Electronic Piracy

Electronic Piracy should be illegal.

  • Yes

    Votes: 49 55.1%

  • No

    Votes: 40 44.9%
  • Total voters
    89
Am I the only person that gets funny looks sometimes when I say I actually buy CD's? Don't get me wrong, I do download songs from time to time, but not nearly as much as the amount of songs I get from the CD's I buy.
 
If someone tells me something I should be allowed to tell it to whomever I'd like.

If you know a secrete phrase, like "Blueberry soup" and you tell that phrase to me, i can tell it to anyone else. I can walk around the city screaming it and no law should stop me (except for disturbing the peace :p) An mp3 is nothing more than a series of phrases.

If you let those phrases out by telling them to me, I should be able to repeat what I was told. Sure, me doing this may cause someone to lose out on a little profit, but the constitution protects the right to free speech, not the right to profit.
 
ríomhaire said:
Bull-****ing-shit. My cousin's band, Elephant managed to convince a few shops to take their album, are they rich? Nowhere ****ing near it. Stop trying to justify your theft you asshole.
Click to expand...
Your counsins band are in a few shops. That is not most shops. Are the band on limewire or torrents? Is their lack of being rich caused by people not downloading their music?

Why should I have to pay 10 quid for an album, when most of it goes to the record company. If we had a state label I'd have no problem with it.
 
After looking at what music is popular today I have come to the conclusion that the majority of these artist's don't deserve the money they make.
 
I think the chain of casality is clear: First you're stealing songs, then you're robbing liquor stores, then you're selling crack and running over schoolkids with your car.

So, all in all, Don't download this song.
 
Yeah, put the government charge of not censoring media.
Also notice that you're willing to pay capital straight to the capitalist government, effectively being no more communist than those who would pay the folks who distribute the music to us in the first place.
BRILLIANT PLAN SOLARIS, WAY TO BE COMMUNIST.

WOOOOO.

Again, let's do the fun credit card analogy.
Would you give your credit card* to the government too?
Because in both cases, you're trusting the government with money and information that they have set no precedent to deserve.

See, what I do is I buy albums by bands that don't suck from independent used-record stores for extremely cheap.
Not only am I supporting fewer big corporations, I'm actively supporting other people in my community.
"Oh, but mecha that's too smart! Can't I just continue pretending to be communist when in reality I'm just sucking up the runoff of capitalism's most minor excesses?"

Way to promote communism as anything other than petty theft.
What's next on the manifesto?
Are you going to go to Tesco, drink half a bottle of Coca-Cola and then pretend you forgot your wallet, eventually starting to cry until the cashier is embarassed enough for you to let you leave with a warning?
Viva la Revolution!

Steven said:
After looking at what music is popular today I have come to the conclusion that the majority of these artist's don't deserve the money they make.
Click to expand...
Then why on earth would you pirate it?

Piracy inevitably makes records more expensive. So, when stupid people do eventually end up buying the latest britney spears horseload, she gets far more cash than ever.
You're a part of the problem.

Let's face facts here. If you pirate music it's because you're poor or stupid.


*Meaning, of course, your parents' credit card because let's not kid ourselves.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
Then why on earth would you pirate it?

Piracy inevitably makes records more expensive. So, when stupid people do eventually end up buying the latest britney spears horseload, she gets far more cash than ever.
You're a part of the problem.
Click to expand...
No where did I say or imply that I torrent music I don't like, or any music for that matter. I do however encourage those who listen to what is the majority of today’s popular music to just download the music illegally instead and never buy it, and no they don't make records more expensive if no one buys them.
 
I didn't mean you, I was refering to the stupid people who do listen to popular stuff. Still, allowing stupid people to be stupid isn't helping.

They'll have to raise prices eventually if they want to maintain the same profits.
 
I buy alot of music. In the last year I have bought 9 REM albums, 4 of which came from a used record store. I've downloaded alot of songs too, for instance theres quite a few indie bands I like, they're not in many record shops, sure I could buy online, but I don't. I have a healthy balance of downloading music and stealing music. The artists I steal from, generally I buy some of their music anyway.

Just like most other people who download music, I buy alot. The only people who lose out at the moment are the fat cats who run the record companies.
 
Capitalist pig!

Stop supporting the consumerist indie bands with your blood money!
 
Mechagodzilla said:
I didn't mean you, I was refering to the stupid people who do listen to popular stuff. Still, allowing stupid people to be stupid isn't helping.

They'll have to raise prices eventually if they want to maintain the same profits.
Click to expand...

