Garrett2112
02-17-2011, 01:22 PM
Just found this off N4G.com. Some excerpts are below - but the full article is a good read IMO. ;)
My oldest friend got robbed two years ago, but it was more than just possessions that were stolen from his apartment. Our friendship dates back to the late ‘80s. A typical weekend consisted of the usual six-year-old activities—playing outside, building forts, playing cops ‘n robbers, watching Saturday morning cartoons, bullying his little sister (who last year was on America’s Next Top Model, or at least in the qualifying round), and putting tons of hours into late-night gaming. As we got older, we found new priorities. There was one thing, however, that never changed—we both still love gaming.
When he called me up two years ago and told me he was robbed, I was heartbroken to hear they stole his TV, two computers, cash, car, and his hefty assortment of videogames and devices. The thing is, up until that point, we were both thieves. Those gaming devices I mentioned, a PSP and a DS, were both hacked and filled with pirated games. I was just as guilty.
The problem is we had been stealing for years. We would share cassette tapes in high school or record songs off the radio. In high school we’d copy CDs for each other, and in college we’d download songs from Napster and other music sites. Passing around cassette tapes seems pretty innocent compared to sharing a $50 videogame. We would always rationalize music sharing by believing the bands we listened to would just want us to hear their music and were not corporate whores. Years later when I met my sister’s boyfriend, a professional musician, I learned that there’s more to music sharing than just some indie bands that would happily hand out free CDs at a show.
With his birthday right around the corner (seriously, bad luck), and being a game-loving friend, I bought him a PSP so we could go back to the old days of long-night gaming. The condition on the gift was we both never take a game again. In all honesty, our hacked PSPs were mostly filled with Gens and SNES emulators.
Whenever we catch up, our conversation always drifts to gaming. I learned a lot when he was robbed, but mostly I learned that it’s hard to justify taking something from anyone.
Our generation grew up as the Internet evolved. AOL was all the business back in the day, and today it’s all about Google and Facebook. But I remember when Napster was all the rage. I used these sites to find new music, but now we have places like Pandora. Today you can search torrent sites to find Xbox 360 games, PC software, PSP games, Wii games, and just about anything else you can rip a code from. Now, with the PlayStation 3 facing its first major hacking test, PlayStation Universe has been slow to take a stance.
My intention is not to preach and say stop pirating videogames—hopefully you know what’s right and wrong. This is simply a true story that seemed pretty relevant given Sony’s recent statement about PS3 hacking. There are a lot of us out there who used to make illegal downloads but have since changed our ways. There are some who have never downloaded pirated material and never will. But, there are probably even more people out there who steal a song or two once in a while.
I have intentionally left my friend’s name out of this story as it’s not relevant. He lives a much simpler life but still loves his games. We made some mistakes in our younger years, as everyone does, and we learned our lessons. The guys that robbed his apartment years ago were never caught, but their actions were enough to stop two other criminals.PSU.com Article Link (http://www.psu.com/The-theft-from-hacking,-lessons-learned-from-the-Napster-generation---a010709-p0.php)
My oldest friend got robbed two years ago, but it was more than just possessions that were stolen from his apartment. Our friendship dates back to the late ‘80s. A typical weekend consisted of the usual six-year-old activities—playing outside, building forts, playing cops ‘n robbers, watching Saturday morning cartoons, bullying his little sister (who last year was on America’s Next Top Model, or at least in the qualifying round), and putting tons of hours into late-night gaming. As we got older, we found new priorities. There was one thing, however, that never changed—we both still love gaming.
When he called me up two years ago and told me he was robbed, I was heartbroken to hear they stole his TV, two computers, cash, car, and his hefty assortment of videogames and devices. The thing is, up until that point, we were both thieves. Those gaming devices I mentioned, a PSP and a DS, were both hacked and filled with pirated games. I was just as guilty.
The problem is we had been stealing for years. We would share cassette tapes in high school or record songs off the radio. In high school we’d copy CDs for each other, and in college we’d download songs from Napster and other music sites. Passing around cassette tapes seems pretty innocent compared to sharing a $50 videogame. We would always rationalize music sharing by believing the bands we listened to would just want us to hear their music and were not corporate whores. Years later when I met my sister’s boyfriend, a professional musician, I learned that there’s more to music sharing than just some indie bands that would happily hand out free CDs at a show.
With his birthday right around the corner (seriously, bad luck), and being a game-loving friend, I bought him a PSP so we could go back to the old days of long-night gaming. The condition on the gift was we both never take a game again. In all honesty, our hacked PSPs were mostly filled with Gens and SNES emulators.
Whenever we catch up, our conversation always drifts to gaming. I learned a lot when he was robbed, but mostly I learned that it’s hard to justify taking something from anyone.
Our generation grew up as the Internet evolved. AOL was all the business back in the day, and today it’s all about Google and Facebook. But I remember when Napster was all the rage. I used these sites to find new music, but now we have places like Pandora. Today you can search torrent sites to find Xbox 360 games, PC software, PSP games, Wii games, and just about anything else you can rip a code from. Now, with the PlayStation 3 facing its first major hacking test, PlayStation Universe has been slow to take a stance.
My intention is not to preach and say stop pirating videogames—hopefully you know what’s right and wrong. This is simply a true story that seemed pretty relevant given Sony’s recent statement about PS3 hacking. There are a lot of us out there who used to make illegal downloads but have since changed our ways. There are some who have never downloaded pirated material and never will. But, there are probably even more people out there who steal a song or two once in a while.
I have intentionally left my friend’s name out of this story as it’s not relevant. He lives a much simpler life but still loves his games. We made some mistakes in our younger years, as everyone does, and we learned our lessons. The guys that robbed his apartment years ago were never caught, but their actions were enough to stop two other criminals.PSU.com Article Link (http://www.psu.com/The-theft-from-hacking,-lessons-learned-from-the-Napster-generation---a010709-p0.php)