An excuse for Piracy.

[Chaosninja89]

If i really want something, I buy it.
But if I'm just mildly interested in it I download it, if I can't download it that doesn't mean I'll buy it, I'll just give up on it since I don't consider it worth buying. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

 

[Gunner 51]

I guess it depends upon what is being copied.

Music: When it's OK.
It's fine if you cannot get the music easily. Or when it is horribly overpriced. Most of the music I like seems to be only available in London, and it would be a huge pain in the bum to pay £50+ for a train to get there. (Though Camden market totally rocks out.)

Viewing on Youtube - it's not like I can download the video or anything then convert it into an MP3 or anything.

Music: When it ain't OK.
When it's very easily available to you and when the price isn't extortionate. The trouble with prices is that one man's cheap is another man's rip-off - so price is something of a moot point.

Games: When it's OK.
When they require emulation, such as the old 8 and 16 bit games. To a lesser extent games from the System Shock and System Shock 2 era. (Because they aren't sold in shops, and they require a metric ton of old drivers and stuff to work properly - which counts as emulation software IMO.)

Games: When it ain't OK.
Anything current gen, easily available and affordable. However, Call of Duty games are in danger of becoming an exception to this due to the over-greedy actions of a certain Mr Kotick.

While I personally haven't pirated anything in years, I am of the opinion that if it's worth downloading and keeping - it's also worth paying for.

But when it comes to the attitude that pirates = scum, I say whoever has never stolen anything in their lives or listened to music on Youtube, please feel free to cast the first stone.

 

[Tibike77]

"What is your excuse for Piracy?"
Hmm... I don't know... do you have to have an excuse for an "unlawful" behaviour ? Certainly temporary insanity and mistreatment as a child will not fly, so how about some halfway creative arguments... let's see what we can concoct here out of the blue...
DISCLAIMER : none of this is necessarily close to any of my viewpoints, I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
Also, trying to be at least remotely funny. But I don't think it's working.


...


So, possible excuses for pirating music/movies/books/games:

* "It's not worth the kind of money they're asking, and they would get no money if I bought it used, so why even bother buying used at all anyway instead of directly pirating."

* "If I'd had to pay any money for it, I simply would not buy/use it at all, so for them it's the same thing anyway."

* "It's not available here yet and I just can't wait."

* "If I _really_ like it, I'll buy it. Why rely on 3rd party reviewers if I can be my own reviewer ? Hell, they should PAY ME money for using their product and spreading the good word. Or for shutting up about how bad it is. Or the other people should pay me for warning them about how bad it is. Either way, I shouldn't have to pay for it if it's not what I wanted."

* "I can't afford to pay money for it, because I am listening to // watching it // playing it instead of working extra hours to afford paying for it. It's their fault I'm pirating them, not mine !"


...


Possible excuses for pirating (some) games:

* "The official version has very nasty limitations."

* "The official version would not work on my hardware."

* "I already have this game on a different platform."


...


Possible excuse for pirating music/movies/books (not games though):

* "I could just wait for it to come up on//at the radio // TV // library and get the same end effect, so might as well just skip the wait."

 

[guntotingtomcat]

Piracy's illegal! If you really support a band/film/game you should spend money on it!!!
And hey, if your not sure you will like it, here's an idea. YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET IT!!!

 

[deathandtaxes]

1. Outside of a game no longer being in production, or downloading a copy after yours is wrecked/has ridiculously restrictive DRM, there are no excuses for piracy. And especially don't try to make ridiculous arguments about "try before you buy" when it comes to music. You youtube that shit and check out the songs on there. If you like, you buy the album. If you don't, well, you obviously don't buy the album. Simple, no?

2. I've only heard a few of the songs and I'm not a fan. It's not often that I'll hear something I don't like, and their new album seems to be one of those few times. It's fucking terrible is what it is.

The issue with pirating "as backup for own copy" is sort of not a bad argument, untill you look at how you get your copy: TORRENTS

Because you are always doing something illigal when downloading through torrents, even though you own a million copies of the file; you are uploading/distributing this file.

