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Should pirates be reported

Thats why I have started buying my music now(yay iTunes).

I will admit, I download movies that I have seen in theatre. As for the movie in question, how DARE he charge $5? he should have been paying for someone to take that piece of crap off his hands.
 
My main point was this does not effect you at all so why would you spend time worrying about it? Why not spend your effort on something that will actually benefit you.

I sell Digital Guides to online RPGs and I've had numerous people upload my PDF guides on forums and pirate them so I know what it is like and I do what I can to get them removed from the sites, but I don't go around worrying about other people's issues that don't effect me.

But then again I'm being hypocritical right now as I don't know why I'm worrying about this topic.
 
Greenhoe said:
My main point was this does not effect you at all so why would you spend time worrying about it? Why not spend your effort on something that will actually benefit you.

I sell Digital Guides to online RPGs and I've had numerous people upload my PDF guides on forums and pirate them so I know what it is like and I do what I can to get them removed from the sites, but I don't go around worrying about other people's issues that don't effect me.

But then again I'm being hypocritical right now as I don't know why I'm worrying about this topic.
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I'm not. That's the problem. You were outraged at the prospect than anyone could be bothered by someone else stealing. Which is why I posed the scenario: If someone stole from your house, would you be bothered? I'm not going around finding people who pirate and ratting them out, nor would I, but I do my best to point out why it is completely wrong to think piracy is "all right."
 
Music_Producer said:
When one of my songs hit #1 on itunes (in the 'dance' category) the first few comments I received on my youtube page were : "Where can I download this for free??"
🙄
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I wish there were platform independent DRM timebomb music files. You hear the song as much as you like for 3 days, then you buy it or delete it. That'd be ideal, so people like me can hear a song then decide to keep it or not.

I don't steal music anymore, and if I do I buy it on CD after I've decided whether I like the record or not. If I don't, I delete it.

Coming from an aspiring producer, it feels wrong to take the money out of the people who write and record the music, but not so much the label, and in some cases the artists. (Very rarely do I feel like it's okay to take from the artist, and usually it's just out of jealousy for their success.)
 
Greenhoe said:
My main point was this does not effect you at all so why would you spend time worrying about it? Why not spend your effort on something that will actually benefit you.

I sell Digital Guides to online RPGs and I've had numerous people upload my PDF guides on forums and pirate them so I know what it is like and I do what I can to get them removed from the sites, but I don't go around worrying about other people's issues that don't effect me.

But then again I'm being hypocritical right now as I don't know why I'm worrying about this topic.
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I'm going to school to be a video producer. So, I would be one of the ones affected someday if I were to ever be involved in the production of a movie or music video. (Music industry being my goal.)

Regarding the RPG Guides, what are they? I've bought a couple different WoW guides.

Now think about this, how would you feel if someone else was selling your guides for a discount and making cash while you made none? That was the point of this topic anyway. Not the morality of downloading something for free. I was talking about a man who is selling someone else's product for a profit. The MPAA has a website for consumers to report people who illegally sell bootleg movies. It is up to us to report people who do that. Otherwise they would continue and never get caught.
 
apsterling said:
I wish there were platform independent DRM timebomb music files. You hear the song as much as you like for 3 days, then you buy it or delete it. That'd be ideal, so people like me can hear a song then decide to keep it or not.

I don't steal music anymore, and if I do I buy it on CD after I've decided whether I like the record or not. If I don't, I delete it.

Coming from an aspiring producer, it feels wrong to take the money out of the people who write and record the music, but not so much the label, and in some cases the artists. (Very rarely do I feel like it's okay to take from the artist, and usually it's just out of jealousy for their success.)
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I don't agree with your last point - that it does not feel wrong to take money from the label. Remember, that the label spends millions of $$s promoting the artist, they're basically taking a chance that the artist will succeed, and albums will sell. An upcoming artist has very little chance of promoting their music nationally, with the backing of a label it's much easier.

