Minecraft Creator: Piracy Is Not Theft

[admin]

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."

More:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/02/no...ws-be-illegal/

[Smithroy]

While virtually all other game creators would be lamenting the loss of over 70% of their market to parasites who couldn't care less about the gaming business or the destiny of people who work so hard for their pleasure, Markus "Notch" Persson, the creator of Minecraft, sees things differently.