thebackalleys

what do you think of the act of pirating music, movies, games (if applicable), etc? specify reasons if possible

most music sucks shit

i have most KMFDM albums which i would not have if i hadn't pirated their stuff first

i should have pirated some games because they turned out to be kind of not worth it

imo if people would stop making so much fucking garbage i would be more inclined to oppose piracy

but as-is, i don't care, people will support things they like and everyone else just pirates crap like linkin park or whatever so fuck it

ubisoft makes shitty games with obnoxious drm and stealing them is thus morally acceptable because they probably spend more money on crappy drm than just making decent games

i don't watch movies a lot they mostly suck but i do sometimes go to the cinema to watch stuff like rango

i pirated some ancient movie a while ago because my friend was like OMG C DIS MUTHAFUCKA and it kind of sucked anyway

pirating good software is a little iffy because even though i wouldn't mind paying for quality it i have trouble affording it and wouldn't make any money off it anyway

i have torrents running pretty much all the time, i even run some torrents. piracy exists for many reasons and expands and enriches media experiences for many people who could not otherwise gain access to it.

piracy is not stealing, piracy is piracy. if i steal something, what was once yours is now mine. when i pirate something, i make a duplicate of what's yours, and now i have one, too.

if i truly enjoy something i pirate and want to have the fulfillment of actually owning it (be it a game with full support and multiplayer, a box set with bonus features and a physical copy, or just the tangibility of it), then i will buy it. if it's music, i will go see them in concert if they're on a label (buying the album doesn't really help them out), and if they're independent, chances are i can just buy a digital copy of their album on a site that doesn't require me to have itunes installed.

piracy exists partly because ease of access to entertainment has not been fully modernized or is inhibited in a way that does not consider the consumer first. take steam, for example, and how easy it is to buy games on steam and how much money people spend on steam. why do they do it? because it's easy. no region locks, no third party, no wait times, no restrictions, no ads, no loopholes. if everything was as easy as steam and offered as good of a service, piracy would only exist for those who simply can't afford a service - because if what you are offering is better than what the pirates offer, why would you take it?

DO WHAT YOU WANT CAUSE A PI---wait.

In general sense, I'm against pirating when something is within buying range and availability. For instance, pirating a recent copy of a new game, (say Batman Arkham City) when you can easily buy it. For something as rare as an old NES or Commodore 64 game, it may be best to pirate it since you'll probably never find a copy on the market. Since I'm an aspiring developer, I'd like to view pirating as competition rather than a terrorist hell bent on destroying the good name of gaming (see SOPA).

i pirate things pretty frequently. i don't really think it's "fine" but i don't ever feel guilty about it either. generally when i really enjoy something i pirated i'll end up buying it anyway, but i'm sure that's how most people who pirate things feel.

While I wouldn't say that I'm 100% against it, I try not to do it. I've never really pirated games, but with music it can be tempting (especially with hard to find albums/soundtracks or whatever). I would much rather have money go to the creator of whatever I would be downloading. I feel like I want to support the people who make the things I like, especially if I can afford to. Every now and then I still do it, but I've pretty much narrowed it down to just a few things a year (and usually things as small as a single song, still haven't pirated any games ever). But yeah I used to download a good bit of music when I was younger.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 20, 2012 09:25 PMFor instance, pirating a recent copy of a new game, (say Batman Arkham City) when you can easily buy it.

The difference here is that Arkham City is a sequel being sold at full price, and after countless disastrous attempts at simply cashing in from the popularity of one game it would almost be justified to pirate it first to make sure it was a quality product, at least if there is no demo available. That's a point too, if there is no way to sample a game or whatever I am inherently suspicious that the developers know it's shit and just want to you to buy before you can try it out.

Ryan's point about Steam is also good, I have hundreds of games on Steam, many of which I previously owned through retail such as Serious Sam, because it's all very convienient and doesn't feel like I'm trying to eat a rubber boot when trying to buy something. The only drawback is that Steam doesn't seem optimized for people who do own a lot of games, as it tends to be more sluggish to start when I have more games installed, and if I reformat my computer I have to manually select every game I wish to install instead of checking a list or something and clicking 'install all', that would have been a nice feature.

I FUCKING LOVE PIRACY

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F71%2F709Zk5_pirate%2520omg.png&hash=b06fb09e7318c268a145678c776b5a4b1c093f3b)

SHIVER ME TIMBERS

I pirated arkham city cus it comes with gfwl, that shit's almost as bad as origin

