[Serious] Piracy

[Mave]

Do you encourage it?
Do you pirate?
Do you upload yourself?
Why do you hate/love piracy?
...

Discuss it here.

 

[Mauri]

Re: Piracy

I pirate alot, yarr arrr!

I usually download stuff from school because there's fast Internet connection I have VERY slow connection ;_;
I don't upload anything, I just download P:
Why I like to download? Beacuse you can get many things for free Only problem is viruses and trojan what you might get :C

 

[Mave]

Re: Piracy

I think pirating is actually a good way for artists to promote their music.
Like in electronic music, when you are a DJ, and you download a song and like it, then you go and BUY the vinyl.

That's my point of view on (music)piracy.

 

[[FF]TeddyBear]

Re: Piracy

But theres also people who don't wan't to purchase music they already have access to.

 

[Andre]

Re: Piracy

I put my thoughts in the copyright topic:

Over the years that I have been surfing around on numerous sites like P2P-net or TorrentFreak, I have seen a loads of news about yet another dude being sued by RIAA and prosecuted for $675000 for downloading 30 tracks. That's just plain wrong, there are millions of people using pirated software, viewing movies obtained through P2P networks or listening to tracks downloaded over P2P or from YouTube.
The source of the problem should be handled first which, I'm afraid, is quite impossible. With numerous torrent indexing (which works like Google) being shut down and organizations such as the previously mentioned RIAA, MPAA, MAFIAA, IFPI suing ISPs and forcing them to block sites such as The Pirate Bay in Norway (ISP Tele2), Norway (ISP Telenor) or Ireland (ISP Eircom) (read about an ongoing case between AFACT, which represents numerous Hollywood studios, and iiNet, which is an Australian ISP). The organizations mentioned above do not control the internet and P2P networking can't be stopped and I'm really glad to see that some ISPs actually fight back (such as iiNet or Telenor) and for example don't rush to give out their costumers' data.

What's the most awkward is that the situation over P2P networking and torrent sites has gained much more attention in the last few years, I suppose that's a hell of a good way for copyright organizations to make money. Yet they can't stop the internet. Loads of people have tried to prosecute owners of site such as The Pirate Bay for an nonexistent law or a law that doesn't include being a torrent indexing site.

I will always keep downloading and pirating as much as possible as long as I can - that's what hundreds of millions have been doing during the last decade and will be doing for a few another ones. A compromise between P2P networking and record industries makes no sense, instead the industries should pull back and see that this is the way world works and this is the internet.
Also popularity of pirate parties or political parties supporting "free internet" (which means your ISP doesn't keep your packets logged or track of the sites you visit, etc. - though in Estonia ISPs are, after 2008, forced to keep data. Still not for prosecuting pirates, rather internet criminals) and in the European parliament 2 Swedish pirate party politics have secured two seats (Christian Engström & Amelia Andersdotter) already after Lisbon Treaty was ratified. For example take Sarkozy who is so much into his plan of making the 3-strikes HADOPI while he's one hell of a pirate himself.

The most successful pirate party is the Swedish Pirate party which received 7.13% of the votes in 2009 EU parliament elections. There are officially registered pirate parties in other 11 countries excluding Sweden and active (but unregistered) pirate parties in 23 other countries (including Canada's PP, which received some light on our TMS news board; and Estonia, hell yeah). That means that there are 34 countries with their own Pirate Party, the communication goes through Pirate Party International. This is how internet blackout is fought nowadays in the world seeing that like 4 of the judges chosen to take care of The Pirate Bay case, their appeal case and their cases with BREIN(who tried to get TPB nailed with fake evidence) have all been associated with an anti-piracy organizations. TPB no longer is in Sweden, they succeeded in that, but it is now in a former military nuclear bunker in Netherlands. Worth a mention that on 17th April, when TPB verdict got leaked and then an hour after confirmed, 9000 new members joined the Swedish pirate party.

I love to speak about piracy, P2P, copyright and all but the post is quite lengthy already and should make my point pretty clear.

For some reason when Wiki'ing Piracy then only thing related to piracy and internet is copyright infringement which links to software piracy which is what most of us mean by piracy.

Do you encourage it?

Not as much as I used to, but I still do.

Do you pirate?

No. I only download pirated software which directly doesn't mean I'm pirating. I'm just infringing copyright.

Do you upload yourself?

I once did, but it was something that didn't really infringe any laws. I'm not a part of a RLS (release) group or a cracking group. Neither do I modify hex addresses or hack software.

Why do you hate/love piracy?

I love it because it is free. I don't intend on paying for a software piece. Perhaps I used to pay for games in 2003... but what's the year now... 2010 it is.

Artist/software author wants to profit from the creation of the music or program he has made. Obviously when I download it I don't even plan on (just me personally) on buying the product when I can have it for free and without problems. Another thing to stop me from buying is the modern overrated cost. For example while there are programs like IDM or FlashGet for free then some program author calling the product DownloadAccelerator PRO 3.81 wants $39.99 for it. That's just so fucking awful when a product that's 25 times worse in functionality and efficiency actually is going to cost you $40 while the better product is free.

 

[Nitronic]

Re: Piracy

i download game
I do occasionally upload
and if i like the game i download i may go out and buy it so their my views on piracy

 

[waffelz]

Re: Piracy

I pirate alot

If I download a CD and I like it alot, I buy it Just to show some respect for the artist. Downloading music is my way to check if the song is good/bad, if it's bad I delete it, if it's good I keep it, is it very good, I buy it. So I don't waste any money if I buy CD and don't like it.

