Not trying to rain on Dropbox's parade (they offer a great service), but I switched to a TonidoPlug to keep my own data and have been very pleased. It's worth checking out if you haven't seen it and an interesting business model.
I wouldn't equate a pirated copy with a lost sale, but that is an approach that the businesses behind SOPA/PIPA are doing and they are pursuing censorship as an end result. Whatever a pirate may say or intend, they are supporting their opponents argument for censorship in the form of, "lost sales."
Censorship is as morally baseless as piracy, but I do not like it either, and like piracy it has a negative effect on everyone.
Maybe sales would increase if something prevented piracy, maybe they wouldn't. I expect that they would increase a significant percentage, but probably not even close to 100%.
People everywhere act out of self interest all the time, not just some of the time, all the time. It's just that for some people self interest involves having the perception to see beyond the immediate benefit of an act. Others do not, and eat donuts until they have diabetes, sleep with their best friend's spouse, steal cars, and act on each impulse as soon as it arises.
That people act in ways that are short sighted and then try to explain away their shortsightedness is only human, but it's not admirable, and it does no public service.
I have nothing against anyone saying, "I breach the contract between provider and consumer. I'm a leech off of others labor. I inhibit growth that would otherwise occur. I take and give nothing back and then lie and say I would do otherwise if only X business did Y. I will only act fairly when forced to by a parent figure, which will probably be the government if I can get others to take on this attitude."
The same as I would have no problem with someone saying, "I'm a habitual liar and a cheat," versus someone saying, "I help people to be more careful and to investigate what it is told to them. I help people to be more cautious. I'm a Highwayman, a Bandit!"
I have long addressed the question of whether I'm going to live my life righting every wrong and looking for people to save. That I do not save kids in Africa, does not mean I haven't considered it. I live my life with integrity to what I value and I don't have to make elaborate arguments as to why, I just do the part that is mine.
The reason I'm shocked that Minecraft was pirated as you say, is that I see "pirates" complain that they would buy this product if it didn't have DRM or that product if the cost was reasonable. Here we have a project in its early stages that is valuable and made easy to attain. Will they support it. Will they help make it better? No, the lousy excuse is now exposure. And then, "Why isn't this thing finished yet!?" Ha, ha.
I agree on ethics. No one can prove right or wrong, so it has limited charm. I think though, that most would understand that beyond ethics, piracy is directly compromising the agreement that the producer sets out- similar to lying or stealing in that it's not admirable behavior, regardless of how many Johnny Depp posters you have put up (like one of the pro-piracy blogs that was posted earlier.)
Don't get me wrong, I don't support these asinine bills, however I do see people who pirate as directly supporting them. Which is upsetting because they're creating a demand and a rationale for censorship, which affects everyone.
On the same note, I see bandied around that the bills creators don't understand the fundamental architecture of the Internet and the damage it would cause. I see, "pirates," as not understanding the fundamental architecture of capitalism and ignoring the damage it causes.
Specifically, the exchange of resources where both parties benefit.
If a provider wants exposure and wants to give away their product for exposure, that's up to them, not anyone else. And for digital products it's a hell of a lot easier to provide them public domain or open source than it is to sell them.
However, exposure doesn't pay the bills. I am self employed and I see similar sentiments expressed on a regular basis. Product or service provider, if what I provide is valuable enough for you to ask for or steal, I obviously don't need the exposure that bad. There was a $6,000 photograph post up earlier that expressed the same idea.
If you liked Minecraft, there is nothing to prevent you from paying for it and touting it. Minecraft is an especially relevant example because the developers set the bar so low in regards to price and people still pirated something they claimed to love? That's so bizarre to me- I want to support independent developers much more so than the big guys and they weren't asking for much.
Well then, I stand corrected, you do have some basis for your statement. :)
Though it doesn't sound like you gained your livelihood from the production of such works. My dad is a farmer who wanted to pass on the farm to my brother. They had various communication issues, but one of the underlying complaints of my father was that my brother didn't understand the seriousness of being in business. He would say, "His nuts aren't in the ringer."
I don't think piracy ruins businesses. However, I don't think that anyone can make the argument that they ethically have the right to disregard the producer's terms for consuming their product, regardless of the form the product is in or how unreasonable those terms are. The creator of the product has the right to define their terms and if you violate his/her terms, it's a transgression. It's not a favor, a lesson, or a statement, you're taking without honoring their work in the way they've decided. Maybe it will turn out great for them in the end, maybe not- it doesn't matter, they set the terms and you violated them.
Piracy is parasitic, not productive, and everyone loses. We get these stupid censorship bills rolling through and resources are spent in trying to control the phenomena instead of innovating and addressing real issues.
Regarding Minecraft-- I did not realize that it was successful because it was pirated. I know that it got some good reviews on popular sites and I believe they sold a cheap development version and were successful because of this accessible model (versus a Microsoft approach). Wikipedia says that the developers decided to start their video game company and focus exclusively on it with the money they earned from their sales. To me, this does not sound like a pirate success story. It actually reinforces my belief that it absolutely requires resources to back any serious effort and this is something that piracy never provides.
As an employee, you have no basis for understanding the perceived loss that piracy incurs- you are paid 100% what you agreed upon for your creative efforts. Someone else is taking the risk and losing the profit. If you went to get your paycheck and found out that it was 40% lower than what you thought, you might feel some of that self-righteous anger that businesses are espousing.
More realistically the worst you will feel is a denied promotion, or lost a job because your company can't realize it's investment in you.
Unless you are directly culpable for the creation and distribution of a product and lose money on it because people won't honor your effort, you don't have a basis for passing judgment based on your personal experience (in other words, you're no expert :) ).
That there can be other inferences from someone's behavior is not the question. They could infer from the acts of piracy many other possible reasons. However, the argument that the pro-censors are making is that they're losing money ("costing American jobs"). This is not really rational, but by pirating you do support their argument by being part of the numbers that, "would pay if forced."
Whereas if you chose from alternatives that conducted business on better terms than they would be forced to infer other reasons for losing money, such as, "we are losing money because we are assholes," and would not have the platform of lost sales to fool themselves or lobby politicians.