Stackbabbin' Bumscags

I always loved it when Aranea went into deeper explanations. Aside from her being so adorable, it's always refreshing to see a troll acting reasonably and rationally. Her intelligence makes her amongst one of my favorite trolls.

Subscription fees make sense in that you're guaranteed to get X amount from a single customer in a month no matter how many times they visit your site. People dislike advertisements and some don't know about adblocking software, so if they pay the subscription fee, they get no advertisements, and possibly even some extra content the provider may throw in as well. So, say you put in a $15/mo subscription fee, for every viewer that subscribes, you're guaranteed to get $15/mo from them. Usually you're dependent on advertisements, so you have a possibility of getting $15/mo from a single viewer if they visit your site often and depending on how much you get per ad view/click. Would you like the possibility of getting $15/mo from a single viewer? Or the guarantee that you're getting $15/mo from that viewer? In short: Site gets paid, viewer gets no ads, both are happy.

Well, would you care to point out how I'm wrong instead of doing your usual "Well you're just wrong"? And I never was trying to justify piracy, because this isn't piracy. If you'd sit for a second you'd realize I was actually countering Raz's claims that adblock = piracy/theft.

Nobody here is saying that they deserve stuff for free, but we're not obligated to do anything when it comes to a free service. I use adblock, but for webcomics that I follow and subSPUF, I have mine set to not run on those sites. But that doesn't suddenly make it theft for me to do anything with adblock on (Like Razputin is arguing). Nobody's thinking that they're "special" (However you define that word.).

And this they knew when they decided to host a free service. If they wanted to make some sort of profit off of the service then they should put a subscription fee on it. Otherwise, nothing illegal.

I'm not arguing semantics if you're simply just using these words plain wrong. That still doesn't make it theft, and that still doesn't make it piracy. You have no argument.

I know that, but what he is defining as "theft" is not theft at all. Nothing is being stolen. Nothing is being copied. The only thing that is happening is that I am viewing free content that is freely available to everyone on the internet, but choosing to opt out of viewing advertisements using adblocking software installed on my internet browser.

Between me and Rynjin there have been numerous reasons why it's not stealing. And I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "free" in context to things like this. Free means I do not pay anything. Metaphorically or physically. Advertisements are optional and a site could run without them if they had another means of procuring income.

Oh come on, I haven't had any decent debate in a while. D: And technically it's only one, since I'm mainly agreeing with Rynjin. AND I HAVEN'T BEEN ASSIGNED A CATEGORY YET! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME D8<

That's irrelevant to the points that have been made by both me and Rynjin. I am not gaining any money that companies would have made from advertisements, therefore, there is no theft. A movie cannot be compared to an on-site advertisement. I feel you're starting to grasp at straws, here..

You're comparing an optional advertisement to an actual product. The two are completely different and cannot even be compared evenly on the same grounds.

Wrong again. Again. You are not gaining money. Nobody is getting money with adblock. Therefore there is no "theft" taking place.

I am not "stealing anyone else's money" by viewing a YouTube video with no advertisements. Also, given the fact that YouTube is run by Google, the number one internet search engine and owner of the ever popular Android products, one person not giving them a pittance pay through a single advertisement is not going to make them go under. If you download a movie without paying for it (i.e. theater tickets or rental/purchase costs), then yes, you are stealing. That is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material (the movie), and is, by definition, piracy. While I am denying them the money from the advertisements, I won't argue that, it's free material I am viewing, and free meaning no cost to me. That one single word, "free", means that it's not piracy, and therefore, legal as long as I do not attempt to make money off of it. If the movie is put up on a streaming site with proper authorization and permissions to allow that site to let users view it, then viewing that movie without advertisements is not piracy. YouTube provides a free video hosting service where you may upload, share, and view videos. Because running a site is not free, especially not one with the sheer scope of YouTube, site runners choose to put up advertisements to draw income from selling ad space. They get further income from the amount of views that said advertisements may get or any clicks on said ads. Furthermore, it is not against their Terms of Service to have adblocking software enabled during your visit(s) to YouTube. While there are just simple page ads, the pre-video ads are also never guaranteed to show up. For example, you watch a single video 100 times over the course of two weeks, and, for the sake of this example, each time you viewed this video, you had previously closed the page and then went back to it, or reloaded the page. Again, for the sake of this example, let's say that out of your 100 viewings, you saw 12 pre-video advertisements. That means that you viewed this one single video 88 times without the pre-video ads. Not only are the pre-video advertisements not guaranteed to show up, you may get them even on the same video you just watched. In some cases, the pre-vid ads glitch, once the video advertisement is finished, it won't go to the video you're trying to watch, you'll get a blank video. Adblocking software blocks these ads, and instead goes straight to the video, this would be considered interoperability software, which is automatically legal, as it allows you to view the free content. Just because advertisements are enabled doesn't mean that the uploader has no intention of the content being free. Tons of websites are proof of this. In the case of copyrighted content being uploaded, the uploader has no choice in the advertisements. Adding advertisements to something suddenly does not make it paid content. The video is still freely accessible, however there's an advertisement. In order to truly call it "piracy", would mean that there would have to be a cost out of the viewer's pocket to view said video, be it a penny or five grand. Since there is no monetary exchange between the viewer and the uploader, this is still free content. He did not just get pirated, and nor did any other site in existence get pirated simply because someone is using adblocking software.

I've set my adblock to not run on the subSPUF index page, since that's the page I view the most. I mainly just dislike how some ads slow down pages when they're loading. That and ads with sound. Those moments before adblock when I'd have multiple tabs open and suddenly start hearing music or someone talking. Then I frantically go through each tab to find which one it is so I can shut it the fuck up. I also usually set adblock to not run on webcomics, either.

Except the problem being that a lot of websites don't provide a real service or are selling you a product. I am not obtaining copyrighted software or material through illegal means by simply blocking advertisements to other websites. Advertisements are optional material that site owners add to their sites to bring in revenue, emphasis on optional. While yes, advertisements keep many many websites afloat, there is nothing saying I absolutely have to view these advertisements to be able to view some material. dictionary.reference.com defines piracy as Which you are not doing by simply blocking advertisements. If it is freely available for public use/viewing (i.e. a publicly listed video on YouTube), then it is not an "unauthorized" use of said video to view it while blocking advertisements.

So I'm totally just pirating everything to ever exist on the internet because I dislike how slow and intrusive all these shitty ads can be.

So... Because I use Adblock and watch YouTube videos to get past all the ads they used to run on videos, I'm pirating them? What?

That's the funny thing here, is that the US is suddenly trying to push all these anti-piracy measures, yet Europe and the UK are just like "What? Piracy? Nawww, we're good! Silly America." and continue on their happy days, or better yet, more pressing issues. Sadly enough, though, this isn't all that surprising considering this is the same country that decided to classify corporations as citizens.

But it's never going to happen unless we get people with actual brains in higher management. Of course they can't be doing anything wrong! It's the greedy thieves! Our service is fine! /s

An even better reason to piggyback wi-fi off of your neighbor, your own internet (If you've got any) won't be affected!

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121926-Connecticut-Considers-Violent-Videogame-Tax God fucking dammit politicians, stay the fuck away from my damned video games Not exactly uber current, considering this was posted on the 5th, however I'm seriously tired of being painted a target (Singularly and gamers as a whole) and singled out amongst other more serious issues for liking to shoot pixels with pixels.

It'd have to be Meenah, considering the old Condesce was the Witch of Life.

I see Vriska, Tavros, Meenah, and Godhood Aradia, can't tell who the others are though.

Either that or it's going to block off all access to the Green Sun or someshit..