Poll: Pirating

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AkJay

New member
Feb 22, 2009
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I pirate movies, even though I feel kind of bad about doing it.
If a movie is really good, I'll buy the DVD.
I'll also buy CD's if I really love the band, not just for the music, but It feels good knowing I'm helping support them.
 

Poomanchu745

New member
Sep 11, 2009
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Ya i wouldn't admit to pirating, that sort of thing will usually get a thread locked or you banned...
 

Zeromaeus

New member
Aug 19, 2009
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Ah, pirating. One of the great occupations. Its right up there with assassination and war-mongering. In all seriousness, pirating is kind of a gray area with me. Yes, you are technically (technically) stealing from whatever company/business that sold that product. Legally speaking you were taking potential profit away from those who own the rights to the product. Here's where the gray area applies. Are the pirates really part of a company's target audience. Would they have bought the product if they couldn't pirate it. Also, was the product even available to the pirate in any shape or form. I'll use this as an example. I know someone who downloaded Mother 3 and installed a language patch into it. Heck the guy even gave me a copy (best damn RPG on the GBA ever) for Christmas. What he did was he downloaded it and put it in empty cartridges he bought legally online. Mother 3, as you know was only released in Japan and was made near to unavailable in any other country. Was what he did really all that wrong? He wasn't their target audience. He would never have gotten the game if it wasn't available online. Where is the alleged potential profit? He didn't steal anything physical, so there wasn't anything to re-compensate the company for. Was this really such a bad thing?
 

ZerOmega

New member
Sep 14, 2008
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Shades of grey, my friends. Shades of grey...

The real world is not always black and white. Sometimes it's okay, but other times you're borrowing without asking. If you're not going to buy the album, movie or game anyway, then no one is actually losing anything. If you really want to get the game, and you have the money for it, you should buy the real thing instead of downloading it.
Everything else falls into the middle ground.
 

Asturiel

the God of Pants
Nov 24, 2009
3,940
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To be honest, I download music through "pirated" sources often. Because with music I like maybe 1 or 2 songs in the album and thats it. Rarely do I come across a CD or such that I like 90% of the music on so I dont like buying music.

Video games are different however, I never steal those, too much work got put into them in my mind.

Movies, eh Ill download it after i've already watched it in theatres. I believe that entitles me to download it, if I want to see it again im not paying another bloody 10 dollars. After all that I buy it on DVD once it's out, I just want to be able to see it whenever I want after it's been released in theatres.
Zeromaeus said:
Heck the guy even gave me a copy (best damn RPG on the GBA ever) for Christmas. What he did was he downloaded it and put it in empty cartridges he bought legally online. Mother 3, as you know was only released in Japan and was made near to unavailable in any other country. Was what he did really all that wrong? He wasn't their target audience. He would never have gotten the game if it wasn't available online. Where is the alleged potential profit? He didn't steal anything physical, so there wasn't anything to re-compensate the company for.
That is the only situation where I would endorse pirating video games. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
 

Julianking93

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May 16, 2009
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I've got over 4000 songs that I [s/]got off of Pirate Bay.org[/s] purchased from my local music store.
 

Hiphophippo

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Nov 5, 2009
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These days I probably buy more than I torrent. Hell I'm even one of those guys who often buys games that I torrent and like.

The fact is this, it's simple. No software company is going to tell me what I can and cannot do with something I bought. Consider this, all those torrents that take 5 seconds to find online are offered up by someone who bought the game and decided to share it with other people. When I buy something, I buy it in totality. Just like I won't buy shit with DRM in it, I won't be told that I cannot offer something to my friends online that I purchased with my hard earned money.

As of this writing quite a large number of people have made good use of my Dragon Age torrent. It was a good game. I wanted to share it. Have you ever borrowed a game from a friend? Did you mail the company that made it a check afterwards?

But I do get the arguement that all the developer's time is wasted when people just download it for free. They do deserve money. Generally, I only torrent big name games that are going to make millions regardless. Just like I won't buy used games from Gamestop unless I'm assured my purchase won't make a difference to their mound of money they'll get from the game.

