Charles Stross Quotes

Stealing things is everybody's problem. We [Apple Inc.] own a lot of intellectual property, and we don't like when people steal it. So people are stealing stuff and we're optimists. We believe that 80 percent of the people stealing stuff don't want to be; there's just no legal alternative.

The amount of piracy is extraordinary. People don't realize how big it is.

I don't think a lot of people realized that piracy is out there, and it's not a Disney-esque or Johnny Depp-esque type of thing.

My views on piracy and illegal streaming are I think it's illegal for a reason, and I feel like there's a lot of people working hard behind the scenes to get the fights going and showing things on TV.

Most people still steal music.

It may be a brief interruption - just a few seconds - but what if someone sitting near you is trying to make a decent bootleg? Did you ever think of that? Now all those street-corner copies are permanently defiled by your so-called 'emergency.' Don't be so damn selfish.

I've stolen music before, I don't know anyone who hasn't. But if you're gonna do that, I want you to be able to have an opportunity to know the real lyrics because I really hate it when people put up wrong lyrics online.

Steal my stuff off the internet wherever you can and don't apologize. Buy the CDs and DVDs from my site and feel free to burn 'em and share 'em. Then come to the show.

The nice thing about piracy is, it allows the public to get independent art, to get a variety of music and movies.

As for piracy, I love to be pirated. It is the greatest compliment an author can have. The wholesale piracy of Democracy was the single real triumph of my life. Anyone may steal what he likes from me.

Illegal downloading, digital cheating, and cutting and pasting other people's stuff may be easy, but that doesn't make those activities right.

There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies - not because they care about seeing the movies or sharing them with their friends, but because they want to stick it to the movie business.

Piracy has destroyed the domestic market.

Napster was predicating its business model on violation of copyright.

We need to differentiate between commercial piracy - where criminal organisations produce illicit DVDs on a huge scale - and domestic, unauthorised filesharing, which may or may not be detrimental to overall sales.

It is piracy, not overt online music stores, which is our main competitor.

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things.

I don't think it's fair to pinpoint Asia in terms of piracy. It's a worldwide problem. With 'The Expendables 3,' piracy extended everywhere, and over 10 percent of it was in the United States. So I don't want to put my hands over my eyes. It's a shame there is no DVD business in a lot of Asia, certainly China and India.

I always say this, but I'm saying this again. Do not encourage piracy.

It's easy to make a pirate copy when you have digital tapes of things. And it was so complicated and complex to go through all the post-production of a movie without ever going digital.

I wouldn't even say the internet is a gift and a curse for hip-hop. All types of music are bootlegged, including movies which are bootlegged.

Today, we see some "file sharing" sites that rely on fans uploading cracked copies of ebooks, and which then make money off those books by charging for downloads (via cash subscriptions or advertising). Again: I take a dim view of this. They're making money off the back of my work without paying me.

Does it bother me that some people are burning their own System CDs and taking money out of my pocket? Not really. This has always been about putting the best possible version of the song in the fans hands. It was like selling an artist's painting before he had finished it.

One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It's a service issue.