I recently stumbled upon an article regarding the effects of piracy and stubborn teenagers. 
 
http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php  
 
I personally couldn't have said it any better myself  then Jason did in this blog post. The thing that bothers me the most about piracy are the people who think they have the right, or are doing a good thing by pirating. Do not beat around the bush, just admit your a thief. 
 
I have heard the excuses, from people who do not have a credit card, to the merchant not supporting your favored payment method, to the item not being available legally in your area.  What do i have to say to that? Tough luck, do not get it if you cannot get it legally, you do not need it to survive. I have missed out on CD's that i have been interested in because the artist didn't ship to the USA, or they didn't accept my credit card. I didn't go to a torrent site and download it when i found out i couldn't get the CD, i just accepted it and moved on.  
 
The only reason i have this point of view is because i believe that the artist, director, or developer deserves to be paid if they can get me interested in their product. Why should I screw them over by getting their product for free just because i can?  
 
I may elaborate more later, but for now i am going to bed. I just hope i provided some food for thought for at least 1 person. Many industries, artists, and developers are suffering because of piracy. Lets give them what they deserve people. 

I emulate old SNES RPG's. Does that count ;) 

" Do not beat around the bush, just admit your a thief.   "

Huh, I didn't realize sheet music downloading was such an issue. I'm no musician, but I thought it would be similar to guitar tabs or whatever you might find online. 

the guy seems douchey. but i see where he is coming from

" the guy seems douchey. but i see where he is coming from "

" @Ryax said:

" the guy seems douchey. but i see where he is coming from "

satan's butthole ? "

" @Ahmad_Metallic said:

" @Ryax said:

" the guy seems douchey. but i see where he is coming from "

satan's butthole ? "

no. a home of two fathers and be anything you want to be "

" @Ryax said:

" @Ahmad_Metallic said:

" @Ryax said:

" the guy seems douchey. but i see where he is coming from "

satan's butthole ? "

no. a home of two fathers and be anything you want to be "

doesnt sound very pleasant  sad keanu doesnt approve "

Name one artist that was bankrupted by piracy. Just one.

Cool story bro. I will rename the next game I pirate to SSully_approves.rar.

If I can't get something legally in my area, tough luck? Nope. This is the age of internet, every kind of media should be available to me. Yes, I feel entitled to that, is there a reason I should not?
You are going to stop watching your favorite movie/series/whatever just because they didn't publish the next season/sequel/itteration in your country? Good for you buddy, but most people aren't like that.
 
If they don't make it available to my market, and I copy it, they aren't losing any money, since they didn't target me in the first place?
I know the argument could be raised that, by already consuming the media through torrents, they would have even less reason to publish it in my area. This argument holds no value in the age of digital distribution, it's the World Wide Web. Localisation be damned, I'm posting on a not-my-native-language forum for heavens sake.
 
@Xeiphyer:
You hit the hammer (which you own) on the pirated nail.

It's hard to maintain value for something you have infinite of.

" @SSully said:

" Do not beat around the bush, just admit your a thief.   "

I'm a thief "

I would have never heard of the 3 girls in my avatar if someone in America didn't sub the show in English.  Minami-ke isn't available here.  It makes me wonder what other anime from Japan I am missing because no one thought Americans would like it. 

A common argument is that since you are not physically taking something away from someone and that person is not deprived of anything, it is not stealing. I don't think this is a valid argument in favor of copyright infringement, since they are deprived of a potential purchase. Some people say that they only needed a demo, and they usually buy it if they like it. I doubt everybody does that. I know I haven't bought a CD in 5 years. However, it is good advertising. There are a lot of artists and movies that I would never have bothered with if I didn't "demo" them. I'm not rich, I can't afford to buy every movie and CD. Ultimately that's what it comes down to; we want to enjoy everything there is to enjoy, but there is not enough money in our wallets. The only thing the companies can do is offer more, by way of higher quality or bonus features that can't be ripped to a computer.

pirates will be pirates. Then they will come and whine saying good games dont come for the PC. Its their fault. Only thing keeping the PC alive is Steam and Blizzard.
The future of the PC will end up being dominated of MMOs ( world of warcraft) or games where multiplayer is necessary ( starcraft 2) 
Steam requires a credit card to buy, and by the time Diablo 3 comes out, Blizzard will have found a way to make sure you dont get anything from a pirating version. That is because they dont have another choice. The only companies outside of these 2 that make PC games come with horrible DRM ( AC2) or other weird shit that require 15 log-ins to play. (like Bioware)
 Spore a great game got fucked by EA. You know why? it was pirated as hell, followed by whines of no support. Everyone forgot Spore after 1 month

I pirate because i don't give a fuck what people like you have to say about it. Also it happens to be legal where i live :>

I counter your argument with this: 
 
http://gizmodo.com/5539417/why-i-steal-movies-even-ones-im-in  
 
Even actors and producers of material can see the benefit of piracy, sure it can loose you an awful lot of money but there have being many a time when I have bought music or games based on pirated material. Just saying "piracy is wrong mmmmkay" isn't going to help your argument

I have never downloaded music or movies illegally and I always buy my games.  It's not really anything about piracy, I just like to own the physical product.  I like my shelves of movies, I love my vinyl collection and my cd rack and I can't be bothered with the hassle of cracking pc games and waiting for downloads from shitty torrent shares.

