Piracy’s got all of us hooked.

Today, I’m going to write a post about piracy. It will be a balanced, well-informed, coherent discussion about why the demerits of piracy outweigh its utility. I will attempt to use clear, precise arguments and will try my best to appear knowledgeable and wise.

If you’ve stopped laughing, I’ll begin by clarifying that I do not mean ‘piracy’ in the “Arr, matey, let’s get us some treasure” sense (I apologize if my representation of pirate lingo is erroneous – the source of my information is Johnny Depp in a pirate costume). When I say piracy, I mean downloading stuff illegally off the internet.

I’ve been trying my best not to say this, but I must. Piracy is lame.

(Pun not intended).

I have expressed this opinion of mine on several occasions, and have been greeted by wails of mocking laughter, disbelief, and the occasional case of social ostracism. People also often misconstrue my statement about piracy as a satire on our preoccupation with mindless entertainment (#firstworldproblems, as I believe it’s referred to).  It’s one of the rare but cherished occasions on which I’m actually mistaken for being smarter than I am.

So why am I against piracy, you ask? (Or maybe you don’t care and you’d rather go back to watching a pirated version of Sherlock, but I’m going to answer it anyway). There are two reasons: 1. It’s illegal and 2. It’s wrong.

Now, to explain why it’s wrong, I shall have to divide this into two: a) piracy of music and b) piracy of movies and television shows. According to me, each type of piracy has its own dynamics.

a) Piracy of music: Pirating music is, to put it plainly, pointless. You can get absolutely any song you want on iTunes for next to nothing. There are no shades to this. Buy the song. Be guilt-free. Lead a happy life. Live long. Get a big tick mark in your Life Book.

b) Piracy of movies and television shows: This is slightly more complicated. I understand that certain movies and television shows are not released in certain parts of the world and are unavailable to the people there. In cases like this, there is absolutely no way for you to access these, and piracy is the only option. It’s still illegal, but I don’t mind this sort of piracy (not that the law takes my opinions into account, but hey, as long as I’ve got a blog…). I do have problems, however, with piracy that involves downloading a television show off a torrents website simply because you cannot wait a week for the show to be telecast where you live. Be patient and you will be rewarded. I realize that I probably sound quite saintly, ‘holier-than-thou’ and morally scrupulous here. Well, good.

Now I’m going to play soothsayer to guess your responses to what I have just said and will also attempt to respond:

1. “Are you completely crazy?”
– Yes, probably.

2. “Why would I pay for something when I can get it for free?”
– To answer this, I’ve created the following list.

Why you should not be the Jack Sparrow of the internet:
a) Ethics are like, so cool: My motto is, “Buy it, and it shall weigh less heavily upon thy conscience”.
That’s assuming you have a conscience, of course.

b)  The ‘their-shoes’ paradigm: Imagine that you became a world-famous singer or television/ movie star and made an amazing song/ show/ movie. Would you like it if everybody downloaded your life’s best work for free?
But who am I kidding? ‘World-famous star’? Yeah, right. Forget I ever mentioned it.

c) The unhappy artist conundrum: So you really like a singer, and you download all his/ her songs off the internet. Everybody else does too. And eventually, the singer has earned no money, and is so busy starving that he/ she has no time to write another song. Then what?

d) Every action has an equal and opposite reaction: You download the latest episode of a television show a week before it is telecast where I live. Then you tell me exactly what happens in the episode. I won’t delve into details, but a broken nose is a strong possibility.

3. “Research has shown that piracy is actually good for the entertainment industry because it promotes artists.”
– It’s just a guess, but I really don’t think that the entertainment industry would feel very ‘promoted’ if we all downloaded every single episode of every single television show off the internet.

4. “Technically, unofficial YouTube videos are pirated too. Don’t you watch them?”
– I do watch unofficial videos, yes. But to justify this I have something I like to call the cost-benefit analysis. If a YouTube video is a few minutes long, and is unofficial, I will watch it if necessary. If absolutely imperative, and if I have no choice, I will download a short video as well. But I draw the line at entire episodes – that’s just my definition of piracy.

