Poll: Do People Pirate Because it's Free? Or is There Something More to it?

[TheLaofKazi]

This is a good example of a pirate who is full of himself.
"Don't wish to support a certain business"
So we have somebody who enjoys the product but doesn't want to admit it or appear to be uncool by buying it in public. He can't just accept that he doesn't want to pay for it, so he claims to support the "good" musicians (the ones considered hip to his peers) so he can seem less greedy.
But when it comes right down to it, nobody does it for some higher cause. Either you are unable to get the product any other way, or you don't feel like paying. There is no need to justify it but the people who try to are hilarious.

No, at times I pirate things because I do not wish to support a certain business, as I said. I give absolutely no shits about being cool or how hip a band is in the eyes of other people.

But I don't think I'm any less hypocritical then anyone else. I can only try.

 

[Arkzism]

well i pirate and i buy, 90% of the time when i pirate something its either say 1 episode of a show i missed, or one song that you cant find on itunes or amazon, as for gam,es i buy most of them, but occasionally ill pirate one to see if its any good or if i cant find a copy of it anywhere.. like call of cthulhu dark corners of the earth.. i love the game and am willing to spend money on it but cant find it anywhere..frankly cause i've noticed pirated games don't run as smooth... for me at least, i also pirate photoshop.. mainly cause i dotn have that kind of money, but as for movie music and tv shows.. if i really like the thing i'll buy it, and yes i will download discographies, and then i will attend concerts, mainly cause i hate record companies

so in my grammar wrong ramblings.. i pirate the hard to find and the not good enough to actually pay for it.. oh and i also pirate music cause of the people who throw fits about it... yes i download lots of metallica and hand out free cds... just cause i can

 

[XJ-0461]

I don't know. Maybe some people think "It exits, therefore I'm entitled to it". I don't know why. I've never pirated anything, because I don't want to have my computer taken away bother with it. It's much simpler to just legitimately buy the product in question.

And as some one who wants to be in the media when I'm older, All MEDIA PIRATES SHOUL-*cut off due to overwhelming rage*

 

[Dark Sup3rn0va]

I only download shows cause I have to wait over a year for them to get here. I buy the boxsets when they are released anyway.

Also:

 

[MadeinHell]

There are no "deeper" reasons behind people pirating. It's all about "not paying people" simple as that.

I remember when there was a huge buzz about people pirating Spore just to "show those bastards at EA" that their DRM is stupid (and it was). While I might agree with the DRM point it still was just stealing while under cover of "we do it to show them". No, you do it because you want to play it but don't really feel like paying, and thought of showing a middle finger to big bad EA made you feel better about it. Plain and simple.

I remember pirating quite bad when I was a kid, there was (and still is to this day :/) a pirating trading market in the city that I live in (I guess there is one in every big city) I used to go there to buy cheap games. Main reason why I did this was just because I didn't really know I'm doing something bad, hey I payed SOMEONE right? How could that be bad?

Then I grew older the internet showed up, my brain was working a little bit better and I realised "hey... stealing is a crime!?" and since the year... 2001? I pirated only one game, and It kicked me in the balls hard (mentally I mean). The game was Planescape: Torment I never played it before and wanted to try it but couldn't buy it. Downloaded it played it and decided it's awesome. Than a week later out of nowhere our Polish publisher announced that they are going to re-release Planescape in one of their cheap series based on "a popular demand". I felt crushed... I broke my oath not to pirate just to feel really stupid about it a WEEK later...

I also have a modified 360 that is currently banned . I knew it's modified but I didn't want to play any pirated games, it was just way cheaper than a normal one. So obviously I bought it, bought games, had fun and than BANG. Ban . I guess I should have expected this even thought I legally own all the games I played on my 360 (except for those few I borrowed from my friends). Guess I need to buy that slim one.

 

[kahlzun]

its because its cheap, and it lets you 'sample' things that you believe may have overinvested in hyperbole, and underinvested in story and awesomeness.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

You seem to imply there is somehow a cause and effect relationship there.
I have no moral opinion on this either way but people like you pick out the information they want to believe. It's kind of sad that you live in this fantasy world where getting something for free (in your mind) helps the company.

I don't know if piracy improves sales. Although there have been some cases where it has.

http://torrentfreak.com/indie-movie-explodes-on-bittorrent-makers-bless-piracy-091110/

People are more likely to check something out if they can see it for free, and if they like it, there is also a chance they will be so pleased that they go out and buy the real thing, or tell their friends about it, blog about it. The internet is great at spreading things.

But I don't know for sure if piracy helped those companies sales, I'm simply showing that more piracy = less sales isn't necessarily true. I don't believe me getting things for free inherently helps a company, but maybe all the free advertising I give out when I show what I pirate to my friends and tell people about how great it is does.

