Generation Free: Piracy, distribution, and entertainment

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2011.php

Stop crying poverty because you can only afford one ferrari for your car house this year....

That would not make you a thief. It would make you a liar.

I'm sorry you've given up on women and now think that every one of them is a bimbo. I'm sorry that you try to defend your wife's decision, which you don't seem very happy about, by insulting all women that have outgrown such shallow and materialistic pursuits. I'm so happy that my hot wife, who also is a gamer, belongs to the latter group. I would post a photo of her like you did, but then again I don't post photos of her to make my point on copyright issues, because it's kind of ... totally unrelated.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to write something related to copyright - hah! I buy lots of music/movies/games _and_ I pirate. Why I pirate? Read below. Would I buy more if I couldn't pirate? No, read below. I also run a successful website for the Linux community, for free.

I stopped going to cinemas a few years ago, due to the unreasonably high ticket prices - only saw 2 movies in the past 3-4 years. I now have a nice big TV/surround sound setup at home. I stopped buying movies and music that come from members of RIAA/MPAA because I can't support the absolutely ridiculous way that they treat ('bully' might be a more appropriate term) their customers, while at the same time they enjoy welfare status from the government that acts like their pimp - on a global scale.

What I do is donate to & support music and movie projects that I like, go to live concerts, and buy merchandise. All that sums up to an amount higher that just buying DVDs/CDs or MP3s, so I'm not a cheap-o. I'm basically cutting down on the greedy middle-man, hoping that he'll eventually die out and let us enjoy the arts like we should.

In regards to games, I spend about 300-400 euros on PC games, annually, for me and my wife. However, I almost never buy them at full price. 30-40€ is my upper limit for Skyrim-quality games, while I usually buy at ~10-20€. I have a special rule for DRM ridden games, in that I don't buy them for more than 10-15€. Thankfully, there is a plethora of great games out there, so I can keep my self entertained while I wait for the price to go down. I'm not really into subsidizing executives' sport cars.

Thanks for the UT series Cliffy, I bought and played all of them for years. Stick to games, not writing.

Criminals to be sure; but the question is, if the law upholds oppression, is it wrong to break it, or is it wrong to follow it?

We live in a democracy, a prerequisite of which is freedom of information. Knowledge is power. When information becomes the province of the rich and is unaffordable to the poor there can only be sham democracy. Information must be free to all, no ifs, no buts.

"we still have to deal with the reality that 'consumption of intellectual properties without payment' cannot be sustained indefinitely"

You probably didn't think about this too much, otherwise you wouldn't just repeat something you heard or read somewhere as a valid argument, because it isn't by any stretch of the imagination.
Have you ever heard of this thing called "civilization" which includes art and science?

Have you got any idea how much everyone has benefited from discoveries other people have made in the past, things they mostly did without any payment at all and sometimes even without recognition?

Have you ever thought what you would be or where you would be without those people who gave up their whole lives to make just a small contribution to society? Do you and can you ever repay them for what they did?

Have you ever thought that the most amazing and greatest discoveries were made by people who only really loved what they did? Have you ever heard of really poor writers, philosophers and painters? People who are long gone and instead of humanity having the chance to see their work, we leave amazing pieces of work to some rich *****s who trade them as a commodity?

And are these priceless pieces of work that made civilization possible in the same category even as games or movies or pop music? What is intellectual property, if not the works of those who advanced our whole species for nothing?

Your "reality" is a reality only in your thoughts, not in reality. Intellectual property without payment is the only means to advance humanity and civilization and not only it can be sustained indefinitely this way, but it is, in fact, the only way to do it.

"Obviously no one liked what Blizzard pulled, but do you actually blame them for that? Do you think they would have gone through the headache and cost of having those servers up (usually, heh) along with the bad PR and the backlash from their biggest fans if they didn?t see piracy as a major problem with their products?!"


I have no clue why *****s keep trying to argue drm in any way stops piracy. Drm games are cracked just as soon as none drm games. It simply prevents you from going to your friends house and installing the single player game.

The fall of CATV and the new dawn of DTV will prevail! Cut the cord on Cable TV and you'll feel better!

