Do you illegally download?

[opaltiger]

So what happens in the rest of the world?

in the rest of the world, they arrest one random person in a million and charge him millions of dollars they know he cannot possibly pay

 

[Tarvos]

In the Netherlands, downloading isn't even illegal. Uploading is, though, but downloading isn't.

So basically a major lol to the thread title.

 

[Harley Quinn]

Heck yes.

We used to buy pirated movies from this dude every Friday(and they were pretty good quality, too!).

Nowadays it's just mp3s for me.

 

[Butterfree]

Generally not. However, I have gotten into the habit of downloading fansubs of the Pokémon movies (have done it for the eighth onwards), because since they don't show them in Iceland anymore, the only alternative would be to order the English dubs off Amazon or something, and I can't stand the English voice cast, old and new. Well, that or get the unsubbed Japanese version, which I wouldn't understand.

Then I've gotten ROMs of a couple of Pokémon games. Let's see, I got a Crystal one (while already owning the game myself) in order to hear the legendary beast battle music again, I got a Japanese Emerald one so that I could see what the animations looked like (and only played it up to Rustboro City or so), and I got a Diamond one to see if No$GBA actually worked as a DS emulator (it was too slow on my computer to really be playable).

...of course, then I have a boyfriend whose first reaction upon hearing of or remembering anything curious or halfway decent is to find a torrent of it and/or see if there's a low-quality online streaming of it somewhere, and I've sorta maybe gotten him to agree to download Repo! The Genetic Opera for me. :D But that's just because it's not as if they're showing it over here, and I'm sure as hell not importing the DVD until I know it's worth my money. And then there's all the times I've really wanted to watch some movie or TV show and while I would go and rent the DVD, he just wanted to download it instead. Not my fault, is it? :o

That Platinum ROM I've been playing was completely his idea, I tell you! I hadn't even told him Platinum existed!

...so yeah, I haven't done much of it myself, but I've benefited quite a lot from how much he does of it.

 

[Gigamelon]

The Organ Bag goes to the library and borrows an occasional CD. I swipe it, rip all the tracks to my hard drive and occasionally play them. When I feel like it, I share them too.

I don't feel like it very often.

I don't bother with games or films: if I want to see a film, I'll find a streamed copy online and watch that. If I see a game I wouldn't mind playing at some point... Well, I just don't bother. It'll turn up eventually in a bargain bin somewhere.

 

[theinsanething]

Mostly mp3s for Video Game Music.

I have the occasional ROM though.

As for Videos and Movies, no way, it'd take too long.

 

[turbler]

R4DS, all the time...

 

[Doctor Jimmy]

I used to pirate music, until I realized that CDs have much better audio quality than that crap in the Pirate Bay. Even if the MP3s are noted to be at 320kbps, there's no way of knowing if that's what the ripper originally imported the CD at. Also, there's something special about having the physical copy of the music, and seeing the artwork, the CDs, the linear notes...and if more people bought music on CDs, then record companies won't have to put DRM on their CDs, and perhaps producers would master their music in better audio quality. The only thing I hate about buying music is the annoying plastic shit on new CDs. Its a real pain in the ass to have to remove that (maybe that's why people pirate music?)

 

[#1 bro]

But what if the game is no longer manufactured?

I'm pretty sure it's still illegal in the eyes of the law, but no one cares if you go ahead and do it anyway. You're not going to get arrested for it, and unless God is like the biggest dick ever, you're probably not going to go to hell for it either either.

People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(

EDIT: And, of course, activities not approved by society in general.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(

I'll have to agree with you there. If it's something distributed through retail channels, then it's illegal, no two ways about it...

 

[Tarvos]

I'm pretty sure it's still illegal in the eyes of the law, but no one cares if you go ahead and do it anyway. You're not going to get arrested for it, and unless God is like the biggest dick ever, you're probably not going to go to hell for it either either.

People saying things like this in general pisses me off, people always trying to justify Limewire being legal by saying "no, it's not illegal if you pay for some of the songs!" or "it's not illegal if blah blah blah blah". It's like, why do you even care? People need to realize the difference between illegal activities and morally wrong activities. >(

EDIT: And, of course, activities not approved by society in general.

How is downloading morally wrong?

 

[#1 bro]

It isn't! That's the point I was trying to prove, that people are too busy making sure that they can justify that the activities they do are legal, when they should be justifying that the activities they do are not morally wrong.

 

[Retsu]

Better question:
Why should poor people not get to experience such a large part of modern culture?

 

[Vyraura]

I do it all the time. I love doing it. It makes me feel good inside, like a childish 'I'm getting free stuff' feeling. Only thing I don't do is ROMs, because I haven't ever wanted one.

 

[#1 bro]

What's a good site to download music for free, with no viruses and decent quality? (and by decent quality, I mean about the quality iTunes sells their songs for)

 

[Retsu]

A private tracker, but it can be hard to find invites to one. I'm afraid of public trackers - I know Demonoid, for example, doesn't really do a whole lot to encrypt your information.

If you don't mind traditional downloading, there are a number of awesome LiveJournal communities like mp3_share with large communities that can pretty much get you anything you request. (Although at the time of writing, it doesn't look like LJ's up... oh well.)

For the record, songs you buy on iTunes are terrible quality. 128 kb/s makes me die a little inside.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

I'm afraid of public trackers - I know Demonoid, for example, doesn't really do a whole lot to encrypt your information.

Demonoid is semi-public. Non-registered folks can only torrent newer torrents.

Registration is closed right now and I have no invite codes.

For music I ordinarily use LimeWire. For torrenting music, The Pirate Bay and Demonoid work for me. Nipponsei and DeltaAnime for anime music.

If iTunes really is at 128 kb/s, then it shouldn't be too hard to find stuff of that quality. Or better.

 

[Retsu]

It's still a public tracker. I have an account there, too, but I only use it as a last resort.

For music I ordinarily use LimeWire.

You're not serious, are you?

 

[#1 bro]

For the record, songs you buy on iTunes are terrible quality. 128 kb/s makes me die a little inside.

maybe we aren't all a Mr. "Music Is Serious Business" Audiophile person like you are, Retsu. :P

EDIT: Also, I heard LimeWire has tons of viruses so I would like to avoid that :|

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

EDIT: Also, I heard LimeWire has tons of viruses so I would like to avoid that :|

In my experience, that's only if you don't know what you're doing. If you don't, then do avoid LimeWire. =P

Really, though the suspicious files stick out. And have faith in your firewall. =P