Do you purchase products after pirating them?

[Jeleh]

Hey guys,

There have been a few threads on pirating recently that have sprung to mind, and there is currently an active one at over 40 pages. However, what I am interested to know is do those of you that pirate material eventually go on to buy it?

Please be honest about the matter this is not a discussion about the rights and wrongs of pirating but an attempt to gain some insight into how many people first pirate material and then go on to buy the product because they liked it.

I am interested in the general view/opinion as I have what i consider a decent dvd collection (over 1k dvd's) of which at least 50% i watched online before I ended up later purchasing them. Most of which i never would have gone to the cinema to see, or series i followed on the net i never would have fallen in love with. However I have been told that I am infact the minority in this issue, so post a response and any feedback you have.

[Jokerfiend]

Depends, I have pirated, UO, WoW, a lot of music, movies, and umm numerous other games. I have bought WoW, UO I paid for BEFORE PIRATING was a thing, and a lot of music.

What I use pirating for is testing of the product and /or using it AFTER I have paid for the product. Rarely do use it for gain, I guess you can say testing the product is a gain, but I see it as something games should come standard with in this day and age.

Pirating isn't that bad considering it COULD be A LOT worse. People now a days, if they are going to pirate, there isn't a stop to them. There will ALWAYS be a pirate bay.

[Marksman79]

Depends, I have pirated, UO, WoW, a lot of music, movies, and umm numerous other games. I have bought WoW, UO I paid for BEFORE PIRATING was a thing, and a lot of music.

What I use pirating for is testing of the product and /or using it AFTER I have paid for the product. Rarely do use it for gain, I guess you can say testing the product is a gain, but I see it as something games should come standard with in this day and age.

Pirating isn't that bad considering it COULD be A LOT worse. People now a days, if they are going to pirate, there isn't a stop to them. There will ALWAYS be a pirate bay.

You pirated WoW? After buying it? Uhh... what?

OT: As a college student, stuff is really expensive. Pirating is often the best option in many cases, especially programs and books that I need for a single course...

[Deleted]

Well, it depends. I don't generally see them as linked.

For example I sometimes go to see a movie and then download a copy a year later or something. So it's kinda like buying it before and pirating after?

But no, it's generally buy or pirate. If it is something good from a respectable company I buy it right away, if it some shady stuff I'm not sure about I download it but if it is good, I might buy their next product right away.

[Deleted]

You pirated WoW? After buying it? Uhh... what?

Private servers bro, private servers.

[Jeleh]

Im thinking of cases like say TV series, which you wouldn't have followed despite enjoying due to a busy lifestyle for example. Yet when you had the chance, sat and watched them all online, loved them, bought them.

Or a film you didn't think was worth paying £20+ for a trip to the cinema for, yet when you saw it you loved it and then went and bought it (shutter island for me)

[Vorsyn]

I voted for Yes I pirated, and I buy them 25% of the time. I myself am 29 years old, and have been gaming since Nintendo. In my years, I've probably spent thousands of dollars on video games, and I remember when having Demo's for games was a mainstream idea, and occurred more frequently than today.

I believe that pirating games, or movies now a days is more like demoing the game. There are games I have pirated that I would not spend $15 on, let alone the $60 they ask. Games that are released with bugs, or only last 3-4 hours for a premium $60 price tag. There are several titles that I have purchased after playing for a short time as pirated. There are also some that I pirated after a purchased product.. Skyrim for example. I bought Skyrim on Ps3,.. then after the lagfest/bugfest that it was, I pirated it for PC and it runs so much better.


Anyways, point I'm trying to make here is, until companies stop putting out shoddy, unfinished, buggy products, I will find my demo's on piratebay.

[Providence]

nope. I pirate it and never look back

[DeusX]

After long years of using pirated antivirus, I got fed up and started using a free one. And then after that, for a year and a half now, I am using a legal, licensed, payed antivirus.

I also want to buy Total Commander because I have used it for many years as pirated copy, but I still think the price is too high for a single license (35 euro / 44$). I would only pay max 20 euro.
I try to keep the usage of illegal software on my machines to a minimum (only 3 programs with no license currently). I am switching all my working environment to Linux now.

