The END of Online Piracy

Piracy isn't stealing in the traditional sense...if im in your driveway and pull out my copy master 5000 and make and identical copy of the BMW that is sitting there, jump in and drive away in it...am i really stealing 'your' BMW? In any case, im not bothered...they can go ahead and try to impose such laws, im just going to sit back and watch at how miserably they fail. You CANNOT control the internet, it has taken on a life of it's own that does not distinguish between the elites of the world and your average joe.

reply to post by Mobius1974


OK.. An example..
You're a good researcher (?) You find information about a specific subject.
You SHARE it with the ATS community. Could be a PDF/Image/Audio or Video..
Are you a pirate for passing that info on?

reply to post by Solomons


Stop with the justification of stealing.... A company charges a price for their product..... You find a way to get it for free... That method is considered illegal.. No analogy can make this not stealing..

Waaaaa.. I bought a shirt and loaned it to my friend... Is that stealing? Of course not... Make sure you tell your children the fine line between what you consider legal and illegal....

reply to post by UKWO1Phot


No,.. that is such an ignorant comparison... I am putting my work up on a public forum...
Microsoft is NOT publishing their code on a forum.. They sell it in "hard copy" form and people are ripping it...

Movies are sold in theatres and DVD's .. Someone is stealing a copy and posting it illegally..

I am suprised that some people are able to turn on a pc with such a low logic understanding.

Some good points here so far - and my 2 cents..

Piracy does "screw the man" - but it also screws the little guy too.

Think about it - "the man" usually screws the little guy anyway by taking the lion's share of the loot and giving the little guy what's left.

Now, if we reduce the amount of loot "the man" gets - who is he going to screw in return? That's right! - the little guy. "The man" isn't going to reduce his cash flow if he can help it - the little guy will suffer before the big shots do - and he'll suffer lots worse.

But this does bring us to price (and quality) - Yup - I could make a steak dinner at home for what a popcorn and soda cost me in the theater. As some have mentioned many movies (and cd's, and tv shows) these days just aren't very good. So the consumer feels kind of ripped off paying for what they feel is often a largely inferior product.

Heck - the product doesn't even have to be inferior. I'll pick on Clapton for a minute just because. A musical legend and be it live or on cd he usually puts out a top quality product (at least in my view). A bit ago Clapton came to town and Mrs. Frogs and I thought about going. Then I looked at the ticket prices. By the time you figured in everything I could have bought every CD he ever made and had money left. The thing is - his ticket prices were not out of line compared to others.

Simply put - the price point (in most consumer's minds) is still too high for the quality received. Especially when the alternatives (free downloads) are considered.

Thus far the industry has focused almost entirely on eliminating the alternative (free downloads). They haven't really looked at other things very much at all (boosting quality, lowering price, creating their own alternatives).

reply to post by Solomons


How about right and wrong? How about rewarding someone for their hard work and ideas? My thoughts are .. the people stealing can't afford the product they want.. Even if a product that I liked was free, and they gave me the option to show my support and donate to future projects ... I would surely donate..

Live to your means... If you didn't end up in life where you planned... Live to your means.. If you cant afford steak.. do you go steal one or is it mac and cheese for dinner? A moraly broken person will justify stealing it...
Eat your mac and cheese, and continue to steal someone elses hard work...

Shoot... why dont you justify it with "They charge to much for their product".... Practice saying this.. "Sir would you like fries with that?" "Sir would you like to super size that?" "Will that be for here, or to go?"

:ing!:: Fries done!!
Welcome to reality!

reply to post by Mobius1974


I stand by my view that is not stealing in the traditional sense, if i walk in to a music store and steal an album it costs to those who produced it...if i walk in to a music store and make an identical copy of an album while leaving the shiny original right where it is and the cost involved in making it...costs nothing to anyone....intellectual property rights is a thread in itself of course

reply to post by Solomons


You have the same dilusion that other theives have.. If that copy was not available and you wanted the product.. Without the illegal copy.. Said company would profit from your purchase! FACT!! PERIOD!!

reply to post by ShadowAngel85


The problem, as a previous poster mentioned, is that this will destroy legal torrents as well. I love downloading old, out of print books. The copyrights on these are long since passed, but if this legislation is passed, even these legal activities will become impossible.

reply to post by blood0fheroes


Your example is stupid and wrong.
First of all: OK, you bought the cake, you share it with a friend. No problem there. We had laws in Germany that even allowed sharing of media. You were allowed to copy a CD onto audio cassettes and give them to friends. No problem, it was legal.
The first difference is: You gave it to a friend, someone you know.
On the internet? It's not sharing, you don't give it to friends but to maybe 50.000 people you don't know. And there's a difference between one copy and 50.000, right?
Next: Copying was ok, because the Quality got degraded, copying from a CD to a cassette degrades the quality, same with video copies.
Today? There's no degradation in quality.
Today you can download complete DVD and even Blu-Ray Rips, no degradation of quality, no loss, nothing. Same with music. Only ignorant idiots use MP3, most people download the .wav files or at the least FLAC, you get it for free in good quality.
Back then if you wanted the media in good quality you bought it, today? You don't have to buy it, because there's no need for it and that is wrong.
Like i said before, people work to create that media, it's their job, it's what they get money for, they deserve the money. Doesn't matter if your jealous because a band makes more money per month than you and you think they have enough.

You see the difference between sharing copys in only decent quality with friends and giving away media copied in good to perfect quality to complete strangers?

Like i said, it's the same as people stealing cars. You won't steal a car and then say to the police "Oh but i didn't stole it, i shared it, everyone should be allowed to use that car". Right?

reply to post by Mobius1974


You are completely and utterly missing the point i was trying to make...sadly i thought it was quite apparent. Never mind, believe what you will.

reply to post by InvisibleAlbatross


I doubt that legal torrents will be destroyed. I doubt that sites like publicdomaintorrents will go down and even if...you can get public domain media from normal websites like archive.org or you can even get that stuff through google, which is perfectly legal. Nobody would do anything against legal sites, if anything it's against those torrent- and hostingsites that are filled up with piracy. Doesn't matter if there are 1 or 2 legal files for example on piratebay, that's one site that really needs to be shut-down

reply to post by ShadowAngel85


Never heard of publicdomaintorrents. Thank you!

reply to post by Solomons


Like he just said.. Someone worked hard to make this.. And your sense of entitlement is overwhelming..
The artist/maker of said product charges a price for their product.. If you cant afford it.. Buy what you can afford..

I see the damage... You only see greed.. Everyone is trying to justify this with all sorts of analogies.. In the end.. you all know it is wrong.

Imagine it was your grandma's audio book... She was starving because everyone loved it.. wanted it.. But didnt think they should pay for it.. So they go to some bit torrent site and DL copies of the 1 single book that she has sold..Let me guess, you wouldn't change your mind on this? I wouldn't expect you to.. Anyone with such a low moral standard would probably be a partial sociopath.

There are victims here... Companies analyze projected sales based on demand.. Demand is still there.. But people are filling that demand with sharing instead of purchased copies..

"These companies make enough money"
Single handedly the most ignorant answer I have ever heard!!!! Who are you to decide what a company should sell THEIR product for??


A gaggle of keyboard gangstas... You only do it because you are anonymous... If your IP address was given out every time you stole your "product" ... All of you rightchous theives would figure out a way to go back to being anonymous... or you would stop stealing!!!

I'm a musician, and I admit, I have pirated quite a bit of music in my day, more because I'm broke than anything else. I see it as a fuzzy area. I think you should at least be happy to pay for the CDs of the artists you love. I am happy to pay for the albums of my favorites.

Another thing - how exactly is piracy different than buying used music? Either way, the artist makes nothing. I like Radiohead's idea best, where they allowed people to choose the price of the CD. Even though only about a third paid anything, they still made a lot of money off that CD. As a musician, I would be happy to make enough to be able to live off doing what I love.

reply to post by Mobius1974

I am suprised that some people are able to turn on a pc with such a low logic understanding.

Well I'm an under the bonnet (US-Hood) kinda guy. If my pc doesn't do what I want, I find a way to make it.
Iphone/Ipad Jailbroken. Why can Apple dictate what I want my machines to do?

It's mine, I will do as I please without being told what I can and can not do with my tech.

Also with games machines nowadays. The most popular machines are the ones that can be hacked. Increasing hardware sales for these machines which in turn supports the software/games developers.

I love how people take the moral high ground on the whole internet piracy......

It's theft blah blah it's illegal blah blah......sessh.....so they have obviously:

A) Never borrowed a Cd from a library/friend and copied.....technically illegal in most parts of the world as you still have not paid for the original and just because your friend has does not give you the right to make a free copy.

B) Never recorded a T.V show with a VHS tape or recorded songs of the radio.....

C) Never in there entire internet life downloaded a file or an image of some sort that is in-fact copyrighted some where.

This is just another example of America trying to police the world.

What will they think of next? Let me guess going to war with any country that fails to remove torrent sights from there servers.

Originally posted by Mobius1974
reply to post by Solomons

 

How about right and wrong? How about rewarding someone for their hard work and ideas? My thoughts are .. the people stealing can't afford the product they want.. Even if a product that I liked was free, and they gave me the option to show my support and donate to future projects ... I would surely donate..

:

ing!:: Fries done!!
Welcome to reality!

edit on 21-9-2010 by Mobius1974 because: (no reason given)

And here is another completely uninformed opinion. Microsoft doesn't steal? Surely you have heard of the hundres of anti competition lawsuits filed against Microsoft over the years. Most of what Microsoft has been built on has been theft, but I don't expect you or many of the other people here to understand how exactly that works when referring to anti competition. True theft, deprives you of the ability to enjoy the fruits of your labour or removes the opportunity completely from you.

Piracy as it's been referred to here does neither. In fact, unbiased statistics already show that the most pirated movies of last year were also the highest revenue generating movies of all time. How does that fit into your slanted model of piracy vs benefit? Had these movies not been pirated they may not have achieved this level of commerce due to a reduction in exposure within the marketplace.

The reality here is that no law is going to stop the file sharing. Torrents are not by their nature illegal, so simply targeting a torrent site is not going to work. Many of the laws in place are in favor of the large production companies or only for those that can afford to pursue litigation. If Microsoft were to absorb your proprietary technology and you cannot afford to take them to court, there is no group to fight for your rights, no court of appeal for your loss.

Too many of the posters here really do not understand the deeper ramifications of these proposed laws. These laws are about slowing down the innovations of the internet. As TV stations go under, newspapers go under conventional medias go under, those who have for years held positions of huge power are quickly realizing their time has come. So rather than adapt to the changes before them, they petition for laws that will slow the growth of society to keep them in their outdated model for years to come. Of course, most people can't see the thread that connects torrents and other distribution methods to the evils of conventional media, nope they only see a person download and watch a movie that they wouldn't have paid for in the first place.

Gawd.
..Ex

reply to post by serbsta


So then the actors and musicians will take less money right, so people can afford to actually take their children to a movie or buy an album? No???? Well, then I call for everybody to just not buy one more CD and don't go see one stinking movie ever again because what they make compared to people that bust their A&& Building their mansions and everything else for them to buy is disgusting. These people don't know what hard work is and they're going to cry cause the movie only made them 6 billion dollars instead of 8 billion because a couple people downloaded it? What a crock of total BS!!!! And all of these actors and musicians being taken in for tax evasion, doesn't that mean they're stealing from us by not paying their taxes that could be used for social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps to help us poor folk out? What an a&&hole thing to do!!!! When Metallica sued Napster, guess what? I won't buy another CD from them, Iw on't go to their concert hell I won't even download their stuff if they offered it free. Totally changed my entire perspective of their band. I now hate them, where once they were a favorite band of mine. But Greedy people turn me off!

Us? so? go to UK websites, they wont be touched or whatever other country!...