(I think I'm going to drop the pun idea, I can't seem to think of any anymore!)
Starting blogs is hard! I know exactly what I want to write about, but I always have trouble starting things off. Is it just me that has that problem?
Rather conveniently, my complaining about how I never know how to start off a blog has started off my blog! This weekend I met up with a bunch of my awesome friends from Root Hill in London and it was a barrel of fun. A great time was had by all, or at least I hope so! I might retroactively update this blog to include a link to Hannah's blog (because she was there too) for a more detailed account if she writes one.
Which brings me on to what I wanted to blog about in the first place: Pirates. Not the old fashioned 'yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum' kind, but the technological kind. Seeing as my phone was my mp3 player also, I was left without awesome noise to fill my ears. Having told Hannah this (yes, that's twice in one blog I've mentioned her. You owe me for all this name-dropping Hannah!) she took it upon herself to find one of her old mp3 players and load it up with the awesomest DFTBA music she could find and made an awesome playlist, an act for which I'm super grateful. Whilst I was listening to it, the thought 'I could just copy all of this music to my laptop' crossed my mind. I quickly banished that thought and this is why:
I just can't stand piracy.
Everyone says that piracy doesn't hurt anyone and the artist/developer/software engineers wont miss the money because they are already super-rich. Maybe if you happen to be Lady Gaga you wont actually miss the 99p that someone would have spent on 'Poker Face' instead of downloading it, but when you think of artists like ALL CAPS or Chameleon Circuit, they might miss the money. I don't know for sure as I don't have their exact sales figures, but they might!
Besides, the money isn't why I hate piracy. I hate it because people put so much work into music albums or games or pieces of software, and the general public think that they can just take that work without paying for it. Aside from the fact that it's straight up theft, aren't those artists and programmers entitled to some money for the work they have put into the product you just stole? That's the reason I never pirate CDs or Films or Games, because those people deserve to be paid for what they have made. Paying for things is my way of saying that I appreciate the effort that has gone into that person's work.
I realise now that most of what I wrote wont really make that much sense to people that aren't me. However I leave you with the age old internet argument - Pirates or Ninjas. I stand firmly on the anti-Piracy side of things, so in my eyes that makes me a Ninja. Whose side are you on?
Me ninja, definitely. In fact I'm one of that strange old breed that actually wants to have their music on a tangible official CD - I usually rip them after a while, but I like having something I can hold.
ReplyDeleteAs for software, some of my favourite titles are open-source and so - obviously - free anyway. But if I had more of an income I would make some donations to my favourite projects by way of a thank-you.
re: starting blogs... I find that's the easy bit. The hard part for me is staying coherent and interesting after the second paragraph 8p