Games, I mostly download them. Except, few days ago I bought Warhammer 40K: Dawn Of War. I paid €6.90 for it. So now I can play online by paying that little price.

 

[ThePro]

Re: Piracy

I pirate.

Why? because some music companies are ASS-HOLES.

Remember youtube and sony?

P.S: they sell pirated discs on tha street here, way cheaper, less then a dollar a cd

 

[Mave]

Re: Piracy

P.S: they sell pirated discs on tha street here, way cheaper, less then a dollar a cd

Lmao, if you do that in Belgium you're behind bars before you know it..

 

[ThePro]

Re: Piracy

piracy is legal here, well atleast it was back in 98 lol

 

[Corsefied]

Re: Piracy

Do you encourage it? weeeell... maybe sometimes, but not normally

Do you pirate? alot.. mostly singleplayer games i have is pirated because i dont have the cash to get the games, ill rather save it for a better computer

Do you upload yourself? i do upload quite alot of stuff , i guess it isnt allowed to share on the mave site

Why do you hate/love piracy? well its ups and downs , the companies dousen't get their cash for the games and blah blah blah.. but still. piracy is the leading advertisement when it comes to spreading games and make it better known.. thats the reason i like it. it makes small games and developers as big as the big ones who can buy a tv advertisement

 

[Spiderpig]

Re: Piracy

P.S: they sell pirated discs on tha street here, way cheaper, less then a dollar a cd

Same here =D

Hi5

 

[Mave]

Re: Piracy

^ Because you both live in South America

 

[Remis]

Re: Piracy

piracy is the leading advertisement when it comes to spreading games and make it better known

Seems to be an often used argument.
Do you have any example of a game which "nobody" knew before and it became popular because of piracy? How do you know that they wouldn't be known the same way without piracy?
What is the point in making "advertisement" this way for a game, if it is already quite known because of TV advertisement for example.
I don't see a point in making a known game better known. But if you have an example Iam behind your argument.

 

[Mave]

Re: Piracy

^ That was a pretty interesting reply, Remis, I do really understand what you mean here.

 

[Andre]

Re: Piracy

The argument is valid mostly if the game creator himself promotes P2P in any way. If the developer supports P2P filesharing or tells the users who can't afford the game to download it illegally then it reaches a P2P news outlet like TorrentFreak and people get to know. I'm sure it is a great way to promote a product and for people to find new products but there's a small chance the game/product is any good when the developer has to get help from BitTorrent (p2p filesharing) to promote it. But sometimes it is.

Here's some relevant material I could find:
http://torrentfreak.com/game-dev-sometimes-its-ok-to-steal-my-games-100804/
http://torrentfreak.com/game-developer-flirts-with-pirates-on-bittorrent-sites-090427/
http://torrentfreak.com/game-developer-promotes-game-on-torrent-sites-091106/

 

[Corsefied]

Re: Piracy

piracy is the leading advertisement when it comes to spreading games and make it better known

Seems to be an often used argument.
Do you have any example of a game which "nobody" knew before and it became popular because of piracy?

The Myst series originally for macintosh , spread like wind when it reached windows and people started to pirate it . it's a VERY popular game now

and ofcourse counter-strike. the first counter-strike 1.4 was a betaversion of the newer 1.6 and came out may 2000 i believe, later on that year they gave out 1.6(final version) which wasnt actually well known from the start.
Valve did earn quite alot of cash the first year but then LAN version came out. (pirate version) and the game hit the records several times.. i believe for counter-strike and valve , pirated lan version advertised and made that game famous. and i know many people knew about it. but it reached so much more people when it got pirated and people bought it to be able to play online.

 

[Andre]

Re: Piracy

The "pirate lan version" you're talking about is CS 1.6 non-steam and afaik doesn't have anything to do with BitTorrent or P2P filesharing. The only P2P client you could find back then was Kazaa which was full of viruses. And even today CS 1.6 non-steam version is available on fileservers, not shared on BitTorrent widely, never has been.

 

[Corsefied]

Re: Piracy

The "pirate lan version" you're talking about is CS 1.6 non-steam and afaik doesn't have anything to do with BitTorrent or P2P filesharing. The only P2P client you could find back then was Kazaa which was full of viruses. And even today CS 1.6 non-steam version is available on fileservers, not shared on BitTorrent widely, never has been.

well. there is other ways to share pirated stuff.. u dont have to use torrents lol

use direct download . rapidshare megaupload etc....
and there are HUGE forums for pirated stuf(warez)
i know it isnt widely spread by bittorrent, because people who have a brain dousent use slow torrents they use a filehost and save their time

 

[Andre]

Re: Piracy

Ouch, I thought this was turning into more of a P2P-bittorrent-related discussion, I'm sorry though.

i know it isnt widely spread by bittorrent, because people who have a brain dousent use slow torrents they use a filehost and save their time

Most of the "filehosts" that you're talking about (Rapidshare, megaupload, etc) have some sort of a limitation speed for regular users. I agree that for downloading a 8 year old game is better from a HTTP filehost not using the P2P/BitTorrent protocol because the availability of the game just ain't that good due to the game's age. But then again what some simple filehosters who throw the files on their FTPs from Czech or whatever region don't understand is that HTTP download is direct bandwidth usage to the server and there's never unlimited bandwidth and bandwidth costs a lot. That's the reason you don't see direct downloads for GTA IV for example, which is 16gb. Even if the connection speed could handle many people downloading it at a steady ~2mb/s (for free!) it still would eat the server's bandwidth. That's the reason we have P2P.