So, instead of buying, I decided to replace:
- Nero latest version with ImgBurn + a light, bundled version of Nero 9 (which came with my retail DVDRW unit)
- ACDSee with Irfanview
- Zend Development Environment (400$+) with Notepad++ and Eclipse PDT

I would also switch from MS office because, for personal usage, I don't use all it's incredible features, but since all documents come in MS format, I still stick to it.
The rest of the stuff I use it's free and some it's been free for ages.

[Lagwin]

Never pirated games.
Movies about 50%...depends on the movie though, would be more if i had a job.
TV shows i prefer to buy but money is my constraint...usualy dl and watch them then delete them, quite glad i've done that for some shows, LOST, Battlestar Galactica are definitely lack luster and i would have bought them going by what most ppl say about them...glad i didn't
Anime probably 25% i actually buy although this would be a lot more if i had a job

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I don't pirate programs directly (have my computer setup like Fort Knox to not download questionable material), but have come across what others have downloaded.

Original Sims game: Liked it so much bought 2 versions of it; bought Sims 3 and Sims Medieval. Enjoy the franchise.
Photoshop (really early version years ago, and never went back until recently): Didn't want to buy it at all. Frankly didn't want to use it, as I don't like how Photoshop operates and it's soooo buggy -- Apple like.
Early Windows: Preferred BASIC and DOS type back then. It took a pirated copy to get me to switch. Otherwise, I'd probably be using *BSD these days.

[Mechazod]

I do three forms of pirating:

1: If its a game that is only released as a download I will pirate it with no moral guilt. For example Mega Man 9 & 10, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Contra Rebirth, etc. I have all pirated. If however any of the companies released an actual physical copy of a game that I have downloaded I will always delete the version I pirated and go out and buy brand new the physical version, I have no problem paying full price or a little more for a physical copy of something but I refuse to pay money for something I am only getting a digital copy of.


2: The second form I do is for old games that are ridiculous prices that I currently want to play but am not at the time willing to fork over 100 dollars plus for. These games I will download and then burn onto disks and play on the systems they came out for or if its a cartridge game I will use a emulator. For example before I got my real copy of Radiant Silvergun I had burned a copy onto a disk and played it on my Saturn, when I got a real version of it I used that instead and no longer used the burned copy.


3: MAME. Basically if I had the room and money I would buy all the arcade boards and cabinets I could but I unfortunately can not so I must settle for downloaded ROM versions of arcade games.


Basically if I can buy it in a physical form then I will always delete the pirated version when I acquire it. If everything truly does become pure downloads only for games then I can easily see myself becoming a pure pirating asshole.


Oh and also even though I don't do it that much I also if given the opportunity will pirate the living hell out of any and all DLC content. Same rules apply for the games though, if a version comes out with the DLC included then I will delete the pirated content.

[Deleted]

No, I don't really care about TV and movies, but when it comes to music, I feel very guilty afterwards if I happen to get really into the artist whose music I pirated. (Owl City and Rise Against, I'm lookin' at you!)

I wish more artists followed Jonathan Coulton's example of having a donation box available on the product page their website about which JoCo states:

"Already Stole It? No problem. If you’d like to donate some cash, you can do so through the PayPal link in the sidebar."

To me, that's a good idea and I would be a lot more inclined to throw artists the occasional appreciative and guilt-sodden 5 bucks if it was made easier for me to do so.
Kind of reminiscent of the business model Trent Reznor used for Ghosts.

[Deleted]

Yes, if I truly liked it. This way I support the company that made it. So I guess that counts as 50-50?

[papajohn4]

All the games I have bought I first played them cracked..when I realized they are good games I then bought them. That includes even Skyrim that I was 90% sure it was going to be epic game..

[Wekapedia]

- ACDSee with Irfanview

You should give XnView/XnViewMP a whirl. It's a lot closer to ACDSee in functionality.

[Deleted]

I only pirate games that dont release demos so that i can test if it actually works on my computer (those "will this work on my system" sites suck). If it does then i'll buy it, if not i delete it. If companies stopped being lazy with releasing demos then i wouldn't have to do it :P

[Deleted]

No, but I have purchased other things by the same artist (music) after discovering them through pirated albums.

[Repefe]

I buy game if its theme is what I would like the industry to focus on more. Even if I don't end up playing the game for long. Rift, SWTOR, TSW are games like that. GW2 I will probably buy two copies for the same reason. If some really great single player game appears I like to try it first before I buy it.

[Deleted]

If I enjoy a piece of music or film, that I have downloaded, then yes I will 90% of the time buy it.

if I'm meh about it, no way