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Piracy is wrong. Doesn't stop most people from doing it. Including usually the people who work for the recording companies. The irony. People like free stuff a tad too much, from any region. Stares at "campaign funds" with steely eyes*.
I try to get all my stuff that I listen to anyways, which is video game music. The right to own something is something hard to pinpoint. Then why do some companies own something that a dead person made dozens of years ago? Extending copyright "time limit" so that the company makes profit off it, while the dead person doesn't get a dime, doesn't sit well with me.
Rampant pirating is a problem, but can't say the recent actions to curb it amuses me one bit, even as a legitimate customer in most cases. Makes me less inclined to support them, and lean towards piracy.
Edit: Yes, I know. I'm not in the right, but then again, it's always a learning process, is it not? Sometimes I show my support when I can for companies or groups or people, but I will always adamantly fight against these censorship bills.
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On February 21 2012 17:42 Azzur wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2012 17:34 Hail Eris wrote:On February 21 2012 17:10 Azzur wrote:
Some of the arguments in this thread are quite ridiculous - you have people here claiming that "stealing" is ok because it's not loss sales, or that the artists themselves don't mind because it's publicity or that it makes no difference, etc. Like it or not, it's stealing and people arguing otherwise are merely justifying themselves with excuses. FFS, stop with the "stealing". Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Theft is deprivation of property. Let's consult wikipedia: Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft." In copyright law, infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22So, anti-legislation people should argue along these lines - rationalising your stealing is frankly very stupid. Like it or not, piracy is a problem and I think that good solutions (rather than censorship) should be developed to combat it. Some people might suggest that rethinking copyright law is a good solution. I'm not going to be involved in semantics - copyright infringement is a crime, full stop.
Sematics are important. Both may be crimes, but there is a difference between jaywalking and murder. Much like there is between theft and copyright infringement.
There are comments here made justifying their illegal actions, which I find ridiculous.
One thing that's ridicilous, is people justifying the law on the basis that... It's the law.
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I could just as well walk to the store right now and take a bunch of stuff, but that's not a reason to make our lives even bullshittier.
Censorship in any form must be stopped.
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I've been wondering why is it ok to listen to a song on YouTube but if you download the same song with torrent you are a pirate?
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The record companies are becoming obsolete and they know it so they're trying to halt the advance of technology rather than just getting with the program and switching business, or maybe just trying to adapt. If an artist can single-handedly reach every single person on earth simply by uploading an mp3 onto the internet, what purpose do record companies fill? None, they're just scavengers trying to cash in on someone else's talent by now.
I'm perfectly willing to pay a reasonable price for stuff, music included, and I am. I've got a premium Spotify account because rather than using the music itself as the carrot they provide a solid interface and a solid service. They're basically charging me for the time I don't have to spend finding, downloading and organizing the music myself, and I'm fine with that, it's a good business model, I'd easily pay twice what I'm paying now if it meant the artists themselves got a decent payoff (they're not, at the moment).
I feel good when I pay people who deserve it for their work, be it the bartender who made me a good drink or the artist who played music I liked. But fuck the bartender's boss for trying to help himself to my tips and fuck the record companies for refusing to accept that they are nothing but dead weight in today's music industry.
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On February 21 2012 17:42 Azzur wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2012 17:34 Hail Eris wrote:On February 21 2012 17:10 Azzur wrote:
Some of the arguments in this thread are quite ridiculous - you have people here claiming that "stealing" is ok because it's not loss sales, or that the artists themselves don't mind because it's publicity or that it makes no difference, etc. Like it or not, it's stealing and people arguing otherwise are merely justifying themselves with excuses. FFS, stop with the "stealing". Stealing and copyright infringement are not the same thing. Theft is deprivation of property. Let's consult wikipedia: Copyright holders frequently refer to copyright infringement as "theft." In copyright law, infringement does not refer to actual theft, but an instance where a person exercises one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder without authorization.[6] Courts have distinguished between copyright infringement and theft, holding, for instance, in the United States Supreme Court case Dowling v. United States (1985) that bootleg phonorecords did not constitute stolen property and that "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... 'an infringer of the copyright.'" In the case of copyright infringement the province guaranteed to the copyright holder by copyright law is invaded, i.e. exclusive rights, but no control, physical or otherwise, is taken over the copyright, nor is the copyright holder wholly deprived of using the copyrighted work or exercising the exclusive rights held. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Theft.22So, anti-legislation people should argue along these lines - rationalising your stealing is frankly very stupid. Like it or not, piracy is a problem and I think that good solutions (rather than censorship) should be developed to combat it. Some people might suggest that rethinking copyright law is a good solution. I'm not going to be involved in semantics - copyright infringement is a crime, full stop. There are comments here made justifying their illegal actions, which I find ridiculous. You have no right to distribute music illegally, no matter how popular or indie a band may be. If they give you permission, go ahead! But until then, you are in the wrong.
