Thing is though, filesharing is not theft, stealing the bread from ASDA is.
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Illegal file sharing on the Internet, what should we do?
- Thread starter SiD the Turtle
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Thing is though, filesharing is not theft, stealing the bread from ASDA is.
Soldato
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its not being tight or lazy thought is it, how can downloading for free be lazy vs paying for it and then downloading it?
If I really want a film I go buy it, if a games company doesn't do a demo, I'm not gonna pay for it without testing it. I really don't understand your logic.
There clearly is a difference.
If you'd bothered to read on you would have seen where I explained that anyone attempting to say there is a difference because online you are not stealing anything "physical" but in a store you are is incorrect.
It is still taking something that simply doesn't belong to you.
A rose by any other name.....
Call it "legally" what you like - posts as above usually appear when people get uncomfortable being called thieves. (not accusing you poster, not in any way shape or form - just saying that is when I usually read such a post).
I did 'bother' to read on. There clearly is a difference.
As above - a rose by any other name...
It's not theft in your eyes because there is little chance of getting caught and you haven't "walked off with a physical product".
You have however still taken something without permission of the owner and not paid for it - this differs from direct "off the shelf theft" how?
My exact quote:
Any argument about that being "different" is wrong - there is no difference.
If you're going to try and use the well overused argument about "it costing nothing because your not downloading anything physical" then don't.
There are a lot more costs involved in producing music, software or games than simply taking the code and burning it to a CD or DVD.
If you're going to use the "costs nothing" argument then only the first ever copy of a game, album or piece of software should actually be sold as all future copies cost "nothing".
As you can see, my quote is stating that there is no difference with the exception of "thieving something physical".
Any attempt to say that there is a "difference" in stealing online or from a store and then using any of the arguments I mentioned would be, in my opinion, incorrect.
So you're saying that other than one massive difference, there's no difference?
It is not theft because in order for theft to occur you must be depriving someone else of the object that you are taking. You can have online theft, if you were to take the the file, delete it from the persons machine afterwards. That would be technically theft as you are taking someone else's thing and they are losing that thing.
However, with filesharing you are making a copy (of a copy). The original person still has their file, the record company still has their master file. No-one is having anything taken from them.
Theft requires TAKING rather than COPYING, that is the major distinction.
If you remove that distinction, does that mean that everytime you make a photocopy you are stealing?
As far as I know there is no where legally to buy the above. Instead they offer mp3 which is a cut down version compared to CD. Sorry but I'm not going to pay for mp3 from itunes/whatever legal music source when there is better quality about from different sources.
DRM penalises the honest customer plain & simple. Maybe if they woke up to the fact that not everyone wants mp3/DRM riddled avis/mpegs, CDs/DVD cluttering my/our home maybe they would get somewhere. They are not offering alternatives instead we are locked into what they think is best for us.
Should also add to this that if I brought a CD/DVD & ripped it to my computer to have on my iphone/computer that is illegal in UK law, Why the hell should i have to pay again for something I've already paid for?
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Caporegime
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It's not a massive difference though. If you plugged a USB drive into J K Rowling's PC and downloaded the latest Harry Potter book, that is theft, clear as a bell, yet you've stolen nothing physical.
In my opinion the difference is clear, despite morally being similar. I am of the opinion that they cannot be compared directly due to the physical removal of the goods as in theft...the 'loss' encountered by piracy is academic as only the person who acquired the copy knows if they would have otherwise bought it. With theft the shop loses out as they physically cannot sell that particular item regardless of whether the thief would have otherwise purchased it for a lower price. Take the morals out of that and tell me how you can't see a difference?
To add my own opinion to the matter, I think most things are priced reasonably but agree with the argument that pirated movies/TV shows etc. can be of higher quality. I don't mean necessarily in terms of picture quality or suchlike (though sometimes they can be), but in terms of not having to sit there 5 minutes watching trailers and ironically messages telling me not to pirate a DVD I've just bought because I wouldn't steal a car
This means any DVD/HD-DVD I buy's first use is to rip it to my PC removing the crap in the process.Personally short of cracking down very hard on P2P users I don't see a solution to people downloading things illegally.
A lot of the arguments about online piracy killing business for market pirates seem reasonable and by the very nature of the Internet I think it's impossible to substantially reduce the amount of material downloaded. Bittorrent is seen as being more risky nowadays due to the letters being sent out so people simply move to Rapidshare/Usenet where it's equally easy to acquire such material.
Unless it gets to the stage where people are scared to illegally download an album because there's a good chance of a large fine being attached to it then no-one's going to stop downloading. Pirate Bay is in the news at the moment with claims that they have almost 15 million users a day. Small time users are simply playing the numbers game as even if the record industry are picking out a number of users to chase, that number will no doubt be comparitively small due to administration costs and so the chances of that particular user being selected must be very slim.
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Depends, if you enter her house it could be theft. If however her computer is in public it would probably have to be covered by something from the Computer Misuse Act.
Thats just the sort of petty argument that ruins the debate, the i'm not stealing anything because it's copyright infringment not theft debate is just pointless the outcome is the same you've gotten something that you should have paid for without paying for it. Hide behind that argument all you like it doesn't make downloading right.
I always find it funny to listen to people claiming that their torrent site is at fault, then watch the torrent site turn round and say the opposite, so many people think they know things about the legality of file sharing, and yet so few people actually do.
I'm not hiding behind it, I'm simply pointing out that there is a difference in law (and in the meanings of the words).
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Here's an example of non-sense-making from the big networks:
http://lifehacker.com/5156151/hulu-blocks-boxee-tvcom-kicks-early-adopters-in-the-face
Basically the content providers have blocked access to what could be a massive revenue input, possibly because it's not a portal they control.
http://lifehacker.com/5156151/hulu-blocks-boxee-tvcom-kicks-early-adopters-in-the-face
Basically the content providers have blocked access to what could be a massive revenue input, possibly because it's not a portal they control.