Digital Piracy Is Okay/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A creator that doesn't mind people downloading their work without paying, and even encourages it in some cases.

  • Straight: Bob plays in a band. He sees Alice download his music, and tells her that it's alright.
  • Exaggerated: Bob pays Alice $250 to download his music.
    • Bob hosts a web server where people can download his music.
    • Bob flies a plane and drops CDs and USBs filled with his works from the sky.
  • Downplayed: Bob sees Alice pirating his songs, but says nothing.
  • Justified: Bob's record label takes most of the revenue, so he doesn't lose out on much potential revenue if his works are downloaded.
    • Bob's music has strong DRM, which prevents Alice from listening to it while she is travelling, so Bob tells her to download the music to remove these restrictions.
  • Inverted: Digital Piracy Is Evil
    • The moment Bob sees Alice search up phrase download, Bob immediately storms up to Alice and tells her that she should not download anything without paying, and gives her a half hour lecture about this using NO INDOOR VOICE.
  • Subverted: Bob is also a policeman, and watches Alice download movies. He does nothing for a couple of weeks, then arrests her. He explains that he did nothing initially to test Alice's initiative, and that she has failed. He prepares to give Alice a lecture...
  • Double Subverted: ...about how downloading is actually okay, as if enough people do it his record labels will pick up on a message and improve their business practices. Bob says that the "initiative test" was a front to his department and hides his true intentions.
  • Parodied: Bob creates Darkened Chaos Chronicles and Prophecy of the Veiled MP3s, an online MMORPG where everyone plays as pirates. The objective is to find Buried Treasure. Each time a player finds buried treasure, they download one of Bob's songs, and there are daily raffles which give away songs. The in game currency is Bob's albums.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob doesn't mind people downloading his songs, but his record label does. His label sues people for downloading music, but Bob always comes to their defense. Charles the lawyer takes the side of the label, but Dylan takes Bob's side. Eventually the court room is filled with 300 lawyers with varying opinions on downloading.
  • Averted: Alice never downloads anything to start with.
  • Enforced: "I'm so sick of these copyright enforcers telling me what to do. Writers, make sure digital piracy is not depicted in a negative light."
  • Lampshaded: "Did you hear about Bob? He doesn't mind people downloading his songs!"
  • Invoked: Bob sets up a website where people can download his music. Alice visits the site.
  • Exploited: Alice, knowing Bob's attitude towards digital downloads, saves every album he has made, then makes physical copies and sells them for cash.
    • Bob purposefully acts like this to gain exposure. Once he becomes famous, he immediately switches to Digital Piracy Is Evil mode.
  • Defied: Bob's record label calls him in and gives him a lecture about how their profits are dwindling. They tell Bob that this is caused by illegal downloads, and Bob should stop endorsing it.
  • Discussed: "Bob, why are you alright with people downloading your songs?"
  • Conversed: "Should All the Tropers: The Movie really be encouraging these downloads? They'll just make people want to download the movie instead!"
  • Deconstructed: The audience is shown Bob's dwindling finances from his lack of sales. Although Bob is one of the most popular music artists in the world, he makes little money, and his works never reach bestseller.
  • Reconstructed: Bob encourages people to buy his music so he will be supported, but doesn't mind people downloading if they can't afford it.
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