It isn't semantics to point out that you are confusing two completely different types of crime. Stealing is wrong and infringement is stealing, therefore infringement is wrong is a stupid argument.
Besides, all you're saying here is that infrigement is illegal. Everyone understands that much. The question is whether intellectual property and copyright law are legitimate social institutions. I.e., is copyright law the kind of law that is worth obeying, Illegal != unethical. If you want to argue than an action is wrong, you have to do better than to point at a law book.
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In my opinion, piracy is no less ethical than the way corporations are trying to make money off Whitney Houston's death by increasing prices. If they can actually sell their shit in a fair, convenient way, then maybe I'd agree with the OP, but as it is, people who pirate aren't any worse than the companies people pirate stuff from.
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Piracy is a service problem. Pirates provide better service.
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People here are missing the whole concept of a law - if everyone behaved however they like, based on what they think is "right", then we will have chaos in the world. Right now, people are justifying their illegal actions based on some notion that they believe what they are doing is better for the artist. In reality, they are just justifying themselves.
If you don't like a law, take it up with your legislator and attempt to have it changed. Until then, don't go around breaking them just because you don't like it. Or if you break it and get caught, don't expect sympathy from others. If you want to pirate, do it knowing that you're in the wrong - I have no qualms with these kind of people - the ones that I find ridiculous are the ones going about justifying their actions.
Their arguments are just as ridiculous as the censorship laws that are being setup.
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On February 21 2012 18:05 Azzur wrote:
People here are missing the whole concept of a law - if everyone behaved however the like, based on what they think is "right", then we will have chaos in the world.
Laws are based on morality. They should (and do) reflect what the majority thinks is "right".
The argument that copying is not stealing is a perfectly legitimate position.
It's very clear that the younger generations think that copying is fine. Eventually laws will reflect that when the older generation that sees copying as theft dies out.
This is like horse breeders opposing the introduction of the automobile. The horse breeders are destined to lose the battle no matter what.
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On February 21 2012 18:05 Azzur wrote:
If you don't like a law, take it up with your legislator and attempt to have it changed.
This would almost make sense if our legislators didn't have their hands in the content industry's pockets.
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On February 21 2012 15:35 Bronyaur wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2012 15:14 FabledIntegral wrote:On February 21 2012 14:41 firehand101 wrote:On February 21 2012 14:37 ArtofRuin wrote:
If I am unwilling to pay any amount of money for an album, then when I download it for free I am not stealing. There is no lost profit. As well, The Pirate Bay is also a fantastic hub for freeware and indie bands, Katawa Shoujo (a free visual novel) being a fine example. Are you serious? THAT IS NOT STEALING?!? seriously, if you had no intention of buying it, then you should not get it for free! fml, life doesnt work like that. An artist doesnt pour his/her soul into a CD, just so someone like you can listen to it for the hell of it The vast majority of people, from what I'm aware, at least on teamliquid, don't believe it's stealing. By the definition of stealing: to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch. or theft: the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny. Let me ask you this. Is it wrong if someone in Iraq pirates a TV show they want to watch, which is not available to them otherwise? The Iraqi government doesn't care if they do it. The producers of the show can't gain any money from the pirate if they aren't selling to that market (say in this hypothetical scenario they aren't). Is there is issue here? I don't think so. The main argument for "it's not stealing" is that you aren't taking anything away from the company. If they aren't losing anything, then how you can you say you're stealing from them? I don't understand this. It seems like you are arguing about symantics in a ethics discussion. What if I said it's not cheating if I maphack but only if I'm going to win the game anyway. Maybe I pull some arbitrary definition of cheating from somewhere on the internet to back me up, and it states that cheating is getting an unfair advantage in order to win the game. But I was going to win anyway right? Well really the interesting discussion there is whether it's ethical or not, not whether you are fulfilling the webster definition. Sounds like rationalization to me. Re: OP. I think you have a good point, but I agree with other posters that the correct method isn't for us to bend over and take it and it's not reasonable to expect the planet to stop piracy. The best method is to get with the 21st century and provide a good service like Steam which will generate sales. It's nice to hope that will happen, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Governments and traditional entities heavily tied to governments seem to get stuck in the "force you to do it my way" approach rather than the "provide the best service so people want to be your consumers" approach.
