what do you think?
0 voters
In the same week as Adele make s the best ever one year album sales in the UK, the High Court tells ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.
Ironic, no?
What do you think: Is the Pirate Bay ripping off the music industry? Is Piracy wrong?
wow!
wrong forum? this is an issue concerning technology, surely? no one here has an opinion?
maybe I’ll start the ball rolling
whatever my contention is, we need to define terms:
The accusation is:
a. piracy is morally wrong, because,
b. piracy deprives artists and companies that support artists of their rightful property (i.e. is theft)
c. the effect of piracy is therefore, to limit the production of art or copyrightable material
my contention is that accusations a-c are in fact erroneous.
a would be true if b were also true but b is not true; therefore a, b and c are wrong:
Copying material is different to theft because nothing is removed, nothing is taken. Piracy is different to copying and pretending to be the author - that is definitely fraud and is morally wrong. Copying and retaining the proper credits, etc, is not fraud and is not theft so is therefore not morally wrong.
A pirated copy is definitively distinct from the original (by virtue of it being a self-proclaimed copy) so it is not fraud and not morally wrong.
The fact that copied material is circulated widely doesn’t mean that the artist is deprived of a sale. It is well known in the software industry, for example, that the people who run the pirated copies are not in a position to pay for an original. No sales are lost (in fact, sales keep going up). Again, therefore, piracy is not theft. Bill Gates infamously said Window’s benefits from piracy because the more people who use Windows the more important it is. Thus Windows is more useful, in fact is the de facto standard international OS because everybody uses it, most of whom have never bought it. Thus if your product doesn’t work with Windows people won’t buy it. MS profits, for one, therefore help us deny the third claim.
I have shown that piracy is not wrong. In fact therefore copyright laws are morally wrong as they inhibit the freedom of people to distribute their wealth, they inhibit (and would do greater damage if they were heeded) sales of art and other products of copyable material.
So am I wrong or is the whole issue not understood by anyone involved?
I think thats an oversimplification.
When talking about the Pirate bay, yes the topic of piracy is discussed. But it was not the Pirate bay doing the pirating, or offering the media themselves. What they did was to provide pointers to material that were hosted by others, and then downloaded by another, which for a long time was all perfectly legal in Sweden. A point that was lost to many lawyers from the US and UK who would quote laws like The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, only for the owners to mock and poke fun at them and point out US laws don’t apply to people in Sweden.
However it is the thin edge of the wedge, obviously they knew exactly what was going on, so this became the new measure of if a company should be reigned in or not, Megaupload and other torrent sites are being targeted now, as apparently they should have know their sites were being used for file sharing, but where does this stop, is DropBox next, Youtube maybe google will be punished if it lists a copyrighted work in a search?
Regarding your claim copying is not stealing, technically you are right, it is copyright infringement. You can see Dowling v. United States (1985) for more information behind that logic. Despite the RIAA and MPAA wishing it was so, and telling its audience copying is stealing, it is not. If it was, it would be a criminal offence not civil, as it is, they have to do the legwork to protect their material, if it was criminal, they could call the police to do so at taxpayers expense.
Right now they are pushing for more laws using legislation like sopa and acta, and so far they have met some resistance, but just like jason voorhees they will never give up. so expect new attempts, and if they fail, more attempts and unfortunately, politicians like to suck up to corporations that have made political donations, so I don’t think they have been or will be looking for a fair deal for the average citizen of any particular country.
Didn’t The Avengers just break the box office record this weekend?
I think Hollywood is coping well with the pirates.
[quote=“Deuce Dropper”]Didn’t The Avengers just break the box office record this weekend?
I think Hollywood is coping well with the pirates.[/quote]
Adele just broke the record for biggest selling album of all time. Of course, the RIAA will still collect more on sales to movies, to TV, to coffee shops and any public use of her work, iTunes downloads, CD’s , remixes you can pay for the same work again and again. You know there’s a problem when someone who uploads Michael Jackson gets stiffer penalties than the person who killed him.
Here’s an interesting question , what if information only existed constantly being beamed in the cloud, as soon as it was beamed from one place to another the original would be wiped so you couldn’t be done for storing copyrighted material?
I can’t respond to any of the three survey questions, because I agree with none of them. It’s a complex issue.
