Being immoral means doing something the person accusing you of immorality knows is wrong. Otherwise you would have to agree that a mass murderer isn't immoral if he doesn't believe murder is wrong.Acrisius said:
I find myself unable to Pirate
- Thread starter Cobbs
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Well, I personally find it strange.
Although I do not directly pirate things myself, I have no idea about my music collection. Most of it is stuff friends have given me, you get the idea. I, personally, have nothing wrong with this. Humans share everything, from books to games to music (Primarily in my experience, Music).
I consider TPB to simply be an extension of the essential human urge to share things, from pirated games to music that at some point, many years ago, some bloke bought. In some cases it is only through sharing that these things still exist and, in some cases (Despite money) things are impossible to find bar through sharing.
So... With regards to music and books, I see nothing wrong with "Piracy". My love of Terry Pratchet was fueled by my school library and my friends (And my parents friends) having incredibly large Pratchett collections. I went to my first gig cause I was shown Frank Turners music on Youtube, my second gig because I was shown Reel Big Fish on youtube, my third gig cause I played Guitar Hero (Through the Fire and Flames was fucking awesome live, although one of the supporting bands outdid them massively.)
My essential point here is that with regards to music there should be no guilt. Musicians make most of their money through gigs and syndication in games/movies and whatnot, not through people physically buying their CD's. As for books and audiobooks, I apply the same logic. With regards to Non-Fiction, knowledge should be free. Information should be shared to the maximum amount of people. Without one of my fellow students downloading a library of psychology books, most of us would have failed the course we were doing (The college library was a pile of crap and the books on the USB came in at roughly 15,000 pounds. Cambridge University Press overcharges people to the nth degree). As for fiction, well, there is less of a market in pirated fiction on the internet cause it is a luxury that comes in so much cheaper.
I guess I am trying to say that in my eyes there is nothing, morally, wrong with sharing music or books. It is something everyone does. I will state that I am a socialist though, I think my political affiliation does affect my moral compass.
Although I do not directly pirate things myself, I have no idea about my music collection. Most of it is stuff friends have given me, you get the idea. I, personally, have nothing wrong with this. Humans share everything, from books to games to music (Primarily in my experience, Music).
I consider TPB to simply be an extension of the essential human urge to share things, from pirated games to music that at some point, many years ago, some bloke bought. In some cases it is only through sharing that these things still exist and, in some cases (Despite money) things are impossible to find bar through sharing.
So... With regards to music and books, I see nothing wrong with "Piracy". My love of Terry Pratchet was fueled by my school library and my friends (And my parents friends) having incredibly large Pratchett collections. I went to my first gig cause I was shown Frank Turners music on Youtube, my second gig because I was shown Reel Big Fish on youtube, my third gig cause I played Guitar Hero (Through the Fire and Flames was fucking awesome live, although one of the supporting bands outdid them massively.)
My essential point here is that with regards to music there should be no guilt. Musicians make most of their money through gigs and syndication in games/movies and whatnot, not through people physically buying their CD's. As for books and audiobooks, I apply the same logic. With regards to Non-Fiction, knowledge should be free. Information should be shared to the maximum amount of people. Without one of my fellow students downloading a library of psychology books, most of us would have failed the course we were doing (The college library was a pile of crap and the books on the USB came in at roughly 15,000 pounds. Cambridge University Press overcharges people to the nth degree). As for fiction, well, there is less of a market in pirated fiction on the internet cause it is a luxury that comes in so much cheaper.
I guess I am trying to say that in my eyes there is nothing, morally, wrong with sharing music or books. It is something everyone does. I will state that I am a socialist though, I think my political affiliation does affect my moral compass.
By that argument, you are immoral, because i believe that posting on a forum with a name containing "depressive" is immoral.manic_depressive13 said:
Morality differs for everyone and every part of the world. You can say you THINK (or believe) that a certain act is immoral, but there are bound to be people that disagree with that.
