Pirating media/software

[Pikonic]

We got a little off topic in discussion again.
I put the three most common ideas in the poll. The title and the poll speak for themselves.

Personally I don't care for pirating media. I believe pirating music over the years has caused an increase in concert ticket sales so the artists can still make their money. I personally think if you make something I want, I should have to give you something in return, usually money.
Thoughts?

 

[Marvin]

It's merely factual (or close to it) that pirating is not stealing. When you steal, you're taking a specific item from someone and depriving that person of that item.

I see copyright as a benefit granted by the government, which is useful. Like corn subsidies. (Or, well, it was more useful when it was easier to enforce.)

I personally think if you make something I want, I should have to give you something in return, usually money.
Thoughts?

There are street performers and stuff like that. They don't act like they're entitled to money, they hope to earn some money from you. That's the big thing for me, entitlement.

Creators need to convince me I'm getting something out of my money for me to hand it over. That's why I might go to concerts, I enjoy the IRL atmosphere. But just recordings, broadcast to the masses? Eh... not really worth my money.

 

[spaps]

I'm okay with pirating from big companies like Ubisoft and EA, but I feel like I get more satisfaction out of something when I actually buy it with money. Even if what I'm pirating is shit, I still want to feel like I own it, I guess.

 

[fuzzypickles]

I've pirated video games in the past, and I have no qualms with it provided that the game is out of print or hard to obtain legally due to rarity, price and other factors that determine how accessible the game is. For instance, I've pirated old games that were 20-30 years old to my computer because getting the original discs or arcade cabinets would be expensive and impractical.

 

[KatsuKitty]

Piracy shares much in common with speeding. I'm not saying it's right to do or it should be legal, but we've all done it and the penalties range from nothing to a slap on the wrist so we're just gonna keep doing it.

 

[José Mourinho]

I only pirate games from far bigger developers (who are notorious for being greedy such as EA) but I support the small companies.

 

[Uzumaki]

If big companies are going to use their financial weight to buy out democracy and impose their twisted retrograde version of copyright laws on the rest of us, then, in my opinion, we cease to have a moral duty to obey those laws.

All human endeavor is built on the work of those who came before. Permanent ownership of ideas by companies is a fucking joke, it's stifling our culture, and you can shriek and shriek at me all you want but I'm never going to feel a moral imperative to obey laws that are literally hurting our collective culture for the benefit of a few Disney shareholders. Forgive me if I've become a complete anarchist but that's my stance.

And you're fooling yourself if you think paying for things is helping the people who made them. The vast majority of that money is going to middle men, whose jobs are to make their jobs necessary.

 

[A-Stump]

I only pirate games from far bigger developers (who are notorious for being greedy such as EA) but I support the small companies.

Exactly. There's totally a difference.

 

[guau]

I download music from artists at major labels who don't really need my money (eg. Beyonce) and artists I don't want to support because of their shitty attitude like They Who Must Not Be Named. But yeah, I buy from bands in small time labels as they have difficulty touring/selling merch.

 

[Marvin]

If big companies are going to use their financial weight to buy out democracy and impose their twisted retrograde version of copyright laws on the rest of us, then, in my opinion, we cease to have a moral duty to obey those laws.

All human endeavor is built on the work of those who came before. Permanent ownership of ideas by companies is a fucking joke, it's stifling our culture, and you can shriek and shriek at me all you want but I'm never going to feel a moral imperative to obey laws that are literally hurting our collective culture for the benefit of a few Disney shareholders. Forgive me if I've become a complete anarchist but that's my stance.

And you're fooling yourself if you think paying for things is helping the people who made them. The vast majority of that money is going to middle men, whose jobs are to make their jobs necessary.

You're right, but it doesn't even get to that level of seriousness for me. For me, copyright doesn't matter if you can't enforce it.

I'm reminded of prohibition. They couldn't enforce it and it fell apart. (I'm sure it was a lot more complicated than that, of course, but enforcement played a part.)

Heh, it's like a baker making delicious smelling bread (I bike regularly by a big bakery and it smells awesome) and getting cranky at bums enjoying his smells for free. He'd run out with a wooden spoon, "hey you mooches, buy my bread instead of stealing my smells! "

 

[theobservdr]

Yea , I do have mixed opinions on it, on one end software is expensive, and who knows how many legit copies vs pirated copies of windows are out there.

As for movies I'll buy, my friends father works as a cinematographer, and knows David Lynch ( he did the camera work on Eraser Head), and did the bad Incredible Hulk movie my friend asked him about it, and he didn't even like it, but anyways regardless of whichever movie I buy it actually goes towards his pension, and he gets screener copies of movies before they are released for the Academy Awards, and a big release movie actually has to have someone at home to sign for it. But I watched Skyfall before it was even released on DVD. The only drawback is he gets so many movies to watch in the last few weeks that he doesn't even have time to watch them all.

 

[Cute Anime Girl]

It's stupid to call pirating 'stealing'. It's the same as someone making a copy of your car and driving off with it. Nothing has changed with your car, was it really stealing?

Also movie/vidya industry makes enough money as is.