Whats next will some bands only allow their music to be played on satellite radio? payperview songs? no cable companies arent greedy just because they broke from the standard free tv with commercial platform(sarcasm), yes stealing entertainment is wrong if the artist doesnt want you too, steal bread to feed your family that is another story(edited), if I had a star trek replicator would snickers sue me for making myself a candy bar?

can I make a computer produce every possible combination of sounds\text\pixels one day and copy right it? probably, its already been done with domain names, want to buy property on the moon someone already "owns it". how about a star? someone sells those too, want to buy a star?


Yes you can literally buy a star.

Mapping out the stars and putting them up for sale cost money, don't you know if you falsely claim a star to be yours it raises the cost of stars?

Oh only people that would not have bought a star anyways claim to own stars they don't own!

No no the star seller loses sales because of false star ownership claims, if those false claims did not exist the false claimers would buy stars. That lost revenue is passed down to hard working star buyers!

Wait wait people claiming to own stars they don't own spreads the idea of buying stars boosting sales!

The owner of the star most falsely claimed said he doesn't care(game of thrones most torrented and they dont care)

You know nowadays the star selling industry lobbies washington to pass laws to make false star claims criminal and laws to enforce penalties on these false star claimers. Who pays for all this enforcement? The tax payer! They even pass laws for government funded agencies to function around the clock to weed out these false star claiming s.o.b.s. Who pays for it? Again the working man. Does majority of the people want to pay for these agencies and enforcement? Who knows no one asked them and the star selling industry and politicians dont give a flying f what they think. No they aren't greedy just because they charge a nation of people to enforce laws they probably never wanted to pay for(sarcasm).

Yeah I think I'm crazy too.

p.s. I hear they are working on a reverse flashlight to block out the sky to anyone that doesn't pay a monthly fee.

p.s.s. Don't worry you can see some of the sky in between commercials.

p.s.s.s I actually had a dream before the sky was covered with commercials and I was in the future.

p.s.s.s.s You read all this?

p.s.s.s.s.s. I pirate some content I get on netflix because I like using vlc player, I can easily browse the web and watch. I get consistent HD torrenting. I pirate stuff I don't have on netflix. I don't pirate potential great movies I watch them in the theater. I feel sorry for single payer games that get pirated. Sometimes if I start watching a pirated movie and it looks like a winner I turn it off and go to the theater to watch it.


@Guest I liked yeah those people still exist. Money also motivates though. Do we have more or less innovators because of money motivation, idk. The money scheme drives people so I will say more.


p.z. btw I can't remember if you can buy a star or name one after yourself for a price either way. blah

A poorly constructed, rambling article. Please save the expletives for crass commenters and maintain Techspots dignified image.

It is amazing the "everything is free" culture of the Millenials and even more amazing the excuses they come up with to justify "everything is free." All a part of their entitlement fixation too. Thank their helicopter parents for empowering them with that little dysfunction.

My younger brother has 5 kids. They are a devoutly religious family with a big painting of the Ten Commandments on their living room wall. Including the "Thou Shalt Not Steal" one.

One day I was visiting and they mentioned they were having computer problems. I'm an IT professional so volunteered to take a look. When I started glancing through their files I found an insane amount of torrented material. Games, movies, music and software. Close to a terabyte's worth. I pointed this out to my brother and said, "you know all of these downloads are illegal." And he acted mildly surprised. His response was, "the kids told me they got it off the internet and you know the internet - everything is free." I told him, "when you guys go to WalMart on your weekly shopping spree and you see these items on the shelves, are they free?" He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away - obviously, it wasn't important to him.

So there you go - you have this generation who believe that torrenting is a perfectly legitimate practice combined with parents who have no idea it's going on, nor do they care if they do know.

I'll be curious to see when these Millenials have their own kids, how they're going to handle the topic of theft in raising their own kids.

"We live in a democracy, a prerequisite of which is freedom of information. Knowledge is power. When information becomes the province of the rich and is unaffordable to the poor there can only be sham democracy. Information must be free to all, no ifs, no buts."

Since when is entertainment consider the same as information, like news? It is entertainment pure and simple, candy for the brain. Following your logic the public should have free access to the Walking Dead or Game of Thrones to be better informed. Informed of what which character just go killed off.

The music/movie/television industry is completely at fault here. If they want me to buy something don't offer me **** and tell me it's candy. Metallica album for 30 bucks, but it has 1 good song, Blu-ray movies for 30-60 bucks for a single movie and a ton of behind the scenes garbage.

