Piracy Really Can Be Justified

are you a pirate no not that kind of pirate this kind of pirate downloading films is stealing if you do it you will face the consequences and that's what we're talking about today stay tuned this is a video that I've wanted to do for a long time I'm not sure why I haven't but every time I get an email from Netflix telling me about their latest price hike I think about doing this video it seems to be happening quite often to be honest with you wasn't there just a Netflix price hike a few months ago it's honestly starting to get really hard to keep up with them then the other day Lewis Rossman beat me to the punch and released a video on essentially the same topic his video was great and I'll link it in the description below I highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already in fact I'm going to reiterate a few of his points points but I think he left a few things out that I think are contributing to the issue and that issue is how easy it's becoming to justify piracy but before we get into that we got to pay some bills so check out today's sponsor is your copy of Windows 10 unactivated well it doesn't have to be because with today's sponsor vipd key you can get a valid Windows 10 license for under $20 stop dealing with that stupid watermark on the desktop the valid license for Windows 10 also with an activated copy of Windows 10 you can upgrade to Windows 11 for free just go to the link in the description below and pick up a valid Windows 10 license key during checkout use the code cyber CPU for a 25% discount once you have your key go to your activation settings in Windows 10 and click on the link that says change product key enter the product key you just purchased and hit activate now you don't have to deal with that stupid Watermark that come with running an unactivated copy of Windows 10 now on with the video I'm going to go out an a limb here and say right from the beginning that I think the majority of piracy is the fault of Publishers I know this sounds a lot like blaming the victim for the crime but in this case I think it's true Publishers have a long history of doing really stupid things to try to curb piracy Sony installed root kits on people's computers in an attempt to stop them from ripping CDs that they legally purchased and we can't forget that record companies spent almost a decade suing people for download in music that was honestly a PR disaster but the one thing it didn't do was stop people from downloading music you know what in fact do you know what did stop people from downloading music Apple boom that's iPod I haven't have one right here in my pocket matter of fact there it is right there so this amazing little device holds a thousand songs and it goes right in my pocket I rag on Apple a lot and honestly I think they're an awful company and they deserve all the criticism that I give them but you can't deny the fact that they revolutionized the way that we purchase music but you know who made it better it was Amazon they may not have been the first ones to do it but they made purchasing music even better by actually selling MP3s without DRM do you notice a pattern here people were not downloading music because they didn't want to pay for it digital music Services proved that they downloaded music because they didn't want to pay for a whole CD and they just wanted one song when I was a kid if I just wanted one song I could call the radio station and request it and then sit in front of my boom box with my finger over the record button until they finally played it sometimes that took a while if it happened at all and it almost always had the DJ's voice over the beginning of the song which you know was kind of annoying but it was the way it was but then came Napster they streamlined the process of getting just the one song that you want it exploded and everyone was using it then Metallica turned into Kens and ruined it for everyone the fall of Napster didn't hurt piracy at all in fact it didn't even slow it down it just made it even better ultimately the bad guys were the record companies and ultimately they were the ones who were right they just went about handling it the wrong way what made piracy popular was the convenience of being able to get whatever media you wanted without the BS when Apple launched iTunes the convenience factor changed and it practically ended music piracy now you could jump on your computer find the song that you wanted pay your 99 Cents and apple would conveniently put it on the device for you but but you know what if you didn't have an iPod that's okay because Amazon decided to go one step further and sell music without DRM that you could put on any device you wanted now today when you want a song the last thing you think of is pirating it because buying it is just easier yes of course there's still piracy and there always will be but the vast majority of people today purchase their music from digital music stores back in the days of Napster the reason why music piracy was so big but movie and software piracy wasn't that big was because everyone was on dialup you can't expect to download a fulllength movie on a 56k modem but as Internet speeds increased pirating movies and software became a lot more convenient so what would make someone rather watch a movie recorded on a camcorder where you can see people standing up in the crowd going to the bathroom in the middle of a movie instead of buying the DVD the answer to that is easy convenience it's more convenient to jump on the internet and download a movie than it is to drive to the store and buy a DVD I mean it doesn't justify it but it is more convenient this started to become just as big of a problem as Napster was to the music industry that was until Netflix Netflix was to the movie industry what Apple was to the music industry they made it more convenient to pay for movies than steal them however Netflix has never been perfect for instance Netflix started their streaming service in 2007 but it wasn't available on Linux or even alternative browsers like Chrome and Firefox until 2014 but regardless of their faults they did take a major chunk out of movie piracy but unfortunately that piracy is making a Resurgence this is because the entire industry is becoming fragmented you no longer just have Netflix now you have Hulu Disney plus Amazon Prime Apple TV Paramount plus HBO Max and you know honestly the list goes on I could be here all day when I first signed up for Netflix it cost me seven bucks a month a week ago I received an email from Netflix telling me that the price is going up to $22.99 now I get it prices change after 16 years but today for $22.99 you don't get the same service as you did when it was $7 in fact it's not the same service at all because if you want to watch Star Wars you need Disney Plus for that that's another $13.99 and if you want Game of Thrones well you're going to need to buy HBO Max and for