Are We Jsut A Bunch Of Theives?

[Will_518]

Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn't know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn't this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i've made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people's laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I'll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world's software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i'm not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i'm 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)

[3rd gen noob]

what a load of bollocks

:rolleyes:

[zapjb]

No.

[Guillaume]

Well, to use your "house metaphor", have you ever heard of visiting the place before buying? That's the way I use P2P... When I like something I've downloaded I go buy it. I don't exactly feel like a thief.

[ZaZu]

Not all of the files being shared are copyrighted,
I have tons of anime in my share folder that are public domain

[Mr AnDy D]

most files you get on kazaa (at least the big ones) do not have the quality as the original, so I just use kazaa as a "trial"

[*´¯`·.¸¸.»Çô©ö»]

Originally posted by Will_518@17 October 2003 - 20:31
Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn't know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn't this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i've made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people's laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I'll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world's software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i'm not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i'm 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)
Are :angry: you :angry: calling :angry: me :angry: a :angry: thief :angry:
You c**k s*****g b*****d !


[i'm 56k atm]
Arrrrrr now i see, sour grapes ! :lol:

[Sid Hartha]

It depends on what you do with the stuff you're downloading.

I still spend $ on CDs, just as I did before p2p.

[james_bond_rulez]

it's not stealing

it's a way to evaluating a piece of software before we buy.

a lot of games are crap, so i dont think crap game developers should get the money they deserve by buying their games.

If i think a game sucks, i delete them off of my hdd, as there is no place for them on my hdd, let alone my cds.

they are not even worth burning :angry:

so stealing? I dont fucking think so motherfuckers

[swarnel]

most files you get on kazaa (at least the big ones) do not have the quality as the original, so I just use kazaa as a "trial"

i totally agree with you. I use kazaa to find things i like then i buy them
well for most of them anyway ;)

[jfm]

Despite the needless agression of the replies, Will has a valid point!

It can't be an ENTIRELY FREE ride!

[fr600]

Tell me Will_508, if I buy a loaf of bread and if you ask me to share it with you... Then other people are gonna call you what, "THIEF"???

[jfm]

The point surely that Will was making was "do you work for no financial recompense"?

[LoneGypsy]

Independent artists are being shut out by the "Big Labels". We are forced to by overpriced CD's (why did they reduce the price recently if they weren't) to get the few good tracks we really want.

The P2P phenomenon is serving the purpose of getting the attention of the RIAA members. Music should be sold the way we want it not the way they want to package it. Change is painful, and the SOB's in the RIAA will do anything to avoid change.

I download files and buy CD's. I just don't want to replace all the old vinyl I bought with new CD's if I don't like more than a few songs. I paid once...how much blood do they want to suck?

[Adster]

we are downlaoding data and thats not ilegal at all if it was the whole internet would be made ilegal

its the copyright that is

but no where not thieves at all its aload of crap I had this debate with my sister too she finds it offense that she pays $30 for a CD and I download mine coz she thinks its the righ tthing to do if we are all ciminals that would make the while world practilly cimianals just about

jsut :huh:

Your typing is like mine :lol:

[Switeck]

There's an issue which HASN'T been dealt with:

WHO owns ideas?
And what can the owner of those ideas do to others who also think those ideas?

Can the owner say:
You may not backup this CD because it would hurt my profit margin.
You may not talk about how BAD this product is to others who don't have it because it might hurt my profit margin.
You may not use this in any way other than the very limited ways I give you.
You may NOT use any part of this idea in any developements of your own until ~100 years have passed and the copyright expires.
You may NOT even make something vaguely like my idea -- even if you knew not of my idea when you made it.
These rules are subject to change without notice...

How does someone 'STEAL' an idea?

I've seen it happen, but it's very rare -- it's when the idea is NOT allowed to reach others for any price and/or it is claimed as their own when it really isn't.

Our whole goal is to eliminate scarcity -- we have little interest in profits.

Their whole goal is to create scarcity in order to maintain profits -- they have intentionally raised CD prices FAR beyond fair market prices (as defined by law) and have been successfully prosecuted because of it.
They seek to eliminate the whole concept of first sale doctrine.
They have nearly taken over radio (clear channel) and DESTROYED internet radio -- even bragging about that!
They seek a total lockdown on all consumer devices that MIGHT be used to copy media, even if the economic costs of doing so is orders-of-magnitude more expensive than their WHOLE industry's revenues!

And they have almost completely destroyed any concept of public domain -- STEALING FROM ALL OF US, AND OUR FUTURE!

[Adster]

just on that

where does it say in the copyright manuel that it is ilegal to downlaod mp3s??

[james_bond_rulez]

i am gonna copy the shit out of the fucking industries

lick my a-hole, motherfuckers..


ooooosa :lol:

ps: seriously i should stop watching ripped movies like bad boys 2

[Adster]

fuck the law is what I say :lol:

[Toon Nut]

I don't think programs like kazaa should be illegal when we share movies because we are not making money from the files.

If I buy a DVD, I might show my family or friends, and movie organisations might claim due to my actions they lost potential sales because my family members or friends didn't pay to see the movie.

The bottom line is, at no time do I make any money that could have reached the movie organisations.

Kazaa is the same. So what if you want to "lend" a DVD file to your "friend" from Portugal who you have never met, or talked to. The bottom line is, there was no money made.

I know that there was duplication of the product but is it illegal to make copies of CDs you brought for the purpose of back up? Is it then illegal to lend these to unreliable friends who never return them?

A case against my argument is it is illegal to photocopy more than 10% of a book as this is a breach of copyright (even though no money changed hands).

When you purchase something, you buy the one object, and if that breaks, either use the warranty or buy a new one.

But with technology allowing us to make duplicates of a product we payed our hard-earned for so we don't have to rebuying them when they break, maybe copyright law should be changed

(the only problem is pirates selling a CD for $20 and giving the data for free)

Just my thoughts

[Adster]

Ie already siad this 100 times but RIAA and PIAA dont think of advantages

I might downlaod an album becaseu I dont think I will like it to buy it lsiten to it and then love it then buy the real thing with the book lyrics and all

same goes for movies if I like the movie ill see it at the movies seeing aussiss have to wait 3 months later then the US

[Gutter]

I'll consider myself a :pirate: Pirate before a :ph34r: theif

[ontheedge2000]

unlike (apparently) 90% of the other people who share and d/l files on p2p networks, i have no false illusion that this is NOT stealing. maybe 5 out of 10,000 people actaully buy the game/movie/song/book/program after downloading it, but PLEASE be honest with yourselves.

THIS IS STEALING. While a game may suck and I delete it 10 seconds after d/ling, i still STOLE the game. without all the technicalities of the word, we STEAL this stuff from the owners.


(btw this does not stop me from d/ling stuff)

[Neo 721]

Maybe it would be made a whole lot easier if we looked at this with a different perspective, what if we called it file swaping then it would'nt look so bad.
But in the end it will fall down to ethics "Is it right to aquire a product whithout paying for the material or workmanship that went into its construction. :(

[Will_518]

it seems like that everyone have a strong opinion about this. What i just noticed is there were 310 views, but only 23 replies; obviously some people would like to keep their opinion to themselves. i wonder what that opinion is.

A interesting thing happened today. I picked up a bunch of grapes from a shop and ate it. the shopkeeper asked me for money.
i said: "i'm not paying! the grapes were sour."
He asked me whether that was a joke, i said "no". then i got punched in the face.
You know what the funny thing was? THE GRAPES WERE SOUR!

back to the topic. I shared files as well, i'm most probably going to in the future; and i don't think knowing whether it's right or wrong matters that much, because at the end of the day, I'm going to share no matter what. Maybe I know it's wrong, but i'll still pretend it's not.
why? i'll be honest with you. Because i can't afford to buy the disks.
A destitude man may steal to feed himself, and still hav ethe sympathy of the majority. But a greedy man who steals to satisfy his desire is wrong in everyone's eyes, even his. is data a nessicity or desire?
That is why I'll pretend it's right even if i know it's wrong.

Of course i totally agree that the CD prices are far too high. But is this really the best way to bring the prices down? Is that our soul purpose?
in a prefect world for me, CDs will cost $1 -- $5 each, and there'll be no need for filesharing.

thanks to everyone who replied for sharing your thoughts. And thanks to everyone who bothered to read this post instead of pretending to be blind.

[Darth Sushi]

Will_518, which music company do you work for? :D

[Neo 721]

He does'nt work for anyone he lives round the corner from me.
He's just taken the ethics of file sharing to a whole new leval. (a one that obviosly doesnt agree with everyone) a valient Topic if nothing else. ;)

[DenDen2004]

i noticed how he said 310 views and only 23 replies. well ill give my 2 cents.. to tell you the truth i do share and im not wrapped up in the ethics of it. i dont think about it whenever i double click a file to download. in fact i really dont care, this is my chance to suck the blood of the greedy corporations, and might i add it tastes pretty damn good because they have been feeding off me for quite some time with their excessively high prices.

now it seems kind of funny to me that alot of people justify their sharing with the response of "im trying it out before im buying it". i think alot of people that say that are out right lying especially to themselves. the fact is 99% of people that say they are trying software out before buying will never actually go out and buy that piece of software. so quit lying and making yourselves look good because at the end of the day you still are just like me and the rest of 99% of filesharers who steal software, music and movies. :)

[TheFilePirater]

quoted from my fav place.....


3 a : to seize, gain, or win by trickery, skill, or daring <a basketball player adept at stealing the ball> <stole the election> b of a base runner : to reach (a base) safely solely by running and usually catching the opposing team off guard


notice the basketball example, when u steal the ball the owner no longer takes it...not piracy....piracy is also basicly the same, but when we download we dont take anything away from the creaters, they still have it....

[Adster]

interesting

[TheFilePirater]

my post?

[Mobas]

As I once said before. Music can be recorded off radio receivers, tape decks, and even off of music cable channels. Getting it off the internet is just more convenient. Same goes for movies. Before I was able to get movies off the internet I never went to the theatre. We have 20+ premium channels, so we just waited til the movies came out on cable to watch them. Using the internet just allows me to get it a little sooner. I don&#39;t see it as stealing. What video stores do with renting movies... is more like stealing.

[ZeV]

I am incredebly cheap, so i don&#39;t buy almost any music. So if the music industry isn&#39;t making money off of me, so if they arn&#39;t making money from me anyway, why shouldn&#39;t i be intitled to listen to music for free?
Sure its stealling, but i wouldn&#39;t pay for it anyway.

[doctah]

Are we "jsut" a bunch of "theives"?

Yep.

...but I don&#39;t think this is as much as a money issue as most people think. This is a convenience issue. I listen to rap/rb music. Every now and then I may listen to some other genre. A couple of months ago I heard a song by some guy name Sublime. I didn&#39;t have the slightest clue who the guy was - but I found out I liked his style. I bought a CD - ripped it - and gave it away. Why did I buy it? Because it was used - it was cheap - I just happened to be in the mall when I thought about it.

