If you're gonna pirate, the pirate. Don't try to justify it if you think it's bad.

Personally, I have no problem with "piracy" what-so-ever. Share and share alike. Just don't plagiarize.

I agree. If you're gonna steal, at least recognize that your stealing. This helps you to become a better thief

That's not what I meant. Piracy isn't stealing. What I meant was, own up to what you do, don't look for excuses to do it. I know full well what I do is illegal and I could get sued for it. I do it because I feel the law is corrupt in this case and that, while taking reasonable measures to ensure I don't get caught, that I have a right to share with others.

Remember, sharing is caring. ;D

That's what a lot of us are saying, but that's the problem to these companies. Sharing on a mass scale. This is a threat to their monopoly and like any greedy company tends to do, they want to keep that monopoly and lobby the government to preserve it.

the thing is the companys are trying to make laws against sharing that dont exist yet hint hint sopa and pipa so when u go to prison for something thats not even against the law tbh thats un law full the government bends the law to send people to jail for "piracy" now in the case of people of piratebay they were making money off there stuff giving reason to send them to jail

Quote: somthing about recording tv shows on vhs and you commented it was illegal

if you read the copy right screen before every movie back in the day which a good portion of us just try to skip past LOL it says you will be sent to jail for the copying and SELLING of this property says nothing about sharing

Quote: so, it means that you downloaded something, and you use it but you don't sell it, you not going to be in trouble for this?

im sure if you were a big enough threat they will find some god awful reason attached to it to send you to jail

Quote: Acquiring information without permission *is* stealing. Anything that can be owned, can be stolen. If I break into your dads computer and take those nude pictures of your mom and spread them around your town, would you consider that stealing?

this is infact not true acquiring information with out permission is not stealing if you look at the diagram posted 2 posts above it depicts what i mean and yes i think its ok to do that as long as your not hacking because that is illegal

Quote: That's not what I meant. Piracy isn't stealing. What I meant was, own up to what you do, don't look for excuses to do it. I know full well what I do is illegal and I could get sued for it. I do it because I feel the law is corrupt in this case and that, while taking reasonable measures to ensure I don't get caught, that I have a right to share with others.

Im not giving my self excuse to download i will download and upload no matter what the hell is going on

[naive]

Piracy is not Theft, It's Piracy. 

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.  I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

Imagine you are a car manufacturer, but people do not need to buy your cars anymore because they can just clone any car they find for free. Ferrari's could be owned by everyone, people who bought Ferrari's would lose their shirts on the value as they can no longer sell them. The brand would be devalued, as homeless people would have just as much access to Ferrari's as the elite of society. The car example you listed is just a poor analogy and it presumes that taking a physical object is the only way to commit "theft".

Piracy is not Theft, It's Piracy. 

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.  I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

to my knowledge there are no laws that tell me that if i have something on ny computer like a cdkey for a game if some one takes that im shit out of luck and there is nothing the company i bought it from can do either so tech i have just proved your theory wrong :/

to my knowledge there is no law out there saying if i mod my ps3 or some other consle they can come break my door down all this does is void my warrenty

also

what im getting at is people dont have control over a product that has been already purchased :/ if some one buys a cd and wants to upload it to share it so be it there is no law out there to control that if so then if i made a game that i didnt want shared yet some how some one got it then shared it if they didnt take the orignal its not stealing


Quote: if you dont take the original its not stealing!

[naive]

Piracy is not Theft, It's Piracy. 

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.  I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

to my knowledge there are no laws that tell me that if i have something on ny computer like a cdkey for a game if some one takes that im shit out of luck and there is nothing the company i bought it from can do either so tech i have just proved your theory wrong :/

to my knowledge there is no law out there saying if i mod my ps3 or some other consle they can come break my door down all this does is void my warrenty

also

what im getting at is people dont have control over a product that has been already purchased :/ if some one buys a cd and wants to upload it to share it so be it there is no law out there to control that if so then if i made a game that i didnt want shared yet some how some one got it then shared it if they didnt take the orignal its not stealing


Quote: if you dont take the original its not stealing!

You are not purchasing the music itself though, you are purchasing the rights to listen to the music in one specific format. The same goes for video games, you have purchased the rights for a user to use the game, the serial key is just a tool to enforce this policy. You don't actually purchase the game, you purchase the rights to play it. By sharing the information, you are taking on a role that you in no way, shape, or form have legitimately paid for the rights to use as you have only paid the 'single user' license for that information.

Hardware mods are a different issue because you are actually buying the physical hardware, software/media is a much different beast because you are not buying anything, you are paying for the privilege of accessing information in a certain way.

Piracy is not Theft, It's Piracy. 

