Does This Make Him A Bad Person?

In the spirit of us ROM-playing, music-downloading, game-hacking geeks, my brother has had a region free chip installed in our PS2. He's now playing Super Robot Taisen Alpha 3, untranslated, which he got for 18 dollars from the local Toys and Joys, who seem to love illegal goods, because not only were they the ones who installed the chip, they also seem to have Hong Kong anime DVDs. I got Hong Kong subtitled Advent Children from them for cheap.

This modchip allows us to play untranslated games, but it the future, it may also allow us to play ripped games.

So, I ask you geeks:

Where do you draw the line?

Put quite simply, I don't. If it is within my power to attain something by convenient and cost-free methods, I do so. Of course, here in Canada we have a little more leeway, at least in the field of music piracy.

My views on the matter... The absense of my dollar(s) won't cripple big business in any way. Half an hour of MTV lets anyone see how sheerly decadent some of today's artists have become. Why? They have the money to do so. Poof. Gone is all moderation. Same goes for video games; I have yet to find a decent ROM program for a Mac, but if I do I will use it to the best of my ability. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will be no worse for wear, especially when it comes to games that can't be found by my limited physical means; I couldn't spend money on games I can't find anyway.

Installing a region-free chip is maybe one of the most harmless forms of techno-swindling. The dollar still goes to the corporation when you buy the game; you can't bankrupt Sony of America by buying everything instead from Sony of Japan.

But, as I've said, I'm running under Canadian laws here, laws that allow for music piracy (at the least) by imposing a fee on blank discs that makes up for lost dough. Illegal downloads are legal. As a result, the fear of the Lawman hasn't been drilled very deep into my mischevious adolescent mind. Unethical, maybe. Illegal, maybe not. Ethics are really very subjective too, so I shut mine off when it's piracy time.

I dunno much about the hacking/ripping business. All I do is make CDs and put music in MP3 players on request of mostly everyone on my street. I swear, I've taken at least two requests from every house.

I have over 500 ROMS on different systems, over 5000 songs from all over, several dozen movies, couple hundred episodes of television/anime. I have a few actual bootleg DVDs, as well. I also have a toploader PS2, to top it all off.

Where do you think I stand on this issue? Arrr.

You are a pirate.

...My friend got a FlashCart for DS. So he can download and play 35$ worth games anytime he wants >____>;;

Quote (Savage King)

you can't bankrupt Sony of America by buying everything instead from Sony of Japan.

Ah, but there's a reason you can only get region-free chips from shady people like Toys and Joys.

They not only take away the region rules, they also take away the little security feature preventing you from burning games onto blank DVDs, then playing those.

ROMs are the way to go. Only problem is that Nintendo is a tad more intelligent than Sony and Microsoft so I can't play pirated games on the Wii as far as I know. GBA, on the other hand, is too easy to get pirated games for. They're working on a DS Emulator as well, so it'll be fun in the end.
I don't really download movies. My parents buy a lot of them, so I practically don't have to...
Music... I forgot when I last bought a CD...

Heh, I have a flashcard for my DS, and usualy play roms for most consoles that can be played on the PC. I still buy a lot of games thougth ^^

The main reason is because, Norway is a freaking game-hating anime and manga hating nation. We still haven't gotten freaking advent children on DVD. Whenever I read about a cool game coming out, I usually have to wait a year or two later than the rest of the world.

Games usually cost about double of what they do in Japan or America, and the stores rarely contain more than top 10 games at the same time.

So, roms are my little petty revenge for down prioritizing where I live. The whole of Norway got just a few Wii's shipped, so I'll problaby have to go out of country to get one. (Sweden is much better)

I guess I can understand people who buy pirated games or download them for free because they can't get their hands on games in their own country, but when some American on a message board tells me that he's pirating and feels justified because "Everyone else is doing it," then calls me some kind of idiot for going after him instead of the ones actually pirating, it kind of ticks me off. That wasn't here, that was somewhere else. >__>;

Basically, if you have the means to get games legally, do so. If not, I guess I can understand it. Gaming is an industry just like anything else, and even if your individual purpose doesn't count, use rule-based thinking. What if everyone decided to pirate or download for free? In a way, it can become selfish, because it would be sheerly impossible for the corporations and artists to make any money at all if EVERYONE did it, so therefore, it's snatching up a position that only a limited number of people can have.

