pivot_root

If you're lying to the consumer and not disclosing that it's a product concept, yes.

They're marketing them as something they will be...

That is false advertising—which is illegal.

You can believe what you want, but there's absolutely no way you would be correct. Any large company sponsoring a cyber attack, if caught, would be nailed to the wall and made an example of. The extreme risks are simply not worth the comparatively small reward of reducing a tiny fraction of piracy.

A more realistic and reasonable avenue would have been to sponsor the companies going after IA for copyright infringement as a result of them loaning out unlimited digital copies of books without DRM.

My thoughts: they pridefully use the same formula in each of their open-world games, thinking consumers won't recognize that Far Cry's gameplay is basically AC with guns and a different story.

So if I steal something from someones vacation home and return it before they visit, its not stealing either right? Thats residential piracy is it?

It's still theft. You intended to and successfully managed to deprive someone of their property, albeit temporarily. You would also still end up in front of a court for trespassing and breaking and entering.

How about I love a painting so much but I'm an asshole and I think artists don't deserve to be paid for art, so I sneak in while he's sleeping, with a replica in tow, and swap out his real painting for the identical fake.

Still theft, but with copyright infringement on top. You have deprived the artist of his property—his physical copy of the painting.

I don't know what changed over the years really, it was stealing in the 90s and stealing in the 00s, and then some people figured if they just said it wasnt stealing enough it would stick?

People unquestionably accepting falsehoods is what changed. Have you noticed that when pirates do get caught and taken to civil or criminal court, it's for copyright infringement, computer fraud and abuse, wire fraud, or something else tangential to theft but not actually theft? It's because digital piracy is legally not "theft".

its hard to argue you should get all your games for free just because, oh well nothings lost.

I am not making that argument.

I even pirate games but I'm not afraid to call it stealing.

I don't, and I still wouldn't call your digital piracy stealing. In English-speaking countries, at least, the law considers it to be copyright infringement.

In the same vain, I wouldn't call randomly sucker-punching someone "assault": it's battery.

Because it's not—by definition—stealing?

Theft is the taking of another person’s personal property with the intent of depriving that person of the use of their property. Also referred to as larceny. 

Source

Digital piracy is:

• Copying, not taking.
• Not affecting personal property.
• Not depriving the creator of their property.

Then drag and I are in agreement :)

I saw drag clarification that drag comment was just about milk and not politics or economics. Myself and others had a different interpretation, which is where things were misunderstood.

Understandable. I hope drag has a good day and glass of ethical milk.

I mean, digital piracy isn't stealing regardless of the premise that buying ≠ owning.

Stealing is taking another's property without the intent to return it. Making a digital copy is not taking any property, it's creating a reproduction of it. The only place left to argue that piracy is stealing would be to say that you're stealing the company's theoretical revenue... but that revenue was never tangible property, being that it's your money up until the moment you give it to them. Piracy is, and only is, copyright infringement.

The only thing liberal about corporate media is how liberal they are being with the definition of "liberal" when it's applied to them as an adjective.

If drag does not support China, drag is probably not a tankie. If drag calls drag communist and consider Russia and North Korea communist-led countries, drag is wrong, however. A charitable description of those countries would be "socialist" by Marx's definition.

So, Drag thinks countries that act as though their neighbors are part of a greater whole ruled by them as the motherland, and have political structures where the governing body consists of a small cohort (and not the proletariat) are communist?

That's imperialism, buddy.

Let me know when: 1) China stops trying to exert absolute control over Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; 2) North Korea accepts that their ownership ends where their globally-recognized territory ends; 3) Russia stops invading neighboring countries; and 4) All three of them abolish the ruling class and give the power to the people.