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.  I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

Imagine you are a car manufacturer, but people do not need to buy your cars anymore because they can just clone any car they find for free. Ferrari's could be owned by everyone, people who bought Ferrari's would lose their shirts on the value as they can no longer sell them. The brand would be devalued, as homeless people would have just as much access to Ferrari's as the elite of society. The car example you listed is just a poor analogy and it presumes that taking a physical object is the only way to commit "theft".

this is very persuasive, and it seems that you have a point.

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.

There is no question that piracy has caused damages to companies. This happens often when market trends change and companies fail to adapt. Companies come and go all the time. Sometimes the niche market they filled is no longer economically viable. That is the case of any company whose main income was in the distribution of "intellectual property". The only reason they're still around is because these copyright laws exist and that they've redesigned some of their marketing strategies (like iTunes and such). They'd be much better of creating subscription services similar to Netflix.

I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

This is why you don't take nude pictures of yourself. You *could* however get someone for breaking into your home or property to gain access to such things. Personally, if someone stole nude pictures of me and spread them around town, I'd shrug my shoulders and move along.

Imagine you are a car manufacturer, but people do not need to buy your cars anymore because they can just clone any car they find for free. Ferrari's could be owned by everyone, people who bought Ferrari's would lose their shirts on the value as they can no longer sell them. The brand would be devalued, as homeless people would have just as much access to Ferrari's as the elite of society. The car example you listed is just a poor analogy and it presumes that taking a physical object is the only way to commit "theft".

If physical objects could be created for practically nothing, then we would simply do away with currency and move on to an ideal Marxist form of government.

It all comes down to value. Copyright as a monopoly creates a falsified demand value for something that has no significant value by restricting the distribution to a single provider. The internet, on the other hand, distributes en masse and destroys that artificial value.

So, the object to be sold no longer having value, the market needs to focus on things that still do have value in the world, namely physical goods and labor. As Gabe Newell put it best, these large companies need to stop harassing their customers and compete against piracy. Offer something that piracy can't offer. They'd make more money that way and we'd all be a lot happier for it

[naive]

I'm a pirate, but your graphic just is false. Sure, no physical object is being removed, this does not mean nothing is stolen. If the asset of meaningful value is the control over copywrited information, then uncontrolled access to the information removes this asset from the original copywrite holder. You are literally removing the control of the information from its owners.

There is no question that piracy has caused damages to companies. This happens often when market trends change and companies fail to adapt. Companies come and go all the time. Sometimes the niche market they filled is no longer economically viable. That is the case of any company whose main income was in the distribution of "intellectual property". The only reason they're still around is because these copyright laws exist and that they've redesigned some of their marketing strategies (like iTunes and such). They'd be much better of creating subscription services similar to Netflix.

I'll use this analogy again, if I were to copy your girlfriends nudes without permission, I have stolen information from you. You no longer control the rights of who gets to view that information and it can be spread without your control and you no longer "own" exclusive control.

This is why you don't take nude pictures of yourself. You *could* however get someone for breaking into your home or property to gain access to such things. Personally, if someone stole nude pictures of me and spread them around town, I'd shrug my shoulders and move along.

Imagine you are a car manufacturer, but people do not need to buy your cars anymore because they can just clone any car they find for free. Ferrari's could be owned by everyone, people who bought Ferrari's would lose their shirts on the value as they can no longer sell them. The brand would be devalued, as homeless people would have just as much access to Ferrari's as the elite of society. The car example you listed is just a poor analogy and it presumes that taking a physical object is the only way to commit "theft".

If physical objects could be created for practically nothing, then we would simply do away with currency and move on to an ideal Marxist form of government.

It all comes down to value. Copyright as a monopoly creates a falsified demand value for something that has no significant value by restricting the distribution to a single provider. The internet, on the other hand, distributes en masse and destroys that artificial value.

So, the object to be sold no longer having value, the market needs to focus on things that still do have value in the world, namely physical goods and labor. As Gabe Newell put it best, these large companies need to stop harassing their customers and compete against piracy. Offer something that piracy can't offer. They'd make more money that way and we'd all be a lot happier for it

What makes the value of information artificial? Information is the *most* valuable commodity in the world. I agree that piracy should be fought through competition rather than legislation, however I do not agree the concept that movie studios should be obliged to give away their work for free because some view the prices as artificially inflated.

Without at least basic tools in order to fight intellectual property theft, it would severely hinder the ability for individuals to develop anything. Imagine if you created the best movie ever made with your life savings  and MGM Studios came along, copied it from your hdd when you were asleep and printed a billion DVDs of it and sold them all for record earnings long before you could bring your own version to the market. Would they be ethically justified in such an action because they view DVD printing as a service, and your movie as having no inherent value? Delivery systems are only one part of the equation, and are often the least valuable consideration when it comes to ownership of information. Copywrite protects the small guys from the big guys too. 

