[climber]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

And the inability to form logical arguments concerning piracy.

As much as I find it wrong and immoral to download music that I did not pay for, IT IS NOT STEALING! At least not in the eyes of the law. If you steal something you can be charged with a crime and go to jail. Copyright infringement is a civil matter. Different court with different rules about proof, but most importantly instead of jail, or prison, you give up some money.

[finboy]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

It's not "stealing" at all. It's not even similar. There is no deprivation of property.

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people cannot grasp the concept of intellectual property. It reminds me of something that Einstein was supposed to have said once:

"I'm surrounded by f*cking idiots!"

I'm starting to get a glimpse of his frustration given the depth of ignorance regarding this whole sharing discussion.

Do any of you guys who support music stealing have any beachfront property? If so, put me on the calendar for the first week of March. The family will be coming down to party for spring break.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

And the inability to form logical arguments concerning piracy.

Uh…yes, your zero attempts at logic and reasoning in this thread have really shown me up. People in glass houses, amigo.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by finboy 

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people cannot grasp the concept of intellectual property.

It amazes me that the people on my side of the debate are making rational arguments and all the people on your side keep talking about how amazed they are. If you want to refute my ideas, facts and logic will get you further than insults and preaching.

Anyway, as I've said before, I primarily deal in "intellectual property." I grasp the concept. I simply disagree with you as to whether or not piracy is necessarily wrong. It's undoubtedly wrong in some cases, but I have a lot of trouble calling something "wrong" when it benefits everybody (as piracy sometimes does).

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by finboy 

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people cannot grasp the concept of intellectual property. It reminds me of something that Einstein was supposed to have said once:

"I'm surrounded by f*cking idiots!"

I'm starting to get a glimpse of his frustration given the depth of ignorance regarding this whole sharing discussion.

Don't worry, those on our side of the fence are equally amazed, but I'm sure Einstein would be more convinced by our logical approach than your automatic, indoctrinated "Oh it's bad!" response.

[besson3c]

My opinion regarding piracy is extremely simple: if the owner does not want you pirating their stuff, doing so is wrong. Otherwise, I don't much care about what the studios and other players involved wish.

My opinion is similar in regards to bootleg recording concerts: some bands are cool with it, some aren't. It would seem very disrespectful to me to bootleg record a concert of a band that does not want their live performances recorded. To me, this gesture of respect trumps all other arguments about rights and morality.

[JoshuaZ]

TV stations offer many of the shows I like to watch online for free with ads. I would watch them online for free over downloading. Easier. Oh, but wait. I'm in Japan. My IP is outside the US of A. Clearly we can't be having non-americans watching Heroes.

And whats this? That DVD of that movie that came out a year ago? Can I rent it in Japan? Oh no. They're not releasing it for another 6 months. Whats this? X-Men 3 is out in the US and the rest of the world? Ohhhh no. I can't go see it because for some reason its not being released in japanese theaters (this really happened) for another 6 months. I guess I'll just pick up a copy of it in Vietnam two weeks later in full DVD quality. Whats this? My parents sent me a DVD for my birthday? Ohhhh it doesn't work on the two different DVD players I have in my apartment because its the wrong region. Speaking of which. My friend in Australia loves his PS2. I should send him one of these awesome Japanese games. Oh wait. It won't play. Its the wrong region code. Luckily the game is also out in America. I'll send him that copy. Ohhh, still wrong region code. Well, if he's lucky it will eventually be released. If he's lucky. (Nothing like an Aussie or Kiwi gamer to complain about release dates and region codes. They get the perpetual shaft. The Australia court ruled recently that region codes were illigial under Australian law. I'd import a Australian Wii in a heart beat if it was region free.)

So please, spare me the moral agruments about downloading. We as consumers need to fight for our right to use the products we buy. If it was up to the music industry, movie industry, TV industry, and game industry we as consumers would hardly have any choice. We could not move our music and movies to portable media, and we would have to call and activate our games (and deactivate them when we delete them)just to use them. We would have no way to back things up.

Heck, it would be moral offence for my high school orchestra conductor to cover a record, yes a big black round record, over to a CD. Why would he do something so wrong, so against morality, and so technically annoying? Because some of the best recordings he has are on record and are not available on CD. Heck, sheet music producers are harrassing webpages that have LEGAL copies of the ORIGINAL scores for music. I'm quite sure that the orginal score to Beethoven's 5th is public domain by now, but that doesn't stop the sheet music industry from sueing people. (Sheet music is frickin expensive. Its a racket when ponder how an industry that sells music thats in the public domain can continue to make millions a year. They would love nothing more than to sue every public school band or orchestra for photocopying sheet music for school uses.)

