[JellyBeen]

The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

Wow, Oink then the Demon, a bad month indeed...

[scaught]

... for morality deprived thieves who want to steal music.

(see ya on page 3)

[Cipher13]

Fools.

I was downloading a Nevermore discography, to decide whether it'd be worth buying the remastered Enemies of Reality, and Dream in Neon Black.

Until I download full album copies so I can listen to them thoroughly, I won't be buying them.

Their loss.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by scaught 

... for morality deprived thieves who want to steal music.

(see ya on page 3)

Tee hee.

I wonder if there is a market for some sort of web site that would listen to albums for you, and write reviews of them, for people interested in knowing the quality of an album before they buy it. Such a web site might even have clips of songs, or even full, selected songs, for you to listen to yourself.

Oh wait...

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by scaught 

... for morality deprived thieves who want to steal music.

I never stole music on there.

It was movies.

[Lateralus]

Boo.

Demonoid was the best source for WRC. Dammit.

[The Godfather]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Boo.

Demonoid was the best source for WRC. Dammit.

If only they'd had the 100% legal torrents in a different server, separate from the contentious torrents, we Linux ISO downloaders wouldn't have to suffer this loss.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

I wonder if there is a market for some sort of web site that would listen to albums for you, and write reviews of them, for people interested in knowing the quality of an album before they buy it.

If other people had any taste at all, I'd be enjoying the fifth season of Firefly right now.

[nonhuman]

At first I thought the title of this thread was 'Demonhood is GONE!'. The OP made a lot more sense when I realized what it actually said...

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

At first I thought the title of this thread was 'Demonhood is GONE!'. The OP made a lot more sense when I realized what it actually said...

I actually thought that's what it was going to be about, too.

[scaught]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

I never stole music on there.

It was movies.

hahaha.

I've never considered movies worth stealing, honestly. I can get most movies on DVD for 13-15 or less. Plus the amount of download time, the hassle of encoding it to DVD and all that black magic...It's just easier to buy.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

At first I thought the title of this thread was 'Demonhood is GONE!'. The OP made a lot more sense when I realized what it actually said...

Same here.

[besson3c]

Usenet is a wonderful thing...

[starman]

It's amazing how people openly talk about ripping people off.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by starman 

It's amazing how people openly talk about ripping people off.

It's amazing how people still don't understand that piracy doesn't always do harm.

Get a freakin' clue.

[starman]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

It's amazing how people still don't understand that piracy doesn't always do harm.

Get a freakin' clue.

I have a freakin' clue. Have something of yours stolen and then come tell me you know WTF you're talking about.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by starman 

I have a freakin' clue. Have something of yours stolen and then come tell me you know WTF you're talking about.

I've had people steal my "intellectual property" (i.e., thoughts) before. As it turns out, I had just as much afterward as I did before, which really makes the word "stolen" somewhat inappropriate. (I've also had things of mine actually stolen, so I have a reference point there.)

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by starman 

I have a freakin' clue. Have something of yours stolen and then come tell me you know WTF you're talking about.

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

[Peter]

I'd either download it, or not have it at all.
If there is any creativity in something I'm sure the creator would prefer the former of those two things.

[Buckaroo]

What's a Demonoid?

[CaptainHaddock]

downloading ≠ stealing

'Tis a sad day. I got a lot of videos off of Demonoid I couldn't see any other way.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

It's amazing how people still don't understand that piracy doesn't always do harm.

Get a freakin' clue.

If someone admits to piracy, and they know they are doing wrong, that is one thing. But attempting to justify it is another.

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

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

If you take something that normally costs money, and you did not pay for it. You are stealing. If someone was given something for free, and then you steal it from them, it's of no monetary loss to them. But you still stole it.

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock 

downloading ≠ stealing

Downloading itself doesn't = stealing. But downloading movies or programs or anything else that would normally cost you money if you didn't illegally, yes I said the word illegally, download said items is indeed theft and stealing.

[Cipher13]

No... it's something different. That's why it's been termed piracy rather than theft. Putting the "theft"/"stealing" spin on it is attempt to demonise those performing the act... nothing more.

I already admitted to it, but I have every intention of buying things after downloading them. I downloaded Stargate season 5 because ezydvd didn't have it... though I own 1-4 and 6-10. I'll buy 5 when I next get a chance.

