Question: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/z3v19.jpg)

There's been a lot of talk recently about what it means to support piracy and pirated games. A very recent example is [this question](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/127918/why-cant-i-harvest-blood-for-discerning-the-transmundane), in which a user asks a question that turns out to be a valid problem for a legitimate copy of the game, but in which he admitted in the comments that he's using a pirated version.

Even after it was clear that this problem exists in non-pirated copies, the question was still closed due to the mention of piracy.

Is the simple mention of piracy enough? Does the question need to be more intrinsically tied up with piracy? Where do we draw the line?

Answer: 
When I think of the "no piracy" policy, I think of avoiding situations where we're suggesting an illegal or questionably legal activity to further another illegal or questionably legal activity. 

We *close questions to prevent answers -* in this case, the "evil" of the answer is the furtherance of this illegal activity. I have no issues with this and support it as a policy. 

If there's a question, and the "piracy" is either implied, suggested, or otherwise suspected, I tend to view it through the lens of whether or not other people could be legitimately in this situation. After all, DRM issues and anti-piracy checks *can* occur to legitimate buyers, and glitches arise in all games regardless of how they were acquired. 

If I can either assume good faith or cross out the irrelevant portions of the question, I suggest we proceed without closing. Especially in cases where it's up to the community to judge the actions and intentions of the asker beyond what's present in the question, I'm inclined to let things pass. However, if the piracy and the question's issue are intertwined and inseparable, and valid answers will only condone further bad acts, then close.

If we take a look at a similar situation where, say, a user is leaving good answers but then going on a curse-filled litany at the end of every answer, we would probably edit the curses out, and leave the answers as is. Then we'd deal with the user's behavioral issue separately from the post. 

If we close valid questions on the basis that piracy is tangential to the asker's situation, we are punishing the user *by proxy* by punishing the question. "You're a pirate, evildoer, and therefore unworthy of an answer to your question, no matter how valid the question is." I really kind of hate punishing users by proxy, as I don't think it works well and it causes all sorts of issues. 

Instead, perhaps we should punish the user directly for their misdeeds, and allow the question to stand - that way, the benefit for the answer is reaped by all, while the punishment for the negative activity is felt directly by the user.
I'm not very clear on what policy or practice has been established or agreed upon.

The impression I have in the mixture of answers and ensuing comments was: *the onus should be on site members to differentiate between intent and content by encouraging edits and semantics as a means to mitigate negative reaction and sentiment.*

That idea seems like rationalizing a zero-sum to get stop-loss.

I feel the policy shouldn't be to deal with it case by case, but to avoid it altogether regardless of how grey-the area is until it's no longer grey. I typically don't like a closed policy of system, but it is of benefit in some areas. 

The following examples are why I think having a strict policy is a better alternative to what I understand the feeling to be.

A (now closed) question regarding Minecraft would not launch was posted a few days ago. The asker was told support would only be given for "vanilla" versions and the official launcher. Okay, cool. In this case, there's no support in official capacity for launchers other than what's packaged with Minecraft. 

The next day, another Minecraft Launcher question was asked: [Do I have a cracked Launcher?](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/297226/do-i-have-a-cracked-launcher/297241#297241)

This is not directly a piracy question but it isn't clear whether the subtext of the question was motivated to learn ways to side-step or develop additional practice to thwart piracy. The nature of the question is unclear, but the semantics of it make it answerable. I answered based on the semantic presentation. 

Another example:

[Can you share Steam game files](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/297440/can-you-share-steam-game-files/297441#297441) - was answered with a reminder the recipients would need to have license to use the software once the transfer of files was completed. 

[Giving the steam Game Data to a friend](https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/295994/giving-the-steam-game-data-to-the-friend) - has an accepted answer reminding the asker would have to provide license keys to the recipients. 

These linked questions have two important and opposing details: onus of responsibility for obtaining license. It appears this difference is from rules within specific titles but in level of understanding by the person answering *and* lack of official support for the act to clearly define a solvent answer.

If the question about how to handle piracy is somewhat contingent upon semantics and content, then so too should be the answer. When the official source of the product in question has no answers on what or how to do something with the product, regardless of how the question is worded, we should refrain from giving an answer that leads to questionably legal outcome or encourages use of the service or product outside the scope supported by the source. 

I don't think it gets any simpler than that.