You are probably a thief, Yes you
At the end of this article you will realise why you should probably be put behind bars. I have probably exaggerated the previous statement but we are not too far away from truth. “What did i steal” you ask. Piracy.
I am gonna show you how you can stop stealing and more importantly what all are you effecting by stealing. Following are the various piracy we commoners are involved in
- Illegal Movie/TV Show watching
- Illegal Music Download
- Illegal/Cracked Software
- Copyright Infringement (CI)
Lets start with the last one first. CI is use of someone’s work without taking their permission. Say i use a Nat Geo image in this post without their permission then i am Infringing. If they mention on their site that it’s ok to do so then you are safe. Only exception is FAIR USE. Most laws allow for Fair use i.e limited use of copyrighted material for things like commenting on it, reviewing it or talking about it. Good example would be IMDB including movie posters.
Ignorance is the most common case we commoners commit this crime. Unless you are trying to make money(i.e business free or paid) out of this copyrighted material we can safely fall back to Fair Use. Thankfully there are several site that offer a lot of content for free under Creative Common(CC)
Their website includes a number of sites that provide content under CC. More often than not you will find one with the CC. Not just that Google image search has options to find images with CC or similar copyright. Now we can strike one off the list.
Next up comes software. Most softwares (apps and games too) don’t cost a fortune these days. Unless you are PRO using some specialised software, it’s not at all that expensive to purchase one. Most software come with a Free trial or a money back guarantee.
This kind of piracy has the potential to cause sizeable damage to the world. Think of it. A company goes to a VC or takes loan to create this software. Hires lot of people to develop this product. Hire more people to market and sell this. And what do you do, you download it for free. Cost price is XXX but selling price is ZERO. Tell me would you want to run such a business.
This company decides it’s not making money so it Fires People. Tell VCs and lenders that they lost all money. So now the VCs and lenders also loose some money. Where do they get this money to lend, from market (stock/financial). Because of you the market goes down, which means more job loss and more people loose money.
OK I am exaggerating the situation. One company may not cause such a damage but every small drop add’s up. Again this one is fairly easy to circumvent.
Use the trial-ware till you are not satisfied. Once you are convinced, purchase it. If later you decide you made a mistake by all means ask for refund. There is a even simpler way and it’s FREE, Open source. Lot of devs either don't agree with the software developed by a Big Corp or think it’s better to develop the software in open so that better decision can be made. Most of you have definitely heard of Adobe Photoshop but there is free equally good version called GIMP, It Gets The Job Done. So why pirate Photoshop.
What if the dev is not selling in my country. This is grey area. You are free to use your sound judgement in this case. What i would suggest is to ask the devs if they have a way to use it in your country, if not tell them you will use the pirated version.
We are down two and already feeling a lot better. Aren't we. Lets listen to some music now. Few years back only way to listen to music was to pay n download from a online store or Rip a CD. Today we have streaming. There are several free streaming sites and these cover the cost via Ads. Incase you hate ads they charge you a really low fee to get them removed. These sites pay royalties to music label and musicians.
Musicians don’t always compose for joy. For a select few music may be just a passion but for most PROs it’s a source of their lively hood. They have a family. They have bills to pay. If you don't pay for music they will look for some other jobs. No chicken means no egg, no egg means no chicken.
After audio it’s Video . This is the most common one. Movies these days have a shelf life of 3–4 weeks at theater. Every person illegally watching causes losses not just for the theater or the movie makers but also has effect on the distributor, the production houses, the financiers and the cast. An good movie not making money at Box office is bad news for not just for people involved in every step of it (as seen above) but also us. It demotivates the backers from working on another subject with this writer / director.
What about old movies. Unless you are in a country without internet, you surely have heard of sites like Netflix or iTunes. Like the streaming sites they let you watch a lot of movies guilt free and some are free too albeit with ads. You need to pay to watch premium content or remove ads.
Same goes for TV shows. If its not available on any of these sites or not available in your country pirate it. Another somewhat ok zone is when the movie has almost exited(like one show in some odd time)from theater but not available online or on dvd. If you can wait, Awesome, if not then check the laws of your country.
Here is some infographic from 2010 but nails the point
