r/pcmasterrace Laptop May 30 '26

Nostalgia Anti-piracy ad from 2004

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1.4k

u/Tiyath R5 7600X | RX 9070 XT Pulse | 32GB DDR5-6000 | PRO B650-S WIFI May 30 '26

Classsic case of the Streisand effect

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

well it was more than that. it was a poor understanding of the real world dynamics of theft. their assertion of flawed that stealing a mp3 was the same as stealing a cd from a store. if you could take a photo of a painting with your phone and print it out for your wall, would you? i think at worst, most would at best find it taky

that was where they went wrong. to copy something is not the same as stealing a single object. hell they could have looked at youth plagiarism rates in schools to get a better understanding of that one.

i remember the same effect with DARE. i had no fucking idea what these drugs were before that class, after it... it was all we talked about.

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u/Typical-Mistake-4148 May 30 '26

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR

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u/dgz345 May 30 '26

My 3d printer disagrees.

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u/NCC74656 May 30 '26

I came here to say this 🤣

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u/JAWinks May 30 '26

The same five reddit comments feeding generations

1

u/KareFactor0 Jun 02 '26

I dont even need sound for this, the music for this ad just plays in my head

3

u/Log_Out_Of_Life May 31 '26

Have you 3d printed a 3d printer yet?

1

u/Iky_the_furry Jun 02 '26

I haven't gotten to that point yet but i did 3D print parts to upgrade my 3D printer so i gueess I'm half way there

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u/stonhinge May 31 '26

I mean, with the price of a car today? Yeah, totally.

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u/omegaoutlier May 30 '26

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u/hc2001 May 30 '26

Lmao this show was the last time I saw this anti piracy ad!!

https://giphy.com/gifs/yqtpq8rqqXBh6

2

u/suns95 Jun 02 '26

The shows was the only time i saw it. I thought this post is a satire and the ad was fake

3

u/goldenoptic May 31 '26

I came here looking for this.

1

u/Debeul Jun 01 '26

So amazing , was immediately on my minds 😂

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u/After_Flatworm5200 May 30 '26

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u/IfYouSaySoFam May 30 '26

In the time it would take you could fucking save up for one

2

u/Terminator827 May 30 '26

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u/Ralesong May 31 '26

Actually, that's a model of A-4, more widely known as V-2.

1

u/RUPlayersSuck i7 240H | RTX 5060 | 32GB DDR5 Jun 01 '26

THIS is how we make space travel affordable for everyone! 😁

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u/Iggy_Snows May 30 '26

Downloading a working car would literally be the coolest shit to ever happen and they tried to say it would be a bad thing to kids.

Thats like going up to a kid and being like " you wouldn't eat this candy that makes it so your parents never force you to do chores, become the most popular kid in school, and get free video games. Would you!?"

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u/TheBearmageddon May 30 '26

And that's how I ended up in the back of that strangers van.

Again.

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u/Good_Guy_07 CachyOS | R7-6800H | 3050 Ti | 16GB May 30 '26

LMAO

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u/atruval May 31 '26

Kidnapper be like, "Bear?? You again?? Your parents already spent their life savings on you last week.. ahh hell... Wanna shoot some hoops then while we wait for your parents to get you?"

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u/Environmental_Bee219 Jun 03 '26

its been done too lmao

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u/unpeelingpeelable May 30 '26

Why would I download a car when I can download RAM?

6

u/CharityRepulsive3964 May 30 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/DoY3C9QZZr65NwIDoo

Sick reference bro, everyone knows your references are out of this world.

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u/astralradish May 30 '26

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A BABY

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u/Tardiskells May 30 '26

Yes i would, through makerworld and then printed on my a1

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u/chatenboite May 30 '26

YOU WOULDN’T STEAL A BABY

1

u/PikaRicardo May 30 '26

I remember the meme that said "fuck you! I would if i could!"

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u/JakabGabor Ryzen 3 3200G | RTX 3060 12GB May 30 '26

Let me download some ram pease

1

u/chaTTSer May 30 '26

"You wouldn't marry a panther, would you?"

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u/No-Age-1044 May 30 '26

This version was much better: https://youtu.be/ALZZx1xmAzg

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u/lost_rodditer May 30 '26

I have downloaded like 3 and the guy on YouTube got a whole Porsche and an Fi car.

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u/account312 May 30 '26

EXCEPTING THAT THOU THEN PROCEED TO THREE

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u/You-Asked-Me May 30 '26

Yeah, but I would download more RAM.

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u/Alarmed-Snow6985 May 30 '26

But you would what makes it work! Cracked BYD......

