Aaarrrggghhh.

I'm a pirate.
Yes, I'll admit, (unless you are from the RIAA or MPAA,) I do occaisonally download materials off teh Internet that I should have purchased in a store.

What's my justification?

Oh, I could tell you that I think it's wrong to support record companies that are mass producing inane drivel, and I could say that downloading a movie I would not go see in the theatre doesn't hurt anybody, or that paying $20 for a CD with one good song is just sheer stupidity.
Why do I do it?

Because I'm cheap.

I used to be the guy who would listen to the radio and tape that one song he wanted, even if it was only played at 2:45am on a Sunday night. I would be a bag of shit at school the next day, but I got my own copy of "Seventeen" by Winger. Who cares if two weeks later it was being played every ten minutes; I had it first.

Nowadays I use it for research. If I hear a song from a band I like, I'll download one or two more songs, just to see if they are not one hit wonders. If they aren't? Well then, I download the rest of the stuff, ..... like I'm gonna give HMV any of my hard earned money.

I used to just limit my downloading to music. I felt that movies, especially DVD's, were sacrosanct, and should be purchased to support the industry. If I didn't buy their movies, how would they afford all the great CGI that I have come to know and love? But then they had to go and make shitty movies like "Stealth" and "Sharkboy & Lavagirl in 3-D" Any industry that can produce steaming piles of feces like that only gets my money for top-quality, worthwhile films.

Do I have any limits to my privateering ways? Who knows. Will the police press charges if they read this? Maybe not. Until then, I'll set my P2P program to the second star from the right, and I'll download until morning.

Later.