That bill is even worse.

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Much better when it was about pandemic 2

Say what you want about pirating software, but I never would have bought Civ 4, Victoria or EUIII if I hadn't torrented them first.

So software creators can now be in deep [cabbage] if their users abuse their products...? Doesn't sound fair at all. Limewire is a legitimate program, but a majority of users abuse it for illegal filesharing of copyrighted music. So are sites like Zamzar, but a lot of people are using it to rip copyrighted audio off youtube videos.

 

Here's a relevent quote from someone in the music industry who is against abusive legal action on file sharing: David Draiman, lead vocalist of Disturbed. (source:wikipedia)

Draiman became involved in the music file sharing controversy by publicly speaking out against the RIAA's lawsuits against file sharing individuals, despite the fact his record label is a member of the RIAA. Draiman commented, "This is not rocket science. Instead of spending all this money litigating against kids who are the people they're trying to sell things to in the first place, they have to learn how to effectively use the Internet. For the artists, my ass...I didn't ask them to protect me, and I don't want their protection." Draiman also told NYRock: "[i'm] Very positive about the internet, Napster. I think it's a tremendous tool for reaching many more people than we ever could without it. When you release music you want it to be heard by people...Nothing is going to do that better than Napster. I can't tell you how many kids have come up to me and said, 'I downloaded a couple of tunes off Napster and I went out and bought the album.'...I don't really make money off of record sales anyway."

 

David must know that yesterday I bought tickets for his concert this fall.

 

Seriously though, this is utter [cabbage].

Personally i see illegal downloading as a crime, which seems to be a minority opinion on this forum.

You aren't alone.

 

First off, I am going to say that piracy is not theft. It's copyright infringement. It doesn't make it any less of an offence; I even think that it should remain as such, even if they reform the law. Ideally, I would be happy with a good compromise between the entertainment industries and the pirates, but both sides have such silly arguments that I just can't see it happening. It's a shame that it has to come down to things like this and the Digital Economy Bill, to say the least.

 

I think this thread is somewhat of a sad reflection on today's society as well. I wonder, just how many of you have actually bought physical copies of albums? I'm not talking about those digital downloads either; there is zero sense of ownership in some music you have bought from iTunes. If you're going to pull the "they're not worth my money" argument, use this terrible hypothetical as something to think about - if you were an independent artist on a small label, how would you feel about people saying that music you put a lot of care, time and attention-to-detail into and performed, mixed and mastered it to the best of your ability, how exactly would you feel if someone told you that your music "isn't worth the money"? Probably pretty damn horrible. Don't get me wrong - I download a lot more than the average person, but I daresay I also buy a lot more than the average person too.

 

That "imminent infringement" stuff is pretty terrible showing though and that is exactly why this won't pass. I just wish we would actually get some co-operation between the two sides of the piracy argument for once.

 

Actually, it's significantly less of an offense.

 

Theft deprives the victim of property.

 

Piracy may reduce profits of the victim. It may not. It may in fact benefit the "victim." When I was in middle school, my friends and I bought the bunk posted on the Gameboy Advance ROM websites that said "It's legal as long as you delete the game in 24 hours." One of my friends told me about three games called Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and Golden Sun. All three of the games looked boring as heck to me. In fact, I had played a Castlevania game before and hated it. Here are three games I never would have paid for, one of which I thought I would hate even as my friend forcibly downloaded it onto my computer for me.

 

Right now, among the few DS games I own are Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Harvest Moon DS (Which is terrible by the way), and a couple other Harvest Moon games. And I've been waiting many, many years for the Golden Sun sequel announcement at last year's E3, which I intend to buy right away, despite having the means to download it if I wish.

 

Over 2/3 of my game collection stems from these games I downloaded years ago. Notice that the CV games I own today are all handheld, and are all most similar to Aria. Reputation is a funny thing. I don't know if the first CV game I played was a complete oddball, or maybe the console CVs are really like that one. But I can't even be bothered giving them a try. On the other hand, the $200 to $300 worth of software I downloaded almost a decade ago I wouldn't have purchased. But the $300+ of software I've purchased in the past five years, I wouldn't have purchased if I hadn't had the chance to play the predecessor games.

 

I'm well aware this isn't typical. But it isn't an isolated incident either. This is why piracy isn't nearly as detested as theft - there's no way to prove it actually harms the victim, and many people share experiences that imply a benefit for the victim. Crimes are as much about the victim as the perpetrator - stories like Robin Hood praise criminals for their deserving victims because people have a hard time sympathizing with the victims, and with good reason. Similarly, while intellectual property rights are important, it is asinine to imply that intellectual property theft is a crime on the same level of theft of physical property. That would be like equating an armed robbery with a burglary. One of them just hurts the victim so much more than the other.

I may be totally wrong with this, but I thought that most bands made very little off album sales because the recording companies take most of it and that the actual bands made the bulk of their money off concerts. If this is the case then piracy is actually beneficial since it's basically free advertising for concerts.

 

Of course this cuts into the big buisness' profit margin so it must be stopped, despite the fact that the people who are actually doing work on the stuff are fine.

If that's the case, then how come more bands don't go independent?

