Is online piracy a really serious problem? My opinion: nope.

[hunter]

129. "Creativity" doesn't pay, never has.

The money is in marketing, and most of the time the artist is left broken in the gutter by those who profited most from their work.

That doesn't justify copying copyrighted works against the owner's consent, but I don't believe this battle is about artists, it's about the owners of the art, and in most cases the owner of the art is not the creator of the art.

I don't fuck with the owners of art, most of them are sharks. I buy or rent movie DVDs, I like to buy books, (our family contributed greatly to J. K. Rowling's wealth), sometimes I'll buy commercial music, but mostly I buy art from artists directly and I share and improve upon those arts that have been graciously shared by other creative people.

There's an awesome, unlimited world of creativity outside the control of big media companies and software houses.

If one limits themselves to big media and big software (Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) the world becomes less creative, very small and easily controlled by "the powers that be."