Before Poland joined the EU, one of leftovers from communism was that IP laws resembled these in China - in reality there were none in effect.
Imagine farmers' market but with bootleg VHS and audio cassettes, CDs, brand clothes etc. In every major city. On a weekly basis.
Great majority of Poles were poor as shit and buying original copy of music or video cassette was a very distant thought. Piracy was "normal". I was introduced to The Prodigy by my math teacher, who lent me a copy-copy of their Music for the Jilted Generation. I learned English from pirated movies. Got to know a lot of great music and TV shows.
I now own all of Prodigy's CDs as well as hundreds of other legal music CDs and BluRay sets/boxes. Not a chance in hell I'd buy all this without a taste of a product beforehand.
Looking at this from 2023, I believe that our access to affordable (pirated) creations of western culture allowed up to leave Soviet (or communist as we were not a part of CCCP) mentality behind more quickly.
Hacker Cinema
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Before Poland joined the EU, one of leftovers from communism was that IP laws resembled these in China - in reality there were none in effect.
Imagine farmers' market but with bootleg VHS and audio cassettes, CDs, brand clothes etc. In every major city. On a weekly basis.
Great majority of Poles were poor as shit and buying original copy of music or video cassette was a very distant thought. Piracy was "normal". I was introduced to The Prodigy by my math teacher, who lent me a copy-copy of their Music for the Jilted Generation. I learned English from pirated movies. Got to know a lot of great music and TV shows.
I now own all of Prodigy's CDs as well as hundreds of other legal music CDs and BluRay sets/boxes. Not a chance in hell I'd buy all this without a taste of a product beforehand.
Looking at this from 2023, I believe that our access to affordable (pirated) creations of western culture allowed up to leave Soviet (or communist as we were not a part of CCCP) mentality behind more quickly.