Just like the Nevermore thing - after the horrid mastering of Enemies of Reality, there's no chance I'll buy an album of theirs before hearing it thoroughly first.

P2P and Napster has done more for the music/film industry than officials will ever admit.

[Kevin]

I am simply not going to agree the spin, But I applaud the fact that you buy these items that you steal first. Thus making up for what you stole. But MOST people do not do this. And we both know it.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

No... it's something different. That's why it's been termed piracy rather than theft. Putting the "theft"/"stealing" spin on it is attempt to demonise those performing the act... nothing more.

I already admitted to it, but I have every intention of buying things after downloading them. I downloaded Stargate season 5 because ezydvd didn't have it... though I own 1-4 and 6-10. I'll buy 5 when I next get a chance.

Just like the Nevermore thing - after the horrid mastering of Enemies of Reality, there's no chance I'll buy an album of theirs before hearing it thoroughly first.

P2P and Napster has done more for the music/film industry than officials will ever admit.

So the guys who heist ships on the open seas aren't thieves, because they're "pirates." As someone else pointed out, and will no doubt do so again and again, taking something that has monetary value to its producer is stealing, period! You can play with semantics all you want, and you can say you're going to buy it later, but if it is something that the producer put on the market for sale, and you didn't pay for it, it's stealing. Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to convince themselves that what they're doing isn't wrong.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

So the guys who heist ships on the open seas aren't thieves, because they're "pirates." As someone else pointed out, and will no doubt do so again and again, taking something that has monetary value to its producer is stealing, period! You can play with semantics all you want, and you can say you're going to buy it later, but if it is something that the producer put on the market for sale, and you didn't pay for it, it's stealing. Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to convince themselves that what they're doing isn't wrong.

Have you actually read anything in this thread so far? Downloading a movie is no different to recording something off the air back in the day, onto a cassette.

There is no deprivation of property.

Jeez.

[Mastrap]

There is such a thing as deprivation of intellectual property. That no actual atoms were taken without payment doesn't change that. You can try and justify this all you want, fact is that people who download music take something that isn't theirs (the artist's creation) without paying the price demanded for it. Whether or not you call it theft, the morals are questionable and the artist is deprived of income that is rightfully his.

Recording off the air is a totally different thing - the artist has already been paid for the rights to perform his or her work on air and those royalties are set to include the possibility of off the air recording.

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Recording off the air is a totally different thing - the artist has already been paid for the rights to perform his or her work on air and those royalties are set to include the possibility of off the air recording.

Err, so, as long as it has aired on the radio or on television previously then it's okay?

Awesome, works for me.

[andi*pandi]

I have no problem downloading tv shows that aired for free, that I just happened to miss that day, or that I happened to be on the wrong continent to view. Where is the loss of property there? I'm even willing to fast forward through their commercials just like I would on live tv.

[Kevin]

People will always attempt to justify rituals, or habits as being good, to calm the guilt.

it's been going on for as long as man existed. I do it myself. I tell myself as long as I pay for it eventually it isn't stealing.

It is. I am just returning the product after I stole it and paying for it. I know I shouldn't be doing it. And I make no excuse for my actions.

As a matter of fact, I'll probably stop doing it. Record company's etc, will probably lose more business from me. But it's not worth getting taken to court over.

I can cure my music jones by making my own. It's the movie's that I am going to have a problem with.

Hmm maybe I can get the little woman to..

[starman]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

There is no deprivation of property.

Jeez.

I laugh at how people try to justify depriving someone of income because there's no tangible item.

You deprived someone of income. Call it theft or whatever, but you basically took ownership of something that normally costs money. You stole.

[Kevin]

It's like peeping in on a peepshow without paying.

[invisibleX]

Now here's what I wonder: is downloading tv shows stealing? Its something that you often don't pay for and many are offered online anyway.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by invisibleX 

Now here's what I wonder: is downloading tv shows stealing? Its something that you often don't pay for and many are offered online anyway.

IMO (ignoring for a moment the question of whether "stealing" or "piracy" is the right word), yes, because the key point is that you are usurping the content owner's right to control its transmission. When a TV sit-com is broadcasted for free online on a network's web site, it is providing you a service to gain revenue, it is not giving you the content.

