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Waffle-Wizard — Just don't, you'll look stupid
Published: 2011-03-05 17:47:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 738; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 5
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Description
Now, hear me out before you comment.First things first, the stamp template used to be available here: [link] but I think it was deleted. It turns up a 404 page now. Eh, either way it was done by ~Abfc a while back. I'll ask them about it, I guess.
Now, let me tell you about this stamp. First of all, I know a lot of people who do illegal things. Namely pirating. I'm not looking to start a fight with these people.
OK, pirating is illegal and I still have yet to find a person who can convince me that it is _not_ the same thing as stealing. I still don't want to pick a fight with you, because I've been there before, I'll be there again, and I don't care.
Rather, this stamp is to call out people who really _do_ get in trouble and then act like they're being repressed or censored or something.
Recently a hardware cracker, whose name slips my mind but I think it was geohot or geohop or something like that. He became famous for doing a LOT of illegal things with hardware, including with the iPhone and PlayStation 3.
Sony finally got sick of his PS3 antics and decided to sue him, and in response he made a really annoying rap music video telling them to bring it on.
Here's a question, geohook, you call yourself the "personification of freedom for all" (yes, he used that wording). Does "all" include the people who would lose their jobs if you succeeded?
People like this really get on my nerves. WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS ILLEGAL. THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUE YOU. You're not repressed! You're not a rebel! You don't represent any kind of freedom act! You're just a baby who doesn't want to pay for something you don't own! Don't act like you're the savior of mankind just because you vandalized the side of someone's wall or illegally downloaded a game. You're just being an idiot. And when you tell large companies who have been around since before you were born to "bring it on," I better not hear any complaining when you eventually end up in the slammer.
Sorry, I went from explaining my stamp to ranting for a while there. I sincerely apologize.
Enjoy this stamp. Use it for whatever.
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Comments: 13
It's surprising how hard it is to find an anti-piracy stamp. This is the closest I've gotten. I don't get it. Fact is, piracy is killing the music and movie industry. If everybody did it, there would be no movies or music to download, legally or not.
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There's an odd double-standard when it comes to theft and illegality. It was once widely accepted that if you take something without paying for it (and, of course, the distributor isn't giving it away for free) then that's stealing, but for some reason nowadays we have to apply context to the whole thing.
I won't argue that there aren't ethics that make stealing the right thing to do. There are. The problem is that a good majority of pirates aren't Robin Hood. They're just stealing things and then distributing them.
For some reason stealing a painting is stealing and stealing a book is stealing but stealing anything stored digitally, like music or video games or movies, is just "distributing information," which is complete bullshit. The value of the item is in the work that was put into it. In cases like Okami, where the developers were fired and their work stolen by the publishing company, the logic of a pirate makes sense because you can support the developers and punish the thieves. But in most cases the only difference between piracy and stealing is whether it's performed digitally.
Vandals are like this too. It's not graffiti anymore, it's "street art." Which doesn't change the fact that you're messing with someone else's property and that's the only reason street artists use that medium. And then there's website vandalism. For some reason people are way more nonchallant about vandalizing a website, but just watch Anonymous collect some spray paint and wreck an actual wall. Guarantee maybe one out of 30 people would actually show up to that party, and one of them would be a cop.
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What many people seem to skimp out on, though, is that a lot of pirates pirate for a reason.
I'll pay for your fucking soundtrack when you drop the price of just 30 songs down from 70 dollars and an extra 30 for shipping, and I'll buy the original game cartridge when you stop trying to sell it for 120. Pirates pirate for a lot of reasons, and mine are fairly valid; it's either ridiculously expensive, too obscure to obtain, or simply not sold anymore.
I damnwell WILL stick it to the man until they stop fucking selling 12 songs at 3 minutes a piece with extra bullshit for 70 dollars in retail.
Now the Okami soundtrack sells for 40 dollars for 218 tracks! If it wasn't so rare I'd have imported the CDs. :C
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Ah, motivation, that little detail that makes absolutely everything complicated.
Yeah, when you bring that argument into it it gets just a little bit iffy. It becomes a question of whether your morals will allow you to steal a CD over supporting a company that's clearly trying to steal from you. Ethics is complicated like that.
How does a foreign soundtrack of 218 tracks sell for only 40 bucks? I think I paid more than that for the Myst soundtrack.
Although I did pay significantly less than that for my NES, so maybe karma had it coming for me XD
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I am not going to deny I've stolen things for the sake of "I don't want to buy it", but there's stuff like Johnny Bravo, Ed Edd & Eddy, Freakazoid, and Earthworm Jim that never got put on DVD or the DVDs just aren't sold here, and Americans like to stiff us on the latter. I honestly don't think piracy is stealing from anything but the music companies, which is stealing from the artist anyway, and besides, people like you exist in as vast of amounts as pirates, so it all balances out on its own. You guys are the artists' income, and we get and circulate the shit that you can have skip free when your CD craps out.
I have no idea why Okami's CD was so cheap. Maybe the shipping would be over-the-top? Maybe it was popular? Or maybe the Japanese are just awesome like that. Who knows.
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I don't really know the statistics of music and TV show/movie DVDs, but the actual ratio of piracy to legit sales in video games is actually 4:1 on average. It's kind of a big deal for companies these days, especially since the economy means pretty much everybody's going under.
I just don't pirate because I believe in supporting the company. I feel that if something is worth stealing, it's worth paying for. It really is just me.
Like I said, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. If the victim companies and the Feds really cared you'd see a lot less people going on YouTube and saying "well, I pirated Okami recently so here's my Let's Play" or something like that. Or at least you'd see more of them complaining that they got arrested shortly after posting the video.
To be perfectly honest, I just made this stamp because I like laughing at Geosnot.
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But the thing is that geo dude? He was a bonafide douchebag. Not everyone in the piracy loop is. Stop stereotyping. :T
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The stamp is only directed at people like him, not at everyone in the piracy loop. Was I not clear on that?
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d'oh - now I have to go rewrite the whole description >_<
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