Torrenting indie and low release games? Games that try to step it up and innovate? That's where I draw the line personally.
 

e2density

New member
Dec 25, 2009
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I'm afraid that if I vote "I do it!" that a SWAT team will bust through my roof and I'll have twenty commandos with their guns to my head and a tech assistant retrieving my hard drive.
 

Sun Flash

Fus Roh Dizzle
Apr 15, 2009
1,242
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Yarr Harr, I only pirate stuff I can't buy (Pokemon Yellow for my phone for example). But generally I'd rather make ye walk the plank for plunderin'.

Yarrrrrr
 

MoWriter

New member
Jan 16, 2010
20
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I only pirate things that I want to listen to, but not want to give money to.
Like Kanye West.
I never liked him, but there are two songs of his I like.
 

Washboard

Dyslexics of the world...UNTIE!
Dec 17, 2008
356
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If people dident pirate it'd be alot cheaper to buy music and the like i think. they must adjust for projected losses due to pirating when their thinking up the price.
 

AhumbleKnight

New member
Apr 17, 2009
429
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I try before I buy. It it is worth the money, I buy it.

I also agree with the availability approach. If I cannot reasonably watch a TV show where I live, then I will download it. If it is good enough, I will buy it.

When I was first introduced to Metallica, I didn't like them. After listening to them a bit more I started to take an interest in their music and Napster. After downloading all their songs I discovered how much I love them. I then went out and bought all their albums (thats almost $300 here). If I didn't download their music from Napster, then I would never, ever have purchased their music and Metallic (who were the driving force behind Napster being shut down) whould have never gotten any of my money.
 

AhumbleKnight

New member
Apr 17, 2009
429
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Cogito said:
If people dident pirate it'd be alot cheaper to buy music and the like i think. they must adjust for projected losses due to pirating when their thinking up the price.
You are wrong. They do not do this. Music has cost the same for as long as I can remember, which is longer than internet pirating has been around. People who pirate a bands music will not have bought it otherwise (a general rule). I suspect that those that would have bought it but don't because they can pirate it are outweighed by those that do buy it because they discovered a band they like through pirating.

Before internet pirating came along, people were using tapes and recording their music off the radio. Some people will never pay.
 

agentspidersilk

New member
Jun 2, 2009
101
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Avast me hearties!
us pirates are a good example for the empowerment of the disabled not you modern day pirates savy? The old ones in ships we all had one leg or arm or an eye patch! We didnt ram ships because we wanted to but because our depth perecption was bad!
Up the Angry pirate army! As for you modern day pirates get on ships and do it properly, plunder theese goods from merchant ships with cannons!
 

GundamSentinel

The leading man, who else?
Aug 23, 2009
4,448
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In the Netherlands there is according to the law (at least, until now) no such thing as illegal downloading, so technically I'm doing nothing wrong.
 

RanD00M

New member
Oct 26, 2008
6,947
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I used to pirate.But then i got Steam.And now i am cured.

But i do still pirate things that are almost impossible to find.Or if they cost so much that it would bend my budget by a big bit.
 

Dizzy45

New member
May 20, 2009
23
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Piracy for the most part is just a better way of getting things. <--- (not literally :D)
Much like steam makes more money than god because of its ease of use and generous deals, pirating stuff is popular to tech savvy people as you get a good deal. Often with less advertising or DRM.

Then again the amount of aggro in downloading that stuff just makes me want to cry anyway.
 

hardlymotivated

New member
May 20, 2009
168
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Eh, for me there are quite a few factors involved in whether I deem something booty or purchasable. It usually boils down to age (video games and music) and attitude (solely music). In terms of age, something like The Who's 1971 album Who's Next is definitely old enough to pirate - I'd be quite surprised if Roger Daltrey wrote me an angrily worded letter because he missed out on the meager pennies he'd undoubtedly receive from it if I'd bought it in a store.

In terms of attitude, I'm referring to the attitude of the people who wrote the music, or what I like to call the "what would the artist do?" mentality to determining the piratability of a piece of music. In other words, if an artist released an album in which anarchy, the fucking of the system and the destruction of the corporate world was released today, by their philosophy they should have no trouble with me pirating it - after all, that's what the music's all about, right? Consumer see, consumer do?

Obviously, the major record label to which they're signed might have something to say about it, but that's another story entirely! :p