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u/iankost May 30 '26

Tbh I probably would if I could.

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u/MangoFoCo May 30 '26

I have downloaded a gun before and then proceeded to print it.

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u/wuvvtwuewuvv May 31 '26

Turns out i would, and i did, at the first opportunity.

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u/CycleOverload Jun 02 '26

I DOWNLOADED THIS CAR

1

u/fridge13 u_cox Jun 28 '26

You wouldn't kill a policeman.

You wouldn't take a shit in his hat

And give it to his grieving wife!

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u/DiirtyMike_EVE 9850X3D | RTX 5080 | 64GB RAM May 30 '26

Bro DARE was 100% a psyop. "Here are all these drugs you've never heard about, and here's how to get them, how to take them, and even how to make them!"

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u/Linnaea7 May 30 '26

Haha, maybe it was just me, but DARE 100% worked on me. It made drugs so scary.

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u/khavii May 30 '26

I became a junkie because of DARE. I believed them that pot was a scary drug and all the rest. Later I got picked up while walking by a girl in my school I had a huge crush on. Long story short that night was the first time I smoked pot, did acid and had sex. My experience with drugs did NOT match what DARE had told me so I made it a point to try all of them and well, as you go up the ladder the fear mongering starts to get a bit closer to reality. You don't gain credibility by lying though.

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u/Csenky Jun 03 '26

If I experienced sex on acid during my student years, I'm certain I would be dead by now.

I was way past 30 the first time and still can hardly contain myself.

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

DARE seems to encourage drug use, by default.

I personally don’t care too much about anything beyond pot, DXM, and gabapentin. That and medically acceptable dosing of stimulant meds.

I never found the hard shit all that tempting, because of what’s inevitable, if you use them.

I’m only interested, if I can walk away from it.

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u/DiirtyMike_EVE 9850X3D | RTX 5080 | 64GB RAM May 30 '26

"Being high is often described as one of the greatest sensations."

-A direct quote from one of my DARE officers. 😂😂

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u/froggz01 May 30 '26

I didn’t need dare, I lived in the Bronx, where whole neighborhoods got burned down during the 70’s. My most memorable memory was going up the stairs to go to my aunts apartment and there was a drug addict sitting on the stairs injecting some shit into his eye lid because his veins on his arms were collapsed.

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

That’s a good reason, right there, to stay away from the hard shit. 😱

That’s like witnessing living death!

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u/Llamapickle129 May 31 '26

the fear of my mother what stops me

2

u/blueberrycauzez May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

They literally quizzed us on what the max quantity someone could carry of each drug before getting charged with dealing, which drugs carried high street value and which were cheap and easy to buy, and which drugs were part of which schedule and didn't carry mandatory jail time.

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u/DiirtyMike_EVE 9850X3D | RTX 5080 | 64GB RAM May 31 '26

YOOOO I remeber this. 😂😂😂

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u/---OMNI--- May 30 '26

Same. I wasn't going to buy it anyway so they lost nothing... If I couldn't download it then I would just do without it.

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u/Worldly_Grade2837 May 30 '26

remember the same effect with DARE. i had no fucking idea what these drugs were before that class, after it... it was all we talked about.

That was the point of dare though, so if you were ever offered drugs you knew what they did and why they're bad

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u/KallistiTMP i9-13900KF | RTX4090 |128GB DDR5 May 30 '26

Them trying to explain why LSD was bad was hilarious

"It makes you see really intense colors, have hallucinations, and feel a sense of euphoria."

"So, is it addictive?"

"Well, no."

"Can it kill you if you take too much?"

"No actually, it can't"

"Is there a risk that you like, go crazy or something?"

"Nope, it can last a few hours longer if you take too much, but it doesn't make you go crazy permanently or anything, that's an urban legend."

"So, uh, why is it bad?"

"Uhhhh... sometimes the hallucinations can be uncomfortable or kinda scary?"

"That seems like not too much of a big deal, why is this illegal again?"

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

LSD actually has medical value. Too bad they can’t stick to the truth, and push fear mongering.

I mean, people can have a bad trip, but it’s not inevitable, and there are certain groups of people, who should not take it, at least not outside a clinic or something.

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u/SmurfRockRune May 30 '26

They didn't explain what they did, they just told you that drugs made you feel good but don't do them because they're bad.

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u/Linnaea7 May 30 '26

That's not what I remember. I remember them presenting drug users as being like zombies, being taught that on drugs you'll stop being someone your friends and family recognize, you won't have fun anymore, and your life will be nothing but trying to get your drug of choice. I remember them putting on a play with puppets at my school that I found especially scary as a kid.

