I just don't want my favorite torrent site admins getting gangraped in Swedish prison (I keep imagining Swedish Chef for some reason...) and being called pirates.

Mmm.... pie...

Yeah, or anyone with half a brain. Or even a whole one.

Nobody gets it, except us. ;-)

Yes but facts aren't relevant when the decision is made on perceptions. it doesn't matter if everyone on the entire planet stopped piracy immediately, EA would see less sales than it wanted on their latest big name shovelware madden's tony hawk xtreme fifa nba wrestlemania challenge 2010, ignore all fact and common sense, blame some new ninja/terrorist piracy system and ensure that ALL of their products, even the half decent ones that people might actually buy will now require the securom customer loyalty enforcement chip to be surgically implanted

And that's why I always provide figures because they let you see a different picture.
It's funny that you bring up EA, because what they are telling their shareholders is quite
different from what they are telling the consumers.
Just look at this 2008 EA shareholders report
If you go to item 6 you'll see that the revenues have increased by 23 percent in a four year period. I only focus on the revenues because that is related to sales, what EA then did with the money is business decisions and has nothing to do with the perception that the industry is in decline.

Every time I see that thing on a DVD I've bought, I download 3 movies. I'm not kidding either.

And you deserve it.

Hehe. Maybe so. If they've put a warning like: "This DVD got anti-piracy bullshit that we force you to watch" on it, I probably wouldn't buy it, thus not downloading the movies... and I actually rarely watch the movies I download either. I just store them for no reason out of spite.

Well after some research I have to say that I was wrong on one point.
Namely the "shocking" conclusion that PC gaming isn't slightly shifting pieces of yummy cherry pie to the console market, but is in fact a very large piece of yummy cherry pie indeed.
In this (warning ! PDF download) article they have ingeniously combined the retail figures with online distribution and with monthly fees for mmo's.
The conclusion is that the PC owns (or pwnzors for the more youthful forum members) every other console out there (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and other).
Of every dollar spend on the global gaming market nearly a third goes to the pc, this is quite a lot, $10.7 billion in fact.
And now my fellow forum members you should ask yourself the question is PC gaming in decline or is PC games retail sales in decline and what is causing that?
Is it a) downloading of games or is it b) new online markets and innovative business models (like GOG for instance).
And always remember the pieces of pie are limited.

While I agree the sentence is somewhat obscene. TPB has had it coming. They have taken no measures to prevent the illegal distribution of files through their service, torrents were used as a loop hole ("I'm only downloading something that will go to other users computers and find the illegal files for me to download.").
And by their name and system, it is a VERY reasonable assumption that TBP supported digital piracy.
For those of you who want to say that they weren't at fault, it was the uploaders. The law disagrees, here in the US at least. This instance is not really any different from a drug dealer in a retail store. If the store is AWARE of what the dealer is doing, and does not call the authorities (or at least make every attempt at removing the dealer from their property), then that store can be charged, too.
In that instance the owner of the store could say he was unaware, might be able to get past the fines if he cans every employee who could have known.
but with Pirate Bay, it's more like the owner of the store was in and while maybe didn't say "hey, you can deal your drugs here.", but still openly didn't even discourage it.
Piracy is getting insane, and SOMETHING has to be done to stop it. They can't really take the lawsuit to every single pirate on the internet, so they are doing the next best logical step, taking it to the places pirates use.
Oh and the "Pirating isn't the same as stealing something physical." yeah, it is. The "Loss of sales" is a very real thing, not just bullshit spawned by corporate lawyers. If 1 in 10 people who pirate (thing) were to actually buy (thing), the sales would be significantly higher. And there are plenty of people who pirate because "Hey, free shit." and could readily afford to buy it legally. And probably would if stealing it wasn't an option.
Piracy DOES cost people money.
"It just costs big corporations money."
True, in most cases (the exception being small-time production like indy music and the like). However, remember what makes 'evil-conglomo-corp' work. Little people, without all the employees, the big corporations would be nothing.
Do you think the bajillionare CEOs take the full hit for losses in sales? I highly doubt it, they probably get their $50,000,000 bonuses every year, while the little people don't because "we can't afford bonuses this year."
Would ending piracy STOP that? No, unfortunately not. Certainly wouldn't hurt though.

If you read through my previous posts you'll find out that there is no correlation between loss of sales and piracy there is however a correlation between loss of retail sales and online distribution, monthly fees and other innovative new business models.
And there are loads of facts out there to substantiate that.
edit: added the word retail

Perhaps, but maybe the SOMETHING that should be done is providing more of an incentive to buy what's being pirated rather than making meaningless attempts to stop it at the source. Short of a fundamental change in the way the net works you're not going to stop piracy. What's more, piss off customers with your anti-piracy measures enough and you'll lose sales that way too.
Plus, no - piracy is NOT the same as stealing something physical, it just isn't. Claiming it is because you feel strongly about piracy helps no one, it's just bullshit. If you steal a car from a dealership, not only has the dealer lost a potential sale to you, but also cannot sell that particular car. If you pirate software, the company loses a potential sale but DOES NOT LOSE THE ORIGINAL GOODS. This is so obvious that I find it very odd that I've had to explain it so many times. Piracy can and does have a very real affect but it is *not* theft, it's piracy. They're two different things that happen to overlap to a certain extent.
Any way you slice it, there is a *massive* assumption by publishers that every bit of piracy is a lost sale, OBVIOUSLY this is not the case. When a supermarket puts out free nibbles to try out a bit of chocolate or whatever, people try them. If the nibbles were all of a sudden 10pence/cents/whatever, most people wouldn't bother. The fact that it's free means they try it, if it costs they wouldn't bother. The same could be said for what I would imagine to be the majority of pirated media. There's no doubt that there are people out there who pirate stuff who would otherwise have purchased it, but the ratio of them to people who just get it because it's free and available is an unknown.
Bullshitting the situation because you feel strongly about piracy helps no one.

+1
Pirating software is just easier than stealing a car or a new monitor.
But I don't think that this step will help that much, because fighting piracy is like fighting a hydra - you destroy one site and seven another will start.