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Poll: Where do you draw the line on illegal downloads?
- Thread starter Grimace
- Start date
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I download the occasional TV show. I figure I have cable, and I wouldn't watch the advertisements anyway (DVR.) And I would never pay to download a TV show on iTunes. Why buy something that I already pay for through my cable subscription?
I understand that downloading music is bad, I mean how else can artists afford a second solid gold Humvee (Weird Al reference).
But I'm a little unsure about software pirating I mean you can download the full suite of CS3 to test for a month but after that all you need to do is buy a string of 10 digits for $500 to be able to use it longer. It's kinda like getting a porsche for free only to find that it doesn't run after a month and you'll need to enter a serial key to make it work again- even though it's sitting right there in your garage.
EDIT: I was just wondering, is downloading a movie off the internet equivalent to taping it on TiVO? Because if it is then downloading movies/shows online shouldn't be illegal. And if it isn't then why does TiVO not get any repercussions from their potentially piratic products (nice alliteration).
But I'm a little unsure about software pirating I mean you can download the full suite of CS3 to test for a month but after that all you need to do is buy a string of 10 digits for $500 to be able to use it longer. It's kinda like getting a porsche for free only to find that it doesn't run after a month and you'll need to enter a serial key to make it work again- even though it's sitting right there in your garage.
EDIT: I was just wondering, is downloading a movie off the internet equivalent to taping it on TiVO? Because if it is then downloading movies/shows online shouldn't be illegal. And if it isn't then why does TiVO not get any repercussions from their potentially piratic products (nice alliteration).
This is because software costs a lot to make but practically nothing to distribute, they have to sell it for a high price to get the R&D back, its the reason drugs are expensive when they first come out, but after a while the price drops significantly, now in both the case of drugs and software you can argue that the company in question makes too much money and that poor people should be able to buy the product at a price they can afford, the problem is that the rich people would want to buy the product for the same price too.
Well for TV shows it is the same I suppose, but the downloaded version would need to include the ads, so some networks let you download TV shows for free from their website with ads. But for Movies they charge extra to allow a TV channel to show it, so it isn't the same.
I get my TV shows because I have no choice but to wait for 1-3 months for them to arrive to my PAID TV subscription. I pay £37 a moth for a top of the range sky package and they are still behind...
I've checked the xbox360 marketplace and itunes and neither of them will finalize their deals to start selling TV content to the UK. And even when they do, they'll probably take the same amount of time to begin selling the US shows here as the tv channels do.
So, until GLOBAL premiers and launches are the rule, bittorrent it shall be...
I guess like someone else said, I fell that all I'm doing is getting my shows a bit early, as I pay for my Sky tv anyway....
I've checked the xbox360 marketplace and itunes and neither of them will finalize their deals to start selling TV content to the UK. And even when they do, they'll probably take the same amount of time to begin selling the US shows here as the tv channels do.
So, until GLOBAL premiers and launches are the rule, bittorrent it shall be...
I guess like someone else said, I fell that all I'm doing is getting my shows a bit early, as I pay for my Sky tv anyway....
Music is what i download, all of my music is from friends. I would be completely in debt if i did not pirate music! I just need some songs! And for movies i think its very simple.... Download.Watch.Delete. Thats only for movies on DVDs, if there is a movie in Theatres ill go spend my money on it.
Apps.....some of them.
To tell the truth I have a pirated copy of Adobe CS3 Design premium on my desk. A friend gave it to me, but i have had it for over 2 months untouched. I dont feel comfertable stealing something over $1500.
Saying this stuff cant get you banned can it? If so mods delete the message and NOT me
One of my freinds is a crazy pirater though, he's watching torrent sites for iLife '08!
Though he sys he might not want it, because it does not seem that special. I HAVE convinced him to help me split the costs of Leoprad though.
Apps.....some of them.
To tell the truth I have a pirated copy of Adobe CS3 Design premium on my desk. A friend gave it to me, but i have had it for over 2 months untouched. I dont feel comfertable stealing something over $1500.
Saying this stuff cant get you banned can it? If so mods delete the message and NOT me
One of my freinds is a crazy pirater though, he's watching torrent sites for iLife '08!
Though he sys he might not want it, because it does not seem that special. I HAVE convinced him to help me split the costs of Leoprad though.
I think that anything that comes on TV should be free, ie: Music videos and TV shows. Taking Office doesn't seem bad to me, as every computer I have ever used had office, and it is not as powerful as the price suggests. Unless you use the software to make money, I don't believe stealing it is absolutely terrible. If you make money or use the software all the time, buy it! I buy most apple software - OS's and iLife, but that is about it.
thanks edesignuk (I imagine) for adding the 'everything and nothing' options.
