>It's the same argument we hear about "abandonware". "Well, they're not planning on selling it digitally and obtaining a copy is difficult and/or expensive so i

>It's the same argument we hear about "abandonware". "Well, they're not planning on selling it digitally and obtaining a copy is difficult and/or expensive so it's alright to download it." Well, legally it's still piracy — no two ways about it (at least until it falls into the public domain, but that'll be a good while still for many of the games listed on abandonware sites). Law should be based of morality, not the other way around. Just because something is illegal does not mean it is wrong: Laws, and IP laws especially, have a bunch of side effects that were not anticipated when the laws were created because they were written before digital technologies enabled free and pervasive transmission of information. Since patent law was created with the purpose of encouraging innovation, I'd argue that the author who teaches himself the skill of NFC spoofing is acting pro-socially, building his own human capital in an innovative way that encourages others to use technology to find new solutions to existing problems. (Arguably, the person who made the amiibo scanner is even more righteous, and the game maker who enabled this learning opportunity even more).