...but even if CD&#39;s were all sub &#036;5, I would still download music. The convenience is more important. I wouldn&#39;t download movies unless I could get them in DVD quality (picture and sound) and I could download it quickly. Mp3&#39;s are close enough to CD&#39;s and the size is tiny. Not to mention I can play them in my car, my portable mp3 player, and my computer is hooked up to my home theater surround system. Sure, I could do that w/ a CD - but it&#39;s not as convenient. My old 30gb harddrive can hold many mp3&#39;s. Even if I had a huge 300 disc CD changer, how long would it take to go from song 1 to song 400? Why would I go out and buy a CD for a few songs I like when I&#39;m just going to rip them anyway?

I would love a subscription service...flat rate - unlimited downloads of standard mp3&#39;s (...and give use 4 different bitrates to choose from - 64 to 320) - any RIAA affiliated artist. I find it funny when people complain "the artist&#39;s are getting screwed". They&#39;re big boys and girls. They don&#39;t need you to fight their fights.

[RealitY]

Solutions (http://www.eff.org/share/compensation.php)

[MaceWindy]

Are we theives? Did we steal anything? Should we go to jail?

No.

The music industry has prevailed... I&#39;m afraid it&#39;s hard to deny, but they have indeed trapped the common consumer.

We have stolen nothing. Yes, people break the law when downloading copyrighted files, but the law itself is a trap. We don&#39;t steal from anyone. It&#39;s logically impossible to "steal" something that the artists never had. What are we doing? Stealing products? Nope... the producers still have a copy, and are making money, so I don&#39;t think we stole that... Are we stealing their money? Nope... last time I checked it was technically possible to steal something, unless someone actually had it at somepoint.

Where I&#39;m going with this is that the artists need to face it, they&#39;re not "losing money" (or should I say, not gaining what they feel is enough) because of piracy. It&#39;s because of the fact that the content that they&#39;re releasing simply won&#39;t sell. They rely far too much on their albums/movies/games to sell and make money, but when they don&#39;t, they&#39;re quick to blame piracy, and its effects... Do the industries really gain satisfaction by suing people individually one by one? Of course not.

As a p2p advocate, I still do go to movie theaters to see films I&#39;m eager to see. I do buy DVDs that I want to watch. And I even occassionally buy albums that I want to listen to. Everything I&#39;ve downloaded, I didn&#39;t want to buy, because I felt that the money involved in paying for it wasn&#39;t worth it.

Which way can you go? Either you get ripped off by wasting your money, and paying for their products, or you download it online, and get sued for all your money. It&#39;s all a corporate scheme that will change little by little over time.

That&#39;s why now there are the new online groups working at cheaper distribution of music... and many people are buying into it. It&#39;s a better method than actually buying albums, I&#39;ll admit, but once you really get deep enough in the rabbit hole, you&#39;ll see that p2p is unrivaled.

Mace

[Switeck]

Btw, Apple&#39;s Itunes gives music artists even LESS percent-wise (and absolute-wise) of a royalty cut. They screw the artists EVEN HARDER than the sale of overpriced CDs are&#33;

[RoMoFo]

Are you buying a CD because you want to support a band or because you enjoy the music? If it&#39;s because you enjoy the music, then why not get it for free???

The RIAA has been a monopoly the entire 20th century, and now that they see their power slipping...they want you to feel GUILTY.

Nevermind years of overpriced CD&#39;s at fixed prices...

Nevermind flash in the pan "artists" who get promoted the same way as a new soft drink...

Nevermind that the RIAA rapes musicians for marketing and distribution per CD (when the same CD is easily distributed for FREE on the internet)

But you should be ashamed of yourself for downloading that song you heard on the radio. And you are a criminal for sharing files which costs nothing to create and distribute. And you are no different than a shoplifter. And you will face severe penalties.

Delete all your files. Stop sharing with each other. Buy every CD on the Billboard top 20. Its the only way you&#39;ll ever be a decent human being.

[FreakBoy]

this doesnt make any sense

The music industry charges us for a cd that costs maybe 50cents to buy and burn, with (im guessing) 5 bucks per cd going to the artist. The store buys it at wholesale price of (guessin again) 17 bucks. The store sells it again for the suggested retail price of of 23-28 bucks to the consumer.

That comes to about 30-39% profit for the stores and 200% profit for the record companies.

And thy call us thieves. :blink: those prices are damn near highway robbery.

In economics there is a "point of diminishing returns" when it comes to the prices of products. You can charge as much as you want for a product, but at a certain point profits will drop because no one will spend that much money on the product. In the old days this was high for music as people really want to listen to music, and to own the albums but didnt have a alternative except to listen to the radio and hope their favorite song came on. What the record companys failed to realize is that when Mp3s came along the point of diminishing returns dropped alot. Because anyone could now just download whatever they wanted the only thing that kept them going to the store is a) ignorance b ) morals c) a bad connection (or no internet at all) or d) (most recently) fear of being sued.

I dont like stealing, but thats not going to keep me from saving 30 bucks. Now if theey charge 10 bucks for a cd, I will most definetly buy it because its a good deal. 30 bucks is not a good deal. B)

[Kazzee]

I see alot of people saying F&#33;&#33;&#33; RIAA or MPAA, but what I don&#39;t see is anyone here actualy up and protesting out on the street. Get real people from the RIAA or MPAA point of view, all you are doing is barking but no bitting. In my opinon. So far all the people that have gotton sued, was sued and no one els came to there rescue.

[echidna]

according to current laws in many nations yes it is theft to DL copyrighted files via p2p.
i choose to view it as property collectivisation, which i see as a political act, since i don&#39;t monopolise possession of the files i DL their not exactly &#39;mine&#39; they could easily be &#39;yours&#39;.
this is however the wrong place to try to take an ethical moral stand, this board is dedicated to p2p methods and the curtailing of all methods which may hinder file sharing.

[Adster]

but a website is copyrighted like this on eand we downlaod it to our HD whats the difference its still data

[doctah]

^

This site is offered to the public for free. The copyright is here only so people don&#39;t steal the general design.

But they&#39;re ripping me off with high CD prices...it wasn&#39;t worth buying:
...but that still doesn&#39;t entitle you to the song. I think a mercedes benz is over priced, but I can&#39;t go take it. Maybe you&#39;re compairing it to a test drive? You can go do that @ a local music store.

This all goes back to a convienence issue.

This is an awesome topic.

[RoMoFo]

I see alot of people saying F&#33;&#33;&#33; RIAA or MPAA, but what I don&#39;t see is anyone here actualy up and protesting out on the street. Get real people from the RIAA or MPAA point of view, all you are doing is barking but no bitting. In my opinon. So far all the people that have gotton sued, was sued and no one els came to there rescue.


We are protesting with our wallets, and that speaks the loudest to the RIAA. I haven&#39;t bought a major label CD in over a year. I do continue to buy CD&#39;s from independent labels which are not associated with the RIAA.

Even if I did like a band on a major label enough, why would I buy their CD? All that does is keep lining the pockets of the RIAA to continue their quest to prosecute teenagers and college kids (which also happens to be their target audience).

[Adster]

protesting wont do anything

we should all boycott CD buying then they will listen

[dumdum]

i&#39;m a dirty rotten scoundrel, and a thief as well. there must be something wrong with me, cause i don&#39;t feel bad about it at all. :D

[jim1013]

A brilliant discussion&#33; here is my long winded contribution

what is stealing?
legally its often that you have to actually &#39;pick it up and carry it away with you&#39;

#1
Compare copyrwite violation to stealing something from a shop, or another person.

If i were to steal a cd from a shop, that shop would loose that particular cd - they would not be able to sell it, AND they would have actually lost one of those copies.

when you commit a copywrite violation, (at least from the point of you acquiring a copy for yourself ) they still have their cd in the shop, which can be sold, they dont &#39;loose&#39; anything, they may not gain a sale of it to you. but there is a difference between that and actually making them &#39;loose&#39; something.

my point is there is a difference between &#39;loosing&#39; something and &#39;not gaining&#39; something.


#2
I also think there is a significant moral difference between selling burnt cds and either downloading or uploading them, as selling the burnt cd&#39;s your doing it for profit.

Consider this; unless you have a lot of money, you probably can&#39;t afford to buy all the stuff you&#39;ve downloaded. So if you were not going to buy it anyway, they have not lost a sale to you.. in effect they have not lost anything in this example.

I&#39;m sure if you took a look at what you have downloaded, and that if you had to pay for it all, MUCH of it (not all, but at least a fair bit) you would not have. sure, some of the stuff you would have bought, but probably not most of it. and of course you may do a combination of buying things and downloading them.
of course this point doesn&#39;t excuse you for downloading something that you WOULD have bought.


#3
who looses out? the creator - yes, (if <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>and only if </span>you would have bought it anyway).
but also the label (in the case of music) is the one that looses the most , since most of the profits go to the label.

any fairly popular artist is in most cases going to be pretty damn rich. likewise recording companies are raking the moola in too. So how bad is it then, if they get slightly less - they&#39;ll still have millions of dollars more than they&#39;ll ever need. - and they really were looking forward to buying another ivory backscratcher&#33;&#33;&#33;

This point does not work for small time artists or content creators - who quite possibly not excessively wealthy.

So to summarise; I would say its morally okay to commit copywrite violations if

You would not have chosen to buy it anyway
AND / OR
Its only done against someone who has plenty of &#036;&#036; anyway

the reason being that its hard to demonstrate any &#39;hurt&#39; caused upon them. Something is not morally wrong if it does not harm anyone (in my view)
you might argue that even a millionaire getting slightly less constitutes hurt, and perhaps i could concede that point - but the hurt would be VERY VERY MINOR.


Side issues
Creating a backup of something you have already bought is morally okay.
(surely theres no argument there). this doesn&#39;t stop some of the content creators from making this difficult however.

By buying something you are essentially buying the rights to that information - this applies to the above, and also to the idea that if say you purchased something on VHS why should you have to pay again to have it on DVD - since your only getting a higher quality copy of something you&#39;ve already bought the rights to (and we&#39;re told its just as wrong to commit a copywrite even if the mp3 or whatever is low quality rather than high quality). so this is morally okay as well

Taping stuff off the radio, recording stuff off tv,etc.. i believe these are technically illegal too, if the content you are recording is copywrited. morally wrong? well i doubt too many people look down upon this sort of behaviour.

