People who pirate are worse than Hitler.

>>11137107 (OP)
Ask away.

>>11137107 (OP)

I'm a programmer. I like getting paid for my work like everybody else, so yeah, I fucking hate pirates.

>>11137107 (OP)

piracy is theft. plain and simple.

Piracy is hurting our economy.

>>11137107 (OP)
>I need this for a thing in school.

>2012
>Pirating your homework

Actually had my thoughts gathered on this for a long time.

I'll paste them in a sec, need a few posts for it.
If I don't reply for a while, probably flood...

I think it's wrong.
I still do it though.

On the subject of (digital) piracy.

I am a pirate. Might as well get that out first. My view may be slightly tainted, though I will try to distance myself. I pirate because it is easier, free and very little risk involved. The free part; I am a poor college student, currently unable to even pay current bills. I am COMPLETELY incapable of buying tickets for movies or brand new CDs. The easier part. It is a simple 2 minute search for a torrent, getting the file and then letting it load, while I browse some forums or look at piracy posts. A LOT easier than going to a store, finding that they dont carry what I want, go to another store, that has it (for an absurd price), coming home, drained but hyped, and be forced to jump through (protection) hoops to enjoy my purchase. Very little risk. This is actually something that PIPa and SOPA and ACTA are trying to improve upon. Currently, someone downloading something has a higher chance of being struck by lightning than getting sued for it.

First off, piracy existed before the internet. It will exist if the entire world wide web crashes. It is not a new phenomenon. It is a mindset, a correlation between something, and our desire for it and the trouble in obtaining that something. So saying that online piracy is killing the music industry, is like saying imitation designer clothes are killing off the fashion industry. Why yes, dear reader, that imitation Rolex, that imitation Prada, they are a form of piracy as well. When the internet was in its infancy, people pirated using cassetes, CDs, VHS, anything which could record and replay something. And if you shut down the internet, it will simply revert back to those standards, those means. It will not stop.

1/?

And if you take into consideration that piracy existed before the internet, and take into account that even the complete shutdown of the internet to be incapable of destroying piracy, then fighting piracy is a losing battle (much like the War on Drugs). If you TRULY want to fight piracy, my advice is to get behind the mindset of most pirates. Change the opinions, their views, their desires. When piracy becoms unfashionable, outdated, cancerous, THAT is the day when it will end. Untill then, it will evolve, adapt, just as fast as humans adapt (so a super computer could be able to dupe piracy as well), since it is a human desire.

2/?

However, the internet has improved conditions. It has enabled piracy to flourish. And I doubt that there is any way to truly combat this aspect. Beause as soon as you censor, disable or prevent in any way, information to be transmitted or recieved, you are defying the very nature and fundemental idea behind the internet, which is the transmition of information. Computers do not care what the information is, A brand new song, or a 10 year old game that is not for sale anywhere anymore. Trying to tell a computer "do NOT transmit anything with this in the file" not going to affect it much, since we (humans) can look at the data, and rearange it as instructed somewhere. For example: "Do NOT transmit files that contains the sequence (AB302C). A pirate will simply send 2 files, one having (AB3) and the other (02C). " The second problem is encoding. I forget which company had it, but some company presented a challenge to all the hackers and crackers around the world, to break its (128bit I think) encryption key. I know that it took them more than 2 years to break it, since the best way then was a brute force method, simply trying every possible combination. I imagine that there exist, nowadays, a far stronger encryption, meaning that the encoding and encrypting data would be a nightmare for anyone trying to tell your computer or your provider that something cannot be sent or recieved. And the basic windows encryption would be good enough for small scale files (like an album). And the day encryption is disallowed is the day when all the hackers and crackers rejoice, since every goverment and corporation communication over the internet will be left wide open to attack.

3/?

