As a avid follower of torrent freak I come across many studies done by groups such as the MPAA and anti piracy groups. They suggest things such as piracy contributes to declining sales. In truth that is false. Here is how I know. Australia pays something like 80 USD a month to just legally watch Game of Thrones. Australia pays 3000 USD for the adobe master suite. In the US it is 15 - 25 for HBO and 1000 for the Adobe suite. Then you have the content creators purposefully uploading their own content.
Say what? Yes they commit corporate entrapment, by providing their own content, which they use to try to sue pirates and get sites blocked. This happened with mega upload, and they succeeded. Then you have content creators that actually think piracy helps to boost sales. It does, in fact I pirate something and then eventually buy it, if it is actually worth paying a penny for that is.. Hollywood complains that people pirate their movies, in all honesty no one should buy their shitty movies unless they are worth it. In many cases the movies a terrible, which is why the bomb in box office and out of theater as well. Piracy increase publicity for given shows, movies, software, books, and songs. This in turn increases sales.
These companies spend millions and millions of dollars on these absolutely absurd law suites, leading to more losses than they would if they didn't higher anti-piracy outfits. It is the same case for the FCC, spending millions of tax payers money on a law they know that can't be enforced.
I came across this article from TF and it is a study about who pirates actually are. I can agree with it, because it describes me to the T. It states pirates are more likely to be addicted to the internet than not, and are a bad apple out of a bunch of good ones. I would say I am addicted, and propagate piracy as a good thing (for the most part). However this article is absurd, in the sense that of course pirates are more likely to be addicted to the internet. It is just common sense, a study from a university does not need to spend money on a research grant to tell us this. Which brings me to my point. Money is completely wasted on piracy studies that don't inform us on anything we dont already know for ourselves. Btw, I am not a bad apple in a group of good ones. I can tell you all my friends, and some family members pirated before I started. In fact a relative of mine got me to start pirating.
Which brings me to a point that allows me to support piracy. That is Microsoft screwed me straight over on Windows 8. I bought a copy back in January of 2013 for 40 dollars (if i remember correctly). It was when Microsoft gave people an ultimatum, which said on Feb 1 the price of our professional version will go up from 40 to 200. So I bought it just for the hell of it. Up until recently I have used 7 x64 pro. When I go to try the upgrade, it tells me to use the download manager to download the 8 iso and burn or mount it to a disk or flash drive. I try to do it, and it gave me the error that windows can't connect right now please try again later. It occurred on every computer I tried it with and every internet line (different isps). So I decide to Google it and I find many other people are experiencing the same exact issue. Microsoft's only response is that it is an invalid key. I know it isnt invalid, I have an invoice directly from Microsoft saying it isn't. Also it wouldn't even let you click next on the upgrade manager if it weren't valid, which it did for all of us. Now I call Microsoft up and they give me a run a round, saying it is valid, but all I can do is order a replacement disk. I say I bought it without a disk so I can create my own one. The disk would cost about 40 to get. I call them again and again and again. They say the same thing, until one person tells me it is an invalid key. That it was activated too many times (never had been used once, unless when you attempt to download the iso, it counts as an activation). I finally get intouch with a semi-intelligent employee and they finally decided to compare my invoice and order number to the one in their records. Turns out it wasn't under my name or email, but one entirely unknown to me and my family. Dumb thing is as soon as I ordered it, my email received the invoice and key. They changed their answer from needing a replacement disk to needing a replacement key all together. So I was forced to buy at full retail a new copy of 8.1. Thing is I couldn't use my student discount, because I apparently used it on 8 when I first ordered it. So I got scammed straight up by a company that is very anti-piracy. For my purposes I required a genuine copy of 8, because I was using it on a friends computer build. Anyways I learned from that day forward, Microsoft scams people since a google search showed that others had the same problem. In a single day it went from being valid and requiring a replacement disk to not being valid and requiring an entirely new key.
This has happened to me before with other software. One example is when I legally bought parted magic, and was only permitted 5 downloads. This is exactly what game companies are doing with DRM and others as well. It is a method to steal/extort money legally. This is why piracy is absolutely fine in my book. I pay good money, I shouldn't be limited to 5 activations or 5 downloads. Neither should anyone else. That is why piracy is okay to do and should be legal. I purchased crysis. 3 times (albeit at a really cheap price of like 5 dollars). This is because I activated each license one too many times. I build computers like frantic and benchmark them all the time. I swap out system ssds on a monthly basis. I reinstall windows almost once a month. Until companies remove DRM, I won't buy the game unless it is 60% or more off on a sale. Otherwise I am not willing to pay full price on content that I know I don't actually own. I hope companies like EA understand this. Infact I know they do, but they dont give a fuck. Why else do they still sell console games? My friend doesn't take care of their disks, as many dont (for console), and so they are forced to rebuy the game at the same price less than a year after they already bought it. Easy pickings.
http://torrentfreak.com/research-links-piracy-internet-addiction-140529/