Piracy is a crime. Are we ready?

Personal

How many times have we heard that tagline, piracy is a crime? Hundreds? Do we realize the fairness and lawfulness of the tagline? Yes, we do. But still, we will always try to find our own justifications. Some will say something like “Why should we buy the legal ones if we can have it for one-hundredth of its legal price?” or a more popular version of it, “I can’t afford legal ones. Those stuffs are simply way too expensive for me.”

Now, sit back and take a look at ourselves. Where are we at weekends? Shopping malls? What are we holding now? Expensive Nokia Nseries cellphones? Fancy Sony Ericsson Wseries phones? And what is that in our bag? An iPod? – Ahh, that’s why we feel that we are inside a box of total disability to pay for legal things.

Take a look around. Notice how many pirated stuffs there are around us; at least we will probably find DVDs, computer softwares, and MP3s – imagine how much the fun we got from those stuffs. Have it ever come to our mind that we can have it legally? Maybe, start to have it legally? Or at least, consider to have it legally for some of those which are not that too expensive. Hahaha.. LOL. Well, that’s not about being inconsistent, but merely start to do things that we can afford to do.

Go to movies instead of buying pirated DVDs.

Why should we go to movies instead of buying pirated DVDs? Because it’s legal. And don’t you realize that the current competition on movie theater industry in Indonesia has gone mad and it leads to the big price cuts in entrance fees? So, legal movies is not that expensive, isn’t it? Plus, we get the sensation of super-big screen, applauds and boos from audiences – especially when it comes to the pause when technical problem occurs, and get happy spending some of your time with our friends! Try Blitzmegaplex, they are good. In Bandung, we can watch you favorite movie for as cheap as Rp 15.000 – it’s legal.

Softwares? Start from a cheap one: Antivirus.

Have we ever got the feeling of total desperation when you realize that your laptop has been knocked-down by a computer virus? Yes, knocked-down. Press the power button and voilá we can’t even see a thing. Just because we can’t update your antivirus anymore as they find out that we are using the pirated version of the program. The feeling is simply one-of-a-kind, somewhere between the sensation of surprise, distress, and frustration. Then we grumbles about how important our documents are, the ticking deadline, how mad our boss will be, and about how much time, effort, and money we lost because of that unfortunate incident. Money? Someone say money? – Ahh, money. Imagine that this will never happen if we really ever pay. Have you checked the legal version of Kaspersky Internet Security in a local computer web-store, Bhinneka.com, that only cost you USD 48? It is a one-year 3-user package so one will only have to pay Rp 145.000. Now we can get the latest antivirus definition, have our documents are secured, everybody is happy, and again, it’s legal.

How about your MP3 player.

So, are you an iPod-guy? You have like 40GB of songs in your iPod – let’s say 8000 songs from various artists. First question: Are we really listening to all of those 8000 songs? Second question: Did we get any of those legally? We can consider it legal if we had the CD and copied it to our iPod for our own uses. Did we do that? Well, it is true that having 8000 legal MP3s will be very extremely expensive. But if we really love the song, I guess it’s not that difficult to start. Besides, how many songs do we really listen to in a week? 40 among 8000? A legal local MP3 is only Rp 5.000 each. You can go to digitalbeatstore.com to download your favorite MP3s. They have a super-high quality 256kpbs version of the song, and again, it’s legal – the artists get what they deserve to get. You can also find their outlets in Blitzmegaplex.

This is not about the law.

Buying legal things is not only about acting law-abidingly. It is something more than that. It is about having things that really belong to us and give the people what belong to them. How do you feel if someone take something that belongs to you? Piracy is a crime, are we ready? Yes, we are. All we have to do is start to act about it.

[Illustration was taken from here]

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  • hope … the piracy in Indonesia will fade away soon !!

  • dra

    The whole ipod idea is wackk. I mean i listen to 40 plus songs a day so in a week that just adds upp…. good article though.

  • Good pointer to invite people to appreciate the Intellectual Property Rights with cheap legal solutions… Good movement.

  • hmm, saya setuju dengan pemikiran Anda.

  • simon

    stupid article! music industrie is a pain. movie business is different because you need a big budget to make a good movie.

    best ist when artist dont get anyting for theyr cds just for the live gigs this is realy helping artists because some major labels make too much money with copy paste cds. but that is snow from yesterday free music is on its way and nobody can stop it.

  • Aaron

    Get me a place that offers as much music as OiNK did with just as equally good quality, charge me a monthly premium, and watch me pay as long as I draw breath.

    Until then…

  • for a broke-ass unemployed student like myself, splurging on movie tickets and legal dvds is a crime.
    if the price of living has gone down by at least 4 digits then maybe i’ll consider living a fully legal life. hahahak..

    great blog btw!

