kman123 said:
"since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."
Umm.......that's a pretty flawed statement.
I mean come on, there's absolutely NOTHING stopping them from merely stealing music, films, games and not paying. Piracy is weird.
You are correct.
One thing you have to understand is that there are economic concerns behind all of this. If a country like Switzerland decides to ban piracy it then has to enforce those laws, which means putting people in jail which costs money. Not to mention the damages that would be paid to the companies holding the IP which is money that leaves the swiss economy and generally winds up in the economy of the company's parent nation.
Piracy also allows them to absorb this material while not having to pay for it, which means less money leaving in generla. Claiming that the money is "eventually spent on entertainment media" as a justification is purely lulzworthy as they struggle for a justification.
This is why I have pointed out on numerous occasions that really the only way to see this kind of thing enforced, either in terms of personal use, or people violating IP/copyright laws to make money, is to push the issue with the military. The only time a nation participating in these kinds of policies is going to be advantageous is if it has as many, or more, of it's own IPs going elsewhere in the international marketplace. While I'm sure the Swiss make movies and TV shows, video games and other media, they don't produce anything close to what the US or UK does, an accurate trade arrangement based on media exchange would wind up with a lot more money leaving the Swiss economy on that front than entering it.... and really, trillions of dollars floating into say US companies based on media where the Swiss get nothing to show for it except some transient fun, is not something the goverment sees as healthy for the nation and it's independance.
Honestly, given how invested the US and some of it's allies are in the media nowadays, I have been of the opinion we do need to start making some rather bloody examples. Few countries are going to pass the kinds of laws we're talking about when there is nothing to gain, and even less are going to pass them when it's liable to result in a lot of money leaving their economy, yet with the global situation the US and other media producing powers need that money to enter our own economies given that we are producing the product.
Understand I'm generally both anti-pirate, and anti-game/media industry.
