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Comment by test1663 | Hacker News Reader

Protests are big in Poland because they are very poor and 90% of people downloads everything from the Internet. Deleting Pirate Bay, Rapidshare. Youtube and Megaupload would stop most people from accessing any cultural goods: music, films, software.

Unlike India etc, average Pole has enough money for good PC or notebook and good internet connection, but not yet enough to pay for software.

Nobody uses Steam or Itunes, paying for software is just laughable. Except for businesses - they must be legal.

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I'm sorry, but this is just a load of bullshit. GDP per capita in Poland is 46th in the world (comparing to 127th position of India), it has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, and one of few that were immune to the recent economic crisis. If you want more information, you can find it on the web[1].

It's true that in the early nineties, just after the fall of communist regime, intellectual property wasn't regulated and piracy was sprawling, but a lot has changed since then.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Poland

Yes, I said enough money for good hardware but not for software.

Why nobody uses Iphone, Xbox, Playstation, Gamecube in Poland? Because it is hard to jailbreak and pirate.

I know someone who bought Mac from UK. Disk wasn't erased, there were hundreds of mp3s in Itunes and some apps. And we all thought it is a computer from an abosolutely crazy richman.

That's plain BS. When I was in Warsaw in December and iPhones were everywhere. During the holiday season I saw tons of people buying legitimate non-pirated music, movies, and games at stores like EMPIK. In fact after the new year when I went to buy some albums it was hard to sort through what was left on the shelves because so much of the stock had been cleared out and made a mess of in the holiday buying rush. It's true that a lot of people in Poland may be income limited due to low wages, but I think making it seem like everyone there pirates everything because that's the only way to get it is totally wrong.

And this is true in Hungary for sure, and I guess in the whole Eastern Bloc, Russia included.

What have you been smoking?

Poland is far from poor. Actually, these days it's quite a stretch to call it a "developing" economy.

Yes, majority of young people download infringing content from the web, except:

1) The same happens in many richer countries, like US or Spain (with percentages just a bit lower)

2) These very same people also buy content, when it makes sense.

All of my friends (who play PC games at all) use Steam. Nobody uses iTunes, because it was launched just a few months ago in Poland, so everyone is used to getting music by other means. (A lesson for Apple not to withhold products, because people will find their own way and render the "proper" channel obsolete.)

And saying "Deleting Pirate Bay, Rapidshare. Youtube and Megaupload would stop most people from accessing any cultural goods: music, films, software" is just plain insulting and retarded. I guess in your book there's been no culture to speak of in Poland before broadband Internet? ;)

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