Just like collusion is not a crime.
Well, as another data point, I think I’ve bought just about every game of which I played a pirated copy as a kid and then some. It wasn’t just a matter of it being cheaper, although just for trying things out that was certainly helpful, but also of plain and simple accessibility.
I special ordered a few contemporary games, like Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome and Dune 2000, but it was a bit of a hassle and the guy at the store always donned a facial expression like “Dune 2000… what will they come up with next?” Admittedly that was a stupid name for a good game. The worst part is that it was always very unclear whether it’d be a proper big box or just some budget jewel case. None of the stores seemed to understand since it’s just software, not like hardcover vs. paperback… Well excuse me for having eyes and noticing paraphernalia other than CD-ROMs, or even just the design on top of the CD-ROMs.
(Yes, I do have a big box collection sitting around at my parents’ place. Just not here. Okay, not that I want the box to be big but I like manuals with some stories and artwork and stuff. AoE is a good example of a simple attractive manual; Empire Earth is an interesting example of taking it way too far. It’s as thick as the Microsoft Works 3 manual…)
But anyway, I’d expect you guys to remember as well, you Germans even more so, 
but some games simply weren’t available here. Same as how movies used to sometimes take a year to cross the ocean, or how anime has traditionally always been a downloaded medium. Or even more traditionally VHS-shared, I suppose.
The copy of DotT I played back in the day practically showed up in my lap (as copies among kids tend to do), but I’m quite sure CoMI was the oldest LucasArts game I could actually buy and even that was questionable since it was already a few years old.
And how much of your friends did that too?
Yes, that was a big problem back then: You could buy these games only via mail order or in shops. If they hadn’t the game (anymore) and you would liked to play it, you had to use a copy.
Ok, so I don’t follow you anymore.
I said that a personal copy (for your personale or household use) is allowed almost in ANY country.
It was YOU that claimed that copying from “a neighbor” in Belgium and the Netherlands was not illegal.
And gave me evidence to prove that.
Now, I don’t understand. Are we talking about private copies, or copies that you share with friends? That is very different.
A copy from your neighbor is not “personal” and is not within your household.
Is this legal or not in Belgium?
Yes. I remember that. But that refers to personal copies, which I explained that are legal almost everywhere. My quote you took is out of contest. I was writing about a domestic copy of software borrowed from your friends, and not about your safe copies for personal fair use. I think we have problems of communication! 
I’ll correct my previous post to make it clearer.
That is very true. That’s why I think that a superficial law with too much room for interpretation is bad. Because it’s fascist.
Here another example of problems of communication between me and you. We say the same thing and claim we disagree. 
I have no idea, but I know that most of my acquaintances who use Steam have amassed much bigger collections than I have on GOG.
Even my Steam collection is actually frighteningly large thanks to some Humble Bundle purchases.
As long as you can afford €10-20/month on media in some form, this is why I much prefer spending it on physical objects (books, CDs, DVDs) or DRM-free stuff than on something like Netflix. Our Bad Boys DVD from '95 or '96 still works like when it was new. But if that movie was available on Netflix yesterday, it’s probably already gone today.
I was saying the law is a bit silly precisely because I’m allowed to make a copy from my neighbor’s CD, but I’m not allowed to give a copy of my CD to my neighbor. But of course they’re not fully equivalent because I could do the former without my neighbor’s knowledge.
This right doesn’t come from my neighbor being considered “family” or any stipulation like that; it comes from the fact that I have a fundamental copy right unless restrictions apply. The thing called copyright in English would be more appropriately called authorship/creator-right like in Dutch/German, or alternatively publication & distribution right. Copying is merely a means to that end, but traditionally it’s not copying on which restrictions apply. Those restrictions only exist due to modern agreements and pressure from the US and the EU. (Perhaps that’s all completely different in English-speaking and comparable locales where they traditionally call it copyright.)
Hence I’m only allowed to give a copy of my CD to my immediate familial circle. It’s within such a context that familial circle has been decided to include something slightly odd like “four mechanics who have worked closely together for a decade” in exceptional court rulings.
Truth!
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You mean, buying originals after pirated copies? A very few, I think.
