Is it wrong to sell pirated stuff?

First of all, I don't sell pirated stuff. I used to 1-2 years ago, but then I got bored of it.

The question is... is it wrong to sell pirated stuff?

----
1. Yes its wrong - You got it for free. Why should other people pay for it, huh?

2. No it isn't - I pay for my bandwidth, I pay for my CD-R's, and they pay for my services. I take the time to download the stuff, then burn it, and time is money.
----

The other day some guy was offering pirated movies for like $5 each in class. I just wanted to know what you guys think.

What a shit poll options.i vote'd.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rip The Jacker

1. Yes its wrong - You got it for free. Why should other people pay for it, huh?

---

Does this apply to diseases aswell?:huh:

Yes hypothetically it is wrong to gain from the generosity of others - yet it was "stolen2 in the 1rst lace - luckily darwin wrote the capitalist survival code and if you want that ferrari make em pay or else youll end up paying to of world

Peace bortherdoobie

Uh... sure. :blink:

I'd better move this...

Never Pay For Filesharing!

Usually it's alright to ahve them pay.
Not for the actual software, music, or whatever else. but for the cd's, and my time.

Never any more than 3 dollars though.

I pirate all kinds of shit, but selling pirated media doesn't seem right.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rossco

Not for the actual software, music, or whatever else. but for the cd's, and my time.

---

That's why I used to do it. It's like your charging them for the service, not for the actual stuff... as well as the blank media.

Only when friends ask for things they want. It happens at our school all the time.

C'mon Rip. I remember a discussion such as this in which you were heavily involved almost a year ago. That didn't end well, if I remember rightly :ermm:

You have to pay your internet connection anyway, it's not like you'll pay more simply because you're doing a favour for someone. You don't have to pay any money for the time you spend burning the item, nor did you pay for the burning software or the conversion software. Your PC, like your internet connection, is something you would have paid for regardless of whether you were going to burn stuff for people. This is a fixed cost.

The only variable cost is the blank media. CDrs cost me about 5 pence each from EBuyer. If you can't stand that for a mate then ask him to supply his or her own. If it's not a friend that asks you to burn the stuff, either say no or make a new friend - you could even build up your karma bucks.


Selling copyrighted stuff that you stole in the first place goes against the whole file sharing ethos and as such is never right.

Yeah I remember that discussion, and it didn't end well. :P
In this poll I actually voted for Don't Care.

I actually stopped because people were too nice, and I actually started to feel greedy. My friend was talking about how NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 for PC was a "crappy game." He kept saying the PS2 one was better. One day he brought the original game for PC to school, and said "Here you can have it."

Just like that he gave me NFS:HP 2 for PC for free, it wasn't burned, it was original.

I guess I felt greedy after that. :P

Good lad :01:

One of my best friends, he's a fair bit older than me but we play Soccer together on a Saturday, sells pirated stuff - a lot of it. I don't hold this against him but he hates it that I just give people whatever film or music CD they ask for. A couple of other lads also burn CDs for people we know, just as a favour. This doesn't affect him that much since he works in a large factory and sells most of his stuff there but he still doesn't like it when one of us brings some movies in and give them out.

He doesn't give out his lists of movies for sale to the lads that much anymore. Which I think is great :D


Point is that I see this as an extension to the process by which I got to see the movie for free in the first place, several people put themselves at risk and devoted some time and effort so I could see the film for nothing, so why not extend this to others.

I voted 'Don't care' but with a lot of stipulations.

I used to sell pirated material about five years ago on eBay on a pretty widespread basis. It was how I made a living. I sold the cd's at a very affordable price and lead-on a little bit that the disc wasn't an original. About 9/10 buyers really didn't care because everything worked properly and they got the music that they wanted. Those who had problems, had their money promptly returned. But ultimately I was banned for a substantial time when it all came crashing down. There were also other legal instances which are much to complicated to get into.

There is a pretty thin line as far as I'm concerned. I've learned that on a widespread basis that bootlegging and selling illegal copies will eventually catch up to you and is detrimental to file sharing in the long run. On the other hand, I think that sharing on a limited basis (with friends, whenever logged on) is cool when done in restraint. Those who I've seen on this forum that claim to download up to 500 GB/month (THAT'S RIGHT, I SAID 500 GB/MONTH) are the ones who hurt file sharing IMO.

