Promoting Piracy... Coolest Thing To Do, Right???

The coolest thing to do for Gen X over the Internet is DoWnLoAd... And DoWnLoAd some more... :) With Google at your service all you got to do is type whatever you want in the search box and Google morphs into your personal Jinni... Your wish becomes its command... and wallah!!! You have googols of sites listed, offering gazillion choices across categories... Software apps, MP3s, Movies, Games and everything else ;) all's there waiting for your consent - “CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD” :)

It was a revolution when Steve Jobs introduced the world to Mac in January 1984. Internet was just a baby then and only a countable few used it. Soon PC happened with a soltero motto, Windows for everyone. And now is the age of The Kindles and The IPhones. Internet junkies are huge in numbers and the gateway to it is in the other room or possibly via the GPRS enables cell phones vibrating in your trouser pockets. Logon to your Internet enabled systems and everything on the Web is a few key taps and mouse clicks away. Like us humans if Internet too had a Mom, then things would have been quite different don’t you think? Say for example, the moment you hit download this movie (illegally i.e.) she comes up morphed as a pop up Alert box which reads, “Baeta, this ain’t the right thing to doooooooo!!! (Loads of oooo’s to give it a rhyme ;) hehehe so you better read it that way… sorry, carry on… :) ).” She would always pinch your conscious the moment you try to do something that ain’t right (provided you still have the innocence left in you that makes you feel that taking something without permission ain’t correct after all :) if not then you should better read on, may be this article pinches this thought into you exactly like Internets’ Mom would have if she existed).

But, unfortunately or fortunately, no one can control how you use the Internet but you. The world is at your figure tips just coz of the WWW (Even this article:)). The power that it unleashes is massive and too huge for one person to own or control. So it’s better felt untamed and freedom be bestowed on individuals who wish to use it. Now that you have all the powers and rights to call the shots on what you wish to do with it, don’t you think you should be a little more responsible??? I agree on the fact that NO ONE in this world is Dhoodh Ka Dulla Hua… But unless you are dichromatic, I am sure you would understand the shades of grey; the extent you decide to MISS USE the WEB… Some people virtually travel great miles and bury their mother boards under mammoth ((0)*(1)*)* string of bit downloads nights after nights. Once the stuff is on our local drive, we start flaunting it in front of our chaddi baddies…

Rohan says, Hey Dude!!! Did you get your hands on The Chains Of Olympus -The Best PSP Game Ever and the Red Dead Redemption… I DoWnLoAdEd (:)) it the other day… man it’s Mind-Boggling!!! You want it??? I have it on my machine… I’ll get it for you kal…

There you go!!! This is what it was talking about… Buddy wake up!!! Not just did you illegally DoWnLoAdEd it, you have already started acting as an Ambassador for Promoting Piracy madi…

All of us use a music enable gadget that we refuse to leave home without, right… and what’s the point in having it if you don’t have your favorites on the playlist... So what do we do??? Should we shop for our favorites on EBay or Planet M… Naaaaaa!!! that’s not realistic… I ain’t the son of Ambani that ill buy my music... I mean come-on after a few weeks I’m sure there’s gonna be fresh meat in the music market for me to hog on… But I sooooo need the “Ye Dooriyan” track from “Love Aaj Kal” on my ipod man!!! And I am sure I would get it on the WEB… So what if the artists has put in Khoon Paseena (okaaaayyyy…they were sitting in air-conditioned studios and did not bleed either… but still…:) ). If I shop for it, I’ll have to shell out my Papa’s hard earned money and he would never ever agree on buying me this stupid few months craze lasting mp3… But I need it no matter what…. Ahh ha!!! WEB baba ke Jai… That’s what we all do right… And once we have it on our devices we go all gaga about it and make those who still haven’t committed the sin of DoWnLoAdInG, ask for it too…Tools to share it have already been created… The Torrent Engines (P2P software apps), USBs, Smart Cards, Bluetooth and many more are readily available options for you to share your sins. I am sure this wasn’t on the minds of those who invented USBs and Bluetooth :)… Why do we all forget that someone made FM stations (now over the internet too) to satisfy our momentary wants, at least for our music taste buds. Ya of course, you have to learn meditation before you can listen to FM… hehehe… I mean you got to wait patiently till they shut up BaddBadding and play the darn music… Ohh ya forgot… all of us want an Ipod and a collection of songs that we can call our own (be it illegally… you can always ask your mind to brush this word under the carpet saying, all do it so what if I did it too… All I did was an innocent mouse tap on the link that said “CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD”:))… by the way… I have the “Ye Dooriyan” track on my machine if you want it :)

