Essentially azorni thinks he is entitled to something for nothing. People who generally create and contribute zero often feel this way. I for one am done arguing with him. Regardless of what we say he will continue to use software he obtained illegally and there is very little we can do about it.

Surprised I don't see more of the moral outrage expressed in the thread calling for the hoopsfrenzy author to be strung up for getting past a QA process that is implicitly flawed. Like I said there. People are only outraged and moral when it suits them.

Well. Piracy does have benefits believe it or not. I personally wouldn't care if my little program got tons of free publicity through words of mouth and promotion via so many warez sites. If 5000 people downloaded my app from the warez sites, I'll bet you at least 50 of them will pay for it. Yes. A measly 1%. But those 50 people would never even have known about my little app if it wasn't for being available everywhere. That's not something I could have done. I would never expect to have ALL 5000 people. That just doesn't happen in the real world.

IMO, celebrities and singers gets higher pay due to piracy also. If piracy did not exist, I doubt they will be paid so high. It's all about fame and recognition. Without piracy, they probably won't be as well known all over the world. But they never take this into the picture when they are suing some pirate. All they care about is more money they could have earnt if all those "downloaders" paid for it instead. (which would never have happened even without piracy)

We all know the bad side of piracy. But it's not all bad. Really.

I'm very sorry you see things this way.

As I've already mentioned, I'm not in favor of piracy for my not being in favor of conflicts between people. I wouldn't impose my convictions to others that's why I would not illegally copy any software. I'll just don't buy nor use those stuffs.

People who think as I do, tend to always prefer using open-source software, just for the same reasons that some people understand that a bridge, a street lamp or a road is public interest, and that it should therefore be public property.

Would it be OK for you if, walking by night along a street, a policeman would come to you and ask for some payment against the use of lamps that enlighten your path, or would require that you put a blindfold if you don't want to pay ?

As far as my general contribution for society is concerned, as a matter of fact I've already financially donated to open source community several times. No huge amounts, but certainly comparable to what I would have paid if those stuffs were commercial. But once again this is a digression and personal attack. This should be irrelevant in a debate.

But your point is quite interesting, though. It's quite a funny idea that everyone should have some legitimacy to use services provided by society, depending of each individual contribution for society. People who have never work in public construction shouldn't be allowed to use a road, and more generally people who have never paid any tax should not be allowed to use any public service. Children, for instance, should be considered as useless people and should therefore be put in jail. This is absurd.

If you were to evaluate the ratio between lifetime individual contribution to society and what everybody receives from this same society from his birth to his death, you would certainly realize that for an vast majority of people, this ratio is absolutely tiny.

So it would seem that apart from one indivudal most people voicing an opinion here seem to believe that piracy itself is not a good thing? The debate on whether software should be closed in the first place seems to be a spin off debate from this, possibly worth it's own thread.

As I said my position is that piracy is something that should not be done, because it's a violation of personal commitment regarding non-redistribution policy. So I would personally not pirate.

But since according to me these non-redistribution policies are absurd, I would never throw the first stone at a pirate.

I don't approve non-redistribution policies. I think the world would be a better place without it. To me they are just incompatible with the very concept of selling. When you buy something, you're supposed to own it and to do whatever you want to it.

So I don't sign those policies, and I don't want to pay taxes that will finance public force imposing punishment to pirates. I don't want to be part of this.

You sir, are an idiot.

The "big" celebrities are *not* affected by piracy. They still make insane amounts of money, and no, there really isn't a massive difference between making 10M a year or 50M; you live fairly well regardless.

I can't believe that in this day and age, people would still use that argument. Yes, those at the top make money, and those at the bottom don't. Live with it. Having them make money doesn't entitle ANYONE to piracy. Also, piracy doesn't make you more popular, piracy doesn't increase your reputation. Concerts do, publicity does, having a famous DJ spin you record during a big gig makes you famous. Being downloaded by a sweaty teenager in his parent's basement doesn't bring anyone fame.

The industry is hurting, badly. I'd like for people to stop focusing on what exactly they are criticising. The majors? Yeah, they're greedy corporations, like any other one, and they're only after making money. It's their job, get over it. Like any other industry, if they see losses, they cut costs, wherever they can.

15 years ago, you had talent hunters who would go around whole countries, listening to small, low-key bands in crappy underground cafes. If there was potential, they'd poney up and send the singer to get lessons, a hairdo, and the whole band goes to a studio for a couple of days to record 4 or 5 tracks. This then became the demo they would send to the decision makers. If it was approved, the band got a free pass to a couple months in a studio, record a whole album, make the clip for the best track, and done.

Now, because the majors make less money, they've cut costs there where the biggest costs were: finding talents. Where 15 years ago you'd have 20 hunters for a small region like Benelux, you now have 1 guy paid to surf Myspace. The demos that go to the decision makers are the MP3 ripped from their website, and if there seems to be potential but the sound is too crap, they get a macbook on loan for 6 months, and are told to make a good tape.

Another thing people don't realise is that from artist to CD there isn't just one step. Sound engineers need to be paid -- their experience makes a CD's quality. No, most artists don't know what loudness is, most bands don't understand that you need to have a very specific balance, and so you need a very good sound engineer to lower the pitch of mic 6 on the drumkit which removes the highlight on the crash hit, as it completely dampens the lead guitar's solo bridge. You may not notice this, but the work that is done on each song is tedious, incredibly hard, and being good at it requires decades of training and extremely expensive equipment. The difference? Well, an audiophile can immediately tell the difference between a correctly mastered album and a crappy one.

These people, the sound engineers, the masterers, and a million people in between are those who get nailed. The industry (and specifically, the majors) will find ways around it, they'll kill off specific jobs, and tell people to do multiple things at once, but as always, when you condense things, you lose things.

We will lose quality, we will lose information, but people don't care, they don't even know about it. Oh yeah, and then you have the "ethical pirates" who say "I'll pay for it when they give me access to an uncompressed version of the song". Y'all be crying when good music doesn't reach anymore, but at that point everything that has been achieved over the past few decades will be lost.

Get a job, and start paying for the things you enjoy. Nothing in life is free.

Source: I'm a drummer with quite a few gigs on record, and my family has authored over 20 albums, and mastered over 1000 albums.

This is just not true. Many things in life are free, and you know it.

Crash... major /respect to you for such an awesome post.

Many things in life are free in the sense you don't pay money for them, but still cost something (effort, blood, toil, etc).

Indeed, but here we're talking about price.

Effort and work is not always rationally convertible into price. You might regret it, but its economical reality.

Value is not necessary commercial value. A poem might have great artistic value, but it has absolutely no commercial value. Because you just can't sell it. Same for a song that can be learnt just by listening to it. Great artistic value, but no commercial value.

I know many songs that I've heard on radio or wherever else, and I might enjoy singing them under my shower. And yet, I have never paid anything for this pleasure. Should I go in jail ?