My p2p dilemma

File-sharing is illegal. I’m sure everyone is well aware of this thanks to the large amount of anti-piracy and anti-theft marketing schemes such as the “you wouldn’t steal” advert below which is shown before you watch a rented movie:

You see, I am in a huge dilemma as to whether I should download or not. The problem is, all the software and movies and games and music are just too expensive for one to consider buying in the real world when there is an alternative such as the Internet. In this aspect, I agree completely with the greens. Why should consumers have to suffer the prices which monopolies such as Adobe attach to their products. Has anyone purchased the Creative Suite 3 Master Collection recently? That’s a huge hole in one’s pocket which can be dodged with a simple download. Who in their right mind would spend $2,500 on buying software when they could download it for free?

What’s the risk of downloading? Well, for one, it’s illegal. You could get fined thousands of dollars for downloading and get your computer confiscated by your government. You might even spend some time in jail if you’re a major offender. Demonoid, my favourite bittorrent tracker, was shut down early November by the authorities who raided their servers and took them off the Internet. Since then I have been using The Pirate Bay and still take great joy in reading their response to legal threats from Multi-national corporations such as Microsoft.

If firms didn’t try to rip off all their potential consumers, I doubt there would be as much downloading as there is. Until then, The Pirate Bay is staying on my bookmarks.

Extra Reading:

• Jean-Claude Elias – With software, rent is always due.