So many times on this forum, people have danced around this subject. Orpheus was often quite cavalier about his 'taboo' versions of this and that. More recently there was a brush with the subject on another thread in which I posted. My question is this.
Without incriminating yourself, and if possible, remaining as honest as you can, please explain why at any time you've felt that pirated or cracked versions of software/music/movies of any kind are justified.
Is it simply a money issue?
Are there deeper motivations?
At what point do you consider a program or file of any kind not worth paying for?
Software which has been distributed freely by it's creator does not qualify for this thread.
I'd really be interested to know how you feel about this subject.

Although a lot of software available today is way overpriced for its quality, piracy can never be the answer. By contributing to the reduction of profits for the manufacturers, you will only damage the quality of future products. Besides, if a company produces comercially available information-based products that are of the genuine quality it is priced at, don't they deserve to make a bigger profit?

I believe that when you buy something like a video game that can be copied easily, you should own the rights to download make and keep back-up copies and modify until you sell originally bought product to someone else.

As for those console games of the 80s & 90s that no longer sell as cartriges and are available as roms, I think they should be released as legal, downloadable freeware. I mean, whos going to wait, like, 10 years to play a game they are interested in rather than wait a few months for it's retail price to inevitably plummet?

I've never justified my piracy, except regarding adobe software :biggrin:

I download movies, mostly old ones, because I am a poor college student, and I get some software, usually design related

any of my happy time software [games] i get myself, but when I'm going to a school where i spend $500-1000 on supplies for projects a year I feel a little put out regarding the spending of $600 on Photoshop

As a teenager it was the cool thing to do, mostly because you could get material we weren't officially allowed to buy anyway. A money/stupidity issue, I'd say. Later I found that any movement against piracy ends in a horrendous law that brings us closer and closer to a police state. As even basic internet anonymity and piracy will always go hand in hand, I have to pick the site of the pirates. Not because I find it right and just, only because I think that sharing information unfiltered should be a basic right. If this right is abused by some, that doesn't justify abandoning it.

I do not think that any developer ever had to shut down due to piracy. You could say that the potential sales, if piracy didn't exist at all could have been higher. You can't say how much higher, though. And you can't abandon piracy through preaching or ridiculous copy protection (which will always be cracked). Basically, I think that whining about piracy is either useless or dangerous (see first paragraph). It's like living in a big city and complaining about rush hour.

I think that ignoring piracy, and focusing on making a good product, is the only way to go. It maximizes user sympathy and if the product is worth it, enough people will pay for it. "Sins of a solar Empire" is a good example, without any copy protection they topped PC sales and made millions. This article is an interesting read on the subject.

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Why snark works.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought pirating music got the most media attention. Not many years ago I was playing in a semi-pro band and I would keep track of all kinds of industry trends. There is no doubt that piracy changed the industry, but I can't say it has all been negative. Radio always was 95% crap. And Metallica's ridiculous stance on it was just a joke; it cannot be stopped.

The other perhaps more minor side to this is the piracy of music production software. I will admit guilt on this, for 3 or 4 years I used Nuendo to compose and record BUT I would never have considered using it on a pro release. Not because it's not good enough ( it totally rocks ) but I know a few guys running small studios for the love of it, and using licensed, paid-for copies. That is where I draw the moral line, when it hurts the little guys. I butted heads with others in the band about bringing our machines into one of the bigger studios too; could you imagine what the owner would think as he saw "RADIUM" on the splash screen? Uh-uh.

Bottom line is, my piracy experience actaully led me to learn an advanced tool and I now know a lot of shortcuts when it comes time to use it in a legit environment.

BTW check out the site, especially the hardware forums, these guys really know their stuff.

money issue for me but it's more than that.

95% of the music i download, if it wasn't available for download, i would never buy in the record store, so what have the record companies lost from me?

same with movies. i downlod them, ya, but if they were not available online, would i go out and pay 10-15 bucks for them? In most all cases hell no.

On the other side, if i felt i needed to, i would justify my piracy by the record/movie companies overcharging us for YEARS...apt payback imo. It cost me $22 to go to a movie with a big popcorn/drink... that is f**king insane.

