On loot and looting

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main... and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life. --Walt Disney--

For many years pirates have sailed the open seas.

Pirates were the feared of men.

Pirates were the terror.

And yet the lives they led weren't really all that

glamourous. In reality, many pirates ate poorly, did not become fabulously wealthy, and died young. How's that for a life, but think about it. I pirate is no more that a petty theif with a boat. But that's going to far, not all pirates owned boats, they just used them.

Pirates were every tom, dick and harry, that a captain could scrounge up. These were the people who had nothing else to do. no family to come home to, and didn't care for anything 'cept perhaps when their next drink would come.

Fortunately today good people everywhere
have virtually stamped out piracy.
Actually, instead of stamping it out, we have assimilated it.
We are the pirates of the new millenium. We are the ones who rob and plunder. We are the ones who take that which is rightfully ours, and perhaps a little more.

And it's not that we're trying to be bad,
or even sometimes that we realize we are doing something wrong,
It's just that it has become socially acceptable to be a pirate. In fact a recent survey published in some big magazine (business week (this week) I think) said that 52% of the people surveyed didn't think that there was anything wrong with piracy.

So what is the loot of our generation?
Aye the loot.
'tis all around.
For some 'tis music, Aye yes tis the song.
A boatload of lyrics we're takeen' for free.
From the internet, from our friends, from our favourite CD.

Avast ye for others 'tis the warm summer breeze.
huh? that doesn't make any sense!
Man@! talking like a pirate is hard.

Ok but what else is there?
Some of us Pirate movies.
It's really not that hard.
but is the level of difficulty directly correlated
to the whether it is right or wrong?

And when you need a million dollars,
what better way is there to get it than

embezzlement

Ok that was a happy accident,
I didn't mean for it to look like that but when I saw it,
it was love.
I mean shoot everybody's doin' it.
and besides if you've got enough money to hire somebody to embezzle from you than surely you won't miss it.

But is it Piracy if we are taking from those with more money than us? we are after all, very poor, and some of these companies make a lot of money! What on earth are they doing charging us these crazy prices. I mean ok, it's not like we really need most of this stuff, but what if we really want it,

or what if we might think, that perhaps at sometime we could want it. I mean the people who actually create something what right do they have to it or it's distribution. OK, I admit,
I'm a softy (just don't tell my pirate friends or they'll make me walk the plank) I really do believe that if I create something that I should get my share of the bounty from every single person who can benefit from it. If I paint a painting, I want money from everyone who hangs it in their house (or shed, or even if they keep it in a grain silo). And if I wrote software, I would want a little money for every computer that that software gets put on.
and I know I guess you could say I'm greedy, but hey this is a blog about pirates and well pirates are greedy.

Of course there is check fraud kind of amazing how far piracy has come. To think that you don't have to use a sword to be a pirate anymore. (Actually I think that would be the coolest part) but heck, you don't have to board their boat, you don't have to fly your Jolley Roger before you attack anymore. You don't have to meet your enemy, you don't even have to see them. Just get their money straight from the bank. Those bankers are so nice. I mean every day they give out millions of dollars. Most of it goes to the right places, and what thanks do they get? Shoot, they almost never give your money to the wrong person. And their job has got to be tough, what with all those cameras always watching them. Do you think they ever get stage fright? and forget their lines?

Of course with our tithes ... you know the scripture.

And then there are lotteries. This is by far the coolest type of piracy I have found. I mean think about it you get to let millions of defenseless people beat themselves up, and then you take their money. Ok, they don't have a lot of it usually, but there are millions of them. So you make out like the proverbial bandit!
And the best part is, it's lot's of stupid old ladies and lazy poor people (it's like taking candy from a baby)

Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold

--Disney's Pirates of the Carribean--

no. that's stupid. If you took candy from a baby at least they would cry. And maybe the old ladies are stupid, and maybe the others aren't poor, or very lazy, but a lot of them do fit at least one of those things. If you want to be really sneaky call it something like bingo! the name has such zing that they'll gladly open their wallets.

Wow piracy is everywhere, and no we're not quite as bad as china yet. ( they've figured out fascinating ways to rip off, knock off, steal and skim) And we're probably not even as bad as europe, or at least as open about it. But seriously this is epidemic. There's so much piracy, and most of it by people just like us.

Fortunately there are a few things we can do.
Stop!
yep the first step to fixing piracy is to stop yourself,
don't copy your software,
don't copy your movies,*
don't even copy your music.
And don't ask others to copy theirs for you.

*Now a bit of counsel about movies.
There is one school of thought that says that you are paying for the right to watch the movie. This has never been tried in a court.
But there are some cases where you would lose! This school would say that you are well within your rights to make a back-up copy for yourself. Maybe sometimes you are.
back·up ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bkp)
n.

1. 1. A reserve or substitute.
   2. Computer Science. A copy of a program or file that is stored separately from the original.

The definition is pretty clear. You can only use one copy of a something, at any one time. And Some companies have even found a brilliant way around that (and I don't mean DRM).
Disney has said "yes, believe you should be able to watch our wonderful movies forever" (their thoughts not mine)
And while I don't agree with or wholely support Disney on a lot of things, they have a bulletproof arguement here.

They say, like everyone else, that we as the consumers, have absolutely no right to copy their stuff. However, they also say that they will. Just register your disc, and if anything happens to it they'll replace it for some minimal fee, like the price of shipping.
True Story! did you catch that? anything! say you drop it down a mountain. Or your kid thought realized how tasty those dvd's can be. They replace their disc for life!
(Disney is a Huge Conglomerate including such companies as Pixar ( at least for a little while), Touchstone, Miramax, and others.)

Use Gel Pens, They're safer (for your checks)
and finally don't wear white earbuds.
I know it sounds silly, but they are a big red flag.
We have a new generation of Pick-Podders, and they want your IPod, heck I want your IPod, they are pretty cool.
(way to go Apple)
But seriously the buds are like a beacon calling out,
"here, I have $100 in my pocket." And sometimes ole' long John
will get lucky and find the really nice one.
If you're going to do that, you might as well just give it to me.
I'm sure I could find it a good home.

Check your credit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/bbcr.htm

http://www.annualcreditreport.com/

So Pirates we Arrrgh, and Pirates we Be.
but never the pirates life for me.
thanks for reading,
and I hope that the Pirate blog was all that you hoped it would be.

Special Thanks to the Wikipedia (wikimedia.com), My sibs, Disney, Dictionary.com and my faithful blog readers and everyone else.