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Do you pirate?

Not really. I used to when I was like 13 or so.
Music: I buy about 3-4 albums a year so it is not a problem financially. Plus I like to have a backup and someone has written in the in an older thread, when a new format emerges, it will be no problem to convert it from the CD to the new one.

Games: I dl'ed some but after issues (crappy quality, viruses, etc.) I started to buy originals (no viruses, nice box on the shelf)

Software: No, because I never needed any except Office maybe. And I used my fathers original. Then I bought the student version. With the student versions, it is not worth the hassle to pirate it imho.
 
Yes, however as many have stated if I REALLY like a product I'll go and buy the CD, book, Blu-Ray, etc.

As an example, I went and saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World twice at the theaters and enjoyed it so much that I downloaded the soundtrack + cam film. Once I gave the soundtrack a good listen I went to Best Buy and picked up the CD. Furthermore, I pre ordered the Blu Ray on Amazon. The point of this tale is that I enjoy piracy for the 'trial' effect. If I like something I go and buy it, if not...delete.
 
(marc) said:
I agree that there are a lot of similarities between pirating and stealing, but they're not the same thing to me. If you steal something, even if it's something small like a candy bar, whoever owned it doesn't have it anymore. When pirating music / software, all you do is copy. While it's certainly better to pay for it, even if you pirate it (because you couldn't pay for it, anyway), the owner still has the music / software.
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You're getting something without paying for it, it doesn't matter if that something is a "copy" The fact is you are receiving a product that you took without permission. That's stealing.

People try to justify their actions by saying they only try the software and they'll buy it later (most don't), or that software (or music publishers) companies charge too much and they want to "send a message" or that they have not physically taken the product.

The fact remains when you take something without paying or permission, that's theft. Life typically is not black and white, but in this case it is.
 
Before I had money and was young, yes. This was before the days of the iTunes store or any legal access to some music (at least where I lived in the sticks). I've either deleted or purchased the music now I have access to it.

My iTunes library is now legally grey. My music is comprised of rips of mine or my families CDs and work samples from colleagues. Most of it are soundtrack rips from games. Sometimes the publishers release a separate CD (usually costing the same or more than the game), but I just record it straight from the source or grab someone elses rip online.
I record TV shows straight from EyeTV. Some DVD rips too. I'm not going to pay iTunes TV show prices.
All my software is legit.

I've had piracy impact my own software too. A couple of games we made were receiving good reviews, even threads on the pirate forums said they enjoyed the game but did they buy? Did they bollocks. It was so badly pirated that we couldn't afford the server fees any more and it ended up costing us money. I blocked IPs from known pirated copies but 100's of new ones were generated every day and it started to take hours separating the wheat from the chaff.
We posted a MOTD informing users of what was going on but did the pirates step up and help fund the game they were ruining? Have a wild guess.


Yet the measures film and game studios take to stop copying are just horrible at times. All those adverts and nonsense before DVDs really get in the way. I don't mind menus - they're required. Just don't preach to the crowd with those messages. And games with DRM that prevents installation to more than 5 computers, or that has to be reactivated every so often... yet they still get cracked. Pirates don't get anything like that but us customers do.
 
maflynn said:
You're getting something without paying for it, it doesn't matter if that something is a "copy" The fact is you are receiving a product that you took without permission. That's stealing.

[...]
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You're wrong. There's no difference between pirating a product and just not buying it (excluding special cases like the one described by Dagless). If anything, pirating helps through the spread of word / broader usage. That's how Photoshop got big.



Dagless said:
[...]
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This is a good example of how piracy can kill a product.
 
(marc) said:
You're wrong. There's no difference between pirating a product and just not buying it (excluding special cases like the one described by Dagless). If anything, pirating helps through the spread of word / broader usage. That's how Photoshop got big.
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You can try to justify your actions but it is still stealing. Whether you go in store and steal a Photoshop or download it illegally from the net and use illegal license, it doesn't matter.

I do it and I always try to justify it but it doesn't make it legal. In some cases, piracy is good for a company but in most cases it isn't.
 
Hellhammer said:
You can try to justify your actions but it is still stealing. Whether you go in store and steal a Photoshop or download it illegally from the net and use illegal license, it doesn't matter.

I do it and I always try to justify it but it doesn't make it legal. In some cases, piracy is good for a company but in most cases it isn't.
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It's illegal without a doubt, but there's a difference between stealing the disc from a shop or downloading it from the internet. The shop has to buy another copy of Photoshop from Adobe (which costs the shop owner money), the seeders don't (which doesn't cost them money). Adobe doesn't lose money in either scenario. The shop owner loses money if you steal the disc, nobody loses money if you pirate Photoshop.

It'd only be (close to) the same thing if you stole the Photoshop disc directly from Adobe, in which case Adobe only has to pay to manufacture another disc / box (unlike the retail shop owner, who has to buy another disc from Adobe). In this scenario, stealing costs Adobe little money, while pirating costs them no money.
 
(marc) said:
It's illegal without a doubt, but there's a difference between stealing the disc from a shop or downloading it from the internet. The shop has to buy another copy of Photoshop from Adobe (which costs the shop owner money), the seeders don't (which doesn't cost them money). Adobe doesn't lose money in either scenario. The shop owner loses money if you steal the disc, nobody loses money if you pirate Photoshop.

It'd only be (close to) the same thing if you stole the Photoshop disc directly from Adobe, in which case Adobe only has to pay to manufacture another disc / box (unlike the retail shop owner, who has to buy another disc from Adobe). In this scenario, stealing costs Adobe little money, while pirating costs them no money.
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It will only cost them no money if there is absolutely zero chance you would have purchased the product. Since you wanted to use it, I doubt the chance is exactly zero, although it would probably be pretty small given the price.