Try living in a country where you can't get the majority of the stuff you're interested in and Customs slap a heavy amount of additional money on your imports, which already cost massive amounts anyway.  I'm not talking about the odd cd, I'm talking about nearly everything. All the halfway decent games that aren't Gears of Bore or whatever. 

Legally, I agree. However, the world isn't the same as America. You get a hell of a lot of stuff that we in the EU doesn't, just because.   
Take the recent Tales of Innocence english patch. I own a copy of the Jpn version, but it's wonderful that someone bothered to translate it because Bamco couldn't be bothered. Without pirating we would not have fan translations.  
Take Crunchyroll and Naruto, without them we wouldn't have simulcast which is a step in the right direction.
 If you want to stop pirating, you have to either make it impossible (like with the ps3) or have a stronger digital distribution/demo network. Who the fuck is going to pay for a new IP game that they haven't played a demo of? Unless you know what you're buying, 70€ is around about $110 is waaaaay too much to pay for a game here in Spain. 
I'm not saying it's right, it is, however, understandable.  So get off the soapbox.

Remember when piracy killed the music and film industries in the 90s? Wait...

" @9cupsoftea: You need to go deeper then just these massive publishers. You need to buy the products from the developers of the products that bring you joy. Just saying you pirate any EA or Activision game is scum. That's like saying you'll pirate any music put out by Warner Bros. Totaly dispicable thievery.  By the way, I've only ever downloaded 2 albums in my life which I ended up spending much more from the artist then the cost of those 2 discs. Bought everything else or I just go without if I can't afford it. I have morals. "

It is $70 or more for a simple season of virtually any show, even if it was on years ago. Take Boston Legal Season 3, more than $70 at my local JB-Hi fi, and you only get the disks in normal DVD, not even HD. Any extras or god forbid in HD will run you into more than $100. I refuse to pay that. A famous quote by I think Ford was "A product is only worth as much as its consumer will pay for it" Consumers are not paying for the products because they don't believe they are worth it. The companies should realise this. 
 
There are countless bands I would never have gotten into if it wasn't for piracy, arguably I wouldn't have even gotten into music itself, because at 11 or 12 you don't have the money to buy albums that here in Australia can go past $30. So if someone says they like a band, I can download their songs, maybe get into them, and then pay $100 or so and go see them in concert, or maybe buy their next album. Point being, me downloading those songs illegally has profited that band.
 
An you know how piracy is ruining the industry, whether it be movies, music or video games? IT ISN'T. They said the same thing about home video recorders in the 80s, yet we have an even greater movie industry, and Floppy disks killing the software market (Actually it's now been found that Microsoft has only been successful because of widely available cheap copies of its OS being spread, and creating demand). Hell the argument about new tech 'killing the industry' is more than a hundred years old, and goes back to arguments about how sound recorders would destroy musicians' careers. 
 
WARNING: PREPARE FOR SOCIOLOGICAL RANT

Now let's take it out of context a little, say information itself had a price. Like a news service or whatnot (and in some cases it does), and say that for whatever reason (read: Greed) the people that owned that information began to charge large amounts of money, so that the average person could only get access to bits of information, and the poor could get only barely any. The rich could get as much as they want. What we have there is simple, a gradual widening of the gap. How does that compare to entertainment? Well we could easily see shows and entertainment beginning to target only their most profitable audience, which would probably be Middle-Upper class whites. You immediately see the problem here. We then have a situation where mass media is catering to only the wealthiest part of society, and less and less the other parts, shutting them out with price barriers. Hell we may even be seeing that now, with shows like Gossip Girl being great hits, and how many black or hispanic people have played major roles in 'upper class' films (drama, romance, not cheap action flicks or comedy) lately? How come we never see intense family dramas involving a black family, rather than a white one?

If anything piracy helps the music and movie industry a ton. I listen to music I wouldn't even have heard about and watch movies/TV shows I wouldn't even care about otherwise.  
 
@Nasos100:   Spore was a horrible game. Nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with the game being a character creator with nothing else worthwhile, biggest waste of money I've ever spent. And I find it funny how feeble-minded idiots like you think they're specific to the PC, when Piracy stops on the PC all of them will move onto consoles so it doesn't really matter.