CDs are still way overpriced, and not enough of the sale of the record goes to the artist, so shame on them twice.

finally tho, i think if you like something a lot, you should pay, whether it be media or software. if you download sumthin for the heck of it because your bored and you only listen/watch it once, you shouldn't pay a nickel.

I have downloaded 2 games in my life.

Bioshock. Did they really think i would let them install a root kit on my pc?

Halo 2 pc. I would have gladly bought it, but the store bought version didn't run on xp. And as far as i am concerned, Microsoft owes me money for the over priced os's they've sold me. Seeing how they obliterate any potential competition with illegal business practices.

I download music. Not much. I think my entire collection is only about 20 cd's large. I feel a little guilty, but i would have never bought any of those cd's anyway. I plan on paying for the next disturbed album that comes out.
I would fell much worse if the producers didn't take such a large cut. It's only like the band is losing a dollar anyway. As for the other 8-9 dollars the producers are losing... they can burn in hell for all i care.

I downloaded a iso burning program with a proprietary file format so i could install Bioshock. I think most likely that program was created for cracking and burning games anyway. So f**k them.

When i rented Casino Royal the dvd wouldn't play. It required me to install there media player to watch it. LOL, right, i don't know if that software was a rot kit or not but even if it wasn't i still wouldn't install it. I went and download the trial version of Any Dvd. Worked like a charm. I plan on buying the full Sly Soft package sometime in the future.

I downloaded No Contry for Old Men. Wish i still had my netflix account. I don't feel guilty, though i don't think it was right that i downloaded it. If they had it in the local theaters I would have went and saw it.

Ummm... i think thats it.

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Reality has become a commodity.

My stance on it is this: Information is a free resource. With modern technology, it costs nothing to distribute. As such, piracy is not "stealing", it is simply what comes about as the result of a free market - an underground black market, lacking restrictions. I have no moral objection to this - if you expect to make money providing something that can be provided by someone else literally for free, it shouldnt be surprising that many consumers go for the free supplier.

However, this doesnt mean software developers must go out of business. The problem is that most consider their software, in and of itself, to be the product. Compare with a system like Steam, the most effective anti-piracy system I've seen (that is, the only effective one). Instead of paying Valve for a pretty box with a cd full of numbers in it, you are paying them for the service they provide - the game is added to your account, it is kept up to date, you can play it on any computer you like, you can play against others, and the system tracks your in-game acheivments if you're into that sort of thing. There are of course plenty of flaws in the Steam system, but in all, I'd say it does more good than harm. I know there are cracked versions of most of the games on Steam, but who actually uses those? CS:Source has changed a lot since 2004, and I'd rather not be stuck with that version and no online servers.

Steam easily beats having to crack your own legitimate games because of draconian anti-piracy measures.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

The only time I really ever 'pirated' anything outside of the realm of music is abandonware games and old console emulated games. I don't consider abandonware pirating in the slightest, but I know some do. As for roms, I'm not going to rebuy the NES games I own, and I'm not going to go rummaging through garage sales and tempt fate with ebay hacks to get the ones I don't. Don't really care if Nintendo wants to resell their entire NES and SNES library through the Wii either, because I'm not about to support them wringing even more money out of people's pockets for overpriced ancient stuff. If, for example, Nintendo made a cd of all its NES games for 20-30 bucks that worked with a computer I wouldn't hesitate for a second to buy it. Instead it's $5 for a game released in 1988. Only 90% price reduction after 20 years?! Thanks!! I'll gladly pay a multiple hundred percent markup for something worth pennies :rolleyes: . This is probably real piracy, but f**k it. Note though that anybody who steals current games, pc or console, can go straight to hell.

