why paying for movies/games/audios?

[Hatious]

The truth is that it ISN'T stealing anything. Nothing physical ever goes anywhere, simply, a copy is made and the original is still left.

Aigh...

So if nothing physical goes anywhere than how is it that I can break your CDR or ruin your hard disk with a magnet? In both cases the phyiscal data that is being stored is ruined and rendered unsuable. You are telling me that the data, which has been copied, never actually went anywhere?

I buy CDs in the store that I like, I download other stuff that I either can't afford or wouldn't buy in the first place.

I can understand why you would steal things that you can't afford and wouldn't otherwise buy. I just don't understand how your financial situation justifies stealing. I can understand stealing in the case of someone who has no money and is starving. It still does not jusitify stealing, it is more understandable, though. Your situation is pretty far off from the poor starving persons situation.

I do not consider it 'stealing' at all. Is listening to internet radio 'stealing' ? Its still downloaded music, you have no copyright, you CAN record it.

No. Listening to internet radio is not stealing. Recording internet radio in a fashion that is inconsistent with whatever copyright laws apply to that specific music may be stealing. Since you decided to use the example of recording internet radio...

Since illegal file sharing has become such a problem it is likely that various companies, in conjunction with hardware and software developers and manufacturers, will work to lock down any and all illegal activity on your computer that they possibly can. Do you not see that your behavior encourages tighter regulation of what you are allowed to do with your personal computer?

If i'm not going to purchase this product anyways, how is it a 'lost sale' ? For instance pretty much everyone I know who isn't a professional graphic designer has pirated adobe photoshop - would they PAY $700 for some software to make their small websites and edit a few family photos ? Hell no. No lost sales.

If you weren't going to buy a tomato, which is an exact genetic copy of a single strain of the tomato plant, which can always be grown again, and also takes a relatively limited amount of resources and effort to produce.... and you take it without paying, is that also not stealing?

You act like stealing data is somehow different than any other product which can be stolen. It isn't.

What is your universal definition of 'stealing'?

 

[dr seuss]

The truth is that it ISN'T stealing anything. Nothing physical ever goes anywhere, simply, a copy is made and the original is still left. I buy CDs in the store that I like, I download other stuff that I either can't afford or wouldn't buy in the first place. I do not consider it 'stealing' at all.

please, can i transfer $1000 money from your bank account to my bank account electronically?

after all, it's not physically moving, is it?



if you can't afford it, tough shit. do without. that's what we used to do before the internet, remember?

Is listening to internet radio 'stealing' ?

is listening to the real radio 'stealing'? of course not!

Its still downloaded music, you have no copyright, you CAN record it.

of course you can copy internet radio, just like you can tape FM radio. if you choose to listen to music at 64kbps then we can only assume you don't really like music at all! i wouldn't wipe my ass with a 64kbps mp3 :D

If i'm not going to purchase this product anyways, how is it a 'lost sale' ? For instance pretty much everyone I know who isn't a professional graphic designer has pirated adobe photoshop - would they PAY $700 for some software to make their small websites and edit a few family photos ? Hell no. No lost sales.

offtopic - don't use photoshop, use serif photoplus - it's free!

ontopic - i don't use pirated software. why bother, when there's open source freeware that's better?

I could either walk 30 min to the mall, pay $20 of my hard earned money to a bloated record lable, and walk back just to listne to that one song good on the whole damn CD, OR I can open limewire and have that same song in better quality, in a more useful format, and not have to load the CD ever for a total of 1 min of my life and zero dollars.

i don't know if you know anything about audio. i suspect not. let me explain a little

CD quality is known as the 'red book' standard. this means that audio is encoded at at sample rate of 44.1khz, with 16-bit depth. mp3 is a compressed format. mp3s are encoded from red book standard audio CDs. the mp3s you are listening to are NOT 'better' quality; they're worse.

i'm very sorry you have to walk to the mall. that must be hard! do you ever steal groceries from your neighbour to prevent you having to haul your ass to the shops?

what a cop-out man... come on, have you ever heard of google? you don't HAVE to leave the house to buy great music, either through legal downloads or cheap online CD stores. you don't have to pay $20 for a CD at a mall outlet store. so your arguments suck.