  • Aye, me am a pirate Gar, Where can I find a bottle o’rum?

    Arrr, we pay thin’s whene’er we think we should, and we don’t pay for craps. Ye’ll ne’er get me buried booty!
    Nobody have right to enforce right on anything… or else ye shall taste my wrath…

    big ideas are everywhere.. therefore traditional patent is morally wrong! Giving valuable stuff for free is noble thing everyone can do, why some people force everyone to pay?

    Aye, these be good and free Aye:
    annal of inovation
    end of control <<== also download the music 2.0 book for free

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  • I’ve started with using mac os and open source softwares. It’s more fun! DVD and MP3? Maybe later… but I never buy pirated Indonesian DVD

  • Friend of mine once said :”I don’t mind with piracy because when they sell four copies of my album, actually they should buy One Original CD and that’s the way for new comer like me to make some extra money”
    Sadly, because he’s a good singer,songwriter and composer too. And again he said “ya udah pasrah,abis mau gimana lagi”
    Pity.. :roll:

  • konsultasi kesehatan
    agree.

    yonna
    saya juga mau bertobat kok. hehehe.. dimulai dari yang kecil-kecil, semoga lama-lama bisa memiliki semuanya dengan legal, khususnya software-software laptop saya ini. Hehehe..

    btw kategori lu menarik banget! hahahahaha..
    The ones who are holding a notion “murah meriah”: usually are most of Indonesian people.

    nah, itu dia. itu sudah mengakar sepertinya. kalau ada yang murah kenapa harus beli yang mahal. hehehe.. iya kayanya jualan barang bajakan tuh untungnya gede banget deh. Udah marginnya gede, volume gede, market juga GEDE! hahahaha..

    ydoea
    so it came to your mind after you tasted the money, right? Hahaha.. So, how does it taste? Does it taste like wanting to make everything legit? Hahahahahaha.. And it’s not your blog condition, Yan. it’s YOUR condition. Hahaha.. I wonder how you can live in a, sorry, JUNGLE.

    Yes, the dark side is very tempting. Calvin said it is even like sex: it’s better when it’s free.

  • you know what bel?
    i was just thinking the very same thing month ago.
    discussed it with some friend too.
    *planned to write it, but well, you know my blog condition right now. :D*

    and yap, i guess we’re pretty much hypocrite if we keep buying pirated stuff and say, those are way too expensive something..

    well, i’m still using some pirated one, but i already start buying the legit. although darkside is still tempting. :D

  • Ooowwwgh…i miss sabang…mang-du…ambass!!! :mrgreen:

    *meratapi harga game dan software asli…*

  • “This post is dedicated to all of my friends, who have just graduated and are now working. As now they can taste the sweet of the money of their own, which is actually in the order of millions. Please, start to buy legal things!”

    ehhhmmm…..udah tobat kok :oops:

    i think there are different types of pirated product (DVD, DVC, CD, softwares, etc) buyers, they are :

    1. The ones who have limited access to money: usually students, college students, jobless people and kinda.

    2.The ones who still have limited access to money: usually senior year college students, jobless people who still don’t get a job, or get a job but earn small amount of salary.

    3. The ones who still believe that they have limited access to money, in the name of thriftiness sake, the fuel price and sembako prices are getting expensive: usually are full time mothers, married man with lots of kids and kinda.

    4. The ones who are holding a notion “murah meriah”: usually are most of Indonesian people.

    Kayanya jualan barang bajakan gini bisa dapet untung gede negh, hmmmm (*lhooo!), peace :mrgreen:

  • piracy is moral problem. depending many matters. so please, begin from our self and from little.

  • hahahaha.. LOL. anyway, is sex always better when it’s free? hahahaha.. and yes, software prices was ridiculously overpriced but now things are different, right? Months ago, I bought the license for Windows Vista Business, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Encarta, and Microsoft Visual Basic, and many other Microsoft softwares. Can you believe that??! Yes, because ITB and Microsoft have an agreement in software distribution for students, so each of us are only collected Rp 10.000 for ALL the licenses. Hahahaha..

  • Well piracy is morally wrong, but again, software is like sex, they are better when they are free, lol!

    Anyway, I start purchasing original software actually (just finally bought license of win xp home edition and using ubuntu), with the raise of our income. Back then, original software is ridiculously overpriced, but now, the software price will slowly be more affordable.

    It’s slow, but I think Indonesians start respecting copyright.

  • This post is dedicated to all of my friends, who have just graduated and are now working. As now they can taste the sweet of the money of their own, which is actually in the order of millions. Please, start to buy legal things!

    :mrgreen: