To
start this post off, let it be known that I am openly a completely unrepentant
pirate of various media and other digital items. I have probably downloaded
thousands of dollars of material for nothing. Of course, I won’t go into
specifics here of exactly what, when, and how, but I will give my reasoning and
views on the issues (or non-issues) of online piracy.
At the
core of the issue, I won’t deny that I know that I am downloading products that
normally would be retail items with measurable value. In many cases I can’t say
much more than I simply don’t care. Even so, there are limits on what I will or
will not pirate.
Video games, as an example, are a
form of media that I generally have a specific set of standards that I adhere
to. I will not pirate any “current generation” games or indie games. Basically,
anything that is being actively marketed and sold, or anything that is being
marketed by a small independent company. If it is a game that I would be unable
to obtain without getting it used or from an independent reseller, than I
generally will not hesitate to obtain it illegally. It applies mostly to older
games, such as Super Nintendo, Playstation, and now Playstation 2 and Gamecube
are beginning to fall into that category.
I generally don’t have any
self-enforced restrictions on movies and TV shows. I generally do not watch
movies often, so I don’t think I have ever bothered to pirate one, as I am
generally fine waiting for them to come to Netflix. As for TV, I will always
download whatever I haven’t seen and cannot see elsewhere online by legal
means. I will use a legal method of watching a show if it is available. Such as
the South Park and Adult Swim websites, which post some, if not almost all of
their content openly. They are always shows that I likely could have seen on
television normally, but I would rather watch them when I want to. In my view,
if I have access to a paid satellite TV subscription, then it is content that
is already paid for and I may not have been able to access otherwise due to
time constraints.
To be continued…
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