Is it a crime?
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Is it a crime?
I would be fine with a society that recognizes creating artificial scarcity of infinitely reproducible information does not promote trade, or lawfulness. Imposing limits on the free trade of ideas or information in no way benefits anyone but the leeches of society who exist to gobble up wealth and hoard it for their own.
JerRatt,
You've made your points beautifully. So don't waste too much of your time trying to get through to folks that can't seem to understand that they're essentially arguing that fundamental pillars of a functional economy (and society) can just be wished away because they want stuff for free and the internet makes it possible for them to take it.
They put their own convenience and benefit ahead of right and wrong. And yet won't even admit that to themselves. So they rationalize ways to make it feel less wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence and logic to the contrary. They'll tell you all about one side of a coin, and then assert that the other side doesn't exist.
You've made your points beautifully. So don't waste too much of your time trying to get through to folks that can't seem to understand that they're essentially arguing that fundamental pillars of a functional economy (and society) can just be wished away because they want stuff for free and the internet makes it possible for them to take it.
They put their own convenience and benefit ahead of right and wrong. And yet won't even admit that to themselves. So they rationalize ways to make it feel less wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence and logic to the contrary. They'll tell you all about one side of a coin, and then assert that the other side doesn't exist.
They don't concern themselves with others well being, but its a side effect of what they do. I started my own business to make money for ME, but now its grown to a point where I employ many other people, I pay tremendous amounts of taxes that fund social programs for people who have no interest or perhaps ability to work, I offer a service at a lower price than many competitors at the same quality which pushes competition to make costs lower for the general public.
You may call it selfish, but I see it as the utmost of human excellence. Besides, YOU always have the freedom to chose to advance yourself (and others in turn by side effect) or to submit yourself to a life of charity in which everyone benefits from your talents, labor, or ability while you make just enough to feed your mouth. What you don't have is the freedom to impose your belief upon mine, or the entire society.
He obviously isn't capable of looking past one layer/step of the equation, hence I couldn't go on to explain to him the infringement upon the people that sold him the stuff in his house.
Put down your copy of Atlas Shrugged before it explodes in a fireball of bullshit and scars your brain for life.
So, any non tangible asset, like an idea, does not belong to the person who thought it or made it come to existence? So the engineer who goes to school, studies to no end, has a talent for engineering, and comes up with a new theory of absolute clean and unlimited energy, then works out a way to produce it does not obtain ownership of that idea, rather it is a property belonging to the world?
Yes, we are comparing something like a stupid movie that was crap to something that could change humanity, however I'm pointing out the precedent you are setting. You are fine with it either way, as changing your precedent by the extremity of the situation means you have no precedent at all, and instead rely on your own personal opinions to dictate how others must operate within society and whether their personal property or ability can be taken at YOUR will.
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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I agree with you, what I posted was a likely excuse for people to do so. I can almost guarantee downloads spiked after his email. I don't condone piracy in any way, just wanted to be realistic about the backlash.
HalifaxPete
Weaksauce
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Thoughts and experiences regarding pirating and copying:
I remember when people would scrape together $1200 to buy a Commodore 64 system and then get a disk full of pirated games for $5 - $20 from a guy at school.
A person who bought the disk full of games did not have the financial means to purchase most of the games on the pirated disk. Later on, when the person was employed, he/she purchased legitimate software from the software publishers because of the recognition of the brands during the days of C64 usage.
In the 70s and 80s, how many people had more than 10 LPs or cassettes? To me it was amazing that a family friend had a bookcase full of LPs.
How many people had blank tapes with the best songs from their friend's albums?
Up to the age of 18, I watched maybe 10 movies in theatres. The movies that I saw on TV were extremely edited and most of the commercials did not apply to me. In my adult life I go to a movie theatre about every 2 - 2.5 years. I rent about 3 movies a year.
A friend lent me a really bad CD copy of Shrek and my wife and I liked the movie so much, we bought a legitimate Shrek DVD.
If the media giants did manage to stop every illegal download, people would resort to copying an entire hard drive of media from their friend's collection. Preventing the duplication of media is nearly impossible.
I really don't know how families are affording today's technologies; for example, a family having a landline, cable TV, Internet connection, computers, gaming consoles, and cell phones for each of the family members. In addition, the family members have to purchase/rent the respective media for the entertainment devices.