Whether that's more or less morally wrong than downloading a movie someone ripped from a DVD is your own call.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by starman 

You deprived someone of income. Call it theft or whatever, but you basically took ownership of something that normally costs money. You stole.

Nope. That would make winning a contest theft as well. And if I buy generic rather than actual Kellogg's cereal, I am certainly depriving them of income, but they are not going to charge me with theft. You can argue that copying data is bad, but the theft argument is fruitless because it's so obviously wrong. It makes you lose credibility in the eyes of those you're trying to convince.

The "I need money to eat" argument is somewhat better but also tenuous, because it depends on the assumption that they would have got income otherwise. Quite frankly, there are many things that I never would have bought if I hadn't downloaded them first and saw how awesome they were, so the loss-of-income argument is actually the reverse of the truth — it gained them income. Surely some people usually download in lieu of buying, and I think that's wrong, but to paint everybody with the same brush is just plain cockeyed.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey 

IMO (ignoring for a moment the question of whether "stealing" or "piracy" is the right word), yes, because the key point is that you are usurping the content owner's right to control its transmission. When a TV sit-com is broadcasted for free online on a network's web site, it is providing you a service to gain revenue, it is not giving you the content.

But this brings us to the conclusion that it's bad to record TV shows at all, which our culture seems to have decided is simply not true.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

But this brings us to the conclusion that it's bad to record TV shows at all, which our culture seems to have decided is simply not true.

Technically, it is, which is why I added my qualifying statement at the end.

My own thinking behind this is that back in the days of recording TV broadcasts to tape, there was a point at which you, the viewer, had to be exposed to the advertising stream that originally came with the transmission, whether you fast-forwarded through it or not. Another point, obviously, is that the ramifications of someone recording a TV broadcast onto a VHS tape to keep in his basement are much smaller than when someone records a TV broadcast and sets up a BitTorrent tracker for it. At some point, you, the downloader, even if you never distribute the pirated file itself, are so far removed from the content owner's control of the transmission of that content that it has become a breach of "fair use" because the content owner has not been properly reimbursed for your viewership. In the case of broadcast TV, it is perhaps because your viewing of the pirated file will never be accounted for in the ratings that control what the TV network can charge for its ads.

So, for me, I consider recording the original broadcast (and of course not distributing it) to be "okay," whereas downloading a pirated file is "wrong." At some point the revenue stream for broadcast TV will change so much (and to some extent it already has, with the wider adoption of DVR and increase of product placements) that my logic will not hold and I will need to re-evaluate my beliefs.

It is a fine line. We need laws that make a much clearer distinction between what we consider "fair use" and what we consider "piracy."

[StrengthDesign]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

Boo.

Demonoid was the best source for WRC. Dammit.

if you were to type racing, then a dash, then underground, and then hit crtl+enter, you'd find a very nice source for WRC footage.

[King Bob On The Cob]

It's illegal to break encryption yourself in the US according to the DMCA, so they only legal way to get a digitized version of your own media is to download it.

[starman]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Nope. That would make winning a contest theft as well. And if I buy generic rather than actual Kellogg's cereal, I am certainly depriving them of income, but they are not going to charge me with theft. You can argue that copying data is bad, but the theft argument is fruitless because it's so obviously wrong. It makes you lose credibility in the eyes of those you're trying to convince.

Uh, hardly. Again, you're trying to form a baseless argument to cloud the fact that you did something legally and morally wrong. CHOOSING a different cereal is not the same as gaining access to content you're supposed to pay for.

[Kenneth]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

What's a Demonoid?

I second that.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by starman 

Uh, hardly. Again, you're trying to form a baseless argument to cloud the fact that you did something legally and morally wrong. CHOOSING a different cereal is not the same as gaining access to content you're supposed to pay for.

No, it's not the same, but it is the same in the respect being compared (that somebody would have made money if I had bought their product, but I got the same thing another way, so then they are deprived of that income).

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

Have you actually read anything in this thread so far? Downloading a movie is no different to recording something off the air back in the day, onto a cassette.

There is no deprivation of property.

Jeez.

