Poll: If you've ever downloaded something illegally, YOU are to blame for SOPA/PIPA.

[deathzero021]

YES i have downloaded something illegally before.
NO i do not believe the poll results.
YES i believe i have contributed to piracy and therefor contributed to the creation of SOPA.
NO i am not a supporter of SOPA.
YES i think we should stop piracy.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

SOPA/PIPA/ACTA aren't about stopping piracy, they're about corporations wanting to control the internet. Nothing more, nothing less.

So would these bills exist without piracy? Yes, they would. They'd simply have another name. Like that child pornography bill.

Entirely agree, it'd just be a different acronym, and we'd be getting told it's about protecting our 'freedom' 'children' or 'way of life', and that it was NEEDED to prevent child abuse / terrorism / the drug trade.

I was very much with Frankie Boyle, pointing out the idiocy of the anti piracy ads.

'Pirated movies fund the illegal drug trade'

"you've gotta be kidding, you're saying you can't get repeat customers for your heroin, so you've moved into dodgy copies of harry potter?"

The entertainment industry is hurling it's toys out of the cot, because things aren't going exactly its own way, and it can't control everything.

While other people have moved with the times, certain industries are desperately trying to cling to the 80s.

It's been brought up before and I fully believe it.

Steam and iTunes have proved you can have limited and low hassle DRM and a simple sales mechanic and make money.

However, you have to balance the money you're throwing at fighting the ethereal evil pirates, with the amount they're REALLY costing you. As I've said before, imagine if a fraction of the SOPA bribery money had been spent on changing laws to open up the international markets so people could just buy what they wanted when they wanted it? TV and movie piracy slashed overnight, massive profits, but omg, a lessening of the iron grip of control they have.

SOPA is equivalent to calling in an airstrike on Walmart every time a shoplifter is caught.

Sure it's excessive punishment and wipes out a few hundred innocents, but hey, we stopped that guy stealing!

I personally think it'd be interesting to see everyone who's ever pirated anything take 3 months of not pirating and not buying anything that could be pirated. As it's been shown that pirates on average spend more than non pirates, taking away the revenue that pirates put into the industry may be an interesting financial quarter for them to explain to shareholders.

OF course, it'd just be explained that all those lost sales were 'stolen' anyway. Easier than facing up to having to change.

 

[Chanel Tompkins]

True...but laws like SOPA and PIPA are going to punish far more normal people than pirates. I've known some-our local ISP tried to enact blocks on pirate sites, within hours my pirate comrades had worked a way around and were right back to piracy. It's not that piracy isn't a problem, but blanket laws aren't going to help. And neither is crazy ass DRM that gets bugged up the butt for a fair amount of legitimate buyers, pretty much driving them to piracy to play the game/music/movies they paid for.

 

[Aprilgold]

You got me, I take full credit for everything that has been happening. I just wanted to listen to some Weird Al, I was 13 Dammit.

Weird Al himself said not to download that song. WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN?!


OT: Kinda have to agree. If so many people didn't pirate we probably wouldn't be in this kind of situation.

EDIT: Of course the dumb people in our government aren't exactly helping either.

I always enjoy listening to this song. And always giggle when he metions buying a brand new diamond encrusted pool. I wonder if thats him taking a jab at everyone's overreaction to things against piracy or not?

Lots of people completely missing the point here.

The question is NOT "Is SOPA justified?"

It's not, we all agree on that. The question is "Is piracy the reason SOPA was created?"

Yes, it is.

I don't think so. Firstly, we haven no real numbers to prove that Piracy takes a large chunk of money. And then we have to wonder why used sales, which is clearly traceable, can't be combated against since we know it takes a large hit.

If we replace piracy and SOPA or PIPA with a statement like this. "Police and laws wouldn't exist if there was no crime." Granted, if no one broke the law then there would be no point in having laws or police, but thats speaking from a perfect world perspective. We all know better, this is no perfect world. Piracy is just as bad as used sales, yet we still have stores staying afloat by used sales.

SOPA and PIPA exist because the internet we know is mainly a open space where hundreds of thousands of site owners use in a free fashion. If someone like Google could, metaphorically, buy the 'internet' then imagine their profits. Piracy may have been a good way of sugar coating SOPA or PIPA's affects, but it wasn't the only core reason beneath the surface.

I think my main outrage with SOPA was the fact that a single company could claim copyright infringement, from anywhere in the world, and that site can not be found through a search engine. Also stops Americans from viewing a site. Lets face it, since humans can be greedy, this could lead to many different sites being shut down, losing large amounts of money, for doing something that a copy right holder doesn't like.

I don't think Piracy is the only push behind Sopa or Pipa, and is the minor push. Also, it would essentially destroy jobs, like Google's wing of Youtube workers.

 

[spartan231490]

Pirates aren't to blame for the idiocy or corruption of the government, voters are. Pirates are to blame for many things, but not that.

 

[Ross Tuddin]

Ok here is something for you guys to chew on. Back when Red Alert 3 Uprising came out i only had dial up internet in the house. I downloaded it via a wireless internet stick as they didn't do a retail copy and dial up would have taken months.

After PAYING for it and downloading it from the legitimate source i found that one of the files had corrupted mid download and i couldn't download a single file i had to download the whole game again. So i did all the things you domoved things over to differnet hard drives to try to make sure it wasn't my hard drive that had the error, then proceeded to download it again. same issue same file.

After my third time downloading the same game and by this time i needed to pay another $150 to recharge my internet as downloading it twice used up all my internet. I sent an email to EA tech support asking why, they told me to just download it again as there wasn't anything they could do.

I had the same issue the 4th time i downloaded the game. I went to a torrent site first download no Issues i could play the game i spent 5 times downloading and an extra $450 in internet.

So after beeing screwed by the EA who had taken my money it was pirates that actually got me the game.