View Topic

Since this was such a major debate on the IRC the other night, I thought I would bring it here. Basically, what are your feelings about digital piracy...essentially, the free uploading and downloading of games, music, shows, movies, e-books, etc. from the internet? I'll start with my opinion.

Personally, in an era where we're supposed to fork out loads of money for games on hype alone, I see a use for piracy in that area. I remember when I was a kid, and because we were so poor I would save up a week or two to get a $10 computer game at Wal-Mart once in awhile. While most of them were good, occasionally I'd end up with one I didn't like, and I'd be bummed out. I guess that feeling carried over with me all the way to the present, because I just don't want to take a chance on games...so I download them first to see if I'd like them. If I like them, then eventually I'll purchase them, but if I don't, I just saved money not buying something I'm never going to play.

Other than that, I think for the most part there's no reason to pirate games. Nowadays with a little patience it's very easy to get games for cheap. I have a large library of Steam games and I've never spent more than $17 on any of them ($12 if you don't count Civ 5). I will say there are some games that are outrageous, such as the Sims...paying $400 for the game and all the DLC just isn't going to happen, but there's so many other games out there that I'd just not fool with it instead of pirating it. Same with music, with streaming services it's very cheap or even free to have access to huge libraries of music. Things have changed greatly since the days of Napster.

And yeah. Your thoughts?

  First note: Though only thing I actually pirate is music, that's about it (well, I do have a gameboy emulator with some games for that on my laptop...but I'm not going to go out of my way to find functioning pokemon red and blue).

  Now, when it comes to music, here it is. First, I'm broke and financially dependent on my parents (who don't have large incomes).So, I don't usually have any spending money to splurge(yes, I could ask them to buy  me something...and I do...but music is so accessible that asking them that is unneeded...and probably saves ALOT  of money).I personally don't  care for cd's(well, maybe for novelty, and people who like having a hard copy). We live in a digital society, and I'm going to use that to my advantage. I'm also not going to use itunes(I never have, and again, money).

   So, what I do...go to youtuber, go to a youtube conversion mp3 site! Et voila, an mp3 file.

  Now, when it comes to how I actually feel about this...well, I see nothing wrong with the act itself. I rather like the free flow of information and entertainment throughout the web. It's also an inevitability in this digital society, with networking the way it is, the easy access to getting free material, and how the internet functions, copyright laws cant keep up, and the music industry will just have to change to the demands for society(well, all industries).

  So yeah, my 2 cents. May be a bit jumbled, but I'm tired!

Digital Piracy, fucking ayee
Well living in a country like Albania, in a small town like Gjirokastra, you're doomed to spend your days on ordinarity, and plus, I am working as a Cinematic Director, but I don't have the fonds to support and buy my 900$-1000$ programms.. So digital piracy saved my life!

We are living on a capitalistic world, that our desires must be paid highly, I personaly support Digital Piracy....

Well here in Switzerland, (pretty much) anything and everything that is copyrighted here on the internet is COMPLETELY LEGAL FOR DOWNLOADING! On one condition: that the material isn't shared. So no torrenting, unless you want to be an asshole to your peers and not seed anything. But streaming? Youtube to mp3? Step right up!

The Swiss government's rationalisation for this is that entertainment companies don't actually lose revenue from piracy. The people who pirate material off the internet still spend money in other parts of the industry, but even more importantly, it isn't theft. If I went and stole Harry's car, he would be deprived of his car and would probably need to buy a new one. If I "stole" Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season dvdrip720pHDTV I wouldn't be depriving anyone of anything. It's merely information that can be near infinitely copied without cost.

Then people will argue, 'Yes, internet pirates are depriving the entertainment companies of revenue!' Bullshit. No they aren't. The reason people torrent in the first place is because they don't want to fork over the EIGHTY FUCKING BUCKS for a ridiculous cable upgrade to watch a single TV show. So there won't be any revenue from them, period. Because then no one will even be fucked to buy it, period.

There's even a benefit: because torrenting is so easy and free, pirates including myself will just go around the internet, picking and choosing what looks interesting just for shits and giggles. That's what I did last summer. I shit you not, this is how my thought process played out: "Hmm, I want to watch some good TV show...let's see...Game of Thrones is apparently good right? I heard about it on the internet and people apparently really like it. What's it about even? Ah whatever. Hey look, all 3 seasons in HD! Why not? Might as well spend my summer doing something..."

And BOOM 6 days later I was a huge GoT fan. Spent all year waiting for S4, and now I'm a huge supporter of the show. Along with probably thousands of other people who all did the exact same thing.

So HBO doesn't lose anything. No hypothetical/nonexistent revenue, no property damage, no need to replace anything. In fact it gains probably a good one third of its fanbase through piracy. So yeah. Internet piracy is a lot of things, but it certainly isn't theft.

(Aw shit yeah Arya's going to Braavos)

All I wanna say to you Stacky is...:

Thank God, I don't have a car

Steam has played it's cards right, it has completely stopped me from pirating games. The problem I have with services like Spotify and Netflix is the dependency on internet connection. What I want is Steam-like service for music and video, with both traditional and Steam-like streaming options (you stream from internet, you stream to lan). I don't live with a phone glued to my face, so I don't want to pay for an expensive phone and expensive mobile internet. Whenever I leave my home two thirds of the media services I have paid for basically becomes unavailable... hardly convenient.

The second major flaw with services like Netflix is the limited selection. I'd guess that 99% of the selection is shows and movies I'll never care to watch - while Netflix works like a regular TV station alternating it's selection based on demand, meaning that I don't necessarily get the shows I'd want to watch, or they can be taken away mid-marathon just because some other show would or might have more viewers, which is completely insane considering the complete lack of public catalog of available content, they don't even try to attract focused groups...

I have less grudge towards Spotify, it works well and has relatively far better selection from my perspective. The only flaw lies withing me, I want my life to be easy. I could pay twice the monthly payment to have the pleasure of setting up my phone in my car and hope that my routes have good enough cellphone coverage... and crash while searching something good to listen to. Or I could just download illegally the songs I want to listen to, move them to an USB-stick and drive happily even in the deepest forests.

So I am a criminal, but I keep it within reason. I don't hold larger library of downloaded music than my legal collection. I buy CD's, I don't buy downloadable music because I don't feel it leaves solid enough proof that I have actually purchased the music. I have purchased one EP and two individual songs and the store has since ceased to exist twice. Of course the account was each time moved to another website, but you get my point? Last time I checked the TOS of iTunes I didn't agree with it.

If they are able to create financially viable services with monthly payments of 5-8 euros, what keeps them from creating a service where you pay for e.g. 5 euros per month for the streaming and 2,5 euros per show/album/movie that you want to purchase for Offline use? It's not like they can be afraid that people would share the content with people not paying for the services, that's already happening...

My motivation to pay for services is not conscientiousness (if that's even a word), I want my multimedia life as easy as possible. Steam makes games easy, Spotify makes music easy in most situations, Netflix... causes some teeth grinding, but is still easier than Google+IMDB+Torrents whenever I don't know precisely what I want to watch. Music is the only media that makes any sense to buy as hard copy, in movies and TV-shows you seem to pay more for the format than the content itself (DVD vs. Bluray, and it's not long before Bluray becomes blurray too).