The same people fighting against mp3&#39;s ,p2p networks, creating the DCMA law, etc are essentially the same groups (or modern day versions of) similar organisations who were against things like:

VCRs
Casette recorders (we were told this would be the death of music&#33;)
Even radio (eg allowing songs to be played on radio)

-All of these things have unquestionally ended up benefitting (overall) the content creators - by a lot. This doesn&#39;t prove that mp3s will boost their profits, and they may well do the opposite. but i dont think it will be as bad as the horror story they say it will be.

now consider the above copywrite violations, and compare that to the 12 year old girl living in public housing who was targetted by RIAA. Clearly she would not have been able to afford that music (or not much of it) so she has not even caused them to not gain money from her. but her family would be doing it tough with trying to pay that &#036;2,000 settlement, surely thats hurt her family more, than RIAA loosing the sale of the two cds she might have been able to buy.
Hurt to riaa 2x cost of cd (minor for wealthy artists and wealthy recording industry) hurt to her faimly &#036;2,000. probably they&#39;ll have trouble paying their bills and just getting by.

and why is it that you can get a 250,000 USD fine, and/or like 5 years imprisonment (these are the max penalties), for one, non commercial copywrite violation????

the max penalties for actually stealing the cd from the shop (surely something far worse&#33;) is far less than that.
Putting someones&#39; life in danger for a 3rd time drink driving offense would be less too.
so there we have it, a legal system where (in theory) the safety of people&#39;s lives are rated less than the cost of one track from a cd.. now that is immoral&#33;&#33;

(one would hope any sane judge would never impose anything even close to the max penalties for one extremely minor copywrite law of course)

In my view, non commercial copywrite violations, the max penalty should be more like the cost of the work multiplied by two (and that is the max penalty). obviously if you&#39;re out selling burnt cds the max penalty should be a lot more than that however (this would be a commercial copywrite violation)

The punishment should fit the crime&#33; (this doesn&#39;t imply &#39;an eye for an eye&#39; type justice - only that a minor crime deserves a minor punishment, and a major crime deserves a major punishment)

creating a copy of an mp3 (one track from a cd is about a dollar or 2 in value in loss to the copywrite owner - if you would have bought it had you not been able to copy it), and that is very F***ing minor indeed (certainly not deserving of a quater of a million dollar fine per violation&#33;)

thats my 2cents.. although by now you probably feel more like it was &#036;20 &#33;

[james_bond_rulez]

Originally posted by jim1013@21 October 2003 - 18:00
.......BLAH BLAH BLAH

thats my 2cents.. although by now you probably feel more like it was &#036;20 &#33;
well said

althogh i only read your last sentence :lol:

[Will_518]

Well said jim 1013 &#33;&#33;&#33;

however:

#1
of course there is a difference between "loosing" and "not gaining".

But consider why do we buy CDs? Not because of the disk, but because of the data on it. i can buy a CDR for 50cents, but a music CD will cost me &#036;20.
So, in my opinion getting the music on the CD for free is just as good as getting the CD.
And in reality it doesn&#39;t matter whether you steal the CD from the shop, or download it. The shop has lost one sale.

#2
:) i smiled when i saw this, I use this to justify a lot of things.

but at end of the day, stealing is stealing. A theif can&#39;t justify why he stole the latest Mercedes car by saying "I can&#39;t drive and I can&#39;t sell it, I just stole it to make my front lawn look nicer."

If you decide a particular CD isn&#39;t worth your &#036;20, you don&#39;t buy it. And you certainly don&#39;t steal it.

Maybe economically the shop hasn&#39;t lost anything. But morally you have just lost a lot. How can we justify breaking the law by saying "there was no practical consequencies." What kind of a society would we live in if this was the case?

#3
:) I smiled at this one as well. This is totally against what i thought the American free market economy and the whole capitalist society stood for.

What is America all about? Why is it called the land of opportunnity? isn&#39;t it because every men have to work hard to earn their money? The harder they work (+ some luck), the more they earn.

How much money does the guy who sweeps the streets earn? Not much, but he gets every cent from his own hard work.
Isn&#39;t this also the case with rich people? Sure, the music artists may not have had to do back breaking work, but the artist found the opportunity and he seized it. Therefore every cent they earn is from their own hard work. Therefore, isn&#39;t taking a cent from a rich man equally a crime as taking a cent from a poor man? (provided neither of them will die without the money).

[Will_518]

About legal and practical issues:

1) As far as i know taping music and programes from radio and TV are illegal also. But there is quite a difference between this and filesharing.

The main one is: if you&#39;ve taped it then you could have watched or listened to it; whereas with filesharing, you couldn&#39;t have gotten a copy of Matrix reloaded 2 weeks before it came out anywhere else other than the filesharing networks.

2) About that 12 year-old girl.

Surely breaking the law is breaking the law. it doesn&#39;t matter whether you are 12 or 21; it doesn&#39;t matter whether you live in public housing or a mansion next to the beach. Could a guy justify breaking the law even if he was only doing it to stay alive?

Maybe morally it&#39;s wrong. maybe emotionally it&#39;s shocking. but end of the day, The law is the law

Of course maybe the law itself is unjust. But that is why there is a supreme court; and that what&#39;s good about living in a democratic country.
You can&#39;t just break a law because you think it&#39;s unjust. If that happened, i&#39;d like to shoot the guy in my street whose smoke alarm went off 3:00 AM this morning.

3) yes, downloading a mp3 may not cause much economical damage.
But:
1) What if millions of mp3s were being downloaded?
2) Stealing a dollar and stealing one million dollar are both stealing.
3) Like I said before, the artist put a lot of hard work into it, and you just get it for free. is that moral?

4) So, we are actually protesting against high CD prices&#33; now, is that why we are filesharing?&#33;

maybe it&#39;s part of the reason, but be honest, you would spend hours downloading a bunch of music ONLY TO PROTEST AGAINST HIGH CD PRICES?

The more serious issue is this: in the 21st century, are we so lazy we can&#39;t be bothered to go on the streets and protest about something we really care about?&#33; Instead we sit at home and do something that&#39;s morally wrong?&#33;&#33;

5) Yes, the CD prices are high. but people are still buying them, aren&#39;t they? After all, isn&#39;t earing as much as you can what capitaslism is all about?

6) convinience? it would be very convinient if i went to my local shop instead of the shop 2 miles away; but i don&#39;t, because it&#39;s much more expensive. is the whole reason why we use filesharing really just for convinience?

{off topic}

Echidna, which forum would be the right place to discuss the ethics of filesharing?
Surely the whole point of this discussion is to make your point with the filesharing community, not with a bunch of oldies who have nothing to do after dinner.
you view p2p as property collectivisation? so, is that good? would you be willing to share your money with me and a bunch of beggars downtown if we are willing to do the same?
Don&#39;t get me wrong, I&#39;m quite a socialist idealist as well, but surely the real world is not built on ideals. The world we live in is no longer that described by Marx&#39;s "Capital" or "communist manefestal", workers don&#39;t want to be free from the chains, They just want money&#33; same as everyone else

[Morpeus22]

The problem I have with the RIAA is that most people, especially now, don&#39;t have the money to go out and by a &#036;30 dollar CD. I can see it from both points of view. The record industry wants to make money off cd&#39;s but they cant because people aren&#39;t buying them. People aren&#39;t buying them because they cost too dam much. So the people who cant buy them resort to other means. In response the recording industry starts handing out supenas to people who mostly cant aford to buy the CD&#39;s in the first place.

Lets look at it this way. the RIAA had the same issue with the CD burner back in the mid and late 90&#39;s, man i talk about that like it was a really long time ago, but look where it got them. You practically can&#39;t even buy a computer now a days without some sort of a CD or DVD burner already installed. The same goes for P2P sharing. It&#39;s like a hydra you cut off one head and two more will take its place. The only way to defeat a hydra is to destroy its heart. In this case the Hydra has many hearts. #1 the media that can be shared must be eliminated IE stop recording stuff or 2 shut down the internet completely (aint gonna happen).

The RIAA is never gonna recover from the losses of cd sales, but the thing that is gonna hurt them the most are court and legal fee&#39;s. They are probably spending more now on legal fee&#39;s than they have lost on cd sales. They have issued supena&#39;s to 64 people at last count and there are aproximately 2 - 5 million users on Kazaa alone. The legal fee&#39;s for trying to get all of these people will be horrendous.

Are we all thieves? To some extent yes. My solution to the problem is simple however. If free peer to peer gets shut down i say we all boycott cd&#39;s completely as well as other merchandise created under the eye of the RIAA and just listen to the radio. However, a more realistic solution is that the RIAA stop depending so much on cd sales and start depending more on other merchandise and the idea of the CONCERT to earn money. Stop producing so many cd&#39;s and you wont suffer the loss as much. The fact is that in order for the song to get on P2P networks, some one somewhere down the line has to buy the

[Morpeus22]

Lastly I would like to say that once a cd has been paid for by the consumer, all rights as to what happens to that cd recording or otherwise reverts to the consumer. What the copyright says is that the plastic that makes up the cd and it case blong to the consumer but what ever is on that cd does not. I find no problem with file sharing so long as the credit is given to the original artist. That is what the original idea behind a copyright and patent was. It was created to make sure that no one claimed work they did not do as their own.

[Morpeus22]

I agree with the above post By adster, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT Some one wants to see me out on the street protesting then that&#39;s what i&#39;ll do but it wont accomplish as much as just not buying the cd&#39;s.

[Will_518]

Of course a boycott will work.

But the sad thing is we wouldn&#39;t be just boycotting the CDs to prove they are too expensive, we would be getting the music from Kazaa and in effect we wouldn&#39;t need to buy the CDs to listen to the music.

Maybe you don&#39;t see it that way, but i bet RIAA will. in fact isn&#39;t that already happening?

How many CDs do filesharers buy? how many CDs do non-filesharers buy?
But how many filesharers are boycotting?

[cosmic doobie]

nothing compares to owning the real deal, if prices were to come down to sensible level then i would buy more cd&#39;s period B)
there are too many corporate greedheads on the planet for this to become reality i am afraid.
therefore there will always be file sharing unless they close the net :lol:

[Will_518]

I agree.
But isn&#39;t all of us greedheads? If i were to give you &#036;50 for nothing, you wouldn&#39;t say no.

[jim1013]

Some good and points there, Will_518.

I must reply to it though, in the interest of healthy debate :)

Is it immoral to break the law? not necessarily I would say. Just because a bunch of elected representatives say you cannot do something, doesn&#39;t make that activity immoral.

for example if for no reason, it was made illegal to wear red socks, inside your own house, it would not be immoral to do so, as you are not hurting anyone.


So even millions of downloads, if they are only by people who were not purchasing the thing anyway, in real terms, does not effect the person who made the song.

of course if they download instead of buying it (as opposed to just downloading it when they wouldn&#39;t have bought it), then this does cause loss to the artists


This is totally against what i thought the American free market economy and the whole capitalist society stood for.

What is America all about? Why is it called the land of opportunnity? isn&#39;t it because every men have to work hard to earn their money? The harder they work (+ some luck), the more they earn

Now this one, Just had to comment on..
well i&#39;m not American, im actually Australian..just thought i&#39;d point that out first.

I am against the &#39;free market economy&#39;, and what capitalist society stands for. Now I can just hear everyone screaming &#39;jim1013&#39;s a freaking communist&#39;, however i am not a communist. Communism has been demonised over there (in the US) to the extent where people freely use the word, without really understanding what it is.. I&#39;m lead to believe that anyone who does not support absolute captialism is often called this.

I guess this has progressed to more of a political discussion now.. but oh well&#33;

(absolute capitalism and communism are both &#39;extremes&#39; I believe neither work. I would consider something somewhere &#39;in the middle&#39; to be better. Economically I believe in a mixed economy (Australia&#39;s economy is a mixed economy to some extent). Certainly Australia hasn&#39;t gone as far down the free market, absolute capitalism line as the US has (and one could argue even the US is not absolute capitalism either - but it is closer to it)

The harder someone works the more they earn? While this is sometimes true, there are many times when it is not. Consider Billy and Johnny.

