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Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

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Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#41

Post by ugh »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #32
ugh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not stealing, you are making illegal copies.

Which is a form of theft (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_services ). There's no point in rehashing the semantic argument; it's still theft in the eyes of the law, and while renaming it may help assuage your conscience, it doesn't really add much to the argument.

You are right, it‘s a semantic argument (I think you are not at all right in claiming that copyright infringement is theft of services, the linked Wikipedia article certainly doesn’t support that claim) but I do think it’s important to rehash it.

The legislator has decided to not treat copyright infringement like theft. Copyright is not the same as property (so says the law), it would be wrong to act as though there is some sort of consensus in society that both are somehow equivalent. The law is not everything and the law might be wrong (there might be good reasons to treat both the same) but it is disingenuous to act as though there is not at least a controversy.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#42

Post by rimantas »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #32
ugh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not stealing, you are making illegal copies.

Which is a form of theft (cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_services ). There's no point in rehashing the semantic argument; it's still theft in the eyes of the law, and while renaming it may help assuage your conscience, it doesn't really add much to the argument.

The law was written way before there was possible to make an exact copy of something while leaving the original intact and way before the cost of such act is so close to zero than even those who have no money to buy original still are able to make the copy.

One can apply the same laws, but doing so is stretching them too much.

Consider the possibility of you making exact copy of a car just by pressing a button on some device. Let's say the neighbor has a car you like and you have no money to buy such a car. You press the button and you get the copy of the car. Did you steal it from your neighbor? No, he still has his. Did you steal it from the manufacturer? Well, some may say that, because you got something that they produce without paying them, but: a) you'd never buy that car from them anyway (see condition #2), b) they still got all the money for the cars they produced, there is not a single missing. So, whom did you steal the car from?

No consider more realistic scenario: I torrent the movie. You may call this a theft. Now slightly modified scenario: I buy the DVD on amazon.com, but while it's shipping I torrent the same movie and watch it. Is it still a theft?

Or if I torrent the movie first, like it a lot, go to see it in cinema, then go to see the second time with my wife, and to top all that I also buy a DVD? How about now, is it still the theft?

My point is: there is a real difference between an illegal copy and a theft, not just some semantics.

If I torrent something "getting for free" is never the reason to do that. The reasons are either availability or convenience. If there was a way to buy movies in digital format (I cannot even buy music on iTunes in my country, only apps) I'd spend a lot more money on them. App Store and Mac App store are the good indicator of that.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#43

Post by ugh »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #38
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly there is a point to rehashing the argument as long as you're pointing to a wikipedia page on theft of services and claiming that bitorrenting a copy of a TV show is the same thing. Clearly they're not. Hacking a cable box to access channels without paying for them might be, but if you're completely routing around their service, in part because they don't actually provide what you want (e.g. a show in your lan…

if you're completely routing around their service, in part because they don't actually provide what you want (e.g. a show in your language), then you're clearly not stealing it. Huh? That's a completely specious claim. The owner of the rights to the TV show may not be offering the product in your market-- yet . The may choose to do so at some point in the future. Whether they do or not, it has no bearing on the fact…

Just a little note, something can be not theft and still be illegal. When I damage your computer it’s not theft but still illegal.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#44

Post by Tomek_ »

corin_ wrote: post #8
wyclif wrote: post #2

Some of these (I'm looking at you, BBC iPlayer) aren't even available in the USA.

And likewise none of the streaming options for American shows are available in the UK. Now, with American shows, I think there could easily be a good business model - we've seen English TV channels pick up American shows (sometimes running almost in sync with America, more often than not running a year or two behind) with success. Examples include The West Wing, Friends, Glee, Will and Grace, Family Guy, CSI and so o…

Well, but isn't that what the whole problem is about? Doesn't matter if it's BBC, iTunes or Spotify - it's that the country-based licensing model doesn't work in the age of Internet.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#45

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

Nate75Sanders wrote: post #3

I try to explain this type of thing to people who are ardently anti-piracy: You can never, ever, expect people to miss out on the culture that's happening during their lives. If money, or geography, or whatever is preventing it, they'll still do the best they can to make sure they don't miss anything.

This is true - it doesn't make it right (necessarily) but it is true.

The other thing I'd say though is that most people will still operate within their own moral code. In the UK technically platform shifting (transferring music from CD to MP3 for instance) is illegal but that doesn't stop anyone as people see it as a historic oddity and not something which is even remotely morally wrong.

It's not uncommon that the same people who will pirate movies from multi-billion pound businesses will also voluntarily pay when for donationware (or when Radiohead release an album) they could get for nothing.

There are two things we need to look at:

* Availability / technology and restrictions on the ability to obtain media - for instance I torrent because I can't get it legally.

* Why people's moral code does or doesn't allow them to take certain actions?