Music is a little different situation. I did alot of downloading in college mainly because of getting burned so hard on terrible cds where I've only heard the radio singles and nothing else. This is merely justification for stealing (which it is), but I did greatly expand my musical tastes through the easy introduction to new songs and this led to a great deal of purchases, ballooning my cd collection from 15ish to 100ish, so I think the music industry won in the end. Nonetheless my musical tastes aren't that diverse, which led to scouring for rare songs by my favorite bands, unreleased stuff, out of print stuff, etc, and this is where I still think downloading music is justified. Out of print cds that have become thousand dollar plus collector's items, such as the first Queens of the Stone Age album or Mindless Self Indulgence's first album (yes they're dumb I know) I wouldn't hesitate to download, if I could find them. Unreleased stuff that will probably never see the light of day like Powerman5000's Anyone for Doomsday album that got cancelled and then leaked are guilt-free as well. I'd gladly drop $15 on said albums, but they're never gonna be found in retail so, much like abandonware, they are free game (pun intended).

My stance on it is this: Information is a free resource. With modern technology, it costs nothing to distribute. As such, piracy is not "stealing", it is simply what comes about as the result of a free market - an underground black market, lacking restrictions. I have no moral objection to this - if you expect to make money providing something that can be provided by someone else literally for free, it shouldnt be surprising that many consumers go for the free supplier.

It may not cost money to distribute but it cost tons of money to develop and produce. You don't think game developers or musical artist deserve monetary compensation for their art? What these people do is a full time job. This stuff just can't be a hobby for them. O and i forgot.
I have downloaded a TON of porn. Lots and lots of porn. Literally, i delete most of it after skimming through it and finding it doesn't suit my tastes ( ) . I can't imagine how much money i would have spent on porn i didn't like, if i was actuality paying for it. Not that i ever would pay for it if i had to.

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Reality has become a commodity.

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting wil5on</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>"Information is a free resource."</DIV></DIV>

I want to point out that there is a new wave of commerce getting started; one that is separate from capitalism, socialism, communism, and totally dependant on today?s modern technology by mainly but not limited by the internet. Wouldn't it make sense to start thinking about how the next form of commerce and economy will emerge? It is through what is called the "collective action" theory (-Google it). Today's technology has increased our evolution of commerce. When the alphabet was invented, new forms of records were then able to be kept of the trades that occurred each and everyday for a tribe or civilization. Then we had the printing press which was able to help such visionaries as Newton, Luther and Jefferson realize and spread their vision. Beyond that we had broadcasting stations that then allowed us to spread a message for miles apart for other people to hear, and so now, with computers and internet, every computer is now a printing press, every computer is now a broadcasting station; and it is from these forms of communication that we keep advancing our technology basing the next form off the last. This is why we are able to advance even more rapidly than before. Eventually, we will be able to carry/wear technologies that will communicate at faster speeds greater than through what we consider broadband today.

Where am I going with this? Let's investigate further:
Why do people steal software and other forms of digital goods for no good reason? They try to form rational self-interest. In many tests over the world, people play what is called the "Prisoner's Dilemma" (-Google it). Basically, imagine two people sitting in separate rooms. One is offered $100 but is told to split his $100 with the other person for however much they want to (fair or not). The first person chooses and the remaining decided amount is offered to the second person, who then has the choice to accept it or reject it. What the two people are not told is that if the second person rejects the amount (if he thinks it is unfair), neither of them are paid, and the game is over. What has been discovered all over the world is that somehow, there is an innate understanding of the game's result. That is, the first person realizes within themselves that they should make a fair offer for the sake of it. And unbelievably, the end result of the game has been that most people settle on the amount. What does this prove? That rational self-interest is not always the dominating factor in market deals. Yes, there will always be stealing for whatever reason, but there should probably always be a majority that refuses to.

So, where am I now? I'm now going to explain how what we consider "altruistic punishment" is what keeps stealing in check. It has been suggested that "altruistic punishment" may be the glue that holds societies together. It is the joy people in business and on the market get when they punish people doing bad things (such as stealing or cheating in general). This ranges everywhere from suing someone, to posting a negative comment on their site for treating you unfairly. People will act to punish cheaters even at a cost to themselves.

