# Who wants to defend pirating content (movies/music/books/software/whatever)? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 22, 2008, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948 "2008-11-22T02:46:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/241 "2008-12-02T12:05:55Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > How the _fuck_ do you work that out, Einstein? A group protects what’s theirs through the courts and now they’re worse than the scum they’re prosecuting? Neither the RIAA or DRMs are about “protecting what’s theirs”. And the PIRATES are not the ones damaging people’s computers - funny how it’s OK for the corporations to harm the consumers in the process of “protecting” themselves. Using methods that fail at their supposed purpose, at that. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > The overwhelming majority of pirates don’t give two shits about the actions of the RIAA or about DRM, mostly because about .00000002% of the population understands or cares what a “rootkit” or “digital rights management” is. You are deluding yourself. Plenty of people care, and know. People like you just refuse to believe it; if people don’t buy something infested with a DRM or a rootkit, it must because they pirated it; not because they didn’t want to infest their machine with such a thing and just not buy it. > [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > This idea that mass piracy is some sort of protest movement against the “the man” is a fantasy. People pirate because they can get away with obtaining music for nothing, not because they’re concerned about DRM, rootkits or whatever the current _cause celebre_ of the Internet idiot is today. Yeah, suuuure. People are so self destructive they don’t care at all about damage to their computer, inferior products or even just plain convenience. It HAS to be greed. While, of course, suing people for hundreds of thousands over music worth a few dollars - that has nothing to do with greed at all. ---
**Author:** ![Jolly\_Roger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/91b2a8/32.png) [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/242 "2008-12-02T13:12:56Z")
> [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](#): > > How the _fuck_ do you work that out, Einstein? A group protects what’s theirs through the courts and now they’re worse than the scum they’re prosecuting? > > The overwhelming majority of pirates don’t give two shits about the actions of the RIAA or about DRM, mostly because about .00000002% of the population understands or cares what a “rootkit” or “digital rights management” is. This idea that mass piracy is some sort of protest movement against the “the man” is a fantasy. People pirate because they can get away with obtaining music for nothing, not because they’re concerned about DRM, rootkits or whatever the current _cause celebre_ of the Internet idiot is today. I’d have to disagree. Though it had to do with games other than music, DRM and SecuRom have screwed up my laptop. I didn’t know much about it prior to last week, but even that .00000002% of people will realize something isn’t kosher when they find their PCs are crippled by it. I don’t pirate, so it has nothing to do with greed. It has to do with screwing around with my property (my computer). ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/243 "2008-12-02T13:26:21Z")
> [@Jolly\_Roger](#): > > I don’t pirate, Yes, **Jolly Roger** , and why ever would we think you would? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/244 "2008-12-02T13:43:05Z")
**Capt. Ridley’s Shooting Party** , a question: do you believe that you have a moral right to download an altered version of a commercial product that you purchased, if said commercial product acts in a destructive or invasive manner? ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/245 "2008-12-02T13:55:48Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > I don’t care about the laws. I’m talking about morality. If it was legal to pirate content, I’d still think it was immoral (and hey, guess what, there would be a hell of a lot less content to steal). I hope everyone who is bitching about stealing from companies/artists/etc has never browsed around on the Dope while at work. I mean, it’s about morality, right? Who cares if your boss doesn’t care? Unless you’re the owner of the company, you are stealing from your employer. I don’t care how many extra hours you may or may not put in above your pay. As long as we’re all being really moral, let’s be honest about what that is… stealing. ---
**Author:** ![Jolly\_Roger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/91b2a8/32.png) [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/246 "2008-12-02T15:30:42Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > Yes, **Jolly Roger** , and why ever would we think you would? 😉 Well, you have no reason to think I wouldn’t, but I really don’t. I’ve never pirated a game and I haven’t downloaded music since Napster was kinda shut down in the late 90’s. admittedly, I did it then just to get songs that I liked that were not worth the cost of the album. I quit doing it after that because it did make me feel like a crook. I will say that if I see a game I want that has DRM I’ll probably look for a crack or some way to avoid the disk installing it on my PC. If I can’t do that or purchase a digital download, the company will have lost a sale. ---
**Author:** ![Jolly\_Roger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/91b2a8/32.png) [@Jolly\_Roger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jolly_Roger)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/247 "2008-12-02T15:35:14Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > I hope everyone who is bitching