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When I started pirating things regularly many years ago, I'll admit that some of it was just the fun of having such a huge library of content available for free
by baddox 9y ago
When I started pirating things regularly many years ago, I'll admit that some of it was just the fun of having such a huge library of content available for free, combined with my "f* the RIAA/MPAA" attitude.
I mostly grew out of that phase, and began pirating things mostly to discover new obscure content. What.cd was amazing for music discovery, and I definitely went to a handful of concerts and bought a handful of CDs of bands I almost certainly never would have discovered without what.cd. Same goes for old and indie films.
These days I do very little pirating. I'll occasionally pirate a TV show or film that I can't find on the handful of VOD services I or my friends subscribe to. Say what you will about the bad aspects of the modern media ecosystem: DRM, "stream instead of own," fragmentation, etc. But, at least for me, the industry has done a decent job of competing with piracy on convenience.
- Momquist 9y ago> But, at least for me, the industry has done a decent job of competing with piracy on convenience. It has, but the fragmentation that you mentioned is starting to seriously erode this progress. If the situation worsens on this front, I can definitely see a resurgence of piracy, again because of convenience.
- baddox 9y agoThat’s true. I should also say that I watch a lot less content than I did in college and before, so that’s another big contributing factor.
- tracker1 9y agoAgreed.. I'm paying for Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu... I'm not paying for another service at this point. Not to mention UK content I can't get at any price. I also pay for a seedbox in another country to avoid local issues.
- Tijdreiziger 9y agoThe convenience factor is already catered to by illegal streaming sites mentioned in the article. Anecdotally, out of the people I know, only two still pirate, but a lot use illegal streaming sites.
- vonseel 9y agowhat.cd was amazing. Sad that it was shut down :(
- baddox 9y agoMuch has been written about it, but I agree that it feels like a “burning of the library of Alexandria” moment.
- tracker1 9y agoI miss napster for that... I bought so many CDs when Napster was around (the original), that I bought in the many years since.