In a lot of countries it's usually not the act of downloading that is illegal, its
the act of uploading.

No not true, the person downloading the file is the one who is breaking the law as they should have a legal copy of the file. You could simply be acting on the good faith assumption that they have bought a copy. This may not be so in the U.S. but then that's the US and your laws are about as sane as Peter on the road to Damascus.

 

[deathandtaxes]

Piracy's illegal! If you really support a band/film/game you should spend money on it!!!
And hey, if your not sure you will like it, here's an idea. YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET IT!!!

So is prostitution in the U.S while here in Australia it's legal, something being against the law does not make it wrong. It simply makes it against the law.

 

[UberMore]

If you feel you need an excuse to do something then you probably shouldn't be doing it.

I agree with this statement. Then again, I do manage to often find the Grey between the Black and White, so I do often have to use excuses...I shouldn't do a lot of stuff.
Damn! Now I have to question and re-think my actions in life!

 

[KaiRai]

Because I hate WMG for what they've done to youtube, the childish bastards. So I'm middle fingering them by listening to my music.

 

[fanman]

My Excuse would be "I'm poor and can't afford that at the moment and it is way more fun to get stuff free"
And I haven't heard the new album.

 

[dryg]

Here it takes about a week for something to arrive via the mail, 5 or more hours to drive to the closest gamestop which barley got any pc games and my parents refuse to get a credit card.
But I got good download speeds. Usually pirates all new stuff, exept music becasue I got spotify premium. If its good I buy it to support them etc.
And a with Minecraft, pirated it because I can't pay, showed it to some friends, when they bought it I managed to get one of the to buy it for me. In the end it was 1 pirated copy = 6 sales. Pirating is not a lost sale!

 

[eytrvnbmgkhjiuty]

.

 

[raikounen]

I dont pirate myself, but as far as i know (strictly technicaly speaking)
that pirating is not illeagal but the act of upploading the source of piracy to the internett is.
Just the same as uploading a copyrighted video on a streaming site is illeagal, it is not illeagal to stream it.

 

[Hoplon]

The only things I feel okay dling are TV shows not shown in the UK.

Since I have no other way to see them.

But that is not to say it is right or legal.

 

[bloempje]

I don't know if it has been stated already, but I saw some interesting arguments pro-piracy lately, from some independent dutch study.
one argument states that most of the enternainment products people (illegaly) dowload, come from overseas, in most cases the usa. When people would normally buy those products, they would not have much money left for entertainment products of their own the countries' making, so pirating enables the consumer to give new bands (or independent games, movies...) a chance, who aren't famous enough to be pirated (or just psychologically are given more respect by the consumers). It also makes more money stay in the country, instead of a flow of money to the exporting country, in most cases, that is the USA.
now, for people in the USA this doesn't mean anything ofcourse (except for the 'give rising talent a fair chance' argument), as pirating damages the entertainment industry, meaning jobs might be lost (altough I thing most of those corporations find pirating only a marginal damage to their profit). Now the argument goes that, if people spend less on a, more unproductive branch of industry, .i.e. entertainment industry, people will spend more money on other branches of industry, who can be labled more productive, such as housing, furniture, give more money to charity...Etc. Which means that those jobs who would be lost by pirating, are being nullified by new jobs created by a rising demand in other products.
I thought these arguments pretty strong, any thoughts?

 

[eytrvnbmgkhjiuty]

.

 

[Talshere]

I genuinely dont pirate. I dislike the software and distrust it to much. I've spent a fortune on my baby and I aint risking it on some potentially dodge copy.

I try all music I want to buy on youtube Whole albums are on there the day of release normally.

I dont pirate games, you normally know if your guna like a game LONG before its released, so its more effort than its worth, and tbh, if Im guna be spending 40+ hours playing something, £20-£30 really isnt that bad People pay 12 quid for 20 mins in Laser Quest. Plus I like the online experience on most games and of course that is near impossible these days if you dont a a legit copy.