" I recently stumbled upon an article regarding the effects of piracy and stubborn teenagers. 
 
http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php   I personally couldn't have said it any better myself  then Jason did in this blog post. The thing that bothers me the most about piracy are the people who think they have the right, or are doing a good thing by pirating. Do not beat around the bush, just admit your a thief.  I have heard the excuses, from people who do not have a credit card, to the merchant not supporting your favored payment method, to the item not being available legally in your area.  What do i have to say to that? Tough luck, do not get it if you cannot get it legally, you do not need it to survive. I have missed out on CD's that i have been interested in because the artist didn't ship to the USA, or they didn't accept my credit card. I didn't go to a torrent site and download it when i found out i couldn't get the CD, i just accepted it and moved on.   The only reason i have this point of view is because i believe that the artist, director, or developer deserves to be paid if they can get me interested in their product. Why should I screw them over by getting their product for free just because i can?   I may elaborate more later, but for now i am going to bed. I just hope i provided some food for thought for at least 1 person. Many industries, artists, and developers are suffering because of piracy. Lets give them what they deserve people.  "

Hi I'm a thief. Except for games. I don't steal games.

" Hi I'm a thief. Except for games. I don't steal games. "

" @SSully: 

Name one artist that was bankrupted by piracy. Just one.

 
Thats right, there aren't any. While piracy may not be good, your view of this completely black and white world is crazy. 
 
You do realize that the artists receive virtually none of the money from their album sales right? (Less than 10%. Exact figures vary based on artists contract) Meanwhile their record label keeps 80%+ of the profits. If you really want to support a band, go see them in concert and buy their merch, thats where they actually make their money. 
 
And what exactly is the difference between not buying something because you can't, and downloading it? In both situations you are not giving the owner any money obviously, so you downloading it changes nothing as far as he is concerned. The difference is that now you have something that you otherwise could not have obtained. Perhaps you listen to this CD, and realize its terrible. You saved $15 and with one less possible CD sale for that artist, you are part of the invisible hand of the market, helping weed out bad things. What if the CD is amazing?! Well, chances are you will probably show it to some friends, who will also download it, and if they like it, suddenly that band just got new fans! When the time to go on tour comes around, you and your friends go see the band together because you all like the band, the band makes money.

" A study by Blackburn (2004), a PhD student from Harvard, found that the 75% of artists actually profit from piracy. Blackburn reports that the most popular artist (top 25%) sell less records. However, the remaining 75% of all artists actually profit from filesharing."   While the most popular artists may suffer slightly from piracy, they are still the most popular artists, and therefore enjoying the millions upon millions they are earning from everything else.  The people who lose money from digital distribution are the record labels, and they are the same people suing anybody they can and doing everything in their power to prevent digital distribution from growing. Why? Because the advancement of technology means that they no longer have a viable and profitable place in the world. History shows us that those with power and money resist the evolution of society when it affects them negatively. Similar examples would be the newspaper industry getting angry and wanting to change the way digital newspapers do business (Online newspapers are free, and make money from ads), so that they don't keep losing customers and therefore money.  Another example is the oil industry, obviously they make billions of dollars. They are very furiously resisting alternative fuels because if people stop using gas, they go out of business.   By the way, you should try forming your own opinions instead of just assuming everyone who tells you what to believe in is telling the truth. People are selfish assholes. People will lie to you to make money. News stations love to lie to make news more sensational, because more viewers means more money. The truth is out there if you look for it.   So let me end this rant, which could easily continue for many more pages, by asking you this: Name one artist who was bankrupted by piracy?   There aren't any.  Don't let people tell you something is bad just because they don't like it. Technology and Society need to evolve or else it will die. People will inevitably lose their jobs, and the balance of power will shift. But thats life.  ~Xeiphyer "

A much more intelligent discussion on this issue than I normally read - well done all.
 
I think there's a real difficulty in having hard and fast rules on piracy as an individual. I appreciate that copyright law is often totally explicit on what is right and wrong, but we shouldn't be robots and I think it is my personal responsibility to steer a reasonable course through the issue.
 
To me, the overriding factor is quality of life. Not just mine, but everyone's. Which I think is more important than any copyright law - it informs how we develop as human beings, how we feel, our happiness, what we pass on to the next generation etc. These are factors that industry and law is poor at encouraging or measuring, and there are real dangers in simply abdicating all our responsibilities to those forces.