that it's $19.99 a month I shut off my cable years ago and to be honest with you it's been so long that I don't even remember what year it was but it's been a while the reason I shut my cable off was because I was paying $80 a month and I was only watching a few shows shows that were available on Netflix for $7 a month however now it costs more than cable to have all the different streaming services and you don't even get the benefit of a standardized interface this is leading to more and more people just downloading the content they want from a bit torent site and using a program like Plex to watch it on their devices ultimately it's not even about the money but it's about the convenience it's starting to become more convenient to Pirate content than to pay for it I mean seriously though think about it for a minute Plex can categorize thousands of pirated movies and TV shows and you just sit on your couch go through the unified interface and just pick what you want to watch and push play the reason why piracy is winning is because piracy is easier and more convenient ultimately it has nothing to do with money well to some people it might have to do with money but for the vast majority of people we are willing to pay for Content it's just easier to steal it now I just want to say really quick and I should have probably put this at the beginning of the video I am not advocating for people pirating content I'm just explaining why it's becoming common and why people are justifying it and this finally brings me to software piracy through the history of music and movie piracy we've also had software piracy you know actually lots of game piracy but probably an equal amount of Microsoft Office in Adobe Photoshop and of course the most pirated of all windows now software piracy has always been dealt with differently than media piracy I don't recall software companies suing their customers at least there would be customers for pirating software but there have been lots of instances of pirated software being sabotaged by the publisher there's lots of humorous examples of this like in The Sims 4 when you get naked in the game it pixelates the character model so that you don't see any inappropriate body parts but if you're using a pirated version of the the game then you remain pixelated after you put your clothes on and then the entire map becomes pixelated over time now I'm sorry but that's just hilarious I think software Publishers have all the right in the world to sabotage their software as a way to fight piracy there's even been many instances where games will throw up random errors only for people who are pirating the game so when those people go on social media forms and things of that nature to try to fix those random errors they get exposed as pirates now I seriously think these methods are just hilarious and a great way to get people to buy your game however where the problem comes in is when the game publisher makes the experience for legitimate users worse than for pirates there's countless examples of this like have you ever had activation problems in Windows before do you know who doesn't have activation problems yeah pirates in fact the vast majority of anti-piracy Technology is only burdensome to legitimate paid users of the software do you know who doesn't have to create a rockstar account and install the Rockstar launcher to play GTA 5 or any other Rockstar game yep you guessed it again that would be Pirates going back to Lewis rossman's video lots of companies do ridiculous things to their paying customers that pirates don't have to deal with like Netflix will only play at 720p in a browser so when I'm watching Netflix on my 14 1840p ultrawide monitor that I have to watch it at 720p even though I'm paying $23.99 for a 4K stream I shouldn't have to say this again but guess who can play 4K streams on any device they want without restrictions yeah that would be Pirates while this tactic of piracy hasn't been used in the music and movie industry like the example I just mentioned it pretty much dominates the software industry practically every program you get has to be activated or requires a user account that you will never use again until you have to reinstall the software at a later date while people who pirate the software don't have to worry about any of that now to the credit of the gaming industry specifically valve we have steam which I have to say I believe has curbed the majority of PC game piracy I have to admit that I have pirated a lot of games in the past but I can honestly say that I haven't pirated a single PC game since steam in fact I've even purchased games that I had previously pirated because it's just so easy to have a game already in your steam Library however even that is falling off the rails with multiple game stores competing with steam now if all of these game stores were just trying to work off the same business model then it would be fine however that's not what's happening other game Publishers are creating their own stores and then making their games available only in those specific stores so now depending on what game you want to play you have to have multiple game stores installed on your system luckily this issue isn't as bad as it is with movie streaming services but it has the potential to be ultimately this video is not intended to condone piracy yes it can be justified but you have to remember that software and media doesn't just fall from the heavens people have to make it those people have families to feed and build to pay and they can't pay those bills with everyone downloading their stuff but ultimately you're never going to end piracy but the way that you curb piracy is to make paid content more convenient don't punish your paying customers for wanting to give you money ultimately what little piracy will still happen will be overwhelmed by the paying customers that are happy to pay you for your services but frustrating people is a great way to make Pirates at of paying customers stop making me pay for 37 different streaming services because I simply won't do it just stop making the user experience for paying customers worse than it is for pirates and piracy wouldn't be a problem but with all that said if you like this format of video I've done a few of them check out this one here where I talk about the attack on free speech on social media that one's honestly more important than ever and YouTube really doesn't want you to watch that one it's probably why they don't give me many Impressions on it as always you guys have a great day

Channel: CyberCPU Tech

Views: 32,868

Keywords: is piracy bad?, is piracy always bad?, this is why software Piracy can be justified, this is why software Piracy really can be justified, this is why piracy can be justified, this is why piracy really can be justified, is piracy wrong, is piracy illegal, video game piracy

Id: MbrUS--v8Qg

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023