Actually I think it will go the other way. CD prices have dropped quite a bit. I don't know what idiot would actually pay $18 for a single CD. Today you can buy most CDs for around $10. However, as the compact disk becomes outdated and is replaced by legally downloadable music piracy will be a little harder and their profits will probably climb again. The main reason why the record industry isn't making any money is because they aren't making any good music. I think its as simple as that.
 
In the end, support of piracy boils down to one thing:

Personal greed.

YOu don't want to pay for something, because YOU are in a position to get away with it. You don't care who gets the money, as long as YOU don't lose any.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Angry Lawyer said:
In the end, support of piracy boils down to one thing:

Personal greed.

YOu don't want to pay for something, because YOU are in a position to get away with it. You don't care who gets the money, as long as YOU don't lose any.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...
I fully agree. We're all very greedy people.
 
Angry Lawyer said:
In the end, support of piracy boils down to one thing:

Personal greed.
Click to expand...

Or in my case, my financial situation. Should I be denied the use of tools for artistic expression because I cannot afford them? Should a student not be allowed to use software they need experience with in order to get a job they like, because he cannot afford it?

Things like music shouldnt need to be pirated, because people can get them for cheap nowadays, but if I make $500 a month, and I need to get experience with a certain $6000 peice of software in order to get a job, I sure as hell am not going to pay for it when I can download it. Its not legal, but not immoral either.
 
I think it's been pretty clear that Solaris is the worst socialist ever.
Remember:

"I am an enemy of socialism." -Solaris
 
Angry Lawyer said:
In the end, support of piracy boils down to one thing:

Personal greed.

YOu don't want to pay for something, because YOU are in a position to get away with it. You don't care who gets the money, as long as YOU don't lose any.

-Angry Lawyer
Click to expand...

I'd rob a bank if I could get away with it.

However, I'd be disgusted if anyone else did so.
 
I practically never buy music. But I practically never download it either. :p
They just need to bring down the price, and the amount of people that want to buy it will rise. I know, because I've gone on a major buying spree along with literally tens of people in a tiny shop (it was packed, lol :p) that sold a lot of albums for €5-€7 (one day event, to celebrate the three-year existance or something).
 
Krynn72 said:
Or in my case, my financial situation. Should I be denied the use of tools for artistic expression because I cannot afford them? Should a student not be allowed to use software they need experience with in order to get a job they like, because he cannot afford it?

Things like music shouldnt need to be pirated, because people can get them for cheap nowadays, but if I make $500 a month, and I need to get experience with a certain $6000 peice of software in order to get a job, I sure as hell am not going to pay for it when I can download it. Its not legal, but not immoral either.
Click to expand...

Doing something out of necessity and doing something out of simple unwillingness to pay, when you can clearly afford it, are different things. I still don't condone it, but some people have better excuses than others.

Considering Solaris' point earlier - "They can get the money from the concerts they do" - how is that any different to "It's okay if I take this chocolate bar without paying for it, because the shop makes most of its money through selling bread"?

-Angry Lawyer
 
I have no moral opposition to stealing from say, Tesco. If I could get away with it, I would.

It's a very interesting dilemma, you can download music and still support artists.
If you buy music, and download music, wheres the problem? There's no way I'd spend more than 10quid a month of music, whether I can download it or not. So me downloading music isn't having adverse consequences for music artists, because I wouldn't buy it anyway.

And this is the main problem with the it's just like stealing from a shop analogy:

Your not stealing anything that can be sold, if you steal bread, the store loses money because they have lost bread that they can sell. When I download music, bands lose nothing expect my potential to buy that piece of music from them.
 
Then equate it to stealing a novel from a bookstore. It doesn't cost much for them to put it on paper, but you're still getting something that people have worked really hard over producing.

-Angry Lawyer
 
Which really raises questions about what the people are working for, money or a book?

The quality of music (especially popular music) has been compromised a great deal because it has become about making money instead of about music. The truth is, most artists (true artists that is) would prefer their music to reach as many people as it can, and the tyrannous record companies that are using the laws of piracy to make a non-exculable good exculable.

And in response to your earlier post, more choice doesnt nesseacarily mean more quality. Infact, more choice doesnt even mean more choice. It is the profit hungry record corporations that decide what music gets promoted on a mass scale and what music is risk free and profit making. Unfortuneatly for us, it means that profound and culturally enriching music doesnt get to be promoted because in order to maximise sales, they need to appeal to universal themes....like sex for example. Result? more and more songs about utter crap, more and more songs that resmble each other (like most entertainment media produced by american corporations) and the coruption of muscians. Name me one popular muscian or artist that bullimic, on drugs or filthy rich and then ill begin to beleive that market forces arent a serious blow to the integrity of culture art and music.

