Instead of a headband - glasses, a saber replaced with a computer mouse, a wooden leg left aside. Pirates are not the same anymore, but still finding a niche for themselves. Where is it coming from?
(This article is an author’s thoughts that have no basis in any official research. If you intend to use it for further discussion, do so at your own risk.)
Regardless of whether we are dealing with film productions, series, music or digital games, the distribution of illegal copies of them is unfortunately quite good. Producers of these cultural products try to prevent the distribution of stolen intellectual value in various ways, but for piracy lovers, these attempts only present further challenges. One could write endlessly about the security features and how to break them, and much has already been written, but this time we will look at things much more primal. Why do people use pirated copies at all?
Up to one hundred thousand bitcoins!
When thinking about the activities of modern pirates, everyone will immediately give one specific reason for their popularity: the price. It cannot be denied that the amount we have to spend on entertainment is constantly increasing, which is especially visible in the case of computer games. Increasing production costs mean that the creators are forced to demand more for their works than in the past, but thanks to this we get better quality products (unless the author is Uwe Boll or another troublemaker who hates people, but there is no such field where there were no extremes). However, not everyone can understand why modern games cost much more than those from fifteen years ago, so with screams accusing programmers of greed, they reach for pirated versions of the coveted titles. Ba! Many can’t even understand how can you ever put money for such attractions After all, as the sage Janusz says: “if you can have something for free without consequences, why should we pay for it?”
Image by Felix Lichtenfeld from Pixabay
I’m not able to do it? Hold me rum!
Another problem is people’s mentality. In this case, however, there can be no one universal reason, but each case must be considered individually. An example is, for example, local restriction of distribution by censorship. It is not only the righteous protection of citizens by powerful China or the happiest Korea against depravity, we can encounter a similar problem quite close, because in Germany. Doing so causes people to have limited access to tempting titles or to get a different version of them. Given that human nature does not like to be constrained, citizens are looking for alternative ways to buy, one of which is piracy.
The situation is different in our backyard. Fortunately, censorship is not valid in our country and serves only to shape public opinion, but does not affect our ability to learn about a wide range of cultural productions. The problem of piracy in Poland, fortunately less and less, is dictated rather by its twisted past. Personally, I see the role of the former system in this, which liked to create state property at the expense of private property. The nationalization of industry and property made people no longer respect property, and the appropriation was motivated by the fact that the state would not impoverish on a few items. Although the Polish People’s Republic did not recover after my birth and after less than half a year he ended his life, the only correct concept of the world, dug for decades, penetrated the minds of generations,
Image by Felix Lichtenfeld from Pixabay
In Poland, the free market was revived, people regained a wider right to be owned, and “state property” turned into a common good. Unfortunately, just as a learned mentality prevents many from realizing that common property belongs, as the name implies, to all of us, and not merely to an artificial creation, so is the philosophy of appropriation still alive in the nation. Add to this the belief that entrepreneurs are incarnate with stubbornness that they want to enslave the poor working people and use them to the limit to fill their already bloated pockets and we have a truly explosive mixture. After all, pirates are fighting the injustice of an exploiting state and damned privateers, right?
Arrr, arrr, I know better, miserable
When it comes to mentality, however, there is one common aspect that binds everyone, regardless of latitude, and that is the sense of injustice. What inequality are we talking about? And about the conviction that actors, singers, directors, and everyone involved in creating entertainment earn immeasurably more than the average Kowalski, Nowak or Konstantynopolitańczykowiak. However, in this case, it is difficult not to admit at least a little right, after all, for many of the artists mentioned, contracts worth millions are everyday life, large villas and sumptuous banquets are small things, and some of them compensate for their IQ deficiencies with empty bragging about their wealth. However, is the fact that “he still has enough, so you can copy his work”, an excuse for simple theft?
Sometimes there is also the issue of facilitated accessibility. After all, you have to wait for such a series until the right time to broadcast or bother with setting up an account and subscribing to online services. In turn, blockbuster movies take time to turn a paid single watch into a more affordable and slightly cheaper record edition. Why wait when you can take advantage of the spiralized versions and keep a feast for the eyes on your disc to enjoy whenever you want? Well, maybe to get a sumptuous dinner, not a broken hunk of dried bread with moldy jam filmed in the cinema with a hidden calculator?
Image by Felix Lichtenfeld from Pixabay
Piracy is a simple theft often combined with stolen goods, I have no doubts about it. To justify this phenomenon in any way is not worthy of praise, and its universality can only be sad. In all of this, however, the most unpleasant thing is that probably each of us has once benefited from this practice, to a greater or lesser extent. Whoever has not reached for the “pirate” at least once, let him throw the stone first.