Now, here's my "tie-in" statement: referring to my first paragraph, new forms of cooperation through communication in the past have helped create new forms of wealth. This is true today through the internet. Look at open source production and peer-to-peer production. If in the past new forms of cooperation create new forms of production and wealth, then it may not be so farfetched to imagine that we may be moving into yet another economic form that may be considerably different from the others.

There is a certain kind of sharing that is evident in modern corporation's self interest. Outsourcing has proven that world class software such as Linux and Mozilla can be produced without the Socratic structure of the firm. Google enriches itself by enriching thousands of bloggers through "AddSense." Amazon has opened its API to 60,000 developers enabling countless Amazon shops. But this is not out of altruism, but simply as a way of enriching themselves. E-bay solved the Prisoner's dilemma! They created a market where none would have existed by creating a feedback system that changes what the buyer and seller think of one another. It has become a situation where the buyer proves to the seller that he is trustworthy enough to buy from. Wikipedia has used thousands of volunteers to create a free encyclopedia with a million and a half articles in 200 languages in just a couple of years. BitTorrent turns every downloader into an uploader making the system more efficient the more it is used. Millions of users have dedicated their computers when they're not using them to link together through the internet to create super computers that crack algorithmic codes, search for life in space and find cures of diseases. Companies are outsourcing because it enriches themselves; people are banning together out of self-interest. It is an economy with both equally involved: self interest AND all-inclusive enrichment. All over the world people are banning together through cell-phones and IM to warn one another about a problem in the city, or to remind each other to go vote, or rally at an event.

Now, I'm not saying that understanding cooperation is going to cause us to be better people, in fact, sometimes, people cooperate to do bad things, I'm just saying that having a better understanding will allow us to progress even faster into the next generation of commerce which is probably a good thing. People are now setting their own prices for how much they think an item is worth. And that trend is trickling down to the everyday seller. Not just retail and auctions. Stealing is just a way people try to get what they want because they either don't like the system in place to legally get what they want, or they believe the amount of this item is not fair for whatever reason.

With that being said, I cannot take credit for this entire post, as most of my words have been either paraphrased or quoted directly from this man: Howard Rheingold I had watched his TED conference talk not long ago and this post by wil5son reminded me of it, so I decided to pass on his words in the context of this topic. I think it has some relevance :smile: .

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

It may not cost money to distribute but it cost tons of money to develop and produce. You don't think game developers or musical artist deserve monetary compensation for their art? What these people do is a full time job. This stuff just can't be a hobby for them.

Okay... an example. Lets say I make bottled water. I put a lot of time and effort, and my own money, into making these wonderful glass bottles, filling them with water and taking them out to sell them. Is it my fault, then, that if I'm standing next to a water cooler selling my hard-to-open glass bottles of water for $10 each, that people don't buy my product? Should they buy it just because I put so much work into it, when they can just get the same thing for free?

Riven, you make a good point. Open source is the way things are going to go, but unfortunately it will take a while.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

I wouldn't be surprised if Lep made a personal appearance to delete this thread.

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i eat paint

Okay... an example. Lets say I make bottled water. I put a lot of time and effort, and my own money, into making these wonderful glass bottles, filling them with water and taking them out to sell them. Is it my fault, then, that if I'm standing next to a water cooler selling my hard-to-open glass bottles of water for $10 each, that people don't buy my product? Should they buy it just because I put so much work into it, when they can just get the same thing for free?

Would you walk up to that person and shove him out of the way, grab a bottle, and run off? I mean that bottle had a cool picture on it. You wanted it, but sure as hell wasn't going to pay $10 for a bottle with a picture on it. Would you steal that persons investment of money and work? Can you produce a game at the same quality that Valve or some other developer produces them? Can you do it for free? No, you can't. No one person can. They are nice enough to take the time and effort to produce to give us hundreds of hours of entertainment. They deserve compensation for it. They don't produce our entertainment because they like to see us happy. They do it because they trying to make a living. if 100% of people downloaded their games for free they would have to get a job doing something els. Filling out TPS reports and what not. With out money backing games we all still be playing break out and pong. Money drives the industry.

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Reality has become a commodity.

Why do you think that Fishy?