Why do people download? Because they know damn well they are stealing from the real pirates already and you can't steal from thieves!

You're full of it Guest - and typical of the "why it's OK for me to steal."

I routinely buy blu-ray movies for $5. In fact, bought "Airplane!" just the other day for five bucks. $30 for a Metallica album? What - did you want it gold plated? You can buy Metallica mp3 download albums for $9. And if you wait for sales on Amazon and iTunes can get it for $2-3 less.

Quit making up lame excuses because you've chosen to steal.

I didn't mention entertainment in my post because I wasn't talking about it. I was simply making an argument against monopolies on information, of which copyright is an example.

thou shall not replicate, it seems to come down to philosphy of which your brothers would imply it is wrong, I agree with you, there is no reason to steal entertainment

yup yup, you could argue some entertainment enlightens the mind, but that is just an extremist point of view, I seem to be the minority who admits its wrong and still does it, it is odd how uncommon within the pirate community, I mean people don't like eat fast food then try to convince others its good for them, it reminds me of a heavy drug users mentality, denial. I could philosophy it up and argue for piracy but you can do that with any topic and the more unknowns you use to justify your point the more likely it is that you are wrong.

people feed their families making entertainment, you don't NEED entertainment, they need to feed their families, not everyone in the entertainment industry is rich, what about the factory worker who makes DVD's or stand in actor in the back ground waiting tables?

what I said earlier was to provoke a different perspective to a broken record set of responses we see every time any piralosphy article is written

lobbying is also wrong but that does not make stealing right and as stated not everyone making entertainment has anything to do with the wrongs of the big wigs, cliche time 2 wrongs dont make a right

p.s. this shouldn't have to be said but no one is forcing you to buy entertainment, the high priced argument is not wise. its not a necessity, it is practically the opposite

It is amazing that anyone would maintain that anyone believes that 'everything is free'. I doubt there is a single person in the world who believes 'everything is free' or that it should be.

There are however billions of people who believe that knowledge should be free.

I challenge you to produce a law from any country that states in no uncertain terms that copyright infringement is theft. When you realise you can't do it maybe you will be a little less careless with your words.

Not careless with my words at all.

Simple example. Your Metallica CD is on sale at WalMart for $9. You pass on that and instead illegally download it so you can have it for free.

That's theft.

Im sorry I have to agree with the author. His argument is just. Despite that lack luster moral fiber of the pirates. The author is correct. 1. We built the machine that allows jr. snotnose s.o.b. to pirate. 2. We created the industry that is being stolen from. 3. We are ultimatly responsable for our actions.
All I see when someone attempts to justify their theft is ppl who could use a good *** whoopin. What?? Are they just that stupid? Did I.Q. points fall off the charts?? The only reason they are doing it is because they just dont want to pay. Period. Thats all it boils down too. Well thats too damn bad. There is a cost for everything. They get away with this because they are at home and they think they are safe in their personal fortress of stupidity. Im betting they wouldnt steal a physical item for the same reason. Try and go and steal a handful of CDs from walmart. Im 100% sure you would be caught and prosecuted. Then spend 3-5 years of their life in prison because they were just being stupid. Its just not worth it.
When you steal digital material you rob inevitably everyone who actually paid for the product. You steal from so many ppl who really need that money to feed their families. You steal from future projects from the ppl who created the material being stolen. No one will put good money into a project that they are not going to make money on.
Think on this. You sit there and pirate a movie because you feel you shouldnt have to pay for it. Now lets switch this around. Someone else, with a better skill set then you, decides they dont feel like paying their rent. They decide to steal your identity. They empty your bank accounts, ruin your credit rating for the next 7 years. Right there lies the difference. To you its ok because its some nameless faceless giant corporation so screw them. To the person who has stolen your identity, its the same thing. Same computer, same results. Only difference is that those companies can eat that lose. You cant. So next time you want to pirate, ask yourself. Is it really worth it.

The piracy thing is a moot point because it is human nature to try and get things for free. Also I think a lot of people are not exactly at a ethical crossroads when clicking on that torrent or download link simply because the companies have taken the consumer on a greed ride for ages. Right or wrong, you decide. I personally will download things I have no intention of buying anyway, some people will pick apart that logic, which is fine as I could give two shits.