What is the total revenue/total population percentage of the respective media? How has it changed over the years? From my perspective, the total media revenue/population may only be out by a few percent. If there is an additional imbalance it is because the media distributors are peddling crap.
I do not support profiting from pirating any media.
If a person is caught electronically distributing copied media without the intention of profiting, fine the person $500 - $10,000, respective of their income.
Nicolas Chartier needs to learn how to behave in a professional environment; understand the content of a document, appropriately make your point, and communicate in a respectful manner.
I remember when people would scrape together $1200 to buy a Commodore 64 system and then get a disk full of pirated games for $5 - $20 from a guy at school.
A person who bought the disk full of games did not have the financial means to purchase most of the games on the pirated disk. Later on, when the person was employed, he/she purchased legitimate software from the software publishers because of the recognition of the brands during the days of C64 usage.
In the 70s and 80s, how many people had more than 10 LPs or cassettes? To me it was amazing that a family friend had a bookcase full of LPs.
How many people had blank tapes with the best songs from their friend's albums?
Up to the age of 18, I watched maybe 10 movies in theatres. The movies that I saw on TV were extremely edited and most of the commercials did not apply to me. In my adult life I go to a movie theatre about every 2 - 2.5 years. I rent about 3 movies a year.
A friend lent me a really bad CD copy of Shrek and my wife and I liked the movie so much, we bought a legitimate Shrek DVD.
If the media giants did manage to stop every illegal download, people would resort to copying an entire hard drive of media from their friend's collection. Preventing the duplication of media is nearly impossible.
I really don't know how families are affording today's technologies; for example, a family having a landline, cable TV, Internet connection, computers, gaming consoles, and cell phones for each of the family members. In addition, the family members have to purchase/rent the respective media for the entertainment devices.
What is the total revenue/total population percentage of the respective media? How has it changed over the years? From my perspective, the total media revenue/population may only be out by a few percent. If there is an additional imbalance it is because the media distributors are peddling crap.
I do not support profiting from pirating any media.
If a person is caught electronically distributing copied media without the intention of profiting, fine the person $500 - $10,000, respective of their income.
Nicolas Chartier needs to learn how to behave in a professional environment; understand the content of a document, appropriately make your point, and communicate in a respectful manner.
One could say the same thing about your Communist Manifesto. Except it really doesn't seem like there's any cohesive doctrine behind your point of view besides (overly) simplistic reasoning and/or your own shor-term self-interest.
Taking the fruits of someone else's labor, that they are offering for sale, without compensation = stealing.
Yes. Even if they don't notice. Yes, even if you don't feel like a thief.
Absolutely, just logically, reasonable, and intellectually explain how your point can work in a logical universe.
That's ALL you have to do, brother, to convince any rational human being that you are right. You MUST be able to logically, reasonably, and intellectual explain your point and then answer any questions to the contrary.
Cannon_Fodder
Limp Gawd
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*pull out the popcorn* Please don't stop, this is semi-entertaining. How about we take it a step further, I have Netflix. I put a movie in my queue but it is delayed for whatever reason. I download it for my own enjoyment and when I downloaded it I didn't seed at all. I delete it after I watch it, then remove it from my Netflix queue. Would you still call that stealing or copy right infringement or something else entirely?
Yes, I'm literally arguing for a world in which no one owns anything. Property = oppression.
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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Human nature would never allow this, it may work for a specific group of people, but most would rebel against these ideals. You cannot have this world, because it can never exist.
Liberty goes hand in hand with property, actually. Without the ability to enjoy the fruits of freedom/liberty, there is no use for it. If I'm only allowed to practice the means of freedom but not allowed to achieve the ends, I don't exactly have freedom.
That's fine, though. It's a disconnect between belief. One is mine, where I live in a world free to practice and achieve what I can and in a world where others can do the same. The other world is yours, where you are given the guise of having freedom, but not allowed to obtain the ends because people like YOU have an opinion they think can change a reality of 1 +1 = 2.
It would be an infringement of the contract required to view the movie. The Netflix contract is between you and Netflix, not you and the movie company. Unless Netflix has worked out a contract with the movie company that allows Netflix subscribers to be able to download a movie through whatever means they wish, then it is a breach in contract.
