If you can’t physically handle it, why pay for it?

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite a DVD fan and one of the things I always do is buy authentic DVD’s and CD’s. I’m not one for buying anything fake, and to me buying fake DVD’s is the same as buying fake watches, cars and anything else. There are people who wear fake watches, and my question is, how sad is your life?!

I would much rather wear something that I can afford that is real, so instead of a fake Rolex, I’d much rather be wearing an R800 Diesel watch that is authentic. Wearing a fake Rolex would be like driving a fake BMW, you’re only fooling yourself in the end. One of the reasons I only buy authentic DVD’s is because I think, would I want to do any job in the world for free? My answer is no.

So while you’re downloading DVD’s and music illegally, there is someone who has worked their entire life to catch the eye of a record label/ studio executive and you’re simply taking their work, enjoying it and saying “Well I’m not going to pay you”

Would you go out for dinner and expect the restaurant to foot the bill?

Would you work from 9-5, for free?

Would you expect your employees to work for free?

If your answer is no, then why would you buy pirated DVD’s and CD’s?

I think that although the internet has opened up an entire new world, it’s also disconnected us from reality. Downloading music is the equivalent of walking into a store and stealing a CD, and you wouldn’t do that, so what makes the online world any different? Just because a physical product isn’t being transferred, doesn’t make it any different.

I think as the world progresses, so does greed. I notice it a lot online, with people wanting free publicity for their events/brands on high profile websites but when it comes to paying for it or offering anything in return, suddenly they become very shy. In the real world of magazines and newspapers, these are privileges that you would pay for. But online doesn’t seem “real” and people don’t want to pay.

What people don’t realise is that popular websites are not created overnight, they take hundreds of hours of work and thousands of rands to become what they are. So while it may seem that here at SLXS we’re chilling, the content is not created at the click of a finger, and neither is the readership. It’s something I work at daily, and I try make it as fun and easy going as possible so at all times it appears as if we’re doing nothing really.

I guess it’s just something I wanted to put out there, just to make people more aware that the online world is as real as the physical world and we shouldn’t take anything digital for granted, because in most cases the same amount of time, effort and money (Well online is a bit cheaper I suppose) goes into creating the digital world as it does in creating the real world.

I’m just starting to worry that across all digital spheres, people are expecting everything to be free. This can be seen very clearly in the recent case of Twitter opening up their terms of service to allow for possible advertising. Some people don’t want advertising on Twitter, again, they want this highly popular service to be free and they don’t want any advertising getting in the way.

Do you think the people at Twitter like working for free? Exactly.

It seems that in the online world, greed too often leads the way. We want, we want, we want…but we don’t want to give in return.

It’s something to think about the next time you’re downloading something for ‘free’

It’s free to you, but for someone else in the world, it is their whole world you’re downloading, because their whole life has gone into producing that download.