Lets not forget how the VCR was going to kill the american movie industry, and how the in the 70's the music industry used the EXACT same argments to complain that tape piracy would kill the music industry (clearly the fact that disco was going out as a sell had nothing to do with low sales in the same way the turn of the century saw the demise of certain pop band trends).

Anyways, enough of this venting. Have a nice day.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by JoshuaZ 

So please, spare me the moral agruments about downloading. We as consumers need to fight for our right to use the products we buy.

Unless I'm misreading, none of the examples that you mentioned in your post involve anything about you not being able to use a product you have bought. They all involve you not being able to share it with other people.

But by all means, fight for your "right" to party.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

Unless I'm misreading, none of the examples that you mentioned in your post involve anything about you not being able to use a product you have bought. They all involve you not being able to share it with other people.

I think you missed a couple of examples (e.g., region coding). But besides that, sharing things is a legitimate use.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I think you missed a couple of examples (e.g., region coding). But besides that, sharing things is a legitimate use.

True. Regardless, your legitimate options are to buy or not to buy. The idea that you have a "right" to the content whether you buy or not is ridiculous.

[besson3c]

He may not have a right, but it is still good for consumers to be very vocal about their complaining when they think various companies have overstepped their boundaries. I do believe that there are limits as to what companies are allowed to get away with as far as how they conduct business with their customers, and that when they have gone too far it is often because customers have let their guards down.

Look at the whole iTunes Plus thing and how that has turned out... Score one for the customers!

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

He may not have a right, but it is still good for consumers to be very vocal about their complaining when they think various companies have overstepped their boundaries. I do believe that there are limits as to what companies are allowed to get away with as far as how they conduct business with their customers, and that when they have gone too far it is often because customers have let their guards down.

Look at the whole iTunes Plus thing and how that has turned out... Score one for the customers!

But does that include piracy?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

True. Regardless, your legitimate options are to buy or not to buy. The idea that you have a "right" to the content whether you buy or not is ridiculous.

That's a peculiar way of putting it. I don't think I ever said I had a right to the content.

[starman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I don't have a right to see the content, perhaps, but I also don't feel any moral compunctions about seeing it if I can.

"seeing it if you can" is the same as "keeping it"?

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by starman 

"seeing it if you can" is the same as "keeping it"?

It occurred to me after I wrote that that I don't quite think I was understanding what he was getting at, so I changed my post. I wasn't really thinking of keeping anything, though.

[drmcnutt]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I can and do sometimes teach people for free the same things I'm paid to teach other people. I don't have any less knowledge after teaching somebody, so it doesn't damage me to share just for the sake of sharing.

This problem with this example is that people don't make you share unwillingly. You CHOOSE to share. Now if people sat next to you and somehow learned what they needed through osmosis, you'll have to be some hell of a teacher for them to pay you for the same thing they can obtain for NOTHING. Somehow I think this would hurt your income at some point.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by drmcnutt 

This problem with this example is that people don't make you share unwillingly. You CHOOSE to share.

Oh, the information can be shared totally without my consent. In fact, former students often go on to do exactly that. Little upstarts, you know.

But the point was just that it does not cause me harm to give away intellectual property in the same way that it causes harm to give away physical property — intellectual property is a bottomless fountain, while physical things are finite by their very nature.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Piracy never directly costs money to anyone except the pirate's BitTorrent tracker. Piracy can be a problem if it cuts too deeply into your sales, but that isn't necessarily the case. The most active pirates probably wouldn't have ever bought the stuff, so this "potential profit" is nothing but a fairy tale in those cases.

Yes, they do. I am at a loss how you can say that there is no monetary loss involved. I personally know a ton of people who pirate music, you probably do too. And not just to preview it, they pirate music they like and keep it. The most people pirate only to preview or the most people who pirate would have never bought the music anyway is simply not true, it's a delusion and it's yet another bogus argument the pirate crowd uses to justify their behaviour.

[wallinbl]

Who cares what the specific word for it is? It's both wrong and illegal. There aren't any arguments for it - people just like to rationalize their behavior. That's true of any behavior.

The download before you buy argument fails because most people won't pay. Have you ever seen a retail store that lets you pay them later? No, because people would loot the place. Sure, you can make the argument that since it's a digital copy, they still have the original, but that does nothing to stop the hoards that downloaded it, decided not to pay, but are still listening to it. Since there is no way to realistically control that after the fact, people choose to control it before the fact. Since they created the product, they're free to decide when and how to sell it. It's not your right to dictate how you're going to buy it. That's simply not how the market works. Your only freedom is whether or not to buy it, not how.