Can't buy the bundle, but haven't pirated it?

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December 24th, 2010

In my anonymous piracy survey, I received hundreds of responses. We already addressed one of them by adding BitTorrent support to the bundle, and now I'd like to discuss another one:

"I'm pirating the bundle because I have no credit card and can't buy it."

To a certain mindset, this seems like a good excuse. You can't buy it, and you feel entitled to have it, so there's no choice but to pirate it, right? However, for some people, piracy just isn't an option -- they believe in what we're doing and want to support the bundle. For example, I recently saw someone on Reddit who didn't have a credit card. Instead of feeling entitled to pirate the games, he actually took the effort to gather up all his spare coins and convert that into a $12 Amazon Gift Card using a local Coinstar machine.

I'd like to sincerely thank him for going to such lengths when it would have been so easy to Google for a pirated version. However, here's where it gets interesting: Amazon Payments doesn't honor Amazon Gift Cards (pretty sad). So the would-be bundle supporter posted on Reddit with his lament at not being able to buy a bundle. Immediately, another Redditor bought a gift bundle for him.

This is truly inspiring to me, both the efforts of the coin-collector and the generous Redditor who gave the gift of the Humble Bundle to someone in need, without expecting anything in return. I have been rather fortunate lately, so I'd like to join in: if you legitimately can't purchase the Humble Bundle and made the decision not to pirate it, let me know in the comments below with a way for me to contact you. I will personally buy 20 or so $10 gift bundles (all to charity), and give them to the people I feel are legitimately deserving.