Piracy: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

[BadSamaritan]

pi·ra·cy

n. pl. pi·ra·cies

 

1. Robbery committed at sea.

2. A similar act of robbery, as the hijacking of an airplane.

3. The unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material: software piracy.

4. The operation of an unlicensed, illegal radio or television station.

 

This is the most common definition of Piracy. It is also the truth. Piracy, in its truest form, is stealing, which goes against the laws of every government in the world, not to mention goes agaisnt almost every religion in the world. But still it exists, and its newest form is on the internet. Ordinary people, from teenagers to white collar workers to the elderly, can now commit this crime. And much to the annoyance of everyone who tries to stop it, more and more people do it. And like an electonic snowball effect, the more poeple that do it, the worse it gets.

 

And to make matters even worse, it is becoming harder and harder to stop. As people find new ways to stop internet piracy, the pirates themselves find new ways to do it. It started with Napsterâ„¢, and since then has expanded to include such P2P progerams as Kazaa, E-Donkey, Aries, and the newest and hardest to stop version, Bittorrent. To date, the best efforts to stop internet piracy have come in the forms of the now-legal Napsterâ„¢ and i-Tunesâ„¢, both of which are pay-to-download programs. But they only cover one form of media, and that is music. Which leaves movies and software still being pirated illegally 100% of the time.

 

There are several reasons as to why people choose to pirate media off the internet. Some people do it becuase they are cheap, and refuse to pay for anything they dont have to. Others do it to sample media before going out and buying it. Others do it to replace things that they have lost for various reasons. All of these reasons have legal implications, and thats where all the real fun begins. Because sad to say, while most forms of Piracy are illegal, others arent. And its this distinction where everything goes to hell.

 

The First type of person downloads becuase they are cheap bastards who think "Why pay for something when you can get it for free?". They download whatever strikes their fancy, however they can get it. These people are 100% in the wrong, no matter what they think. In no way does the owner of whatever they download make a profit off of their hard work. Worse yet, the offending pirate may copy whatever they download, and give it to freinds/family, decreasing the profit again. In the end, this becomes stealing, which cannot be justified no matter how hard you try. While some would say "With the prices such-and-such company charges, their basically doing the same thing!". Wrong. It costs money to design, produce, package, ship, and advertise anything that gets sold. And granted, while some companies charge far to much for thier products, others are more then reasonable with their product pricing. There is just no excuse.

 

The second type of piracy can be thought of as sampling, and it can be the hardest version to fight on either end of the legal spectrum. Here is a good scenario for it. A person downlaods a few songs off of a CD he is interested in buying, but he would like to hear more than what the radio plays. He finds that he likes the CD, and goes out and buys it. Was what he did illegal? At first, yes, because he had not paid for the songs he downloaded. But now that he went out and purchaced the CD, he is back over into the legal side of it. Now say he didnt like the CD, but didnt delete what he had downloaded. Then he would be in the wrong. But if he found that he didnt like the CD, and did delete the songs, then he is back into the legal side, due to the fact that he did not keep what he downloaded. This can be done with any sort of media, be it a CD, a video game, a movie, or a peice of software. While it is not the most common type of piracy, it is the hardest from of it to fight in court, whether you are the defendant or not.

 

The final type of piracy, in legal terms, isnt actually piracy at all, although some would still argue that it is. It is when someone downloads something they had previously purchased, but has either lost, or it has become unusable for various reasons. A good scenario would be this. A man purchases a video game, and over the years, natural wear and tear on the disc prevents him from using it anymore. Now he has two choices. Try to find, and buy, a new copy of said disc, or just download a new copy. Finding a new copy may not always be possible, and some people would feel cheated having to pay for something twice, hence the reason they would download it instead. Others would say it is their fault for not taking care of said disc, and should not cheat the system to cover their own mistakes. What most people do not realise is, this form of piracy is perfectly legal, through and through, if you can prove you had already paid for said item. There are no laws preventing a person from making backup copies for themselves, and so long as they do not re-distribute them in any way or form, they are perfectly within the bounds of legality. But, if they do happen to give a copy of it away, then they are in the wrong.

 

Now, it is because of these different forms of piracy that the legal battle over it will be a long, hard fight for any side. More than likely, it will not be one to end any time soon, if ever. Piracy will always exist in one form or another. Only time will tell on how this current battle ends, and where the next one will begin. Until then, the courts will be left to decide who is right and who is wrong. And so far, even the courts are having a hard time figuring it out.

 

Myself, I openly admit to beign a pirate. I have downloaded music, movies, and software. And I have done it for all of the reasons listed above. I have done it to sample albums I was interested in, I have done it to replace games whos discs' were no longer usable, and I have done it because I refused to shell out the 700 bucks for certain software. I have also taught others how to do the same things, which makes me even worse in the eyes of the law.

