The Pirates Of The Digital Rightsibbean!

I want to state, before all else, that Piracy is, always has been and always will be really cool. I was just playing Rummy with my Pirate Playing Cards, I have Pirates Of The Caribbean decorations all over the room, I have swords, books and movies. From Where I'm sitting I can see my Black Beard DVD some fake doubloons and some pirate related trinkets. I'm a big fan. I even have pirate charms and memorabilia in my wallet. I know the difference between movie pirates and real pirates and fashion myself the latter. I am grateful to the recent films for one thing, they got little kids reading about pirates again. They used to be one of the number one imaginary games of all children, along with other stereotypes like Indians, Cowboys, and soldiers from any and all wars. I think pirates had taken a back seat to things like G.I. Joes and transformers for a while. Now they're back in their rightful place as kick-awesome childhood (and grown-up) fantasy.

There are still real pirates around the world, Africa is notorious, the coast of Somalia is probably the most dangerous strip of sea in the world. Just since 2006 millions have been paid in ransom to pirates who hijack ships and kidnap crews. They're making money to supply weapons to warlords on the shore and it's working. So, it would seem, pirates have not only had a revival in fiction but have jumped right off the page. Needless to say my inner child thinks this is sweet as candy. I of course do not condone real murder, theft or other international crimes on the high seas, but I can't help it if it spins one hell of a yarn.

The other area where pirates have taken the world by storm is the internet. This is where I'm truly a pirate. I'm pirating as I write this. I'm a self-righteous pirate as well. That's what I really want to talk about here. All the money piracy has made for a bunch of companies and all the money piracy has saved (not earned) for me.

Let's start at the beginning. By which I mean my money. I don't have any, never have. How can I buy something with no money? I can't. Simple right?
If I can not buy a CD, then how much money is the company making?
No money, correct.
If I download the CD how much money is the company making?
No money, again, correct.
Net gain? Zero.
If I download the CD and find that I really enjoy it and subsequently purchase all three of the CDs from the artist, how much money did the company make?
Thirty, forty bucks, something like that right?
Net gain, thirty to forty dollars. The company is now happy.

This is not stealing. Going into tower records and slipping a CD under your shirt is stealing. The store loses money. It's that simple. Someone once told me that illegally copying music was a slippery slope. I do not agree. Those little videos they show you as much as they can explicitly state that downloading shit is identical, morally, to literally stealing physical items, car jacking or looting. This is bull for so many reasons. My above example with the CD is hypothetical. You might consider it bologna because it seems contrived. Here is a rundown of all the money I have directly deposited into the pockets of Corporate America (and sometimes Japan) because I pirates something.

It starts with Civilization 3. I got a pirated copy and didn't even know what the game was like, I had played Civilization on the Super Nintendo. I became addicted. I loved it and still do. Eventually I bought the full game because some aspects were screwy in my version.
Civilization 3: $30
I loved it so much that I ended up buying these too.
Civilization 3: Conquests: $30
Civilization 3: Complete: $30
Civilization 4: $50
Civilization 4: Warlords: $20
Civilization 4: Beyond The Sword: $20
That's $180 just because I pirated a single archive one time several years ago! They can't pay for marketing that good. It was sort of a super detailed demo of the game.
My original copy of Half-life was Pirated. My buddy burnt me a disc when he got it. Here are the purchases I have made due to that fateful act of piracy.
Half-life Opposing Force and Blue Shift: $30
Half-life 2 and Episode One: $30
Garry's Mod: $10
Day Of Defeat: Source : $10
The Orange Box: $50
I got lucky in that I didn't have to pay for Day Of Defeat, Counter Strike, Team Fortress Classic or Deathmatch Classic. And no, it's not because I stole them, they used to be free if you had a retail version of Half-life and Steam.
Grand Total: $130! Now that I think about it those games were way more reasonably priced than the Civ Franchise.
I've bought movies and Cds totaling around a hundred dollars because I saw or heard them on my PC first. See, I don't like movies much. I DO NOT go to the theater. The movie producers have two choice: 1) I never see the film and they don't turn a profit 2) I pirate the film and maybe they turn a profit. At the very least I might gain a liking for a film maker or actor and purchase films later on. I bought Batman Begins after downloading it. Now I love Christian Bale and am more inclined to view/buy his movies. Trust me movie companies, you want me to be downloading these things.

Then there's console emulation, probably the most innocent sort of piracy. I've been doing this since I was ten. There wasn't a chance in hell I was getting a Game Boy or Pokemon, not under the poverty line. I had no choice. I "stole" Pokemon over the internet. This eventually led to hundreds of dollars in purchases. Game Boy Color, Pokemon Gold, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Pokemon Sapphire, Nintendo DS. Not to mention any other hand held games I ever purchases. It's all because I found out, first hand, how much ass Pokemon kicked when I was little. Some games are so hard to find you have to emulate them just to play them, Uncharted Waters 2 is a good example. Fantastic game, and, when I have some cash, I hope to actually buy it. Emulators are never quite the same as the real thing and Nintendo realized how to turn that into cash. They invented the "Virtual Console" for the Wii. It's basically a really nice emulator that isn't free but has a nostalgia inducing controller and lets you play Super Metroid on your TV again. In the end it's totally worth the small fees for the old school games and it's way better than a keyboard and a computer monitor.

I haven't exhausted all of the ways piracy has benefited the companies I'm supposedly ripping off yet but I'm sure I've exhausted you so I will desist. I hope this has enlightened you as to the truth about piracy. If you're viciously anti-piracy then I hope this pissed you off and I can duel you with pistols or sabres, your choice, someday. I mean come on people, I'm not gonna buy a Baby Boy Da' Prince Album just so I can listen to one damned song!

Adieu!