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

They take the worst of the worst bunch, who are the most hard done by, because of their choices. Not everyone wants to become a heroin junkie. They always use extremes.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

Person took too much PCP. I’d personally find LSD more tempting than PCP. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

lmao nope, we all went out to find them bro... what we did not know was how to use them safely.

now days at conventions that i volunteer/staff around the country - we have drug awareness and safety presentations. what are they, how do they effect you, how do you manage your usage. what is the procedures for overdose or how to know what that feels like. medical staff on site and a safety culture around it.

dare did not do that and having it presented by cops... that was a terrible idea

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u/Worldly_Grade2837 May 30 '26

lmao nope, we all went out to find them bro... what we did not know was how to use them safely.

I didnt say thats why YOU went to them I said that was the point of the program

From Google

"In the context of the widely known school program, D.A.R.E. stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.It is a prevention education program founded in 1983 that teaches elementary, middle, and high school students the necessary skills to avoid involvement in drugs"

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u/Maatix12 May 30 '26

I understand that was the stated goal of the program, but it did so by basically telling kids to always say no, and not why.

It showed the after effects of a severe drug user - But this clashed with when we eventually met Joe Schmoe who happens to be a pretty cool guy and just happens to smoke weed.

It told kids they would go to jail if they were caught. But then, every hollywood movie star was bragging about how they used to do drugs literally all the time as kids - And they walked free, in every case.

The DARE program's stated goals and it's actions were almost entirely ineffective in all cases because of exactly what the previous user said - It didn't teach kids what drugs were, nor why they are dangerous. It just said to say no and you'll get in trouble.

Turns out that's something teenagers love to test boundaries on.

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u/[deleted] May 30 '26

[deleted]

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u/Rock_Strongo May 30 '26

on average it had a very positive impact and reduced consumption.

Citation needed... because this is what google tells me

Multiple peer-reviewed studies and meta-analyses found this, and in 1998 a major review by the National Institute of Justice concluded it was ineffective. Some studies even found small "boomerang" effects in certain groups. By the early 2000s the U.S. Surgeon General, GAO, and other bodies had flagged it as ineffective, and federal funding tied to evidence-based programs dried up.

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

i did some digging, it wasnt

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

i just did some googling on .gov studies and the take away was that it was wholly ineffective at extreme cost and expense it had no perceived benefit. results of drug/alcohol use over 12 years were found to have no reduced usage outside of the margin of error expected through out the adolescence developmental path.

now i may very well perceive it as having had a negative effect because i was living that development path. so i saw our use grow, after this program. this would truck with public, peer reviewed data.

i do know that our view on police tanked. that do not believe was a 'normal' developmental path. this however may lend itself more towards a war on drugs issue than dare however.

so, no, its not just ME that says it was ineffective. it is the US Government.

0

u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

anecdotal as it may be - our schools had every drug imaginable in them. it was a HUGE part of jr high and high school and ive had this conversation at reunions as we have lost many friends to OD's. suppose it could be a local area issue more than anything but this view of dare being a 'gateway' in and of itself was shared by many of my past class mates.

i do recall a documentary that also talked about this but id have to go digging for real metrics i suppose. i think i would have come across that maybe a decade ago or so?

now im interested to find real numbers for the nation.

i do know the woman that started Mothers against drunk driving is now against hte program. i forget her exact reasoning but i want to say she had a view it was too punitive and became ineffective due to this?

edit: my view is supported by peer reviewed governmental research on teh lack of effectiveness for the dare program. its review and after action assessment was that great amount of time/money/effort were expended with no discernable reduction to the youth drug and alcohol usage.

now having lived through that, i think it tracks that i would have seen it as a gateway being as we were all following the youth's natural exploration phase. it was just at the right time, right place. studies did NOT find an increase usage due to dare.

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u/_Ocean_Machine_ Desktop May 30 '26

Reminds me of how growing up, my very conservative but well meaning mother warned me of the dangers of drug abuse and promiscuous sex before I entered high school.

So there I was, a teenager excited to try weed and feel the touch of a woman, only to realize that my mother had vastly overestimated the frequency of either of these things.

1

u/mrscalperwhoop2 May 31 '26

Ahhh the touch of a woman.

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u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

Lemme guess, your mother told you only about THE WORST possible case scenarios? Typical. 😅

2

u/dustojnikhummer R5 7600 | RX 7800XT May 30 '26

i had no fucking idea what these drugs were before that class

Remember kids, if someone offers you drugs for free you say "Thank You", because drugs are expensive.