We're moving increasingly into a trust economy where from a technical point of view people can have what they want and it's almost impossible to stop them.

In that situation your ability to extract payment from them depends on your making a case for why it's reasonable (and indeed beneficial) for them to stump up in a world where the link between what something costs to produce and what it's reasonable to charge for it is a little less obvious than in the days of purely physical product.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#46

Post by tjogin »

roel_v wrote: post #36
microtonal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I'd add to that that paying 15 Euro for a BluRay may be perfectly acceptable in the Western world, but a huge budget hit in the rest of the world. The buy 'physical media via the Internet' argument doesn't fly there either.

Right, and a 250k Lamborghini is also a huge budget hit for me in the West. Which is why I drive a shitty Citroen. I'm sick and tired of the entitled whining. Nobody owes you the right to listen to the latest album of whoever is at the top of the charts; in fact, nobody owes you anything but what they agreed on. The proposition is very clear: there are people who create something. They give it to you, on the conditio…

One of my mottos is that it is far easier to change yourself than it is to change the world, even if you've done nothing wrong yourself.

Trying to change everybody to live by that code is quite a bit harder than to adapt to the situation we're in (and, arguably, that kind of draconian view created in the first place).

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#47

Post by ericd »

roel_v wrote: post #36
microtonal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I'd add to that that paying 15 Euro for a BluRay may be perfectly acceptable in the Western world, but a huge budget hit in the rest of the world. The buy 'physical media via the Internet' argument doesn't fly there either.

Right, and a 250k Lamborghini is also a huge budget hit for me in the West. Which is why I drive a shitty Citroen. I'm sick and tired of the entitled whining. Nobody owes you the right to listen to the latest album of whoever is at the top of the charts; in fact, nobody owes you anything but what they agreed on. The proposition is very clear: there are people who create something. They give it to you, on the conditio…

I gather from your comments that your moral code depends heavily on the rule of law. Many people don't base their moral code very heavily on the laws currently on the books, except as far as those laws reflect the original intent of law - to make the world a better place to live overall. It's generally agreed upon that stealing physical goods, murdering, etc. make the world a more unruly, unpleasant, inefficient, discouraging place for meek, cooperative people. Filesharing doesn't fall into the same league in those terms, so many don't really believe it's immoral, especially if one wasn't going to buy those files if there was no alternative. In that case, it's like happiness created from nothing. This other moral code makes the morality question a good bit murkier.

That's my understanding, anyway.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#48

Post by corin_ »

Tomek_ wrote: post #44
corin_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And likewise none of the streaming options for American shows are available in the UK. Now, with American shows, I think there could easily be a good business model - we've seen English TV channels pick up American shows (sometimes running almost in sync with America, more often than not running a year or two behind) with success. Examples include The West Wing, Friends, Glee, Will and Grace, Family Guy, CSI and so o…

Well, but isn't that what the whole problem is about? Doesn't matter if it's BBC, iTunes or Spotify - it's that the country-based licensing model doesn't work in the age of Internet.

But with the sale of content that should be an easy fix, whereas BBC is a pretty unique situation.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#49

Post by steve19 »

roel_v wrote: post #36
microtonal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I'd add to that that paying 15 Euro for a BluRay may be perfectly acceptable in the Western world, but a huge budget hit in the rest of the world. The buy 'physical media via the Internet' argument doesn't fly there either.

Right, and a 250k Lamborghini is also a huge budget hit for me in the West. Which is why I drive a shitty Citroen. I'm sick and tired of the entitled whining. Nobody owes you the right to listen to the latest album of whoever is at the top of the charts; in fact, nobody owes you anything but what they agreed on. The proposition is very clear: there are people who create something. They give it to you, on the conditio…

Don't confuse copyright infringement, aka. pirating, to stealing. You may well believe that they are morally the same thing, but they are not legally the same thing.

Theft has existed as long as man, copyright infringement was invented about 100 years ago. copyright infringement varies wildly in penalties. In some countries it is a serious offense, in others it is legal.

Re: Why I get my entertainment via BitTorrent

#50

Post by steve19 »

ericd wrote: post #47
roel_v wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and a 250k Lamborghini is also a huge budget hit for me in the West. Which is why I drive a shitty Citroen. I'm sick and tired of the entitled whining. Nobody owes you the right to listen to the latest album of whoever is at the top of the charts; in fact, nobody owes you anything but what they agreed on. The proposition is very clear: there are people who create something. They give it to you, on the conditio…

I gather from your comments that your moral code depends heavily on the rule of law. Many people don't base their moral code very heavily on the laws currently on the books, except as far as those laws reflect the original intent of law - to make the world a better place to live overall. It's generally agreed upon that stealing physical goods, murdering, etc. make the world a more unruly, unpleasant, inefficient, dis…

According to some, each person in the USA commits multiple felonies each day[1]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870447150457443...

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