Not the mention the fact that most of the bands I listne to are either dead or retired and have enough damn money already, and the fact that music today blows more ass then any other time period in the history of man. (I swear there is a band assembly line somewhere in the heart if Utah pumping out song after song of the same whiney bullshit you see on MTV every second of every day.)

that has nothing to do with issue at hand. don't like the state of modern music? well, don't fucking listen to it.

next!

 

[psychetool]

please, can i transfer $1000 money from your bank account to my bank account electronically?

after all, it's not physically moving, is it?

If you could make an exact copy of my money when trasnferring it, while leaving the original in my account so you just have an extra $1000 for yourself, then go for it!

if you can't afford it, tough shit. do without. that's what we used to do before the internet, remember?

Before the internet ? I copied tapes. =p

is listening to the real radio 'stealing'? of course not!

Of course you can copy internet radio, just like you can tape FM radio. if you choose to listen to music at 64kbps then we can only assume you don't really like music at all! i wouldn't wipe my ass with a 64kbps mp3 :D

It's not about the quality of the music, its copywrite infringement that you are trying to aregue.

offtopic - don't use photoshop, use serif photoplus - it's free!

ontopic - i don't use pirated software. why bother, when there's open source freeware that's better?

No. Photoshop is the industry standard and I need exactly that. I need to use varied formats on varied computers, input into dreamweaver, ect. It is not the same, or 'better'. It may be free, but it's not better. I doubt its out for the Mac anyways.

i don't know if you know anything about audio. i suspect not. let me explain a little

CD quality is known as the 'red book' standard. this means that audio is encoded at at sample rate of 44.1khz, with 16-bit depth. mp3 is a compressed format. mp3s are encoded from red book standard audio CDs. the mp3s you are listening to are NOT 'better' quality; they're worse.

Dude, i'm not trying to argue anything about audio quality. We're talking copyrights. You can download lossless anyways.

i'm very sorry you have to walk to the mall. that must be hard! do you ever steal groceries from your neighbour to prevent you having to haul your ass to the shops?

Sometimes.

what a cop-out man... come on, have you ever heard of google? you don't HAVE to leave the house to buy great music, either through legal downloads or cheap online CD stores. you don't have to pay $20 for a CD at a mall outlet store. so your arguments suck.

The last CD I bought was lateralus when it first came out. They arn't making money off me anyways. And thank god I downloaded 10,000 days first. I would have been fucking pissed off if I had paid for that rehashed shit. Even if I could download them, most of the stuff you download unless you get it from Oink is total crap. 320, FLAC, or nothing.

Anyways, you failed to convince me of anything. A+ for effort though.

 

[Pander Bear]

i have a feeling all those recording artists whose music i steal would be happier with my rabid devotion to their touring schedules.

 

[Mr. McMuffin]

funny thing for me about most independant artists/labels. i probably would have never heard their music if it wasn't for pirating.

 

[psychetool]

^^
Thats actually very true. I'v been to multiple hiphop concerts with people that I would have never heard of unless I downlaoded their stuff. I gave them money at the concert, smoked my blunt with one of them after the show, shit they should be happy i'm downloading their shit and sharing it with my friends thereby raising their popularity and status. I sure as fuck wouldn't have just randomly bought their CD. A lot of bands are even offering free downloads of their music. I think radiohead had Kid A on their site available for free download when it came out ? Still sold GREAT and anyone who wanted to listen to it without getting gouged by the record companies got to as well.

 

[alasdairm]

copying software or music is stealing as you are depriving the third-party of the income to which they are entitled as you now have a copy of their product.

i wrote this elsewhere. it's relevant here:

"i think that copying music is theft and i'd have a lot more respect for people who say they're doing it to "stick it to the man" (or whatever) if they just admitted they're stealing and they do it because it's easy, it's free and there's little chance of being caught and they don't care..."

further, the single most predictable thing pirates/thieves will come back with is "i would never buy it anyway". what are the chances that, of the millions of pirates/thieves who copy music or software, not one single one of them would have purchased the product is, say, it wasn't possible to steal it. somebody's lying...

related reading: Study finds file sharers more prone to thievery

don't even get me started on "by stealing, i'm actually helping them". whatever helps you sleep at night, i guess...

alasdair

 

[forgotten]

It's against the law to download copyright material lol

 

[psychetool]

I still don't give a fuck. I'd steal money from the bank and steal XBOX360's from bestbuy if I could get away with it. Y'all are aweful high and mighty for a website whose main purpose is educating people on ILLEGAL drugs. If you're so concerned about legality, stop using. The bands are still RICH, and the only people losing out are the record producers. Boohooo, they only get 5 million instead of 6. Cry me a river.

P.S. Not trying to offend you, Forgotten. I swear to god I wrote this post while you made the other one and in no way is it a response to yours with the 'high and mighty' stuff.

 

[alasdairm]

I still don't give a fuck. I'd steal money from the bank and steal XBOX360's from bestbuy if I could get away with it.

quaint timing...

The bands are still RICH...

so you consciously only steal from artists who have or earn above a certain amount of money? where and how do you set that limit?

alasdair

 

[psychetool]

^^^
You gotta be kidding me. If they are a huge hiphop group or and old rock group they are rich anyways. If they arn't big yet then their exposure is worth more then their CD sale IMO. I don't set any limits. I download everything. If it's truly exceptional and I wish to support the group/movieproducers/gameproducers/whatever then i'll buy it. For instance I downloaded CoD2 first, had an awesome time with the singleplayer gameplay, went out and purchased the full game for a CD key. I'm not going to pay for crap that i'm not even sure if I -like- yet. I download so many artists that I don't even know of, and if they are good, i'll end up going to their concerts, buying a band T, whatever.

 

[dr seuss]

If you could make an exact copy of my money when trasnferring it, while leaving the original in my account so you just have an extra $1000 for yourself, then go for it!

ok - i wonder if you can answer my previous question...

Would you do your job for free?

Before the internet ? I copied tapes. =p

you never bought any music? how strange! is that the truth?

It's not about the quality of the music, its copywrite infringement that you are trying to aregue

check Akoto's post. they said that they download 'better quality' than on a CD.

Sometimes.

good luck with that. i think it's wrong, and i'm guessing that if i stole your possessions you'd be pissed off. different moral codes, i guess.

however, i must admit i'm a bit confused.

if you're so poor, what computer do you use to post on bluelight with? how do you pay for your internet connection - and exactly how fast is it, given that you download so much?

You gotta be kidding me. If they are a huge hiphop group or and old rock group they are rich anyways. If they arn't big yet then their exposure is worth more then their CD sale IMO. I don't set any limits. I download everything. If it's truly exceptional and I wish to support the group/movieproducers/gameproducers/whatever then i'll buy it. For instance I downloaded CoD2 first, had an awesome time with the singleplayer gameplay, went out and purchased the full game for a CD key. I'm not going to pay for crap that i'm not even sure if I -like- yet. I download so many artists that I don't even know of, and if they are good, i'll end up going to their concerts, buying a band T, whatever.

presumably the mastering engineers who would have made money off those sales will get their dues in 'exposure', huh? and also the independent label. i bet they're doing swell. of course there's that small independent record store which always gets such great music in, and the distributors. but hey - why should they profit?

tell me, how is the recording engineer going to benefit from you buying a band t-shirt? you're actually happier to support a clothing company which can stick a logo on a shirt than the people who made the music in the first place?

wow.

you do realise that you're contributing to precisely the problem you claim to object to - i.e. the amounts of crap music out there. what, you actually want to encourage the production of radio-friendly sure-fire generic shit?

why exactly did you purchase CoD2? what imaginary line was crossed in your mind that made you decide this was a product worth purchasing? is it only 'truly exceptional' stuff? in that case, please forward me all your paychecks from now on. when i see a month which has been 'truly exceptional' i might give you some back. whaddya say?