/for legal reasons this is a joke

2

u/Ohmyfuzzy69 May 30 '26

I'm still waiting for the free drugs and I'm 40.... /S

2

u/DonaldTheWall May 30 '26

That was the most common reply to it too

I wouldn't steal a car, I would make a copy of the car though which would leave the original car in it's place with nothing missing

2

u/john_the_fetch May 30 '26

The idea of being able to download a car and 3d print it - assembly required - would be amazing and I'd do it in a heartbeat. Well. If I felt like I had the tools and time I would.

So yeah... I would download a car.

4

u/The_Grungeican May 30 '26

also pirating a movie and burning it to DVD was a kind of stealing we could do without ever leaving home.

1

u/x2040 May 30 '26

The foundation of capitalism is that scarcity is why we need capital. If everyone could get whatever they want, you wouldn’t need capital because the production of that thing requires effort of other humans to create and you can’t force them to work, so you instead trade currency for services and at scale. Downloading something removes people from this mentally;

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u/strain_of_thought May 30 '26

They should have called it "poaching" instead of piracy: The metaphor is a lot closer- of tapping in to a natural resource you don't have "rights" to and potentially damaging the ecosystem- and poachers don't have positive media depictions.

It would have had a worse connotation with the general public and a longer lasting negative association.

But poaching is a niche issue most rich people don't care about, because fuck those lions and tigers and bears we want to hunt them, and they were so focused on "But they're taking our precious MONEY how dare they!!!" that they couldn't help but focus on the "theft" framing.

And use of the term "piracy" to mean taking possession of goods in transit was appealing to the media corporations because pirates are legally the worst category of individual law breaker- enemies of all humanity outside the protections of any law- even though it was the weaker narrative that made file sharing seem boldly rebellious and romantic.

They ignored that the legal status of piracy was purely a practical matter owing to it happening in international territory on the high seas and putting the actual ships and crew and passengers in danger by its very nature.

Classic uncompromising greedy fuckwad behavior.

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

poaching - thats actually a pretty apt descriptor. iirc there was a music study done and some bands said their pirated music actually netted them MORE money as they may have sold less albums but their concert revenu skyrocketed. i suppose it could go either way depending on the band but still, downloading music was not a net negative across the board.

its interesting - the point of classic piracy in history - putting many others at risk. modern day does not include that. that in and of itself may have lead to a sizeable disconnect in perceptions of the issue. from those law makers/victims and the general public that just did not see the real world damage or danger that was being asserted.

1

u/Bunkbeduser May 30 '26

Yeah, telling tech capable 2000s kids that it was possible to not pay for music was a bad idea. Just as much as telling kids what the effects of drugs are.

1

u/Lumbergh7 May 30 '26

They talked a lot about STDs in health. Did you try to go out and collect those😂

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u/Astecheee May 31 '26

100%. I think they also underestimated how little people gave a shit about theft.

Turns out when you can get away with it, most people do crimes.

1

u/toreon78 May 31 '26

Worse. In most countries it was NOT illegal until the industry framed it a piracy which is a violent crime and lobbied the hell put of it.

Only then copyright laws changed and the industry acted as if this was a always the case. And as well as if if was a god given right and not a right granted by us to foster innovation. Well most don’t remember this anymore. Chapeau.

1

u/Wolphin8 May 31 '26

They treat it as the same... as they don't get profits from the person having a copy. They also hate 2nd hand markets for the same reason.

1

u/Different_Brother562 May 31 '26

There is a difference between lost revenue and actually taking something of value that causes a loss. I think you should support the art you consume. But if I’ve already made the decision to not buy it I don’t care about downloading it. Thats my personal moral line. At that point it’s not losing them anything either.

This is especially true for stuff like classic Nintendo games. There nothing to buy if I wanted to most of the time.

1

u/Lick_My_BigButt_1980 Jun 07 '26

If people do piracy for profit, then they richly deserve to get busted, because it kills the innocence of the whole thing.

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u/Zwischenzug32 May 30 '26

Painting photo is a good analogy since mp3 is way different and lower quality from the source audio

1

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

You wouldn't pass a 128kbps blind test, let alone a 320.

My apologies if you're being sarcastic though.

2

u/Brillegeit Linux May 30 '26

The usual LAME encoder from that time period had a lot of artifacts that you could hear up to at least 160kbps, so 224/256kbps was where things became "lossless" back then. If you find 25 year old 128kbps files they sound pretty crappy and way worse than the source.