" @djaoni: first i didnt call you anything, but it seems from your post that you are a fucking moronic imbred asshole whose mother would be more proud giving birth to the antichrist instead of the low-life abomination that is yourself. When piracy stops to the PC they will move somewhere else?? what kind of statement is that??? Does anyone think the PS3 is hack free because pirates stood down and said: ''Hey guys, wanna fuck The PS3? Nah we have the computer to pirate''  What kind of idiot thinks that pirating the PC is as easy as it is on a console? If they could hack the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii etc, etc they would have done it by now. Now go whine about something else, or even better pirate MW2 then whine about the server support saying: I pirated this game cause IW doesnt support the PC. "

Since I got Steam, downloading games illegaly hasn't been an option.
 
There are tons of ways to make the transaction between the buyer and the seller go smoothly, but the industry (music in particular) has its head up its ass and refuses to go with the times. "Dey haf ta buy CEEDEES or thay'r criminals!". It's fucking rediculous, a bunch of corporate money-driven old men sitting around, fighting against the future. Learn from Steam, you cretin.
 
@Xeiphyer:
 
Well said. Headshot.

If it wasn't for piracy, I would have missed out on numerous games when I was a kid, games I consider to be the greatest of all time. In my country games are horrably overpriced, or some are just not sold in this region, and as a kid, you just didn't have the money or resources to obtain videogames. If not for piracy I would have probably never played Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Breath of Fire, The Sims, Sim Theme Park, Sim City, Harvest Moon, or any of the Final Fantasy games for the Snes. These are all games that I see as some of the best in the history of videogames. Without piracy, I would have probably never been a JRPG fan especially since, in my opinion, the JRPGs of today are of of the same amazing quality of those of the 90s. Without piracy I would have probably never experienced a simulation game. Hell, the only reason I realized I would love MMOs is because of Runescape, which is a FREE browser based MMO. My point is, that without piracy, I would probably not be a fan of half the genres of games I enjoy today, and without piracy I would not have spent the thousands of dollars for all of the games I own that cover those many different genres that, because of piracy, I enjoy today.

"I have missed out on CD's that i have been interested in because the artist didn't ship to the USA, or they didn't accept my credit card. I didn't go to a torrent site and download it when i found out i couldn't get the CD, i just accepted it and moved on."

" @djaoni: first i didnt call you anything, but it seems from your post that you are a fucking moronic imbred asshole whose mother would be more proud giving birth to the antichrist instead of the low-life abomination that is yourself. When piracy stops to the PC they will move somewhere else?? what kind of statement is that??? Does anyone think the PS3 is hack free because pirates stood down and said: ''Hey guys, wanna fuck The PS3? Nah we have the computer to pirate''  What kind of idiot thinks that pirating the PC is as easy as it is on a console? If they could hack the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii etc, etc they would have done it by now. Now go whine about something else, or even better pirate MW2 then whine about the server support saying: I pirated this game cause IW doesnt support the PC. "

" "A product is only worth as much as its consumer will pay for it" Consumers are not paying for the products because they don't believe they are worth it. The companies should realise this. "  

i barely pirate anything. i especially don't do it to PC games. it kills the industyr doing that. it is an interesting read. i didn't know that sheet music was illegal to download, as in piracy.

" @Xeiphyer:  
 
Thank you for such a logical replay. You got me, i cannot name one artist who has gone bankrupt from piracy, not a single one. And you are right when it comes to more popular musicians, although millions of their songs are downloaded for free, they are still making millions and are popular. I still think it is wrong however. Although your saying they only receive 10%, that is still money they are losing out on.  
 
What about the smaller artists who might not have a record label or do not live in your area? Should you still pirate them too? You are not able to go see their shows to support them that way because you do not live in their country or state. A lot of smaller bands are just make their own CD's and distribute that way, or are with smaller record labels that give them more then 10% of the cut, the whole "they do not make much from CD's anyway" argument goes out the window there. Hell any money for a struggling musician is good money, they are not like popular artists who have millions, they have little to nothing.  
 
To go back to your question, "Name one artist that has gone bankrupt from piracy," as i said, i cannot name an artist, but i did mention developers in my original post and we all know how many game studios have gone under in the last few years. You can use the arguments here, popular games are still popular and still make money. It does not matter how much money they make, they deserve to be paid for their hard work. Infinity ward deserves the money of the millions of people who pirated because they were capable of making one of the most popular games in game history. Then we also can talk about indie game artists here. Let me give you an article on a recent indie game charity sale, and how people still pirated the indie game packs even though you can name your own price, you could have paid a penny.   
 
http://kotaku.com/5535744/why-are-people-pirating-a-charity-game   Is that kind of piracy justified? Instead of paying 5 dollars for 5 great games and to help charity people stole instead.   I don't care how you twist it, stealing is stealing, no matter how big or small.  Once again i have many points i would have loved to elaborate on but im out of time, i did not have time to re read it so i hope its legible :).  "