Actually, we need less anti-piracy laws. The existing laws were for the most part good enough for what the industry needed. In an effort to "combat piracy" right holder specifically criminalize the average consumer for piracy. The intend was to scare them into buying those (essentially sub-standard) products.

The non-commercial "freedom" of copyrighted material is actually not a bad idea. They don't say right holder shouldn't be rewarded, they just want change the way it is happening. Think of the indie bundle and pay what you want models. Or when musician release music for free and accept donations. That system works for the content creators. But it doesn't work for the big music labels.

It obviously depends on the honesty of the consumers, and I don't really see this working for the gaming sector just now (if I take the GOG users as baseline. At least not currently)

On a commercial field it is a whole different issue. Copyright laws to protect your assets from commercial usage were never in question.

The party itself uses very provocative standpoints, and they aren't especially gifted politicians for the most part. But they do have the right ideas how to handle the digital age. Better than most current parties
This "big scale piracy" is actually the "bad piracy" that is a problem. Whenever you commercially exploit other peoples work, the law can and will hit you hard. But that was already covered by existing legislation. Right holder went specifically after teenagers and the like to enforce an aura of fear to stop people from downloading music and movies.

It is the "poor mans piracy" that the party wants to decriminalize or even legalize. Average users downloading for their own usage. I think the concept of "donorware" fits that. And personally I like it. But it needs both parts to behave accordingly (right holder and users).

That's odd, for me the GOG community is precisely one of the most willing to reward good works and services. It is not rare to find people saying "oh, boy!, I have this game like 5 other times, but I will buy it on GOG too because I love video games so much" or something like that.

Then you can as well get rid of copyright is my opinion. It's not worth it if you cannot effectively defend your rights. In this case copyright would get the short end of the stick and you couldn't really say that you're supporting copyright - in my eyes.

Btw. The Pirate Party in germany has quite some problems in getting a programme together. People want more than just copyright and piracy. And also there the positions and explanations aren't really clear. They all say they want a new copyright but how exactly... it's not clear yet.

My guess is that it is quite a complex matter.

Difficult to judge without statistics. I guess nobody would post here "oh boy! this months I pirated already 5 GOG games and now I will take a ride with my Mercedes" even if they did.

Just look into the classified thread and see how many people are breaking PWYW bundles apart for trading.
Your missing the commercial aspects of copyright. Which are the actually important ones to begin with. Those you need. And you need them enforced, as otherwise people would make money of your work. While a "torrented copy" of a record/movie/game is just about never a lost sale, a copy somebody pays for from an illegal seller is definitely a lost sale. And those must be prosecuted.

Dude, first of all - it's ridiculous that we're discussing something that was meant to be a silly programmer's joke.

Secondly: I'm not talking about cracking the game but reproducing it. Obviously creating a 1:1 copy of a complex 3D game is practically impossible (which was actually the portion of absurdity that was supposd to make my comment at least slightly funny) but note that reproducing mechanics is always possible, you can also create an engine that's capable of doing stuff you've only observed somewhere else, and at least some portion of the visual and audio content can always be ripped and/or reproduced in other ways - and these are things no DRM can do anything about. So, the only (and absurd) solution is not releasing your software to the public at all.

Haha... ha... jokes that have to be explained are the best ones, eh? <.<

That's not unique to here, you see that even on the Steam forums. Buying digital versions of games people already have physical versions of, digital versions on DD's they don't like anymore, etc etc. It's extremely common in digital retailing to be buying a game you already own. People here do it 'to own it on GOG/Help GOG', people elsewhere do it for their portal of choice.

There's a counterside to the coin as well, where people are starting to buy games on GOG instead of developer sites, despite knowing that the developers get more from a sale on their own site. But those people want it here, on GOG. Stuff like that is common on the Steam forums, and it's getting more and more common here as people's library grow. I'm certainly not arguing the reasons behind it, I do it myself as well, but in the end it's supporting the retailer over the developer, which really is not how it should be when you think about it, but for many of us it's also about our own conveniences, and a single big library and the like are nice to have.

Easy to mock when you're on the side of understanding, huh? <.<

I kinda do boycott Steam games, but i still buy games from their summer / x-mas sales, but I wish Skyrim, Transformers War for Cybertron / Fall of Cybetron were on GOG :(

The only thing I really dislike about Steam is regional blocking and pricing. If a game if blocked (e.g. Risen, Drankensang) or unfairly priced I will buy it elsewhere. I have never had a problem with steam in general or using offline mode specifically.

I do boycott steam, but that's quite easy. I still have a lot of pc games I have not played yet and I prefer most new games on a console. So if I would not boycott steam because of the DRM, I would spend too much money on their sales. I would just buy more games I would hardly play.

I purchase from Steam if:

1. They have a ridiculously large sale on the game
2. There is DLC for the game that only Steam keeps updated.
3. Steam is the only retailer selling the game.

All other times I usually purchase from GOG, GamersGate or Desura.
Desura being my first choice because it tends to be the underdog of the three and I want it to remain in competition because the less alternatives that one has to shop from, the more dependent you are on those shops remaining and this ultimately leads to one retailer who can respect in you in any way they feel (most times mockery and laughter) and not care if you try and take your business else where because there are thousands of other customers who fully realize they have nowhere else to go. ;)

A GOG admin said he buys game on Steam right on the first page here, but people still proceed to INDIRECTLY call him an idiot without ethics and morals for the rest of thread.

@admin: You tried, dude, you tried...

I don't buy server/account-dependable games, period. Be it from Steam, Origin, or somewhere else. Unfortunately, this "disease" has spread to the retail market...

I don't boycott steam but I don't buy from them. I bought 2 games from them when I had a windows pc a few years back but I haven't played them since my windows pc kept dying and I moved to a mac.

I think all of my games are now entirely DRM free. That is a must for me. I have a back up hard drive with all of my games on it which I can use anywhere I like on any computer I like at any time with or without internet.

I tend to only buy only from gog, gamersgate (if DRM free) and humble indie bundles.