The other part is that the internet should remain free. Censoring the internet is like saying "You cannot say this and this over the phone". Or that you cannot write something and send it through the mail. The internet should remain free. At all times. It is a means of communication. It has its ups and downs, its bonuses and its faults. But the reason why it has become so popular, so successful, is that it is a means of mass communication, where anyone can express themselves and be heard by opponents and/or likeminded people. It is excellent for debate, for the exchange of ideas, on a rapid and worldwide scale. To sum it up: LEAVE THE INTERNET ALONE AND FREE!¨Do not use ANY excuse to shut it down. If you do, you are censoring what people may say, may do. You can look at it, of course but do NOT prevent its fundemental principle, which is the exchange of information.


Piracy is not always a bad thing (gasp!). It does contribute to the original content in the form of publicity and awareness. Figures here vary considerably, and my opinion is that it varies depending on the product, much more so than on the pirates. Think of it this way: The more trouble there is with the product, or obtaining the product, the more likely it is to be pirated. There are lot of variables here, pricing and aquisation being the least of them, and I simply don't think I can present even half of them.

4/?

A few people have grasped onto and embraced piracy. Radiohead, indie developers, artists big and small. They do not directly fight it with laws and obstructions, but rather, they give it out and ask for returns as the consumer sees fit. The "pay what you want" method, and honestly, I believe it to be the best solution so far.
As many music artists will tell you, they don't get a lot of money from album sales. Not even from song sales. The biggest income they have is from shows and concerts. From merchandice and live performances. And in this regard the internet and piracy is an increadibly valuable tool. The availability and spread of information about product makes it such a great tool.
Many people also use piracy as a form of preview. Myself and my brother included. The products and companies that we like, we will either buy the product we like, or we will try to compensate in some other way. Those that we believe NOT to be worth what they want, we don't buy. And if you look at it short-term, yes it is a lost sale. But long term, people will be too burnt, too frustrated with it all that they will stop buying alltogether, since all the products are going to suck. Even the good ones. The same thing that happened to me and the music industry a while back, I refused to buy or listen to anythig or anyone, as I will not fork over 20 euros for 1, maybe 2 good songs and the rest being gibberish.


That said, piracy is not a always a good thing. It stiffles up innovation and development, it DOES cost companies of their money. And an argument I've seen around was "They make so much, they can handle it!". Erm, no, a company, even one with record sales, still has to pay employees, still has to operate. If enough people pirate, they are costing someone a raise or even a job. I will not get into the whole company leaders paychecks debate, leave it for some other time.

5/?

Piracy also helps hard criminals. You might be scratching your head right now, but yes, tech-savvy gangs, mafia, drug cartels, they all have a bit to make from piracy. It is the same (again) as with any other drug. If there is a black market, then the illegals will try to cash in on it. And piracy is a form of a black market, even though a rather cheap one.
I would like to point out one thing here. The innovation and development. In my opinion it DOEs stiffle it a bit. But not as much as the media these days might want you to believe. Moreso than piracy, I believe that (in the USA) copyright trolls are stiffling up innovation. If you are LEGALY not allowed to invent something that is not on the market, because you get sued for everything you have, simply because it looks or functions similarly to something someone thought of before, but never utilised it, then innovation will stagnate. Inventors and innovators lose far more to them, than to piracy, which will usually give full credit to the inventor. Hell, sometimes pirates will pay the creator back (though it is not that often).

In conclusion, combating piracy is going to be a losing battle. Console gaming is going a tremendeus way and is partly succesefull. That is until people start modding their consoles, reverse engineering them or emulating them on the computer, then it is just another PC part of information. It has happened before and it will continue to happen in the future. To truly combat piracy, change their minds, not their means.

6/6

Im out for 15-30 min, back if you have questions after that...

File: 1354020394719.jpg-(25 KB, 512x368, Hahaguy_blank.preview.jpg)

>>11137107 (OP)
here in Eastern Europe we are all pirates

All I think is that it's not a matter of piracy being "wrong" or illegal anymore.

Everybody needs to realize that piracy is here to stay, and you can't solve the problem with a simple law as many governments seem to believe.