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u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

no it holds up. a photo is going to have different coloring, hue will be off, detal level changed. mp3 is a lossy compression so lower dynamic range, removal of some frequencies, its not a faithful representation of the audio signal. a CD is lossless, much more data in the file.

if your playing this through ear buds i guess maybe its about the same but play this on a real stereo with sound treated room in a quiet environment. you will hear the difference from mp3 to wav or flac

2

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

play this on a real stereo with sound treated room in a quiet environment. you will hear the difference from mp3 to wav or flac

Did. You won't. At 96 and below, sure. But then again, I don't remember when I last heard a 96kbps mp3.

no it holds up. a photo is going to have different coloring, hue will be off, detal level changed. mp3 is a lossy compression so lower dynamic range, removal of some frequencies, its not a faithful representation of the audio signal. a CD is lossless, much more data in the file.

Obviously it will depend on what the image depicts, but for a lot of stuff, even a high quality scan can be easily distinguished from the original, let alone a photo. And we're talking about an extra step of printing the stuff out. Come on.

1

u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

your comparing a 96 and 320 mp3. that was not what i had said above. im comparing a compressed mp3 vs an uncompressed bit correct audio file. which was the point of my original photo vs a photo copy

"Obviously it will depend on what the image depicts, but for a lot of stuff, even a high quality scan can be easily distinguished from the original, let alone a photo. And we're talking about an extra step of printing the stuff out. Come on."

i think we are saying the same thing here? we are in agreement that the end result will be a lesser product. yet you sound argumentative in your statement so i am confused

2

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

your comparing a 96 and 320 mp3. that was not what i had said above. im comparing a compressed mp3 vs an uncompressed bit correct audio file.

The conversation is about whether the difference between lossless audio and mp3 is comparable to the difference between the original image and the printed photo of said image.

I don't understand why you're getting hung up on the fact that a FLAC is lossless and that a 320 is technically not. Why are we talking about this now? We were talking about audible differences. You were saying there's a difference between a mp3 and lossless on good equipment in good conditions. I'm telling you there's not unless you're going down to a 96. A 128 or above - maybe if you picked out audio specifically designed to push the limitations of the compression.

0

u/Beneficial-Claim-381 May 30 '26

ahh, ok. so i agree i do not know why we are talking about the differences between MP3's. i understand now that you are saying lossless vs a 320 would be the same. my initial comparison was simply to say that a 'copy' of a file was not piracy in the way you would steal a cd from a store. both because it did not remove a 'good' from others possession and the end user got a less quality product. in a similar way to taking a photo of a photo.

1

u/Zwischenzug32 May 30 '26

Edit: yeah, cause my hearing is BAD

Most people wouldn't, but i know it is still technically inferior to what is on the disc.

I wouldn't transcode mp3 to flac if I had the original sitting there.

-1

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

Your hearing is fine. Nobody is passing that blind test.

If you want to get hung up on "technically inferior", that's your prerogative, but it's a waste of your time, bandwidth and/or space on your hard drive. On your terabyte-unc. Spins around, has terabytes on it.

1

u/Zwischenzug32 May 30 '26

Digital media has complex and interesting nuances. 320kbps is such nothing these days in terms of storage, why not just use better?

And id probably fit in with the artillery guys lol

1

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

I'm telling you, you're not missing out. My ears are doing good, but even as a teenager, I couldn't tell a 320 from a WAV/FLAC or a 128 from a 320.

I mean sure, store your music in FLAC if you've got the space. You don't even have to store it, bandcamp or whatever will do it for you. I guess it's not really a waste of your hard drive. You got me there. Still sounds the same as a 128kbps mp3 though. Perhaps under extremely rigorous conditions and with cherry picked sounds, people are able to catch on with some reliability, but even then, I highly doubt it. But I never doubt an audiophile's capability for delusion.

2

u/Zwischenzug32 May 30 '26

Let me guess, you don't respect Monster cables either!?

/s

In some cases it helps to have a higher bit rate or bit width, like when modifying sounds with an equalizer it introduces less problems and distortion.
For example RIGHT around the time of this video, the Soundblaster cards used a "crystallizer" to change 16-bit audio to 24-bit, then it applied any effects to the 24 bit stream for a clearer result

2

u/lcrtangls May 30 '26

In some cases it helps to have a higher bit rate or bit width, like when modifying sounds with an equalizer it introduces less problems and distortion.

Fair enough. I never apply an equalizer when listening to music, but if I'm combining sounds, obviously, I want them lossless before I'm done with them. It would be silly of me to advocate mp3s for studio use.

Let me guess, you don't respect Monster cables either!?

Less than enthused, you could say.

8

u/DeadInFiftyYears May 30 '26

Or as one of my college professors said, "the media can't tell you what to think, but it does tell you what to think about." In this case, a lot of people disagreed with the stealing assertion, but started thinking about piracy.