And we live in a world where if you don't like this you have to options of freedom: don't support the movie industry that does not allow this, or start your own company that does allow it. They worked hard to start their companies, they should be able to set their terms. If they set horrible terms, then people have the choice to "boycott" them (or simply not patronize the business). Their companies will fall if they set up contracts that people do not want to honor.
Isn't it funny that pi3 uses insults in nearly every address of a response, the process which happens to be straight out of Marx and Saul A Linksys book (where you use ridicule and insults to try to stifle an opponent because you can't actually address or prove him wrong).
BillR
Born Again Cynic
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We agree, no humor was intended by my post. Its sad people think like this.
Trepidati0n
[H]F Junkie
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I would like to thank many people in this thread. The responses by some of you are very well thought out and I would be fearful of debating you in public.
Ruoh
Supreme [H]ardness
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I've only seen one mention of it, on page two, where the entire story of Hurtlocker was essentially stolen from an Iraq Vet. I'd like to bring that up again.
I'm sorry, but the pillars of a functional economy and society only apply to things with scarcity. All supply and demand curves dictate that the value of an object in inversely proportional to it's supply. The supply of a digital good is infinite, that is it is without scarcity. The value of such a good is zero. Economically it is worthless.
The pillars of society revolve around protecting you from others infringing on your rights.
For example you have the right to not have your shit stolen. However as covered many times in this thread, the internet, and even in published papers is there is no theft involved in piracy. When someone downloads a work, there is no deprevation. If I steal your car, you no longer have a car. If I walk by, look at your car, go home and use my magic super printer of doom to print a copy of your car, you still have a car. Your car is not degraded in anyway.
However, there are two issues here. And until pro-copywright people can start admitting what piracy is and is not, there can be no discussion. Copywrite exsits to provide an incentive for people to create copywriteable works. Period. There is no debate over the need for laws to stop bootleg DVDs etc. The debate comes from the personal, private, non-comercial use of someone's works. Something that in many countries IS LEGAL. Yet somehow in those countries, new works still get made, so I'm pretty sure the "pillars of economics and society" are not destroyed.
BillR
Born Again Cynic
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An interesting rationalization that holds no water.
If it was your movie being stolen and you were the injured party being deprived of income from your work I doubt you would attempt this useless argument.
Simply because you dont produce such works and are not effected in your mind that makes it ok. Tangibility and availability should have no bearing on value.
It's the practices of the movie/music industry that steers some people to piracy. Others that pirate a movie or song wouldn't buy it anyway. This whole topic of intellectual property/copy protection is in a whole different area by itself being one can view or listen to any of them for free but as soon as one makes a copy, it's theft. While I don't necessary defend the practice of piracy, though I can see some of the reasons behind it, I absolute don't agree with the current intended punishment for the "crime". Suing someone for hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions even for downloading a few songs/movies is just not justice in any sense of the word. Saying the punishment doesn't fit the crime is an understatement, regardless how someone personally feels about someone pirating a movie or songs.
You just proved his point. Stop calling it "stealing" and admit what it is. It's infringement of copyright, by definition there is no theft involved.
Indeed, this whole appeal to the (sound) economic principal of "scarcity" is backwards. They think that because an individual film can be "infinitely reproduced", that there is no "scarcity" where films are concerned and that therefore normal rules/laws/ethics/economics should not apply.
The problem is that they're looking at one film and its effect on one filmmaker. This is myopic. You have to look at the effect on the "scarcity" of films in general. If there is nobody producing them (because there is no profit motive), they would indeed be very scarce.
Heh, we'd have to get all our "film" from idiots with handcams on youtube. Of course, not that there would be a youtube (something invented to make a profit) in the world these people envision.
But in a nutshell, this individual film is now "infinitely reproducible" and is therefore not "scarce." But if you want to see more of them, you can't treat them that way.
