by MiTT3NZ » Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:06 pm
Well, it depends what you calssify as wrong. Everything's open to interpretation.
Say somebody stole something from me. Does it make it wrong for me to steal from that person? Does that make it right for me to steal from someone else? What if the person who stole from me was arrested, jailed, but I didn't get back what was stolen? I wouldn't care the person was jailed, I'd just want my shit back, so no one wins.
That's besides the point though, there's balance.
I bought Arkham Asylum for the 360 brand new. Edios, WB, and Rocksteady got my money. When I set up my PC rig, I wanted to test out my on board graphics card, see what it could handle, so I downloaded a pirated copy of AA for PC. I played it for about ten minutes, saw that I needed to buy a PCI graphics card. The game still sits in my hard drive. Was it wrong of me to do that?
Everything's grey as far as I can see. I don't agree with murder (obviously), but does that make it wrong? Hell no. We're animals, territorial, took over patches of land, imposed laws, and if you didn't like it then GTFO. Is that right? Because it's animal instinct to be territorial and dominant? Animals kill others of it's own species. Are we no different? What if it was my life ambition to have the choice to be a murderer? Where would I go? Would I have to claim my own territory? What if that meant killing others, just so that I could have the right to murder? Not necessarily wanting to, just wanting to have the choice...
The internet, for all intents and purposes, should be free. A free, virtual land, coz who actually owns it? You can own a server, you can charge for providing households with the internet, but what is it at the end of the day? Just information being shared.
Say I want to share a new 16 bar verse I've recorded. That verse has been recorded over an instrumental. The instrumental was created by someone else, I don't have the rights to it. Can I not share it with everyone? What about friends? What if I consider everyone my friend? Coz at the end of the day, who's to say the people I'm sharing it with aren't my friends? We could become friends from the very fact that I've shared something with them.
See the endless questions it provokes?
But yeah, I try to maintain balance in my life. I collect Robbie Williams, Oasis, and Nas albums. I've also bought countless other albums, Wu-Tang, AZ, Daft Punk, U2, etc., etc. But for ones I can't find, or if I can't afford em, or if I just want certain tracks, I'll download em for free. And I ain't gonna scour eBay looking for a Game Boy and a copy of Pokemon, I'll just download a ROM and an emulator. I still bought the thing back in the day, but I'll be fucked if I'm buying it twice.
I was actually over at the Autodesk forums not too long ago (or it could've been Unity, I can't quite remember), and I specifically read the first five or so pages of a topic regarding pirated/torrent copies of software, and one of the developers of the product actually said that as long as no monetary profit is made from using such software... they don't care. He went on to say that it's how he got started, by using pirated software to learn, and even made money off it, but used a small fund he built up to pay for the relevant licenses as an "outstanding debt". He didn't actually have to, coz nobody found out, but he explicitly stated that creativity shouldn't be restricted by money, but in order to maintain balance, if you make something of yourself thanks to a piece of software, the teachings of a mentor, or the support of a family member, you owe a personal debt. The way you repay it is essentially up to you.
Obviously with software n shit, it should be through money, but still, the idea is that you answer to yourself. You do what you can, how you can, and you repay those who helped you along the way. And in the case of games, I got a pirate copy of (you're gonna love this btw) Fahrenheit. As I've said in the past, I liked it. A lot. Hated what the game turned into, but I still enjoyed the ride. A few months after completing it, I actually bought it for the Xbox. Regretted it later because it was scratched to fuck n the shop closed down before I got a chance to return it, but still... I ain't ignorant in that way.
I download comic torrents for individual issues, but I buy them in TPB form when released (if they're good) At the end of the day though, I don't feel one little bit bad about piracy. It helps industry sales a lot more than the suits and stuck-up arseholes care to realise. A lot of my purchases would never have been made without sites like Demonoid (RIP), so I have no ptoblems with it whatsoever, and am very passionate about my stance on the matter. I've discussed it at great lengths with many people in the past. Some agree, some maintain a neutral standpoint, and some disagree. All I know though is that it works for me, and whilst it often means that money isn't an issue when it comes to work tools and entertainment, I can't in all honesty say that pirating has ever been kind to my wallet.
So, whilst a pro-piracy viewpoint may seem like I'm just getting a loada shit for free, it's also encouraging me to spend more. And there is no denying that is definitely supportive of creators.