 

[Danzaivar]

I have been known to pirate films I already own simply so I can watch it without spending 5 minutes listening to ads telling me not to pirate DVD's. (Really.)

Or pirate something purely because it's stopped showing at the cinema, but the DVD isn't out for a few more months. If there was an Internet service that let you download films that just finished at the cinema but aren't available on DVD's yet, it'd make a killing.

A lot of piracy is done because people just don't think they should pay for stuff when it's so easy to get for free, but I wouldn't say it's ALL because of that...

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I was discussing this with a friend only last night, in my support of Steam, saying that essentially I think a lot of piracy goes on because of the sheer convenience of it, compared with going out to actually buy it, to the point where people with stacks of cash end up doing it for that reason, combined with the reason of getting a superior product, in some cases (no locks on copying it to other devices, no DRM, no anti piracy ads at the start of the movie that you can't skip, etc).

What Steam does, and does well, is promote great sale prices on games, and then makes it STUPIDLY easy to actually buy it, for me it's about 3 clicks to buy something, pay for it, and start it downloading. Then one more to play it. That makes Steam more convenient than torrents, and it's a thing movies, games and music companies need to consider.

Remember, people not only buy on Steam instead of pirating, they'll even buy stuff they already OWN to skip the associated hassles inherent in the old discs, installs, cd keys, etc.

(Yes, I did it for Deus Ex among others)

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Oh while I'm at it, can I suggest companies like the BBC, Sky, HBO, etc, all work out some kind of deal for their subscribers? (maybe one's already in place in the US, I don't know).

The way I see it, if I pay my TV licence (which I do), or subscribe to a satellite or cable service, I'm paying to have their exclusive shows made, right?

I'm not saying I should be allowed to pirate the stuff at this point, but I DO think as a subscriber, I should get substantial discounts at their online store when it comes to such things as DVD box sets. I paid to make it, now I've gotta pay full whack to see it again?

Just a reasonable discount to say 'we know our customers are the reason we even have this content to sell, so have some money off!'

 

[TheLaofKazi]

right, so when do you like the product of a business but don't like the business itself?

I quite enjoyed Crysis. Not a fan of EA though. There are many more.

Although I've brought games published by them before. So I guess I suck.

 

[acosn]

I'll pirate something if it falls into three categories-
1) Genuinely concerned that it'll even be playable / any good. Video games? Anyone can tell you that it's a bit of a crap shoot if something can work on your rig. Got an underpowered computer? Gets worse. Big n' Powerful? Well then it's reversed- old products will typically not work. Incidentally I've also bought one too many MW2 / Spore type games to convince myself that I can spend my money that haphazardly.

2) Availability. I pirated Tales of Phantasia because it was obscure as hell. Not only was it on the SNES (this was when the gamecube was on it's way out, mind you) completely out of main stream circulation, but even when it was new the game was hard as hell to find. It got re-released on the GBA, and I bought it accordingly. I liked the translation better, anyways.

3) Localization. It ain't released in the US. It ain't ever coming to the US. I'm not in their demographic for sales, and they would neither see a penny of my money anyways, nor will they. It's exceedingly rare that this even happens, but it's there alright.

 

[ImprovizoR]

There are probably a lot of reasons. Some people are just douchebags, some don't have the money. Some people pirate the game first to test it and then if it's good enough they buy it. That's because developers these days know their games are shit and they wont release a demo, well most of them. That isn't really piracy. It's product testing. Why would you buy something if you don't know if it's good. We all know you can't trust the reviews. And then there are people who pirate games to show their lack of respect for companies that do the same to consumers. For example Ubisoft. People who pirate Ubisoft PC games are good people, and I cheer for them. I just ignore the fuckers altogether.

 

[The_Emperor]

EVERYONE DOES IT FOR THEIR OWN REASONS OR WHATEVER

this has been done in older threads.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

Sure for indie games and movies I suppose (would have never wasted money on "how to be a serial killer" if i didn't see it for free first, and found out how fucking awesome it was) but you were linking to stuff like star craft 2 being downloaded alot and being really popular, as if that is some kind of connection besides "it's really popular"
I could use that logic to say drunk driving helps police effectiveness because more "criminals" are arrested during national drunk driving day.

No, what I'm saying is that in the cases for those products, piracy didn't seem to have any significant impact on sales either way. I already said I don't know if piracy boosted those product's sales or not.

All I know is that theoretically, piracy can help sales, hurt them, or not really have any effect either way. But so far, I haven't seen any proof or examples that piracy is hurting sales. I've seen plenty of people claim that piracy is hurting sales, but with no proof. If anyone wants to show me proof that piracy hurts sales, I'll welcome it. I'm looking right now. I'll admit though, I've spent more time looking for examples of piracy not hurting or helping sales or businesses, I'm biased in that respect. Although we're all biased or hypocritical in some respect. I'll work to change that.