I see no reason to delete an ongoing intelligent discussion due to content. The fact of the matter is that there is no black and white yet with reguard to this subject. Almost every aspect of this particular topic is open, as you can see, to interpretation. No one here is pandering freeware, flaming, or linking to any warez. It's a discussion.

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Quote from Nietzsche....God is dead
Quote from God....Nietzsche is dead

Oh yeah, and i think if you own music/movie on one format vhs/dvd/cassette(lol), you should own the rites to a different format. Like, if I own The Goonies on vhs, I think i should be able to download it without legal repercussions since i paid for it's use.

I'm sure the record/movie companies would staunchly disagree, since they would feel no moral dilemma in selling me the same content 2 or 3 or more times.

Redwood: I don't think it's been proven that anybody has gone out of business due to piracy, despite the money they waste trying to combat it. I wouldn't use the arguement record labels and video game manufacturers are poor just yet. ; )

i'm not saying it's right, i'm just saying these companies aren't starving, that's all.

So in essence, you feel that it's up to you to determine when profit should cease for a product?.

They have more than enough money, so I should get it for free?.

What about format crossovers?. You don't get a free DVD player just because they put the movie on DVD. You go out and buy the DVD player. Then, when they release it on Blu-ray, you go and buy that player. Every time a manufacturer updates it's format, it's at an expense. If they have previously sold ten million units on VHS, should they be obligated to offer you a no cost upgrade?

your buying a licence to view the materail or artist's creation, the format is irrelevant imo. i'm not syaing they owe you the computer, dvd player, or what ever to go along with it.

So in essence, you feel that it's up to you to determine when profit should cease for a product?

if you're persistent in descending into the direction of melodrama, than i simply won't respond to your posts any more. plus your over generalizing, but yeah, if there making a healthy living by overcharging in the first place, i guess i don't care that much.

but once again, let me make this clear: i'm not saying i'm right, or if i feel my views are morally justified, i'm just saying i can't be f**ked to care for a company that charges $50 dollars for a video game, sells millions of copies, and then says piracy is some kind of threat to their existence.

fish! It was more often than not me who deleted the famous Orpheus swashbuckling piracy threads. Even so, this thread is ok. I don't have to much say about it though, not a topic I really hold any firm opinion on.

My apologies if I sounded melodramatic, it was'nt my intention. I was attempting to paraphrase generally. Thats why I started this thread though. I find the widerange of responses fascinating.

Redwood: I don't think it's been proven that anybody has gone out of business due to piracy, despite the money they waste trying to combat it. I wouldn't use the arguement record labels and video game manufacturers are poor just yet. ; )

I never said anyone has. I was just giving examples.

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Reality has become a commodity.

So in essence, you feel that it's up to you to determine when profit should cease for a product?

Isn't that the base of our economy?

A type-setter, whose skills became useless when computers started to do his job automatically, didn't sue the people who started using layout programs. Restaurants might have felt the impact of microwave ovens. MS Office might be angry at Open Office. Film studios tried to sue VHS-recorder manufacturers.

In the end nobody could help them. Nobody should have helped them. What would "help" have looked like, anyway? Making layout programs illegal? Microwave meals only purchasable in restaurants? Forcing Open Office to put a price on its software? Banning VHS recorders?

The market simply changed. Why should software get any special treatment? And I don't quite see the (melo)dramatic "change" you hear from the industry. I'm sure there's an impact, but what do you want to do? Preach to the pirates? Filter all internet traffic in the spirit of the Great Firewall of China?

Some developers are already starting to understand the market, and the update-services and community management seems to be a very effective step (Valve/Steam is a successful business). But the pirate-witch-hunt is simply not the way to go IMHO.

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Why snark works.

Juim, I didn't mean that I thought there was anything bad about your question. I realise that you and yours probably bore the brunt of the 'cash for internet royalties' argument, so I'm not surprised at your interest in the subject. I was just a bit worried that an open invite to justify piracy would result in lots of, well, justifications for piracy; something that's always been frowned on by them upstairs.