Quote from: put on January 20, 2012 10:30 PM
I pirated arkham city cus it comes with gfwl, that shit's almost as bad as origin

yeah this is an example of what i mean, gfwl is really irritating and bad and does nothing but make people *want* to pirate shit

also dilly the MPAA, RIAA, FBI and local county police department are comin for yer plunder, best grow a beard if you care for your booty

i havent bought an album in well over 6 years but if i hadnt been pirating music, and thereby learning about new bands and torrenting their albums to see how i felt about the music, i would have neevr been able to spend the hundreds of dollars i have spent in the same 6 years going to see the bands in concert. without torrenting (and many years ago, p2p wire programs) im sure i would still be confined to what was being played on the radio, so the bands i like are actually benefitting from the simple fact i even know about them through music sharing

i feel like if something is easily accessible and free, you can't expect the world to want to pay for it. no one should have to pay for something they can essentially get for free. it's a little bit different per medium of entertainment, but it's sort of broken down like this for me:

cartoons, anime, "shows", etc., i will just about always stream or snag off the internet somehow. there are really only two other choices -- sync up your schedule of whatever you do during the day with the time it airs live on television, or buy individual dvd's or box-sets whenever publishers end up putting those out. the former i've never enjoyed. i find watching things on tv to be kind of antiquated and inconvenient, and think that its sort of amazing it hasn't wholly been replaced by the internet. unless there's something i really want to catch on my 90-channel basic cable (lol), i will pretty much always watch whatever it is on my own time.

film i treat differently. with new showings, i consider going to the movies an awesome life experience in its own way and will always take a seat at the theater when something interesting or reputable comes out. when it comes to old films that i missed, i feel really differently -- when a film's (or anything, really) showtime has passed, i've always felt like it's fair game and has no reason not to be free.

comics, manga, books, graphic novels and other forms of written/drawn material, it depends on whether i care about owning it. i can't ever see myself buying a digital copy of any form of literature, no. sometimes it's worth it to buy a hard copy of a book, comic, etc that actually matters to me, and comics/manga have collector's value -- and while i am not a collector of really anything (i probably own few enough things to pack into a pickup truck and travel cross-country with), i can understand why other people would want at least hard copies those sorts of things.

music is the big one, definitely, and my opinion on that one is kind of considered a dick opinion, but i'd be surprised if there's absolutely no one here that shares it with me: i think that digital copies of songs should always, unconditionally have the option to be downloaded for free. if i want to go to concerts to support musicians i like, i'll do that, because that actually supports them, but i seriously don't give a fuck about record labels. indie musicians, (though the term "indie" is thrown around like currency) if i like them enough, will usually be worth the money because i feel like i'm actually supporting them by buying their shit. that's why i like it when people release a "pay what you want" kind of deal, because the artist is actually getting exactly what the world feels like they deserve, and people can easily and freely enjoy their music. i think music is different from other things due to how different it is as a creative medium. music obviously comes in shorter packages than film, literature and games, and thus takes less time to experience, but you also don't need your full attention to enjoy it. where film, literature, and games are an actual experience that you spend your time on, music is something you can have in the background while you do other things. this is taken out of play with concerts, which is where i've always been told musicians actually make bank. live performance is part of what makes music so unique and amazing, part of what's always made it so unique and amazing. it's also why i respect quality performers a lot more than people who only sound good on tracks.

finally games. this is where perspective really comes into play, because before i cared about wanting to be a game developer, i'd pirate pretty much anything i could, and begrudgingly threw down coin on steam games (unless other people like Sinitron graciously bought said games for me) because there wasn't really any alternative. however, after getting older, being able to actually spend my own money and beginning to care about the time that goes into game development, i have become a little bit more biased and i actually do love owning copies of games, digital or otherwise. that's sort of a collector instinct though like i mentioned before, so in a lot of ways the factors that justify paying for things are different for different people -- to each their own. games i feel though, are different, and i always feel alright paying for a good one. i mentioned how i feel about life experiences -- things like watching a film, getting through a series, or even going to a concert is a step up from something more peripheral like listening to a song, but i feel like in some ways, i can consider video games a whole different animal from every other form of entertainment. games have the power to provide a sort of deeper immersion that makes them so unique in their own way; you're actually fully engaged in the experience, using your actual motor capabilities to progress as well as taking in the aesthetics provided by the developers through the art, music and writing. that's why i sort of frown when i see games that are literally just stories in the form of games when there's a whole other dimension of perception that can be used to make the experience even stronger.

tl;dr:
i will usually get things for free if it's possible and easily accessible. as for what's worth buying, it depends on the person. to me, if it has collector's value or can be a cool life experience, it's worth paying for because that's fulfilling and enriching -- exactly what i feel like entertainment should always be to the audience that enjoys it. i'm a little biased about music and games in different directions, but i will always go to a concert performed by an artist/band i like near my town if i know about it, and conversely, i do think that the price of some of the big game titles released these days are ridiculous and in a lot of cases, consider getting a game cheap or even free to be a logical choice.

texta walla. i think there's nothing wrong with getting things for free. if you don't want your shit being "pirated", make it something not worth pirating, like online play/content exclusive to a game's native server, or a concert tour, or a first-time showing at a theater. otherwise, it's fair territory.

I have lost a few cd keys and I don't really want to spend more money on something I already own. Some games though I will buy more then one copy because the game was that good. Emulation has made it easier to revisit old games without having to switch around different consoles and controllers that take up space and time.

Don' t have that much music and probably much less than anyone here. Most of it is made by you guys.

Will not spend much on software that I will not use that much or make money off of. Or I use alternative programs that are just like it or even better.

