News Section Logo NEWS - Return to news section

 

Minecraft Creator: Piracy Is Not Theft

Posted by: , 14:02 AEDT, Thu March 3, 2011

Permanent Link     Add Comments
submit to reddit
Minecraft's creator Markus "Notch" Persson says it's wrong to label online pirates as thieves

Minecraft is one of the most successful independent PC games available right now, with claims of $250,000 in revenue generated per day from the sandbox building game.

And you would expect, as with any PC game, that piracy would be a real headache for the developers. Not so, says the creator of Minecraft, Markus "Notch" Persson.

Speaking at the GDC 11, Persson spoke out against equating online piracy to theft. "Piracy is not theft," he said. "If you steal a car, the original is lost. If you copy a game, there are simply more of them in the world. There is no such thing as a 'lost sale'. Is a bad review a lost sale? What about a missed ship date?"

Persson also added that he believes all pirates are also potential customers: "If you just make your (products) and keep adding to it, the people who copyright infringed would buy it the next week." 

Do you agree with Notch? Or do you think that even if the original still exists, it is still theft if you take a copy without the required financial compensation? Post your opinion in our comments section, or in this forum thread:

http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=94609


Comments:

Related News:

News Icon PC Gaming Piracy On the Decline, Says Industry Head

posted by: Sean F, 14:11 AEDT, Sun February 20, 2011

News Icon 23.8% Internet Traffic Related To Piracy, But MPAA Misses The Real Message

posted by: Sean F, 13:42 AEDT, Thu February 3, 2011

News Icon Google Starts Filtering "Piracy Related" Keywords For Auto-complete, Instant

posted by: Sean F, 11:22 AEDT, Fri January 28, 2011

News Icon MPAA Sues Hotfile, Claims Hotfile Encourages Users To Pirate

posted by: Sean F, 13:49 AEDT, Wed February 9, 2011

News Icon PlayStation Move Should Be Opened For PC Hacking, Says Creator

posted by: Sean F, 14:35 AEDT, Fri February 11, 2011