Yes. 
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Oh, so that’s the point! The difference between copying my neighbour’s original VERSUS owning a copy made by my neighbour himself!
Yes, I furthermore agree with you (and with myself! 
) In saying this is a stupid law.
I’m not sure if the legislator really meant to underline this subtle formal difference (to determine a lawful an an unlawful formal cases which belong to the substantially SAME situation) or if that’s just your interpretation. In both cases I agree with you, that’s silly.
Anyway, just to close the debate, everything originated from the fact that I wasn’t aware that copying your neighbour’s CDs could be legal in some countries. In my country it IS NOT.
I did that, and I wrote it somewhere else in this forum.
I copied Monkey Island, the EGA version, from the floppies of a friend of mine.
Even if it seems that this conduct is LEGAL in some countries, even if it was normal back then, and even if people sold pirated copies in shops, I felt I was doing something WRONG, and I considered it an act of piracy. I bought then an original copy of MI1 one or two years later, because I thought it was the right thing to do.
Was I redeemed? I don’t know if I was, but now I’m sure I am. Since I have a Guilt Absolution Certificate signed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnik! 
In my case, I liked so much Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders that I felt the desire to give my big thank you to the authors, so I’ve purchased the game. They deserved my money.
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Which they didn´t get personally in the end, and not by that time. But your intent counts.
What do you mean? If I had purchased the game before, it would have been changed something?
Well, had you bought the game when it was new it would have helped sales for the company which meant more chances for new games. The LA employees got fixed salaries independent from sales figures. The money went to Lucas Film and the designers saw nothing of that. Sure that made investing in new games more likely. But years later when most of them had left, buying Zak didn´t really change much of anything anymore.
What I want to say is. Had everyone bought Monkey Island 2 legit in 1991 (or had the overall sales been better for whatever reason) there would probably have been a Monkey Island 3 by the original team, but we will never know now.
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I played a pirated copy of MI2 post-2000 when no one was around to profit and the game couldn’t be legally acquired.
But I bought the MI2 special edition the second it showed up on GOG.
(Maybe not literally; I don’t remember. But not long after anyway.)
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Me too. I first played pirated copies of MI 1 & 2 and bought them later. Back then, I bought so many worse games for a whole bunch of money that I got a bad conscience. It felt to me as if I had given my pocket money to the “wrong” people.
Furthermore, the Monkey Island boxes looked great! How could someone have ignored them in the shop? As I already wrote somewhere else on these forums, I don’t exactly like Sam & Max, but I definitely like Steve Purcell’s talent for creating box art.
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I’m happy to say that I bought around half of the LFG/LA games pretty much as soon as they came out:
- Indy3
- MI2
- DOTT
- The Dig
- COMI
- Grim Fandango
- Escape from MI
I’ve got Loom on a CD from a magazine cover some years after it came out, and MI1 and Indy4 off of EBay more recently. Sam & Max I only ever borrowed from a friend.
Given how many games still came after MI2, I don’t think the (non-)existence of MI3a hinged directly or indirectly on the sales number of MI2 (but what do I know?).
Last year I bought The Pillars of the Earth to support making of The Devil’s Men, only to have that cancelled. There are simply things we cannot influence. TPotE wasn’t very successful as far as I can tell, and if it had been, I guess TDM would have been cancelled for a different reason.
I think Ron Gilbert said on here that the reason he quit after Monkey Island 2 (and thus never finishing the trilogy) was because Sierra greatly outsold them. So had the game sold better he might have stayed and there had been a Monkey Island 3 in like 1992 or something.
Pure speculation, but I would assume that Sierra games at that time had been pirated as much as the ones from LA. Had more people back then bought the games instead of pirating, wouldn’t Sierra have sold even more?
For me it’s a bit hard to imagine why LFG/LA wasn’t in the same league as Sierra at that time, but I guess latter had the advantage of having a couple strong series going for a while already, while the games from LFG were mostly one of a kind.
Indeed! Some shops in my hometown presented them in a glass cabinet.
Hasn’t he said somewhere that he had the feeling that he knew much enough and that he wanted to create games for children? 
Your german-english is confusing me sometimes.