It should be noted that quite a few of the "Adobe CS3" entries are probably "I'll download anything!" entries but were submitted before the latter option was available.
It should be noted that quite a few of the "Adobe CS3" entries are probably "I'll download anything!" entries but were submitted before the latter option was available.
Music: Objectively I think downloading music is wrong. Still, also growing up in the Napster generation, I've become so desensitized to it that the guilt has been very minimal the times I do it. Usually when I want music really bad, I've gotten alot of really cheap used CDs off of Amazon, from bands I thought I'd never find (like Splendora, which did soundtrack music for Daria) so I'm trying to do that in order to break the habit. A good argument can be made for hard to find or old songs as well as alternate remix/acoustic versions of music you legally own.
Movies: I'm a netflix subscriber and yes have been tempted to burn the DVDs into my computer. What's wrong with saving the DVD as long as I don't distribute it myself or show it publicly (thus robbing Netflix of potential people who might have rented it)? Still I resist the temptation and watch the movie enough then send it back.
Apps: This is where I more visibly draw a line. When I've downloaded apps years ago (don't do it now) I felt like I was clearly doing something wrong, especially when dealing with serial numbers and cracking this and that and a shady websites, etc...a pirated copy from a friend might mitigate guilt, but being a Linux user, I try to find free alternatives over pirating more ethical personally.
"Stick it to Microsoft" doesn't seem like a valid attitude to me here because if you think MS Office is too expensive, then don't buy them or use them period. Go for NeoOffice and give them competition or something. By using them illegally you're still supporting them and their formats, etc. As a Linux user I either use OpenOffice or StarOffice, the latter which gives me a free student license.
Movies: I'm a netflix subscriber and yes have been tempted to burn the DVDs into my computer. What's wrong with saving the DVD as long as I don't distribute it myself or show it publicly (thus robbing Netflix of potential people who might have rented it)? Still I resist the temptation and watch the movie enough then send it back.
Apps: This is where I more visibly draw a line. When I've downloaded apps years ago (don't do it now) I felt like I was clearly doing something wrong, especially when dealing with serial numbers and cracking this and that and a shady websites, etc...a pirated copy from a friend might mitigate guilt, but being a Linux user, I try to find free alternatives over pirating more ethical personally.
"Stick it to Microsoft" doesn't seem like a valid attitude to me here because if you think MS Office is too expensive, then don't buy them or use them period. Go for NeoOffice and give them competition or something. By using them illegally you're still supporting them and their formats, etc. As a Linux user I either use OpenOffice or StarOffice, the latter which gives me a free student license.
^ Good point about MS office.
That is one thing i don't really understand. Granted, apps like Gimp aren't as powerful as the photoshop counterpart, but if its free as well, and legal, why not just go with gimp instead?
Same with neoOffice instead of MS Office
That is one thing i don't really understand. Granted, apps like Gimp aren't as powerful as the photoshop counterpart, but if its free as well, and legal, why not just go with gimp instead?
Same with neoOffice instead of MS Office
I know, can you believe the way the corporations pilfer from us, the common working man? I can't believe how juggernauts like Adobe and Microsoft and the RIAA ilk rip off and steal from all of us.
Oh wait, that's not what you meant? Let them eat cake.
I have a REALLY hard time feeling bad for the poor little RIAA that sues grandmothers to oblivion (who in some cases don't even own computers), wiping out their entire savings, or the poor little RIAA that uses deceptive and illegal methods to "catch" people download songs.
Same with the MPAA.
I say it again; some people would stop downloading if these giant monolithic corporations started treating the artists better, rather than lining the pockets of high level corporate thieves.
Amazing how some people stand up for giant corporations that rip off consumers EVERY chance they get. And we're supposed to feel guilty we're "stealing" from these people?
hey, some of us gave no excuse and no justification.
Here I am, a scallywag, not feeling a lot of pity for thieving fat cats like Adobe or for downloading TV shows which you can't really get any other way. Cry me a freakin river. When Adobe charge twice as much for their products in Europe as they do in the US they just call it business, not stealing. funny that.
I think Pirating has done some good things for us. It's brought extortionate prices down, brought us DVDs GLOBALLY much quicker (instead of sitting in limbo for months on end after viewing in the cinemas, only to rent for more months on end before actual release; as well as releasing DVDs only in the US while everyone else waits, etc) It's knocked these twunts down a peg.
Make no mistake, I don't justify any of it, but I do appreciate what piracy has done for the public in many regards.
Made me chuckle while I was at work. I think I would replace "XP" with "Vista" because there's no way I am paying good money for that P-OS
see I veiw that as an excuse and that is exactly what it is when people say the RIAA this and that is why they download illegal music and movies. Reallity is even if the RIAA did not do all the crap they do people STILL would be downloading about the same amount of stuff and would find some other excuse to blame for stealing music.