If you feel that Ferraris are artificially overpriced, that does not mean one can simply steal their designs and build their own and bring it to the market to all who just don't want to pay more for the official Ferrari brand name.  Your options are to pay the asking price, boycott, develop your own unique competitor, or steal it.  It seems you are viewing information as something that simply exists, but it often takes large quantities of money to produce. If the media that one wishes to pirate has nothing but artificial value, then why is it worth the legal implications of pirating it? It clearly is information that people desire, thus it has value. There is nothing artificial about it.

What makes the value of information artificial?

The law. Data has no physical value. We create and delete it on a whim. It only has value because the law limits it's distribution.

I agree that piracy should be fought through competition rather than legislation, however I do not agree the concept that movie studios should be obliged to give away their work for free because some view the prices as artificially inflated.

It's not a matter of being obliged. It's a matter of reality. The cost of reproduction is insignificant. It's practically 0. I think it's unethical to tell people they can't create something for themselves.

Without at least basic tools in order to fight intellectual property theft, it would severely hinder the ability for individuals to develop anything.

I argue that copyright law, at this point in time, does exactly the opposite. It delays progress significantly by denying the majority the ability to recreate, modify, and improve works to suit their needs. If it weren't for Windows' DRM, I would have fixed a number of glitches in my OS right now. >_>

Imagine if you created the best movie ever made with your life savings  and MGM Studios came along, copied it from your hdd when you were asleep and printed a billion DVDs of it and sold them all for record earnings long before you could bring your own version to the market.

Billions of DVD's requires billions of dollars and billions of people to pay for those billions of DVD's. That's not economically viable. It also takes them time to do something like that. Within one week I could have that shit uploaded to Youtube and also be distributing that movie through other online mediums like torrents for free. Considering this would be my plan in advance, I would have already had advertisements lined up for the beginning of that movie, on the distribution website, would have already signed a contract with major movie theaters to show the work, and a shop set up to sell all sorts of merchandise.

MGM can go ahead and release what they want. Most people want to get their stuff from the originators because they know it's legit. Considering it's freely distributed, there is little incentive to go elsewhere.

Would they be ethically justified in such an action because they view DVD printing as a service, and your movie as having no inherent value?

Sure. As long as they don't take credit for the original work. In fact, kudos to them for making my film more popular.

Delivery systems are only one part of the equation, and are often the least valuable consideration when it comes to ownership of information.

Distribution is everything. If you can't generate demand for your product or service, then you won't make any money.

If you feel that Ferraris are artificially overpriced, that does not mean one can simply steal their designs and build their own and bring it to the market to all who just don't want to pay more for the official Ferrari brand name.

No, but I can analyze a Ferrari. Perhaps purchase one (or in some other manner obtain one) and take it apart piece by piece, purchase the necessary parts, and then create a new Ferrari using the old one as a template. From there I can build my own schematics for it for quick assembly. That would be totally legitimate and lawful to do under the current system. I just couldn't call it a Ferrari. XD

It seems you are viewing information as something that simply exists, but it often takes large quantities of money to produce.

It depends on the information. Raw data is usually produced through labor, something that has value. You can pay for labor and get the data you need for whatever reason you need it. I feel it's unethical not to share that kind of data. What would happen if CERN decided to hoard all it's scientific data for itself and not share it with the community? Scientific advancement would be slowed.

If the media that one wishes to pirate has nothing but artificial value, then why is it worth the legal implications of pirating it?

I'm talking about monetary value. Much of the stuff I download has some sentimental value to me, but a lot of it doesn't. I can go through a ton of music and videos and I only ever hold on to a small percentage of that data. Some of it I delete within the first minute of watching/listening to it. Most of the videos I watch get deleted after I'm done with them. They aren't worth the storage space on my computer. When you get right down to it, if I had to pay to obtain all this media instead, I'd probably only have exposed my self to 1% of it and would more likely be found at my local library reading the free books there instead.

The reason I risk the lawsuits are pretty simple: 1. I have no money, so you really can't milk me for much. 2. I feel the law is unjust. 3. The risk is very low for me currently.

The few times the risk has been too high (such as my ISP threatening to shut off my net after several DMCA notices from some watchdog companies who snagged my IP off a torrent), I backed off that media and looked for a safer route.

It clearly is information that people desire, thus it has value. There is nothing artificial about it.

People may desire it, but digital content has no physical value, only demand. Demand != value, particularly when the supply is nearly infinite.

Anyway, that's my stance on it. If you don't agree, well, let's just agree to disagree.

[naive]

The supply of information is not infinite though and simply sharing the knowledge can devalue it. If all people treated information as you do and stole it, you would see the information supplies you love and depend on dry up in an instant. It takes resources to produce the information in the first place. If I had the knowledge of all the lottery ticket numbers for all time and no one else did it would be very valuable, law has nothing to do with this. If those same lottery numbers get released to the public they become worthless as everybody will win the lottery. The same thing goes for casinos, stocks, commodities, sport games, almost everything.

