Is it wrong to sell pirated stuff?

[Rip The Jacker]

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

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

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

I guess I felt greedy after that.

[manker]

Good lad

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

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


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

[Skiz]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Barbarossa]

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

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

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

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

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

[{I}{K}{E}]

$5 is 2 much.

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

[manker]

$5 is 2 much.

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

Skinflint

[MCHeshPants420]

and my time.

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

[MCHeshPants420]

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

[manker]

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

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

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

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

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

Nice one

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

[lynx]

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

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