Digital Piracy Is Evil/Quotes

"It's about damn time they crack down on illegal music downloading."

—Drake, Bronyism

"A killer aims for your head and takes your life. Music Pirate makes you take your own life."

—Szymon Wydra, a Polish "musician"

"How do you think this stuff gets made?
You think artists create if they don't get paid?
It's the only reason they do what they do,
It's not the flipping work, most of that's poo!
They depend on the money that you idiots give,
So they can make more crap and so they can live
The good life! Yes, the life of the stars,
But you're taking their pools and you're taking their cars!

You bastards!"—Adam Buxton, "Piracy"

"Society wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud and bank-robbing when it should be doing something about piracy instead. Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned. If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country-everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary and bank robbing, all of it -- it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions a year. [citation needed]"

—Rick Cotton, NBC Universal general counsel

"If the art world were run by the RIAA, you would have to lease special glasses if you wanted to see a painting."

—Rodney Caston

"Stealing movies is a felony. It's just like robbing the elderly or murder."

—... Or Die Trying, The Boondocks

"Peer-to-peer file sharing and Terror? Terror? Do they not have dictionaries there? There's another T word you cocks might like, too--give it a try: it's called "Tenuous." The only people terrorized by peer-to-peer file sharing are vastly potent multinational businesses, gripped by the realization that they sell carriages in a world of bullet trains.
It is not a mischaracterization to say that conversations with the hardcore PC community about software theft follow these tenets:
- There is no piracy.
- To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault.
- If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.

It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service?

—Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade, presenting both sides.

You wouldn't steal a handbag
You wouldn't steal a car
You wouldn't steal a baby
You wouldn't shoot a policeman
And then steal his helmet
You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the policeman's grieving widow
And then steal it again!

Downloading films is stealing, if you do it you WILL face the consequences.

—Anti-piracy DVD warning, The IT Crowd

"And before the movie I have to sit through the dvd piracy warning, which we can all agree is getting on our collective tits. It's just the patronizing nature of it. They go, 'You wouldn't steal a handbag, you wouldn't steal a car, so why would you steal a movie?' I'm sitting there going, 'Don't tell me what I would and wouldn't do. You don't know me. I am drunk at four o'clock in the afternoon in my pants about to watch women be tortured to death in an underground bunker in Eastern Europe, you're telling me I wouldn't nick a poxy handbag? I think you don't know me very well at all, Sir.'"

—Ed Byrne, Mock the Week, YouTube Link

"Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming...I guess there's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom."

—Jamie Kellner, Former CEO of Turner Broadcasting

That horrible, compulsory thing, where you've just spend fourteen ninety-nine on film and the first thing is does is go "DUN-DUN-DUH-NER-NER-NER YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR! And you look at it and go "well, I didn't feckin' steal you, so I don't know why you'd think I'd steal a car." "YOU WOULDN'T KILL A MAN!" It's a ridiculously over-the-top warning. If they even vaguely kept it in proportion: UN-DUN-DUH-NER-NER-NER YOU WOULDN'T STEAL SOME POST-IT NOTES!—Dara O'Briain

Did I hear you right?
Did I hear you sayin'
That you're gonna make a copy of a game without payin'?
Come on, guys!
I thought you knew better,
Don't copy that floppy!''

—MC Double Def DP, Don't Copy That Floppy

He called me a pirate! Plundering, scavenging, downloading MP3s!

—Tibor the Terrible, Mucha Lucha

If I see you videotaping this movie
Satan will rain down your throat with hot acid
And dissolve your testicles and turn your guts into snakes!
This is a copyrighted movie for Time Warner!
If I find you've sold it on eBay,

I will break into your house and tear your wife in half!

—Mastodon, Cut You Up With A Linoleum Knife

If your conscience lets you pirate stuff, which you know damn well is theft, that's your business and nothing anyone says will stop you. Please spare me the excuses, I will never, ever agree with them and I don't want to think any less of you because of it.

—Gail Simone, here.

Well, the FCC will not catch me, for I am quite elusive.
Don't care what they say: I'm still a deejay, and I've got my life to live.
I transmit our song! They say that's it wrong 'cause I never paid them the dough.

So curse ye, ye scalawags! Ye'll never take away my pirate radio!

—Pirates R Us, "KYAR Pirate Radio"

You wouldn't download a car.

—Parody of a common DVD antipiracy warning, Internet traditionalism

Piracy is not raiding and plundering Best Buys and FYEs, smashing the windows and running out with the loot. It’s like being placed in a store full of every DVD in existence. There are no employees, no security guards, and when you take a copy of movie, another one materializes in its place, so you’re not actually taking anything. If you were in such a store, you’d only have your base moral convictions to keep you from cloning every movie in sight. And anyone who knows how to get to this store isn’t going to let their conscience stop them, especially when there is no tangible “loss” to even feel bad about.

—Paul Tassi, Forbes contributor

Our ideal future customer has significant disposable income and a hunger for music while at the same time having no interest in politics or technology, and is just barely smart enough to press the "play" button. And to be brutally honest, we can do without the last as long he still buys his music.

—RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy

The media companies have every right to complete control over access to their intellectual property, in perpetuity. If a recording, book or movie is not legally available to the public, there is no doubt a very good reason for it, and the public should simply accept it, not try to get around it. Neither should they attempt to do things with legally available material which the provider has not explicitly allowed or considered.

—Barry K. Robinson, Senior Counsel, RIAA

"If I made Copy Protection, I wouldn't do stuff like put SecuROM or online passes in that annoy paying customers - I'd do stuff like give the paying customers free perks, upgrades, and DLC that pirates will have to pay for. As for the pirates themselves? If it were possible, I'd love to put in a Take That message that reminds them that support for acts like SOPA, ACTA, and their future incarnations is further 'justified' by Morons Like You."

—Taken from a forum post.