We all crave for entertainment but paying for it takes a little weight off our pockets. But that’s one weight no one would mind carrying actually ;) hehe!!! Cinema houses these days charge anywhere between INR 100 to INR 500 down South Mumbai during the peak hours. If you wish to watch it for 80 bucks then you better get up early and make sure your girl-friend too reaches the movie screening venue before 9am :) Haha!!! That’s a daunting task don’t you think… I’m sure guys can but for Girls… Naaaaaaa… Most of the fairer sex need well over an hour to just decide on attire and makeup :) (Girls don’t kill me after reading this please :))… So ya basically 9Am show is out of the question at least for the love birds :)… But this is a group of people who would never ever go for downloading I guess… Paying INR 150 – INR 250 for a late-morning or early-noon show in a cozy Air-conditioned Last Row Cinema hall is fullon paisa wasool for the couples. For the rest of us (hehe) most of the time, “CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD” it is… BUYING the latest flick is a difficult option when a free copy is always available over the net or with your Chuddy Buddy :) Hmmm… serious temptations na!!! Well let’s hope some business guru comes up with a smart offer like a monthly pass or something for us movie hungry youngsters… All you MBAs out there, I really need your help on this :)

With the kind of technological advancement we have seen in past few years, getting access to a whole lot of gadgets and resources is pretty much easy. Common!!! I cannot have a Computer running on DOS or LINUX right… I need at least a Windows 7 if not an iMAC :)… but paying for it… that’s a little difficult. Latest Windows 7 upgrade would costs me anywhere around USD 200… USD 1 is about INR 44.667 as per RBI’s website… Wooohhh!!! Chal na Mamu, if I get my pc assembled using parts from lamington road and a pirated Windows copy then I can save enough for a booze party with my mates ;) so why the heck go for Original… But technology is an area where a few Angels are working on Open Source. Open source is a good way one can avoid promoting piracy at least in technology arena. I mean there are easy alternatives available over the net that are good substitute of proprietary stuff and that too for FREE… All you need is a little eagerness to look for them and readiness to let go desire for BRANDED PROPRIETARY STUFF. Of course the Branded stuffs are always an edge ahead… But Open Source is FREE:) what else do you need. When it comes to compatibility, well most of them provide support for outputs from the proprietary apps too. We have The UBUNTU OS free of cost that you can have your machine running on. Then there is OPEN OFFICE from the JAVA GODS as an entrant alternative to MS OFFICE. We have a whole lot of trial version available for Antivirus softwares. If you don’t want to take the pain of 30 day Trial downloads then go for AVAST or the AVG. Try GIMP for your image processing needs instead of a Photoshop. Go for VLC player as against the pirated Video players. VLC is capable of playing every darn vid file format, so worry not :). 7-ZIP is a powerhouse open source alternative for WINRAR. Then we have a NOTEPAD ++ as against the TEXTPAD. All you Student Developers go for JAVA I say. The JAVA IDEs – Net Beans and Eclipse are free of cost :) as against the MS Visual Studio for DOT NET. Of course the Free Apps have their limitations but it’s FREE after all :)

All said I understand that this age is called KALYUG as per Hindu mythology for a reason. So the mantra should be to remember that not being Dichromatic would help a lot…. Capability to see Shades of grey is the need of this present time… Summation of a little discretion from each one of us would result in a great cut down on piracy I feel… Dichromatic Thinking is a thing of Satyug and its existence in this fast paced high demanding extremely accessible world is not possible in entirety…. And hence this article and the links below :) … This is my contribution to the Left Hand Side of the Algebraic Summation equation I spoke about earlier in this para :) I hope you do yours too :)

• Nokia Website offering Free Music: http://music.ovi.com/in/en/pc and http://www.nokia.co.in/services-and-apps/music/main-music

• Few Links to download Open Source Softwares mostly from Geek Group: Geek.com ; http://sourceforge.net/about ; http://geek.net/ ; http://slashdot.org/ ; http://www.ohloh.net/ ; http://freshmeat.net/ ; http://en.softonic.com/

• OS : UBUNTU: http://www.ubuntu.com/

• OPENOFFICE: http://www.openoffice.org/

• VLC Player and Server: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

• For all you engineering grads and Developers : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/downloads/index.html

Chalo guys gtg… Enjoy :) and keep sharing more open source links as and when you find :) :) :)