Who would pay you for an ad at the beginning of your movie, if they can just download your movie, remove your ads, and send it through their own distribution chanels perhaps more successfully than you. If you think you can get your youtube movie into theatres better than a large corporation would, I believe you are mistaken. What if they specialize in this and have better merchandising capabilities and essentially can just out compete you on everything except for your innovation. Does this make your innovation worth nothing? The very mediums such as movie theaters where you may expect income from could steal the work from you, charge people to see it, and remove your ads. You wouldn't get paid, you wouldn't be able to recover your expenses, you would not have a business capable of producing films.

If the only way to justify the production of a million dollar movie is to charge people to see it, you are simply using an exploitative method of depriving the creator of their ability to recover their expenses. You are gaining value from the creators effort without compensation to them. You may think that their policies are flawed, but you are still depriving them of control over their work.

If scientific researchers are unable to profit off of their work, there is no incentive to invest in scientific research. If it takes 100 million to develop a cancer curing drug, but the second you invent it a specialized drug counterfeiting company with zero investment in the technology brings it to market before you.. it would be unreasonable to expect anyone to invest in high valued information and research, it would always be cheaper to steal someone else's work. The cost to produce a single pill for the inventor would be 100 million, but to the counterfeiter, it might only be 10 cents worth of chemicals. Does this mean that inventors and content producers simple are not competing well enough because one is cheaper than the other?

Without any form of copywrite protections, large media organizations that specialized in stealing works, advertising, and distribution could simply use their leverage to keep your version of movies out of theatres entirely, and modify/edit change your works without crediting you at all. Underdogs essentially would not be able to compete against highly specialized counterfeiting operations that have no need to recoup development costs.

If you assume that all information is free, and development costs are zero then your claim that piracy helps science would be valid. This is false however, and if one is not able to recoup development costs then there is no incentive financially to push science forward.

If anything, your argument is based on the fact that since piracy exists media, is worthless. If piracy did not exist and the risk of stealing the data from the source was too high, the information would therefore natural retain its value. If it were limited to official distribution channels then the concept that it is easily recreated would not be applicable.

You may disagree with Windows DRM, but no one is forcing you to use windows or a computer at all. The fact that you rely on the operating system means that information that microsoft spends millions of dollars producing has value to you. If you could not steal it, you would likely buy it or go to a cheaper competitor. By simply pirating microsoft windows, you are not only depriving microsoft of their ability to recoup costs/profits, but you are also depriving would be competitors from bringing better products to the market as you make their potential market smaller also.

A world in which piracy is legally acceptable would make it difficult for many different types of new technology to be worth the risk for investors to develop.

I'm all for big media being replaced by piracy friendly alternatives, but my opinion about their work does not inherently give me the right to do anything I want with it. If you didn't build it, it's not yours. The ease of your ability to take the information does not indicate that is has no value, it indicates that it's easy to steal.

It's just like US currency. It's information. It costs virtually nothing to produce, and is only valuable based on the information that it represents. Its ability to be traded is what gives it value, if usd was able to be easily counterfeited like movies are, it too would have no trade value. While I do not view USD as a very sound form of currency, I am by no means about to claim that it has no value. If people want it, and you have it, and people will give you something to get it, it has value. Tell me, would it be ethical for the US MINT to print 100 trillion dollars and share it with their friends? No, it is unethical because it undermines the entire basis of economic trade based on that commodity.


Do you think real pirates would have tried to ethically defend robbing ships? No, they wanted what other people had and so they took it. That's all. That's what real pirates fucking are.

If I were to try to ethically defend media piracy though, I would have to base it more on the concept that if public resources are allocated to its distribution or production, I should be compensated in some way. If a television network makes profit airing their work over public airwaves, I feel that the work should at least be partially entered into public domain by default. They are depriving the public of clean radio waves, therefore compensation should be necessary in my opinion. For cable only networks, well they lay waste to a large portion of nature to deliver their content, so I feel that those works should enter public domain also.

As for movies, fuck em. I literally would watch no movies unless they were free if I didn't pirate them and I pay to take my girl to movies I would never generally watch anyways. I figure that makes me even. Generally if I have genuine excitement about a movie I will pay to see it opening night.

Software, I feel really bad about. I don't see any general justification for it. I use linux. I think long term Microsoft has made more money through my familiarization of their software to the extent that I don't force others to use linux. Everything else, well I'm just a bad person.

If corporations treat the general public poorly, I suppose you could justify piracy of their products as a form of protest against such practices.

You can have an economy of information that has free and unlimited distribution of information, but the incentive to produce the information is only there if ownership can be retained.