Scratch

technoguyx wrote:

Here in Chile it's a pretty unregulated thing - most people don't even think about whether it's wrong or not, and honestly I know nearly no people who actually buy media instead of downloading it, be it games, movies, music, whatever. The lack of awareness and regulation is so big, you even see pirated media being sold in street markets (which I find very wrong - profiting from something you put nearly no effort into).

Myself I recur to pirating stuff quite often when it comes to music and visual media, though when it comes to programs I always look for free/open-source alternatives first. I do know piracy is legally and perhaps morally wrong, yet I still do it at times.

I think it's understandable when the media is not really available in a country. Also, there doesn't seem to be set laws on piracy in Chile either... so again, it's there's not legal problem, just a moral one.

jji7skyline wrote:

The thing with torrents is, you're currently sharing what you download with other, that's how the whole thing works, there's not real central server. Therefore, you're providing the download to others, which makes it illegal. And if you don't seed, that's considered leeching and is frowned upon.

That is like music download websites too. They don't host the files. Instead, It is an MP3 search engine.

I used to pirate programs by downloading the free trial, then searching for a product key on Google. Now, I use free/open source software.

Arrr! I thought you scalawags meant us seafarin' pirates, arrr!!

That is my opinion.

I've probably pirated one or two things before.  All things considered, I have no problems with it most of the time.

sure pirating is bad, but I don't think it's bad enough for a bill like SOPA/PIPA.

Last edited by Mokat (2012-07-31 09:57:23)

elfin8er wrote:

So what do you guys think about extracting audio from official (or non official), music videos? I do this often with youtube-mp3.org

i guess it's not too bad if it's just for personal use..

TRocket wrote:

elfin8er wrote:

So what do you guys think about extracting audio from official (or non official), music videos? I do this often with youtube-mp3.org

i guess it's not too bad if it's just for personal use..

Yeah, that's what I figured, but then isn't it the same with all other kinds of pirating? As long as it's for personal use?

CheeseMunchy wrote:

I've never pirated before other than maybe once by accident.

But what are your thoughts about it?

SeptimusHeap wrote:

New moral pirating question of the day: What are your thoughts on pirating software you would normally not purchase. Example:

Steve likes gSoft products but they are horribly expensive. He wouldn't pay the large sum just for a fancy text editor. One day, Steve finds a torrent to that text editor and decides to download it. Is this OK?

Here's my opinion: gSoft wouldn't be getting any money off of Steve anyway as he would never buy any of their products at such high prices. If Steve's friends like it, they might purchase the editor and gSoft would actually make more than if Steve hadn't pirated it.

How do you know Steve pirates, huh?

SeptimusHeap wrote:

New moral pirating question of the day: What are your thoughts on pirating software you would normally not purchase. Example:

Steve likes gSoft products but they are horribly expensive. He wouldn't pay the large sum just for a fancy text editor. One day, Steve finds a torrent to that text editor and decides to download it. Is this OK?

Here's my opinion: gSoft wouldn't be getting any money off of Steve anyway as he would never buy any of their products at such high prices. If Steve's friends like it, they might purchase the editor and gSoft would actually make more than if Steve hadn't pirated it.

I disagree  (and I'm not the Steve you're talking about.  ) because if that's all it was; simply downloading something that you wouldn't normally purchase then it wouldn't be a problem. However, when you do that, it may not be directly hurting the company who's software you're pirating, but when you set the example that it's okay to pirate and you program yourself to think pirating is okay with you, then you and others around you will create an environment where their brains think it's okay to pirate, or they'll think that "since Bob pirated, I shouldn't have to buy software either, I'll just pirate stuff like Bob" which does create a problem and a money loss for the company in the long run.

I suppose there's a situation that's very rare where a person won't buy the software already, won't let anyone else know and will do their best to not continue doing in, when it's okay to pirate the software. However, since that situation is so rare, we can't allow it at all in general.

elfin8er wrote:

So, if you're pirating to try out the software before you buy it, is that alright? It may actually give you a better chance to buy the software. For an example, I tried minecraft cracked to see if I liked it. I LOVED it, so I decided to buy it. If I wouldn't have gotten it cracked, I wouldn't have known I liked it.

That's perfectly alright!    In the end you ended up paying for the software, so I see no problem with that.
Edit: Copyright lawyers might not like it though 

Last edited by 16Skittles (2012-07-31 13:06:34)

Should I try to convince my friend to stop pirating? He's downloaded several Adobe products, games, and even 'pirated' windows (He got a serial key online or something). I mean, what if he gets caught?

veggieman001 wrote:

elfin8er wrote:

So what do you guys think about extracting audio from official (or non official), music videos? I do this often with youtube-mp3.org

My main issue with that is that the sound is terrible. The only way to get anything decent sounding with YouTube is to download the HD MP4 video, transcode it to FLAC with VLC, made edits in Audacity, and then encode as a 320kbps CBR or V0 VBR MP3. I mean, seriously.

Uh... youtube-mp3 has an awesome quality.