Piracy?

[Gav]

The title more or less says it... do you buy pirated stuff? Or use the stuff if your family buys it?

For me, I tend to avoid the pirated stuff my family buys. I can't shake them out of it, though. Meh...

[Crystal]

Almost everybody I know dabbles in piracy and pirated goods at some level. When the Passion of the Christ was banned from cinemas (it took months to get it unbanned), I watched the show at home with my dad. And then I went to church the next day to find everybody discussing various scenes from the movie. It was really pretty amusing.

I also download songs illegally, photostat music scripts instead of buying the books, and buy pirated Computer programs - like Adobe Photoshop, which until now, despite not having AutoRecover and being annoying sometimes, has served faithfully.


My reasons:

Primarily, money. An original DVD in the US costs (I estimate) maybe 20 dollars. You might buy a pirated one, at about 2 dollars, but the quality of the original is higher and you won't be running the risk of confronting whoever's in charge, so you'd take that.

For me, however, due to exchange rates the price is boosted ENORMOUSLY.

The average amount of pocket money most youths get is about RM 40 a month. To give you an idea, a good hawker meal can be bought for RM 5, and a good-quality shirt for about RM 25. The average person earns about RM 3000, enough to support a family with two working parents.

One original DVD, however, makes you fork out RM 80 a time. This is outrageously priced. I'm sure as heck NOT going to skimp meals and save every scrap of money for two straight months just to get ONE MOVIE.

Original VCDs are substantially cheaper, around the same price as music CDs... about RM 40 to 60. Still, it's a large sum of money for so little.

A pirated DVD, on the other hand, can cost as little as RM10, for almost the same quality as the original. Music CDs are around RM 5. That's affordable. I can actually buy it without having to scrimp and save for two months.

I'm all for the makers earning money, but given a choice like that, taking the original thing is simply ridiculous.


The government bans illegal piracy, of course, but it doesn't do any good. One shopping mall I know has an entire floor dedicated to selling pirated CDs/VCDs/DVDs. The owners always seem to know exactly what day the police are going to barge in and confiscate stuff, and they're always mysteriously absent on those days. You can even return stuff that wasn't working and request shows. They'll take your name and request down, and a week later, you come back and buy your show.

Also considered for the movie part (I'm mostly talking about movies here, because that's the main area of piracy I dabble in), is the censor board, which consists of about 6 Malays, 3 Chinese, and 1 Indian - directly proportional to the ratio of the races here. When they block a show, which happens a lot... let's say, Bruce Almighty, the Passion, Prince of Egypt, Daredevil... from the cinemas, you don't have any choice but to buy it if you want to watch. And voila, you're back to the money issue.

In view of all that, I have but one thing to say:

GO PIRACY!

*amused*

[Deleted]

*is amused by Crystal's post*

Honest, I don't really buy much pirated stuff.
First of all, the government in Sweden here is very controlled and strict, just like it's a society with Systembolaget where nothing else but real deal is allowed. That makes it almost impossible to get pirated stuff.
Which means that people have to get the real deal. Even though it's quite expensive compared to the allowance the kids get.

Once I bought a pirated CD game in China, but it had some problems. But when I visited China this winter I could see a whole floor on possible pirated stuff in stores and so.

People buy pirated stuff because it is cheap and possibly have decent quality. I can't think of another reason. If the producers would just make it cheaper, maybe then people would not buy as much pirated stuff as now.

I've downloaded MP3s off the net... I dunno if it is illegal right now or something, but that's not buying.

So no, I don't buy pirated stuff here. Though I'd probably do in China because I don't have a lot of money and I'm an utterly frugal person.

[Buddy]

Something to keep in mind about pirated music...

The artists don't make the bulge of their money from record sales. They make - quite literally - pennies per record sold. Its the record companies that lose most of the money from pirated music.

So, I really feel very little guilt or sympathy for the companies in this case - the huge corporations that often screw over the artists and make most of their money from music that's mostly crap (like Ashlee Simpson).

I'll save my tears for the children in Africa, than you very much.

[Stal]

Buddy said:

Something to keep in mind about pirated music...

The artists don't make the bulge of their money from record sales. They make - quite literally - pennies per record sold. Its the record companies that lose most of the money from pirated music.

So, I really feel very little guilt or sympathy for the companies in this case - the huge corporations that often screw over the artists and make most of their money from music that's mostly crap (like Ashlee Simpson).

I'll save my tears for the children in Africa, than you very much.

That's a very very good point, actually. Due to contracts and stuff the bands make hardly anything from record sales.

They make it all from concert tours. Which is why a band will tour as long as they possibly can on one record...

[Buddy]

Stal said:

That's a very very good point, actually. Due to contracts and stuff the bands make hardly anything from record sales.

They make it all from concert tours. Which is why a band will tour as long as they possibly can on one record...

And for those with enough talent to actually write their own songs, they get royalties.

However, I believe there have been cases where record companies have forced, by contract, the artists to turn over their claims to royalties. In which case, the artists makes no money from the writing of their songs...

[Killix]

Piracy is baaad. *waves nagging finger*
I'm going to touch on a point that hasn't been brought up yet...

It's one thing to buy a pirated DVD/game/CD on purpose
and it's another thing to buy one without knowing its a fake.

