Your views on file sharing and piracy

[Earth_Poet]

If anyone is robbing the bands, it's the record companies. Overhaul the whole system. If piracy will bring it crashing down then I'm with the pirates.

 

 

 

Actually, it's the record companies that are losing out the most with piracy. Bands traditionally make more of their income through concerts and merchandise. Record companies are trying to dig in and demand a cut of these profits now. In my opinion, the major record companies made their own bed with the fans when they went after Napster while simultaneously threatening every music fan in the world. They had absolute control over the music industry for over 30 years. They decided went over the airwaves, and they decided who would top the charts. The artists needed the major labels for mass distribution and promotion, but the rise of the internet made that obsolete. The artists, if they are smart enough to see, don't need the major labels anymore. It's the record companies that need the artists. If you shut down one website, then 10 more are going to pop up.

 

 

 

On the theme of music, it also affects low budget filmmakers. In order to get a good scene going, you'll need some good music. It's really a tiresome process, unless you know EXACTLY what you want. But most of the times you wouldn't, so you'll need to search through several songs. Buying them would be too costly, especially if you just wanted to see if it'll work. Pirating would be a fast way to download several songs at once to compare.

 

 

 

Well, that might be a different story. Unless the filmmaker is paying for the song they actually do use in the movie. Then it might be ok.

[dave0293]

Why pirate when you can listen to or watch anything you want online?

[Lateralus]

If anyone is robbing the bands, it's the record companies. Overhaul the whole system. If piracy will bring it crashing down then I'm with the pirates.

 

 

 

Actually, it's the record companies that are losing out the most with piracy. Bands traditionally make more of their income through concerts and merchandise. Record companies are trying to dig in and demand a cut of these profits now. In my opinion, the major record companies made their own bed with the fans when they went after Napster while simultaneously threatening every music fan in the world. They had absolute control over the music industry for over 30 years. They decided went over the airwaves, and they decided who would top the charts. The artists needed the major labels for mass distribution and promotion, but the rise of the internet made that obsolete. The artists, if they are smart enough to see, don't need the major labels anymore. It's the record companies that need the artists. If you shut down one website, then 10 more are going to pop up.

 

 

 

I don't know why you thought you were being contrary, since you just supported my point entirely.

[H2PM]

Why pirate when you can listen to or watch anything you want online?

 

Should we tell him?

[dave0293]

Why pirate when you can listen to or watch anything you want online?

 

Should we tell him?

 

We can already access the internet basically anywhere. This will only improve. It's just as easy to find something online as it is to get it from your library.

[ElkNight]

I just saw this and thought it was pretty funny.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology/2009/08/17/pirate-bay-website-pirated-ahead-of-changeover-115875-21603750/

 

 

 

When The Pirate Bay suddenly announced it was going legit recently, many thought it was the end for the infamous filesharing site (though not of course for piracy itself), but now it looks like thats no longer the case either. One enterprising filesharer has copied the entire website and is sharing the backup through The Pirate Bay. Oh, the irony

 

 

 

One Pirate Bay fan, fearful of what will happen to all the illegal free movies and songs once the site is taken over by Swedish company Global Gaming Factory, has indexed the entire site, along with 873,671 torrent files linking to downloadable files, and set it sail on the Pirate Bay. I suppose I want us to have assurances. If the TPB deal disappoints us, we can just put it up again, he told TorrentFreak.

 

 

 

Before your fire up your BitTorrent client, know this: at an enormous 21.3GB, the Pirate Bay index will take a good time to download. At the time of writing, only one person appears to have managed it, as there are only 2 seeders. But with more than 500 others giving it a download, expect the Pirate Bay to live on in its current form for some time yet. If a group of Swedish youths can become the bane of the movie and music industries, just imagine how pesky crowdsourcing their work could prove.

[Wisp]

Nine inch nails put an album up for free on all major torrent sites somewhat recently, and another album, they offered 5 songs for free, and sold the rest of the album for 5$. They still made much, much more than the average album because of that. More people are willing to pay 5$ for an album if they know what's on it in advance, hence the free sample. And then more people are willing to pay 5$ than 13$ dollars or so.

 

 

 

The music industry needs to change, it's behind the times.

 

I don't think it's stealing either. A file is a collection of assembled bits of data, that could be replicated ten trillion times without any loss.

[Nero]

I pirate stuff. I know it's illegal, and I have no delusions that I'm "fighting big businesses", or on a crusade to help save artists from the RIAA. I pirate stuff because it is free.

 

 

 

This is the problem with making an entire country that revolves completely around money. People get so caught up in accumulating money, that they will take every available option to save it. Games for free? Hell yeah! Movies? Sure, why not. Music? Mmmhmm!

 

 

 

I pirate stuff because I can. Unless a better option becomes available, I will continue pirating stuff.

[Erk02]

Stealing is a strong word there, buddy. Sure, nobody is getting money from it, but nobody is actually losing anything. It's as if the pirate would never have bought it anyway, no harm is actually done to anyone.

 

 

 

They were obviously interested enough to download it, so they had a possibility of purchasing a legal copy. I don't see how it can't be stealing. You never bought it, yet you own a copy of it. It wasn't given away, you took it from a website that had obtained it illegitimatly.