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i eat paint

I think the main motive for anybody who is pirating something is money. Whether your burning music for a freind to listen to, or you burning it for a freind because you want to play multiplayer or something, or you burning it to make money which is wrong wrong wrong!! Your doing it to basically avoid paying the money or wrongly making money off somebody else's work. I mean if everybody had unlimited supply of cash, I don't think many people would still be pirating. Its always much better to get the product in a nice shiny box with all the manuals and a disc rather than some download off the internet that could be bugged.

I have burnt things many times, even though I know it is wrong and I really avoid it as much as possible. Sometimes my freinds want to borrow games from me and I don't like my games being taken away from me, so I just burn them a copy. Just recently I downloaded the Adobe Master Sweet (photoshop.. dreamweaver.. flash..) because I need it for school. I am a student, I don't have a job, its craziness to think I would buy such an expansive product.

I mean sure, when I get a reliable job, I will buy these things (and expect my freinds to aswell) but.. I kind of feel it to be unfair if I was expected to pay for something like the Adobe Master Sweet in my circumstances.

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Aaron's Stuff

Is piracy wrong? I'd say it is, in a minor way. I'd say its a misdeed on the order of swearing in front of a child or cutting someone in line. You should keep from doing it, but it really warrants no ethical angst.

Piracy's moral dimension isn't it's most important one. The better question, I think, is as to why people have recourse to illegal firesharing. Napster, Kazaa et al became popular because they offered the most convenient means at the time for procuring music. iTunes has supplanted them (I don't have numbers on this, but my impression is that it has) because it offers even more convenience than earlier piracy programs had. It's more widely available and stable than its illegal alternatives; the price it asks per song is negligible; and, of course, the law permits it.

My thought is that internet users will seek convenience above all else. When the market can't provide that, users will procure it for themselves.

Can you produce a game at the same quality that Valve or some other developer produces them? Can you do it for free? No, you can't. No one person can. They are nice enough to take the time and effort to produce to give us hundreds of hours of entertainment. They deserve compensation for it. They don't produce our entertainment because they like to see us happy. They do it because they trying to make a living. if 100% of people downloaded their games for free they would have to get a job doing something els. Filling out TPS reports and what not. With out money backing games we all still be playing break out and pong. Money drives the industry.

My point, which you seem to be missing, is that consumers shouldn't be held responsible for the producers not taking measures (or as is happening now, taking inappropriate measures) to prevent piracy. You seem to be equating piracy with theft, which is not valid. Nobody is bashing the salesman and stealing his product, theyre just going to the free, equally good alternative instead because he isnt doing anything for them except putting it in a fancy bottle.

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"If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?"

• My yr11 Economics teacher

There's a lot of programs out there which are very powerful and the industry standard when you get into professional development. These products are priced very high because a purchase doesn't just include the software, it includes the license and extra support. These two things are something a professional business would need, but an amateur won't. For a big Hollywood special effects company, tossing over $500 down on a 3d modeling program is easily worth it. For a hobbyist, that's absurd.

When these companies fail to offer a product for personal use at a greatly reduced price, I feel they are tacitly approving of piracy amongst amateurs. The reason is this: if they don't, then the amateurs are going to use a different program. Tomorrow's professionals are today's amateurs, and if they all shift to a different program, guess who just found they can't move their product?

I think the term 'piracy' is a strange choice for this. It's not as if people are boarding anyone's frigate, tying them up and/or forcing them to walk the plank then making off with their booty. :razz:

I think information isn't something you can or should restrict or tax or in some cases criminalize (like cracked software, or napster). The problem with illegal downloading is that someone wrote that program or performed that song and want to be able to get paid for their work; One gets for free what one should pay for.

Ideally everything could be free and everyone could live happily ever after but this is not utopia. The world's economy is based on capitalism and when people are getting things for free that they ought to be paying money for there's someone who's NOT getting what they've earned, and someone getting something they haven't earned.

'Piracy' is commercially unfair and socially irresponsible, and I'm not feigning innocence here. I think calling it protected under free speech or what have you is kind of abstract and doesn't make it right in any case, but there's no realistic way to stop it right now without losing some of that too.

