[Off-topic] ShadowLea:
If I take a picture with my phone's camera of the Mona Lisa and print it life size (which is quite small) on a photoprinter to hang in my living room, it's legal.

If I film a film with my phone's camera to review later at home, it's illegal, while I'm doing the exact same thing .

Piracy has been the stepping stone for many young artists. A recordscompany asks insane amounts of money to publicize your music, money which no starting artist has. Radiochannels won't play your music without you paying them for it. Pop it on youtube/tpb and it doesn't cost you thing, and it reaches everyone.

That is why so many people are made to believe piracy is bad: it's missed income for companies. Not the artists, the companies. Of the song you buy, 8 cents at mos goes to the artist. the rest goes to the label and copyright company. Ditto for games, the 3D artists and scriptors get a low pay, while the company and coyright company earns big bucks for doing nothing. That is fundementally wrong. Money should go to those who earn it, not those who profit off other people's work! And guess what they blame pirates for: doing what the copyright company does.

What people dont seem to understand is that piracy is not the same as copyright infringement. When you take someone else's product and claim it as your own, that is copyright infringement.

I'm a graphic designer, I deal with copyright daily. Having someone else post my work on his tumblr with credit is perfectly fine. As long as he doesn't call it his own work!. See the core issue, there? Credit where credit is due. Nobody on TPB is claiming a film made in Hollywood as his own, they're not infringing on anyone's copyright, and they're not making money off it.

If you consider sharing anything with copyright as illegal, you are also not allowed to like stuff on facebook (it shares), retweet something (sharing someone else's tweet)... (Which is what SOPA and ACTA would have done. They would have completely destroyed the free internet. Just so someone else can make money. It was never about censorship, it was about money. (If it isn't about sex, it's about money and power. The very core of humanity, right there.)

Used to be you could go to a music store and listen to the whole album. Now, you can't. Oh you can listen to samples on iTues, but if you don't have a credit card, which millions of people dont, you can't get into the itunes store. Everywhere else you have to pay to listen.

The same goes for Google Play. In europe we use Maestro, not credit cards. (Direct withdrawel). You can't get a credit card if you don't have a steady, high income, and paying with them in stores costs extra, if its even possible. Google Play only works with credit cards (to use mobile payment, you need to make a wallet account, which requires a credit card.) so everyone under 25 of the 750 million nhabitant of Europe can't buy apps in google play. Devs can whine all they want, that's just the fact. They (we) literally can't buy your apps! As such, piracy becomes the only option.

Sony has recently been looking into new ways to make 2nd hand games impossible. Many a company preceeded this. Thus taking away your right to sell what you don't need. Simply because they don't get income from 2nd hand games.

Piracy is a way to tell the greedy companies that we don't accept their near mob-related practises. A lot less destructive than rioting, I'd say.

And last but not least: The European Court Of Human Rights has recently declared convictions for file sharing to be in direct violation of Human Rights. Dear America, Welcome to the 21st century. Where the EU is the more civilized continent. They can no longer convict anyone in Europe for file sharing.

http://falkvinge.net/2013/02/07/cou...tions-for-file-sharing-violates-human-rights/

Essentially, it's only 'piracy' because people are missing out on money when people share things. And that's why piracy isn't wrong: Greed is.

Hope some of this is of use :) I'm in a lecture on research, so plenty of time to type a rant or two :p (I actually did a paper on this topic for uni...)