Would you call me a pirate?

For quite some time I’ve been wondering what people think of me when it comes to piracy. I considered myself a pirate a couple of years ago, I used to download all my music, movies, games and programs. Nowadays I buy a lot of music and movies, and I don’t play games anymore. I do still download stuff, but in my own opinion I’m not doing anything illegal. You see, I’m not doing it because I don’t want to buy the stuff. I have a couple of reasons why I do it and now I’m going to try to explain myself.

I’m a fan of Japanese and Korean music and I almost never listen to western artists, and when I do, I use Last.fm. I can’t just go down to my local music store and listen through the CDs I want, cause they don’t have them. So how about the iTunes store or other online stores that provides previews? Yes, they’re great and I do use iTunes store to listen to previews. But sometimes listening to previews isn’t enough for me. Previews are good enough when we’re talking about artists I already know and listen to. But when it comes to artists I’ve never heard before, I prefer to listen through the full length album before I decide to buy it. I mean, I don’t want to buy something without knowing that I’ll be satisfied.
Using torrent sites is a GREAT way to find new music. If I were more mainstream I wouldn’t need them but you see, I listen to a lot of music which isn’t that well known. For example I listen to jazz and lounge music, and without torrent sites I would never have found those artists. So thanks to torrent sites, those artists got one more fan, who also buy their stuff.
CDs are expensive, I can’t possibly buy everything cause I’m not Bill Gates. However, CDs on iTunes costs about half the price, but the thing is, I can’t use the Japanese iTunes store since… I’m not Japanese. I know you can buy those gift cards to purchase music on whichever iTunes store you like, but do I really want to pay $20 for a card worth $15? No. (yes I have to, since I need to buy the cards from a reseller).
When it comes to movies and TV series I can’t do much about it. I can’t go to the movies and watch Asian films and TV series doesn’t come with English subtitles. However, some Japanese movies comes with subtitles, but you usually have to buy Hong Kong or Korean versions. The Korean versions are good, but the Hong Kong versions are not very reliable. I do however buy my favorite movies, after watching them. TV series (or J-doramas) never comes with subtitles so I have to download fansubbed versions.
I’m a Mac user, almost everything I need in terms of applications comes with the OS. And there are a lot of great open source programs available for the Mac, actually the only program I use which isn’t free (or comes with the OS) is Adobe Photoshop CS3.

So what do you think, am I a pirate or not? Is it bad to download then buy? It’s a win-win situation, I get to download and listen to the music and if I like it, I buy it, and if I don’t like it, I delete it. No one actually lose any money on it, it’s just the way I have to do it. If they had the music in the music stores around here I would go there to listen to the music, and if I don’t like it I don’t buy it, obviously. It’s just the same, it’s like I’m borrowing the CD just like you do when you listen to it in the store, the only difference is that I can save the CD if I want to, without paying for it. And I do save the CDs I like, but only until I get my own copy of it.

I don’t consider myself a pirate, and I don’t like it when people call me a pirate either. Sure I download stuff, but I like to know what I’m buying cause I don’t want to throw away my money on stuff I don’t like. Though, if I were more into western music, my view on this would definitely not be legit.

But let me know what you think, and do you download or buy the stuff? Or do you do both like me?

P.S. I ordered music for over $170 last week. And by the way, Yanko Design is back up!

E ya later!