I have a feeling all those recording artists whose music i steal would be happier with my rabid devotion to their touring schedules.

you see every band you download? that's impressive!

(i don't believe you )

like alasdairm said, people will make all sorts of excuses to avoid being honest with themselves. if you were honest you'd admit that underneath it all, you want something for nothing. if you can live with that, then whatever. just let me know next time your paycheck gets stolen so we can arrange the cheerleaders

here's something i posted a while back. it explains how i feel.

1. i love music and i love to share music.

if you know me, or bump into me at a party, or ask me nicely, i will send you some music for free. this is partially because i believe music is more than money and partially because i like to share my music with people. i do not think music should ever be a strictly commercial experience.

2. otherwise please please please buy the fucking cd.

most people spend more on weed in 2 weeks than on CDs in a year. under a tenner is not an extravagant amount - i fucking know it's not because you're already paying double that monthly just to download stuff with your uberfast broadband and your shiny PC. you've probably got more processing power and more storage to run soulseek than i've got to make music with, so don't come off all 'ooh it's too expensive'.

people think that artists are just being pampered prima-donna arseholes. this is genuinely, patently not the case for the majority of artists involved (well, the majority i've met), for reasons thusly:

electronic music costs money to make. looking to my right i see that with PC, soundcard, midi controller, basic synth, monitors, pedals, instruments etc. i need to insure my (very basic) setup for well over £4,000, and that's not even counting my violin. that money didn't come from nowhere. it came from shitty jobs and going without luxuries - luxuries, for example, like buying new CDs!!! i paid for all of my equipment (with one exception - thanks to my uncle for a free soundcraft series 700B - legend!) and i'm still paying for it - insurance is extra ya know, plus of course with smaller labels i'm actually paying some of the production costs. it's taken me years to accumulate what i need to make this music...

in 20 minutes time i'm going into a fucking accountant's office to be patronised by number-crunching cretins and shuffle papers around like some glorified stationery-cupboard-growth, sitting in a non-airconditioned hellhole with massive open windows and suffering from fucking insane hayfever... just to make my music.

and you know what?

i'm over the moon. i'm happier than ever. and most importantly, any money i do make back from my album will go straight back into new studio equipment.

i'm not trying to get £16.99 from each and every HMV customer and suing thousands of p2p users. i'm not drinking champagne in flash hotel rooms and bitching about how a gold album isn't good enough and the astoria isn't big enough. if i make any money i'm going to buy new toys to make new tunes to release so that (hopefully) someone somewhere enjoys them. and in fact so are most artists... in our various genres record sales are often far from explosive... plus of course other people - the record label, mastering people, graphic artists - have put a shitload of work and money into it as well.

have i downloaded in the past? yes. do i feel bad? yes. have i deleted files? yes. have i bought CD copies of tracks i have downloaded? yes. am i a money-grabbing arsehole who's only interested in making cash?

you decide...

 

[dr seuss]

two additional questions...

1) would you steal CDs from a record store, copy them and return them?

2) all other sleep-soundly justifications ('music's shit anyway!', 'i go see LOADS of bands!', 'it's just like taping!', 'they're all rich anyways!') aside, do you honestly think it's fair that musicians shouldn't get paid for what they do? do you honestly have an entirely clear conscience about it?

 

[psychetool]

Would you do your job for free?

No, but they arn't doing their job for free. Not everyone is downloading/pirating and they are still millionairs and get tons of cash from touring anyways. So they don't do their job for free.

you never bought any music? how strange! is that the truth?

I was joking. I'v bought a lot of music, most of it when I was young and stupid. I would still buy an album now if it was a good one. I still purchase a lot of japanese dvd movies after I download them to support the artists because they actually DO feel some real benefit from our purchases unlike big bands.

good luck with that. i think it's wrong, and i'm guessing that if i stole your possessions you'd be pissed off. different moral codes, i guess.

however, i must admit i'm a bit confused.

if you're so poor, what computer do you use to post on bluelight with? how do you pay for your internet connection - and exactly how fast is it, given that you download so much?