I do agree with the argument that some programs priced for commercial use are actually a benefit to the company in question when hobbyists and amateurs use them, but I think this is a boundary case. I'd be willing to bet the two most-downloaded items are music and games, neither of which benefit from people giving away countless hours of their work and toil for free and without permission, except in a "making people happy" way but thats total bulls**t really.

Like I said I'm not pretending to be innocent, just telling it like it is (from my perspective).

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o

My point, which you seem to be missing, is that consumers shouldn't be held responsible for the producers not taking measures (or as is happening now, taking inappropriate measures) to prevent piracy. You seem to be equating piracy with theft, which is not valid. Nobody is bashing the salesman and stealing his product, theyre just going to the free, equally good alternative instead because he isnt doing anything for them except putting it in a fancy bottle.

Their is no alternative to a music cd, game or a movie dvd. Say you want a new Foo Fighters album but you don't want to pay for it. What free alternative do you have? A tape recording of a garage band? No, i want the Foo Fighters. So if you download it, buy what stretch of the imagination is that not stealing? Is it not stealing because they didn't take the proper measures to keep me form down loading their music? If you say yes it is the same as saying if the door of someones house is unlocked and no one is home then it's ok to walk in and grab a few things. (I'm trying to sound as little hostile as possible)

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Reality has become a commodity.

It is here where I agree with Reaper47,.... somewhat. What the producers are doing now is trying to prevent me from handing a CD I purchased to my friend for their listening pleasure. They are taking advantage of the digital marketplace by encoding their product with all sorts of nonsense, and attacking clueless individuals with horrendeous lawsuits to "make Examples" of them. It is also the producers,(and their lawyers) who make it impossible to sync my Zune with Windows Media Player.Both Microsoft Products.(there is a cheat program out there, but it's on principle that I refuse to use it).

There has to be a happy medium. If I want to file share with my buddy who has an Ipod, well why should'nt I be able to?(I think Ipod lets users temporarily share for previews, but then you have to buy it. I think thats fair). I remember copying my LP's to cassette for friends years ago, and there was'nt a poor rock star in the house. No one ever complained about it untill the internet brought accessibillity to the forefront, and people started realizing with digital accuracy how much they were missing out on.

Does Metallica deserve a royalty from me because I share their musical goodness with a friend?.(Note: I would never do such a thing, 'cause they suck, but it's just an example kids).

It is with this in mind that I side for now with the "Pirates of Music". Until the music Industry stops gratuitus profit mongering in the name of Intellectual property, I will hold music copyright issues in my "not too important" brain folder.

If I know I can do something that I can get away with it, I would do it, unless it directly hurts someone.

I have actually never pirated a game, because I support the game developers. I want to pay for them.

I won't even download and play a crappy game, even if it's free. Because it's just not worth wasting my time with it.

On the other hand, I have pirated plenty of softwares. Because I need to use them and I don't agree that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for them. They're just not worth that much.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Juim said:
((text two posts up))

Don't you work in the movie industry? All of these arguments can be used to justify pirating movies just as easily as music...

Yes I do work in the biz, and I still pay for everything. (I just spent 65.00 yesterday on music downloads). I simply don't have much empathy for the producers and their current arsenal of copyright BS.

If I know I can do something that I can get away with it, I would do it, unless it directly hurts someone.

I have actually never pirated a game, because I support the game developers. I want to pay for them.

I won't even download and play a crappy game, even if it's free. Because it's just not worth wasting my time with it.

On the other hand, I have pirated plenty of softwares. Because I need to use them and I don't agree that I have to pay hundreds of dollars for them. They're just not worth that much.

So.. does this mean that you are against pirating games.. but ok with other pirating?

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Aaron's Stuff

He's saying he thinks more effort and time goes into developing an entertainment title rather than another piece of software and that if a specific game is bad, it isn't worth his time while he feels he "has" to use some specific piece of software. Both issues are sort of bulls**t.

The only software I have problems with are the ones written with almost no modifications save a few components and then are sold for several hundred dollars and flooded into the market as the new standard of some kind to force you to buy it. Especially when large development studios rarely fix previously existing exploits and major problems.

