Slashdot and others are featuring story about a guy called Tony. Tony recently lost his job because of the number of people illegally downloading software, music, movies, games etc from the Internet. Previously, he had been earning about €2000 a week. Now he’s stuck working in a warehouse. His wife also had to go back to work as a hairdresser. His lost his flash car, house and all the other accoutrements of being well off. Everything he had is gone.
You might think that Tony was employed in the the software development business, or that maybe he distributed software for one of the big developers. Looking at it one way, he did. But technically, he did it illegally. See, Tony was a “physical” pirate. He produced bootleg CD’s of software, music, movies and games. And Tony is sad because the likes of you and me are depriving him of his lifestyle. So next time you see Tony, give him a copy of the latest movie you downloaded from the Internet. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.