Probably seen tons of old television and movies nothing new or recent have been seen.

The rare instance where I use money to obtain music is when I receive an iTunes card, aside from that Ill torrent. The only time I actually torrent a game is when its under 2 gigabytes, aside from that Ill make the money, or save it up, and purchase it through steam. and since I rarely have the desire to watch television or movies, I never really torrent either.

Im conflicted on the issue of piracy. Its true that Hollywood is suffering from the rise in piracy. What people are forgetting is the entertainment industry gives a lot of artisans jobs. But at the same time, It's 15$ a ticket to see a movie. 25 to 40$ for a Blu-ray/Dvd and 60$ for a new game. Often times, whatever it is you're buying is shitty and you didnt know it, and the resale value is shit because the uber deluxe doki doki version just came out. And Im certainly not gonna throw money into the waste-hole that is today's pop culture when I can download it for free and decide to spend the money after I know what Im getting.  What im saying is, if you dont want your shit stolen, make it too good to steal. I will willingly part with my money to support art, but I refuse to reward hollywood for the crap they produce.

yeah hollywood sucks ass

I don't pirate a game to demo it and see if I like it. I get the word of fellow gamers and reviewers and I based my decision on that. I guess I'm old school when it comes to that stuff. It's funny, with all this technology using advanced communication, people still don't have the ability to learn about something that's within reach. Piracy arose because the industries weren't fast enough to cope with the change in technology, hackers learned about their products and ripped through the sources, uploading said content to the Internet. Now the industry is fighting back against piracy, treating it like the new wave of terrorism to hit the U.S. with their b.s. bill SOPA.

Adding exclusive items and content to their products is one way to keep their customers. A smart businessman said once that piracy is not a plague but another form of competition. I agree with that entirely, and it should be treated as such. rtil makes a good point, if the product from the businessman is better than the pirated crap, why go for the pirated?

i am also totally not afraid to admit that i often find independent things a lot better. a lot of things that are indie just have more heart and soul in them rather than being designed to make as much money as possible. the criteria for art and entertainment being "successful", to me, should be about how much people actually liked it rather than the amount of copies it sold. of course, since the former is not economical, the latter is inescapable.

sometimes people get too caught up in that whole idea though and make really boring, bland things and pretend it's for super refined tastes, or something. like some indie games these days that are basically interactive poems, shit like that is just pretentious

First time I ever felt guilty about torrenting something was Louis CK's comedy special he released directly online a couple weeks ago. Mainly because you know you were taking money directly from him. It didn't stop me from torrenting it. I tried buying it and after realizing my PayPal shat out on me, then I ended up downloading it... Then got it gifted to me from someone else the next day.

Quote from: sev on January 21, 2012 12:11 AM
like some indie games these days that are basically interactive poems, shit like that is just pretentious

Lmfao

you should all go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Nobody has any business telling me how to arrange the electrons in my computer.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 12:04 AM
I don't pirate a game to demo it and see if I like it. I get the word of fellow gamers and reviewers and I based my decision on that. I guess I'm old school when it comes to that stuff. It's funny, with all this technology using advanced communication, people still don't have the ability to learn about something that's within reach.

i find that a vast majority of the time reviews are useless to me and i personally don't even like the idea of them. a lot of the time people will come up to me in my store and ask me "hey is this a good game?" or "which one of these is better?". i always find this really frustrating to respond to because i know in the end you do not give a shit about my opinion. if i say this game sucks, and you like it, you were going enjoy it regardless of what i told you. if anything your expectations are raised or lowered further ruining your experience with a game you've never played before. i also get a lot of people asking "did this get good reviews?" as well. almost every one of my favourite games has a cult following of some sort and is something i had usually heard of somewhere on the internet and felt like checking it out.

the best example i can think of right now is when skyrim came out. it was just about everywhere getting 9/10s and 10/10s and i was like hey now i really want to play this game i mean like damn everyone is playing it. so i decide i want to play this game no matter what, but i also really don't ever feel justified spending $60 on any game, so i decided to pirate it. played it for about 10 hours and never played it again. it may be a great game and a lot of people may enjoy it, but it is not for me and i have never felt better about pirating a game knowing the feeling of regret i would've had if i had spent money on it.

Quote from: stusader on January 21, 2012 02:16 AM

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 12:04 AM
I don't pirate a game to demo it and see if I like it. I get the word of fellow gamers and reviewers and I based my decision on that. I guess I'm old school when it comes to that stuff. It's funny, with all this technology using advanced communication, people still don't have the ability to learn about something that's within reach.

i find that a vast majority of the time reviews are useless to me and i personally don't even like the idea of them. a lot of the time people will come up to me in my store and ask me "hey is this a good game?" or "which one of these is better?". i always find this really frustrating to respond to because i know in the end you do not give a shit about my opinion. if i say this game sucks, and you like it, you were going enjoy it regardless of what i told you. if anything your expectations are raised or lowered further ruining your experience with a game you've never played before. i also get a lot of people asking "did this get good reviews?" as well. almost every one of my favourite games has a cult following of some sort and is something i had usually heard of somewhere on the internet and felt like checking it out.

the best example i can think of right now is when skyrim came out. it was just about everywhere getting 9/10s and 10/10s and i was like hey now i really want to play this game i mean like damn everyone is playing it. so i decide i want to play this game no matter what, but i also really don't ever feel justified spending $60 on any game, so i decided to pirate it. played it for about 10 hours and never played it again. it may be a great game and a lot of people may enjoy it, but it is not for me and i have never felt better about pirating a game knowing the feeling of regret i would've had if i had spent money on it.

