only when there is no other way to get the product in question.
For example when it's not licensed in you region or out of print.
For example when it's not licensed in you region or out of print.
Poll: Piracy is legal
- Thread starter Entitled
- Start date
Depends entirely on the context. Seeing how no-one suffers a loss of property due to pirating, as the file is still there no matter how many people download it, the only real argument against it is the loss of money by the proprietor and creator. If said creator is Hollywood, and you're pirating the latest blockbuster, then I really doubt they're going to miss the £10 or so you would have paid for a DVD. If you're pirating music made by some guy in his bedroom who gets a few downloads a month and is asking under £1 for tracks he's put weeks of work into, then you're an arsehole.
I just learned in which countries I will not publish the orchestra's original composments/arragments or music recordings.
Very few people are able to put them self's in to a place of a creative artist who try's to live off he's/her's works. They think it is O.K to get it without paying for it. Because it is culture and culture belongs to all, insert piracy justification here*.
Very few people are able to put them self's in to a place of a creative artist who try's to live off he's/her's works. They think it is O.K to get it without paying for it. Because it is culture and culture belongs to all, insert piracy justification here*.
Being a virtue ethicist, I can't say whether or not the act of Piracy is immoral, nor can I say what the end moral result is, but I can say that the vast majority of reasons for and ways of doing so are highly indicative of bad moral character. The defense of it even more so.
Not quite.Sonic Doctor said:
'Taking' indicates that you are removing something of value from the person you are stealing from. Say I downloaded the movie 'The Wild Blue Yonder'. Now, I rented that film a while ago, and it was shit, so i have no urge or need to purchase it. However, me having downloaded it doesn't deprive the IP owner or any resellers of any monetary gain, does it? Therefore, it is not stealing.
On the other hand, if I took a DVD copy of that movie from a store, then it would be stealing, as that copy was bought by the store with the expectation of selling it. Since I would be preventing them from selling it, it would be stealing.
So, Piracy nq Theft.
There are a few things going around this thread that I feel need to be addressed.
Piracy is not equivalent to any of the following: Theft, Robbery, Fraud, Burglary, Embezzlement, Shoplifting, Larceny, and so forth. Piracy is one thing, and one thing only (under U.S. law) and that is copy right infringement.
It is an error to equate the act of downloading and using a piece of intellectual property as an act of theft or fraud as I've seen so often in this thread. This is not an argument about semantics, but a clarification that they are fundamentally different acts. That piracy is immoral is not dependent on it being equivalent to those acts.
That said I agree that piracy, as it is commonly used as a method to obtain free entertainment, is an immoral act. I also agree that it would remain immoral regardless of its legality. Ethics and legality have some mutual causal relationships, but are relatively independent in my mind.
Piracy is not equivalent to any of the following: Theft, Robbery, Fraud, Burglary, Embezzlement, Shoplifting, Larceny, and so forth. Piracy is one thing, and one thing only (under U.S. law) and that is copy right infringement.
It is an error to equate the act of downloading and using a piece of intellectual property as an act of theft or fraud as I've seen so often in this thread. This is not an argument about semantics, but a clarification that they are fundamentally different acts. That piracy is immoral is not dependent on it being equivalent to those acts.
That said I agree that piracy, as it is commonly used as a method to obtain free entertainment, is an immoral act. I also agree that it would remain immoral regardless of its legality. Ethics and legality have some mutual causal relationships, but are relatively independent in my mind.
I think there is a grey area to piracy. If the content creators put it out there to buy then a user has a moral as well as legal obligation to pay for that content. They do the work, they should have some kind of reward.
At the same time, if the copyright holder is for any reason not issuing legal copies of the work, then they shouldn't quibble if people are distributing bootleg copies. After all, they chose not to distribute legal copies, so it's their own fault that they aren't getting paid.
I also think that copyright holders who hold too tightly onto their copyright are silly. I've discovered at least three bands, countless individual songs and multiple anime series simply from watching AMV's on Youtube. That's free publicity for the copyright holders, and money they did get because I went out and bought the song/CD/DVD/Bluray.
At the same time, if the copyright holder is for any reason not issuing legal copies of the work, then they shouldn't quibble if people are distributing bootleg copies. After all, they chose not to distribute legal copies, so it's their own fault that they aren't getting paid.
I also think that copyright holders who hold too tightly onto their copyright are silly. I've discovered at least three bands, countless individual songs and multiple anime series simply from watching AMV's on Youtube. That's free publicity for the copyright holders, and money they did get because I went out and bought the song/CD/DVD/Bluray.
Agreed.Da Orky Man said:
To look at it another way:
"Potential Loss" is not the same as "Actual Loss".
We know the two 'can' overlap, but that doesn't mean we can assume that they always will.
Not every pirate was a sure-sell, for a variety of possible reasons.
(Not every pirate can feasibly afford the information in question. This is not automatic justification for those who can afford the risk. It is simply stating conditions.)
Claiming that "Piracy is Theft", or "Piracy = Theft" only works if they completely overlap.
Which they don't because we cannot (nor should we) logically assume that.
This isn't a moral argument (morals are subjective). This isn't a legal argument (the law isn't necessarily based on morals, and it isn't the same for every country either). It is just stating that the oft-repeated misconception that "Piracy is Theft" is very ignorant and wrong.
As for the consequences of Piracy, depending on the circumstance, Piracy could be either better or worse than actual theft.
While I do like to pay for my games I'm not actually against piracy.
I think you will find most piracy is about availably and ownership. not money. I buy something I want to own it. I never buy a game that tries that whole you don't own this bull. If I can't own it then why would I pay for it. If I download the rip its mine for ever. why would anyone pay for the privilege of uncertain ownership. also I hate DRM with a vengeance its a sad but true fact that often the pirated versions are way easier to install and get running.
But you know what really gets me mad, it's the USA's approach to stamping out piracy they go way overboard targeting abandon ware. Targeting the sites that host these old often forgotten games. Once these site are wiped out many of these games will disappear for good these sites are the only museums gaming has. Abandon ware is not piracy most of the company?s have flat out stated they don't care if people download these old games, they are no longer using the IP after all. As long as these groups continue to behave in this destructive manner I'll continue to think of piracy as a valid form of protest. It stops the money coming in, an that makes people pay attention.
I think you will find most piracy is about availably and ownership. not money. I buy something I want to own it. I never buy a game that tries that whole you don't own this bull. If I can't own it then why would I pay for it. If I download the rip its mine for ever. why would anyone pay for the privilege of uncertain ownership. also I hate DRM with a vengeance its a sad but true fact that often the pirated versions are way easier to install and get running.
But you know what really gets me mad, it's the USA's approach to stamping out piracy they go way overboard targeting abandon ware. Targeting the sites that host these old often forgotten games. Once these site are wiped out many of these games will disappear for good these sites are the only museums gaming has. Abandon ware is not piracy most of the company?s have flat out stated they don't care if people download these old games, they are no longer using the IP after all. As long as these groups continue to behave in this destructive manner I'll continue to think of piracy as a valid form of protest. It stops the money coming in, an that makes people pay attention.
While I get the feeling that you are speaking from personal experience, your own logic is no less flawed.Vault101 said:
For example:
I write a book called chicken hunters, I put effort into it and put it up for sale and people love it. But most people just borrow it from public libraries leaving me with no money for a sequel.
Or
I write chicken hunters 2 under publisher FC (fat cats), chicken hunters 2 is a book the spent considerable money printing and advertising ....people love chicken hunters 2 but alot of people use public libraries.
FC have alot of money....but they look at the stats and the "disapointing" returns for chicken hunters 2 and cancel my contract.
Do you see my point?
The Netherlands never explicitly legalized or decimalized piracy, the act of obtaining illegally distributed music and movies has simply always been legal. Dutch law forbids distributing copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder: when you buy or download something that has been illegally distributed, the distributor is at fault, not you.Entitled said:
Before the advent of the internet, this was completely reasonable: when someone physically buys a second-hand CD, for instance, you usually can not expect that person to know whether or not the seller is actually allowed to sell that CD. This argumentation is less justified when someone visits a website called the Pirate Bay, but so far proposals to change that law have not made it past parliament.
Pirating games, on the other hand, is illegal here. That is because games are considered software and copyright law for software is different because the software lobby is waaaaay bigger than the entertainment industry.
Personally, I'm not that big a fan of piracy (although I'm glad it exists because it is quite important for the preservation of creative products that might otherwise become lost forever). However, I do not think criminalizing illegal downloading is the way to go because most methods of enforcing it would negatively impact personal freedom and privacy. Furthermore, I think losses due to piracy are greatly overstated and that it is perfectly possible to 'compete with pirates' by simply offering a good digital-distribution service: many people are definitely willing to pay for stuff as long as they can conveniently do so.
Piracy is one of those strange things where, I wouldn't want to live in a world where it was fully legal, and I wouldn't want to live in a world where all of my privacy and personal input was taken away to ensure that I wasn't pirating something.
Those both sound like hellish dystopias, on the one hand you have a world where, maybe great works aren't made, or maybe a place where finding the real deal among a glut of impersonators would be difficult, think back (or imagine) the time before the video game crash of 83. On the other, you have a world not too unlike Orwell's vision in 1984 (and I'm not bringing up that reference to be sensational - if the content creators had full control over their content, and the government to back them up, you would have a big brother scenario)
but if I had to choose one, it would be the former, because it's a freedom versus control thing, and I think every person should side with freedom when it comes down to it.
