Torrenting - Illegal and Legal issues

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That is like saying ban all alcohol because some people become violent when they drink or ban computer games because someone might try to do GTA IV in real life. These people would still do these types of things even if they didn't exist, all it would need is a different trigger.

No it doesn't make it ok. My point was that just because someone pirates something, it doesn't automatically mean the copyright holder had lost a sale.

Of course there is a bigger element to it, but I am talking about that "man on the street". Online piracy by itself is not what funds organised crime. It's the keyloggers and trojans and the resulting personal data loss is what funds it. That's just the online element, and thats not to mention the huge amount that organised gangs make on the drugs trade or fake designer goods.

Anyway, all this is digressing from the points I were trying to make.

 

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Yes but like the CCNA it needs to be renewed every so often.

 

a crime is a crime i.e against the law wether it's stealing music to armed robbery it's still a crime

Anyway I wouldn't touch a torrent site there all sorts of crap that can knacker your computer on there and the host of these sites can suck my plums as I'm not falling for any of their ****

 

I agree.

 

If it's worth using, it's worth buying. If you don't want to pay to use it, don't steal my stuff.

If everyone took that attitude, we'd go out of business, as would every other legit company making study materials. THEN who would you steal from?

You might not think so. But piracy costs jobs, whether you think it does or not. Do what you will, and tell yourself whatever you want so you can sleep at night... I'm just saying that I've personally seen the negative effects of piracy.

 

Again, if you "weren't gonna buy it in the first place", don't use it in the first place. There is NO justification for piracy.

 

Not true - regardless of what the price is, there are still going to be plenty of people who will take it for free just because they can. Why pay for it at all, regardless of the price, if it's freely available, ready for the taking? If you're gonna steal, you're gonna steal.

 

I don't pirate anything and I agree with the "if it's worth using, it's worth buying" ethos.

I'm not saying piracy has no negative effects. What I was saying is that if the person pirating was never going to buy the product in the first place, it doesn't mean that you have lost a sale. Even if the product wasn't available for pirating, that person wouldn't buy it.

I have repeated this so many times and I fear it is now being taken out of context.

I am not trying to justify piracy in any way.

 

You may not be, but pirates use that exact same rationalization to justify their own piracy.

Sorry, man... piracy hits a sore nerve with me. The people who pirate stuff instead of buying it not only cause good people to lose jobs, but also cause innocent people - legitimate customers! - to have to deal with crap like invasive or cumbersome DRM.

I'd like to say that it's a few people ruining it for the rest of us... but it's a LOT of people ruining it for the rest of us.

 

What I find interesting is you come alot of people who are downright against pirating computer software (had a discussion with someone like that in my class) but on the other hand have a stock of a couple of hundred burned movies pirated. It's a difficult matter and Michael is definately right when he says it's ALOT of people who are pirating things. But where do you draw the line? Honestly, maybe a odd comparison but take a poor men who doesnt have money even to buy some food and steals a bread, would you want that person locked away because he is hungry? Now what about a student or any young person living on it's own and having difficulty getting the bills payed every month, he wants to educate himself in it but doesnt have the money to finance it, there is no one who is gonna say hey guy because your so honest and dont want to pirate stuff and I know you cant effort it I'm gonna give you this course so you can learn and in the future get a better job and better paycheck.

Now I realize there is a HUGE, even majority of pirates who have the money to afford everything, but when I was still a little baby my mother had to eat dry bread so she could feed me something decent. Not everything has the same possibilities and it's SO easy to judge when yourself does have all the possibities, wether you earned them or got them from your parents.

And NO I'm not saying stealing is good, in fact it's against the law and I'm against piracy, but I do draw a line where I can understand why there are people who do grab something without paying it. I honestly dont even believe that there is anyone reading this who never as a student or anything had a vcr'ed movie, a copied book, illegal mp3 or a copied dvd or anything else copyright protected in their possession without having a license for it unless you come from a very rich background.

 

It seems to me that the biggest culprits are school kids downloading music. From what i can tell most of them haven't got the foggiest idea what they are downloading, they have so many MP3s on their PCs that they would never have the time to listen to them all. This is nothing but pure greed, they can get them for free, so they do. This has nothing to do with being poor or disadvantaged, we live in a world where everyone wants everything.

Most of the kids and parents i speak to have absolutely no clue that downloading copyrighted stuff off the net is illegal. People need educating, and parents need to take some responsibility.

It is *stealing*, and there is no justification for that.

 

Its a shame publishers its fail to see that DRM fails is so many ways. All DRM does is penalise the legitimate customer and give hackers new trophies to win. You wont here many users of pirated software complaining about DRM, after all its usually been stripped on or before release. If not then are are hoards of hackers working on the bounty of being the first to release it DRM free unto the "scene" gaining glory and riches for there hacking teams.

I recently bought Football Manager 2009 after much anticipation, on the day of its release in HMV, couldn't wait to get home and play it. Pop it in the drive and install it, it asks for some on-line activation, so i proceed only to find that it didn't work. Their official forums was littered with posts about it which there developers had been working on for the last to hours. My friend blissfully told me that a "scene-release" had been posted on a private tracker already and he was already playing. That's one extreme I know but its relevant in this context I feel. It still makes me mad months later. Same with X3 (space simulator game) that came with some extreme Russian DRM that disabled DVDR Drive... again happened to loads of people and the company even removed the DRM in a patch.

