Why Pirating Movies and Music Isn't a Bad Thing

[TheFlak38]

Last month I wanted to watch Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "RAN" but the tor**** to download it had not enough seeders and I was in no mood to wait until the download was finished. Since the movie was recently digitally remastered and brought back in the market with special features of over three hours, I decided to spend some money and buy it. And yes, the 10 Euro I paid for the two DVD's were really worth it!

So I went to the mall, returned home, opened my "Haribo" and sat down to enjoy the movie until the classic disclaimer against piracy began to play:

FUCK YEEEAAAH! The commercial has fast paced editing and rock music because this is what we young people listen to!!! The titles are shaky and worn out like the graffiti I made on my skateboard! And while I'm watching it I can only think of one thing:

PIRACY IS AWESOME!!!!

Whoa! Wait a moment! What is it saying in the end? "Piracy is a crime"? Maybe I didn't get the commercial's message because of the head banging. Let's have a closer look.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR.

It depends. If the process of stealing a car was like "Step 1. I touch the car, Step 2. I wait and eat chips for half an hour without interruption and Step 3. The car is mine"

Then yes I would probably steal a car.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG.

It depends again. If after stealing the handbag of some rich lady we both had a handbag, then yes I would probably steal one. And if the rest of the world would be getting their cars and handbags this way, I wouldn't be the fool to pay and buy them.

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A MOVIE

Eeeerrrmm.....sorry. I would never steal a movie if I never had a feeling that the movie robbed ME first! But unfortunately it's the opposite that is happening.

When they are advertising trash like Transformers 2 and Jurassic World for example, as the top movies of the year and such bullshit what do they expect? That I will pay money for their next abomination as well?

And here comes something else. Why the hell am I forced to watch commercials of Coca Cola and Oreo cookies for 20 minutes before the movie? I can watch them on my TV if I want to. If you people want to advertise other products in the cinema, cut something from the price of my ticket!

Anyway. Piracy exists since the time of VHS (Video Home System) and it won't stop. It's something like drugs. As long as there is demand, there will be supply. It is the prefect challenge for the distribution companies and it exposes their real face.

Until 2000 the music industry was making tons of money for selling CD's with only one or two good songs in them. And when the people began to download their songs for free, the record companies instead of improving themselves, they ran like the child to his papa, to their lawyers and in the end they sucked our dicks until they said "Let's stop being assholes. Let us lower the prizes of our products."

The productions in the film industry are even worse and twice as stupid. Even though they knew what happened with the music industry and that the growing speed of the network will overrun them they still didn't do anything.

Dear production companies and lawyers, how does it feel when the masses of people decide to vote by using their money? It's painful, right? No matter how many people you will sue, no matter how many trucks with DVD's you'll catch and tor**** sites you'll bring down, you will never get away from the basic instinct of justice that we all have. When I pay in the cinema 8 Euro (or 14 for 3D) and the movie was only worth one or two, then I will watch the next 5 movies at home for free so I can balance my budget. Simple logic.

If you want the people to pay 8 Euro to watch a movie, you must make a movie that is worth this money! If your writers are such pussies or merely incompetent and sell me sequels for my favourite movies while in reality they are re-makes, then be prepared buddy.

We proudly raise our flags and set sails to get you. And you don't need to try to make me feel guilty with your stupid commercials like the one above, which sucks by the way.

You may have taken down kickass.torrents with its six domains, but soon we'll get another six new domains and Pirate Bay is still there anyway. Fuck off!

[anonman32]

i dont mind piracy, it is only a normal answer to ridiculous copyright laws. copyright was originally created so the author could get paid, but nowadays corporations get away with most money, not the author. copyright laws nowadays are just outright censorship and piracy does not pay authors either but at least it gives them recognition as piracy makes their work more accessible. it is true that many products are now utter crap, just look at video games with their unfinished products being sold and then you even need to pay for updates that were supposed to be in the original game! i will pirate much stuff and if i find it worthwhile i will buy myself an original.

[TheFlak38]

Exactly! Same thing with video games. I could go on and on with the article but people wouldn't bother to read it all.

[Fathoms77]

"it is true that many products are now utter crap, just look at video games with their unfinished products being sold and then you even need to pay for updates that were supposed to be in the original game!"

None of that is true. A nice little conspiracy theory cooked up by the standard consumer who thinks he should get everything for free (because "reasons"), but it's not even remotely close to accurate. As someone who worked in the game journalism industry for 15 years and had plenty of interaction with developers, designers, publishers, etc, just trust me on this. Internet stupidity aside, it's a gross exaggeration.

[anonman32]

@Fathoms77 right, thats why EA and ubisoft have in the past sold unfinished games and then also sold the updates that should have been in the game as DLC. also if this is just a conspiracy, why doesn't steam put up some quality standards? they have zero guarantee of quality. many games that are sold there are unfinished, and some even will never be finished. i downloaded total war attila on there and it said that it would support linux systems and intel graphics cards, i am still waiting for them to make that true.

[TheFlak38]

Or the new Battlefront game. What a piece of trash.

[Fathoms77]

Your definition of "unfinished" is your own. It's hardly universal. I've never even played a game in the last seven or eight years that would be called "unfinished;' they're ALL finished and with a great deal more QA than the industry had when I was younger. You want to see unfinished? Rewind about 20-25 years and see some of the comedy that actually hit store shelves. How do you think "all your base are belong to us" got started?

The DLC was never supposed to be included in the game. This blew up after the Street Fighter incident with Capcom and of course, gamers clueless about the development process immediately accused ALL developers and publishers of doing the same thing (content on the disc that is locked as DLC). It's not true and never has been. All DLC is crafted after the game's original content is finalized and produced. This idea that developers are making all this content and then locking it, or cutting it out of the original product to charge for it later, is false.

[anonman32]

@Fathoms77 no, its the games being released on release date even if they are not finished and then what was supposed to come with the game is sold as DLC afterward.

[Fathoms77]

Then believe what you want. I can tell you from a professional's experience in the industry that it isn't true, that developers are gamers just like you and me, that they have ZERO desire to rip off anyone, that they wish to produce the best possible product imaginable (because it's the only way they all keep their jobs, and the only way a publisher is happy), but obviously, you'd rather believe internet rumors from people who have no idea how any of this works. That's your prerogative.

[DarkHumorRUs]

Also, consider this: when public libraries first came around, people thought that nobody would ever wanna write and publish a book again if everyone could just read it for free at the library.
And in a way, torrents are the same as a library book, just with a much larger pool of people who access it.

[Anonymous]

So you admit to being a thief, if it were easy enough for you.. Good on you.