Why do you torrent?

[Funkin']

I do it for free shit. Nothing more.

[Samurai84]

because i like the spirit that is envolv

[puckface]

I do it for free shit. Nothing more.

Yes, free shit rules.

[mrnobody]

illegal or unethical?

That's how it is viewed by the outside world. Try having a discussion about file-sharing with somebody, you'll find that it is very hard to justify your position when the person thinks you are stealing money from companies or artists that deserve it.

- torrenting isn't worldwide illegal though. Many countries actually allow torrenting - at least torrenting of foreign stuff...and there are bunch who come from one of those fs friendly countries.

- i have heard people say "isn't that [torrent] illegal?" buncha time irl, but never heard anyone say "torrenting is unethical". It would be awkward if one did anyway.

- funny stuff i never encountered a single person who said torrenting is stealing money from companies. There were a few who said artists deserve money though.

[interwebz]

because i couldnt afford the ship.

[Eargasm]

The selection, the quantity, and the quality... It's like having Library of Alexandria right at your fingertips.

[martondvn]

Because I don't like to pay for the media. For example, from a 20 USD CD (which is, currently, more than 10% the minimum salary in my country), I don't believe more than 1 goes to the artist. The rest goes to the label company, media company, the store, transportation company, package company, not to mention taxes and other indirect costs. That´s to pay for something that is not the real musics.
I have no interest in a plastic disc, in a plastic box, or a paper cover art. My interest, when I download an album, is for the music, so why should I pay for everything else? I have some originals CDs that stopped working. This means the media is not so good, so why do I have to pay for it?
The same goes for DVDs, books, TV shows, and so on.
These companies have to find new ways of putting their products on the market.
For instance, you can watch every episode of south park on their web site for free, and they get some money from advertisement. The Monty Python crew is putting some of theirs stuff on youtube and, the same way, plan on gaining from publicity with their videos.
There´s tons of ways of getting money from these stuff, apart from selling the media. Music artists can get way more money from concerts than on cd sales, movie companies can get money from theater exhibitions (maybe some less money than now, but the movie price can go way down if they don't give some 40 million to Brad Pitt or something), and so on...
About the companies losing money, when they show the numbers, it looks to me that they are always assuming that every copy of something that you download, you would have bought if not being able to download. This is a narrow thinking and hides the real problem. In my country, more than 95% of Windows copies are pirated. That´s not because you can find a cheaper copy on the streets or the internet, but because these 95% don't have the money to buy a real copy. If they didn't have the option to get a pirated copy of Windows, they would just migrate to Linux or something else, or even yet, not use a computer at all. Thinking this way, I can not really see how they are losing money for downloads or piracy, since they wont get it any other way...
All this huge text is just to show my point of view about the subject. I torrent because I don't agree with the current system that tries to obligate me to pay for a lot of products without an option (the media and all that puts costs into it).

[cinephilia]

i only dl open-license stuff and i never infringe copyright

[meelad]

to download linux isos

[Cheeseman1208]

- torrenting isn't worldwide illegal though. Many countries actually allow torrenting - at least torrenting of foreign stuff...and there are bunch who come from one of those fs friendly countries.

- i have heard people say "isn't that [torrent] illegal?" buncha time irl, but never heard anyone say "torrenting is unethical". It would be awkward if one did anyway.

- funny stuff i never encountered a single person who said torrenting is stealing money from companies. There were a few who said artists deserve money though.

Judging from the flag on your profile, I would assume you are from Germany? Where I live (the USA), if you try to talk to someone about file-sharing, they plug they're ears and say "I don't want to know." It reminds of the novel 1984 in the sense that people are afraid to even talk or think about file-sharing in fear of the "thought police." Now, granted, there are people that don't give a damn, and there are others that openly admit to file-sharing, but the majority of population see it as an "underground" activity at the same level as hacking or money-laundering.