However, it's very frustrating when software companies announce their 'losses to piracy' based on the assumption that the majority of pirates would have bought a legitimate company, had piracy not been an option. This is clearly an absurd assumption.
 
(marc) said:
You're wrong. There's no difference between pirating a product and just not buying it (excluding special cases like the one described by Dagless). If anything, pirating helps through the spread of word / broader usage. That's how Photoshop got big.
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Again you're doing logical back bending trying to justify taking something. If a program is good, word will get out without the aid of thieves writing good reviews :rolleyes:
 
maflynn said:
Again you're doing logical back bending trying to justify taking something. If a program is good, word will get out without the aid of thieves writing good reviews :rolleyes:
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Rolling your eyes won't change the facts. Photoshop would be much less popular if it weren't pirated by most of its users. But I'm giving up. You clearly don't want to understand the difference between taking and copying.
 
Pirating is the reason I gave up on Windows PC and bought a Mac. I got some viruses and had enough. In 2003 there were just a couple of bad pirating programs for the Mac (that I knew about) so I stopped. Then I found Poisoned and now Aqlite and uTorrent. I won't get into what I obtain, though.
 
Yes I do......I transfer songs from videos on youtube and they are put in itunes as MP3'S.


Limewire is what killed the ''family PC''.
 
Pirating really doesn't hold much of an attraction to me--in short, I'm not interested in MP3s etc. A very small fraction of my music collection (About 2/3 CDs, 1/6 vinyl, 1/6 tape) has been converted for use on my iPod etc...but the sound pretty much sucks. There's no point in having good audio equipment if you're just going to pump nasty cut-rate sound through it. And no, I'm not a crazed audiophile who spends thousands on my gear--most of it is stuff from the early 90s bought used--which kicks the snot out of most gear in my price range new today. (Think Nakamichi tape decks+receiver, US-built Boston Acoustics speakers, etc).

Same story with movies--why get a cut-down .avi with bad sound when a used DVD with the full (preferably DTS) track goes for ~$10 through legit channels?

As for software, the only possibility would be games--which I barely touch anymore, and even there, mostly online stuff that wouldn't work if hacked/pirated. My pro software has to be legit--yes, CATIA etc ~can~ be pirated--but I'm not paying for my licenses anyways (employer does, and I'd be fired ASAP if I used pirated stuff).

Big picture, there's just no big appeal.
 
As a general rule, I pirate:

* Anything from Microsoft

* Anything I've purchased prior; for example, I purchased Heroes Season 1 from iTunes, then pirated it so I could play it on my PS3 since the iTunes version was copy protected. I also include VHS tapes and DVDs on this.

* Anything which is not available in local stores such as Best Buy/Wal-Mart, such as old TV shows that aren't sold in DVD box sets.

* On occasion, I'll pirate older media. Old movies/TV shows; Casablanca, for example.

The first rule is because I refuse to buy multiple copies of Windows and Office for all of my PCs and virtual machines.

The second is for obvious reasons; beating DRM on my own media, or avoiding re-paying for old media.

The third is understandable. Some things are just extremely hard to find for sale.

The fourth is admittedly the most questionable.
 
I simply will not pay the price for Photoshop. By me "stealing" it, they're not losing a potential sale; at their price point, I was never a potential sale.
 
vorbb said:
I simply will not pay the price for Photoshop. By me "stealing" it, they're not losing a potential sale; at their price point, I was never a potential sale.
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So, I can come to your house and take your TV and computer? I was never going to buy them off of you, so you're not losing a potential sale.
 
SwiftLives said:
So, I can come to your house and take your TV and computer? I was never going to buy them off of you, so you're not losing a potential sale.
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I think we can both agree that this is quite different. Neither my TV nor my computer are for sale; not to mention the fact that there are similarly featured and lower priced alternatives.

Photoshop has a monopoly on the market. You can try to argue that GIMP and whatever half-assed tools are comparable, but they're just not.
 
(marc) said:
Rolling your eyes won't change the facts. Photoshop would be much less popular if it weren't pirated by most of its users. But I'm giving up. You clearly don't want to understand the difference between taking and copying.
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some how I do not that. Photoshop is a professional grade product and as such really only marketed to them. Use normal people think OOO COOL. but reality is we can not do 1/10 of the stuff photoshop offers and could easy get by with a much less product. I expect with the the pirating the professional world would still use the default standard of photoshop.

As for me I pirated music back in early 2000's but have not really done it for years. Then again my music library has not grown much since then either.

Software wise I tend not to pirate any more. The worse I am is I will torrent TV episodes that I have missed.
 
vorbb said:
I think we can both agree that this is quite different. Neither my TV nor my computer are for sale; not to mention the fact that there are similarly featured and lower priced alternatives.

Photoshop has a monopoly on the market. You can try to argue that GIMP and whatever half-assed tools are comparable, but they're just not.
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Nope. Technically, Photoshop isn't for sale to you, since it's not marketed to you. It's marketed to professionals.

They do offer Photoshop Elements for non-professionals for a substantially lower price. Paint Shop Pro, and Painter from Corel also come to mind. Or if you're a student, Adobe offers a very good educational discount.

Just because you won't pay doesn't mean you can't pay. And if you can't pay, then perhaps you need to work a little harder or take on an extra job to earn some money. But don't feed me some ************ rationalization that you're somehow special and it's okay for you to take what you haven't paid for.
 
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