 

[CalmMyTits]

I have been and still am a victim of pirating. I wrote several books and released them last year. (self-published) and I have had to file DMCA's at least a dozen times over the last year because of assholes who think they shouldn't have to pay for my books. I try to make my books reasonably priced and the electronic versions of my books are only a third of what the paperback versions cost because there is no overhead for paper, ink, shipping, etc so I tried to be fair with the prices. But assholes still think they can just rip my books and distribute for free despite my asking to please do not do so, within the copyright information in my books. So as a person who has been personally victimized by pirating, I can't say I am in favor of it, especially if you're a small-time person (author/artist/musician/etc) because I don't make anywhere near enough money off my books to quit my day job or anything lofty like that. I worked very hard on my books to make them the best they can possibly be and it really hurts me when I see my work on a free download site.

 

[Dee]

I have been and still am a victim of pirating. I wrote several books and released them last year. (self-published) and I have had to file DMCA's at least a dozen times over the last year because of assholes who think they shouldn't have to pay for my books. I try to make my books reasonably priced and the electronic versions of my books are only a third of what the paperback versions cost because there is no overhead for paper, ink, shipping, etc so I tried to be fair with the prices. But assholes still think they can just rip my books and distribute for free despite my asking to please do not do so, within the copyright information in my books. So as a person who has been personally victimized by pirating, I can't say I am in favor of it, especially if you're a small-time person (author/artist/musician/etc) because I don't make anywhere near enough money off my books to quit my day job or anything lofty like that. I worked very hard on my books to make them the best they can possibly be and it really hurts me when I see my work on a free download site.

I'm very sorry to hear about this! Pirating affects small timers more than large companies but I disagree with all forms of pirating.

 

[CalmMyTits]

I've pirated video games in the past, and I have no qualms with it provided that the game is out of print or hard to obtain legally due to rarity, price and other factors that determine how accessible the game is. For instance, I've pirated old games that were 20-30 years old to my computer because getting the original discs or arcade cabinets would be expensive and impractical.

I do make an exception for this though. Like Nintendo games, it's near impossible to find a working system, or working cartridges, so I personally don't see any issue with having/downloading ROMs and emulators of old-school games like Arari, NES, SNES, etc. New games like DS and stuff, no. However in 20 years or whenever DS and other current platforms become obsolete, then I would be okay with these becoming ROMs and emulators. From what I understand, Nintendo has basically abandoned its old systems and doesn't care if you have ROMS and emulators of games from that platform since they're making their money off their current ventures like Wii, DS, et al.

I'm also ok with sharing books and music by people who are already dead. Amazon has lots of free e-book versions of classics, and only charge for the paperback version (because of overhead) In this case, no one is being hurt by this because the creators are dead. Same with old movies like the Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind. All actors, producers, anyone involved in these movies are long dead and sharing them online doesn't cost anything, though I would be opposed to stealing an actual physical copy of said media from a brick and mortar store.

 

[Some JERK]

Spoiler: Me sperging about shit I probably know nothing about.

The internet has been the biggest game changer since intellectual property rights were established. There's simply no way to completely stop it, because you can't legislate the actions of people offshore. So even if you completely eradicated piracy that originates in one country, it's still going to happen.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is. But I do know that it isn't going to come from harsher punishments for breaking existing rules. Hell, there are almost no punishments for DCMA infractions anyway. Have you ever gotten the infamous "hey, stop stealing shit" letter from your ISP? Do you know how many of those they'll send? Six. They will send you six warnings. After the sixth and final warning, do you know what happens?

...They stop sending you warnings. that's it. (which actually makes sense, If they're not prepared or able to level a punishment of any kind, then after 6 warnings and you're still doing it, they're just wasting paper.) Some ISPs do bandwidth throttling i think, but not all of them. ISPs aren't in the law enforcement business, and they really don't give two shits what you do with your bandwidth as long as you pay for it.

All they can really do (and they are) is crack down on the sources of pirated products (torrent sites, etc.) but those are like weeds. You get rid of one, and another pops up to fill the vacuum created by its loss. One of the major problems is that bureaucracies simply can not keep pace with the internet. It takes months if not years to fight a piracy case in court, and even if you win, there will be another site just like it on the internet the very next day. That's a war of attrition that you will simply never win.

 

[Le Bateleur]

I have a complex relationship with piracy, but there is one thing I categorically don't understand about the anti-piracy side's arguments. You hear claims like "piracy costs the economy £X billion every year." How? If people get music for free, they spend their money on other stuff. The total amount they spend doesn't change. Sure, the entertainment industry doesn't get £X billion, but maybe the alcohol industry gets an extra £X/4 billion, and the clothes industry gets an extra £X/2 billion, etc. In fact, in countries where a lot of music and film is imported, piracy probably actually keeps money in the country. Or have I missed something?

 

[Thelostcup]

Many Indie devs / artists actually like it when people pirate their stuff. It means they liked it enough to still want it. Free advertising, basically.

 

[Some JERK]

Many Indie devs / artists actually like it when people pirate their stuff. It means they liked it enough to still want it. Free advertising, basically.

I've gotten into bands or TV shows because I pirated their shit. I probably wouldn't have risked the $ on an unknown (to me) artist If i'd had to pay for the initial experience.

 

[CalmMyTits]

Many Indie devs / artists actually like it when people pirate their stuff. It means they liked it enough to still want it. Free advertising, basically.

I can say in all honesty that I am NOT in this category of people, and I know other authors who don't buy that 'free advertising' bullshit.