Which, actually, sums up the problem of with Socialism/Communism in general. It's nice to dream about a world where nobody owns anything (I guess, for some). But unfortunately, people don't tend to work very hard when they don't get direct benefit from that work. And where there is no entrepreneurship, there is no motive to dream up the sorts of things we love today. You've got an economy of unmotivated works (less efficient), generating less wealth, with nobody motivated to come up with a better way of doing anything because they won't benefit. . . and no excess wealth at the hands of a private party to design and manufacture any of the "cool stuff" that makes life worth living. Do you really think the "People's Committee on Entertainment Resources" would really ever devote scarce resources in such an economy to a new video card technology, or an iPod? There's a reason why all the wealth and technology generated over the last century originated in the free market West.
And please spare us the talk of "oppression". . . the academics with their Marxist leanings realize they lost the empirical argument long ago. So they've deconstructed language to the point where words no longer mean anything concrete. So while they have no problem with the "tyranny" of a police state put in place to prop up an economic system totally at odds with human nature, they decry the "tyranny" or "oppression" of someone not being able to find a job for a while.
LeninGHOLA
Vladimir Hayt
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Not according to the dictionary and the law.
First off, it's not rationalization. I don't download movies, music or video games. If you'd like to use that term with a pirate, please feel free to, but don't tell me I'm "rationalizing" when I don't do such things.
Second off, there is no deprivation of income. A download does not equal a lost sell. In fact, there evidence to suggest illegal downloading increases sells of some products. In several cases promoters have been caught leaking music before it's release to create hype and increase sales. To simply assume that a college student who has a TB of music, video games, and movies would have or even COULD HAVE paid for it is a falicy. A large segment of downloads involve animie that is simply unavaliable for purchase because it is not distrbuted in the US. How could you possibly claim that something that isn't avalable for purchase is a lost sell? How can you possibly claim that any college student would have bought Photoshop if they didn't download it?
Third, I have produced copywriteable works. I don't know why you assume I haven't.
Fourth, the issue is not "can I touch this" it is "do I deprive someone else by copying this". There is no deprevation, and without deprevation there is no right being infringed upon. You are not infringing on a right to sale something to someone if they would never have bought it in the first place. You ARE infringing on rights to sale your own work if you are distrubting the works for profit.
I'm sorry but you're quite wrong. I'm a little shocked that real people (not industry trade groups paid to say it) actually believe this.
I've not insulted you, or certainly not tried. Maybe asking how disconnected you were from reality was premature but I think given your answer it was a legitimate question. If you want me to disprove the merits of your objectivist world view, look no further than the modern world. That even one person can live in excess while billions die of starvation is the ultimate travesty of your philosophy. But hey you got yours right, and you can sleep better knowing that the sweat of your brow has enabled the proles to feed off the scraps from your table.
FoxhoundOp
[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm surprised we still have debates like this here on [H]. No one ever agrees or changes their view on anything so it's just two sides spewing crap at each other. Downloading movies and such may not be STEALING but by law, it is illegal so don't whine about it if you get caught and I say this as someone with a large collection of Linux distros
BillR
Born Again Cynic
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If a promoter makes a CHOICE to make samples available, fine.
If I write a piece of software and sell it I do so for profit. If someone buys it and decides to give it to his buddies that is software I didnt sell. I sustain a net loss due to theft.
Its an ethics thing.
"You ARE infringing on rights to sale your own work if you are distrubting the works for profit" That makes less then no sense.
How can that possibly be the case? What property was taken from you that you still do not have? What money was emptied from your pockets? What exactly have you lost?
Economically tell the contractor who worked on that movie that it is worthless, in which if piracy is allowed to continue it dwindles down his opportunities for upcoming movie projects. Or economically tell the writer or producer how value equals zero, in which takes away incentive to continue using his talents or toil to perform an art. Or how about tell all the employees required to make the movie, in which if incentive is dropped because of piracy is rampant, will be paid less upon the next time they might be hired.
And the car factory worker, who gets laid off because sales declined even a quarter of a percent, is not degraded? I could go on and on. The person who actually owns the car is degraded too, when his asset that he purchased dwindles in value or becomes less attractive due to constant copying. Pretty soon, ownership becomes moot, everything becomes equally shit, and incentive for ANY innovation or creation ceases.
I agree with you on most of this. But even in other countries new works or lack of incentives do harm innovation, although it doesn't outright stop it (mostly because it is supplemented by other forms of economies in which people ARE allowed to protect their works.)