The other side of the coin is this, regarding software, if there's a piece of software you need and you don't want to pay for it, there is almost always a multiplatform freeware alternative you can freely download that you should try. The most commonly needed applications have, in some cases, better alternatives, but there seems to be a name brand association with software that I find bizarre. Because it says Adobe or Microsoft, it's "better" ... which contradicts the reason why people want to pirate it in the first place.

I'll be perfectly honest, I think the largest rip off artists in all of consumerism are record labels. It's one of the only mediums where the price has not scaled with the price of the technology, effort, or money put into the project. Especially considering the recording artists don't even get 50% of the profits, and make no mistake that the profits are plentiful.

I also have a large problem with entertainment studios releasing a product multiple times with different specs just to get people to buy it more. Yes, I want the one with the best audio ... thanks for releasing that one last ... asshole.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I feel, when discussing piracy, that you have to look at just who is pirating it. There are multiple groups who prate the same thing for different reasons. Lets look at video game pirating for example.

So, we have a game, Awesomesauce 5.
By far, the largest group of people with this game paid for it and own a legitimate copy.

But we are looking at pirates, so. "Illiegal" downloads of the game. This group are not in any sort of order, just as I put them in the textbox.
First group are people legitimiately replacing a broken CD or DVD. the companies already got their money from them, no money lost here.
Second group are the people who, for whatever reason, woudln't buy it anyways. If the game wasn't available to download, they wouldn't buy it, they'd just go without. No money lost here as well.
The third group are the people who can't buy it, so much pirate it. Obviously, if they can't buy it, the companies lose no money from them pirating it.
The fourth, and final group, are those who would buy it, except that they can download it for free. This is the only group that actually costs the developers and manufacturers money.

You can apply these same groups to everything, with minor variation. The problem is this. People touting the "horrors of piracy" count all 4 groups as costing them money. And, in my experience, it tends to be the second smallest group. The smallest being the first.
If they just ignored piracy, rather than spend billions of dollars trying to combat it, they'd actually be making more money.

Now, as for piracy being wrong? I think that, if you can afford it, and the game is good, that you should pay for it. If you can't afford it, ehhhhhh....

Personally, I wouldn't download music though. Even free, its still crap.

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Signature? What signature!?

Personally, I wouldn't download music though. Even free, its still crap.

You honestly listen to no music whatsoever? I couldn't imagine such an existence.

Well, honestly, in regarding to most recent music, yes.

Thats not to say that I don't listen to music though. I usually listen to pandora, or video game soundtracks when I do listen to music though.

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Signature? What signature!?

You didn't say anything about it being recent music. You just said music in general is crap. There's nothing special about video game soundtracks that make them unpiratable.

Creative threatens custom driver makers.

How dare they making better drivers than the company! It's STEALING!!!1

It's arguments like this that have made me immune to feeling any kind of sympathy towards big corporations. How pathetic.

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Why snark works.

Wow, what a bunch of assholes.
"We made this hardware ... and you can't use it."

I don't even see how charging for a custom driver is illegal ... you're not stealing any code or anything like that ... (unless you use their existing drivers and build on top of that) ... but most of the time, in a lot of areas, you have to write your own drivers.

Absolutely ridiculous. First Creative patents known game design enhancements (they didn't come up with them, they just see they aren't patented, since they're in open domain to be used by everyone) now they don't want people to actually use their hardware.

They basically said that so they could push a new line of Vista capable cards that have no hardware differences besides new drivers, I bet.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

And thus my clarification.

I was referring to recent RIAA labeled music.

Obviously there is nothing that makes other things unpiratable

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Signature? What signature!?

Blah, no storm in sight.

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Why snark works.

And here's another one: Assasin's Creed goes Steam, refuses to take dirty, European money.

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Why snark works.

God, its nigh impossible to catch up on months of posts/replies.

You all know my views on borrowing. I still intend to have an online "Orpheus Public Library" of audiobooks...

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The best things in life, aren't things.