Who said I was poor ? I stole a couple boxes of rice-o-roni and some top ramen because it was sitting out on their driveway and I was hungry. It was more out of convenience then anything else. If someone stole a couple boxes of food from my front lawn, I doubt I would care. They probably needed it anyways or were too drunk to drive to the store or something. Whatever. I'm on an upgraded broadband connection - not sure how fast. 100k upload speed and i'v been known to get 600-700k download speeds even with my slow ass hard drive.

presumably the mastering engineers who would have made money off those sales will get their dues in 'exposure', huh? and also the independent label. i bet they're doing swell. of course there's that small independent record store which always gets such great music in, and the distributors. but hey - why should they profit?

tell me, how is the recording engineer going to benefit from you buying a band t-shirt? you're actually happier to support a clothing company which can stick a logo on a shirt than the people who made the music in the first place?

They -WON'T!- fuck the record producers they have enough sheep anyways. The band PAYS for that time and PAYS them to produce it anyways. I don't beleive the poeple who produce it get royalties, and even if they DO they still get paid to produce the album in the first place. They didn't make the music, the band made the music, they just fine tuned it.

would you steal CDs from a record store, copy them and return them?

Too much effort. I would though if I could return them months later when I got a chance to listen to them. Then I could just keep the good stuff and return the bad. We all know record lables fuck the band anyways.

all other sleep-soundly justifications ('music's shit anyway!', 'i go see LOADS of bands!', 'it's just like taping!', 'they're all rich anyways!') aside, do you honestly think it's fair that musicians shouldn't get paid for what they do? do you honestly have an entirely clear conscience about it?

They do get paid for it and I -honestly- have a clear conscience.

 

[dr seuss]

No, but they arn't doing their job for free. Not everyone is downloading/pirating and they are still millionairs and get tons of cash from touring anyways. So they don't do their job for free.

but that's bullshit man.

unless you only buy Madonna or Incubus CDs... or rather, unless you only buy CDs from artists you perceive to be rich. tell me, where's the cut-off? at what point is an artist deemed poor enough that it's worth paying for their music? do they have to be starving?



p.s. how are the recording engineers, mastering engineers, producers, studio monkeys, visual artists etc. supposed to get paid?

p.p.s. if you aren't willing to do your job for free then you're a hypocrite. plain and simple! YOU expect other people to work for nothing but YOU expect to get paid for your work.

I was joking. I'v bought a lot of music, most of it when I was young and stupid. I would still buy an album now if it was a good one. I still purchase a lot of japanese dvd movies after I download them to support the artists because they actually DO feel some real benefit from our purchases unlike big bands.

if you only buy good albums, why download shit ones? presumably you think the only criteria which determines whether something is worth paying for or not is whether it's 'good'.

that's an interesting viewpoint. how about you give me your paychecks, let me assess the quality of your work, and then determine whether you should get paid or not.

Who said I was poor ? I stole a couple boxes of rice-o-roni and some top ramen because it was sitting out on their driveway and I was hungry. It was more out of convenience then anything else. If someone stole a couple boxes of food from my front lawn, I doubt I would care. They probably needed it anyways or were too drunk to drive to the store or something. Whatever. I'm on an upgraded broadband connection - not sure how fast. 100k upload speed and i'v been known to get 600-700k download speeds even with my slow ass hard drive.

how much does your broadband connection cost? your computer?

They -WON'T!- fuck the record producers they have enough sheep anyways. The band PAYS for that time and PAYS them to produce it anyways.

that sentence doesn't reflect the reality of the music industry.

 

[Pegasus]

I think radiohead had Kid A on their site available for free download when it came out ? Still sold GREAT and anyone who wanted to listen to it without getting gouged by the record companies got to as well.

It wasn't released on their website, but it was leaked 3 months prior to it's release on Napster. When it was released, it went to #1 on the American charts.