But back on the topic I don't think its fair be so cut throat about piracy. Comparing it to other crimes is silly also. At the end of the day, no, piracy is not the same as steal a tangible object and no it's not the same as rape. Yes a crime is a crime but crimes come with different penalties for a reason.

I think it was Microsoft itself with commented that not all piracy was bad. I think it was in the context of Windows piracy in China. Microsoft is quite happy that Windows is used there, paid for or not. As Windows is a standard and is protect by its percentage of userbase. A pirated copy of Windows is much better for Microsoft then a legitimate copy of Unix, Linux, Mac, Solris etc etc. Of course not all software developers are in such a fortunate position. The effects of piracy on smaller companies is a real shame.

Overall I am not pro-piracy but I cannot stand it when companies use it to justify such extreme DRm methods that time and time again fail to stop privacy, or even slow it down.

 

School I once worked at had 4 PCs in the computer suite with WinMX and KaZaa installed. After I did a bit of digging I was rather surprised to find out that the culprits were infact a PE teacher and the ICT teacher.

 

When you take something that doesn't belong to you... regardless of whether it's physical property or intellectual property.

Yep. Stealing is stealing. If you're hungry, there are other options where you can legally get food or get money for food. Just because you are poor doesn't give you the right to steal.

No - they do what I did: work to get the money to pay for it. I had to work a full-time, 40-hour-a-week job making between $6 and $9.83/hr to be able to afford to live on my own and go to college. And if I can work for it, everyone else can as well. If you can't afford an education, there are ways that you can legally pay for it.

Doesn't matter if everyone doesn't have "the same possibilities". You don't have the right to take what someone else has worked hard to create and sell.

Plus, this ain't food... this is entertainment (with regards to music or movies) and educational/productivity material (with regards to books and software) we're talking about here. And you dont have a God-given RIGHT to be given either of those. You don't NEED music to survive. You don't NEED movies to survive. You don't even need an education to survive.

Dude, times are tight. I really can't afford to pay for Microsoft Office. Does that mean I am entitled to use it illegally? No... I can either suck it up and earn extra money on the side to pay for it (which is what I ended up doing) or I can download OpenOffice.

My mom and dad ate beans for me to be able to have clothes on my back... so don't tell me that you can't pull yourself up by the bootstraps and work hard to make something of yourself. I'm living proof.

I did, when I was younger (back in the 80s), and didn't know any better. Now I do know better, so I don't do it. It's not mine to take.

Sure, I understand WHY people grab something without paying for it. But there's still no justification for piracy. Just because "everyone's done it" doesn't make it right.

 

It does fail in many ways. Unfortunately, without SOME form of protection, those legitimate customers will also become those who steal. Like Bluerinse says, there are simply way too many people who see nothing wrong with it.

DRM sucks, but I can see the reasoning behind it.

That's not a DRM problem, though... that's a developer implementation problem. Just because something like that happened doesn't mean there shouldn't be any form of protection... perhaps we shouldn't support the developer who didn't implement it properly.

Agreed, that sort of implementation where hardware gets disabled ought to be stopped. But there has to be some measure of protection to stop casual/non-hardcore copying and sharing of electronic content. Because the public isn't going to stop on their own out of sheer moral or ethical responsibility!! (hah, that's a laugh!!!)

 

Quick apology and clarification - I obviously wasn't comparing ZX or any of you others who are on the side of copyright theft with rapists...



The point was that all crime shares the same disregard for consequences and ultimate attitude of 'why work for it when you can get it for free' mentality (psychos excepted).

Problem is, that IP theft is often seen as a victimless crime, and one with minimal chance of being caught.

Say I want a new album.
I could go into HMV and stick it under my jacket. But then I'm obviously 'stealing'. It's something tangible that someone has made. The manager is looking at me in a funny way. There's a CCTV camera...

Or, I can just download it at home. I don't have to look the manager in the eye and the beefy security guard isn't going to pounce on me as I walk past.

But ultimately the crime has the same effect. Money that should have gone to the artist hasn't.
OK, Coldplay aren't going to go broke overnight because I did it, because album sales aren't their only source of income.

But for other companies it could be the difference between people like BM keeping their jobs or losing them.

So it isn't really vicimless...

 

Exactly right. They think they can do it anonymously from the comfort of their home. So why are people outraged when they're caught downloading something they shouldn't? They wouldn't be so bold if they were caught shoplifting.

The reason people download illegally is because they're NOT caught often enough. If they were, they wouldn't risk doing it.

For those who think that companies are only harmed if there is physical theft... that physical CD costs them about a buck to make. What costs them MUCH more is all the OTHER intangible, non-physical stuff - the publishing, the advertising, the distribution - and, most importantly, the creation of the musical work by the artist. When you illegally download music/movies/software, you're STILL stealing everything but the actual, physical media, which is a VERY small portion of the cost.

Support companies that create good products. The good companies will survive or thrive, and the bad companies will struggle or fail.

There are those who think, "I'm gonna illegally download this just to see if I like it, and if I like it, THEN I'll pay for it"... sorry, that excuse doesn't work in this day and age. I can go on Amazon and listen to music I'm thinking about buying. I can view a trailer for a movie I want to see. I can go to any of the major practice exam vendors and download a demo of their products. I can download game demos from just about any publisher. Sorry, there's simply no justification for pirating electronic content.

Good post, Jonny... repped!

 

im not supprised - if you know what i mean....