Intellectual property need not actually be a physical thing, like a CD. It can be a copy of a performance, such as a copy of that CD. And stealing that copy DOES deprive someone of something of value-in this case, a potential sale. The difference between cassettes and today is that you could NEVER produce anything that sounded like a real, prerecorded cassette "back in the day" by recording off air (or for that matter from your turntable). Digital recordings are VERY different because it is possible to pass off a recording as an original, or "just as good as" the original. "Why buy the cow when the milk is free" means that the cattle seller is going to go broke.

On topic, I really think that there needs to be something better than having to "borrow" a recording to see if you like it. In a lot of stores you can listen to clips from a number of artists, but that's not the same as listening to the whole album to see if it's worth your time and money. But we don't have what you might call a "reliable and objective" critic system to help us out with this issue.

I also think, as mentioned above, that it's a mistake for ANY service to not separate different kinds of material on different servers. For traffic leveling alone, having a music service on one server and a Linux distribution service on another just makes more sense to me.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Intellectual property need not actually be a physical thing, like a CD. It can be a copy of a performance, such as a copy of that CD.

But the effect of copying something is markedly different from the effect of stealing something. In both cases, yeah, you're not giving the original person money. But not gaining anything is much different from not gaining anything and losing something. 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. The same is not true of physical goods, though — I am not going to go around handing laptops out to people just for the joy of it. Naturally, I couldn't afford never to get paid for what I do, but the effect of "taking" intellectual property is not very similar to the effect of taking physical property, at least not as the term is being used here.

Originally Posted by ghporter 

And stealing that copy DOES deprive someone of something of value-in this case, a potential sale.

A potential sale and a dollar will buy you a Coke.

[lavar78]

Originally Posted by starman 

Uh, hardly. Again, you're trying to form a baseless argument to cloud the fact that you did something legally and morally wrong. CHOOSING a different cereal is not the same as gaining access to content you're supposed to pay for.

I would've thought that point would be the one being debated.

[Mastrap]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

but the effect of "taking" intellectual property is not very similar to the effect of taking physical property, at least not as the term is being used here.

If I manufacture, say, cars and somebody steals every fifth car I make then I am losing 1/5th of my potential income
If I sell records and somebody pirates every fifth download then I am also losing 1/5th of my potential income.

How is that not the same? You are taking what is not yours to take.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

If I manufacture, say, cars and somebody steals every fifth car I make then I am losing 1/5th of my potential income
If I sell records and somebody pirates every fifth download then I am also losing 1/5th of my potential income.

Let's math this out:

Let's say a car costs $10,000 to make and you're selling it for $20,000 (obviously cooked numbers, but the specifics don't really matter as much as the proportions). You think that you can sell 25,000 cars if you try really hard, so you go ahead and make that many. You're now out $250 million, but you know you'll make $500 million back, so it's OK. But holy carp and tuna! A huge wave of car thievery reduces your stock by 20%! You manage to sell out your stock of 20,000 cars. That's (25000-5000)*20000-25000*10000=150,000,000. Ouch! You're still making money, but you irrecoverably lost at least $50 million (just from production) to car thievery. That sucks.

Now let's say you're selling CDs. Your take on the CDs is $10 per disc. You think, "Hey, this chick is cute and she's got an OK voice," so you produce 5 million copies. Happily, you were right, and people buy all 5 million copies within a week. 10*5000000=50,000,000. Sweet deal, you made $50 million! But uh-oh, here come the pirates! These disgusting thieves come in and download the album 20% as many times as it's been sold — that's a full 1 million downloads of this entire album. That must be bad. Let's adjust our calculations to see the effect. The cost to you for a BitTorrent host to provide a download of this album is $0, so that would be 10*5000000-0*1000000=50,000,000. Hey, that number looks awful familiar: It's exactly the same as if you had produced and sold the same number without any piracy.

As you can see, the difference is fairly marked. Theft of physical things always costs money. 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.

[Railroader]

It's amazing how people justify immoral actions. It appears they are lying more to themselves than to other people.

[Chuckit]

Oh, you know us evil folk. We're always using Satan's tools of logic and basic arithmetic to lie to ourselves.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

Oh, you know us evil folk. We're always using Satan's tools of logic and basic arithmetic to lie to ourselves.

And the inability to form logical arguments concerning piracy.