I'd like to apologize in advance to the people who opened this thread expecting tales of my swashbuckling adventures. Unfortunately, this topic is in regards to piracy of the intellectual property kind.

Doubtless all of you faggots have pirated some kind of content at some point in your lives, be it hardcore bestiality or the latest album by a deaf Asian; and piracy (e.g. the illegal downloading of intellectual property) has simply become another source from which to pull content.

However, the illegality of this heinous act is something that many people overlook, and with new laws coming into place in the UK and Australia preventing repeated offenders from accessing the web, it's more dangerous than ever to be downloading copyrighted content.

Pirates often point out that material is difficult to find or buy, or that the content simply costs too much, but with services such as iTunes, Steam and Amazon, there are affordable, easily accessed methods of obtaining music, games, and videos. Even these services have their disadvantages: iTunes is only available for OS X and Windows, and Apple makes it difficult to sync iTunes-bought content to non-Apple media players. And while they recently removed DRM from their entire music library, they have yet to do so on their movies and TV shows. Steam, on the other hand, is often lauded for their liberal approach to copyright enforcement, and makes it easy for users to download their content onto multiple computers, and allows customers to backup and restore content to local discs.

So, while there are lots of legal ways to download content, many people still choose to pirate content for their own reasons. The recent debacle with Assassin's Creed II highlights one of the main problems: the game was bundled with DRM which required the game to be connected to the internet while playing. This system was deemed to be "uncrackable", but after a few weeks, a no-internet patch for the game surfaced online, and soon after that, the AC servers went down for a weekend, causing many legitimate customers unable to play their game, while the pirates continued playing.


What are your opinions on piracy? Do you regularly pirate content? If so, how do you justify committing something which is (arguably) a crime?

I've pirated music before and I watch all my television for free on the internet.

I'm not sure about how I justify it, because I usually don't think about it. I suppose if I had to, I could justify it by saying "either I get it for free, or not at all; either way, I'm not impacting anything." However I suppose I'm tacitly supporting the sites that allow for illegal downloads.

The more complete answer would go into the nature of morality and I just don't think that kind of ranting is called for just yet.

Yes - on a daily basis.


If I like a movie, I'll go out and buy the DVD. However, given the current price of DVDs I refuse to pay for them until I know they contain something I'm going to watch more than once. People who live in big cities have the option to rent DVDs, but where I live that isn't really an option - there's a shop in town that rents DVDs, but their selection is limited to the latest crap straight out of Hollywood. I know it's not exactly the same, but you wouldn't buy a car without taking it for a test drive, so why spend a small fortune on a DVD if you don't know whether the movie it contains is a pile of shit or not.

That said, at the moment I'm watching a lot of Japanese dramas and movies that aren't available to buy in the UK even if I wanted to pay for them. As soon as they are, I'll pay, but in the meantime why wait to see them?

My attitude to music is much the same, though it's much cheaper to buy music in mp3 format legally online and many places that sell them allow you to listen to the whole, or part of the, song before you pay for it, so it's much easier to know if it's going to be something you'll like. I do have one or two songs that aren't legally downloaded, but that's purely because I've searched every legal source for them first and haven't found them.

Get fucked.

Sorry?

I've never pirated a movie, I always rent or buy them on iTunes. I do however download music that iTunes does not have on their store, which is not a lot. I dont believe there will be a way to stop pirating as of now regardless of what laws are put into place. People will just start downloading smart unless the government is spying on you which is very unlikely due to the amount of piracy happening at the same time and the legality of it, I dont see it coming to an end any time soon. The amount of people pirating outweighs the people trying to stop it.

I do it. A lot. I wouldn't be able to afford everything I want and I don't want to pay money for something only for it to be a major disappointment. So it's either piracy or not listening/watching at all.
I always buy the movies, series and music I really like afterwards and for some artists I preorder stuff, so I guess I fall into a more legal pattern as soon as I am sure i will like it simply by who made it.

Most pirates, without access to illegal content, would not go out of their way to purchase the content legally anyway. They would just go without. The artist or producer is not losing money to a market that they wouldn't be making money on regardless. Your argument is shit.

I made no arguments. I outlined the main points, and felt that exploring that particular avenue was too much effort. I have not expressed my opinion yet.

I don't try and justify it; I know it's a crime. That doesn't stop me from doing it, though. I also smoke weed and drink underage. And sometimes I speed.

You calling it a "heinous act" gives away your bias. Plus we talked about this in the video chat last night. So I already know where you stand, freɪʒɛr.

You missed the sarcasm on heinous act, Al·ecks.

I don't pirate because torrenting is too slow

I choose not to pirate things because;

1) Don't want to get in trouble with law enforcement
2) Don't want to break my computer with a virus
3) Getting downloaded software to actually run requires incredible patience and comprehensive knowledge of illegal programming or "hacking"
4) Some pirated content is released by terrorists in the MIDDLE EAST and I do not support terrorism at all
5) For me browsing GTF is the most fun you can have on a computer and that's 100% free and legal!!!!!!!!!
6) All the music you could ever want is already on YouTube in some form or another...

Nearly anything that's available as a torrent is also available to direct download. I used to have to wait two or three days for a movie to complete using torrents. Now I get pissed off if it takes more than an hour.

Haven't noticed this before, now i can't stop laughing

I was disheartened that you didn't appear to find it funny the first time.

I might consider using iTunes if they sold higher quality than 256kpbs. Just to put that into context, CD quality audio is 1411kbps. Also, this:

Best laugh I had today

Though I preordered her latest album and singles and didn't listen to them fully(only watched music videos, which are made for promotion after all) until they arrived, I turned less illegal

iTunes / Amazon is acceptable for people like me who can't tell the difference between FLAC and 256kpbs CBR MP3.