I especially hate it when people brag about buying or downloading pirated material, though. >____>;

i'd say that you should IMPORT the games yourself, because if you get it from a toy shop or something.......there's a HIGH chance that the game you bought is either stolen or ripped, so unless you imoprt the games yourself, i whould think that the game is ripped.

You know, the guys who actually worked with the game already got their money. As far as I know, they won't see a damn dollar even if you buy the game. Piracy won't wrong them. It will only "damage" the voice actors, since they are the only ones that get % of the sales. Aside from the company of course.

Also, how the fuck am I supposed to play Guilty Gear# Slash, if it isn't even translated, there is no localized version, and there never will be, because SCEA screwed all the fans over. They simply won't translate 2d games, because it ruins the high-tech image pf the PS2.

Plus, they are suing importers. Well, only the ones that imported PS3, but still...

Fuck that.

Piracy has a tradition here anyways. Well, going against the law, trying your hardest not to pay taxes, to be exact.

I'm generally a poor bitch, so I gotta swipe my GBA ROMs off the Interwebs. However, my computer is far too retarded to run anything of even N64 quality, so that's where I stop.

My iPod don't play no pirated shitz, so I buy all my new music, and just take the old stuff that my dad got when he was a kid off the various CDs lying around the house. Old music = good music. On the rare occasion when there is a new album that is worth buying, I shell for it at the local HMV or MusicWorld. Sometimes the liner notes and cover aren't worth missing out on.

I own zero movies, pirated or legal. Nope. Squat.

Personally, I'd rather acquire my stuff through honest means. I would rather deal with a big company like Universal or some other big label or whoever else makes my music, because their stuff is more likely to come out good in quality than the pirated junk. I don't have a massive use for things that are typically pirated, anyway; most music that comes out these days are garbage, my computer is incapable of running any good emulators, and I'm really not all that much of a movie aficionado.

Actually, when it comes down to it, I'm rather weird in my present society.

An unbelievable amount of crap here in Hogtown is pirated. There's this one massive-ass shopping complex called Pacific Mall in an area that is affectionately (or not so much) referred to as "Asiancourt" rather than "Agincourt." It's packed to the brim with pirated crap--and that's only P-Mall. There are a staggering amount of shops throughout the city that sell pirated stuff, whether obviously or with a bit more subtlety. The cops don't do much about it, although I believe there's a city-wide effort going on to stop pirating (although I doubt that would work).

I'm not going to martyr anyone who gets most or all of their media through less savoury means. That's their choice, and they can complain all they'd like when their music loses quality after the first few plays. The point was raised that big bands aren't losing out when their music gets pirated. What about the small guys, though? Some of my favourite bands are small or independent ones, and they get cut real deep when their stuff gets pirated. I'm not one to do something simply because of the ethical standpoint. I've just been doing stuff in a mostly honest way for my entire life, and my parents have too, so I doubt that I'm going to deviate from that ingrained mindset.

Oh yeah. My PhotoShop is pirated. :'D

Oooh, I forgot about Computer programs. Got a few of those too.

And Aim, I hope you weren't intending to say that I was bragging. I was merely showing that I do indeed pirate, and a LOT. The reason I do it is simple. Money. I don't have it. Nothing noble or shifty there. I pirate for purely selfish reasons, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

I got impateint with a DS emu, so I just went out and bought one. Wouldn't mind trying flashcards, though.

I use nacho godzilla and archrival taco's free rom site, which has nes/snes/sega roms, plus good emulators for pc/mac/linux(do a goolge search for "nacho godzilla" and pick the first one)...

but I'm still looking for a good gba emulator for the mac, visual boy advance was woked, but they took away the latest version for some reason, so you get one you can only play advance wars on cause it doesn't have any collisions, which is the glitch...

and what's a cd? I use limedwire...

funny fact: you can use limewire to get limewire pro...