Businesses need to find a way to remain profitable despite piracy.

>>11137235
we're all pirates everywhere.

whenever I see people buy a music CD, I always think: "really?! people still do that??!

Downloading free shit has become so ingrained in my life.. I just consider it normal.

Are you including media piracy? Because I really can't think of a single young person who hasn't pirated copyright content.

I have Netflix and dl about 60% of my music from Amazon, but I watch TV shows online and download songs when I just hear them (I might later buy the CD if I like the artist). I don't know anyone who say, hasn't borrowed a CD from a friend, or watched a movie online.

It's just so easy to access pirated content, it takes all of like 3 clicks to download a song vs. spending $1 on it. That really adds up if you listen to Pandora lol.

>>11137286
scratch that, rich people don't pirate. and people too tech-illiterate to know how.

I only know one person who doesn't for moral reasons (ironically, he was totally fine borrowing CD's when people still did that).

File: 1354021788004.jpg-(18 KB, 450x343, piracy.jpg)

>>11137166

Overused picture, but no less true.

>>11137314

.. but you're essentially stealing the profits they'd make from whatever you obtained illegally. I mean, you do add a cash value to things like songs--you're 'stealing' the commission that the artist, website, record label, etc would make from that $.99 song. so yes, it is stealing.

I'm all for piracy, just saying it isn't at all like that image.

>>11137231
here, back from shopping.

What, no one to comment? :P Sorry for any spelling errors, I was drunk when I wrote that...

>>11137333

Both yes and no. It is not stealing in the sense that content is removed, but simply supply getting bigger, thereby devaluing it. Kinda...

>>11137333
Well, that's true to an extent...

If you're not a big enough fan to pay money for something, or you can't afford to or whatever, then there was never any potential for the company/artist etc. to profit in the first place, and therefore they've lost out on nothing at all.

It's not quite the same as just taking money directly out of their pockets, ie. theft.

>>11137333
The way I see it... theft is taking away something that they already have, whereas piracy is preventing them from gaining something which is not yet theirs. Similar, but different.

>>11137338
Well I definitely agree with you on copyright trolls. No offense to Apple because I do think their products are well-made, but there are so many horror stories about brilliant up-and-coming innovators who got destroyed by copyrights like 'rounded corners on a rectangular device'.

Even by devaluing it, you are stealing profits. For sure the content isn't removed, but I'd still consider it money theft. I know a lot of people who download pirated content wouldn't have paid for the content to begin with, but a considerable number do. If I like a song and I can easily find it online, I'll dl it. If I can't, I'll just buy it. I'm sure there are lots of like-minded people (when it comes to songs at least).

File: 1354023220265.png-(80 KB, 275x293, halsey.png)

I pirate pilots of shows to see if I like it, or if it's not on DVD yet. If a torrented show has enough re-watch value, I generally buy the DVD later.

I've probably "stolen" about $20 worth of television in my lifetime.

>>11137346
I'm that way about movies. No way in hell I'd pay $12 to see some crummy movie I only have a half-hearted interest in.

But for songs--as I'm pretty addicted to music--if I like something I *would* pay for it if it wasn't readily available to pirate. So although 'potential customers' don't translate 1:1 to profits lost, there are tons of people who would have paid--enough to sum up a considerable loss.

Making content cheaper gives me much more incentive to actually buy the stuff though. Like amazon's $2.99 albums--so cheap, you might as well if you like the artist.

>>11137333

I don't pirate. What I do do, however, is buy used, or new if there's a steep discount. Basically, most of my money is spent when the original manufacturers and developers are getting little if anything. However, if I pirated, I'd still have the same entertainment budget to spend, and I'd be spending it on new items with better margins.
Pirates don't just bury their money and cackle away at the thought of the artist getting nothing, they spend it elsewhere. The problem digital and digitisable media has to overcome is the fact that they're not at as attractive a place to spend their money as other places, and not as attractive a place to get their product as the Pirate Bay. Look at Steam, it's basically a torrent client with better speeds and near enough 100% safe and functional downloads, plus all that community shit and they're making a mint, even when they sneak DRM in there. Same goes for iTunes and Netflix.

