Internet Piracy, and why you should pay for things

[eleven59]

Just some things to think about.

[Adam Of Angels]

"Why should you pay for things?"

- because its not supposed to be available to you for free.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by Adam Of Angels

"Why should you pay for things?"

- because its not supposed to be available to you for free.

Yep, that's a large part of it.

[Adam Of Angels]

It's the only reason that there needs to be. Every other reason is a matter of perspective.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by Adam Of Angels

It's the only reason that there needs to be. Every other reason is a matter of perspective.

And understanding another person's perspective is vital for communication.

[Adam Of Angels]

I'm not at all digging on your perspective, man - I agree with you entirely. I'm just saying that this matter comes up all the time and I think its almost a little sad that most people don't see the price tag as enough reason to justify actually paying for music/media. The same people would take legal action if they went to work and didn't get paid.

[Randy]

I agree with your conclusions. There's one or two points that I might... less than agree on or at least feel necessary to expand on.

Piracy, to the degree of acceptance you're talking about, is mostly prevalent in high school kids. Most adults I know purchase their music/software/movies legally these days. It's a necessary distinction because an adult is more likely to carry out the crime out of convenience or conscious justification of doing it, but a kid is more likely to do it out of desperation (I have no money, I want it and I don't understand the implications to people trying to live off that which I'm pirating). In that sense, short of giving everything away for free, you can't really convince that segment to stop pirating through reasoning.

I don't think 'pirating' is a term thrown out there to "make it sound cool or acceptable". It's also not 'stealing'.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by Randy

I agree with your conclusions. There's one or two points that I might... less than agree on or at least feel necessary to expand on.

Piracy, to the degree of acceptance you're talking about, is mostly prevalent in high school kids. Most adults I know purchase their music/software/movies legally these days. It's a necessary distinction because an adult is more likely to carry out the crime out of convenience or conscious justification of doing it, but a kid is more likely to do it out of desperation (I have no money, I want it and I don't understand the implications to people trying to live off that which I'm pirating). In that sense, short of giving everything away for free, you can't really convince that segment to stop pirating through reasoning.

I don't think 'pirating' is a term thrown out there to "make it sound cool or acceptable". It's also not 'stealing'.

You make some good points, though mostly from a regional perspective. Here in Canada, where we've fought off anti-piracy laws, I'd say middle aged people pirate as much or more than their kids, and teach them that it's ok. There's no transition as they get older, they just get too used to not paying for things.

And it is stealing. Period.

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by Adam Of Angels

I'm not at all digging on your perspective, man - I agree with you entirely. I'm just saying that this matter comes up all the time and I think its almost a little sad that most people don't see the price tag as enough reason to justify actually paying for music/media. The same people would take legal action if they went to work and didn't get paid.

I agree, their attitude sucks, but I don't think new laws will fix it as well as a change in cultural attitude.

I've personally witnessed someone look down on someone for not bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, and then talk about how stealing music and movies over the Internet isn't a big deal because everybody does it. Again, not a young person.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by eleven59

And it is stealing. Period.

I consider stealing to be when you take something from somebody else and they no longer to that item. Physical property. Taking something that can be replicated infinitely at zero cost is still dishonest but does not fit my definition of stealing.

That's probably somewhere we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Adam Of Angels]

Originally Posted by Randy

I consider stealing to be when you take something from somebody else and they no longer to that item. Physical property. Taking something that can be replicated infinitely at zero cost is still dishonest but does not fit my definition of stealing.

That's probably somewhere we'll have to agree to disagree.

If the item is intended to put a certain amount of money in the seller's/artist's hands each and every time that item finds its way into a new owner's hands, then it is effectively stolen when a new owner has acquired said item without the seller/artist receiving the money for it. That is, assuming that it isn't just handed over to somebody as a gift... there's a strict difference between ONE disc being bought and then given as a gift, and one disc being bought, then copied and given as a gift.

[Randy]

I totally get where people are coming from when they take up that argument but I just disagree with that being stealing.

I have a company doing consulting, website design and marketing. We offer free initial consultations and sometimes (not that often, now) offer free proposals. I can't count the number of times people took what they got from that initial meeting or proposal, and did the project on their own/in-house. That sucks and it's dishonest but that's not stealing, only because those people were not going to buy my service/product, regardless.

If you were so inclined you can argue that every pirated copy of your CD is somebody stealing $15-$20 from you but that doesn't make it true.

[Adam Of Angels]

Apples can be grown and duplicated almost infinitely, as far as any of us are concerned. That doesn't mean we can go into the store and take as many as we want. That's stealing.

[wespaul]

Growing and duplicating are two different things.

If I can duplicate apples at home then I'm not stealing them from the store.

I agree with Randy. Just because we don't consider it the definition of stealing doesn't make it in any better. It just requires different wording - like piracy.

[UnderTheSign]

Does changing the definition make piracy any better, though?

[somniumaeternum]

I don't advocate piracy. To play devil's advocate here though:

Something that's missing here that factors into a lot of people's perspective is the immoral value of inflated prices. I believe that if albums were resonably priced, any kid could be able to fork over the money instead of resort to piracy.

