Piracy and its effects

[wub]

There is absolutely no way you can construe fule sharing as theft, under any definition.

Not paying for something that is for sale = theft.

So you stole that photo in your avatar? Just trying to follow your logic here

I don't have a copy of that photo on my hard drive, I'm linking to it off site.

In a similar sense, if I embedded a Soundcloud tune in my signature of a track I liked, that wouldn't be stealing. But if I downloaded/fileshared/pirated a copy of that track onto my computer, that would be stealing.

[AllNightDayDream]

There is no distinction because the utility is the same. You can listen to music whether you "have" it or not. You can look at a photo, watch a film, etc. So I'm not stealing revenue if I listen to tracks a thousand times on YouTube, but if I download it and never listen to it at all it's all of a sudden stealing? How does that make sense?

[wub]

There is no distinction because the utility is the same. You can listen to music whether you "have" it or not. You can look at a photo, watch a film, etc. So I'm not stealing revenue if I listen to tracks a thousand times on YouTube, but if I download it and never listen to it at all it's all of a sudden stealing? How does that make sense?

I really don't know how to explain my viewpoint any clearer without repeating myself

Listening to a track that has been uploaded on Soundcloud != theft
Illegally downloading a copy through filesharing etc = theft.

If people don't want to pay for stuff, fair enough. It's just my belief that you should buy music whereever possible.

[AllNightDayDream]

It's not theft, because you aren't taking anything from someone. You make the same assumption Wmg does, that if someone couldn't download a song, they would surely buy it. It's empirically false. If listening to a song I didn't pay for from my drive is robbing revenue, then listening to a song from someone else's hard drive is robbing revenue too. You don't follow your logic all the way when you say "taking something without paying for it is stealing". Music is not an actual object, an object is only a medium. The utility of music, e.g. Listening to it, is where the money value of music comes from and that's why an original pressing of anti war dub costs multiple times more than any lesser known pressing that didn't cost any more to actually produce. If the file or medium itself were the basis of cost, longer songs would be more expensive at Juno.

So I am "taking" the music just the same whether I take it from soundcloud or from my hard drive. Even in streaming, the file exists temporarily in your computer so the data is actually in your possession anyway. I believe people should buy music if they value it, and I believe filesharing is a great way to determine value. But before any real debate can be had, this whole notion that it is theft to listen to music you didn't pay for has to be fully acknowledged or done away with.

[wub]

And again;

Copying = stealing
Listening != stealing

[AllNightDayDream]

If I steal your bike, you have to walk home.

If I copy your bike, we can cruise together.

Copy =\= stealing.

[wub]

If I steal your bike, you have to walk home.

If I copy your bike, we can cruise together.

Copy =\= stealing.

You wouldn't be copying the bike, you'd be taking another bike from the bike shop instead of paying for it.

Taking something without paying for it is called stealing.

[AllNightDayDream]

Bike shop still has just as many bikes to sell. Files are infinitely abundant and cheap, which even emphasizes the point further.

[wub]

Bike shop still has just as many bikes to sell.

No, it has one less as you took one without paying.

Files are infinitely abundant and cheap, which even emphasizes the point further.

The abundance of something should not act as a justification for stealing it. My local supermarket has lots of loaves of breads; doesn't mean I help myself without paying.

[AllNightDayDream]

I copied a bike, NOT from the store, albeit without paying for it. Supply is unchanged.

And we're not talking about bikes or bread, which are very finite. The simple fact that any collection of digital data can be reproduced infinitely at no cost makes it worthless. Infinite supply, finite demand. That's why consumers virtually determine their own price for media at their personal perceived values. Under this entirely new system, music is still being made, in unprecedented quantities, exploring uncharted territory, and artists can still find success except much quicker and cheaper. If the industry was actually the victim of mass robbery, there'd be no more music, no more labels, but as we see the opposite is true.

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

If I steal your bike, you have to walk home.

If I copy your bike, we can cruise together.

Copy =\= stealing.

Can you copy me a bike? Mine got stolen last year from my shed and I really miss it.

[Today]

if there's an attempt at justifying piracy in here... i missed it.
It's intellectual property. not nuts and bolts and tires on a bike.
If the owner allows streaming/widgets, then streaming it or embedding it is not theft. If they don't allow downloading, then illicitly sourcing a download of it for your own possession, is theft.
When SME, EMI, Universal, and Warner block youtube rips of their material, its because they did not authorize the publishing of their material for free streaming via youtube. It's intellectual property.
No one is interested in the monetary value of the physical mediums that carry the property -- hard drives, servers, compact discs, ipods. So talking about a bike is ridiculous. Talking about "copying" a bike is ridiculous and just derails the discussion. The asset is the ability to hear the property, and the owner must be able to choose where, when, and how people are able to consume their property. Otherwise, there's no protection for their investment, no returns, no incentive to go into business, and no more significant investment in the music industry -- that is, unless you have the sound and looks necessary to sell Sprite, Adidas, HP laptops with Beats Audio integrated and other worthless hype gimmicks

[Brothulhu]

Personally I never pirate music from independent artists and small labels, I see the large labels (WMG, Sony etc) as greedy bastards so they don't get my money.

Software wise I stick to the golden rule of piracy, which you see every time you download pirated software - never make money from pirated software. As a complete production novice I can't justify the cost of software at the moment but I'm sure I'll keep improving and I'll soon feel it necessary to buy my software.

[wub]

Personally I never pirate music from independent artists and small labels, I see the large labels (WMG, Sony etc) as greedy bastards so they don't get my money.

So only steal from those that can afford it?

Software wise I stick to the golden rule of piracy, which you see every time you download pirated software - never make money from pirated software. As a complete production novice I can't justify the cost of software at the moment but I'm sure I'll keep improving and I'll soon feel it necessary to buy my software.

Why not use freeware alternatives?

[Today]

In the past 5 years i haven't stolen a single song. I have bought a lot and taken a lot of time to dig through my parents and grandparents CD's, archiving the good stuff. So i have a great collection of legit music (and lossless quality is well worth it).
to be honest i would steal music again if the artist was dead or already filthy rich/owned by a major
But i wouldn't pretend it isn't stealing
by the time i got into dubstep, filesharing was a bleak memory from my misguided teen years. These are all indies with mouths to feed.. anyone who steals that shit is a tnuc, especially if you dj..

i know its not a great justification, but if i'm honest, i'd have no problem lifting a copy of Michael Jackson or Dark Side Of The Moon from the Borders in the mall (granted i knew i'd get away with it)
But i wouldn't dream of stealing deep medis from my local even if it were as easy as downloading a .rar

[ultraspatial]

File sharing (NOT piracy the word piracy demonizes It)

I agree. Piracy actually implies somebody profiting directly from it.

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

Allnightdaydream. The difference is law. We may not agree with certain aspects of it but The Law is what governs us as a society and to a large degree what we base our morals on as members of society.

Yes it would all be much better if we lived in a state of ideal socialism where money didn't exist and everyone did things for the betterment of Society, but we don't. Money is a necessary evil because a large portion of humans are inherently corrupt and ego-centric in the west. I despise the monetary system but I understand its purpose and have become mature enough to look at our society with realistic eyes and respect that personal input is rewarded through monetary gain.

As different things are consumed in a different manner laws have to be put in place to ensure the correct reward is returned to the original creator for works of people consuming their property through the medium the property was designed for. These laws are in place to keep balance within our economy that is vital for keeping the relative value of our society afloat, ensuring we as members of society are able to carry on living in relative comfort.

Pirating/stealing (r.e: not putting in what you take out) is essentially draining a very small amount of the value of society and of course should be frowned upon. Again though this is an ideal view because we all know how corrupt the people that control the largest amounts of money are and how much they steal from the rest of society and other societies, which is where the argument for piracy sometimes being necessary/excusable comes from. That the companies from which you are stealing have capitalized far more than their relative worth e.t.c. Which is the angle you should be trying to come from, not some half baked idealism about non physical property, which the original creator of has rights over its consumption. They can make it free (free ware/open source), or reserve some or all of the rights to its consumption as a product.

You create. You choose. But start putting your time and energy into your craft, something you spend you life doing to put food on your table and see how you feel when people are using your product without paying you and trying to argue some quazi valid point about your property being non physical. Kay?

See i don't mind really expensive daws being pirated or other really expensive equipment being pirated by young talented individuals that literally have no other way of getting the equipment they need to develop their craft if there were no free alternative (Reaper, CM magazine cough cough) if they are one day going to be able ot put back into the industry because of this, eventually buying the equipment they used for free before they could afford it. see i see that as more of an investment. But consuming something greedily and with no intent of ever repaying anything is unavoidably immoral, there's no argument.

What's worse is pirating music thinking its ok because its 'non physical' while not taking into consideration the man hours gone into developing the product. The Artist, the mixing engineer, the mastering engineer, the studio technicians, the distribution agencies and so on. All of these people need to be paid for their work. The only thing distributing tunes over Itunes or something similar is cutting out the cost of producing CDs/Records, which is actually only a very small amount of the overall cost of production. Everyone else still needs somewhere to get money from.

So every time you pirate a song instead of pay for it, you are consuming a product for free and not paying all of these people for their work while consuming their work.

Make sense to you now?

[cmgoodman1226]

For software, I usually pirate it first. If I like it, I'll buy it, if not, I'll delete it. If there's a demo available that allows you free reign over the plugin for a certain amount of time (like the fab filter plugins for instance), I'll download the official demo first. But a lot of times the demo version won't give you full access to the plugin, which is personally something that I want before I shell out 200 dollars for an EQ. In regards to music, I try to buy it whenever I can, but a lot of times I just don't have the money to afford it. I'm not trying to justify it (I know what I am doing is not right), but it's just the reality of it. However, If I like the artist or the track, I'm going to go to their shows and buy the merch. Once again that doesn't justify my actions, but I do try to support the artists in any way that I can.

[VirtualMark]

Interesting thread. I'll share my views on piracy too.

Firstly, i think that a lot of producers need to get with the times. Since napster, music has been available for free on the web. This has fundamentally changed the music business model, and most switched on people have realised they need to find other revenues than just music sales. From what i gather, live performances can bring in a lot of money, so it would even make sense to get your music out there for free if you're looking to get noticed. Then get the money from live shows later on.

As for piracy, i'm pretty sure we've all done it. I openly admit that i download the shit out of everything i can find. Movies, games, music, software etc. Its nothing to be ashamed of, i still spend money on stuff. I go out to see dj's and pay ticket prices, i go to the cinema etc. But you won't find me shelling out £20 for a new blu ray movie, no chance. Especially when they just release the directors cut or extended version a few months later, and charge a premium again.

If i download tunes i only keep the ones i want. I don't profit from them, they're just for personal listening. I could download spotify and listen for free, but i prefer to have a hard copy and not rely on bandwidth all the time. The end result is the same - i listen to tunes for free. Plus the fact that i could legally tape from the radio, then have a copy i can listen to for free. sod that, i'll just download it. whats the difference? if someone points out law, i literally couldn't give a fuck about the law. doing something illegal is not necessarily doing something immoral. i think people find it hard to distinguish between the two these days, and just believe whatever crap the government pass down to them. since i've been alive i've noticed several 'crimes' being invented. i've personally been fined for the 'crime' of not wearing my seatbelt, what a joke. anyhow, the point i'm making is that law is not morals, its just another system of control. and my belief is that i'm not doing anything immoral by listening to music for free. if i broke into someones house and stole the tunes from their laptop, that would be immoral. but when its sat there on the internet, and is being played on radios, they've already sent it out into the universe. i am merely receiving it.

As for using freeware vs cracked vst's - seriously? I'll use the cracked vst's all day long over the inferior freeware. End result either way, the company gets no money. If anyone can explain why freeware is a good alternative to cracked software, i'm all ears. I personally can't see any difference. I can't use all of the vst's i've downloaded anyway, so i'm really just trying them out and using the ones that work well for me. i have to say that i'm more inclined to buy a well thought out, well supported and reasonably priced product, and i'm going to buy stuff when i start making money as that is what i consider fair. but for now, i need to find what works for me, theres no way i'm spending thousands on plugins that i might or might not use.

And one other thing i really hate about some software - over zealous copy protection. As far as i'm concerned, if i buy software, its mine. I couldn't give a fuck what the small print says, i want to be able to use it. So what if i install it on 2 computers? I can't use it on both at the same time, and would only install it on both for convenience reasons. i take my laptop everywhere i go, and keep my desktop at home. so i don't want any hassle with copy protection. and as for dongles - i will never ever use one. my pc is super slick, there is no software or hardware that doesn't absolutely need to be there. so why would i want to jam up a usb port for copy protection? then have the system sending and receiving data to that dongle, when its supposed to be processing my audio. no thanks, i'll just get the cracked version. and i'll always do that for companies that treat their customers like criminals. my friend lost his dongle for logic, they wanted to charge him £60 for another one. so he just downloaded the newer cracked version. The result was that apple lost a sale through being dicks to a loyal customer(he's not usually into piracy but this pissed him off).

So to summarize, my beliefs are:

1) Personal use of stuff thats available on the web is ok. Maybe illegal, but not immoral.

2) If you are a professional and use a product a lot, then think about buying it. If you really like it and the company goes out of business, that would suck. Same goes for tunes, if you dj, you should be buying them. If you're making money from it, then its only fair to pay someone else their share.

3) Companies or individuals that try to impose unfair terms on the sale of their stuff, can fuck off. I will never pay for this stuff and always torrent it. I believe i'm doing humanity a favour, as they need to know how to treat customers fairly.

4) there is a definite difference between downloading an mp3 and stealing a car. the mp3 is data, it does no harm when downloaded. the car is physical and would be sorely missed if stolen.

5) piracy can actually help artists get noticed. if a dj plays your tunes out, thats free publicity. and as we all know, any publicity is good publicity. people definitely need to wake up and realise this.

6) i don't like big corporations that couldn't care less about you. just take a look through the cubase forums, theres threads there from years back, with people pleading with steinberg to fix bugs or add features. some of the threads don't even get answered. they've got the money from those people, as you can't post without a serial number. and they've just totally ignored the customers. and i'm expected to give them my money? lol. just using cubase as an example, but there are a lot of other companies like this, and they'll never get my money.

7) i'm not saying that piracy is right or wrong, just that i don't care. you can't fight human nature, so why worry about it. if its available for free, there will always be a percentage of people choosing the free option. especially people like myself who don't see 'the law' as some wise entity.

[Earjax]

To be honest, most of the people who pirate wouldn't buy it in the first place.

I think music is different, because lets be honest it isn't that expensive, software however, is a different matter as most people can't afford any of the overpriced quality plugins out there. Youtube downloaders need to be done with, this is what is hurting the underground, and majorly, promoters. Without youtube downloaders there would be no way to get hold of underground music illegally (easily), it would also even up the odds a little between the main and the undergound, because the more popular artists would be torrented whilst the less popular would have no seeders and uploaders. People who use Youtube downloaders have no intention of buying the product afterwards as well.