I fail to see the relevance.

If a provider of content is fine with people not paying for that content, then you obviously aren't a dick if you don't pay. If that's what you're hinting at.

Sure, giving infants formula when you can give them perfectly fine breast milk is stupid, but stealing the formula is still being a dick (well, I suppose "a cunt" would be more fitting here). If that's what you're hinting at. But I don't fucking know what you're hinting at.

Seriously, it's kind of annoying when people just post a link and expect it to do the talking for them.

You need to prove why piracy is "dickery". Otherwise it's not a valid argument, it's name-calling (appeal to spite, appeal to common practice, begging the question).

In that case, why don't I have to prove that stealing is dickery, eh? (double standards, can't be arsed to look up fancy links)

Frankly, I don't. That's morality 101: you don't do to others what you wouldn't like them doing to you. There's a massive asterisk after that sentence which says that this need not apply if everyone involved has provided their consent with it and is mentally capable of providing such consent (just think of the S&M community), but that's often implicitly understood. Everything that doesn't fit into that description is being a dick, plain and simple.

That's my worldview, and as such, I really don't feel I need to prove its validity to anyone. Feel free to disagree. Feel free to pirate all the games. I don't care. I'll just say you're a dick. And to borrow a phrase, that's not an ad hominem, that's a good old-fashioned insult.

Well, then what do you call it? I suppose the reasonable thing would be to either refer to it as copyright infringement or to invent a new term. Otherwise, I guess we could go back to calling it bootlegging. Which itself is somewhat questionable as bootleggers are people that sneak hootch into an area in special boots.

I do grant that the term Pirate is somewhat misleading, but it's a term that's been used for so long that you're not going to get rid of it. Plus it isn't particularly confusing.

Oh yeah, very cool, respect... it's fucking moronic. Why are people amazed by this kind of non-sense, like that guy is a hero now. It's like in desperation he applied reverse psychology and said "oh cool, I'm fine with it, actually here's even some gifts!" because that's the only thing he could do aside from making an arse of himself by shouting "I will get you, you lousy bastards!". But well, the pirate movement does need a few heroes to justify the acts of millions of assholes, and he was almost like some kind of Jesus friggin' Christ coming along, so they asked him if he was willing to be their banner guy, of course he went along with it and so he has massive free promotion for his work now and The Pirate Bay has a new friendly face that says "piracy is not evil!".

Being as ignorant as he is he only says how awesome torrenting is for him, planting the idea that torrenting is generally a decent thing in the average guy's head. That torrenting may not work for everyone and his blessing will be a curse for others is something that a) either didn't occurr to him or b) he doesn't give a shit about. Sure, what's wrong with enhancing the idea that all companies are evil - of course all companies are built on big piles of money and logically if he can take massive piracy then so can companies, don't they?

Maybe "free riding" or somesuch would be then indeed the most suitable term... but I think some people were looking for a legal (and still easily understandable) term to replace "theft".

Also, I am unsure if "free riding" covers also cases where the author has granted the free ride, e.g. free-2-play or "pay what you want" games, or how airline carriers allow sometimes their employees to fly for free, if there are free seats. If it does, then it wouldn't be a suitable term.

If I asked my old mother what she thinks about software piracy, she would probably stare back to me blankly. But if I asked about e.g. theft, she'd say "ayeeeee!".

AFAIK, free rider doesn't really apply to non-rivalrous goods of this type. Mostly because in order for something to be pirated it's usually has to be fairly popular. Obscure stuff tends to be really hard to pirate as it's hard to find and not too many people bother providing it. Just take a look at the numbers of seeds for whatever obscure things you can find. Often times the number is insufficient to allow piracy even if one wishes to download it.

Stealing causes well-documented damage to the economy (with the value of stolen goods being a negligible part of damage a thief causes). Theft prevention costs are even higher.

3 seconds of Googling

This means resources that could have been spent on medicine and space exploration and (free) entertainment are instead spent preventing theft and repairing damage from theft.

(Conversely, giving stuff away for free is such a huge boost to the economy that any ceiling to the boost that might theoretically exist has never been reached.)

Dickery and its opposite virtue are words that have no meaning outside of certain ethic theories and religion.

Kantian anarchist crap doesn't work. According to is, government is dickery. Are you moving to Somalia any time soon?

Morality 101 is the greatest good for the greatest number, to the best of your ability and evidence-based knowledge.

Then your worldview is irrational, but that's okay.

I honestly don't know why are you taking a gun to a knife fight. I'm not talking about any economic or other implications of piracy or theft at all. Because that's not at all what people generally do when they say that someone is a dick.

Feel free to keep on ranting, but as the Czech saying goes, you are talking about a cart and I'm talking about a goat.

Also, I think it's kind of hilarious when someone so concerned with proving everything through argumentation ends up with such a rhetorical masterpiece as:

Giving stuff away for free is an act beyond the boundaries of the economy. It might result in a boost but it doesn't have to and it cannot ever be a boost itself.

Come on. Disgusting might be a too strong word. My kids are playing pirates all the time. Do you think this is disgusting too? It's just a word. The real issue is what you think how bad copyright infringement is. I think it is bad and is a crime and it should be punished. But I really don't care how people exactly call it unless they are calling it rape which is really out of question.
To add even more: Everybody is free to give stuff away for free. It is well within the boundaries of the economy. This copyright infringement thing is more like forcing people to give away. In probably most if not all cases, it happens without the consent of the creator/copyright holder.

The stuff that's been paid for by taxes, of course. It's called Socialism, and it's pretty awesome when not screwed up by a shitty irrational ideology.

I just wanted to say that this is an awesome saying. I'm going to have to start using it because this kind of thing seems to happen fairly often where people are arguing about separate things.

That article is a little odd, the author seems to advocate piracy as a natural extension of post-scarcity, but then seems to change his mind right at the end and begrudgingly admit we need to pay for things in order to have a functioning society. Perhaps he simply hasn't conceived of a nice way to bridge the gap between current society and a future utopia. Maybe because there isn't a nice way. An interesting read nonetheless, grappling with several issues I have discussed with friends recently.

Ultimately I find myself agreeing with bazilisek

I find piracy morally objectionable, regardless of context. However, referring back to my previous post, I do believe there are legitimate reasons why piracy happens beyond greed/entitlement. But I also believe these reasons are obstacles that can be overcome. Thus piracy exists, in some cases, as a necessary evil, but usually only because the solution takes more effort.

Regarding the debate on how much a game (or indeed McPixel) should cost. I would simply point out that developers have every right to sell at whatever price they want. If the price of a new AAA game doesn't work for you (and it doesn't work for me either) just don't buy it, or wait for an inevitable price drop. It's called being a sensible consumer. Same thing for a car, same thing for buying groceries in a supermarket. Honestly I think it's sad that a developer, McPixel in this case, has been forced into changing his price. Gamers should engage in meaningful, fair exchange with dev's when it comes to price. We shouldn't seize what we want and then dictate terms.

It actually also rhymes in the original. "Ty mluvíš o voze a já o koze." Lost in translation indeed.