I just got this good article written by Tim O’Reilly, (publisher, O’Reilly books) about Online Piracy, and why it isn’t at all that bad.

I had obtained it from the textz.gnutenberg site, which is itself a pirate site.

I ask myself “Am I a pirate?” or “Am I indulging in Software Piracy/Copyright infringement?” And I try to answer my own question.

Music first. I got into mp3s because of three things:

• I was getting tired of the sequential format of tapes. If I like a song, I would have to rewind to listen to it again, whereas with mp3s, I click to play again.
• A lot of new stuff that would have cost me a fortune to dabble in. Yeah, “dabble” is the right word. I could listen to a song I wanted, and if I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to waste time ruing the fact that I spent 125 rupees for nothing.
• Quality consciousness came pretty late, but it crept in, all the same. I can no longer stand the irritating hiss in tapes, and sometimes ( that is now) even the flanging on certain 128-kbps encoded mp3s makes me cringe.

So fine, I have a huge stack of mp3s at my home, probably stuff I will never listen to in my life. ( Reba McIntyre? Gorefest? Children of Bodom? Naaaah! ) All neatly ( and in some cases, not so neatly) arranged in boxes and plastic cases and suchlike. I also copy cds, a lot of cds, mostly from my friends, because the stuff they usually buy is stuff that I need. In some cases, they get original cds from their friends, and I make copies for them, too.

I also buy cds from second-hand sources, and in grimy shops tucked away in dark corners for the sole reason that they are offering a substantial discount ( which can vary between 25% and 70% )

Does all the above make me a pirate? Should I choke with guilt everytime I see or read stuff about piracy? Will the RIAA sue me, someday?

That’s not all. My computer at home runs on an unlicensed version of Windows ’98. I also buy games, most or all of which are pirated. ( I think the only legitimate game I bought so far has been Baldur’s Gate, and that was at a 50% discount sale.) I have access to a lot of DivX movies, and copied VCDs, which I will get around to seeing, someday. The other day, I downloaded a demo version of Fruity Loops v3.56 for the sole reason that I already had a Crack to it, and I wanted to see if it works fine or not. It does, and I have it running at home. And about warez book sites, the less said, the better.

This might sound sick, but I don’t feel the least bit guilty about all this. The reasons?

• I also happen to be one of those compulsive CD-buyers. I mean, stuff I really, really want, I would never copy it, I would rather spend money to get it from some place. ( Of course, it’s much better when I can use a friend’s Music World discount card) For instance, if I find Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, or Peter Gabriel’s Passion, I would buy them Blindly, no thought. Except, of course, they shouldn’t be something more than the average market price.
• I have never, in my life, uploaded any stuff online. My stuff is mine, and my friends are free to take things they want, and I pass it on to them. Or at least make a copy. Not to faceless strangers, thank you. The Napster revolution passed me by, ( we RECians lived in a day and age when it was considered COOL when one could download a 600kb pdf without clicking “refresh” 8-9 times.) So I have never downloaded too much stuff either. The only album I downloaded was the Spiderman OST, and I got the cd as a gift three months later.
• Suppose I want to hear something real bad. One of those itches…like I have to listen to Meja’s All About the Money today or I will die. What do I do? First thing is, it would take me ages to find a cd on the market that contains the song, and secondly, will I really pay 350-525 rupees for one song?
• I wouldn’t get to hear all this good stuff, and appreciate them, if mp3s weren’t around. Nine Inch Nails in an Indian shop? Phish? The Bram Stoker’s Dracula OST? Where the heck do I get them?
• Games and software. OK, so when I was a college student, I simply wouldn’t be able to afford money for a Windows license. Now that I am working, why don’t I get one? Main thing – of course – is money. I would rather prefer a buggy cracked version of Win 98 than a licensed Win XP, because well, the only things that run on it are Winamp, Fruity Loops and games. Also, getting Linux Drivers for Creative Surround is difficult, basically I wouldn’t have the time to configure everything. Laziness, remember?

Ok, so maybe that was a lame excuse.

• Games are highly overpriced in India. Again, I wouldn’t know if I would like a particular game before I played it, and there aren’t any sampling booths out here.
• Books: I buy loads of them. All second-hand/discounted. The warez sites are for those that I want to try out, or stuff that I haven’t found, or books that are at home, and I want to refer to it sometimes. As to why I buy only second-hand books, I think it’s better for them to have a nice, caring owner rather than being picked up by some oddball who wanted to give it a “try”. Frankly, I think those kind of people should stick to Chicken-Soup books.

So. Am I a pirate? Even if I am, I am keeping all my stuff. And getting more. Please don’t let me get arrested, God.

Addendum: Read This, too.