“So basically, you’re a hypocrite.”
– Why, yes. Yes, I am. I’m glad you noticed.

So to conclude: I know that nobody will have an epiphany reading this post. In fact, I doubt that anyone even reached the end of this post without feeling the urge to laugh out loud at my idealism and pedantic moralism. But I live in the hope that one day, someone will read this post and actually reflect on this issue for a few minutes, before switching to another tab and downloading Game of Thrones.

P.S: If anyone’s interested in being my friend, please send me an e-mail. After this post, I predict that there will be many free slots available.

 

Only keyboard players will understand

You know how they say that every child should learn how to play at least one instrument? I always thought that it was to encourage creativity and unleash your ‘musical side’. But now I know the real reason.

It’s so that you don’t annoy people who can play instruments with your lack of musical knowledge, your stupidity and your sheer hopelessness.

You probably get that I’m a little annoyed here, so I’ll just go all out and say it:
I don’t like it when people touch my musical instruments.

I play the keyboard – computer gamers don’t get excited here, because I mean the electronic keyboard. I’m quite proficient too, if I may say so myself. I’m proficient enough to play Beethoven. But whenever we have guests over, the first thing they say when they see my keyboard is, “Oooh, a keyboard! Can you play ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’?” I respond by laughing haughtily, say something like ‘watch and learn’ and then proceed to play a complex symphony. And when I’m done, they look at me blankly and say, “That was nice, but I want to hear the birthday song!” So I decide to give in a little bit, and begin to play the birthday song. But at this point they decide that they could improve the traditional birthday song considerably if they stood next to me and pressed the last key on the keyboard at sporadic intervals. So this is how the resulting song sounds:

‘Happy (ping) birthday to you (ping),
Happy birthday (ping) to you (ping),
Happy (ping) birthday to you, dear (ping),
Happy (ping) birthday (ping) to (ping) you (ping)!’

Once I’ve finished playing the song, I look up at them and glare, but they assume that I’m just jealous of their musical genius.

It’s even worse when I try to show them my musical ability. I once told my cousin that I was going to play for her the most difficult song I have ever learnt (Maple Leaf Rag) and once I finished, I asked, “So, how was it?” She looked up from her Blackberry and said, “Oh, are you finished? Could you play ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ now?”

Even worse is when they decide that they want to learn. From you. “So how do you play the birthday song?” they ask. I try my best to show them, as patiently as I can, which key to press, and when, and with which finger. But when I’m done, they immediately forget everything I just told them, and, still convinced of the immense musical capabilities held by the last key, they return to pinging gormlessly until it’s time to leave.

Some guests decide that the world deserves to enjoy some of their original compositions. So they sit before the keyboard, smashing their fists and laying their palms on twenty keys at a time, with the occasional ‘ping’ thrown in for good measure, until they are convinced that the noises they’ve just made is the most beautiful song the world has heard since its inception. Then they ask you how you like their ‘song’. You’re forced to nod politely and try to top yourself from saying that what they call a ‘song’, Al Gore would call ‘noise pollution’.

But the absolute worst is when they discover that, on an electronic keyboard, you can press buttons to make it sound like the instrument/sound of your choice. When they realize this, there’s no stopping them. They embark on a journey of pressing every button and turning every knob within their reach. Out of the 600-odd tones offered by my keyboard, they try every permutation and combination, until they decide that the one they like the most is number 599- the ‘recorded human laughter’ tone. Then they listen to it incessantly, until I get so fed up that I’ve vowed never to watch any more sitcoms for the rest of my life. I often feel like telling them, if they like the sound of recorded laughter so much, they should display their musical skills to an audience of strangers. They won’t really like the sound of laughter so much after that.

There’s only one way to solve this menace. And the solution lies with companies that make these sorts of keyboards. So listen up, Casio and Yamaha. The next set of keyboards you make, be sure to fit it with a button that gives mild electric shocks when you press it.

So the next time an annoying guest decides that they like the sound of ‘recorded human laughter’, I’ll tell them to press that button.
And then they’ll get to hear the sound of ‘live human screaming’ instead.

 

In response to the Daily Post Challenge.