Billy&#39;s parents (who happen to be fairly well off) pay for Billy&#39;s expensive education, and as a result Billy lands a nice comfortable, well paid job, which he can do because he has a good education.

Johnny&#39;s parents however, are unemployed (or only able to find work some of the time). they can barely pay the electricity bill, let alone even dream of providing the opportunity of a good education for Johnny. As a result, Johnny ends up with little education, and has to work in boring, low-paid (possibly manual labor) type jobs.

Johnny may well work extremely hard, possibly 7 days a week, and struggle to pay the bills. while Billy might work a 5 days week, and have a fairly good income.

It&#39;s not Johnny&#39;s fault that he was born to parents who couldn&#39;t provide for him, and he may well have worked harder through his whole life than Billy.
------------

thats one hypothetical example, but there is no doubt that similar situations occur very often.
-----------
I am not saying that your comment about working harder and earning more is always untrue, I&#39;m pointing out that, at the very least it is often not true.

Any system which alows the example above to occur, is immoral.


but enough of this heavy political discussion.. time for something more fun.

"When you pirate Mp3&#39;s, you&#39;re downloading Communism"
Anyone ever seen that thing? i think its a poster from http://www.modernhumorist.com/
I doubt the writer even knows what communism really is. But everytime i see it, it cracks me up :lol:

check it out, im sure you&#39;ll have a laugh

oh.. this post seems to sum up the copywrite/theft argument quite well..

Myth number 4: under http://www.klboard.ath.cx/index.php?showtopic=76104

[Psycho_Medic]

ya we are but i don care, if they dont want us to download it they shouldnt uh... ya we are

[Switeck]

Originally posted by Will_518@22 October 2003 - 09:42
How many CDs do filesharers buy? how many CDs do non-filesharers buy?
You opened up the WRONG can&#39;o worms by saying that...
because the evidence I&#39;ve seen so far is file sharing increases CD sales in many cases.

Unheard-of bands or very old bands with CDs only available special-order are getting sales FAR out of proportion to what they were before something called NAPSTER ever appeared.

[Neo 721]

Yep definatly agree on that allowing free downloads of Music is a method of endulging fans, doing the opposite does not do bands any good for example hear what happend to Maddona American life they posted fake tracks with her saying "what the fuck do you think you are doing" and of course her site is hacked ect. This has happend on countless occaisons when bands abuse there fans.

BTW: does anyone know Napster are coming back?

[Neo 721]

I might at this time point out that the whole file sharing disscusion has been centred on CD prices and most points of view travel in favor of file sharing, but the CD thing is simply concealing the issue that the downloading of software, movies, music that is only available to buy and not free, from a peer to peer network is aquiring it without contributing towards it manufacture is stealing, when i say this it applies in the hear and now not the future, not acounting for lost profits or gained ones, or stollen goods and natural causes. But everytime something is downloaded the company has made an instant loss on the spot, it may repair the damage over time but for now it is still stealing.

[Switeck]

Originally posted by Neo 721@23 October 2003 - 15:00
I might at this time point out that the whole file sharing disscusion has been centred on CD prices and most points of view travel in favor of file sharing, but the CD thing is simply concealing the issue that the downloading of software, movies, music that is only available to buy and not free, from a peer to peer network is aquiring it without contributing towards it manufacture is stealing, when i say this it applies in the hear and now not the future, not acounting for lost profits or gained ones, or stollen goods and natural causes. But everytime something is downloaded the company has made an instant loss on the spot, it may repair the damage over time but for now it is still stealing.
So downloading a song of an unknown band that ISN&#39;T played on the radio (locally, at least) is stealing?

I sure as HELL am not going to &#39;take a chance&#39; on if a new band is any good by buying their CD to find out&#33;

But on hearing a song or 2, I may be looking for WAYS to buy their CD/s and more&#33;

[Neo 721]

That is true about the radio thing but does law actually probhibit such recordings from the radio and TV (if it is then blow me :o becuase why do they list codes for your VCR to imput to record a movie).

Edit: This is called video plus btw and and is in all TV listings

[mxz670-96]

If I didn&#39;t "steal", I wouldn&#39;t buy either so I don&#39;t really see the moral problem. It&#39;s like sports, watching a hocky games is not worth more than 5&#036; for me so I don&#39;t go. Same goes for movies, I only go to 4.00&#036; tuesday. I didn&#39;t even listened to music before Kazaa so I don&#39;t get that some coorporation is losing money of p2p.

[jfm]

As someone who is, at the moment, sharing almost all of my hard drive. I find most of the comments in this thread misguided&#33;

Someone has, at some point, to: finance and then: distribute, everything that we share. How else would it ever be available for sharing?

[Will_518]

Wether you intend to buy the product or not doesn&#39;t really matter.

&#39;cos there are a lot of things in the supermarket that i&#39;d take if it&#39;s free, but if they cost money (99.99% of them do), most of them i wouldn&#39;t buy, that don&#39;t justify shoplifting.
I can say: "I didn&#39;t intend to buy it anyway, so you didn&#39;t make a loss, i would have returned the disks once i&#39;ve copied them, so you wouldn&#39;t make a material loss"
But i&#39;ll probably still get prosecuted.

[Will_518]

Maybe filesharing does boost the sale of unheard of bands, but what about the more popular bands? if you dl some MM or Dido CD instead of buying it, there&#39;s no justification, &#39;cos you could&#39;ve heard it on the radio or tv, if not the song at least the band.

And what does filesharing do in the long term? sure, radio and TV shows boosted record sale. But there is a difference between radio and filesharing. With radio you can&#39;t control what song you listen to next, or when the station will play which song, and you can&#39;t tell the station to repeat it at your pleasure. but with file sharing you get a copy of the song, not much different from the copy on the CD.

So, do you really think filesharing can boost record sales in the long term?&#33; remember mp3s are free, CDs cost &#036;30; there&#39;s no difference between the two. (yes, mp3s aren&#39;t as good, 70KB/s + less quality, but i don&#39;t hear no difference; and yes, you do have to burn the mp3s onto a CDR to see there&#39;s no real difference)

isn&#39;t it human nature to always go for the more economical option? e.g. the law even says companies should reduce their tax to a minimun by doing everything within the law.

[Amplifier_SFH]

My thoughts are, in the end, we are theifs. At least I am, if a game doesn&#39;t have good online play that REQUIRES a valid key then I WILL not buy it. The music industry had FU--ED us over for years, and even if someone says they didn&#39;t, I don&#39;t care. They will always have more money than probably all of us combined anyway. Just stop pretending everything we do on KAZAA is moral, it&#39;s not, and I really don&#39;t care.

[Cotton]

Originally posted by Will_518@17 October 2003 - 20:31
Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn&#39;t know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn&#39;t this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i&#39;ve made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people&#39;s laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I&#39;ll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world&#39;s software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i&#39;m not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i&#39;m 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)
House metaphor is wrong its more like would u hate it if someone copyed ur house.

The theifs r the record companys who hold a monopoly on the dam buisness and sell their songs which is 3 minutes on nosie for phuckin &#036;30 now thats puckin theivein, if their prices were a bit more reasonable like &#036;5 i would rather pay for them cause u get the nice cover &#39;n all that shit, but untill then im going to steal as much files as i can.

Paying for things is over-rated, stealing is da bomb.

You guys all think its wrong to steal, NEWS FLASH theres nothing wrong with stealing, dam society trying to make out stealing is wrong.

[Cotton]

Originally posted by Neo 721@23 October 2003 - 22:51
That is true about the radio thing but does law actually probhibit such recordings from the radio and TV (if it is then blow me :o becuase why do they list codes for your VCR to imput to record a movie).

Edit: This is called video plus btw and and is in all TV listings
Recording of songs on the radio and of tv is illegal, and is classified as stealing. But everyone does it and no one cares, just like filesharing will be like in 10 years&#33;&#33;

[Cotton]

Originally posted by Amplifier_SFH@25 October 2003 - 01:32
My thoughts are, in the end, we are theifs. At least I am, if a game doesn&#39;t have good online play that REQUIRES a valid key then I WILL not buy it. The music industry had FU--ED us over for years, and even if someone says they didn&#39;t, I don&#39;t care. They will always have more money than probably all of us combined anyway. Just stop pretending everything we do on KAZAA is moral, it&#39;s not, and I really don&#39;t care.
Bravo I agree 100%, who gives a phuck, hell im going to go steal some more music right now&#33;&#33;

[d8888]

In my oipnion

Sharing music without paying RIAA/artist is like going to a bookstore reading books without paying the Company/author.

You can&#39;t say that "Sharing is our right"
("reading books for free is our right")

However,you can&#39;t say "Copying music is stealing",either.
("Reading books for free is stealing books")

Paying for stuff is white.
Five finger discount is black.
FileSharing is GRAY.

[abu_has_the_power]

Originally posted by Will_518@17 October 2003 - 20:31
Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn&#39;t know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn&#39;t this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i&#39;ve made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people&#39;s laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I&#39;ll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world&#39;s software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i&#39;m not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i&#39;m 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)
yea, we are a bunch of thieves, wat r u gona do about it? besides, sharing is like the kinda thing ur moma told u when u were little. listen to ur moma, before i rape her. lol bout teh raping part... sory... anywas, u have no clue wat ur dealing with. so go stuff some pirated music down ur ears... and enjoy it

[jfm]

Will 518
Your point isIs still valid&#33;
We all share.
Let us all be aware that not sharing the costs somewhere along the line, means that we will all one day have to listen to PHILL COLLINS

Think on that&#33;

[jfm]

Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn&#39;t know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn&#39;t this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i&#39;ve made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people&#39;s laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I&#39;ll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world&#39;s software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i&#39;m not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection , what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?) --------------------


Will 518

Your point [i]is still valid&#33;

We all share.

Let us all be aware that, not sharing the costs somewhere along the line, means that, we will all, one day, have to listen to PHILL COLLINS

Think on that&#33;

Oh, and the board (edits) isn&#39;t working again

[nahan]

You dont like dont do it ,nobody is being forced one way or another.
Filesharing will only strengthen media as a business in the long run.
So ofcourse greedy media execs are worried about short term loss ,they cant look at the bigger picture.
Everyone wants everything ,faster ,quicker ,now.

[djweiser]

nah, your not nicking the files from people, just "sharing" them. ;)

[[Icy]Kerry]

Originally posted by Will_518@17 October 2003 - 20:31
Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn&#39;t know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn&#39;t this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i&#39;ve made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people&#39;s laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I&#39;ll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world&#39;s software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i&#39;m not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i&#39;m 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)
Well consider this Will. How many times has a company ever ripped us off on faulty merchandise? Wouldn&#39;t this be a form of theft? Their not delivering the product as they intended. File sharing networks is like a friend. You have a file that you think is really cool and you pass it on to a friend. It just sounds like you&#39;ve been brain washed with too much media or RIAA coverage. I prefer people actually downloading things online, because you know their not committing &#39;actual&#39; crimes. I highly doubt a Kazaa user would rather download a game or music rather than go kill someone. :lol:

[Switeck]

Originally posted by d8888@24 October 2003 - 23:52
Sharing music without paying RIAA/artist is like going to a bookstore reading books without paying the Company/author.