As for me yeah I have pirate music and I still get it from time to time but on the same token that pirating music has increased the number of cds I have bought over the years because it how I discovered several new artist.
So, essentially you are saying that it's really not about piracy, but about you making comments on message boards to make yourself feel superior to "the rest of us" because you are the lone, noble purchaser of copyrighted goods.
Gotcha.
I occasionally download a song to listen to it a few times, but the downloaded songs don't permanently stay on my machine. It doesn't bother me to borrow a CD from a friend to put onto iTunes either, as I end up buying the CD (from the store or iTS) anyway. That leaves some techno mixes that I've recorded with Audacity from the iTunes radio channel, and some stand-up comedy audio-only that has been recorded from TV.
Same with shareware-type software - usually little one-off utilities that I need that don't have adequate trials. I'll either crack them or download them, but after I've accomplished the task, they're deleted. If the trial works, then I just use that, but paying $40-50 bucks for something that may or may not work for what I need adds up over time. And I have supported the good utilities that have done what I've wanted (MediaFour's XPlay - I'll be buying MacDrive when I get a Mac, Xilisoft DVD ripper - which has since been replaced by the free version of DVD Fab HD Decrypter + Handbrake for Windows).
That's pretty much the only reason I use BT now, as well. I don't have cable or a DVR and with a kid, it's hard to catch everything when it's on, so I'll sometimes download the (current season's) shows from the major networks that I'm interested in (Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS). I don't feel bad because a) I'm not accessing paid programming (cable shows that I don't subscribe to) and b) the networks often post the shows on their own websites anyway - I'm just getting higher quality. If it's from a previous season (ie: released on DVD) I'll usually stay away from it.
Same with shareware-type software - usually little one-off utilities that I need that don't have adequate trials. I'll either crack them or download them, but after I've accomplished the task, they're deleted. If the trial works, then I just use that, but paying $40-50 bucks for something that may or may not work for what I need adds up over time. And I have supported the good utilities that have done what I've wanted (MediaFour's XPlay - I'll be buying MacDrive when I get a Mac, Xilisoft DVD ripper - which has since been replaced by the free version of DVD Fab HD Decrypter + Handbrake for Windows).
That's pretty much the only reason I use BT now, as well. I don't have cable or a DVR and with a kid, it's hard to catch everything when it's on, so I'll sometimes download the (current season's) shows from the major networks that I'm interested in (Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS). I don't feel bad because a) I'm not accessing paid programming (cable shows that I don't subscribe to) and b) the networks often post the shows on their own websites anyway - I'm just getting higher quality. If it's from a previous season (ie: released on DVD) I'll usually stay away from it.
I merely jabbed to express my interest in this thread and the replies. I want to keep my personal choices of the past and present out of it
This is one case I think MS deserves the money...Office 2004 is a good product a bit pricey but the money is well spent.
Bless
I think that making money off the software is a good standard for buying it. At the same time I applaud Microsoft for the Home and Student version of office, it's only $150 and you get Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote. On my home machine, for non-professional (non-income earning) activities, I still need a word processor and a spreadsheet for creating certain documents (resumes, schedules, fliers, etc). So $150 seems like a reasonable price for that (although $99 would be the sweet spot). Of course I'll most likely be getting iWork, but for people on PC's, that's not an option. And before someone says it, Open Source software (Openoffice) isn't for everyone.
Adobe has also been thinking like this and has providee us with things like PSE , which has some of the same elements as PS, but at a fraction of the cost. - Note that this doesn't translate so well to the Mac side of things as PSE is stuck at ver 4.0 for the Mac, and it's basically about as powerful as what iPhoto can do.
I'm well aware of GIMP, and have used it (portable GIMP on a Mac in a library cluster works in a pinch) but again OSS isn't for everyone.Even Apple has products along these lines with FCE and Logic Express (now if they'd only release DVD Studio Express
I want something better than iDVD without paying for DVDSP).
no I am not any better than the rest of you but you did not read the words.
You know as well as I do that what I stated was correct. The taking from the RIAA because of xxxxx reason is just an excuse.
I have called people out on it before when they say that. I tell them it is an excuse just say the truth that you do not want to pay for it because you can get it for free hell that is the reason why I pirate stuff I can get it for free. If I do like it I tend to go out and buy it.
The older I get the less I tend to pirate and just go for it legitly. Reason for it is not because I think it is the right thing to do but because it is just easier get the stuff legally than it is to find it on the net and speed the time downloading it.
Plus it also easier to most it around and play cds in my car. If I only listen to music on my computer I know full out and well I would buy almost none.