Personally, I like to view the musicians I listen to as not wanting me to buy their album. Music shouldn't be about the money, or the music indistry; it should be about people who love to make music doing it for other people to enjoy.

 

[Tylerdurden]

http://torrentfreak.com/the-swedish-pirate-party-presents-their-election-manifesto/

 

[frizzantik]

Replicating informaiton isn't stealing, it's copyright violation.

Analogies to physical theft just don't hold up because the item is duplicated. If take a CD from my friend's cd case without his permission, I've stolen from my friend, not the artist. However, if my friend allows me to duplicate the CD, no theft of any kind is taking place. The artist is in the same situation s/he was in before. Sure I may be less likely to purchase the CD from the artist now, but that is hardly "theft".

The fact is, we are dealing with a new paradigm. Our entire economic system is based on scacity; limiting the supply increases the value of a product. Now we are in an age where many products can be duplicated en mass perfectly, basically reducing their value to near nothing. Demanding people pay for something that has little value out of some kind of moral obligation is unrealistic. Hoping they pay because they want support the creator (donor system) is a lot more plausible, though not very dependable.

I'm a musician and programmer, so it's not like I don't realize how this could pose a problem for me if I want to sell something I've created. However I don't expect the situation to ever go away... we will just have to adapt. Apple has done a great job with their iTunes store; people are willing to pay for conveinience of an easy download. I can't believe they actually get people to pay a dollar for a crappy 128 kbps mp3

 

[dr seuss]

Music shouldn't be about the money, or the music indistry; it should be about people who love to make music doing it for other people to enjoy.

there are two ways of answering your post. the first goes as follows:

should all art be free? should we make sure that graphic designers work for free? sculptors? what about chefs? authors? poets? journalists? must all these people work for free because of some higher sanctity of art? of course not - the world doesn't work that way.

and for a couple of reasons. one of them being that it costs a lot of money to make music these days. you like listening to a CD? imagine how much it has cost to get that CD to production. let's take your favourite 3-piece band. the basic setup: a bass guitar, bass pedals, bass amp, guitar, guitar pedals, guitar amp, cables, microphones, drums, and drum mics. then we add recording equipment, which has to be either purchased or hired: preamps, compressors, equalisers, outboard effects units, quiet studio spaces, mixing desks, monitors, finalisers, sonic enhancers etc. etc... then we add the cost of the CDs themselves, their cases, their booklets, the pressing of the original disc, and the subsequent production runs. on top of that add the fees to pay the people who worked on the album - recording engineers, mastering engineers, visual artists, producers, and studio monkeys.

you expect all that for free? it. is. not. going. to. happen. if you don't believe me, try walking into an art gallery / restaurant / concert hall / bookshop and helping yourself. let me know how it goes! :D

the second way of answering your point is to say what i said previously:

1. i love music and i love to share music.

if you know me, or bump into me at a party, or ask me nicely, i will send you some music for free. this is partially because i believe music is more than money and partially because i like to share my music with people. i do not think music should ever be a strictly commercial experience.

2. otherwise please please please buy the fucking cd.

i am a recording and gigging musician. and i don't personally know any professional musicians who think people should download everyone's music for free. and this has nothing to do with greed.

i have probably spent nearly $10,000 on music-production-related expenses over the years. i spent this money without a second thought. i post music for free downloads myself. i give CDs to people. i play at parties for free.

and when i do get returns from my effort, love, investment and energy, you know what i do with them? i pour them straight back into making my studio better and making more music.

but hey - apparently i should do it for love. i guess i'll eat grass!

or actually - perhaps i should just take your paychecks instead...

 

[Pegasus]

Seuss, your situation is quite a bit different than the average band I can download a torrent for. I don't feel that artists shouldn't get paid for their work; however, the capatalist society I live in dictates that my money resources are very limited, and I cannot afford to go spend a few hundred dollars purchasing the music I would like to enjoy. Until the price of a few CDs doesn't bankrupt me, I will continue to let the people with expendable resources support the musicians. (Bourgeoisie or higher)