 

In the end however, it is you, the consumer, who is to make the final judgement over whether or not piracy is illegal, be it in a few of its forms, or in all of its forms. One does not have to just accept what they are told, and follow along with the rules. What one must do, is look at the rules, and realise that some rules are not always what they seem.

[Mad78]

Well the hole thing about downloading to replace old disc i am not so sure is legal. For that is considered as downloading of Pirated software. And that is illegal.

[BadSamaritan]

its actually a very grey area that most people try to avoid going into. When the legal fight gets to that point, expect a long pointless legal war over it.

[Mad78]

Most of these legal fights are long. The hole point is that there is the black and the white. In those two cases it is easy to give a verdict but the grey always causes much trouble. But often they shall try and set an example by sending the "pirates" to prisons or making them pay a gigantic fine.

Thats what they did in France.

[BadSamaritan]

Location also plays into effect when it comes down to legal battles over piracy. Some Copyright laws dont transfer over to certain countries, making it very hard to stop piracy. I knew I was forgetting about something.

 

As for the grey area, thats the main reason the battles over piracy shall never end.

[Evaders99]

Aye, piracy has a huge market in foreign countries where there is no respect at all for copyright laws. So it will always continue in some form regardless of how many lawsuits get thrown around.

[Trejiuvanat]

Aye, piracy has a huge market in foreign countries where there is no respect at all for copyright laws. So it will always continue in some form regardless of how many lawsuits get thrown around.

 

Foreign countries like Costa Rica.

 

It's a matter of perspective. Most foreign countries do have respect for copyright laws, but don't have an economy strong enough to buy original stuff (it's mostly a conversion of the dolalr price and taxes, and the usual extra payments for intermediaries).

 

And that's not only talking software, or videos/DVD, CDs. It's also books. Public university around here is based on photocopies/clones of books, there's no other way a third world public university could get the original texts.

 

It's not a disrespect to copyright laws, it's simply that it isn't functional. And if it starts out as a masked suggestion by the government, it slowly becomes a tendency and everyone's pirating stuff. (we bankrupted the local Blockbuster, as they couldn't keep up with pirate video rentals).

[Mad78]

Yes for these poorer countries is often an easy way to avoid paying much and such piracy in those cases helps the economis. But its still illegal.

[Darktrooper]

Then, you will find very odd about my hometown, Puerto Rico. There, piracy in not underground; in fact, piracy there is a big activity in almost all the forms of media. I even know of a few police officers that do piracy as a way to gain a quick buck. Disturbing, if you ask me. o_O

[Colonel_Olorin]

it may be illegal but look at holland and pot. it is still illegal in holland to smoke pot but it's been decriminilised or basically nobody will prosecute unless it's over and certain amount.

same rules apply in many countries on many topics

[Darktrooper]

it may be illegal but look at holland and pot. it is still illegal in holland to smoke pot but it's been decriminilised or basically nobody will prosecute unless it's over and certain amount.

same rules apply in many countries on many topics

 

My friend, I second your post.

[Mad78]

Yeah. From what i understand Amsterdam has become one of the main drug distribution points for Europe due to the ease with which drugs can circulate.

[Darktrooper]

Yeah. From what i understand Amsterdam has become one of the main drug distribution points for Europe due to the ease with which drugs can circulate.

 

The same can be said about PR. It has become the caribean drug bridge to the US. That's without counting local market.

[Mad78]

Switzerland tends to more be into hash production. From what i heard swiss hemp has the reputation to be one of the best in the world. If that is good or bad i let you judge.

Over here it is actually legal to produce Absinthe.

[Skynxnex]

When it comes to piracy I tend to view things a certain way. Do I think it fair for a company to charge you money for a game, which you buy. You find out the game sucks and you were mislead so you go back to the store to return it and get your money back. The store tells you that you 'broke the shrink wrap' and therefore they dont have to give you a refund or store credit. Now I mean, thats just stupid. The way the games are sold etc...you have no idea how the game is until you play it. Most companies that sell something that doesnt fulfill what was promised can be held liable yet this doesnt happen when it comes to movies, games and music. This is one of the reasons why I think that people download so much music for instance. Take a look, due to mass-production and the nature of a cd it only costs like maybe $1 to make a cd. Yet the stupid record labels jack the price up to like $15 if not more. The artists themselves usually get very very small royalties so its not like the label is paying the artist a lot, no its the labels being very greedy trying to get a ton of money for crappy music.

 

I also think its dumb if you had a cd, in this legally you bought and say the cd got scratched over time or something so you now cant listen to it. I dont think it makes much sense to have to buy it again when you can download the same songs at the same quality roughly.

 

I only mentioned that example because to me that is not illegal. I dont care how others define it, those businesses define it that way and then pay off politicians to write laws that define it the way they want it to be. The consumer should have rights too.