So yesterday I was proudly showing off GeekGirlManila to my fiance when he brought up a concern:
my fiance: you might want to be careful about things like this
my fiance: “I just want to let you guys know that Battle Star Galactica – The Plan is out for download at your nearest torrent site!”
geekgirlmanila: huh? why?
my fiance: other people might attack your for advocating piracy.
geekgirlmanila: ok, though I dont really find anything wrong with it… it’s not like I have a sweat shop, making pirated DVDs and selling them, hehe
I never really thought about it that way. My ‘personal’ definition of piracy is when you make a copy of something (let’s say a movie or software) and then you sell it and make a profit for yourself. But if you download something and you never really make copies of it (and delete it eventually!), then I think that’s not really that bad.
But let’s take a look at the real definition of ‘Piracy‘:
Art, books, inventions, magazines, movies, music, performances, reports, software, stories, and trademarks are all examples of intellectual property and can represent a substantial investment of resources and talent. Intellectual property can be protected by a copyright, patent, trademark or treated as a trade secret, and some intellectual property can be covered by multiple kinds of protection. Piracy is a theft of intellectual property – in other words, stealing what does not belong to you. – United States Patent and Trademark Office
Hmmm. I can understand the graveness of piracy when it comes to softwares, books and music. Writers, musicians, and software developers lose a lot of money when you buy or obtain pirated copies of their work.
But when it comes to TV shows, I don’t really see anything wrong with it, unless I sell copies of the shows I’ve downloaded over the internet. Video streaming and being able to record TV shows via TiVo aren’t exactly stopping piracy either.
Bah, such a complicated topic. It’s just really hard to avoid piracy when technology is making it so much easier to replicate things!
So, am I pirate? Maybe, maybe not! (Hmmm, maybe I’ll be a pirate for Halloween this year… YAAAARRR!!!!)
Arr, matey! Don’t let the landlubber keep ye from yer fun.
Just kidding, just kidding. Was that StudMuffin? Anyway, piracy has been the subject of many heated debates (especially in gamefaqs). We seem to have the same belief in regards to piracy, though. ‘sides, ISOs saved me when I couldn’t install FFXI after my disc drive broke (discs were fine). Same goes for WoW.
Yep, StudMuffin ;) Haha! :)
Btw, I only realized now that Gradlein was an anagram for Reginald, haha! :)