I personally have only downloaded about 40 GB in the past 3 years. That's about 15 GB of music and the rest being a couple movies and software.

On the other hand, I have about 200 movies that I've burned from movies that I've rented but I'm NOT selling them.

This matter can be discussed forever though since it's topics go down to the root of file sharing and are still being debated in the courts.

One of the big arguments between Filesharers and the Authorities like the RIAA and the MPAA is that the Authorites claim that filesharing is cutting into profits because people are downloading for free what they would otherwise have to buy.

The Filesharers argument to this is "You don't necessarily know that I would have bought this, and sometimes I am downloading stuff in a sort of a try-before-I-buy scenario".

Which is all well and fine... however if said so-called filesharer then goes on to sell the stuff he's got for free for a profit, then the Authorities can say "Lookee here, there are people who ARE prepared to spend money buying stuff, maybe a little bit cheaper mind, but even so, because of this filesharing malarkey they are not buying it from us, so our profits are damaged".

Therefore this displays definite proof that filesharing is damaging CD and DVD sales.

This is why I believe selling stuff you have downloaded is wrong, not because of any sense of fairness, but because it takes away one of the main defences of the argument that filesharing does not have a detrimental effect on sales.

$5 is 2 much.

I would only ask what I paid for that 1 CD-r or DVD-r

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by {I}{K}{E}

$5 is 2 much.

I would only ask what I paid for that 1 CD-r or DVD-r

---

Skinflint :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rossco

and my time.

---

I charge my friends for my time as well. Nothing to do with piracy, I just bill them for me gracing them with my divine-like presence.

Sometimes when I need to borrow money off my mother I take her round a CD of someone she likes to keep her sweet. As I never pay her back I am technically charging her 50-quid plus per CD....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by barbarossa

One of the big arguments between Filesharers and the Authorities like the RIAA and the MPAA is that the Authorites claim that filesharing is cutting into profits because people are downloading for free what they would otherwise have to buy.

The Filesharers argument to this is "You don't necessarily know that I would have bought this, and sometimes I am downloading stuff in a sort of a try-before-I-buy scenario".

Which is all well and fine... however if said so-called filesharer then goes on to sell the stuff he's got for free for a profit, then the Authorities can say "Lookee here, there are people who ARE prepared to spend money buying stuff, maybe a little bit cheaper mind, but even so, because of this filesharing malarkey they are not buying it from us, so our profits are damaged".

Therefore this displays definite proof that filesharing is damaging CD and DVD sales.

This is why I believe selling stuff you have downloaded is wrong, not because of any sense of fairness, but because it takes away one of the main defences of the argument that filesharing does not have a detrimental effect on sales.

---

Nice one :D

This is the reason why it pleased me that my mate no longer bothers giving out his movie sheet that much. I do usually go for the right and wrong approach when debating stuff but it's good to see the pragmatist view bear it out.

When I burn a disk for friends, they usually ask me what I want for it. I simply tell them to buy me a pint (or more usually a glass of red wine these days). Everyone ends up happy.

I'm taking a TV series round next week, I'll probably end up as happy as a newt. :blink:

Colin is right.

Many of us have discussed this back and forth, a lot, but you (Colin) summed it up well.


But (with regards to one of the points) I suppose you could argue that had people not had the chance of trying the product before they bought it, they'd not had known it was a piece of shite, and may therefore, to their eternal regret, have bought what they won't now. And thus p2p does, in a way, cost the industry something as they can't get away with selling inferior products as they can't, to the same extent, trick people into buying their products with misleading marketing tactics and similar.


Also, Skizo, the people who download lots and lots were even less likely to buy all of what they downloaded, since most of us have a finite amount of money to spend, and not all the time in the world to do it in, either, so I don't see how the amount of files downloaded should matter.

Nah, it's the people who sell the stuff who are screwing p2p, it's on their head.

Yes.

Anyone caught selling something they've downloaded should be slapped. :dry:

it's one thing to steal something somebody else made. then to make profit for yourself from it is ghey

Wrong if you make money on the sale

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rick Phlegm

Yes.

