There is no sane way to justify piracy. There just isn't. Just because something beautiful is made doesn't mean everyone has a right to it.
"How about fire? When it was invented, it didn't need to be marketed."
Well, in the case of fire and Facebook, the crime of piracy does not apply. When the prehistoric man made fire, did he patent it for profit? When the modern man (more specifically, Zuckerberg) made (or ripped of) Facebook from a Harvard network, did he put a fee on using it? No. Because fire and Facebook are two things the world is almost sure never to run out of... and Facebook is now worth billions.
Get it straight--when you have something made for you, you're supposed to pay for it. When you buy ready-to-use, 2-ply toilet paper at the supermarket, you pay for it. When you buy a ready-made lunch at KFC, you pay for it. When you buy a ready-to-watch movie, you pay for it. It's that elementary. Those self-righteous nuts at Pirate Bay really need help.
Anyway, enough with the guilt trip. It's impossible not to support capitalism, especially in this modern world. Piracy is only one of the many renegade faces the everyman can take solace in. At the time of this writing, a Tom Cruise movie, Jack Reacher, recently hit the shelves at the price of roughly USD 10 a copy (based on ebay.com and Amazon.com). Convert that to peso and it would cost around P400 to P500! Of course, you can wait until next year to buy it for half the price or rent it, but by then Tom would have made two other movies (the first one, Oblivion, is already in theaters), and if your friends are movie buffs as well, you'd be a year late for the buzz.
We, the common man, have only two options: not to watch movies at all or to go to the marketplace for a pirated copy. We know it's wrong. We know it's a form of cancer in society. But we do it anyway and we can't justify ourselves--so we won't.
Now, how do you pirate like a pro?
Walking down the street and coming across a pirated movie store, you say, "Hey. I think I have time for a movie tonight." You walk to the bustling storefront gazing at the bright lights and the glossy plastic covers. The vendor invites you in closer as he inserts a disc in a DVD player with Chinese characters, "testing" it for another customer. In the mountains of movie titles piled among the make-shift shelves, how do you know what to look for?
The most basic thing to do is to look for a DVD copy. A DVD copy is a movie burned to a blank DVD using a DVD burner--a device intentionally made to put data (like movies) to DVDs. The source is the original DVD of the movie. Make no mistake: when you play a true DVD copy, it has to have a menu, correct subtitles, and at times, special features like a director's commentary and audio in other languages. The quality of the picture in DVD copies should be as clear as the original's. If it isn't and it doesn't have subtitles and a menu, your pirate is ripping you off. He's technically a criminal so don't be surprised. A DVD copy should also cost no more than 30 pesos a pop. If the vendor charges you more than that, he's full of crap and it's not worth it. A blank DVD only costs 8 pesos a piece at CDR-King and a DVD burner won't cost over 2500 pesos. Imagine how much they make in a month. No wonder it's a booming business.
Another thing to do is to look for a so-called Blu-ray copy. Doing this requires a looser budget than normal. It costs around 60 pesos a disc and it's an iffy thing to do. Most pirated movie stores don't have DVD players that play Blu-ray discs. Blu-rays and DVDs are two very different things. Blu-ray discs require high-end players because they play in high resolution (1080p) and they usually require a high definition (HDMI) capable television to play. DVDs on the other hand, play on almost every player out there today. Most pirated movie stores have a knock-off DVD player which sells for under a thousand pesos in Quiapo, as do most households that buy pirated. However, if you know your stuff: you have a Blu-ray player and a TV that can handle HD, then you can enjoy the clearest moving pictures modern man has ever laid eyes on--in the comfort of your own home and for less than a hundred pesos!
One thing to not do, is to forget to ask if what you're buying is a DVD copy. Movies in pirate stores that are neither Blu-ray or DVD copies are cam-rips. A cam-rip is the produce a pirate makes when he brings a camera in a movie theater and records the movie right there. This is the lowest form of piracy. The picture quality is worse than your drunk best friend's phone video of your wedding, and the sound quality is comparable to dramas played in a phonograph. People who make cam-rips are a shame even to pirates. What's worse? They sell it to you at DVD-copy price and they put new movies which are not yet out on DVD (hence, cannot be copied yet) in the front-most part of the store.
The biggest no-no when buying pirated movies is buying a DVD9. A DVD9 is basically just a DVD that can hold twice as much data. A DVD can hold 4.7 gigabytes of data while a DVD9 can hold 8.54. So why is buying it such a wrong choice? One, because it normally costs 50 pesos. Two, because pirates stuff it with so much data everything is a mess. Videos in DVD9s are usually cam-rip quality to save DVD space (the poorer the quality, the smaller the space it takes), and it's mostly just 4 to 5 movies shown in different chapters in the make-shift menu and on the cover. You'll see ridiculous titles such as "Johnny English VII," "Rush Hour 3 IV," and many more.
There is an exception to the DVD9 warning, however. If you're a fan of TV series like Two And A Half Men, CSI, Spongebob Squarepants and what not, the only way you're getting it is in a DVD9. It's a tricky gamble because a lot of vendors sell DVD9s with incomplete episodes. Sure, the cover may read "Complete Season X," but don't count on it. And if you're smart, you wouldn't count on anything else made in China either. Japanese, Spanish and British series like Gokusen, Operation Love, Marimar, and Sherlock among others may come with incorrect subtitles. In some cases, there would be no subtitles at all. So before you go off buying one of these, search the series you are looking for in Wikipedia. It'll show you how many episodes are in each season. Then have it tested before you buy it. Don't allow the vendor to fast forward like he's just letting you comb through the entire thing. Watch it straight for at least one minute. If the subtitles are understandable, the episodes are complete, and the picture is decent in quality, then make the purchase.
Bottom line, remember that you are buying from a crook (though in doing so, it makes you a crook as well). It takes real smarts to know you're not being ripped off. Though pirated movies are much cheaper than the original, you are still paying good money for it and you deserve quality.
So that's it. How to pilfer like a pro. If you have anymore tips, please feel free to comment below.
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