Mhm, if I'd paid for every game/movie/show/song/program I downloaded, used once, said "man, fuck this" and deleted, I'd be bankrupt 12 times over. Just about every one I do buy, I then proceed to copy/download for backup purposes, and just about every CD I've bought, I bought specifically because I downloaded one or two of the songs and liked them. Boy I sure am a terrible pirate stealing from the authors like that huh?
Especially, I'm sure many people download copies of all their console games (easier than ripping) and play them from hard drives on their modded consoles. I don't trust the PS2 disc drive (and I worry about the Wii's as well), UMD is just retarded (some games don't even work because of the lag, yet run just fine from a nice fast memory card), and the convenience is undeniable. Then on top of that you don't have to worry about ruining your only copy.
Remember when VCRs were going to kill the movie industry?
(The delicious irony is that with newer consoles all having standardized disc formats, USB/SD/etc, and a kernel that prevents games from actually touching the hardware and OS, modding has gotten significantly easier. Remember modchips on the PSX and horribly expensive cartridge copiers? Compared to softmods and HD loaders that live in the kernel where the game can do absolutely dick all about them if it can even detect them. Nice going guys!)
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