It's not symantics at all. You can still argue it's wrong, but when trying to come in with the specific point "it's stealing, there's no other way to say it, THAT is why you should feel bad, etc.
And your analogy isn't relevant because cheating, by definition, is maphacking. If maphacking wasn't cheating unless you won, then it wouldn't be cheating, but no one would think it was in the first place... if that was the definition.
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On February 21 2012 14:24 firehand101 wrote:The bottom line is, well, we internet people have created a fantasy world for ourselves. For as long as I can remember, we have been sharing and receiving illegal files without any repercussions, as the internet is 'too big' for anyone to get singled out and prosecuted. This fairy tale land will not last. That is what I am trying to say.
Here's the thing that I dislike the most about all these accusations.
Music artists make more money off of touring than CD sales.
Movies are funded by AD's INSIDE OF THE FILM itself using product placement.
Games you only get the single player aspect of the game if you're pirating it, and its the bigger distributors that are trying to shut down the ability to play games without having bought an original unopened version of the game.
These companies are so out of touch of what we [the consumer] want in our products and they're just looking at exact numbers.
I don't pay for Ad's. I pay not to see Ad's. And to see product placement inside of films to generate extra revenue to actually fund the movie I assume that I [as a consumer] don't have to pay to be part of product placement, because of the fact that the company who funds the film is getting extra attention to their film via product placement thus creating an advertisement inside of a movie. The company knows how good the movie will do based off of how many ticket sales and how much talk there is over the internet about it, if a lot of people are talking about it the companies will reinvest because all they care about is product placement and getting as many people to see their product in the movie.
Music ARTISTS GET SHAFTED by music companies and many artists are actually releasing their music free anyways, or pay what its worth models so if you want to DIRECTLY support the artist they get 100% of whatever you pay for that album anywhere from 1c to 1000$ its whatever you give them. There is no commission no middle man nothing, just you and the artist. YOU are in a society where people are exploiting people every day, and the only reason why this is getting so much fucking attention is because the media outlets are OWNED by these bigger corporations.
I personally don't need TV shows that do product placement because that is what the commercials are for, thus I feel no remorse actually downloading a lot of these tv shows/ movies because I'm still being immersed in the advertisements anyways. A lot of movies are looking at it like, well I need character x and y in a car... well why not let it be a ford if they pay me $X so I can fund 1/10th of my film.
I'm sorry but you are the one living in a fairy tale land.
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On February 21 2012 14:24 firehand101 wrote:
TLDR: WE ARE STEALING. Seriously, whether you like it or not, internet piracy will be stopped, we cant keep on stealing and whine when the government is going to do something about it
This statement shows a fundamental lack of understanding about the internet. Whether you like it or not, internet piracy cannot possibly be stopped. Unless you invade every private network, every computer, every internet connection in the entire world - And oh yeah, even then, You'd have to analyze an incomprehensibly large amount of data coming through the pipes 24/7/365.
And if you did all that, you still wouldn't be able to stop people with their own wireless mesh networks which aren't connected to the central web.
People like you are why these laws come into being. When I say "people like you", I mean, "Uneducated luddites who try to regulate things they have absolutely 0 understanding of". And i'm not just talking about not understanding the internet, I'm also talking about not understanding the definition of the word "stealing". Here's a diagram in case you need some help with that:
+ Show Spoiler +
Hence, instead of trying to put more people in jail (Which America especially does not need), trying to enforce legislation that can't ever feasibly be enforced, Maybe the industry needs to have massive collapse since nobody wants to buy their products anymore, at least not in their current form, current price and current method of delivery?
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Yep, copyright infringment is definitely stealing. Oh, and if you steal a loaf of bread? Well, that's clearly property-murder. The death penalty, or at least life imprisonment, is the best punishment.
...