You can&#39;t say that "Sharing is our right"
("reading books for free is our right")

However,you can&#39;t say "Copying music is stealing",either.
("Reading books for free is stealing books")
Yep, ban libraries... that&#39;s basically what RIAA suggests doing. :P

Other copyright industries are TRYING TO DO JUST THAT. (basically destroy/ban libraries)

LEGAL public domain is being pushed into non-existance even while &#39;rampant piracy&#39; occurs on file-sharing networks.

Food for thought:
Is it better to horde ideas and sell unreproducible copies for a king&#39;s ransom or to share and reduce the &#39;value&#39; of ideas to almost nil?

[DragonFlame]

Think of it this way&#33;

When you download a file you are only copying the data.
YOU ARE NOT TAKING THE SOFTWARE FROM SOMEONE. :angry:

Copying Software is just like Recording a movie on your VCR. Every one does it even my Grandma.
SO IF YOUR TELLING ME MY GRANDMA STEALS THEN FUCK YOU. :swear:

Most of the software cost around 100 bucks. Australian Dollas.
IF YOU GO OUT AND BUY EVERY GAME MOVIE AND ANY OTHER SHIT I HAVE DOWNLOADED OVER THE YEARS IT WOULD COST YOU AROUND THREE TO FOUR MILLION. :blink:

It is not wrong to Download data. :D

It is wrong to make a profit from this data. :angry:

[darkmind]

1) files should be treated as information which can be spread freely once it is released to someone
2) copyrights are only moral codes that ppl try to enforce (as the p2p networks suggest moral codes are impossible to enforce unless the persons morales correspond with the code)
3) the sharing of data is vital to growth and production, inhibiting it limits that
4) to much sharing can also inhibit growth if ppl are no longer willing to create anything new because they dont get anything out of it or very little due to sharing
5) the more anyone uses the law against someone that shares info w/o gaining anything from it, the more they back themselves into a corner because in reality copyrights were originally made to stop other ppl from profiting from someone elses ideas not keeping ppl from freely transmitting data

this is why i feel that p2p networks should be protected by freedom of speech
yet at the same time ppl should contribute something to the origin of the idea or invention so as to keep ppl inventing composing and creating new things

[nanotek]

yes we are thieves :P

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by darkmind@27 October 2003 - 18:31
1) files should be treated as information which can be spread freely once it is released to someone
2) copyrights are only moral codes that ppl try to enforce (as the p2p networks suggest moral codes are impossible to enforce unless the persons morales correspond with the code)
3) the sharing of data is vital to growth and production, inhibiting it limits that
4) to much sharing can also inhibit growth if ppl are no longer willing to create anything new because they dont get anything out of it or very little due to sharing
5) the more anyone uses the law against someone that shares info w/o gaining anything from it, the more they back themselves into a corner because in reality copyrights were originally made to stop other ppl from profiting from someone elses ideas not keeping ppl from freely transmitting data

this is why i feel that p2p networks should be protected by freedom of speech
yet at the same time ppl should contribute something to the origin of the idea or invention so as to keep ppl inventing composing and creating new things
1. stealing = free speech
2. stealing really isn&#39;t stealing
3. stealing is beneficial to the ppl we steal from
4. contradicts 1-3
5. repeated attempts to stop stealing makes you uncool because of 1-3, but not 4.

Got it.

thanx.

[darkmind]

lol
confused i am :)

im trying to say i hate the riaa
and am proud to be a p2p user because i feel that they have no right to attack us since copyrights were originally made to protect something they could keep relatively secret so that no one could steal the info and say it was their idea and sell it
due to the fact that they sell the files they cant and shouldnt expect ppl to not share them since they just gave the secret away
and since they share them there is no profit that they gain thus i dont believe that anyone on a p2p network is breaking copyright law, especially since they arent saying that the file is theirs

how about that version?

[Wednesday]

CD sales have gone up by 26% :huh:

[fr600]

Its that a good news???

[floatinghead]

I have had similar thoughts. One place those thoughts led me was to a possible revenue stream solution. I posted my idea here

http://www.klboard.ath.cx/index.php?showtopic=77474

Would such a system change your view on file sharing?

Generally, I think the world may be in for a change in how music is distributed. It may be that distribution is more "localized" and revenues are more moderate. I don&#39;t think this would have to be a conscious decision by any one entity. It may be just what emerges from the changes we see in the current system.

[Wednesday]

Originally posted by fr600@27 October 2003 - 22:56
Its that a good news???

:"> Sorry. What I meant was filesharing doesn&#39;t seem to have harmed the music industry too much as CD sales have gone up by 26% :">

[UKMan]

Originally posted by james_bond_rulez+21 October 2003 - 19:03--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (james_bond_rulez @ 21 October 2003 - 19:03)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-jim1013@21 October 2003 - 18:00
.......BLAH BLAH BLAH

thats my 2cents.. although by now you probably feel more like it was &#036;20 &#33;
well said

althogh i only read your last sentence :lol: [/b][/quote]
HA HA HA - That just about sums up my views on all this crap about the legalities of filesharing. Of course its f***ing stealing - why else is this subject brought up hundreds of times each and every week.

Dont tell me its because its a "shady area" or "its a thin line" etc. I steal mp3&#39;s from the artist but get them from other thieves - thats all there is to it - plain and simple.

Now, lets get out there and steal some more music before the cops wake up from coffee break ;)

Peace
UKMan

[*´¯`·.¸¸.»Çô©ö»]

Originally posted by UKMan+28 October 2003 - 14:10--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (UKMan @ 28 October 2003 - 14:10)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by james_bond_rulez@21 October 2003 - 19:03
<!--QuoteBegin-jim1013@21 October 2003 - 18:00
.......BLAH BLAH BLAH

thats my 2cents.. although by now you probably feel more like it was &#036;20 &#33;
well said

althogh i only read your last sentence :lol:
HA HA HA - That just about sums up my views on all this crap about the legalities of filesharing. Of course its f***ing stealing - why else is this subject brought up hundreds of times each and every week.

Dont tell me its because its a "shady area" or "its a thin line" etc. I steal mp3&#39;s from the artist but get them from other thieves - thats all there is to it - plain and simple.

Now, lets get out there and steal some more music before the cops wake up from coffee break ;)

Peace
UKMan [/b][/quote]
I&#39;m sorry mom, but apparently I AM A THIEF :(
So wtfugd........http://www.tnfj.com/Images/Smilies/behead.gif :lol:

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by darkmind@27 October 2003 - 21:28
...i feel that they have no right to attack us since copyrights were originally made to protect something they could keep relatively secret so that no one could steal the info and say it was their idea and sell it
due to the fact that they sell the files they cant and shouldnt expect ppl to not share them since they just gave the secret away
and since they share them there is no profit that they...
Whew&#33; That&#39;s a long sentence.

Anyway, copyright law was created to prevent the unauthorised use and distribution of published material, period.

It sounds like what you&#39;re talking about is patent law - totally different thing.

[darkmind]

whoops
well im sticking by my statement no matter how incorrect it is

[Neo 721]

Typical Ive only been away for 3 days and yet another thred has re emerged in this topic. Whether or whether not something is copyrighted does&#39;nt change the issue, all it means is someone wants to look important by having a big C on their product and that their designers will still get a large bonus in case somone finds that their work was taken from somewhere else ...oh and to add to the general discussion the facts still stand, we are not stealing we are just not allowing the company to gain anything by not buying their product.

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by Neo 721@28 October 2003 - 20:02
...the facts still stand, we are not stealing we are just not allowing the company to gain anything by not buying their product.
...kind of like eating a meal in a restaurant and not paying for it.

[UKMan]

Originally posted by Sid Hartha+28 October 2003 - 21:54--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Sid Hartha &#064; 28 October 2003 - 21:54)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Neo 721@28 October 2003 - 20:02
...the facts still stand, we are not stealing we are just not allowing the company to gain anything by not buying their product.
...kind of like eating a meal in a restaurant and not paying for it. [/b][/quote]
Or trying to justify what we are doing by seaking out reasons why we are not stealing.

If the law, or the artist - NO MATTER WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK OF IT - says you are not allowed to do it, then its stealing.

I on the other hand dont give a monkeys ass about what the law or the artist thinks - if i did i wouldnt download their material, neither would you. I happen to think that music and films on the Internet are up for grabs, but i sure as hell dont go around asking stupid questions all the time just to make myself feel good or justified. I also BUY a lot of stuff, like programmes and even music to get what i want without hassles.

these views are not intented to coerce minors or adults into illegal activity&#33;&#33;

Peace
UKMan

[Switeck]

Originally posted by darkmind@27 October 2003 - 13:31
this is why i feel that p2p networks should be protected by freedom of speech
yet at the same time ppl should contribute something to the origin of the idea or invention so as to keep ppl inventing composing and creating new things
I see p2p networks not just as freedom of speech but also freedom of the press.

Not some corporate-owned, government endorsed, thugs-for-hire presses -- OUR PRESS&#33;

To stop file sharing would require curtailing rights to privacy, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.

I do not wish to live in a police state or give money (buy CDs/DVDs) to people who think so.

[Neo 721]

hmmm..... Interesting, freedom isnt really an issue here, its just another excuse to wrongfully claim rights of ownership of particular property that does&#39;nt belong to a particular individial if you are a customed to this, then your clearly have a problem with authority over one&#39;s property.

[Sparkle1984]

Yes I think freedom of the media is an issue here, and so I agree with what Switeck said. The media should be of the people, not multinational corporations &#33;&#33;

[thetransplanted]

I think that we all know it is wrong; stealing this from other people who would be making money off of this stuff if it weren&#39;t for p2p programs like kazaa. BUT, when this stuff is just right there for you, you absolutely need it :D .

[Neo 721]

Its only realy freedom of the media if the media is free in the first place, bit like not alowing people keep news papers or not allow people to people to tape TV programs, but considering that MP3 games ect is not free it is just another excuse to suger coat the general issue.

[Kid1A]

of course we are, anybody care?

[Will_518]

Nice debate&#33; Yeah, sure, i want freedom of speech and freedom of media. But does this have anything to do with whether or not we are stealing? I don&#39;t think so.

Sure, p2p is promoting new stuff, eg the top download at verified is a homemade german porn video (with almost 10,000 dls). But these things are not copyrighted like the latest albums or games. The author probably want ppl to get that german video for free, but for the latest games and music, most of them are only made for money, for profit.

So, is your point that music stars, media corporations like CNN, games companies like Valve have no right to what they make, and shouldn&#39;t have any rights to what they make? Because the media should be free?&#33;

[Will_518]

Originally posted by Kid1A@30 October 2003 - 15:26
of course we are, anybody care?
lol. Well, RIAA does, so does MPAA. And if they are gonna do something about it, i don&#39;t see why we shouldn&#39;t hit back with some decent points.

[Will_518]

Yeah, most of the mp3s on the net are 120kb/s, which isn&#39;t very good. a lot of the ripped games either need a lot more than a no-cd patch or have no cut-scenes and music....

But, some people just like to dl it, &#39;cos they like the feeling of getting one over the corporations.