 

If I went to a store to buy a certain CD, forgot my money, went home, never bought it, and borrowed it from a friend, am I stealing? Since, I've "never bought, yet own a copy of it".

[Furah]

Piracy is unacceptable. You are stealing the game, movie, or music. If you own the game, movie, or music yourself, but download a digital copy, it's another story.

 

In Calafornia the largest fine for stealing a CD is $1,000 the largest fine for filesharing the CD (say it has 10 songs on it) is $150,000. Stealing are criminal cases and are more lenient than a civil filesharing case.

 

 

 

If anyone is robbing the bands, it's the record companies. Overhaul the whole system. If piracy will bring it crashing down then I'm with the pirates.

 

Yeah, I'm with that idea, even some artists hate the record labels. NIN now release their music themselves. I also love it when bands let you have songs for free. I pirate all my music and movies aand pirated a few games, which are not worth buying. I'd definately go to concerts of most of the bands, and I wish they had a donate button, which goes directly to them. If bands released their music on bittorrent and linked to their site which had a donate button people would be more likely to pay them.

[Rebdragon]

I pirate stuff. I know it's illegal, and I have no delusions that I'm "fighting big businesses", or on a crusade to help save artists from the RIAA. I pirate stuff because it is free.

 

 

 

This is the problem with making an entire country that revolves completely around money. People get so caught up in accumulating money, that they will take every available option to save it. Games for free? Hell yeah! Movies? Sure, why not. Music? Mmmhmm!

 

 

 

I pirate stuff because I can. Unless a better option becomes available, I will continue pirating stuff.

 

I like you. Everyone else on this thread (spare maybe nadril) seems to be going through some self-depreciating immature mental gymnastics to try and convince themselves that they're in the right.

 

 

 

I don't know if piracy is right or wrong, I'm not even sure if it's either. The idea of it leaves a sick feeling in my stomach, but I think that's more because of the attittude of people like those on this thread than the amoral idea of piracy. Oh well, like dusty I download and I torrent because it's free. Free movies at college is great.

[Sbrideau]

 

 

 

i personally download tons of music (legal in canada, :D)

 

Give me proof it's legal in Canada. As far as I know, it's illegal in Canada too.

 

 

 

For me, I'm ont for it nor against it. It pretty much depends if the company is rich or not. I don't mind people pirating from rich companies, aka movies or xbox games etc.

 

 

 

Personnally, I don't download illegal stuff, I don't see the need to, since I have enough already around me. I do share files with friends though, using my external hard drive or USB key.

[StrOwez]

Stealing is a strong word there, buddy. Sure, nobody is getting money from it, but nobody is actually losing anything. It's as if the pirate would never have bought it anyway, no harm is actually done to anyone.

 

Then how come U2 is selling concert tickets for $300 per person? To make up some of their losses from pirating, that's why. I used to be indifferent regarding pirating, but $300 to see Muse (opening for U2) is just plain ridiculous.

 

get your facts right buddy I've ordered 2 U2 tickets for a total of £70 around £100. If you're talking about getting sold out tickets off ebay then $300 isn't unreasonable.

 

 

 

I myself download all of my music illegally. I am not prepared to pay 79p a track. I'd rather support the band by going to their concerts and wearing their shirts.

[OldJoe]

I think it is wrong.

 

There are alot of problems with this subject:

 

If you download software, a movie or a song you aren't paying for someone else's work they've put in. This can lead to a number of things; Higher prices (which will decline sales even further), people getting sacked since the company is losing money on something a few years ago they'd made money from, less releases with fewer alternatives.

 

If a music group isn't selling albums or a movie is doing bad, a company will be more restrict with releases and signing contracts with new artists e.g..

 

 

 

But it's the companies faults too. They are dinosaurs and move too slowly. If they would make online services or push online-stores to sell music digitally more than they have done, they wouldn't be in this shape they are in now.

 

Buying music online is starting to become good, but they need to make their services even better. But an area where they should get their thumb out of their arse is movies, movies are hit hard by pirating but there are very few services for getting an movie online in a legal way. With prices on a music cd on almost 20 it's no wonder business is slow, but people should also realize that illegal file-sharing is wrong.

 

 

 

I also think that companies who sue people for thousands or millions of dollars are wrong. Yes, pirating is wrong, but sueing an 25 year old on a crap load of cash isn't going to work either. And the law-system (in my country) is totally wrong, people have gotten less time in jail for rape than those Pirate Bay guys got. Start working on giving proper sentences for rape, assault, break-in... etc before you go and jail file-sharing people.

[ElkNight]

Stealing is a strong word there, buddy. Sure, nobody is getting money from it, but nobody is actually losing anything. It's as if the pirate would never have bought it anyway, no harm is actually done to anyone.

 

Then how come U2 is selling concert tickets for $300 per person? To make up some of their losses from pirating, that's why. I used to be indifferent regarding pirating, but $300 to see Muse (opening for U2) is just plain ridiculous.

 

get your facts right buddy I've ordered 2 U2 tickets for a total of £70 around £100. If you're talking about getting sold out tickets off ebay then $300 isn't unreasonable.

