Just a thought

**jenna85** · 09-22-2010, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by Disme

Pirating movies and filez is the same as stealing, indeed.
...
It's like smoking ... 40 years ago you were supposed to smoke in the U.S.A. You were a douche when you didn't smoke. That was the general idea of the whole population. I think we all know how the general idea about smoking is nowadays. Smoking has become very 'not done' and is seen upon as bad.

So you're basically buying into the image campaign from the content producers and think if they brainwash enough people the general consensus will be like theirs?

I don't get it.
Several years ago we were recording songs from the radio to tapes, lending LP's/CDs/Films/Books around to our friends/colleagues whatever.
Just like the public library example used earlier.
So I can't see the big difference between now and several years ago except from the industry calling us pirates.

**1000possibleclaws** · 09-22-2010, 12:55 PM

'Pirating' has become such a norm in Canada, I've had university profs hint at pirating needed software illegally (but make sure not to get caught!! aha) and I've even had to teach my 'rents how to download mp3s for their ipods after constant nagging, because going out to a store to get music is just ridiculous, and I don't think they even realize you can buy straight from iTunes, cause noone does it.

I know only one person who uses iTunes to purchase music, and she is so clueless she names her computer 'saras pc' when her name isn't even sara, for the reason that if she ever gets caught streaming tv shows online, it can't be traced to her

However I know a few people from the US who buy all their music from iTunes, so maybe the general opinion on this is more pronounced here?

**YoYoY** · 09-22-2010, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by megabyteme

Originally Posted by YoYoY

Well , the man who copied the soda here should have paid for it in the first place and this makes the store loses money and the soda company as well.
everything everyone downloads was meant to be sold not to be copied. so instead of selling 100 copy of a movie or a video game , you just sell one and he gives it to the other 99.

Do you honestly believe everyone who downloads something would have been willing/able to pay for it? Not even close.

Do people feel less guilty downloading a show/movie/game that contains product placements? How about the people who paid for that bit of media- should they feel screwed that they paid full price AND were fed a commercial, too?

Last I checked, the movie industry was expanding all over the globe AND Hollywood keeps setting record profits on one movie after another. I don't feel sorry for them, nor do I feel guilty. If I had to pay anything for a Hollywood movie, I wouldn't care enough to watch it.

Yes , you are right , but that's not the issue.
See, 99% of what I DL is not available in my country or maybe it's available in certain places with very high prices , so I can't afford it and I'm sure that there are a lot of people like me and I'm not blaming anyone for downloading instead of buying.
I'm not feeling sorry for them , or even guilty but that doesn't mean that this is not kind of stealing. we have to admit that they lose money because of this.they steal from us so we steal from them , and this still makes it stealing.

Of course I'd pay for my own food rather than pay for a movie or a video game , there are priorities.

I may be right or wrong but this is how I see it

**P2PDog** · 09-22-2010, 03:42 PM

Pirating is pirating, it is what it is, it's simply not synonymous with theft, they're two separate crimes. With theft, as in the soda pop example, you're taking a physical object from someone and depriving them of that object, while pirating merely makes a digital copy of something that leaves the original 100% intact. I'm not under any illusion that pirating is completely legal, but I also don't see it as a crime even remotely similar to theft.

I can justify my "crime" by the fact that I don't feel I'm depriving anyone of any income from my actions. I still spend the same amount that I always did going to theaters, buying CDs, etc. The main reason I pirate stuff is for the convenience. Most of the TV shows I download are available locally, and I could just record them using my PVR, but I find it much more convenient to download the ones I want to watch and I get the bonus of not having to fast-forward through the commercials. With Wii games, the recordable media don't last nearly as long as store bought media do, so any games that are played enough to wear out a recordable disc are the ones I buy. I consider it my own personal demo plan

. If there was a legal service available that had the same library of media available with the same amount of convenience (ie: not having to handle physical media), I'd gladly pay for it, but instead the big media companies want me to remain in the past. I have hope that someday a younger generation will make it's way into management of those companies and bring them up to date, until then I'll happily pirate what I want and need in a way that is convenient for me. I'm a pirate. Not a thief, just a pirate.

**ca_aok** · 09-22-2010, 03:59 PM

Honestly I could care less about justifying what I do, I'm perfectly aware it's illegal (it's sorta isn't in Canada yet, but that's probably going to change soon). I just find the people who call it "theft" when both intuitively and legally it's not theft hilarious. And the "1 download = 1 lost sale" argument is also ridiculous.

