of a term with an otherwise well-established definition.

Could it be a confusion of definition? Some would define stealing as, "You have no right to be enjoying my work unless you have paid me what I ask. It's your right to choose not to pay me and look for a different product."

Sure, you can make up your own definitions for words as much as you want. If you want, you can conflate the definitions of all kinds of criminal labels -- theft, rape, terrorism[1], etc. It's a time-honored tactic of those who seek to demagogue positions they oppose. But it makes a mockery of the serious crimes that those terms describe, and it does nothing to help you effectively communicate your own point of view.

[1] - Note that there is currently a concerted effort by many to connect IP infringement to "terrorism".

It could be, but the problem there is its a different concept being implemented as the same english word stealing.

One has a legal definition implying loss of a tangible good, the other a rather different definition implying you haven't paid to use a thing.

Both are correct grammatically, but they aren't the same thing in the end.

I take a different approach:

I check if it's available on Steam, or some other non-horrible online service. If it is, I buy it. Otherwise... well, you can probably guess.

> "...it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing."

Once copyright was a deal in which my tax money was used to protect a limited monopoly, and in return I could use the art after the monopoly expired. Now it is corrupted so that once the time has expired, the written language is not commonly understandable. The recorded music and video will have fully deteriorated in their stored medium. The games and software won't run.

It is thus hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing. They steal my money to support a stolen copyright deal, and I do not accept it. The deal should be ignored and the thieves should be held responsible for their actions.

> Games released via Steam have shown evidence that when a singleplayer game is unavailable as a torrent for free, then people will pay for it.

When? Where? To my knowledge, no such study or data in favor of that thesis exist. For music I know of a counter-study to such statements: http://www.scribd.com/doc/131005609/JRC79605, which concludes with

According to our results, a 10% increase inclicks on legal streaming websites lead to up to a 0.7% increase in clicks on legal digital purchases websites

and

Essentially these papers show that illegal music downloads have little or no eﬀect on legal digital sales.

Wrong way round.

You want to know if clicks on illegal sources have an effect on legal sources.

Not if clicks on legal sources have an effect on illegal sources.

Yes, it's important.

No, they're not the same.

> Not if clicks on legal sources have an effect on illegal sources.

But that is not what the study is about?

There is another group of people, those who will try to pay for goods, and after failing to find a reasonable way to do that, acquire them through shadier channels.

No, I think that means that the thieves are those who made it available for that third group of people.

>it's hard to classify their actions from a moral standpoint as something other than stealing.

It is easy. In those cases the owner hasn't been deprived of anything but potential profit. If there was a competing game some of the potential pirates might buy that instead, they might watch TV or read a book instead of playing a game. It is just competition.

I find it ridiculous that under current law it is illegal to make unauthorised copies of games, but perfectly legal to make a clone/reimplementation. Both can deprive the original author of potential profit.

Of course this is why some of the big players in the IP industry have been muttering about "patents" on creative works.