about stealing from companies/artists/etc has never browsed around on the Dope while at work. I mean, it’s about morality, right? Who cares if your boss doesn’t care? Unless you’re the owner of the company, you are stealing from your employer. I don’t care how many extra hours you may or may not put in above your pay. As long as we’re all being really moral, let’s be honest about what that is… stealing. It depends. At my last duty station it was feast or famine. There were some days I could go through without getting one trouble call. So I surfed the internet and even posted here from work. It didn’t cost the gov’t anything really, since my PC had to be on…my trouble calls came directly through our email system. It would have been more like stealing if I said “Well, nothings going on here. I’m going to go home or to the PX.” since I was supposed to be available. YMMV on that, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/248 "2008-12-02T23:34:31Z")
> [@Jolly\_Roger](#): > > It depends. At my last duty station it was feast or famine. There were some days I could go through without getting one trouble call. So I surfed the internet and even posted here from work. It didn’t cost the gov’t anything really, since my PC had to be on…my trouble calls came directly through our email system. > > It would have been more like stealing if I said “Well, nothings going on here. I’m going to go home or to the PX.” since I was supposed to be available. YMMV on that, though. Yeah, MMVs for sure. I’m sure there were other things that could be done, even if it was cleaning or organizing or something like that. You were, in essence, stealing from the taxpayers by surfing the internet while you were being paid to work. You’re just rationalizing. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/249 "2008-12-03T04:22:33Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > I hope everyone who is bitching about stealing from companies/artists/etc has never browsed around on the Dope while at work. I mean, it’s about morality, right? Who cares if your boss doesn’t care? Unless you’re the owner of the company, you are stealing from your employer. I don’t care how many extra hours you may or may not put in above your pay. As long as we’re all being really moral, let’s be honest about what that is… stealing. I also speed, change lanes without signalling and once I took a coffee & muffin from a cafe and forgot to pay for them. Not that any of that means a damned thing in relation to piracy. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2008, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/250 "2008-12-03T23:33:56Z")
Speeding and failing to use your turn signal also have nothing to do with copyright law or the Internet. What’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2008, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/251 "2008-12-04T01:14:21Z")
> [@Jeff](#): > > I also speed, change lanes without signalling and once I took a coffee & muffin from a cafe and forgot to pay for them. Not that any of that means a damned thing in relation to piracy. Ridiculous comparison. Anyone who has driven has accidentally exceeded the speed limit. If you’re not using the cruise control or watching your speedometer constantly, it isn’t hard to slip past the speed limit. That’s not willful lawbreaking. Earlier the OP stated that it was about morality, not necessarily the law. If you direct your web page to the Straight Dope while you are being paid to work, that is a deliberate action. You may personally feel that stealing from your employer has nothing to do with piracy, but you’re stealing paid time. Stealing. I was responding to the OPs silly “it’s about morality” stance as I mentioned in my original comment. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/252 "2008-12-04T02:08:23Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > Ridiculous comparison. Anyone who has driven has accidentally exceeded the speed limit. If you’re not using the cruise control or watching your speedometer constantly, it isn’t hard to slip past the speed limit. That’s not willful lawbreaking. > > Earlier the OP stated that it was about morality, not necessarily the law. If you direct your web page to the Straight Dope while you are being paid to work, that is a deliberate action. > > You may personally feel that stealing from your employer has nothing to do with piracy, but you’re stealing paid time. Stealing. I was responding to the OPs silly “it’s about morality” stance as I mentioned in my original comment. You’re still hung up on _piracy = theft_. It isn’t. Also I feel that piracy has nothing to do with time-theft for the simple reason that one is piracy and the other is time-theft. As this thread has proven, the morality of piracy is a debate in and of itself. The morality of time-theft is its own debate and has no impact on the other. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2008, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/253 "2008-12-04T02:23:28Z")
> [@Jeff](#): > > You’re still hung up on _piracy = theft_. It isn’t. Also I feel that piracy has nothing to do with time-theft for the simple reason that one is piracy and the other is time-theft. > > As this thread has proven, the morality of piracy is a debate in and of itself. The morality of time-theft is its own debate and has no impact on the other. If piracy doesn’t equal theft, you should explain it to those people who went to court for allowing other people to download their music online. I was responding to the OPs statement that it is a morality thing for him. If you didn’t want to argue that aspect of it, kindly see your way out of the discussion as easily as you found your way in. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/254 "2008-12-04T03:21:08Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > I was responding to the OPs statement that it is a morality thing for him. If you didn’t want to argue that aspect of it, kindly see your way out of the discussion as easily as you found your way in. I’m not unwilling to debate the morality of piracy, I’m saying that your tough stance on time-theft is astoundingly immaterial to that debate. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/255 "2008-12-05T22:18:56Z")
