Your View on Pirating

[el Chi]

Downloading an album is pretty much equivalent to shoplifting, with one rather effective difference: you're much less likely to get caught.
It's the intelligent man's shoplifting.



And you can stick that on an advertising banner.

 

[PvtRyan]

Well, not really. When you shoplift, you take something away that was paid for by someone. So that someone takes an actual loss. If you download an album, you just make a copy that you don't have the right to own, but nothing is taken away from anyone. Then there's two possibilities, you either would never have bought the album any way, which means you're just using something without legal permission. Or you would have otherwise bought it if you hadn't downloaded it, in which case someone does take a loss, but still nothing is permanently removed from that someone, it's a loss of potential income.

Not that it's justified, but it really isn't the same as classic theft.

 

[sinkoman]

I'm willing to accept that the only justification behind my pirating is that i'm a cheap bastard.

 

[Planetary]

Not that it's justified, but it really isn't the same as classic theft.

Exactly. It's the virtual equivalent of jaywalking! And yet the FBI goes after pirates when real objects are being stolen like there's no tomorrow! Some people don't have their priorities straight.

 

[Asknoone]

Oh I will be replying, en mass.

We're all waiting.

 

[Sui]

Well, not really. When you shoplift, you take something away that was paid for by someone. So that someone takes an actual loss. If you download an album, you just make a copy that you don't have the right to own, but nothing is taken away from anyone. Then there's two possibilities, you either would never have bought the album any way, which means you're just using something without legal permission. Or you would have otherwise bought it if you hadn't downloaded it, in which case someone does take a loss, but still nothing is permanently removed from that someone, it's a loss of potential income.

Not that it's justified, but it really isn't the same as classic theft.

When you steal from a shop, the only people you're hurting are the shop owners, as the product publishers have already received money for the item you stole, and will likely receive more money for providing a replacement.

However, downloading from the internet hurts both the developers AND the shops, as the latter don't sell enough copies which in turn means that the demand is reduced.

 

[.Wolf.]

pirited software/movies/music is great. end story.

 

[theotherguy]

Pirating only exists because the cost-benefit scenario for stealing intellectual property is very unbalanced.

You pay very little to pirate software, other than your time, because the likelihood of being punished for doing so is so low in comparison to the amount of money you'd be saving. The cost of finding and downloading pirated software and music is ridiculously low.

If you could just walk into any shop and steal some equipment without being caught and remaining entirely anonymous as you are on the internet, I would suspect shoplifting would be equally as widespread.

To solve this problem the costs must be made higher or benifits lower. One could do this by producing a piece of hardware or software which verifies that the information on it is actually sanctioned, and making the software somehow unable to be copied. Or, the benifits of buying music honestly must be made higher somehow.

Whatever the reasons or the solutions, pirating music and software is harmful for the industry, and dangerous for the market, and it must stop. For now though, it is so easy to steal intellectual property that it's impossible to blame people for doing so.

 

[theotherguy]

Exactly. It's the virtual equivalent of jaywalking! And yet the FBI goes after pirates when real objects are being stolen like there's no tomorrow! Some people don't have their priorities straight.

But software and music represent real products in the industry. People do these things for a living. They record the music, they write the software, and they use the money from their sales to provide for themselves. Music and software industry professionals deserve to receive a profit on their goods just as much as do automobile or computer manufacturers.

The entire point of the music industry is to make a profit on their product. Without a profit the industry flounders and eventually dies. If people steal the good they are not compensating the industry and a hole is left in the market. Demand slumps, profits slump, the industry gets smaller and it is generally unhealthy for the economy.

The only reason there is not such a big negative stigma on stealing music and software is that it is not easy to get caught. That is virtually the only difference between stealing a piece of music on the internet or an apple in the market, economically speaking anyway.

 

[Dinkleberry]

If I'm being screwed over by The Company, by paying for products which are later found to be (possibly artistically) lacking and/or defective (how often do we get the opportunity to personally evaluate what we buy before we buy it??? (esp. with the internet!)), I'd say I am entitled to screw them back by taking personally judged compensation in the form of pirated goods.

Quite selfish that one company has to suffer due to the incompetence of another, but money is limited, and I'm fed up of wasting it on shitty products (of all types!).

 

[Kyorisu]

The entire point of the music industry is to make a profit on their product.

Which they do, incredibly well I might ad. The music industry has so much money they can hassle pretty much anyone they want and do so on a irregular basis even if they don't get any money in return. Maybe you don't know just how rich these recording labels are.

 

[French Ninja]

It's bad of course...

...

Just music, I have too much respect for the game industry to steal games.

 

[Krynn72]

I think pirating abandonware, and products no longer manufactured is ok. Same with television shows, since you could just as easily record them on your tv.

But I pirate movies and games once in awhile. But at least someone is making money when I do that (<3 rapidshare).

Most of the games I download though I either hardly ever play, or already own. I left all my PC games at my parents house when I moved out, and I have the urge to play them again every once in awhile.

 

[Laivasse]

The entire point of the music industry is to make a profit on their product. Without a profit the industry flounders and eventually dies. If people steal the good they are not compensating the industry and a hole is left in the market. Demand slumps, profits slump, the industry gets smaller and it is generally unhealthy for the economy.

The only reason there is not such a big negative stigma on stealing music and software is that it is not easy to get caught. That is virtually the only difference between stealing a piece of music on the internet or an apple in the market, economically speaking anyway.

Beg to differ. I wish people would check out the stats.
What this shows is that another big difference is that noone has yet shown how piracy affects the music industry, let alone shown that it has a noticeably negative impact.

You're right about the music industry solely existing to make money. But if by definition it can't make any money, then it doesn't somehow still deserve to exist. You can't artifically sustain an industry by forcing people to buy things they don't need to buy.

And besides, as Kyo says and as those stats show, the music industry is making more money than ever.

 

[HunterSeeker]

You're right about the music industry solely existing to make money. But if by definition it can't make any money, then it doesn't somehow still deserve to exist. You can't artifically sustain an industry by forcing people to buy things they don't need to buy.

Of cource, if people would stop listening to music the music industry would go under in a legitimate manner, but people refuse to pay for their products while still using them. Obiously there is enough demand for their products that more people would buy them if it was not so easy to illegally copy them.

 

[Laivasse]

Of cource, if people would stop listening to music the music industry would go under in a legitimate manner, but people refuse to pay for their products while still using them. Obiously there is enough demand for their products that more people would buy them if it was not so easy to illegally copy them.

That's not so obvious, and 'usage' of music is hard to define. If I listen to music from a certain album and hate it, I don't consider myself to have 'used' it in a way that justifies payment of up to ?15. When you download an album you are not receiving exactly the same product you would if you bought the same album in a shop. If it were exactly the same, noone would ever buy a CD after having downloaded the music, yet lots of people I've spoken to still do. You lose out on artwork, lyrics, liner notes, sound quality and the convenience particular to a CD if you only download the music.

Granted, lots of people don't care about that and sales are lost. But lots of people also buy albums they would never have bought if they hadn't illegally copied all or part of it, and sales are likewise gained. I've not yet seen any evidence of how one factor offsets the other. As such I don't think it useful to talk about the damage done to the music industry when it has experienced 32% growth of CD sales over the period when file-sharing software is also massively popular. The music industry can either just shut up and cope with the (completely invisible) effect or they can try to criminalise millions of people.