I download certain TV shows simply because they don’t show them on TV here. If they showed them on TV, I’d watch them. Make it available to me, and I’ll watch it, buy it, etc.
It’s a sign that existing distribution means aren’t working.
Right. It is the people like you who should be getting 17-year sentences. Me? I’m watching Seediq Bale on my 52-inch screen. Looks GOOD! Cars 2 is next up. Maybe Ratatouille. 
Right. It is the people like you who should be getting 17-year sentences. Me? I’m watching Seediq Bale on my 52-inch screen. Looks GOOD! Cars 2 is next up. Maybe Ratatouille. [/quote]
I’m a BAAAAAD man, though. NONE of you people should even be THINKING about such nefarious machinations.
Right. It is the people like you who should be getting 17-year sentences. Me? I’m watching Seediq Bale on my 52-inch screen. Looks GOOD! Cars 2 is next up. Maybe Ratatouille. [/quote]
I’m a BAAAAAD man, though. NONE of you people should even be THINKING about such nefarious machinations.[/quote]
What other possible use could a 1T external HD be used for? 
I disagree that hollywood or whomever is really losing money on this though. When I didn’t dl movies or tv shows, I simply did not watch them.
indeed - and you don’t talk about them (so you don’t recommend them), you don’t watch out for the next movie with such and such actor or director, you know less are able to care less about film and what is going on in the industry… the knock on effect keeps you out of the movie industry as a consumer…
my question is - what do the artists say? I’ve a feeling they are as confused on this as the news media are clueless.
Without going into the whole issue, I have seen a lot of research showing that piracy does not seriously (if at all) adversely affect music, DVD and cinema ticket sales.
Yes, CD sales have taken a little dip in the last 5-10 years, but so has the economy as a whole, and they were abnormally high just before that. If you look at music sales comapred to the 70s or 80s sales these days are phenomenally higher (I think it’s like about 7-10 times higher worldwide).
Other studies have shown that the very segments of the population that pirate the most music also purchase the most music. Thus their pirating suplements their purchasing rather than replaces it.
Piracy hasn’t stopped people going to Cinemas, and tickets cost more than ever, and screens are smaller than they have ever been. If I can’t go to see a movie, I’ll buy a DVD. Sell me the DVD for 4 dollars and I’ll buy it. You sell it to me for 30 dollars I’ll prefer to wait 3 weeks and get my hands on a 2 dollar FANTASTIC copy, or not watch it at all.
Yes they say piracy means, we are depriving the small guys in movie production of a decent pay etc. really?? Coz buying the original for 30 means we are making the rich guys richer, no??? I mean,if Tom Cruise takes a pay cut, may be then can sell cheaper DVDs no??
As far as artistic creativity is concerned, artists are given credit even in pirated movies. It’s not like a photo, where I steal it and mpublish it elsewhere and make it mine and the poor photog has to go claiming copyright. A Gloria Estefan pirated CD cannot not give artistic credibility to her, about getting paid?? She did already, no?? About royalties, ooooooooo that’s about money between her and Sony, she can’t and shouldn’t stop me lending or selling a copy of her songs.
I dislike piracy and the whole trade, but I know that can’t happen without originals lowering their sticker price. And it is doable.
A summary of studies on file sharing. Wouldn’t take it as authoritative, but for what it’s worth.
When I really like a show, I buy it. I buy movies. But I resort to DVR TV shows, mostly eacuse sitting every day at the same hour on schedule is not a given. But definetively, that is not the way of the future. The big studios should adapt, embrace new technologies, milk the money. It is not that piracy will stop unles the options are better. Who’d rather watch HD quality downstreaming -lagally- rather than shaky camera popcorn interrupted copies? And yes, when there is a need, the market fills the need. I am considering alternative methods because of censorship/schedule issues. I’d rather pay international Hulu.
Found this gem, hope you like it:
well maybe Mr. Rogers puts his finger on it (without saying it) - I guess the industry would rather we were unable to make choices as to what we like.
‘If only,’ they must think, ‘we could more easily predict and control what they like, then we could sell only that and sell it at whatever prices we wish…’
To make matters worse, apparently, his programs are not available for sale on DVD. Go figure…
Seediq Bale bored the fucking PANTS off me! I would have been EXTREMELY pissed if I’d paid to see such unadulterated crap.
Here’s a solution, shut down the internet and go back living as in the middle ages … :ohreally: :eh: