To see piracy as the same as theft?

[SquidgeOps]

Cos it is right? Sure, the software/film companies are loaded. But so are retail stores and supermarkets etc. Why is it any different from stealing?

'It's not that I don't want contrary opinions. It's that I don't put much stock in the opinions of those who approve'

Good grief, I didn't say I approve, I have never stolen anything whether a physical object or an illegal download. I was merely pointing out, what I see to be, the differences.

squoosh I really do not understand your rationalising here.

Of course it is theft, just because it is not a physical entity does not make it any less so.

What is the difference in stealing a book from Waterstones, and downloading from a friends computer?

I am by no means innocent here, I am just not going to try and think I have been squeaky clean.

Agree - my DH is a musician and he hardly makes any money out of it anyway. Every time someone downloads his music illegally they are stealing from him. It's rife though - I am constantly amazed by the amount of acquaintances I see chatting on FB about sharing USB sticks with illegally downloaded kids films on. I think some of them don't even think they're doing anything wrong.

Incidentally, my DD's school recently did a screening of 'Frozen' for the kids - several weeks before it's released on DVD. I'm still wondering how they pulled that one off, (my DD didn't go, we've already seen it, and I felt uncomfortable about the whole thing to be honest). If anyone can enlighten me as to how the school got hold of a non illegal copy that early on I would be interested to hear it .

The suppliers need to pull their fingers out & start to get a bit more savvy - Game of Thrones is a great example actually. Most people would quite happily have viewed it legitimately, but it was made almost impossible to do so unless you changed your whole TV package - which wasn't going to happen!

Good Example Here

So the people that "stole" it didn't actually steal anything, they would never have had access to it in the first place.

And actually the fact that people downloaded pirate versions of the show didn't affect DVD Sales at all - because as soon as that program was available on a media they could get hold of legitimately, they did.

HBO Piracy a Compliment

People are more savvy with their money nowadays & resent buying an album to discover half the songs are monotonous filler put on there to pad it out, so why not download it & if it's any good then buy it?

And there's more -

Pirates Buy More Music

So whiles it's easy to jump on the bandwagon that the big corporations are rolling out, most of the time it's that they're woefully slow in catching up with how punters are using media nowadays - remember the cries of "Taping Songs will kill the Music Industry" in the 80's??

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.....

Well, you're wrong technically. It isn't theft, that has a specific meaning and piracy doesn't fall under it.

I illegally download Greys Anatomy every week because America gets it earlier and I don't want to wait.

I am however paying Sky £76 a month and they are the ones that carry it.

Yes I'm doing something illegal but there's no deprivation.

I don't download music etc.

I have to admit that in my teens I taped songs from the Top 40 (Showing my age!) but I have since grown up and I do not illegally download anything, whether it's a film or some music.

It's wrong and it is theft IMHO.

I'm understand the points about companies needing to come up with better solutions etc.

Maybe I should have worded my question "is it morally okay" cos all I am reading is ppl trying to justify breaking the law.

Caruthers - exactly! The same people complaining are the same people that made a killing in the first dot.com bubble. The world went digital to make all the facebook/ebay/Skype/Microsoft etc billionaires and the millionaires that fed off from them and all the other well-paid people in their organisations. I personally find it a bit rich to then try and turn it off once they see that they could be making even more money. I have a very close relative that works for Microsoft for example and, trust me, they make plenty out of subscription services like Xbox Live, Office 365 etc which aren't overly affected by software piracy (all of which took an army of well-paid developers, testers, DBAs, system admins, marketing people, HR people and project managers to develop - and the same again to maintain and develop it).

Thinking about it further, I think there's a difference between pirating different things as well. If someone misses the last episode of a tv show that's just stopped being available on iplayer, say, and finds it online instead of shelling out for the whole boxset, getting a Netflix account that they'd never use otherwise, etc... I don't really see how that's hurting anyone, as they wouldn't have paid for it in the first place. On the other hand, stealing an album that you'd listen to over and over, or something from independent developers, would be a far bigger deal imo. Like the difference between slipping an apple in your bag at Asda and doing the same with a vodka bottle at your local corner shop, maybe.

home taping is killing music!!

honestly, i cant get worked up about record companies losing 'potential' profits, considering theyve engineered it so the entire music industry is manufactured bands that are the whipped bitches of corporate moguls such as simon cowell.

the record companies can kiss my arse

I see your point, but you think slipping an apple in your bag at Asda is okay?!

I agree with squoosh and morgause.

Just can't find the passion to get worked up about it. Or give it much of a second thought tbh.

all I am reading is ppl trying to justify breaking the law

I realise I'm on dangerous ground here but I do think that things being illegal doesn't necessarily make them wrong (or vice versa). Whether it's morally ok to pirate thingsis a different matter from whether it's legal, imo.

Anything pirated we like, we buy an original. It's very important to support musical artists. Most of the marginal stuff, we wouldn't have bought anyway.

well, I've managed to watch all of GoT without downloading it or having the right TV package - just waited for the DVD - if you do that each time, the wait between series is no different. What you are talking about is people's lack of patience, like a demanding toddler, foot-stamping because they want it NOW!

MajorGrinch you're using ancient data to support your ideas; the whole idea that pirates buy more music went out with free Spotify subscriptions - the try before you buy theory. It's only in extremely unusual cases that you can't acquire music to listen to for free from LEGITIMATE sites nowadays so there really is no excuse for piracy - you can get it legitimately and free.
And for Branleuse and those who believe it's about record company profits, it's record companies, music publishers, the artists, producers, studio engineers, session players, studio operators, instrument hire companies, songwriters, shops (RIP HMV), shop assistants, etc etc. Don't be willfully naive to justify what's convenient to you. Why the f*ck would you steal what you can get for free legally anyway?

As for forago suggesting that gaming marketers are well paid... I guess she's not in the industry (which by the way is one of the UK's great growth businesses - we are a huge success in the world of gaming, and it's a good employer)

I don't use Microsoft, it kept crashing. I use a free Linux distro, which was developed by Red Hat, who usually charge for their proprietary software, but issued their Fedora OS as a free to share program.

I don't use any BitTorrent sites, I know people who do and don't look down my nose at them.

Love the IT Crowd.

Those anti piracy ads are so annoying as you can't skip over them. I always shout 'I've bought this DVD legally, you don't need to preach to me!'

Ha SquidgeOps I just read that back and realised it sounded like I was condoning shoplifting... I don't think it's right, but there are lots of things that aren't good, like lying, or talking about people behind their backs, or even thinking bad things about other people, that people do all the time. I don't really see the point of getting worked up about someone occasionally stealing fruit from Asda (say) when ultimately that's unlikely to have a huge effect on their profits, if I sometimes do comparably bad things as well.

Copyright infringement, for the most part, is not a criminal offence. It's a civil matter.

It only becomes a criminal matter in this country if you're doing it on a very large scale or in the course of a business.

It's different if you live somewhere like the USA, they're a lot hotter on it being a criminal offence there.

Artists used to make money from concerts not selling CD's.

You can't pirate the experience of going to a concert.

Flogging online digital content doesn't have the same cost as making something physically and distributing it.

If it's costing them that much money to fight piracy why are they still continuing to make profit after profit?

They invented this digital age and told us all how we should make it easier for them to take our money of us...the fact that a great many people don't comply is refreshing in this compliant age we live in.

There is a pirated Kindle books group on FB that I was invited to join. Basically you make a 'donation' - all donations are private - and then the owner of the page sends you as many books as you want to your Kindle. I came off the group eventually as I felt a bit sick thinking of all those authors not getting paid. The mark up on books is ridiculous but it's not the author who is cashing in really. Plus they secure future work by how many they sell, and for a new author that type of thing is pretty devastating.

DoctorTwo I'm MNing on Linux too! Ubuntu though, I tend to stay away from the Red Hat stuff