Labels are just like banks - they lend money in a way so that the customer/client/artist can go ahead with their projects - and both banks and labels always get the blame (like when people can't afford to pay for their overpriced homes because they took out two mortgages, and home equity loans - all of a sudden its the bank's fault.. or when the RIAA sues people for downloading illegally, all labels are monsters)

I don't work for any labels by the way, so this is an independent opinion - because I do understand the costs and procedures involved in production and distribution of music (let's not even delve into the legal fees!)I don't like the way labels pump out crap commercial music though (but then again, the customers love that kind of music!) Britney spears.. 'circus' # 1 song on itunes 😕

That time-bomb thing would fail because someone would always find a way to hack it - tunes get a lot of radio play, so that should be good enough for a person to decide if they want to buy it or not. Same with the 30 second preview on iTunes.. but your time-bomb idea is pretty good 😀

There's an interesting story I'd like to share:

When I was hosting my own site, I had demos of my songs in 8-bit format (very low quality audio) After a few months, I heard my songs playing in a gym and the quality was terrible.. so I asked the person who played the cd - turns out that someone 'recorded' the streaming 8-bit tunes.. put them on a cd.. and pirated them all across the city.. my album was priced at $10 - the pirated cds were selling for $4. Guess how many copies I sold? Zero.

So now I stick to making music for ads, independent artists (production) , etc.. where I get paid upfront - I do have to pay the bills eventually!
 
Music_Producer said:
When I was hosting my own site, I had demos of my songs in 8-bit format (very low quality audio) After a few months, I heard my songs playing in a gym and the quality was terrible.. so I asked the person who played the cd - turns out that someone 'recorded' the streaming 8-bit tunes.. put them on a cd.. and pirated them all across the city.. my album was priced at $10 - the pirated cds were selling for $4. Guess how many copies I sold? Zero.
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It's incredible how people will put up with such cack to save some money. I found my game (a free one so it's cool) was put up on a torrents site but to make the file smaller they had removed ALL the music from the game! They probably only saved a few mb but they still did it.

It's beyond me, to be honest. Why have a gimped version?
 
Lava Lamp Freak said:
At this point I couldn't turn the guy in if I wanted to because I even don't know his name. Apparently I misunderstood and the friend she got it from is the one who paid for it and she doesn't even know the guy who sold it to her friend.

Honestly though, someone selling bootleg movies or games deserves to be penalized for it, and they are all of the time. I do feel strongly enough about it that if I knew who the guy was and if this is a big business for him I would report him. Pirating is NOT a victimless crime.

I feel very strongly about copyright laws as I have many friends who are musicians and make their living selling music. My sister's ex-husband, who is a guitarist, found out a website was selling pirated copies of his CDs for years and he couldn't do anything to stop them even though he tried. It hurts when someone else is getting paid for your product and you don't get a royalty on it. So, unless you've actually been affected or known someone affected by such things I guess you wouldn't understand. It is actually our responsibility to report wrong doings when we see them.
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Question...

Before you consider turning someone else in for illegally profiting from someone else's IP. Have you ever download non-public domain stuff with bittorrent, limewire, edonkey or other P2P applications? Or borrowed a CD/DVD from a friend or public library, then copied it? Cause that's technically pirating too!!

Cause if you did, your just as bad as everyone else, perhaps you should consider turn yourself in too? Just a thought...like..

...then again, no-one's perfect I guess.
 
Who cares. the movie wasnt that great..

But i get to watch as many movies as i want for free legally.. my GF works at the movie theater! (although it does have downsides)
 
What about copying a DVD from Netflix and sending the original back?
What about a friend recording a TV show onto VCR for you? I remember that happening a lot when I was little and there was this girl 3 years older than me who recorded songs off of the chart show every Sunday.

Netflix then copying is just a slow version of downloading, and getting TV shows from BitTorrent or usenet (but thats a big l33t secret...) is like asking a friend to record a TV show for you.

Charging someone £5 for something you got illegally is morally bankrupt. How much does a blank DVD even cost? 50p?

As soon as Apple does video content without DRM, I will buy TV series and films from iTunes because I want to watch them through my xbox360. Also the prices for Film and TV is reasonable, just the DRM isn't great.
 
steviem said:
Charging someone £5 for something you got illegally is morally bankrupt. How much does a blank DVD even cost? 50p?
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Even less than that. They'd probably ask for more to fund the electricity used, printing costs and to just get some cheeky money.
 
Is it such an issue because it affects you now as a content producer? I know many artists get a rod up their behinds about this once they can see it affecting them - although they'll have no qualms about, say, accepting a bargain Apple of dubious origin in order for them to do their work.