You can’t just declare something to be different and have it be so. Why don’t you give us a good reason to agree with you? Let’s start with this: Say that you work for Universal Studios as a DVD author. You can author five DVDs in an hour, which immediately hit the presses and are prepared for sale. One day, you spend an entire hour at work dawdling on the SDMB instead of authoring DVDs, thus depriving them of the sales of five movies. During that exact same hour, your roommate, a speeding, pot-smoking, muffin-thieving slacker with no job, allows one copy of each of five Universal Studios movies to be downloaded from his computer on KaZaA. Are those two acts significantly different? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2008, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/256 "2008-12-06T01:33:31Z")
Absolutely they are different; in scale, consequence and accountability. Failure to do your job and being directly responsible for a significant revenue loss to your company is much worse than pirating a movie or 5. Both morally and in tangible physical terms. **Sleeps with Butterflies** has decided that because of some ambiguous statement by the OP that ‘it’s about morality’ means she can parachute some random (and hysterically stated) moral issue and have it treated as equal to, and relevant to, the debate at hand. Nope, nope, nope. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/257 "2008-12-30T16:53:20Z")
I have posted a related thread in Great Debates. [Software piracy defenders: what about violating open-source licenses?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=499633) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/258 "2008-12-30T17:34:53Z")
> [@Dead\_Badger](#): > > I’d like to ask you to explain how World of Goo, an independently programmed and published game that shipped with no DRM whatsoever, has reported an [80-90% piracy rate](http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=307020) since its release last month. Ooh! Ooh! I contributed to that statistic! Pick me! I heard about “World of Goo” in a “Recommend me some Wii games” thread, and then saw the PC version on a torrent site, and downloaded it to check it out. (My ratio of purchase-to-play for WiiWare games has been pretty low, so far - and I didn’t want to pay for something that wasn’t going to grab me.) It turns out that it’s as fun as people say it is, so I went ahead and sent some WiiPoints into the ether for the Wii version. (I’m still playing the pirated PC version, because I like the user interface better.) I like “Try before you buy.” Same applies for movies, TV, and music. I watched “Dexter” and “Mad Men” via downloaded torrents this year, and so far I have the box sets for the first season of each. I saw “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” in the theatres, and downloaded DivX copies of both to flip through for review purposes. (Used to do this a lot when discussing movies here.) DivX copies are fine for this, but I will want “real” copies of both of these movies, the next time I sit down to watch them again. I have held off buying the DVD version, though - I want those babies on BluRay. Yes, I can admit that I sometimes download movies and then _don’t_ go out and get legal copies. I watched “The House Bunny,” and got all the way through it, and don’t intend to buy it. More often, I’ll download something and we’ll get a half hour in before turning it off. Downloading “The Clone Wars” helped convince me that I really wasn’t missing anything. Internet piracy isn’t a significant threat to the industry - as long as people _like_ the products, they’ll get by, because you get what you pay for, generally – and because people will always support good products. (My first copy of StarCraft was an illegal copy - but I’ve bought _three_ licensed copies in the last ten years.) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/259 "2008-12-30T18:04:59Z")
Related question: I owned original (SNES) versions of _F-Zero_ and other games. Since my SNES no longer works (and is in Britain, which makes it tricky to hook it up to the TV), I may have played emulated versions on a PC. Thus, I paid the full price for the game, but may now be playing it in an illegal fashion. Is that wrong? (Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I haven’t played any games on emulators that I didn’t own, in this totally hypothetical discussion). ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948/260 "2009-01-26T21:22:02Z")
I find it amusing that none of the people advocating copyright violation in this thread have posted to the one I opened in GD about violating the copyright of open-source software. Perhaps none of you have seen it. Otherwise, I’ll assume you’re just hypocrites. > **[Software piracy defenders: what about violating open-source licenses?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=499633)** > > In a previous thread in the Pit, several people stated that they have no problem with pirating commercial software, and mentioned simultaneously that they think the open-source model is a better way to operate. They say they don’t see a problem... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-wants-to-defend-pirating-content-movies-music-books-software-whatever/473948.md?page=14)