On another note, i see the internet as the ability of the people to choose what they really believe is good music, instead of the propaganda campaigns initiated by record corporations for their subsequent musician.

You know as far as Im concerned, a person who sings for money is not better then a women who has sex for money. One prostitues their sexuality and the other prostitues their art or music.
 
Solaris said:
I have no moral opposition to stealing from say, Tesco. If I could get away with it, I would.
Click to expand...
Stealing from the rich is OK? What if that shop closes down from all the shopplifting as Tesco are now losing money from it? Many people would lose their jobs and people would have to go elsewhere for their bread (which would more than likly be more expensive).
 
Ah, but you forget in a communist society the government would force Tesco to stay open and it would pay them with the profits from other parts of society.

And all bread would be equal price (probably with cement lumps in).

That's their responçability.
 
You steal from a shop, you are essentially taking wages from the shop staff. The customers essentially pay their wages...
 
ComradeBadger said:
You steal from a shop, you are essentially taking wages from the shop staff. The customers essentially pay their wages...
Click to expand...

Problem with that anology is that if you steal from a shop in your home town you are taking from people living in your community. You steal from Microsoft you are in many ways stealing from cheap labor from places like India.

Not trying to justify it by any means but these companies aren't exactly clean themselves.
 
No Limit said:
Problem with that anology is that if you steal from a shop in your home town you are taking from people living in your community. You steal from Microsoft you are in many ways stealing from cheap labor from places like India.

Not trying to justify it by any means but these companies aren't exactly clean themselves.
Click to expand...
It's not an analogy - no customers = no wages for staff.

But yes, the point remains whoever you steal from you are taking money from someone somewhere who doesn't deserve to be treated like that.
 
>>FrEnZy<< said:
On another note, i see the internet as the ability of the people to choose what they really believe is good music, instead of the propaganda campaigns initiated by record corporations for their subsequent musician.

You know as far as Im concerned, a person who sings for money is not better then a women who has sex for money. One prostitues their sexuality and the other prostitues their art or music.
Click to expand...

If music is analagous to sex, then it stands to reason that, as a pirate, you are rapist.

The neglect of simple consent is the fundamental flaw in your convoluted reasoning.

Consent's a bitch, isn't it?
Too bad it's illegal to just forcibly extract the pleasure from those tyrannous prostitutes!



Just how convoluted is your reasoning? Let's check what you actually wrote:

1) No "true" artist is concerned with money (which allows for survival in capitalist society) more than reaching a maximum audience.

2) The internet is a venue which allows for promotion and distribution to a potentially infinite audience.

Given 1 and 2, all "true" artists with internet access should be already giving their music away for free.
In this case, piracy is essentially useless.
You can't steal something that is free.

So that makies no sense. Let's check another two points you made.


3) Artists who care about getting money are artistically bankrupt.* The songs are genericized and over-promoted, to attract a maximum audience.

4) You really, really want to be able to steal their shitty generic music.

So, you want an unlimited supply of stolen generic shit because...?
Isn't the huge number of free songs by "true" artists enough?
Or are you just saying that you have absolutely no taste in music (which conflicts with your claims that music that costs money is awful)?

And wait a second...

Compare points 1 and 3.

Point 1: The goal of the "true" artist is to reach the maximum audience.
Point 3: "False" artists are illegitimate because they attempt to reach the maximum audience.

Those are the same thing!

*(And they also use drugs! No "true" artist has ever used drugs!)




Effectively, all information is private, and is only legally given up if the owner allows it to be.

If you hear something on the radio, or on TV, that is there because the creator let it be broadcast. If you buy a CD, that is because the owner let you pay for it.
And if a track is availiable for free on a bend website, it is because they let you have access to their private information.
It's called consent.

The same principle of consent protects you from having your computer hacked and your home invaded.
Only you get to decide who gets to read your diary or your mail or your art.

Information can never be "free" in the bullshit way that you guys wish it were, unless you're willing to give up all your secrets too.


So give me your credit card numbr now.
Free exchange of information, bitch!
Do you believe in it or not?

I want to see your homework from every grade of school. If you made a macaroni picture in kindergarten, scan it in now and upload it to imageshack. Scan them all in.

Photographs are an artform. Upload your family pictures for us to see. All of them.

Give me your credit card number, and all your personal information. Right now, over the internet, for free.

Do it!
 
Oh, Frenzy, just when I thought you were beginning to develop some sense.

Then it emerges that you're a rapist.

Crazy world.
 
Mecha said:
Give me your credit card number, and all your personal information. Right now, over the internet, for free.

Do it!
Click to expand...
DOO EEETT
 
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