Adventures in illegal downloading

Brandon Russell | Epress Coeditor in Chief
[email protected]

Let’s face it, downloading copyrighted material, whether it’s music, video games, movies, TV shows, or books, is illegal—even for poor college students.

People put all kinds of spin on the subject to justify what is essentially shoplifting for the 21st century. Some people insist that they will, eventually, legally buy everything that they pirate. Others blame it on the poor quality of entertainment produced today. It’s still stealing though.

That said, I do have a huge music collection that is much more expensive than I would shell out the money for. I’ve also seen a bunch of B grade films that, from the previews alone, I had decided that I wouldn’t pay to watch. I’ve done my fair share of pirating, but I remain conflicted about it.
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On the one hand, I don’t like the idea of stealing. I would never walk into a store and steal the things that I have pirated. It’s dishonest and there is an amount of shame that accompanies shoplifters who get caught. People, friends and family think of you differently after they have found out that you were caught stealing. Why should you feel better about illegal downloading than shoplifting? It’s even harder to justify pirating movies and music with services like iTunes and Netflix offering on-demand entertainment for better-than-ever prices.

But on the other hand, there is an amount of pride, if ever so little, that comes with being a pirate. It reminds me of rough- and -tough seafaring adventurers, certainly not noble, but defiant and free. And if you subscribe to the belief that stealing music only harms record companies and not artists themselves, as most of their money is made on tour, then there is an element of “sticking it to the Man” in there as well. 

I have money put aside for music from my favorite artists and tickets to must-see movies, but as a working college student, I don’t have money to budget for junk-food entertainment.

Downloading pirated material is illegal and can’t be reasonably justified, even for poor students. I want entertainers to produce higher quality material – the kind of entertainment that people want to pay for.