Big kudos to Mr. O'Reilly for publicly acknowledging that accessing content by any (nondestructive) means generates value for society at large - even if not immediately financial for the copyright holders. Not accessing it at all would mean zero value at all, for nobody.
Having access to pirated material/software in the past that I wouldn't have afforded at the time helped me develop skills that later on allowed me to afford paying for value.
I'm still not 100% legit but I'm putting more money back in the system, sometimes because it's easier buying things the right channels, sometimes just because it feels better. It's true that I'm biased towards supporting smaller, independent projects but that's also because that's easier (=cheaper).
_______
Now that it got mentioned, a quick word on Romania. While using p2p / cracked software at home is risk-free (less some extremely rare cases where some large sharers get busted as example) businesses do need to have proper licenses. Also true, smaller businesses might pass undetected by the BSA, but it's a risk most don't care to take.
Years ago, international prices compared to our per capita GDP would have made most purchases prohibitive. In a perfect world piracy wouldn't happen, but thanks to piracy at large people (me included) had chances of becoming digitally fluent and start generating value and start choosing to pay for content/services.
Big kudos to Mr. O'Reilly for publicly acknowledging that accessing content by any (nondestructive) means generates value for society at large - even if not immediately financial for the copyright holders. Not accessing it at all would mean zero value at all, for nobody.
Having access to pirated material/software in the past that I wouldn't have afforded at the time helped me develop skills that later on allowed me to afford paying for value. I'm still not 100% legit but I'm putting more money back in the system, sometimes because it's easier buying things the right channels, sometimes just because it feels better. It's true that I'm biased towards supporting smaller, independent projects but that's also because that's easier (=cheaper).
_______
Now that it got mentioned, a quick word on Romania. While using p2p / cracked software at home is risk-free (less some extremely rare cases where some large sharers get busted as example) businesses do need to have proper licenses. Also true, smaller businesses might pass undetected by the BSA, but it's a risk most don't care to take. Years ago, international prices compared to our per capita GDP would have made most purchases prohibitive. In a perfect world piracy wouldn't happen, but thanks to piracy at large people (me included) had chances of becoming digitally fluent and start generating value and start choosing to pay for content/services.