[UKMan]

Point in question:
A few years ago in Sweden, they raised the tax on cigarettes. The trade obviously suffered and also it was proven that people smuggled more, bought more via the Internet at rediculously low prices and of course the government suffered by loss of revenue. They reacted again by lowering the tax on fags and things have settled down again.

I do believe that lowering the tax OR the price on music CD&#39;s (as an example) would in fact encourage more people to buy - not simply because the prices are lower, but because the quality of the real product is so much better. Every day you see on the chat forums questions and debates on how bad the bitrates are and how to improve ripping them. If this wasnt important enough, then people wouldnt bother - so it stands to reason that more people would buy the real thing.

This obviously wouldnt stop downloading the stuff, but at least more music would be sold. Also there is no possible reason why CD&#39;s should cost as much as they do. In the beginning when the technique was in its hayday, of course it was relevant, but not anymore.

I do believe a lot of people who say that they download some mp3&#39;s or films just to see if they wanna buy the real product, because they are the true collectors who want good quality. The fun of downloading soon depreciates when you realise that a lot of the stuff is pure crap - quality wise - so you start looking for other pleasures, like good quality rips or the real thing.

Then there are those who just do it because its "cool". Look at how many i have ripped of today etc... There will allways be that sort, but soon they grow out of it when they realise that quality is nr.1 - No-ones gonna download their cheap rips anyway.

Peace
UKMan

[Neo 721]

u mention games they account for one of the smallest proportion of file sharing, which is why when 512K becomes standard these numbers will steadliy increase.

[silent VI]

im not a theif im just generouse with my files

[UKMan]

Originally posted by DrunkeNStylE@31 October 2003 - 01:48
im not a theif im just generouse with my files
trying to figure that one out :blink:

[silent VI]

:) i dont steal i copy and share

[Adster]

we arnt theives and what pisses me off is ppl that say its the sam eas shop lifing in a CD store theres a difference we download data and BUY blank CDs and burn it onto them

shop lifign you steal the REAL CD that isn&#39;t data and has all the cover art an&#092;d lyrics book

[Neo 721]

yeah but the matirials cost very little to produce.

The is an interesting topic and could use some more posts, as its been second paged.

[besbajah]

...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah

[Sparkle1984]

Originally posted by besbajah@1 November 2003 - 22:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:lol: LOL, I agree &#33;&#33;

[n18]

Thiefs or not, distributing copywrited files is considered illegal...but that doesn&#39;t stop up now does it?

[UKMan]

Originally posted by besbajah@1 November 2003 - 23:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:blink: And the point being you are an intelligent thief or what??

Some of those "idiots" you mention are on this board donating to the likes of you - why i dont f*cking know <_<

Peace
UKMan

[Sparkle1984]

Originally posted by UKMan+1 November 2003 - 23:25--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (UKMan @ 1 November 2003 - 23:25)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-besbajah@1 November 2003 - 23:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:blink: And the point being you are an intelligent thief or what??

Some of those "idiots" you mention are on this board donating to the likes of you - why i dont f*cking know <_<

Peace
UKMan [/b][/quote]
Now I realise that someone has to pay for the file in the first place, so that they can put it on the filesharing networks. ;)

We are grateful to them.

[Neo 721]

yep thats certainly true but what does it cost to put something on the Network very little. Maybee they stand the risk of being sued but there isnt a great amount of personal expense involved in the transaction

[UKMan]

Originally posted by Neo 721@2 November 2003 - 13:06
yep thats certainly true but what does it cost to put something on the Network very little. Maybee they stand the risk of being sued but there isnt a great amount of personal expense involved in the transaction
Not quite sure i understand what you mean, but if its the cost of a CD your talking about, then i would say they are paying and doing a lot more than you or i are. As far as risks are concerned, then we all are taking the same risks when it comes to filesharing over the Internet.

What pisses me off is how people say "fuck" this and "fuck" that but never stop to think of those guys and gals who buy the CD&#39;s in the first place so that you and i can download them. Without them we would have "jack-shit"&#33;&#33; Then you would have to start stealing from shops or start ripping from TV and radio programmes.

Calling those people "idiots" is about as stupid as you can get, but i&#39;m not surprised at the attitude of some of the people here (and elsewhere) and can only guess what kind of morons they are.

Now lets have some respect for those that share their original stuff and make our lazy tightfisted lives easy.

Peace
UKMan

[Gutter]

Originally posted by Sparkle1984+1 November 2003 - 22:39--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Sparkle1984 @ 1 November 2003 - 22:39)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-besbajah@1 November 2003 - 22:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:lol: LOL, I agree &#33;&#33; [/b][/quote]
I&#39;ll agree. One person pays for a CD and they share that music with all of us, We are not theves we are sharing.

:lol: Just like our parents taught us too.

[UKMan]

Originally posted by Gutter+2 November 2003 - 18:50--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Gutter &#064; 2 November 2003 - 18:50)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by Sparkle1984@1 November 2003 - 22:39
<!--QuoteBegin-besbajah@1 November 2003 - 22:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:lol: LOL, I agree &#33;&#33;
I&#39;ll agree. One person pays for a CD and they share that music with all of us, We are not theves we are sharing.

:lol: Just like our parents taught us too. [/b][/quote]
:angry: :angry: :angry:
Unfortunately Gutter, calling anyone an "idiot" for buying CD&#39;s just so that you can download from them gives you and these morons no rights whatsoever - but being the rip-off artists you are, you will just keep on - right? <_<

I admit to downloading, but i do not accept the label you guys give these helpfull people. You are worse than the RIAA you all so fully hate. Quoting your "parents" in this context is a very low blow to them and shows the kind of person you really are&#33;

If you wanna participate in the sharing community, then you also have to make a true contribution. Not just share files you have ripped off from others who willingly give, but also buy new material, rip them to good quality mp3&#39;s, avi&#39;s or whatever and then share share share - then maybe someone else can call you an idiot too - see how it feels :angry:

UKMan

[O'Neill]

I dont care wot big companies think, nvr have nvr will even when they throw me behind bars

They think with their wallets not thier heads

Music, film and gaming industries are reporting higher and higher and even higher profits each quarter and they say piracy is hurting them???
perhaps they have far too much time on their hands and need to go down the gay bar and get pissed

Oh and the one thing them lot are too stupid to understand is that their anti-piracy tactics are just making more ppl turn to piracy

I wonder how much sales dropped when they sued that 12 year old girl?

[Gutter]

Originally posted by UKMan@2 November 2003 - 19:25

:angry:&nbsp; :angry:&nbsp; :angry:
Unfortunately Gutter, calling anyone an "idiot" for buying CD&#39;s just so that you can download from them gives you and these morons no rights whatsoever - but being the rip-off artists you are, you will just keep on - right?&nbsp; <_<

I admit to downloading, but i do not accept the label you guys give these helpfull people. You are worse than the RIAA you all so fully hate. Quoting your "parents" in this context is a very low blow to them and shows the kind of person you really are&#33;

If you wanna participate in the sharing community, then you also have to make a true contribution. Not just share files you have ripped off from others who willingly give, but also buy new material, rip them to good quality mp3&#39;s, avi&#39;s or whatever and then share share share - then maybe someone else can call you an idiot too - see how it feels :angry:

UKMan
woah relax

-I never called anyone an "Idiot" for buying a CD, especially If I&#39;m going to download it from them. I agree that sharing my music should not be considered stealing. I should have made it clear I didn&#39;t agree with someone contributing to a community to be called an "idiot". If they overpaid for it, oh well.
-I do participate in the sharing community by ripping and gladly sharing my own (http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=87&subpageid=110353&ck=) (store bought) CDs.
-You remain on my userlist and I am sorry I&#39;m considered a "rip-off artist" to you.

[UKMan]

Originally posted by Gutter+2 November 2003 - 18:50--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Gutter @ 2 November 2003 - 18:50)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by Sparkle1984@1 November 2003 - 22:39
<!--QuoteBegin-besbajah@1 November 2003 - 22:01
...hate to pull the wool from under anyones feet but its a question of who&#39;s intelligent and who&#39;s an idiot.

One person pays ten times the real value and 9 people download for nothing. When I meet the idiot I&#39;ll thank him sincerely.

Besbajah
:lol: LOL, I agree &#33;&#33;
I&#39;ll agree. One person pays for a CD and they share that music with all of us, We are not theves we are sharing.

:lol: Just like our parents taught us too. [/b][/quote]
The above post is the one i am refering to Gutter. Maybe you worded your response wrongly, for that i cannot be blamed - i understood it to mean that you agreed they are idiots who buy instead of downloading.

However if i have missread your 1st reply, then it&#39;s ME who should appologise and retract the statement i wrote.

I am well aware of your contribution to the community Gutter and was therefore surprised by the remark. You have also made it clearer in the next reply what you meant. I am sorry.

My reactions are strong because of the morons who so willingly refuse to accept others opinions and also trash their good names. I hope that its also understood that even though i myself download and feel its my right, i refuse to contradict anyone who feels that buying CD&#39;s etc is a better alternative. I do however refuse to accept people who call others idiots. This has been my policy from day 1.

Peace
UKMan

[jetje]

As someone said soon we all be listening to Phill Collins.. simple if cd&#39;s fail to sell they will stop making cd&#39;s ;) Someone has to buy them...

Some facts:
cd sales dropped but DVD sells even better as expected&#33; I think these 2 things have something in common, you just have an ammount of money to spend each month.

personally i have bought far more then i did before i participated p2p...
Just becaue i learned a lot of good new bands. If i really like the music i like to support that band.
As being a movie lover, i dl the movies and watch them. Movies in the US are released months before they hit theaters over here (Europe)&#33; If i like a movie i ask myself if i wanna see it again sometime, if so i buy it on DVD&#33;
(btw i think they should add soundtracks of the movies on DVD&#39;s so you can play the music seperate, i&#39;m willing to pay a little extra for that&#33;) this way i bought aprox. 250 dvd´s the past year&#33;

I also dl a lot of digital music which i `had` on LP or single )for the youngsters that´s the round black plate made from vinyl, you may have seen sometimes on your parents pictures :lol: I already have paid for the rights before, why buy that twice.

For every blank cd i use, i pay a small amount of money to the music/software industry.. (forced by the Dutch governement) Simply because they assume i use those blanks to copy © material on to.... If i do so then why is that illegal? I payed for it already? At work i use thousands of blanks for non © material... Even if you had a bad disc you pyed ©rights :blink: but the industry still gets that money? :angry: Think that&#39;s a bit unfair.

On topic, dl ©material is illegal imo, i don´t see it as stealing though.
It´s a bit of an adventure gaining all these goodies. A kind of sport :lol:

Finally i think this debate soon is useless... With the introduction of DRM and TCPA the whole filesharing concept will be a lot harder if not impossible...
So just enjoy it the next 2 years... B)

[Adster]

well as ive said before ive bought 400 cds before P2P i don&#39;t see why that has to be forgotten now jsut becasue i get my music for free forgiven but not forgotten as they would say

[Neo 721]

Most people will solve that by makeing sure the RIAA knows that you have bought the CD&#39;s or just by not sharing.

