confessions of a media pirate

Confessions of a Media Pirate

So the other day I was surfing around IMDB and found a thread that was discussing pirating aka illegal downloading and the morality of it. Well I am a media pirate. I download movies music video games TV shows and I also copy any movie I rent and enjoy. But what comes next may surprise you. I am not here to defend myself or pirating in general I’m here to let everyone know that me and anyone else who downloads for free is a thief plain and simple.

Pirating has been around for a long time now its older then everyone thinks with one of the very first uses of the term going all the way back to 1703 where a book written by Daniel Defoe was being printed over and over again without him receiving anything for it. Before 1999 pirating was limited to computer savvy people who would use things like Usenet and IRC. Non computer savvy people could find bootleg movies and tapes at flea markets. Then in 99 Napster was created and suddenly getting a hold of pirated material was easier than ever. Napster was eventually shut down but other peer to peer or P2P networks and programs took its place followed shortly by Bit Torrent and its indexing sites.

I have read and listened to numerous arguments for piracy and frankly they are all bullshit. People say it’s there right to listen to the music or see the movie and this is simply crazy. You have no right to use other peoples work whether it be a movie or music unless you have permission from the creators or you pay the money to do so.

Another argument I hear a lot is that the downloader wouldn’t have bought the movie or CD anyway so getting it for free is not hurting anyone. Again this is bullshit it is an excuse to moralize something you know is wrong. If you were not going to see the movie or listen to the CD why download it in the first place? Last but not least the other argument is movie studios/record labels/software companies all have plenty of money and are not hurt financially by the downloader.

This last one pisses me off the most because yes the CEO of a company or the music exec or the actors or directors usually have plenty of money and aren’t going to be hurt by a download. However the guy who sweeps the floor, the lighting guys, the dishwashers, the guys that get yelled at by Christian bale and other low level employees probably don’t have plenty of money and will end up being hurt by your actions.

Then we have the people who say they wanted to sample something before buying it and maybe in 99 that would have been valid but now ten years later there are plenty of legal ways to sample things. You can rent a movie for 5 bucks you can listen to free music via legal sites like Songza. Programs like Veoh and websites like Hulu allow you to see free legal TV and movies.

By now a lot of you are probably calling me a hypocrite and laughing amongst your selves about how stupid I am for bashing pirates when I am one myself but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not bashing pirates I’m bashing pirates that try and defend what they do morally. 99% of the time downloading stuff from the net is illegal and stealing.

There are a few exceptions where P2P and file sharing networks can be used for good. The first is open source software and free to distribute media. Like 2 years ago Radiohead put its entire album out for free or for you to pay as much as you thought the album was worth. Movies like download this movie and CD's like steal this album are being promoted for you to download or pirate and even if the artist didn’t intend for the media to be pirated if you name your CD steal this album you deserve the consequences.

One other way downloading is morally right and legally is with fan subs of anime. A fan sub is when a group of people take an anime that is only in Japan or another Asian country and add their own subtitles to it. This is the rare example of when torrents and other file sharing tools help an industry. Most fan subing groups will not sub a series any longer if the series has been licensed in America and will then encourage the fans to buy the DVDs and most will. This way of doing things introduces shows to fans and increases fan base thus increasing sales for the actual product.

And if this is how it actually worked with movies and music then file sharing would be great if it was actually possible to see something before it was out and all it did was make people want to buy it more than it would work well but it doesn’t the cold hard truth is pirating is stealing I do it and if you download without paying you do it too.

I’m a pirater and I’m a thief and all I have to say is I hope the FBI never checks my house.