Look, man... you want to have this argument about the morality of internet piracy, but that's got nothing to do with what I'm talking about. The point I am making, and which is backed up by reams of studies (which I DID link, should you choose to scroll back up and read through them) is that piracy is not damaging…

Credible sources: British telecom regulatory body Ofcom, the London School of Economics, North Carolina State University, The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, the Swiss government... there are more, but I've made the point.

That's a hard thing to study and a tricky point to prove either way. I can say that, when I was younger and did a bit of file sharing myself, it was primarily because I didn't have any money. They weren't losing anything from me because I had nothing to give. They did gain something in word-of-mouth promotion and…

Here's a study by the London School of Economics showing that not only does piracy drive sales in some cases, but that the overall impact of piracy on the bottom line of film and music industries has been grossly exaggerated. That's one. There's also buckets of anecdotal examples of artists ranging from metal band…

That's confirmation bias. Just because you've never encountered something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've never met a single person from Taiwan - yet there are still tens of millions of Taiwanese out there.

You're missing the point entirely with that bogus straw-man. Read my response here to somebody else with the same misinformation to understand that pirates are actually the ones spending most of the money on media. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying something out to see if you like it before dropping money…

Wow. That's an awful lot of hate, right there. I'm not sure whether to bother responding, but in the interest of discourse I want to try.

Sony is trying to be part of the solution, and I applaud them for it. This movement to allow a kind of online game rental thing, or gaming/Netflix hybrid services, is a way of recognizing some of the problems piracy is a response to and addressing them rather than attacking pirates with anti-consumer practices.

Would you borrow something from a friend to try it out before you paid for it yourself? That's piracy. Would you make a mix-tape to listen to songs you wanted in your own order? That's piracy. Would you listen to stuff on the radio before buying a CD? That's all the pirates are trying to do.

It's funny, but this is a real thing. I wasn't pirating on 360, but I wasn't getting many games either. But when I switched to PC gaming - a platform on which I pirated quite a few things waaaay back in the early net days - I found myself always trying to find ways to buy rather than "borrow."

You clearly don't understand the lengths to which modern life is defined by access to the internet. Colleges require the internet to access information regarding classes. There are jobs require the internet to even apply, and most have an expectation that you will have internet access. Which is to say nothing of how…

*bzzzt* Wrong answer. Just like any utility, it should be regulated and controlled so that it is available to everyone at fair prices. It's worth noting here that the deregulation of the power grid was a huge mistake. In fact, deregulation of any utility is a huge mistake. Not once in our history has handing over a…

This implies that they aren't already aware of this data, which they surely are - or would be if they were genuinely concerned about the implications of this ruling. They aren't, or don't seem to be. If they were concerned about the outcome of segregating the internet with paywalls, this sort of legislation wouldn't…

I could give you a long list of Playstation exclusives that never released on any other platform. Sometimes exclusives cross over, but most of the time they don't.

Getting a little tired of having all the interesting 2d games coming out on 3ds. It's like, every time there's an announcement about a fun looking 2d game, whoops! Not on a platform I can play! Ugh. Throw a bone to those of us who aren't interested in handheld gaming or can't afford to buy multiple gaming devices.

No, James Alpern and Richard Usher of Partners in Kryme, he is not. I succinctly remember pointing out this glaring mistake as I listened to the soundtrack on the cassette player in my '81 Chevrolet Citation. I would look around incredulously at the other cars, as if to say "Am I right, random strangers who don't…

Yes, I did. I wasn't incredibly specific, but I did say that it stifles creativity and innovation by rewarding greedy trolls over actual inventors. Sorry, man, but I'm having a hard time following your reasons for complaint...

Yes. It is. And the discussion was about how the west would struggle to capitalize because of terrible patent laws, and I was commenting specifically about the state of patent law in America. That, if it were up to us, nothing would likely be done. Your comment, while accurate, isn't really applicable to the…

Just as it is with campaign finance reform, patent and copyright law reform is a necessary first step to untangling the mess we've made of things. And, just as it is with campaign finance reform, the one step that must be made before any others can happen is the one step that will probably never be taken.

But it also shows that the government is terrified of stepping in and doing things when they could set up some private firm to make a fortune doing nothing instead. And besides, this is space exploration we're talking about - our government hasn't cared to really invest in NASA developmental science in ages.