As UltraNEO says, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Among Mac enthusiasts with a heavy media bent... I'm betting there'll be precious few stone-throwers. Unless you are truly dumb, it should be common sense otherwise to refuse materials of unconvincing origin. If you can't, don't pontificate.
 
ZiggyPastorius said:
Why is it wrong to think about turning someone in for stealing? I hope (I don't really, but for the sake of discussion, let's say I do) someone breaks into your house and takes a bunch of your stuff, because then someone can patronise you for having the nerve to report someone to the police.
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That wouldn't be the same thing as piracy. A better analogy would be if someone broke in to his house and copied all of his stuff and then sold the copies.
 
zioxide said:
That wouldn't be the same thing as piracy. A better analogy would be if someone broke in to his house and copied all of his stuff and then sold the copies.
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Actually, no. Replace a home with a store or a warehouse and the analogy is perfect. Say the movie makers are lamp makers, and they have all their lamps in the warehouse. If this is the richest lamp maker in the world, so you go into their warehouse and take 1-howevermany lamps, that is exactly the same. You are avoiding the check-out scanner (which is anywhere that sells these movies) and going straight for the lamp-stealing (downloading the free movie). There is NOTHING that is not stealing about piracy.
 
zioxide said:
That wouldn't be the same thing as piracy. A better analogy would be if someone broke in to his house and copied all of his stuff and then sold the copies.
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Nope, that isn't a good analogy at all. Unless that thief copied music or video that he had produced and sold it to people that would have been giving him money but instead gave their money to the thief. Therefore he would have lost income due to the theft.

10 years ago I was like those of you who don't see any harm in pirating music or software. I've never understood pirating movies as it has always been simple for me to watch anything I want through Netflix, which I have been a subscriber of since 1998. I gradually began replacing pirated music when the iTunes Store opened and have spent much money doing so. I've not bought a physical CD in years and have got everything through iTunes and Amazon MP3.

I've spent $60 in the last week on shareware that I found useful. I could easily have found hacks for those programs but I actually care about the authors of the software. I've bought WoW Guides that I could have pirated but I know that is actually stealing from their authors.

So for all of you people who say it's just a copy. You are wrong. It isn't just a copy. You actually stole a meal right off someone's table. It is illegal. And if you are caught you can be penalized for it. Like I said before I would never turn someone in for pirating for personal use. But selling something you pirated is ever worse.
 
chilipie said:
If you ignore the fact that piracy doesn't deprive anyone of a physical item.

I'm not saying piracy isn't bad, but it's not the same as theft.
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In criminal law, theft (also known as stealing or filching) is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent.
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Intellectual Property is still property -.- It is theft.

It is a form of aggression, regardless.
 
chilipie said:
If you ignore the fact that piracy doesn't deprive anyone of a physical item.

I'm not saying piracy isn't bad, but it's not the same as theft.
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I guess you would feel different if your welfare depended upon selling your work.
You design a widget and have 10,000 built, to break even you need to sell 4500. You sell 10 then all of a sudden you see more than 30 widgets that look similar and youask where they got it. I bought it for $5 from the guy on the corner. You go down there and sure enough there is a guy that is selling the widget for $5 and is making a modest profit. You discver he has sold 10,000 with a $2 profit per widget.

Now can you honestly tell me you would be ok with that. Your time, your, work, your investment is suddenly gone. would you simply walk away and say well they didn't really steal my work it they just copied it with this other person pocketing $20,000 at your expense.
 
Music_Producer said:
That time-bomb thing would fail because someone would always find a way to hack it - tunes get a lot of radio play, so that should be good enough for a person to decide if they want to buy it or not. Same with the 30 second preview on iTunes.. but your time-bomb idea is pretty good 😀
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some of those previews blow. they pick the worst bits, like the opening with little to no lyrics or the bridge where you can't get a true sense of the song. so I can see why folks would love a longer preview.

especially me. I am never in my car or at home with the radio on at points when there are lots of songs playing. i'm tortured with the DJ talk games too much. and our local DJs are idiots. can't stand them. so the only time I really hear music is perhaps at the mall, or something is playing on a tv show I watch.

I love the idea of a 10 play track as a preview tool. or even a one play where you can hear the whole track. yes some folks would try to hack it. but hey, knowing that, use the old 128 version of the songs so at least it's not the best quality hack.
 
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