[Adster]

its f*ckign sux you buy a CD you shoudl have the right to do what you wnat with it

make love too it

fuck it

piss on it

shit on it

throw it

and last of al rip it

[UKMan]

Originally posted by Adster@5 November 2003 - 01:51
its f*ckign sux you buy a CD you shoudl have the right to do what you wnat with it

make love too it

fuck it

piss on it

shit on it

throw it

and last of al rip it
No-ones stopping you Ad - just dont get caught :D (especially all that other stuff - wow&#33;&#33;)

Peace
UKCDMan

[Gutter]

:huh: ehhh

yeah Ad ;)


I figure If I buy a CD, I&#39;ll feel I&#39;m getting my money&#39;s worth by sharing it with as many people as possible.

Share the wealth, right? :D

[boxofslavery]

The RIAA did this to themselves. How are we supposed to respect an organization that CREATED bands like The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. These "artists" do not write their own music, do not write the lyrics, do not make up their own dance moves, do not even pick out their own clothes. I can understand having help from a manager for parts of this business, but N&#39;Sync has NO SOUL OR HEART in their music, and it shows. According to a member of Grateful Dead, musicians only receive 4% or less from record sales, yet they receive 35% or more from touring revenues. This simply says one thing to me: REAL musicians make the money from touring, NOT record sales. That&#39;s why Tool goes on tour FIVE TIMES more than Britney Spears.
Now I understand that you must pay the janitor that mops the floor of the recording studio, and that his paycheck to feed his (inbred?) children comes from us paying &#036;20 for a c.d. But let&#39;s face it, the only reason the Recording Industry creates and molds sucky fabricated musicians is so they can get more money from record sales. NOT so that musicians can get more money....another reason that Tool tours more than Britney Spears.
Now, I&#39;ve got a friend, Avi Ghosh, who is Defy (a great band) and he has opened my eyes a bit. He supports the RIAA for a few reasons, and hates them for a few more. Quite frankly, he can&#39;t go on tour until he sells a certain number of albums. At the same time, he&#39;s told me that it would be "a big help" if I was to share a few of his songs on KaZaA. I&#39;ve been responsible for some albums of his getting sold, I&#39;d like to think.
As a million people have already said, KaZaA doesn&#39;t have c.d. quality. If people really like the music, they WILL go buy the album. I believe the decline in record sales has much more to do with fabricated music making the populus sick than it does with piraters getting their fix via p2p.

Sorry for the long post...ranting feels good, and I don&#39;t really post here too often.

[DragonFlame]

I&#39;ve never had a problem buying Music Cd&#39;s and Dvd&#39;s it when you get to Game&#39;s that I have a problem. A cd or dvd when you buy it you at least feel like your getting your money&#39;s worth.
Think about it. Million&#39;s upon Millions of dollas are spent on movies so they can hire actors and make their movie, and music also has alot of money behind it. I&#39;m not saying that Game companies don&#39;t spend a lot of cash on their Game but not the amount that the Movie & Music companies spend. And then they have the nerve to charge us around 4 to 5 times the amount of a Dvd or Music Cd. I buy my music Cd&#39;s and Dvd&#39;s but you would never catch me buying a game unless it was really worth it and I tell you most of them are not.

[vader]

I would like to add that Finding Nemo, one of the biggest downloads and best representations of original work on the net sold 8 million copies on day one on DVD . Madden series Sports Games are through the roof and similiar hot video tittles are carrying their companies to leading edge. Thats why nemo does well and madden and so on. If you waist my time and money with hyped crap then your actualy- robbing me- of money and time. -- And so, am I stealing when I am going to buy it anyway...no. -- Am I stealing when I download something, find I do not like it, and would not have spent a dime on it ,so as the company does not loose what they would not have recieved...no -- Are there people out there profitting when they should not be and Law suites in every direction, company v.s company -company v.s individual-indiviual v.s government vise versa and bla bla bla ...yes .- The answer is most p2p are not theives and the Digital Millenium act is a joke . How in god&#39;s name can you expect to put the genie back in the bottle now. The industry&#39;s have to get on board or they can wait untill the RIAA disharten&#39;s enough folkes either into downloading ( wich is what has happened) or pisses off enough people truly affect over the counter sales. Either way it&#39;s a flamming way to go out. Wish I had a buggle :P

[globalterminator]

no. its just like going to a video store, and copying the video ;)

[O'Neill]

Ive done that with a few games before, brought it, copied it and took it back claiming it wouldnt work for me
And of course the law over in the UK states that if I have a reciept they mustrefund my money, all in all a free game :lol:

[Adster]

we ain&#39;t stealing where using it for our own entertainment and we ain&#39;t getting the full package that i on teh store for sale

what if I buy a apple and plant teh apple core in teh garden and grow more apples/? :huh: Artist forget that peopel download their stuff to hear it and then buy the real thing because it&#39;s so great

No no I&#39;m not a f*cking thieve

Blah



BTW thought I bump this for another debate

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by Adster@18 March 2004 - 13:30
Artist forget that peopel download their stuff to hear it and then buy the real thing because it&#39;s so great...
Is that what you do?


I never called you a thief, but I will say you&#39;re a hypocrite. ;)

[Mystikan]

Consider this:

Big Name Artist writes a song. She spends maybe 18 hours composing lyrics, perhaps another 20 working up the music. She and her band of 3 other players practice the song for perhaps 2 weeks @ 10 or so hours per day = 140 hours x 4 band members = 560 man-hours. Then they go to the recording studio. They spend maybe 6 hours getting the recording right, plus 4 technicians to handle the equipment = 6 x (4 + 4) = 48 man-hours. Then the resulting recording is mass duplicated for distribution.

Let&#39;s tot up the hours here:

Write lyrics: 18
Write music: 20
Band practice: 560
Recording: 48
Total Man-hours to produce song = 646

Let&#39;s be generous and say Big Name Artist and her band and techs time is worth &#036;100 per hour each. Total break-even revenue required = &#036;64,460 (not counting distribution). Yet they&#39;ll make FAR more than that selling even second-rate CDs&#33;

Now, here&#39;s my point:

Once that total is reached, any extra money is money received FOR NO WORK. If anyone is making money and not working for it then IMHO they are a fucking parasite. This is the fundamental flaw of capitalism - it allows people to make money simply by having money, or by the artificial cultural artifact of "title". Thus the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer", as the saying goes. As someone earlier in this forum astutely stated, pure Capitalism is as destructive as pure Communism. He/She also mentions a "middle of the road" solution. There is one. Not Capitalism. Not Communism...

Socialism ROCKS&#33;&#33;&#33; Down with Capitalism&#33; Read the works of Jack London (an American, I might add)&#33; Especially read The Iron Heel and The People Of The Abyss. Any sane, altruistic person must agree with what London says in these works. That was 80 years ago&#33; And what he predicted about the Iron Heel has indeed come to pass. You are now living it, every day&#33;

So I am a thief. But I have no ethical problem stealing within a system that allows the greedy and idle to prosper without giving anything back to the people. Ensure that wealth is fairly distributed amongst those who make wealth possible, instead of having 98% of the world&#39;s wealth in the hands of 2% of the people, and I&#39;ll pay. Gladly. Because I&#39;ll actually BE ABLE TO&#33;

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by Mystikan@29 March 2004 - 19:10
Consider this:

Big Name Artist writes a song. She spends maybe 18 hours composing lyrics, perhaps another 20 working up the music....

Socialism ROCKS&#33;&#33;&#33; ...
Interesting, but I think your math is way off, especially regarding expenses. Read this (http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic.html)* article by a well-respected independent producer, then tell me if you still think recording artists are the greedy ones.

If you think (generally speaking) that recording artists live extravagantly, you&#39;re dreaming. And probably watching too much TV. Don&#39;t bother citing Madonna or Britney or whoever as an example - they only represent 0.00001% of all recording artists.

People who create something are not parasites. The real parasites are the recording industry, which prefer to keep a low profile and remain nameless and faceless.


edit/
*here is an excerpt from that article:

Advance: &#036;250,000
Manager&#39;s cut: &#036;37,500
Legal fees: &#036;10,000
Recording Budget: &#036;150,000
Producer&#39;s advance: &#036;50,000
Studio fee: &#036;52,500
Drum, Amp, Mic and Phase "Doctors": &#036;3,000
Recording tape: &#036;8,000
Equipment rental: &#036;5,000
Cartage and Transportation: &#036;5,000
Lodgings while in studio: &#036;10,000
Catering: &#036;3,000
Mastering: &#036;10,000
Tape copies, reference CDs, shipping tapes, misc expenses: &#036;2,000

Video budget: &#036;30,000
Cameras: &#036;8,000
Crew: &#036;5,000
Processing and transfers: &#036;3,000
Offline: &#036;2,000
Online editing: &#036;3,000
Catering: &#036;1,000
Stage and construction: &#036;3,000
Copies, couriers, transportation: &#036;2,000
Director&#39;s fee: &#036;3,000

Album Artwork: &#036;5,000
Promotional photo shoot and duplication: &#036;2,000

Band fund: &#036;15,000
New fancy professional drum kit: &#036;5,000
New fancy professional guitars (2): &#036;3,000
New fancy professional guitar amp rigs (2): &#036;4,000
New fancy potato-shaped bass guitar: &#036;1,000
New fancy rack of lights bass amp: &#036;1,000
Rehearsal space rental: &#036;500
Big blowout party for their friends: &#036;500

Tour expense (5 weeks): &#036;50,875
Bus: &#036;25,000
Crew (3): &#036;7,500
Food and per diems: &#036;7,875
Fuel: &#036;3,000
Consumable supplies: &#036;3,500
Wardrobe: &#036;1,000
Promotion: &#036;3,000

Tour gross income: &#036;50,000
Agent s cut: &#036;7,500
Manager&#39;s cut: &#036;7,500

Merchandising advance: &#036;20,000
Manager&#39;s cut: &#036;3,000
Lawyer&#39;s fee: &#036;1,000

Publishing advance: &#036;20,000
Manager&#39;s cut: &#036;3,000
Lawyer&#39;s fee: &#036;1,000

Record sales: 250,000 @ &#036;12 = &#036;3,000,000 gross retail revenue Royalty (13% of 90% of retail): &#036;351,000
Less advance: &#036;250,000
Producer&#39;s points: (3% less &#036;50,000 advance) &#036;40,000
Promotional budget: &#036;25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: &#036;50,000
Net royalty: (-&#036;14,000)

Record company income:
Record wholesale price &#036;6.50 x 250,000 = &#036;1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: &#036;351,000
Deficit from royalties: &#036;14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ &#036;2.20 per record: &#036;550,000
Gross profit: &#036;710,000

The Balance Sheet: This is how much each player got paid at the end of the game.