If there was a source of music similar to What, that you had to pay a monthly fee to use, I'd do so in a heartbeat. If CDs were cheaper ($5-10 rather than the $15-25 they are now) I'd have a hell of a lot more of them, but I also have a larger music collection than anyone else my age that I've ever met (~300 CDs, ~50 LPs). That's a shitload of money in the RIAA's pocket, and plenty of those artists were discovered through piracy.

I think we need to move towards a model like Spotify, they're definitely on to something with that service. Too bad it's widely unavailable in more than a few countries.

**Intr4ns1t** · 09-22-2010, 04:41 PM

Myself, as a long time, and avid movie fan, I have owned physical copies of the vast majority of the dvd's I possess digital copies of. The main reason I got a computer in the first place was because I was sick and tired of spending $30-$50 dollars per movie, only to find out, after the fact, that about 3/4 of those movies were absolute shit. Having paid for physical copies gives me every legal right to own a digital copy, so long as I don't share it with others, but I choose to give others the chance to try it before they buy it.

While this isn't an ideal justification, it's a fact. I figured out at one point, going through my collection of dvd's that, over the course of 2 years, I had spent nearly 20 grand on video entertainment. My personal estimation of the worth of those dvd's is MUCH MUCH lower, and had I been able to view many of those movies beforehand, I never would've wasted a single moment on watching them.

If I go to a retail store, and see a can of soda worth about 6 cents(not including that packaging) in reality, on sale for 1$ a can, while I won't steal it, I surely could give a shit to pay the ridiculous price I'm being charged, so I buy the ingredients to make a sweet wet drink, and make that shit at home. I make music at home, and while I don't make movies at home, I would if I had the resources.

The truth is, hard media is dying, and the media providers are scrambling trying to keep a hold of a disgustingly overburdened method of distribution, that is terribly cost-ineffective. For the end consumer at least. For too long, the lions share of any profits from artistic entertainment has been robbed from the artists anyways, so, why should I feel bad about taking money away from a shitty entertainment megaconglomerate, who do nothing more than tell us the junk they feed us is the pinnacle of entertainment? Personally, I think most musicians would make far more money if they released their music directly to the end user, rather than giving 95% or more of the proceeds to the labels they are trapped with.

I helped a band from my home town get their music online, and they sold something along the order of 100 cd's via that route, as opposed to the 20 cd's they had sold in the 6 months before that, trying to hawk their cd's at shows. Seems to me they made a better decision to get their music out there via the file sharing method rather than trying to hustle discs at shows. Statistically at least.

$0.02

**n00bz0r** · 09-22-2010, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by Intr4ns1t

Myself, as a long time, and avid movie fan, I have owned physical copies of the vast majority of the dvd's I possess digital copies of. The main reason I got a computer in the first place was because I was sick and tired of spending $30-$50 dollars per movie, only to find out, after the fact, that about 3/4 of those movies were absolute shit. Having paid for physical copies gives me every legal right to own a digital copy, so long as I don't share it with others, but I choose to give others the chance to try it before they buy it.

While this isn't an ideal justification, it's a fact. I figured out at one point, going through my collection of dvd's that, over the course of 2 years, I had spent nearly 20 grand on video entertainment. My personal estimation of the worth of those dvd's is MUCH MUCH lower, and had I been able to view many of those movies beforehand, I never would've wasted a single moment on watching them.

If I go to a retail store, and see a can of soda worth about 6 cents(not including that packaging) in reality, on sale for 1$ a can, while I won't steal it, I surely could give a shit to pay the ridiculous price I'm being charged, so I buy the ingredients to make a sweet wet drink, and make that shit at home. I make music at home, and while I don't make movies at home, I would if I had the resources.

The truth is, hard media is dying, and the media providers are scrambling trying to keep a hold of a disgustingly overburdened method of distribution, that is terribly cost-ineffective. For the end consumer at least. For too long, the lions share of any profits from artistic entertainment has been robbed from the artists anyways, so, why should I feel bad about taking money away from a shitty entertainment megaconglomerate, who do nothing more than tell us the junk they feed us is the pinnacle of entertainment? Personally, I think most musicians would make far more money if they released their music directly to the end user, rather than giving 95% or more of the proceeds to the labels they are trapped with.

I helped a band from my home town get their music online, and they sold something along the order of 100 cd's via that route, as opposed to the 20 cd's they had sold in the 6 months before that, trying to hawk their cd's at shows. Seems to me they made a better decision to get their music out there via the file sharing method rather than trying to hustle discs at shows. Statistically at least.

$0.02

infuckintransit..

welcome back homie!