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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4699084" data-attributes="member: 5143">I think that the people who are opposed to pirating often underestimate the number of pirates out there.  Partially because pirates are unwilling to admit to doing so.  Partially because everyone assumes that the default position is their own and that dissenting opinion is a small, fringe group.But, I'm fairly certain that if I took the 200 people in my Facebook friend list and checked if they pirated or not, there'd be maybe...3 or 4 who would say they've never pirated.  I know this because most of them have discussed it with me in the past.  The ones who don't actually stick out dramatically.  Pretty much all of them haven't done so for moral reasons.I have a lot of tech friends, so I know a higher than normal amount of pirates.  However, as the new generation becomes more and more tech savvy, the number of people outside of the tech community who do it is only going to go up.  Even my non-tech friends, however, have asked me to find copies of things for them.However, my estimate is that it's still close to 70% of the population(as the poll indicates) who pirates.  My best guess is that 10-20% of the people who don't only don't due to not knowing how.  That's not just "lots of people".  That's pretty much all of them.It's already acceptable.  This thread caused me to discuss the topic with the people I work with.  None of them had any problem with pirating or me for pirating.  All but my boss pirate themselves.  And my boss admits to not having the tech knowledge to do so.  He's asked me to get him some free software before...although he's wary of it.It's just not legal.  And it's about as illegal as anything that goes unpunished 99.9% of the time can be.  The trial of The Pirate Bay(one of the biggest pirate sites on the internet for those who don't know) just ended a couple of days ago.  On the first day of the trial over half of the charges were thrown out due to none of the lawyers or representatives from the prosecution knowing how bittorrent works at all.  From following the trial, it appears like the prosecution failed to prove that any of the people who run The Pirate Bay did anything illegal themselves.  There is a month before the verdict, however, I feel there's no way based on the evidence presented that they should be found guilty.  However, because this is such a politically charged issue, they might be.We have a month to go before we see what happens.  But I anticipate that the results of this trial will have major repercussions.  If a site that calls itself The Pirate Bay gets away with it, trust in copyright in general may start failing.  Or it may drive even stronger copyright laws.  If they are convicted, it likely spells doom for freedom of speech across the internet as the movie and recording industry now realizes that they can take down anything on the internet.And I disagree.  I don't buy things because I'm used to paying.  No one I know does.  Nearly everyone I know who plays D&D has copies of all the books on PDF.  They've been traded at the gaming store we all play at for a while.  Most of us still own a physical copy as well(I have 2 of each of the MM, DMG, and PHB.  One I got for free and 1 I paid for because I didn't want to damage my signed copies).I pay for the books because it's easier to have a book at the table than a PDF.  I pay to go to the theater to see a movie because I can see it in full quality with good sound the day it comes out instead of a poor copy a couple of days later.I certainly don't think it's unreasonable to have an economy still based on selling physical things and asking for donations for everything else.That's the difference between writing something down and hoping enough people like it to make money or specifically doing a job that someone says they need done.  You know someone is going to pay you for the second, you can't be guaranteed about the first.  The first is scary.  But that's pretty much already the way it's done.  That's part of the reason I don't want to be an author or artist.  Too scary not knowing if you'll make money at all.Not just EASIER, but so simple and nearly untraceable that you have nearly no chance of being caught.  Most people who commit murders, even with guns get caught.  Millions of people pirate every day.  Only a couple get charged every year.  You have a better chance to be struck by lightning TWICE than being charged for pirating.If we developed a technology that allowed us to kill people from the safety of our own home by pressing a button, with a 99.9999 percent chance of getting away with it, there would be no point in having a law against it.  We'd simply have to appeal to people's better nature and ask them really nicely NOT to do it.Once again, I still agree with this.  I think there certainly needs to be a method to get paid.  Maybe all books need to contain ads in the future. If you can rely on the fact that a million people are going to download your books without paying for them, then convince advertisers that they can reach a million people by placing an ad in your book.Of course you work hard and of course you need to be paid for doing your work.  But, I think now is the time that content producers should be looking to adapt to the new world order in order to make MORE money rather than lamenting that they are losing money to pirating.The key is that if you are making a good product, people are seeing it and they are enjoying it.  Now is a good time to come up with business models that revolve around the number of people viewing a product rather than relying on income from the product itself.For instance, I don't have the name of the author right now.  However, there is an author who was having a hard time getting his book sold in Russia.  He had sold almost no copies at all.  So he gave it away for free.  Put it on the internet and announced that fact all over Russia.  His book has now sold over a million copies in Russia.</blockquote>

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