That has happened so many times with people selling and buying on eBay and other online stores. It's just not right...and it's money wasted if the DVD/game/CD doesn't work right because it's a low quality knock-off.

[Jessica Coconut]

Meowth4 said:

Piracy is baaad. *waves nagging finger*
I'm going to touch on a point that hasn't been brought up yet...

It's one thing to buy a pirated DVD/game/CD on purpose
and it's another thing to buy one without knowing its a fake.

That has happened so many times with people selling and buying on eBay and other online stores. It's just not right...and it's money wasted if the DVD/game/CD doesn't work right because it's a low quality knock-off.

Agreed. With your second paragraph. I tend to avoid pirated stuff if I can, but see, I tried to get a boxset of anime DVD's for my birthday, and we had a friend actually pick it up. I suppose he didn't check, and even I didn't notice it for around a month, but it was missing the distributor's logo. T'was pirated. What really made me mad though was if I wanted pirated material, I would have downloaded it from the net. I knew full well I could've.

Over here, in Canada, MP3's are legal.

And I know that there's pirated stuff on my computer.

[Oily]

All my DVDs etc are real, because I don't trust the quality of pirated ones here. I do, however, happily download music, because it's free

[Deleted]

I draw my comics with a pirated version of Flash 5.

I design websites with a pirated version of Dreamweaver.

I don't know if there's laws against owning pirated stuff, but I do know that I can't be charged with downloading pirated stuff. The programs just magically appeared on my computer (it was my brother who sent them from his computer to mine via a network connection, I was not involved in any way).

Basically, I try to find loopholes to keep my pirated programs somewhat legitimate. Do I use them? Yes. Purposefully? Yes. Why? Because it doesn't really make a difference to the companies. Even if I couldn't obtain pirated copies of the programs, I wouldn't buy them, because I can't afford them. Besides, it's not like I give away or sell the copies, they stay on my computer.#nosmileys

[Stal]

You know what I realized? When I verified that Buddy's statement was true, it looks like I support piracy. XD Nobody think that please, because for the most part I do not (I will download music from CDs not available in the US and I've been known to copy music CDs from the library, or copy some of my CDs for my friends) but I'm not like a wholesale pirate or anything.

[jeska]

Buddy said:

Something to keep in mind about pirated music...

The artists don't make the bulge of their money from record sales. They make - quite literally - pennies per record sold. Its the record companies that lose most of the money from pirated music.

So, I really feel very little guilt or sympathy for the companies in this case - the huge corporations that often screw over the artists and make most of their money from music that's mostly crap (like Ashlee Simpson).

I'll save my tears for the children in Africa, than you very much.

I hadn't heard that before. Very good to know.

I never buy pirated stuff, but I download a lot. Photoshop, music, movies (occasionally), random bits of software, that sort of stuff. If I like some music a lot, I'll buy the cd. But usually I only like one, MAYBE, two songs on the entire cd. 25 dollars for two songs?! I think not!

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]I'll admit to being brainwashed. Pirating is bad. Don't download that song. Why? 'cause I said so. Rawr.

But really, record company employees gotta eat too. If we were taking money away from the artists, I wouldn't give a monkey's behind. (Some pop stars can spend tens of thousands of dollars on the most hideous dress in the world, then buy an entire line of hideous jewelry to go with it.)

But I pity the record companies. They're being hit hard by this.

Someone lemme know if there's a hole in my argument. Again, I'm brainwashed. [/glow]

[Buddy]

Ridergirl- said:

[glow=red,2,300]
But I pity the record companies. They're being hit hard by this. [/glow]

Ummm... Why would you pity the huge record companies? They make millions of dollars - much of which by ripping of, not only the artists, but the customers as well.

Here's the theory I've heard (I'm not one-hundred percent sure how true it is, and I'm not sure if I even believe it myself), so consider: How much does one CD cost to make? 30 cents maybe? It must - I can buy blanks at the store for around $1.00 - $1.25 a CD.

However, simply by having some dadt recorded to it, suddenly, the CD costs $20.00! It jumpmed $19 dollars by simply having data placed on it!

I can buy a whole CD's worth of music online (from Musicnow - one of those web services that let you download legally) for about a dollar a song, or $10 - $11 dollars a CD.

Now, why is it $9 or $10 dollars more at the store simply because its been placed on a 30 cent disk? Sounds like a rip-off to me.

Cassetts never cost that much - not ever in their hay-day. And they cost much more to make (what, with all the plastic, screws, bolts, and tape that goes into it).

To me, at least, it all doesn't even out. Sounds like someone's screwing over someone.

Also, something to consider about the legal side of it...

You have to be the one "sharing" the music before its illegal - to simply attain or buy illegal music isn't, in itself, illegal. That's not pirating. The one giving it away is the one breaking the law - not you.

So, unless you're the one making the pirated stuff (and even then, you have to be making and selling a lot of it - the F.B.I.'s not going to bust down your door because you're making a few pirated CD's for your own personal use), nothing illegal is being done.

A small loophole, but an existant one, all the same.

[Rider]

[glow=red,2,300]Aha, and the other side becomes clear.

*pokes the other side*

*pokes Waterboy, if he's reading this*

*cracks up imagining the look on Waterboy's face* Don't worry, WB. [/glow]