I do "occasionally" watch films online, but its because cinemas keep films on for a criminally short amount of time something. On the 3rd week after release if I wanted to see Prince Of Persia at a cinema, which I did....VERY MUCH!... I would have had to travel just over 50 miles, because my local cinemas all had it on week day only like, 10:30am showings. I cant fucking make that. And tbh I dont think 3 weeks is an unreasonable time to still be able to expect to see a film at a reasonable time!

I have on a few occasions watched a film online after having seen it in the cinemas, because it was so awesome I needed to see it again before the DvD release.


The big one I do "pirate" is TV series. I object to having to wait A WHOLE BLOODY YEAR to see a season of a show that I KNOW full well is out, just because I live in the UK. If the prats didn't wait so long to port it out to other countries we might not all be so inclined to go searching online for these things -.- But quite often these series are starting the ad campaign running upto the dvd release before we even get episode fucking 1 >.<


As a general rule however, if I merit something worth watching or playing, I merit it worth paying for. If I think some twat is trying to rip me off (CoD4:2 with your £40 PC price tag Im looking at you!) I just dont buy it.

 

[dryg]

Shamelessly quoting myself D;

Here it takes about a week for something to arrive via the mail, 5 or more hours to drive to the closest gamestop which barley got any pc games and my parents refuse to get a credit card.
But I got good download speeds. Usually pirates all new stuff, exept music becasue I got spotify premium. If its good I buy it to support them etc.
And a with Minecraft, pirated it because I can't pay, showed it to some friends, when they bought it I managed to get one of the to buy it for me. In the end it was 1 pirated copy = 6 sales. Pirating is not a lost sale!

 

[DanielSPG]

1. Outside of a game no longer being in production, or downloading a copy after yours is wrecked/has ridiculously restrictive DRM, there are no excuses for piracy. And especially don't try to make ridiculous arguments about "try before you buy" when it comes to music. You youtube that shit and check out the songs on there. If you like, you buy the album. If you don't, well, you obviously don't buy the album. Simple, no?

DANG, we just hit a huge grey area in morality/legality... First off a few things about me and my opinion.

1. I don't so much care if piracy is legal or not. Running a red light is illegal but if I don't see any traffic I'm still crossing the road. I do care about the moral issue at hand.
2. I'm not innocent when it comes to piracy, if I love a movie/album/games I will buy it. Actually most of my money goes in those 2 categories.
3. I'm a starting professional musician and think the internet is a great medium for music distribution. Please pirate my music (if any of it wud be online hehe)

We simply have come to an age where old copyright rules no longer apply. Artists deserve to get paid for what they do, no doubt (i'd be out of a job if not). But with the mass use of internet people expect everything to be available fast and free. The best means to handle this is initiated by artists themselves, offering their albums as digital packaging for "whatever u feel is a good price" (In Rainbows - Radiohead) or in different qualities/price ranges, the lowest quality being free (The Slip - Nine Inch Nails). These methods provoke a sense of morality in people that might trigger them to pay a small fee instead of illegaly downloading it. (I for one didnt pay anything but got the boxed versions of both albums once they became available, cus I'm with the old "it ain't real till u can hold it" gang)

Now getting back to the subject and what surprises me in your statement. U say it's not ok to download an album, but its ok to watch a youtube video of a song to judge the album quality? And what is essentialy the difference? One is "legal" and the other isn't? To me its the exact same thing. Does youtube have the right to remove videos for copyright infringement, well in my opinion, as long as the copyright laws stay as they are, yes definitly. However, I strongly feel these laws are incredibly outdated, and a new system must be made that support the need of artists (income) and meet the expectations of the people (fast an cheap). How? I'm no expert, but I know that a lot of young musicians are thinking about this very question and are coming up with good ideas that all partys can live with it. (for dutch readers: www.downloadprobleemopgelost.nl)

 

[Treefingers]

Ehh. Any excuse for piracy is a bad excuse imo.

And I don't like anything that Linkin Park does.