Those both sound like hellish dystopias, on the one hand you have a world where, maybe great works aren't made, or maybe a place where finding the real deal among a glut of impersonators would be difficult, think back (or imagine) the time before the video game crash of 83. On the other, you have a world not too unlike Orwell's vision in 1984 (and I'm not bringing up that reference to be sensational - if the content creators had full control over their content, and the government to back them up, you would have a big brother scenario)
but if I had to choose one, it would be the former, because it's a freedom versus control thing, and I think every person should side with freedom when it comes down to it.
Personally I think Piracy is OK if the person profiting from the work isn't the person who made it.
My point with the CD is that the action has exactly the same results. Without paying a person, I now own a copy of something they made, and can now enjoy it for free. You may hold that they have no right to words they wrote, or drawing they painted ect, but I would hold that just because something is not a physical object does not mean you don't have to pay someone for it. A good example would be if someone washes your car, you should pay them. I don't care that you didn't get a actual physical object for it, you benefited from their work and then refused to give them their due payment for it. You hold that taking the CD is wrong because the CD is composed of actual material, but what about the content within it? Isn't that the point of stealing the CD? Isn't that what I am trying to obtain? Then how is obtaining it online, again without paying, any diffrent? As for your comment on Free Use, I want to protect the rights of creator's to the things they create, but cultural growth is also a priority. We require a compromise, and Fair Use works. Still, if you benefit from someone's work, and they are still alive, I would suggest paying them, regardless of law, out of moral obligation.Entitled said:
There is the problem. "Enjoying something that has a value, for free", has never been consistently understood as being immoral. There are many examples of so-called "positive externalities" in the economy, where beyond fulfilling their intended goal, products also end up benefiting others as an extra.Lonewolfm16 said:
If "enjoying something without paying" would be immoral on it's own, then even borrowing video games from a friend would be immoral.
Oh, I believe that they do hold rights. See my above post to BrassButtons [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.398484.16309569]. For example, I think that they obviously have a right to shut down plagiarism, or to stop other publishers from selling their work, because only they should be allowed to do that.Lonewolfm16 said:
The problem is, that the public has rights to. As you replied to Fair use, it's also about a compromise between profitability and cultural growth, because it can't be literally expected that publishers should get TOTAL control, forever, over every possible IP-related transaction, that would stifle normal communication on the Internet.
Please notice, that the things that I'm writing, are not on a different paradigm from you. I don't want to destroy ALL IP laws, and make publishers unable to make a living, just as you don't want to give them extra laws and give them even more authority than they have now. It's just a matter of scale, about exactly HOW MUCH rights they should hold, and how much right we should.
So, when you watch a funny short movie clip on youtube under Fair Use, (that Warner would love to get removed), do you feel a moral obligation to pay them? When you download a 96 year old Public Domain book, and you know that publishers are already lobbying to extend copyright to 120 years, do you feel a moral obligation to pay them? When you buy a used game, and you know that EA is trying to erease the used game market, do you feel a moral obligation to pay them the difference in prices?Lonewolfm16 said:
Because if you do, that's... weird, but consistent.
But if you don't, then compared to your claims about legality not defining morality, your moral obligations of treating IP are shockingly similar to whatever the letter of the law happens to expect from you right now.
I am not generally against taking a small part of a work (like a short clip from a movie or a quote from a book)but if you are going to get full benefite from a work I think expecting you to pay is reasonable. To simplify, if I write a book or make a movie or a game ect ect then I don't think that expecting people to pay you to read/play/watch it is unreasonable. YOU made that, not them and you deserve control over it. It is a product of your labor, and doesn't belong to them, but to you. This is why, when pirates talk about "rights" and "freedoms of information" I am very confused. I must have missed the part of the transition from someone making something to you gaining the right to unfettered and free access to everything that anyone made. You do not have a right to take something someone else made. Period. It is harmful to creators and a violation of their rights to the product of their labors. You are in no way entitled to play video games or read books or watch movies. people have to go out of their way to make those, and if they wish to distribute them for free, good for them. But if they expect money (and since these often take years of effort and millions of dollars that seems reasonable.) then you should pay them before taking the thing they made.Entitled said:
I would hold that that largely depends on if anyone with claims on the book is still around. I would argue that by this point the author has probably made as much money as they will off that work, and entering it into the public sphere could be beneficial, however I would still hold that you should buy the novel from the person who has a legitimate claim on it if at all possible.Entitled said: