How much have you pirated?

[collinE]

is that collin?? HI COLLIN!!!

but ugh, this made me feel like a bad person

You never did post your amount.

Of course the numbers are exaggerated. I have movies and games that would have come from the bargain bin or that I would have bought used... or not gotten at all had I actually had to pay. I definitely wouldn't have paid money for that terrible Mega Man movie. yech!

[Rekarp]

Going to have to kneecap some people in here.

[Rekarp]

I don't pirate.

I actually feel like trying to boost our economy a bit by buying my movies and music. And as for videogames, I usually just get older stuff anyway.

and no, I do not emulate.

+1 for this guy.

[minnieman]

is that collin?? HI COLLIN!!!

but ugh, this made me feel like a bad person

You never did post your amount.

Of course the numbers are exaggerated. I have movies and games that would have come from the bargain bin or that I would have bought used... or not gotten at all had I actually had to pay. I definitely wouldn't have paid money for that terrible Mega Man movie. yech!

your right... lets just say its above 300000.... and you make a good point.

[bicostp]

I only download old TV shows that aren't available on DVD.

It's not worth bothering with downloading brand-new episodes from the current season, because they're usually up on Hulu or the network's website the day after they air. Clicker.com is like a TV Guide for legit streaming: search for whatever you want to watch, and if it's online it gives you a link.

There's no reason to download movies when there are three libraries within 10 miles to borrow from. How often are you going to watch Star.Wars.Return.Of.The.Jedi.[hAxX][LoL][5.1].avi?

Music? We already have plenty of CDs, tapes, and LPs, and high-bitrate DRM-free MP3s are cheap on Amazon. How many new Beatles albums can they possibly make? For one-off listening, there's always Grooveshark, Last.fm, and official YouTube channels.

DVDs of old seasons are relatively inexpensive, especially if you buy those $20 2-season value packs at Target. Most TV series go down to $20-$30 per season after a few months, and the video quality is higher than XviD encoded rips.

There are ways to get cheap media: buy used. The Salvation Army, Savers, Goodwill, pawn shops, etc all carry videos. My local Goodwill has tapes for a buck, CDs for $2, DVDs for $3, and most VHS movies are $1. They're cheap and they're fun to pick through because you never know what you're going to find. If that would stack up too much for you, Netflix is a $10/mo all-you-can-watch video buffet.

I'd like to see what the piracy and DVD sale figures are for shows that have their entire back catalog streaming on the official website for free, such as South Park.

[gamemasterAS]

I only download old TV shows that aren't available on DVD.

It's not worth bothering with downloading brand-new episodes from the current season, because they're usually up on Hulu or the network's website the day after they air. Clicker.com is like a TV Guide for legit streaming: search for whatever you want to watch, and if it's online it gives you a link.

There's no reason to download movies when there are three libraries within 10 miles to borrow from. How often are you going to watch Star.Wars.Return.Of.The.Jedi.[hAxX][LoL][5.1].avi?

Music? We already have plenty of CDs, tapes, and LPs, and high-bitrate DRM-free MP3s are cheap on Amazon. How many new Beatles albums can they possibly make? For one-off listening, there's always Grooveshark, Last.fm, and official YouTube channels.

DVDs of old seasons are relatively inexpensive, especially if you buy those $20 2-season value packs at Target. Most TV series go down to $20-$30 per season after a few months, and the video quality is higher than XviD encoded rips.

There are ways to get cheap media: buy used. The Salvation Army, Savers, Goodwill, pawn shops, etc all carry videos. My local Goodwill has tapes for a buck, CDs for $2, DVDs for $3, and most VHS movies are $1. They're cheap and they're fun to pick through because you never know what you're going to find. If that would stack up too much for you, Netflix is a $10/mo all-you-can-watch video buffet.

I'd like to see what the piracy and DVD sale figures are for shows that have their entire back catalog streaming on the official website for free, such as South Park.

South Park is actually my worst collected series. It's all spotty and missing like the last 5 seasons because of south park studios and netflix. However Netflix just took all South Park off streaming so I'm probably going to move back to torrenting it.

[Triton]

in my defense, other than my music 75% of the media i have "pirated" is anime, and more than half of that is stuff that is not available for legitimate purchase in the states yet, and some of it wont ever be. i but legit copies of my movies/music etc when i can afford to

[jdmlight]

$319.56.

TBH, I had trouble actually figuring out what to put into this calculator.

• I do pirate TV shows. Currently I have 720p encodes of seasons 1 and 2 of Chuck and seasons 6 and 7 of Mythbusters. This is mostly for convenience, as these are probably available from the broadcaster's respective sites. I also have cable, so I could go through the effort of recording these myself (I do have a firewire set-top box plugged into a computer for recording, it works pretty darn well and I can record at up to 1080i ). But it's just easier to download them. (if I forget to set a recording I might miss an episode of the season)
• I buy all of my music on CDs (it's an automatic backup that way, therefore if my computer spontaneously dies, I can just pop the CDs back in and re-rip them). The only music "sharing" I do is with my brother, and even that doesn't account for much of my library.
• I download high-quality 1080p encodes of my movies for convenience sake really. I do own the Blurays of 90% of my movie collection.
• I don't pirate games. Why should I bother? Steam has ridiculous sales on games quite often for PC games, and I have a Play 'n Trade really close to me. (PnT == used game store)

So to sum it up:

• I pirate TV shows.
• I don't pirate music.
• I don't pirate movies for the most part. (the ~10% of movies I have downloaded which I don't own I honestly do intend to buy)
• I don't pirate games.

So really, I don't actually pirate that much stuff. And if somehow I couldn't download these TV shows, I could just record them off of TV myself.

[gamemasterAS]

Another thing. Nothing in my house is HD besides my monitors at my PC. So its my only way to watch HD content. Since I lack a bluray drive I have to torrent my HD stuff.

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

I'm not justifying it or saying it's right, but I probably download way more movies and TV shows than the general population. I also probably purchase way more movies and TV shows than the general population. I do especially make an effort to purchase things that I feel are under-appreciated or are particularly awesome. I put off buying many movies and TV shows until I got my Blu-ray drive because I'm an HD-whore; I am now starting to amass a collection of stuff on Blu-ray, and have a very large list of BDs I will buy relatively soon. And I'll throw the typical excuse out there too; I'm 19 and in college: I have no money.

[gamemasterAS]

Bluray drives are actually a lot cheaper than I thought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

Bluray drives are actually a lot cheaper than I thought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep. Mine was $50 on Black Friday.

[gamemasterAS]

Bluray drives are actually a lot cheaper than I thought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep. Mine was $50 on Black Friday.

I just don't want to adopt the hardware until they're full speed. Whats going to be the max out speed for blue-ray? Or do they know at this point?

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

Bluray drives are actually a lot cheaper than I thought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep. Mine was $50 on Black Friday.

I just don't want to adopt the hardware until they're full speed. Whats going to be the max out speed for blue-ray? Or do they know at this point?

From what I can gather, 12X looks to be the max. I don't particularly care about the speed though (I think mine's a 4X); all I'm doing with the drive is either playing or ripping my movies.

[gamemasterAS]

Bluray drives are actually a lot cheaper than I thought.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yep. Mine was $50 on Black Friday.

I just don't want to adopt the hardware until they're full speed. Whats going to be the max out speed for blue-ray? Or do they know at this point?

From what I can gather, 12X looks to be the max. I don't particularly care about the speed though (I think mine's a 4X); all I'm doing with the drive is either playing or ripping my movies.

What do you use for your HD playback? I use VLC and sometimes it stutters, with my hardware that's just unacceptable.