Piracy: big deal or not?
We've all heard of digital piracy. An alarming statistic shows that 7 out of 10 computer users (Mac and PC) have committed digital piracy once, and what's more, 6 out of 10 do it regularly. This post will simply highlight a few of my opinions on what the authorities and governments are doing and what they should be doing to combat piracy.
I am not a software, music or video pirate nor do I intend to become one but I do know many, many people that commit it and are open about it. This really does annoy me. I am someone that purchases software, TV shows, movies or music whilst those people are getting way with it! If industries go on about how damaging it is then why are people being caught not only this but tax payers' money is being used to "heal" up those industries whilst piracy continues to burn a hole in the creative, digital world. They know that it's illegal yet they continue to do it...
I also believe that these 'anti-piracy' schemes are, in some ways, promoting piracy, I mean, US version of The Office is at around season 6 yet in the UK the US version is at season 3; as a big office fan I really want to see season four yet I can't due to DVD region coding. Surely all this is doing to making it easier for people to simply pirate The Office instead of waiting months for it to come out in region two DVD!
Another way that I believe that piracy can, and should, be tackled is by ISPs alerting the police or copyright infringement organisations when someone pirates something then the authorities would allow the ISP to look deeper into that user's history of accessed websites or connections to websites and then take appropriate actions.
So, that was my first blog post for thecreativeone.tv and I really do feel strongly about this and I do also believe that too many people believe that it's fine to pirate something from the digital industries. Comment with your opinions - thanks for reading.
Daniel Bramhall
Reader Comments (10)
I think there is a fine line, there are many people who will pirate things because they couldn't afford the product in the first place, the company isn't going to be any worse or better off either way.
But I do think in someways it can be helpful, if that 14 year old goes and downloads Photoshop CS4, they will learn to use it like a pro and eventually their future boss may buy it from recommendations and the like.
I think companies need to take consumers more seriously, as you said about The Office, they are in themselves promoting piracy by not releasing anything after Season 3 for a long time in the UK.
You know why ISP's don't report piracy? They would have to hire someone to spot it and also they would lose business. lose lose for ISPs.
In all honesty I used to pirate a lot of music for an online radio show I used to do. At the time I had no music collection and pirating was really the only way for me to make the show work in a cost productive way. I didn't need the album art, or organization: just tons of random sons to play online. After I quit being a DJ for that station I reassessed the situation. If I had gradually paid for the music song by song, yes it would have cost a lot. But also I would not have the sprawling mess of a library. Also to be totally honest, pirating is a pain in the @$$. You have to find the best seeded file, hope it doesn't have a virus (so scan it after the download), make sure it's decent quality etc. etc.
Also I really pay to support the artists themselves these days. Green Day probably wouldn't notice if I hadn't bought the song and pirated it instead. But it sort of makes me feel like I am helping support an artist I like. So these days I pay for all my music, movies, and games. If I can't afford it I wait. Call me a goody wto shoes, but I do end up getting the content I want in working order instantly. I think that's worth the money.
It matters. I think that it can be used sort of like a boycott, showing the company that people wouldn't want to spend that much on their product. With programs like FL Studio, CS4, etc, people don't want to pay that much for something, and maybe not put every cent they spent on it to use. And I don't think anyone notices that looking at a song uploaded by an unofficial uploader is the same as pirating it..... The band or artist doesn't make a penny from it. And in my opinion, an extremely famous artist makes enough money, and minus a dollar for a song, or even 10 for an album WON'T put them living in a dumpster.
I'm going to be honest with you I do pirate music but lets take something into consideration here, okay lets say I wanted to download Lady GaGa, okay a normal Itunes download is $1.29 so I pirate Bad Romance or something okay shes out $1.29, oh no, but wait she has a concert the next night were tickets for her genre are what close to $60 and if many people attend then she was able to make back that little $1.29 by more then hundred.
Now I try not to pirate songs as much as I used to, but if I want one song and don't want to by the album which come on Lady GaGa whats the chance of of her entire album being good, (All respect to her just not my style) I'm sure she could spare $1.29. So music to an extent but not to go extreme with it.
yeah lets just give more power to the government, and less privacy. go read 1984 you twat.
Have you never heard of a multi region DVD player ... you can buy them on amazon.co.uk! I live in the UK and bought one and now I can watch DVD's from the US ... so I guess that argument does not work!
I appreciate that you can buy multi-region DVD players but why would companies want to release DVDs in different countries/regions at different times, surely it would make more sense to just release one to the world. Did you know that Obama gave Gordon Brown a DVD for Christmas or something and he couldn't watch it due to region encoding.
Thanks for everyone's comments by the way.
Wow. Sure bands and actors are rich, but would you go into a rich person's house and steal his belongings? Also, $1.29 adds up when thousands of people download illegally.
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