For example, you wouldn't need to look very far to find people at the same time says murder is wrong, but are also actively advocating that we bomb the entire middle east to get rid of all the rotten apples down there that is causing problems for us here in the western world - Or to use another example appropriate to the topic: people who advocate bombing Somalia to get rid of the pirates (completely ignoring the fact that bombing the villages the pirates live in also kills innocent women and children). These are people who advocate doing things they themself say consider to be immoral, but with the catchphrase "It's okay because [XXX]".
Are these people immoral? I'd like to think so.
Are they stupid and shortsighted? Again I'd say yes, although they would probably disagree.
Are they hypocrites? Absolutely
)So, yeah, let me throw in my two cents as an musician and producer:
Pirating music is not only fine with most musicians, but occasionally is encouraged (Skrillex and a lot of other forward-thinking artists have suggested piracy as a way to get their their new albums on their personal blogs). You see, musicians rarely make any money on MP3/CD sales, most of that money actually goes to the company/companies involved in distributing the product (record companies, beatport, etc.), the way musicians make their money is usually through touring and merchandise, both of which only get funded if their music is popular enough.
Basically: Pirating and sharing music is great for the musician who makes it so long as you're sharing it around with all your friends. The only people who are likely to be hurt by music piracy are record companies, and to be quite frank they don't really deserve as much as they have gotten over the years, in fact we're really lucky that we live in an age with piracy so they can't just straight control the music industry anymore (however they still control television and radio).
So yeah, if I were you I wouldn't be so proud about the false moral compass that was sold to you by the film and music industry. Don't feel like piracy is leaving a musician starving somewhere, rather you should feel like paying for a song is making some record company dick, who had nothing to do with the composition or performance, richer.
If you want to support the artists save your money and spend it on seeing them live!
Pirating music is not only fine with most musicians, but occasionally is encouraged (Skrillex and a lot of other forward-thinking artists have suggested piracy as a way to get their their new albums on their personal blogs). You see, musicians rarely make any money on MP3/CD sales, most of that money actually goes to the company/companies involved in distributing the product (record companies, beatport, etc.), the way musicians make their money is usually through touring and merchandise, both of which only get funded if their music is popular enough.
Basically: Pirating and sharing music is great for the musician who makes it so long as you're sharing it around with all your friends. The only people who are likely to be hurt by music piracy are record companies, and to be quite frank they don't really deserve as much as they have gotten over the years, in fact we're really lucky that we live in an age with piracy so they can't just straight control the music industry anymore (however they still control television and radio).
So yeah, if I were you I wouldn't be so proud about the false moral compass that was sold to you by the film and music industry. Don't feel like piracy is leaving a musician starving somewhere, rather you should feel like paying for a song is making some record company dick, who had nothing to do with the composition or performance, richer.
If you want to support the artists save your money and spend it on seeing them live!
Depending on your location, it wouldn't necessarily be illegal for your brother to just send you the MP3s via e-mail or whatever.Cobbs said:
Additionally, there is absolutely nothing illegal (to my knowledge) with using a service like DownloadHelper to download each song's Youtube video, and then use a converter to switch the video into an MP3/etc file for easy listening.
I'm only offering suggestions for listening now, before you get enough money to buy it for yourself.
This is an odd topic for me, since the vast majority of my music today consists of remixes that are downloadable for free, and yet I've given far more money to bands through shows then I EVER could through buying their music.
On the one hand, pirating is wrong. On the other, bands traditionally and still currently make the vast majority of their money through live shows, with most of the money from CD purchases going straight to the record company and not the actual artists.
Even pirated works are just free publicity: I know I never would have found out about Enter Shikari if my friend didn't pirate their album, and I never would have given them $50+ to see them live and get a T-shirt.
It reminds me of Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor. Citing issues with his record company, he released one of his albums for FREE, with the ability to donate any amount you wish (including none at all), and he made millions from it from sales alone, not even counting his next tour which also made millions.
Edit: Seriously ninja'd in the very previous post? Goddamn.
Eh, it is kinda weird to me, but i guess it's understandable. I mean, everyone is different. Me, if i want to pirate something, i pirate it, simple as that.
Yes, and therefore to you I am immoral. There is no objective morality. When someone calls something moral/immoral, they are merely saying 'I personally approve/disapprove of what you're doing'. Anyone who is under the illusion it means anything else is severely misled.Athinira said: