Are You a Pirate?
And by pirate, I mean downloading tv shows, movies, and other things off of the internet illegally.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand, paying for it is definitely the right thing to do. In the case of an up-and-coming artist, you are literally taking money out of their pockets if you don’t buy their music. Also, with the availability of DRM-free music at a great price, there is really no need to download music illegally anymore. But recently, a scenario presented itself where I justifies downloading a tv show off of a torrent site.
Some friends of mine wanted to watch the Academy wards a few weeks ago, but because they work pretty late sometimes, they could not watch it. Since they don’t have a Tivo, they were out of luck. They asked me to record it and then burn it to dvd for them. Well, after 3 days of trying to get it from my DVR to a DVD, I decided that the only other option was to download it off of the internet, then burn it to dvd for them.
In a situation like that, I really had no other choice. There was not a re-broadcast of the Oscars, so pirating it was the only option.
Was I justified in this scenario?
It’s the Oscars — which means that it’s hardly worth watching once and is definitely not something you keep in your DVD catalogue for posterity’s sake unless you’ve managed to actually win one. Or if someone on the red carpet (Scarlett Johannsen or Isla Fisher for example) is wearing a red spaghetti strap dress and the straps break and all is revealed. Unfortunately, due to the forced lag that was implemented after the Janet Jackson scandal (seriously, scandal? it was just a harmless boob), that’ll never happen and if it does we’ll never actually see it until it’s leaked onto the internet anyway.
So sure you’re justified only because you’re not keeping it for you and you’re trying to help some friends out.
I agree 100% with everything you said there.
I used to sail the high seas. No depth was too deep for me to go for free treasure. Arrrrrg! Anyway, I’ve essentially hung up my pirate hat.
I do download the occasional TV show though. We try to program the VCR (we only have like 12 real channels of basic cable, so paying for a DVR seems like overkill for us) in advance when we know we’re going to miss something, but that doesn’t always work. Wouldn’t the corporate owners of a TV show prefer that I download a single episode to keep up as opposed to just saying “I’m out of the loop, forget about that show this season”?
It was probably bad of me to download ‘Tin Man’ since I don’t pay for the SciFi channel. But I deleted it after we watched it, so as long as I rent the DVD’s sometime, I should be in the clear ethically, right?
I agree with you. I downloaded a show called “The Shiled”, and if I end up liking it, I will probably buy it, and that will make the studios money. At least, that is how I justify it
@ Jason:
What’d you think of Tin Man?
The wife and I thought it could have been cut in half and been made really exciting and really good. But the six hour presentation just had lag after lag. The middle section was probably the slowest part (if I remember correctly). But then if I wanted a tight film with great writing that was consistently good for its entire runtime, I probably would be watching something other than the Sci-Fi channel.
@Adam: Since this is on “teh publick interwebs”, let me quote my “friend” Mason. “My two biggest moments in downloading TV shows have been with House, MD and Mystery Science Theater 3000. We found out about House with only 2 episodes left in the season. So in the week before the season finale aired, I grabbed the entire season up to those last two episodes. It was hard finding people sharing the older episodes (had to try some different P2P mediums) but I eventually got ‘em all and we had quite a marathon that week. I did buy the season 1 DVD set when it came out (just to be a good boy). As for MST3K….well, I have every episode sitting on an extra 160GB hard drive in my PC. Haven’t watched any of them in a long time, but I simply can’t throw it all away after all that work and with all that awesomeness.” Oh that crazy Mason.
@ jofusthaniel: I liked it a lot (although I have a married-man crush on Zoey Deschanel, so take my words with a grain of salt). I agree that it was too drawn out in parts and needed to be condensed. Even with stories I love, like Dune, I’d agree that the Sci-Fi channel needs work in that department.
Yeah, if you spend a week downloading something, you deserve to watch them!
I too have a married-man crush on Zooey. My wife knows and is fine with.