“As much as people are advocating piracy nowadays, do yourselves a favor: There’s a lot of music, movies, games, and software out there that’s definitely worth the money. Buy your stuff.”

I posted that on Facebook recently, and a shortened version of it on Twitter, and I stand by it. Right now, everyone who uses the Internet is entangled in a power struggle between intellectual property protection and an open, free Internet. I feel like I should chime in.

I’m not a big fan of stealing. Theft, in all aspects, should be frowned upon. But like nearly every single person who’s ever used the ‘net, I’ve done it. But only once can I say I’ve done it because I can’t truly afford to get it legitimately. That was FL Studio. And guess what? The first chance I got, I bought it. They seem a little lax on the issue, but I bought it. And not the version I pirated either; I pirated a barebones copy and only used it for drum programming. I ended up shelling out for the whole shebang: The Signature Bundle. I got it during Christmas, but it was still $150 out of my pocket.

And it felt good.

To this day, I refuse to use any software for making music that I haven’t actually purchase legitimately or isn’t freeware. Those sweet strings you can hear in “In Over Your Head” on Dynamite Headdy: Secret Bonus Point? That’s Miroslav Philharmonik CE, bought and paid for. And I’m glad I did.

That, to me, is the best piracy deterrent. It all revolves around whether or not something is really worth it.

For music, it’s kind of a given. Mainstream artists still insist on charging nearly $20 for songs that, quite frankly, aren’t that good, but the general public eats up anyway because the modern music machine is completely broken (that’s another story). This article on ArsTechnica yields some very interesting numbers, though: Only 2% of Americans are “heavy pirates” of music, having over 1,000 pirated tracks in their libraries. And getting with the times? 46% of pirates stated that they scaled back their piracy thanks to the advent of newer ways to get music legally. Digitally purchasing music does work. It’s the future. CDs are pretty much already outdated, much to the chagrin of the RIAA. And all of this is the same with movies and TV shows. Netflix, Hulu, ect…. The possibilities are endless.

Software piracy, of course, is also an issue. As is game piracy, especially on the PC. But most of this is the fault of the developers.

Yeah, that’s right. Wipe that shocked look off your face and keep reading.

Take Assassin’s Creed 2, for example. It’s one of my favorite examples. Ubisoft made a great game with AC2. And I was full-on ready to buy it when it came out. Especially if it meant some more money going into Jesper Kyd’s pockets (huge Jesper Kyd fan right here). But then, they announced the DRM. You’d have to maintain a constant connection to the Internet and Ubisoft’s servers to play it. A single-player game required a constant (not one-time, like many other PC games nowadays) connection to the Internet for, as far as I know, the first time in PC gaming history. This is the best example of what was intended to be an anti-piracy deterrent turning into a piracy incentive. Within a week or so of the game’s release, a well-known piracy group had already cracked the game wide open and made it so you didn’t need to buy the game, nor connect to the Internet to play it. Ubisoft made a game that was more of a hassle for legitimate users to play than people who stole the game.

And game companies keep doing this. They’re bringing about their own destruction by coming up with these really flawed attempts to stop pirates, instead making things harder for customers that pay for the game than it is for people who don’t pay a dime, with the only effect on piracy being an increase of it. This is why piracy exists.

Another reason is the lack of a demo. In console gaming, this could work; You know the game’s gonna run on your console. All you need to do is read up about the game, watch a few videos, and you can make up your mind on whether or not it’s something you want to fork over $60 for. With PC gaming, you can’t do that. You want to know how the game is going to run on your system before spending your hard-earned cash on it. So you get a demo. But for some reason or another, many PC game developers aren’t putting out demos for their games, instead expecting people to just fork over their cash for a game that may or may not be worth it given their system. And no, the system requirements are not a good indicator. Dragon Age, Halo 2, and many others are a testament to just how misleading that label can be. So there’s really only one solution; pirate the game, and if you like it, buy it. But sometimes, some people that pirate just don’t bother paying for the full game. They went through all the trouble of looking for a non-existent demo, and ended up pirating instead to see how the game would run, and now that they have it, why not finish it? In this way, by skimping out on the development of a demo, game developers lose what would have been paying customers.

To this day, I’ve never pirated a game I felt was worth it without paying for it eventually. I pirated Deus Ex: Human Revolution because it didn’t have a demo and found myself buying it before I finished the first visit to Detroit. Best $30 I’ve spent in a while. And I’m freakin glad I did it. It’s an amazing game, and it deserves to be paid for.

So what does SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA have to do with this? All three of those acts are grown from the same vine; On the outside, it looks like it’d be the fruit of justice, ensuring that hard-working musicians (that hits home), artists, directors, actors, game developers, ect all get their just compensation for providing the entertainment that, in my opinion, defines the beginning of the 21st century. But it hides a bitter aftertaste in the form of an extremely censored Internet that strikes fear into the hearts of innovators such as myself. Most people that know me online know me as DusK, a person that (aside from playing lots of video games) pays tribute to the art form of video game music by creating interpretive arrangements of it, or in some instances, direct covers. If SOPA, PIPA, or ACTA were to pass, I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore. That’s why I fully oppose all three of these acts, as well as the attack on Internet privacy introduced by SOPA author Lamar Smith, HR 1981.

But it doesn’t stop there. Fanfiction, fanart, fan videos (which make up a vast majority of YouTube content) would be suppressed for fear of legal action, even given the scope of fair use. This, my friends, would be the end of the golden age of the Internet, not even a decade after it began.

“So whose side are you on, DusK?!” The side of reason. Piracy exists because of them. Because of the corporations, because of overzealous game developers and publishers, musicians who want to charge out the ass for utter crap, movie producers and Hollywood execs who want people to funnel a 75+% profit into their gold-lined suit pockets, and various other people who still insist on trying their hardest not to be obsolete and keep the money fountains on in this glorious digital age. But, it’s no fault of ours, the common user, for not wanting to be the faucets. And we need to show them that. But that can’t be done if people are greedy. Then it does become our fault. Do you really want it to be your fault?

So I’m standing by my quote. This attack on a free and open Internet can’t be waged with teenager-style rebellion, by pirating everything you possibly can as a way of saying “Hey look at me, I’m breaking the rules.” There are musicians out there who take very little profit from their album sales and make it up by pouring their hearts out during absolutely incredible live shows. There are TV show and movie creators that make their stuff available for streaming and pack their DVD collections with loads of extras that make the purchase worth it. There are game developers that require no more than a single activation on Steam or nothing more than a CD key to run their games, opting out of restrictive DRM, and put out demos for their products. Give your money to them. If it’s something you want, and they’re pulling out the stops to make legally owning it almost completely hassle-free, then buy it. There’s no better way to show the proponents of either side of the piracy debate that there are business models out there that make something worth buying even if you can get it for free. That, and the warm fuzzy feeling you get from supporting those who make your lives better by providing quality stuff.

Piracy is a symptom, not the problem. But until the underlying problem for that symptom is treated as a whole, spend your money on stuff that remains free of the underlying problem. It’s hypocritical to expect producers, musicians, game developers, and other creative entities to do their part without us doing ours.