>>11137382
>>11137368

Both very well spot on.

Currently the biggest pushers against music piracy aren't the content creators. Or the direct distribution centers. Its the record labels. THAT I have problems with, since they are the equivalent to the truck drivers, between a farmer and a deli. They get an enormous profit for little to no work. But if we look at online distribution, such as Itunes and such, which is basically just adapting the piracy model to a legal standing, and it is working wonders! Albums, or individual songs are selling. And from my understanding, the companies involved make very little money off of it, just enough to pay for themselves. In a way, they are not fighting piracy directly, but by undermining it. Which I believe to be an acceptable solution, aside from the "pay what you want" mentioned before.

>>11137416

IIRC, album sales are massively down from what they were pre-piracy. This is because people can just buy the good tracks, they don't need to grab a £10 album full of filler and two decent tracks just because they missed the single.
That's the big problem record companies have, they think the albums are getting pirated, when really people are just buying what they give a shit about and leaving what they don't. For the big labels, there's the added problem that downloads make it easier to discover indie labels, and even indie artists who can just throw their music on iTunes, or even just set up a torrent and link to their PayPal tip-jar. They aren't the gatekeepers any more, the value of their advertising potential is moot when you can mobilise fans to post your shit all over Twitter and Facebook for free.

>>11137463
Very true. Advertising and publicity are the only main benefits to signing on a large label--but with youtube and social media, it's become infinitely easier to discover artists. I don't even know how I did it before.

I remember just eight years ago I'd still buy albums for artists I liked. I'd go into Rasputin's and browse through the used albums, or order the physical CD's on Amazon. A lot of artists I liked couldn't be found on iTunes at the time, so physical CD's were pretty much the way to go; Amazon hadn't established its digital store yet.

Now, literally everything published as of the early 2000's probably has MP3 versions on Amazon or iTunes, or some indie record label's site. There's really no incentive to buy the more-expensive CD, let alone the entire album.

>>11137107 (OP)
I'm broke and I don't have access to a job yet.
I only pirate music but I'm a big Indie fan, so when I really like this CD from some band who has never been heard of I do my best to buy a vinyl or whatever (its cooler and I listen to the mp3 I pirated, anyway).
I'm also a musician and I purposely allow my music to be pirated as another way of spreading it. Circa Survive (I think) did that and it helped them out a lot. I also spread the music I like a lot out.
So I buy maybe a majority of my music anyway plus I spread it out a lot.
A musician would rather have his work spread occasionally by a possible-leech like me if the leech were to spread it even further.

Pirating is a victimless crime.
Musicians get fucked over already, so they don't notice if people are pirating music instead of purchasing it. Most musicians only see about 5% of that money.
The only issue I have is ripping off independent and good artists. They deserve the funds to keep going and making their music. Someone like Justin Bieber or Nicki Minaj cope fine with piracy of their "music" financially, and actually deserve to be stolen from.

>>11137533
Speaking of Youtube, I wonder how much record labels make off of video play counts (if they're official and on Vevo, they always have ads). I wonder if they video play counts off of a 86-million-view Bieber video offset the loss of album sales in any way.

>>11137560
As I said, if people really can't buy the music then at least they're spreading it.

>>11137568

Yeah, it's a great point.
I have a friend with an underground band and he begs people to spread and pirate his music. Promotion often means more to musicians and bands than the actual profit.

>>11137560
>Pirating is a victimless crime.
>The only issue I have is ripping off . . "good" artists.
>Some . . . actually deserve to be stolen from.

ohh get over yourself.

You probably act pretty self-righteous when you purchase the MP3's from some indie band, and think you're doing a big fuck-you to society every time you pirate that Bieber song you secretly love lol.