Sarcasm aside, laws should benefit society. Some people say that a strong copyright will benefit society, because it will encourage artists to create. Other people say that a strong copyright discourages artistic expression in the long run, and a weak copyright (or no copyright at all) is best. I don't think there is a clear consensus about this among internet users. But what IS clear is that giving large media companies the power to police the internet is NOT good for society.(*)
(*) I'm not arguing for a totally unrestricted internet. But I think that if you want to take down a website, a courtroom and a judge should be involved at some point.
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Yes pirating is wrong. And it is bad. But what the fuck. Prices are continually getting out of hand on most movies and music (I still buy loads of them tho).
I mean piracy will never stop completely because, well it has been here from the start. I think there are other better ways to deal with piracy. SOPA very much so resolves to be a censorship of the internet since they are given the power to flat out shut down websites they dont like.
Just look at world wide examples. Have the cameras in London stopped criminality? Have FRA in Sweden? Have IPRED in sweden (dont know if all countries got ipred or if it is just us) stopped piracy? Again, no.
A large portion of the blame actually lies on the companies distributing music and movies since they rely on outdated models. My days of piracy went heavily down once we got similiar services to netflix here in sweden. Now it's just an odd anime episode here or there 
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I'm actually pretty sure piracy can have some positive effects on game sales, I for one didn't know anything about sc when sc2 came out (don't kill me please :p ), and after playing the first 3 or so singleplayer levels I just bought it. This is exactly why free content (like the sc2 started edition) is a hundred times better than censoring the internet to try to stop piracy (which you can't anyway)
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On February 21 2012 14:37 ArtofRuin wrote:
If I am unwilling to pay any amount of money for an album, then when I download it for free I am not stealing. There is no lost profit. As well, The Pirate Bay is also a fantastic hub for freeware and indie bands, Katawa Shoujo (a free visual novel) being a fine example.
wow i never thought about putting it that way.... and i actually think thats right. If the content is good enough, people will pay for it, you have to compete with piracy, take is as motivation, instead of shutting it down.
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On February 21 2012 18:47 Duval wrote:
I'm actually pretty sure piracy can have some positive effects on game sales, I for one didn't know anything about sc when sc2 came out (don't kill me please :p ), and after playing the first 3 or so singleplayer levels I just bought it. This is exactly why free content (like the sc2 started edition) is a hundred times better than censoring the internet to try to stop piracy (which you can't anyway)
But it should be the game companies responsibility to show you everything about why the game is good before you buy it. That's why there are demo's and lots of videos and ect for games that do really well or the game is already set up via word of mouth or what not. I agree completely and using piracy or a free system to get your product out there is perfect, but when you see that free sample person in the grocery store you don't see them making you a dinner its just a taste and that responsibility should be put on the companies.
Before the game is released let people play the first hour of the game, let the people play 2 maps of your FPS or let them play 3 or 4 characters of your fighting game and then turn that function off THE second the game is released.
Also there should be a universal standard of games being released, not this midnight shit, because people around the world are waiting the same amount of time for the game and get shafted because they gotta wait another 8 hours or w.e til its released in here. I know skyrim got super pirated because someone in aus put the game out before you could buy it over here in NA, thats just stupid make it so that it releases at time X GMT for everyone.
Its just stupid how outdated everything is and there isn't anything being changed because they can sue and try and put fear into people.
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On February 21 2012 18:47 Duval wrote:
I'm actually pretty sure piracy can have some positive effects on game sales, I for one didn't know anything about sc when sc2 came out (don't kill me please :p ), and after playing the first 3 or so singleplayer levels I just bought it. This is exactly why free content (like the sc2 started edition) is a hundred times better than censoring the internet to try to stop piracy (which you can't anyway)
Definitely. I'm not really into music, so I can't comment on that, but as far as games go, I would never buy anything anymore if it wasn't for torrents.
The simple fact is that 99% of games that come out nowadays are total horseshit, especially if you played during the golden age of gaming. Plus all the major publishers have bought off all the review-sites so any major title automatically gets 90%+ scores if it doesn't auto-format your harddrive on installation. And given that they cost 60$ a piece, I could never afford to buy games anymore if I couldn't try them out for free.
I torrent a ton of games these days. Most I play for a few hours, before concluding they suck and I just delete them. On the rare occasion I find one that is actually worth the money I gladly buy them for real. So the torrents clearly help out sales in some way.
Not saying they have an overall positive effect, just saying it's not all bad.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://questioncopyright.org/cm/images/piracy-is-not-theft.jpg)