I've heard many artists express that they don't care about piracy because it gets them more exposure. A lot of anti-piracy is pushed by upper managers at publishing companies because it drops their bottom line, NOT the artist.

Music nowdays is traded as a commodity instead of for intrinsic artistic value. This whole sale whoring of the industry is highly pushed by publishers to increase sales, but it's a fabricated demand to a large extent and it's forcing bands to pop out albums every 3-4 months that, in a lot of cases, have only a handful of quality tracks. All this while the price goes up.

The roles of piracy aren't defined, because, in a lot of ways, they're not definable. What if you "backup" a CD? What if you rip it? What if you put it online? You own a license for it so you can do this. Trying to intimidate someone into not doing something that they have legal right to is pretty ....ed but it's one of the more easily identified control points.

If you buy "imported" cds, you can easily pay 30 bucks for something that could be purchased for half that in country. Sure there are taxes, duties, etc. But, realistically, they're only "imported" because of a company decision. And if they were just imported you'd pay more for shipping, instead of paying twice for shipping AND price.

Signed musicians don't usually make that much money off albums, it's mostly from touring & merch. So if you wanted to support them (which is the argument a lot of people pull), you could pirate all their albums and with the money you saved go to a couple of their shows and buy a T-shirt. They'd (usually) get a much bigger cut. So it's not even really a question of supporting the artist.

I feel that this is all for the sake of some exec somewhere making 10 mil instead of 20 mil a year. That's why most people don't care I think.

I don't pirate stuff because I like having the tangible album in hand (I know, old school right? ), and because overall I think it's unethical (due to the clear point that Adam mentioned). But do I understand it? Oh yeah.

Why do consumers have to be ethical while producers are free to ram it up the consumers ass over and over?

[Splinterhead]

Ok, I'll bite. Hopefully this'll make sense. :-)

Doesn't duplicating something decrease its value? Say I wrote a paper, a long one, for physics. Everybody in class had to do it. Somehow somebody got a hold of my paper and copied it and made copies for everybody in the class. I didn't lose my paper but now all my hard work has been freely given to anybody who desired it... for free. The market (class) was saturated so now my time and effort has been deprecated 'cause everybody has my work and I feel like shit 'cause I wasn't compensated. (not that I would've sold my paper in first place, but you get the idea.) I dunno man, I always thought that if you take something that wasn't yours it was stealing. Maybe I'm old school.

[Randy]

I dunno. Does an album selling millions of copies diminish it's value? I suppose from a perspective of rarity = value, maybe... but that's a stretch.

[Adam Of Angels]

I understand all points being made here. However, if an artist doesn't mind their music being spread around for free, they shouldn't sign contracts that give record companies the right to put a price on the music.

[Randy]

I don't think anybody's really been arguing to the contrary. Piracy is unethical and, if the artist doesn't want the music to be available for free, then it shouldn't be. I think we're pretty much all on the same page there.

The only reason I saw fit to chime in here is:

1.) I disagree with the term "stealing" being used to describe piracy.

2.) Not to say all artists should be forced to release their material for free but there are a LOT of artists (and record companies) who have learned to make money without piracy effecting their business model at all. Again, not trying to say EVERYONE needs to take this same path but I don't necessarily favor aggressive laws/regulations that overstep that issue, just to protect those who are stubborn and refuse to retool.

Food for thought. Leaks? Not to let people "behind the curtain" too much but, as a moderator here, I've had more than one time that I've banned people for posting links to "leaked albums", only to find out they were authorized by the bands/companies. We're talking major artists on big labels.

[Xaios]

That's some weird astroturfing stuff right there.

Just to be clear, did the record company in these cases authorize people to pass on the links to "leaked" releases because they actually wanted people to download and listen to it? Or were they doing so in order to catch people in the act? Because if it's the latter, even though I'm wholeheartedly against piracy, that's entrapment.

[Randy]

The former.

[Xaios]

Ah. Interesting. Sounds like some of the labels have gotten wise and are starting to use pirates' sense of anti-corporatism and general "screw the man" attitude to their benefit. How wonderfully subversive.

[Splinterhead]

Originally Posted by Randy

I dunno. Does an album selling millions of copies diminish it's value? I suppose from a perspective of rarity = value, maybe... but that's a stretch.

You have a great point.
I'm not necessarily thinking about rarity. Its more about demand. My silly example regarding the physics paper is more about the effort to write it. The info that is in it can be readily gathered anywhere.

Also I guess I'm thinking about my own situation and others like me who don't deal with a record company. Independent artists count on whatever income they can get. Unfortunately we get included under that mindset of it being "ok" to download the music we put huge amounts of effort in to make.

I kind of understand that copying something isn't necessarily stealing it per se, but it took the musician a lot longer to create it than for someone to spend 45seconds copying it.

[Fiction]

Originally Posted by UnderTheSign

Does changing the definition make piracy any better, though?

I'll just point out, no one said that changing the definition makes it any better. It's still unethical, just some things can be labelled differently. I do agree with randy on the point of no physical loss, they may lose a sale, but the buyer may never even planned on buying/downloading the album, so they lose the chance at a sale.. It's still wrong though.