Contradictory, if they didn't give a shit about your opinion, they wouldn't ask in the first place. Before the days of pirating, people would rent games to find out if they wanted a full purchase or not. Even if you did buy the game (a physical copy), you could still sell it. And I'm not talking about Gamestop or EB or whatever, if there's a blight on the gaming industry it's that company. Gamemarket, Ebay and half.com are a few places where you can sell games to others.

BUT, since you didn't buy the game, oh well. No one was hurt in this process. Other than... you know.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Contradictory, if they didn't give a shit about your opinion, they wouldn't ask in the first place.

my point was that i believe that people just want to feel justified in their purchases. they don't really care if i think it's a good game or not, they just want to hear me say it is.

i don't really want to reiterate myself 'cause i thought i communicated that well enough.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Before the days of pirating, people would rent games to find out if they wanted a full purchase or not.

i did this when i was a kid a lot but i still don't really feel like this is as viable of an option for me considering it does no better than piracy and is costing me money either way. plus a lot of the time i'll just end up beating the game within the week i rented it and didn't enjoy it enough to want to purchase it and play through it again. two of the only games i ended up purchasing through this were tales of the abyss and dead rising.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Even if you did buy the game (a physical copy), you could still sell it. Gamemarket, Ebay and half.com are a few places where you can sell games to others.

myself and (probably) most consumers would rather just avoid that scenario entirely. i don't understand why someone would want to buy something with the mindset that they have the option to sell it. plus you will have to end up selling this game at a low enough price to actually have someone consider buying it, and even then they are going to have to consider that they are paying for shipping on top of this (unless you want to pay for their shipping which is just going to reduce your profit from this whole ordeal further) as well as having to wait for few days for their package to be shipped to them. they might just find the easier option to go to their nearest gamestop and buy a used copy for a few dollars cheaper.

without condoning or condemning this it's how i understand most people operate when it comes to used games and it's why the gaming industry has reacted the way it has. although i believe there are ways to go about preventing this, i find most companies just don't really know what they're doing. ea has now made it so every copy of all of their multiplayer games such as nhl, fifa and battlefield 3 include codes that allow you to go online and play multiplayer. this means that every time someone goes to buy a used copy of battlefield i get to tell them that they can't play online on it 'cause 9.9 out of 10 times it'll already be used. and hey, it actually works most of the time considering battlefield 3 is a pretty solely multiplayer game but i've also seen a lot of people turn down buying the game entirely because of the $15 price difference. saints row 3 did this as well.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
And I'm not talking about Gamestop or EB or whatever, if there's a blight on the gaming industry it's that company.

whenever people bring in their games to my store a few different things will happen. sometimes they'll be pissed 'cause the price i give them is so low, which is usually why i tell them to sell their stuff to a friend or something or on ebay. most people will respond by saying they don't believe it's worth the trouble and would rather just take the few bucks they get from eb than go and find someone else to sell their games to. it may be sad but whatever's easiest and most efficient for them is exactly what they're going to do, and i can't blame them. there'll also be a lot of times where i'll talk people into just keeping them anyway, even if we both know it's something that's going to sit on his shelf and never be touched again.

i don't appreciate what eb games/gamestop does for video games at all but as long as a company is able to resell a product for no one else's profit but their own, they will do it. they have no reason not to.


people will do what is convenient because it is convenient. rtil made a good point in saying that valve seems to be one of the only companies that understands the consumer in this way.

Quote from: stusader on January 21, 2012 03:35 AM

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Contradictory, if they didn't give a shit about your opinion, they wouldn't ask in the first place.

my point was that i believe that people just want to feel justified in their purchases. they don't really care if i think it's a good game or not, they just want to hear me say it is.

i don't really want to reiterate myself 'cause i thought i communicated that well enough.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Before the days of pirating, people would rent games to find out if they wanted a full purchase or not.

i did this when i was a kid a lot but i still don't really feel like this is as viable of an option for me considering it does no better than piracy and is costing me money either way. plus a lot of the time i'll just end up beating the game within the week i rented it and didn't enjoy it enough to want to purchase it and play through it again. two of the only games i ended up purchasing through this were tales of the abyss and dead rising.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
Even if you did buy the game (a physical copy), you could still sell it. Gamemarket, Ebay and half.com are a few places where you can sell games to others.