Anyone caught selling something they've downloaded should be slapped. :dry:

---

not just slapped.....bitch-slapped :01:
charge someone an hourly rate, or even a flat rate,
for your time, expertise, whatever....
but not for warez you got for free, it's just wrong

and a friend who would charge me for something like that wouldn't be much of a friend :dry:
at least that's how I see it
I don't charge my friends/family, it doesn't seem right to me to do that
if I am short on cash, sometimes they'll bring me a spindle of CD-Rs,
but that's about as far as I will allow them to go
I've probably refused more offers for payment than I can afford,
but oh well, that's just me

now if a freind or family member refers someone to me.....hehehe....
but they pay for my time, not for free warez
a service charge, no more, no less
-edit-
and that's only if they come seeking for me to do the work
if all they want is a copy of a program, hell, that's for free
what's a CD-R cost here in the states?
I get 50 for about 12-15 bucks, you do the math :P
and they may have gone down in price, I don't know,
still have about 75 CD-Rs sitting on my desk, so I haven't shopped for any in a while

btw....IMO it isn't pirated 'til it's sold :P

I don't believe selling anything pirated is right. What I do, I do for me or my family, never made one cent doing it either :blink: . Its people set up in the local flea-markets selling pirated movies and music that cause the rest of us greif, and thats when the feds crack down on filesharing more.

id never sell anything pirated

Profiting out of other people's success is wrong.

One time I tried to pass a burned CD off as a Christmas gift. It was a very merry Christmas.

it is wrong to sell pirated stuff. thats my opinion..

If a friend asks me for something I will do it for free - supposing they don't keep asking me I shall supply the DVD/CD for free.
It is not right to make any profit on what you are doing.
They should keep there money, and spend it on something beneficial to the Industry you are giving free stuff from...

Edit: I also believe that if you have to charge people for your services that is also bad - as technically you are still making them pay for piracy...
Think about it - would they pay for your services if you weren't giving them warez and moviez?
No they most-likely wouldn't...

So you would still be profiteering.
Besides it is difficult to give an accurate value to time and services...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hanz™

If a friend asks me for something I will do it for free - supposing they don't keep asking me I shall supply the DVD/CD for free.
It is not right to make any profit on what you are doing.
They should keep there money, and spend it on something beneficial to the Industry you are giving free stuff from...

Edit: I also believe that if you have to charge people for your services that is also bad - as technically you are still making them pay for piracy...
Think about it - would they pay for your services if you weren't giving them warez and moviez?
No they most-likely wouldn't...

So you would still be profiteering.
Besides it is difficult to give an accurate value to time and services...

---

but imagine this; a 56ker walks up to a person with broadband and asks them if they could download a 4.4GB dvd file for them and burn it for them on the disk. And the person charges them because they using up their own time, dvd burner they bought, and computer bandwidth speed. Makes sense a person would charge them for the service. I dont support making a profit from pirated stuff nor do i sell pirated stuff..

I will refuse money, i will only accept a CD or DVDr in return for what i give out.

Charging money for what others spend hours and day on is wrong. Groups, risk there lives to release stuff onto the net not for others to grab it, put it on DVD and charge £5 a pop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Formula1

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hanz™

If a friend asks me for something I will do it for free - supposing they don't keep asking me I shall supply the DVD/CD for free.
It is not right to make any profit on what you are doing.
They should keep there money, and spend it on something beneficial to the Industry you are giving free stuff from...

Edit: I also believe that if you have to charge people for your services that is also bad - as technically you are still making them pay for piracy...
Think about it - would they pay for your services if you weren't giving them warez and moviez?
No they most-likely wouldn't...

So you would still be profiteering.
Besides it is difficult to give an accurate value to time and services...

---

but imagine this; a 56ker walks up to a person with broadband and asks them if they could download a 4.4GB dvd file for them and burn it for them on the disk. And the person charges them because they using up their own time, dvd burner they bought, and computer bandwidth speed. Makes sense a person would charge them for the service. I dont support making a profit from pirated stuff nor do i sell pirated stuff..

---

Does a Group charge you for the video camera they use, or the computer they use to crack a game, or the fine and prision time they get for doing it for free?

yes i think its wrong to sell it