(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); So with all this going on with TPB and all these new laws with regards to internet surveillance popping out around the world, I thought I'd get a discussion going. What is your stance on piracy? Have you ever used piracy to get something that you were planning on buying in the future? Do you think it should be allowed under all circumstances? Some? Or are you completely against it? (I think this thread was around somewhere before, but I couldn't find it so I wanted to make a new one).

I'll say that it should be pretty much legal. There are countries that don't have access to things because of companies region locking movies and games. I don't really condone it though, I use steam/origin (drm ) or GOG to buy my games and I don't see a need for it in my life. With that being said I think charging people in court for piracy is beyond stupid. It's also been shown that people who pirate things actually buy more things legitimately, meaning that the companies don't ever loose out on all the profit that they say they lose out on.

i agree with you, i don't condone piracy either

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..oops

thats alot of hidden named porn u got there ^

movies and TV shows

If I had to buy every game, song, movie, or application, then I'd be one damn schmuck. If they really wanted to end piracy, they'd start with YouTube and any sites that allow the conversion of music-based videos to .mp3/.wav format, or the downloading of YouTube videos. They can take down all the torrent sites they want, but I don't use bloody torrents to download music.

Piracy's been around for decades -- first in physical, boot-leg version, then to virtual. Because of so-called piracy, people downloaded 'The Interview' on Dec 23, and subsequently gave it high ratings on IMDB. And then, there's those damned products, such as Adobe (Photoshop, Premiere, Suites, etc.) that cost hundreds of dollars per. Sure, companies, artists, directors, actors, video game developers deserve their fair share in revenue and earnings, but there's a lot of cheeky bastards in those companies, who create, direct, produce such crap, I'd rather try a movie/game out before I buy it.

Pirating a game -- lending out one copy of your game to multiple people; not illegal. Using keygens, fixes, patches, etc. to bypass a serial id screen so to run a buyable-only application for free; illegal. Now then, maybe it's because my generation (the 90's) was raised on this concept of torrents, limewire, free stuff, that I don't feel too bad on my use and support of piracy. Stealing revenue from a rich company doesn't hurt too much. Stealing revenue from a start-up? You could say that person is a pure asshole.

And when you download music freely, instead of buying the album, you're really hurting the record company, more than you are, the artist. The record company gets most of the profit from album sales, and artists make up for that through tours. Maybe it's a sense of entitlement, or a sense of revenge. These companies screw us over, why help them? I've been pirating for close to a decade now, so any sense of wrongness is out the window. :/

I'm not against piracy, especially not for music or games, on the basis it doesn't really impact the artists. Record labels, producers, distributors and advertising absorbs all the money. In modern music, the artists themselves make about 15% of the money - and between that it's divided to a point that every $1,000 in profit leaves your average musician about $25 - so $975 going to a bunch of people who are not the people who made the product, I don't value the contributions they have made in the development process.

But that's a bit ideological rather than practical. Realistically how major records work is something like a $1 million advancement, they drop $500,000 on the record, $100,000 on their manager + 20% commission, $25,000 for lawyers and a business manager. It leaves $350,000 for each band member - $180,000 in taxes - $170,000 which comes out to roughly $45,000 per member depending on the size. That's $45,000 for an entire year until the record hits the market.

Then of course the band has to promote their own music and they produce $1 million recoupable videos for some singles. Since the million dollar advance is also recoupable that means they owe $2 million back to the record company. They sell $11 million in profit and the band gets a whopping $2 million from royalties (signed on for 20%) but they have to pay back the recoupable advancements...

$2 million - $2 million is...ZERO!

The marketer probably spent $500,000 in manufacturing, $1 million on the advancement, $300,000 in promotion, $200,000 for tour support and $750,000 in music publishing royalties. They spent $2.2 million on retail advertising, along with another $2-3 million on posters, mall, street and merch promotion. When it's all said and done they spent roughly $6 million on promoting the band.

So the band, who put so much effort into making this wonderful song you enjoy, didn't make a dime.

The marketer walked away with $5 million in profits.

And if you try to go against the grain you just get dropped on your ass and forgotten. No label's going to pick you up if you actually try to profit from your music. So this vicious cycle of talented musicians going underappreciated and underpaid continues indefinitely. All hail capitalism!

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, piracy is okay.

Not even tours help pay for the band. The advancements from records are all recoupable and the sign-on leaves them with little. Being in a band is indiscriminately one of the worst paying occupations unless you're hitting gold records constantly. If you're only selling 750,000-1,000,000 records you're going to find all of the money is gone as fast as it's earned because everyone wants their piece of the pie and the band's piece too. Where musicians earn their money is from high sales, 5,000,000+, not tours. If an artist can pull in $250,000+ after taxes, that's when he's banking.