myself and (probably) most consumers would rather just avoid that scenario entirely. i don't understand why someone would want to buy something with the mindset that they have the option to sell it. plus you will have to end up selling this game at a low enough price to actually have someone consider buying it, and even then they are going to have to consider that they are paying for shipping on top of this (unless you want to pay for their shipping which is just going to reduce your profit from this whole ordeal further) as well as having to wait for few days for their package to be shipped to them. they might just find the easier option to go to their nearest gamestop and buy a used copy for a few dollars cheaper.

without condoning or condemning this it's how i understand most people operate when it comes to used games and it's why the gaming industry has reacted the way it has. although i believe there are ways to go about preventing this, i find most companies just don't really know what they're doing. ea has now made it so every copy of all of their multiplayer games such as nhl, fifa and battlefield 3 include codes that allow you to go online and play multiplayer. this means that every time someone goes to buy a used copy of battlefield i get to tell them that they can't play online on it 'cause 9.9 out of 10 times it'll already be used. and hey, it actually works most of the time considering battlefield 3 is a pretty solely multiplayer game but i've also seen a lot of people turn down buying the game entirely because of the $15 price difference. saints row 3 did this as well.

Quote from: ZennyPLUS on January 21, 2012 02:46 AM
And I'm not talking about Gamestop or EB or whatever, if there's a blight on the gaming industry it's that company.

whenever people bring in their games to my store a few different things will happen. sometimes they'll be pissed 'cause the price i give them is so low, which is usually why i tell them to sell their stuff to a friend or something or on ebay. most people will respond by saying they don't believe it's worth the trouble and would rather just take the few bucks they get from eb than go and find someone else to sell their games to. it may be sad but whatever's easiest and most efficient for them is exactly what they're going to do, and i can't blame them. there'll also be a lot of times where i'll talk people into just keeping them anyway, even if we both know it's something that's going to sit on his shelf and never be touched again.

i don't appreciate what eb games/gamestop does for video games at all but as long as a company is able to resell a product for no one else's profit but their own, they will do it. they have no reason not to.


people will do what is convenient because it is convenient. rtil made a good point in saying that valve seems to be one of the only companies that understands the consumer in this way.

I'd make an informed reply, but I don't think I have more to add to this. Overall, our discussion was off topic since has nothing to do with piracy, heh. This generation of gaming has highlighted many flaws within the industry. Your reply has also highlighted what's wrong with modern society in general.

well i don't fucking care what you noobs think TRIBES ASCEND is a good fucking game and it is free GOOD NIGHT

yes sinitron ok

you know, i think most people would pirate things if they knew about it/knew that people don't usually get busted for it. i don't think anyone has like, a moral issue with getting entertainment for free unless it's something they want to support. i think the only reason the entire world doesn't pirate is because either they don't know how to (casual inexperienced internet users) or because they think the feds will immediately find out and bust down their door (casual inexperienced internet users)

Quote from: sev on January 21, 2012 07:43 AM
you know, i think most people would pirate things if they knew about it/knew that people don't usually get busted for it. i don't think anyone has like, a moral issue with getting entertainment for free unless it's something they want to support. i think the only reason the entire world doesn't pirate is because either they don't know how to (casual inexperienced internet users) or because they think the feds will immediately find out and bust down their door (casual inexperienced internet users)

If something like SOPA were to pass, those casual inexperienced users actually have something to fear.

Quote from: stusader on January 21, 2012 04:56 AM
yes sinitron ok

holy shit blasé reply FUCKING OWNED SINITRON GET OUTTA THIS FORUM

oh and piracy is crappy and amoral stop doing it YOU ARE DESTROYING THE MEDIA

unless it's machine-made garbage like anime who really cares about that anyway

It's more immoral to give cash to assholes trying to take down free services than to pirate movies, imo. If I ever have kids I'm going to buy them icecream for every movie they pirate.

First of all I'd like to say that this is a nice topic, mainly because I have to create a movie featuring some intervies about exactly this issue in the upcoming days and it gave me a lot of new ideas and knowledge.


I think in most points (music, games, shows) I do share the general opinion of the majority of you guys.

In some instances, I think, we are not even given any other choice but piracy if we actually are interested. I know many friends and fellow students here in Germany who watch American shows and movies because they usually take a while to be released in German (as the German market usually never releases shit without dubbing it first for the plebs and many people who are not just dumb karauts and do unsterstand English are usually prefer the original language anyway).

In my case, the best example would be anime, which is an even better instance of the reason of release delay mentioned above. If you just consider the amount of Madoka fans on websites as MAL (and that surely isn't even close to the total amount of international non-Japanese fans), it is easy to imagine how many people actually did pirate it in order to watch it and I think it is amazing how something that shouldn't even be known outside Japan has already reached such a high level of popularity. Now, I may not count to that group, but this expansion of the fandom actually leads to a major increase in the field of merchandising. (Yes, those people who buy those pvc figurines with water proof colors and put them on their fucking bookshelves) But still, it does support the original creators.
There are way more instances of good shit that has never been released internationally yet (*cough Toradora) and shitty shit that has (*cough strikewitches), but pointing that out would probably make me look like a faggot and be too far off topic.
Anway, no media without piracy for those instances.

