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App Store Developer Speaks Out On Game Piracy
theguythatwrotethisthing sends in a write-up of his experience releasing an iPhone game on the App Store. By using a software flag to distinguish between high scores submitted by pirates and those submitted by users who purchased the game, the piracy rate is estimated at around 80% during the first week after release. Since a common excuse for piracy is "try before you buy," they also looked at the related iPhone DeviceIDs to see how many of the pirates went on to purchase the game. None of them did.
If I copy something that an artist produced, it doesn't cost that artist either time or effort. The time and effort has already been spent, they have no way of getting it back. The only possibility is that they might get payment in compensation for it. As long as anything I do does not affect their chance of getting this compensation, I see no possible way in which it can be immoral. Therefore, as long as I can be sure that I am not going to pay for a copy, I see no way that making my own copy is immoral. If you believe otherwise, can you explain why?
If you are using the resource, then you value it to some degree. Period. You take a copy of someone's hard work because you don't want to pay the price offered.