 

 

 

 

Well the tickets depend on how close you are, they are around $300 for the closet ones and $30 if you wanna be the farthest away you possibly can.

[StrOwez]

Stealing is a strong word there, buddy. Sure, nobody is getting money from it, but nobody is actually losing anything. It's as if the pirate would never have bought it anyway, no harm is actually done to anyone.

 

Then how come U2 is selling concert tickets for $300 per person? To make up some of their losses from pirating, that's why. I used to be indifferent regarding pirating, but $300 to see Muse (opening for U2) is just plain ridiculous.

 

get your facts right buddy I've ordered 2 U2 tickets for a total of £70 around £100. If you're talking about getting sold out tickets off ebay then $300 isn't unreasonable.

 

 

 

 

Well the tickets depend on how close you are, they are around $300 for the closet ones and $30 if you wanna be the farthest away you possibly can.

 

 

 

there's only so many people that will fit in an arena that will be 'close' to the band and every fan wants to be. So out of 80,000 you have the ones that are prepared to pay $300 to be close which is about 500-1000 people. Supply and demand nothing to do with piracy just a lot of fans wanting those places.

[mmmcannibalism]

I only pirate stuff under 3 conditions

 

 

 

1. I would never pay for it, music falls into this category and its true that I would never pay for music

 

 

 

2. I intend to buy the product at some point in time, but want to see it now; movies are most of this category along with any anime I like

 

 

 

3. The product is so out of date it wouldn't be worth the trouble to get. For instance, if I wanted to play a ten year old computer game I will pirate it instead of looking for a legal copy.

[mario_sunny]

There are machines in McDonalds that provide one-day DVD rentals for $1.08 per rent. Its so cheap its almost piracy. :?

[Sbrideau]

There are machines in McDonalds that provide one-day DVD rentals for $1.08 per rent. Its so cheap its almost piracy. :?

 

I've never seen or heard about that. where do you live, jus curious lol.

[champion]

There are machines in McDonalds that provide one-day DVD rentals for $1.08 per rent. Its so cheap its almost piracy. :?

 

I've never seen or heard about that. where do you live, jus curious lol.

 

I haven't seen them in McDonalds, but the service I know of is called RedBox. They have them in front of grocery stores and stuff.

[Nero]

There are machines in McDonalds that provide one-day DVD rentals for $1.08 per rent. Its so cheap its almost piracy. :?

 

I've never seen or heard about that. where do you live, jus curious lol.

 

Those the Redbox things, neh?

 

http://www.redbox.com/

[FunPhish]

I pirate everything from songs to Roller-Coaster Tycoon 2, the people who create these things are rich enough as it is. Where is the line between money you need and just being greedy, who knows, but the way I see it these people are getting along just fine.

 

 

 

There are machines in McDonalds that provide one-day DVD rentals for $1.08 per rent. Its so cheap its almost piracy. :?

 

 

 

We have so many of those in my town, I think the guy who sells them really got his point across to someone. :lol:

[Nadril]

(spare maybe nadril)

 

 

 

Yeah, I think it should (obviously) stay illegal. I don't really want to say if it is an immoral thing to do or not, as I don't think it really hurts the industry as much as they want you to think, but it certainly isn't a good thing to do. The only good that can come out of piracy is hoping that these large industries will realize that they need to change their methods and adapt.

 

 

 

 

 

Those the Redbox things, neh?

 

http://www.redbox.com/

 

 

 

I heard about those, really good move in my opinion. They probably are going to make a [bleep]ing ton of money too. I saw like 10 people waiting around by one of the machines in wal-mart.

 

 

 

Services like that and Netflix are a great example of the right way to handle things, at least for movies.

 

 

 

 

 

I pirate everything from songs to Roller-Coaster Tycoon 2, the people who create these things are rich enough as it is. Where is the line between money you need and just being greedy, who knows, but the way I see it these people are getting along just fine.

 

 

 

All these people who think they are really sticking it to the man are hilarious. No one cares about your potential sale that isn't going to happen. If you really want to stick it to a man go steal real copies of the objects. (Even then you're just hurting the retail store, not the actual developers).

[PoorLepRecon]

Stealing is a strong word there, buddy. Sure, nobody is getting money from it, but nobody is actually losing anything. It's as if the pirate would never have bought it anyway, no harm is actually done to anyone.

 

 

 

They were obviously interested enough to download it, so they had a possibility of purchasing a legal copy. I don't see how it can't be stealing. You never bought it, yet you own a copy of it. It wasn't given away, you took it from a website that had obtained it illegitimatly.

 

If I went to a store to buy a certain CD, forgot my money, went home, never bought it, and borrowed it from a friend, am I stealing? Since, I've "never bought, yet own a copy of it".

 

 

 

You arn't stealing since someone did buy the original copy. If you make yourself a copy of the CD, then you are stealing.

[Skull]

Wrote a paper/gave a presentation on piracy (pro-piracy argument) for English last year and got a 98 on it. I'm guessing my teacher was just surprised I put effort in or did it at all because frankly, that was a terrible paper that I wrote the night before after messing around in class for almost a month.