Quote from: rtil on January 20, 2012 09:23 PM
piracy exists partly because ease of access to entertainment has not been fully modernized or is inhibited in a way that does not consider the consumer first. take steam, for example, and how easy it is to buy games on steam and how much money people spend on steam. why do they do it? because it's easy. no region locks, no third party, no wait times, no restrictions, no ads, no loopholes.

Counter Strike Source - censored german version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkUuABNnTC0#)

Quote from: Kott on January 21, 2012 01:52 PM

There are way more instances of good shit that has never been released internationally yet (*cough Toradora)

that's actually a really good example because it's one of the few animes i've actually torrented and vowed to buy when it gets localized IF THAT HAPPENS EVER

Quote from: Kott on January 21, 2012 01:52 PM

Quote from: rtil on January 20, 2012 09:23 PM
piracy exists partly because ease of access to entertainment has not been fully modernized or is inhibited in a way that does not consider the consumer first. take steam, for example, and how easy it is to buy games on steam and how much money people spend on steam. why do they do it? because it's easy. no region locks, no third party, no wait times, no restrictions, no ads, no loopholes.

Counter Strike Source - censored german version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkUuABNnTC0#)

ok?

it's not like steam's at fault for that, the BPjM are calling the shots there

also it's the same game with shitty "death" animations, i don't see why people would bother to torrent a game just to remove that meager cosmetic effect

It is simply because there's so much brutal shit on German television and in movies and it doesn't get censored at all. In fact we are even some steps ahead of America in most instances as we are allowed to say the nasty words on television and show tits on tv without causing scandals... and then this happens because some conservative shitheads think that violence in games makes everyone a spree killer.

Regarding Counter Strike (and some other games) of course it doesn't really change the concept of the game but it's just annoying and ridiculous and that can completely ruin the feeling of a game... at least that's what it does for me. I acquired a gifted version from a Swedish guy, which bypasses the usual censorship but other games that I purchased myself just felt so unreal that I immediately lost interest in them and I think that is the sad thing: I would have gotten an original if I pirated the relative games while actually paying for them only gives me a downgraded piece of badly executed censorship. And still, they wonder why people pirate games...

fuck counter-strike it is bad and realistic games are boring and not fun get TRIBES ASCEND it is the future

Quote from: Sinitron on January 21, 2012 03:58 PM
fuck counter-strike it is bad and realistic games are boring and not fun get TRIBES ASCEND it is the future

counter-strike is the best and most 'realistic' game imo because

no regenerating health
no grape jam smeared over your screen when you get shot
no killstreak rewards
knife does reasonable damage
no horribly imbalanced weapons (since the awp was removed)
getting kills is legitimately gratifying
still fun to play after 11 years

also YES tribes is a bundle of skill-based fun EVERYONE GO PLAY IT

The only games I pirate are rom files which is partially because I prefer playing older games in emulators more than anything else. I use Steam all the time and have bought a ton of games through it. Very fantastic service and I love giving Gabe my money. >_> When it comes to entertainment like movies and TV shows, I rarely watch those forms of media outside of South Park for new episodes and election related coverage so I don't have much of a reason to pirate those form of media very often.

With music, I am a dirty pirate. Ever since I started pirating music back in 2008, the only albums I've bought are two albums by Secret Chiefs 3 which is an indie artist I would have never gotten into if it weren't for piracy. Music piracy vastly expanded my musical tastes. I used to be so closed minded about music and didn't listen to music very much because I didn't want to spend such ridiculous prices. Now I listen to music all the time and that would have never happened if it weren't for piracy. It should be noted that I do buy band shirts and one of the shirts I own is something I wouldn't have ever bought if it weren't for piracy.

I would like to support the music industry more but nothing can compete with the awesomeness known as What.CD. >_> I can download so many different editions of the same album in usually any format I want. Absolutely nothing that has come out has features like that. There's also just no real benefit to owning music legally unless you own a physical copy. I live in a small house with space issues, I don't need anymore CDs. Another thing worth bringing up is that I listen to barely any indie artists (http://www.last.fm/user/W-A-C/library#p1) and rarely go to concerts because most of the artists I like are either dead, their band broke up, or they don't play live anymore. That, and most of the major concerts in California are in the bay area, near LA, and or near San Diego. I don't live anywhere near those areas.

