Talk:VOCALOID Piracy/@comment-34440083-20190410222927/@comment-53539-20190410225535

It depends on the circumstances. For example, here on the wiki we've got people who enforce rules upon us. VO forums for a long time was neutral, because its staff actually supported/used the illegal software version, but the forum was once linked with Zero-G and PowerFX so could never allow it on the forum.

The site Vocaloidism had no such burdens, though I forget the circumstances.

The general idea of how a community is like is also linked to a culture.

For the Japanese fandom, pirating is a "no no" full stop, its considered "stealing the soul" of the Vocaloid. Its hard to explain Buddhism when its not your own religion, but the mentality in Japan is that objects can have souls. Its like a big sign of disrespect. So most communities related to Japanese fans and producers don't do this, though there is a pirating community. What tends to happen, is the communities don't overlap and keep to themselves from my experience of how things work.

However, the Chinese fandom isn't too bothered about pirating, China has a big problem with pirating in general. ITs because the average person is poor and can't afford much and China for a long time wasn't so hot on copyright related things. It basically bred a culture wherein its more common to have fake brands then real ones, though due to pressure from the west this is changing. Now some of the counterfeit stuff has been moving slowly to other countries. So communities with Chinese fans may have different opinions, though I would not be the one to talk about the general attitude within their communities.

The west is generally divided, as mentioned there can be good reasons we don't support it. I often find the people most likely to pirate are young teens who can't afford the software, or don't think there is consquences. As one person in the One Piece fandom put it "why buy the manga when the scalation is up for free?". People will claim pirating therefore has no impact on sales, but the thing is... As a girl who walked out of the 80s and 90s into the 2000s, the introduction of the internet DID impact sales of things like software, music, etc.

IT was already a step in that direction as it was as VHS tapes and blank cassettes already allowed you to record TV and radio stuff, but the internet took things to a whole new level, especially in the early torrent days. I know myself the idea that pirating won't impact the real product is complete BS. IF something has to be bought and can only be bought, it is more likely to receive sales against a version that is pirated.

I can remember VO forums someone called our approach "draconic", but we have just no say in the matter. So communities attitudes with each other can be quite snippy at times, with some parties failing to understand why the other has a particular opinion on it. But its like this... A manga wiki cannot have scans of its manga up. It cannot have full episodes (though can link to official ones). A music wiki cannot have pirating versions up, a software links to illegal downloads, both these impact us. Some wikis push the boundaries and the way things are they get away with them because of how many wikis there are and diverse their subject. So just because our wiki abides to the rules, doesn't mean we all do.