Record company: &#036;710,000
Producer: &#036;90,000
Manager: &#036;51,000
Studio: &#036;52,500
Previous label: &#036;50,000
Agent: &#036;7,500
Lawyer: &#036;12,000
Band member net income each: &#036;4,031.25

[puk:))]

yes we are stealing & no i dont have a problem with that... & i&#39;ll tell ya why...

just as an example i really like the LOTRs films & saw the first 2 in the cinema (i also own 1 & 2 on dvd) ... now when the 3rd one came out.... i decided i didnt want to spend 3 1/2 hours sitting in a room tightly packed in uncomfetable seats where i cant have a joint.... so i downloaded it & watched it at home.

now i did feel guilty about this for a while (because there good films) until i read that it made &#036;500,000,000 in the opening weekend (3 days&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;).

now for the LOTR i have spent (2 dvd&#39;s & 2 tickets) = &#036;40..... have they lost out.... have they shite.... do we get robbed by companys like fox & sony every week..... damn right we do.

what goes around comes around.

[B.Helto]

Originally posted by puk:))@30 March 2004 - 17:52
do we get robbed by companies like fox & sony every week..... damn right we do.
Really? How does that happen, how do they rob you?

[flyby]

a very good read..........

http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html

[Mystikan]

Sid:
Yes, I think I put that rather badly. It wasn&#39;t my intent to portray the artists as greedy, and in looking at what each band member gets on your bottom line I agree that sucks even using my example maths. What I was getting at was that the idea, that anyone should endlessly continue receiving money for a limited amount of work put in, sticks in my craw. That goes for everybody; if one wants to continue earning money, one should continue to work and create new material. And looking at what some of the other parties in your list get, considering a lot of them would put less work in than the artist, is simply disgusting. So I do agree with you on that point.

I suppose my main beef with Capitalism is just that; someone with "power" (ie a lot of money, a lot of property, a lot of fame, what have you) can command large amounts of money simply because of that "power", not because they actually did any real work.

Perhaps the underlying issue could be better expressed like this: A fixed-term copyright (like 120 years) is definitely milking an artistic work for more money than the work involved in creating it was worth. No copyright should subsist longer than it takes to recoup the cost of producing the work (including the worth of the time spent on it) plus a nominal profit, say 10% of that cost (Trademarks are another story though). That affords the artist and producers the means of turning a profit and recovering costs, then freeing the work to the public domain for derivation and innovation.

Example: A movie costs &#036;150 million from go to whoa. Break down that cost as you will. It then takes, say, two months after release to gross &#036;165 million (cost + profit). At that point, it should then go into the public domain, and can be shared and derived from - but NOT sold unmodified, except for cost of reproduction. I&#39;d be against others selling unmodified PD works, for more than the cost of reproduction, as no other work is being added to justify the seller making money. In this scenario, if a blank disc costs &#036;0.25, the copier&#39;s time is worth an award rate (say &#036;20 per hour), and the time to copy the disc is 5 minutes, then the copy can wholesale for no more than &#036;1.92 = &#036;0.25 + (&#036;20 * (60min / 5min)), plus shipping/distribution costs. If no work is involved (ie someone sharing it on Kazaa) then it cannot be charged for at all. Derivative works, on the other hand, should be able to be charged in accordance with the work and cost put in by the derivative artist. Of course, none of this should be done until the original makers have their money and the work has passed to the public domain.

However, if the same movie takes 10 years to recover the same amount, then it&#39;s copyrighted for 10 years, until the makers get their money first. To me, that would be fair. This mindset - fair money for fair work - is what is espoused in the principles of modern Socialism.

Then there is the issue of double-dipping and exploiting cultural artifacts. Looking over your list, particularly this bit:



Record sales: 250,000 @ &#036;12 = &#036;3,000,000 gross retail revenue Royalty (13% of 90% of retail): &#036;351,000
Less advance: &#036;250,000
Producer&#39;s points: (3% less &#036;50,000 advance) &#036;40,000
Promotional budget: &#036;25,000
Recoupable buyout from previous label: &#036;50,000
Net royalty: (-&#036;14,000)

Record company income:
Record wholesale price &#036;6.50 x 250,000 = &#036;1,625,000 gross income
Artist Royalties: &#036;351,000
Deficit from royalties: &#036;14,000
Manufacturing, packaging and distribution @ &#036;2.20 per record: &#036;550,000
Gross profit: &#036;710,000


That is a perfect example of the exploitative greed inherent in Capitalism. As well as receiving their more than generous profit from record sales the record company gets to strip the artist&#39;s royalty as well. Like the advance; that should be a down payment to the artist for their work, not a damn loan, when the RC makes so much as it does. Not to mention deducting the royalties as a "deficit" after deducting the royalty payment when the RC turned the royalties into a deficit with its own greed in the first place&#33; Now that is parasitic, pure and simple&#33;

This is why I have no ethical problem with filesharing. Pretty much all of what I download ( I don&#39;t tend to look for "latest" or "0-day" stuff) will already have turned a profit for its makers. And I am prepared to pay for material that hasn&#39;t done so yet, if I actually want it now (like seeing Passion of the Christ at the cinemas instead of downloading it. When I see it&#39;s made more than it cost, then I might download it). Perhaps this explains my position better?

[b4icu]

sounds like Will_518 is having a spiritual void. try to fill up the vacuum with alcohol instead of morality judgements.

ps. great way to make a megathread

[General Admaster]

What about a truck driver ho works his ass off get up at 5am doesn&#39;t get home till late a night and hardly sees his kids and will get 1 quarter of what a artist would get in a week even with us downloading their music

[Sid Hartha]

Originally posted by Mystikan+31 March 2004 - 23:59--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mystikan &#064; 31 March 2004 - 23:59)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Perhaps the underlying issue could be better expressed like this: A fixed-term copyright (like 120 years) is definitely milking an artistic work for more money than the work involved in creating it was worth...[/b]
Nailed.

BTW: the ridiculously long statutes for recording copyrights (at least in the US) are the handiwork of lobbying by - you guessed it - the RIAA.


<!--QuoteBegin-General Admaster@1 April 2004 - 15:08
What about a truck driver ho works his ass off get up at 5am doesn&#39;t get home till late a night and hardly sees his kids and will get 1 quarter of what a artist would get in a week even with us downloading their music[/quote]

Most recording artists I&#39;ve known and worked with would LOVE to make as much money as truck drivers.

[Will_518]

WOW&#33; This has turned into a MEGA thread&#33; Thanks to you all for your opinions.

firstly, sorry i don&#39;t have time to read wvery reply (damn GCSE coursework&#33;).

I got to say, it sounds to me like a lot of you have a problem with the foundatals of the system in which we and most of the richest countries on earth live in -- "democratic" capitalist system.

So, what do you think would be a better alternative? A communist system like the one Mystikan describes? no, because, sorry to ruin your dream mystikan,: Communism does not work, because every men/woman is selfish, and greedy. that leads on the the next thing, you think companies and artists would be satisfied with just a 10% profit? no way, think about it this way:
how much money does Bill Gates earn each year? How much work does he do each year?
How much money does the top managers (including your boss) earn each year? how much work do they do each year?
the world simply doesn&#39;t work perfectly, if you were Bill gates, would you stop earning the money you earn, and live in a semi detached house outside bristol and be happy eating economic bread everyday just because it&#39;s wrong to earn money without working?

{off topic: i got broadband a month again, and now downloads much more. this is in relation to some of my early posts}

[Will_518]

To the guy with a flashing "home" sign in chinese as his avatar, yeah, i like alcohol, but i ain&#39;t a drunk (not counting that saturday... but that&#39; another story).

About getting robbed by big companies, yes we do if you think about the world as a fair world; but remember it&#39;s not. the big companies rob us? well, only because we want to get robbed, &#39;cos there ain&#39;t no body forcing you to go and see the movies, or watch the Tv or even buy that pack of crisps you buy every week; I could, if I want to, just go off to some mountain somewhere in India and live off the land, then i&#39;m only getting what i worked for, and there&#39;s no body to get my money unfairly, but no, i&#39;d rather stay where i am and get robbed by them big corprotions everyday. it seems to be just the way things are, i don&#39;t like it, only because i ain&#39;t the robber, i ain&#39;t the owner of some multimillion dollar corprotion.

Does that justify filesharing though? I don&#39;t know, but i&#39;ll say what i once heard on radio 4: "We citizens can&#39;t take matters into our own hands, there are laws which we must live by, if we don&#39;t like it, don&#39;t think it&#39;s fair, it doesn&#39;t justify us breaking the laws." (i think this guy was talking about an incident involving a bunch of nudists and a stolen bus... but it&#39;s a long time ago, i can&#39;t remember the details)

[B.Helto]

Originally posted by Will_518@1 April 2004 - 19:14
Communism does not work, because every men/woman is selfish, and greedy.
Who said anything about communism?

[Switeck]

Alot of the problem is (government-sponsored) protectionist, monopolist &#39;capitalism&#39;. Laws are almost always altered in FURTHER favor of corporations due to &#39;hard times&#39; and &#39;high unemployment&#39;... not more in favor of employees and consumers. And this process seems to happen FASTER in socialist countries. :(

Free-market economies are nearly a myth that is only slightly reflected in black and gray markets.

[Will_518]

Communism? no, nobody said it before. but the point is communism doesn&#39;t work because everyone&#39;s greedy, so expecting people to just get what they worked for and not more is also not going to work.

Hey, so it this more or less the only justification we have to download copyrighted material? Our dissatisfaction at the capitalist system? that&#39;s a pretty lame excuse, for a start doesn&#39;t that make us all commis?

[murfmann]

Originally posted by Will_518@17 October 2003 - 20:31
Are we jsut a bunch of theives?

i was talking with a buddy who didn&#39;t know much about filesharing, he was very much against it, and it really got me thinking about this issue.

what is filesharing?
Isn&#39;t this just downloading games, movies, books, and music from other people on the internet?

So, what is wrong with that?
think about this, How many of the files you download are copyrighted?

Why are they copyrighted?
So, the people who benefit from the files are those who put the effort and time into making it for our entertainment and their wallet. And they rightfully should be the ones benefiting from it.
How would you feel if you worked for 2 years to build a house, then someone else just gave it away, and you got nothing from it? I would want to lynch the guy who gave it away.

i think i&#39;ve made the point. What we filesharers are doing is stealing the fruit of other people&#39;s laubour. We are guilty.

Imagine a world where everyone was a filesharer, would we still have any files to share?

I&#39;ll give you an example. India makes about 1/3 of world&#39;s software; while China makes almost none. Why? Because, 99% of the disks you buy in China is Pirate Warez. in fact it is very difficult to find a shop that sells nothing but the copyrighted legal version of software in China.

So, should we stop sharing files?

Why would we still share and download files if we know it is so wrong? Do we even know what we are doing is wrong? Would it matter?

(i&#39;m not from RIAA or MPAA. I did share files, and i probably will in the future when i get a better internet connection [i&#39;m 56k atm], what i want to know is should we do something about this and stop sharing?)
will, here&#39;s something to think about. 90% of the music i have downloaded, i have owned or previously owned. and here&#39;s the kicker: first i bought the album, then i bought the cassette, then the eight track, then finally the cd. so as far as i am concerned they owe me. it just so happens i wore out every media i have ever owned. is it my fault they can&#39;t produce media that will last forever. eventually, i will probably wear out my cd,s although i doubt it because i do almost all of my listening on my computer or i burn cds to listen in my vehicles from the files i downloaded which as i said previously i own or have owned. enuff said

[zelig]

same here