Quote from: Kott on January 21, 2012 01:52 PM
In my case, the best example would be anime, which is an even better instance of the reason of release delay mentioned above. If you just consider the amount of Madoka fans on websites as MAL (and that surely isn't even close to the total amount of international non-Japanese fans), it is easy to imagine how many people actually did pirate it in order to watch it and I think it is amazing how something that shouldn't even be known outside Japan has already reached such a high level of popularity. Now, I may not count to that group, but this expansion of the fandom actually leads to a major increase in the field of merchandising. (Yes, those people who buy those pvc figurines with water proof colors and put them on their fucking bookshelves) But still, it does support the original creators.
There are way more instances of good shit that has never been released internationally yet (*cough Toradora) and shitty shit that has (*cough strikewitches), but pointing that out would probably make me look like a faggot and be too far off topic.
Anway, no media without piracy for those instances.

there's actually a large amount of people who will just import blu-rays/dvds from japan because almost all of them have english subbing anyway and you can just buy them off of amazon japan just as you would from any other amazon. they even make 'global editions (http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%80%8C%E7%A7%92%E9%80%9F5%E3%82%BB%E3%83%B3%E3%83%81%E3%83%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E3%80%8D%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%82%BF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8A%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E7%89%88--Centimeters-Second-Global-Blu-ray/dp/B005HZZG9I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327170533&sr=8-1)' for some which have tons of different languages for sub and even dubs.

the fact that it hasn't come out of japan doesn't really stop a lot of people unless there's no box set and it's just a bunch of really expensive volumes (http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E9%AD%94%E6%B3%95%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A9%E3%81%8B%E2%98%86%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AE%E3%82%AB-1-%E3%80%90%E5%AE%8C%E5%85%A8%E7%94%9F%E7%94%A3%E9%99%90%E5%AE%9A%E7%89%88%E3%80%91-Blu-ray-%E6%96%B0%E6%88%BF%E6%98%AD%E4%B9%8B/dp/B004INGZAE/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1327170779&sr=1-1) or something.


but yeah of course all the people who actually do buy stuff like that have already watched it fansubbed somewhere on the internet

Games: Don't really care about them anymore. Back in the old days, I used to download a shitton of roms, and ps1 isos, and even have a filesharing irc channel. But as to why: Well, pretty much because they were not available in my country, or they were, but had a ridiculous price tag on them.

Movies, anime, manga, tv shows: Well first off all, I rarely go out to see movies anymore. It takes time, traveling costs money, and have to deal with idiots who ruin the whole experience, not to mention the fucking commercials at the start, and the sound that is always way too loud. I usually buy the dvds of the movies which I liked, but obviously there's a shitton of movies which I don't like, and would ask for my money back if I'd seen it at a movie theater. Not to mention, sometimes the release dates are fucked up. Like "UP" was released half a year later here, than in the US. Go figure.

There's also a lot of stuff that you can't get simply because it was never released, or is out of print. Imho, I'd make every movie freely streamable after 3 years, simply because, whoever wants to watch it, will watch it and pay for it, while it's still "fresh", while the rest will just wait for a torrent. And since movies are usually broadcasted after a while on TV, I don't see the point to pay for them after that. I mean really, I could just simply record it, and then digitize it. But why go through all the trouble if I can just simply download it.

Manga and anime: I don't buy any of these anymore, simply because I got irritated. I can only import 99% of these, but either the subs suck, they're censored, edited or the translation is culturally changed, and I would have to wait a lot of time to be able to watch it. Also the distribution system sucks balls. They should fucking make simulcasting sites already, that support every damn country. I mean really, how hard would it be to make? Fansubbing groups and scanlation teams usually release everything the same the day it's been broadcasted / published. And they have to do the encoding, timing, translating, scanning, cleaning, redrawing... I really can't believe they couldn't do this professionally, when stations / magazines have the material weeks before it's publication date.

Music: Again, distribution, and availability. Even if I could order a CD i want, the shipping costs would be twice as much. Not everything is available online. But, even when I buy a CD, I still pirate the music, because really, who uses a cd player anymore?

And as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Plus, I really think that piracy is just a form of marketing. I would have never gotten interested in a lot of stuff, and spend money on them later on in some way, if not for downloading them. The big bucks are never made from the sole product, but rather the related merchandise. Simply because they are something physical, that you can touch.

And just as someone already said it before me: You don't steal by pirating stuff. No one loses the original product, you just make a copy for yourself, and go about your business.

Quote from: Kott on January 21, 2012 03:33 PM
It is simply because there's so much brutal shit on German television and in movies and it doesn't get censored at all. In fact we are even some steps ahead of America in most instances as we are allowed to say the nasty words on television and show tits on tv without causing scandals... and then this happens because some conservative shitheads think that violence in games makes everyone a spree killer.

Regarding Counter Strike (and some other games) of course it doesn't really change the concept of the game but it's just annoying and ridiculous and that can completely ruin the feeling of a game... at least that's what it does for me. I acquired a gifted version from a Swedish guy, which bypasses the usual censorship but other games that I purchased myself just felt so unreal that I immediately lost interest in them and I think that is the sad thing: I would have gotten an original if I pirated the relative games while actually paying for them only gives me a downgraded piece of badly executed censorship. And still, they wonder why people pirate games...

then the problem in your country is the government getting in the way of what would otherwise be a non-censored service - and you can change that by voting and being an activist for what you believe in.