Personally i see illegal downloading as a crime, which seems to be a minority opinion on this forum.

You aren't alone.

 

First off, I am going to say that piracy is not theft. It's copyright infringement. It doesn't make it any less of an offence; I even think that it should remain as such, even if they reform the law. Ideally, I would be happy with a good compromise between the entertainment industries and the pirates, but both sides have such silly arguments that I just can't see it happening. It's a shame that it has to come down to things like this and the Digital Economy Bill, to say the least.

 

I think this thread is somewhat of a sad reflection on today's society as well. I wonder, just how many of you have actually bought physical copies of albums? I'm not talking about those digital downloads either; there is zero sense of ownership in some music you have bought from iTunes. If you're going to pull the "they're not worth my money" argument, use this terrible hypothetical as something to think about - if you were an independent artist on a small label, how would you feel about people saying that music you put a lot of care, time and attention-to-detail into and performed, mixed and mastered it to the best of your ability, how exactly would you feel if someone told you that your music "isn't worth the money"? Probably pretty damn horrible. Don't get me wrong - I download a lot more than the average person, but I daresay I also buy a lot more than the average person too.

 

That "imminent infringement" stuff is pretty terrible showing though and that is exactly why this won't pass. I just wish we would actually get some co-operation between the two sides of the piracy argument for once.

 

Actually, it's significantly less of an offense.

 

Theft deprives the victim of property.

 

Piracy may reduce profits of the victim. It may not. It may in fact benefit the "victim." When I was in middle school, my friends and I bought the bunk posted on the Gameboy Advance ROM websites that said "It's legal as long as you delete the game in 24 hours." One of my friends told me about three games called Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and Golden Sun. All three of the games looked boring as heck to me. In fact, I had played a Castlevania game before and hated it. Here are three games I never would have paid for, one of which I thought I would hate even as my friend forcibly downloaded it onto my computer for me.

 

Right now, among the few DS games I own are Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Harvest Moon DS (Which is terrible by the way), and a couple other Harvest Moon games. And I've been waiting many, many years for the Golden Sun sequel announcement at last year's E3, which I intend to buy right away, despite having the means to download it if I wish.

 

You do know golden sun already had a sequel don't you? Golden sun: the lost age

You do know golden sun already had a sequel don't you? Golden sun: the lost age

 

By sequel, I mean an actual sequel, and not what is more or less a second part of the game... IIRC, TLA was meant to be part of the first game during development until they realized it didn't quite fit. So I consider them pretty much one game. :P

 

In any case, the point still stands. Most of the money I've spent or will spend on video games in the foreseeable future stems directly from the games I pirated years ago, that I wouldn't have touched otherwise. Maybe I'm a complete oddball, or maybe the music and movie industries are different, but I still don't see software piracy on the same level of theft.

And you're honestly trying to say that if free downloading was impossible, you wouldnt spend a cent more than you currently do on media? I don't buy that for a second. If you own a damn computer to download things with, and have internet service, you can afford to buy a 10-20 dollar movie/CD

Want to know how much money I have to my name? $0.56. My computer was given to me by mum, we have internet because we need it for the business. If piracy was impossible I would not spend a cent more than I currently can. 56 Australian cents on a card buys nothing these days.

Could careless... but just leave Torrent the [@#$#] alone. That is one of my reason for using/buying PC and my most used thing.

You do know golden sun already had a sequel don't you? Golden sun: the lost age

 

By sequel, I mean an actual sequel, and not what is more or less a second part of the game... IIRC, TLA was meant to be part of the first game during development until they realized it didn't quite fit. So I consider them pretty much one game. :P

 

In any case, the point still stands. Most of the money I've spent or will spend on video games in the foreseeable future stems directly from the games I pirated years ago, that I wouldn't have touched otherwise. Maybe I'm a complete oddball, or maybe the music and movie industries are different, but I still don't see software piracy on the same level of theft.

I personally don't pirate movies, but i'm not much of a movie person.

You know, those idiots have like what, a month and a half before they get kicked out of office?

Just because it is a executive priority does not mean it will pass. In fact, in this case, I very much doubt anything will happen. Still, it clearly demonstrates the corrupting effect that lobbyists have on Washington.

Here come the thought police!

[bleep] you Obama.

Am I the only one on this board that's against piracy? :lol:

ACTA was a massive failure in the EU, time to see what happens in the US. In the meantime, I've been pirating stuff for the past month and keeping it on an external HD.

No, we're all just pro-free thought. I don't have a problem with piracy being banned. There are actually reasons for that. But adding thought crime laws is a real problem.

I'm pretty sure that they have similar restrictions already in place with searches for child porn, bomb making, and the like. And I'm pretty sure that they already have laws to get people for the intent to commit crimes as well. If they do in both cases, they're just applying existing laws to piracy...

GG thepiratebay

 

maybe artists will make more money now

Here come the thought police!

[bleep] you Obama.

There already is.

If you want to go to america and a few weeks before you are going to request a visum you do google searches on a daily basis with words like: Bombs islam terrorism maps of US building maps of new york how to make a bomb islamic extremism then i can tell you you are not going to get that visum.