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thebackalleys.com%2Fdump%2Ffiles%2F71%2F2714Nq_squidward.png&hash=0e01a65245b9dc8ec4603f0d24e47f4250a4601a)

Quote from: logen on January 21, 2012 08:47 PMAnd as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Piracy definitely effects sales. There are albums I would have definitely bought in the past if I never became a music pirate. But as you brought up, it can also increase sales for certain artists since it allows people to discover music they might have never discovered otherwise.

yeah so it evens out between people who find music that's worth paying for and people who pirate everything anyway

Quote from: W.A.C. on January 22, 2012 07:48 PM

Quote from: logen on January 21, 2012 08:47 PMAnd as a whole: Imho, sales of any kind are not affected by piracy. Whoever thinks that, is a fucking idiot. People who pirate, either buy the stuff later, or are the kind who would not pay for anything from the start, even if they couldn't get it illegally. The industry needs to be punched in the face, and it needs to realize, that most stuff they make sucks, and the consumers simply got bored of this. Hence the decline of sales.

Piracy definitely effects sales. There are albums I would have definitely bought in the past if I never became a music pirate. But as you brought up, it can also increase sales for certain artists since it allows people to discover music they might have never discovered otherwise.

i think the effect is overexaggerated though. many people who pirate things never had the intention of purchasing the item anyway, so i don't think i'd count it as a lost sale. if they couldn't pirate the item and had the option between buying it and not having it at all, i think most would settle for the latter.

>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

America is weird.

Quote from: sev on January 22, 2012 09:42 PM
>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

I have never heard of a case as the latter one... Maybe the fine might be that high if you actually were the one uploading that files on the internet or distributing them over a torrent or file-sharing tool but as far as I am concerned people have never been punished for simply acquiring virtual media until now.

Quote from: rtil on January 22, 2012 09:28 PMi think the effect is overexaggerated though. many people who pirate things never had the intention of purchasing the item anyway, so i don't think i'd count it as a lost sale. if they couldn't pirate the item and had the option between buying it and not having it at all, i think most would settle for the latter.

I agree it's over exaggerated and one of the most difficult aspects of piracy is knowing how much it hurts and helps sales. MW3 was massively pirated for example, but a lot of people might have done it simply to test whether or not the game is playable on their PC since there isn't a demo. Considering how a lot of people bought Sonic Generations only to find out it doesn't work on their computer, I don't blame a lot of people for pirating games without demos. Sonic Generations has a demo now though. I think piracy probably hurts mainstream music artists more than anyone else when it comes to things like album sales but they make so much money anyways from both sales and concerts that it's hard for me to be extremely sympathetic.

Does anyone know good statistics on piracy? It would be interesting to know how many of the worldwide/American internet users actually pirate files on a regular basey or how many have ever downloaded something illegally. So far, I haven't been able to find anything official...

This is what an English google search spat out about the rate: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate)

Quote from: Kott on January 22, 2012 11:37 PM

Quote from: sev on January 22, 2012 09:42 PM
>Shoplift a DVD out of a store
>Minor punishment, a few hundred dollar fine, maybe some jail time for repeated offenses
>Illegally download a movie
>$150,000 fine

I have never heard of a case as the latter one... Maybe the fine might be that high if you actually were the one uploading that files on the internet or distributing them over a torrent or file-sharing tool but as far as I am concerned people have never been punished for simply acquiring virtual media until now.

i actually just stole that from some guy on /v/ and posted it in this thread to see how people felt about it (i didn't actually do my research on how true it is)

Quote from: Kott on January 23, 2012 08:58 PM
Does anyone know good statistics on piracy? It would be interesting to know how many of the worldwide/American internet users actually pirate files on a regular basey or how many have ever downloaded something illegally. So far, I haven't been able to find anything official...

This is what an English google search spat out about the rate: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate)

what exactly do those percentages indicate? a "software piracy rate" could mean anything.

also, it's really impossible to measure a per capita piracy statistic. the only thing that can be estimated closely is how many times a piece of software has been pirated, and even then the number is nebulous. for example, the most pirated games of 2011 (http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/)

Well, as you just said it can be estimated how many times a product has been pirated so they probably just focussed on a special amount of software and calculated the ratio. The problem is that the acticle neither contains any sources nor does it explain the exact method and the products the statistics focus on but the numbers should roughly be correct as far as I'm concerned...

It really is Pandoras box, which can never be sealed.

It's bad yes. But should be legal for rare items that are out of print.

I never pirate books though, just paid 77 pence for "Romance Of The Forest".

(https://thebackalleys.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F26.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lpfpciSAC31qko4x4o1_500.gif&hash=53dc6aacdf98353a2ece5b703c52e01abe82675e)

download sum pirated pussAy on me hard drive!!whatUP

Pirating is evil and you all are going to burn in hell for your sins.

/recent vapid convert

will there be anime in hell?

there will be nothing but anime in hell

hope you like poorly dubbed and censored crap

Quote from: Sinitron on February  2, 2012 01:45 PM
there will be nothing but anime in hell

lmfao

this is excellent news

It actually is like K-On, only with a bit more blood, shit, piss and fire

Quote from: stusader on February  2, 2012 05:49 PM

Quote from: Sinitron on February  2, 2012 01:45 PM
there will be nothing but anime in hell

lmfao