Topic: Piracy - page 6. (Read 6647 times)

I'm not Serge, but I like putting in my two cents, so here we go. 


It's not theft, but it's still copyright infringement.  It's like saying stealing a Maserati isn't theft because you couldn't afford one anyway.  Not losing revenue doesn't change what it is, just arguably changes the damages. 


The Betamax case, which states viewers are allowed to time-shift their television watching, puts you into a legal grey area, as it would the website hosting the file.  The person who uploaded it would have been breaking copyright law.   

If you owned the DVD, and were ripping it to watch on your computer/iPad, you would be breaking the law under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act due to the fact you were circumventing copyright protection, despite the fact that you were covered by Fair Use.  (I agree, this is asinine).


This is allowed under Fair Use.


Believe it or not, this is one of those cases that's never been judged.  A company was sued by the entertainment industry over this, but the company's legal fees caused it to go bankrupt before a decision was made, so who knows how this could go?  Overall, it seems like the record industry really doesn't care that much.

On a side note, copyright was created originally as a legal agreement between the government and content creators, saying that if you agree to make stuff, we'll give you control over that stuff for a limited period of time.  After that period of time is up, it passes into the public domain, which means anyone can riff off of it, and create their own material based off of it.  But companies and estates have pushed copyright to become so ridiculously long, it essentially excludes anyone from ever being able to use anyone else's work without paying for it because copyright now goes on for essentially forever, here in the States.

This video is very interesting:  http://youtu.be/tk862BbjWx4

It seems the issue isn't piracy itself, it's lack of compensation for the creator.  I think people who pirate agree.  Most of the cost goes to the distributor and licence fees.

Take Steam for example.  They're able to offer incredible deals, taking smaller cuts on a much MUCH higher volume. Somtimes 40x higher volume gross revenue.  (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/24/less-is-more-gabe-newell-on-game-pricing/). Even the current HumbleBundle (http://www.humblebundle.com/) has over $600,000 towards it, when if people were as greedy as the anti-piracy folk make them out to be, it'd be $0.  People want to pay a reasonable price for things.

The middleman wants to pin the higher prices on the 'loss' from pirates, when it's the other way around.

Get the middleman in check and you'll see increased profits for the creator as well as wider distribution of the content, and you can even keep all the red tape of licensing. The end-user will always go the path of least resistance.

you guys who say you had no intentions of ever paying for it but feel fine taking it for free since it is not lost sale - are contradicting yourselves

you want it but don't want to pay for it and since you can take it for free somewhere else of course intention of ever paying for it magically disappears.

you would do the same thing in a heart-beat if you could apply same 'logic' to iphones, cars and any other tangibles IF you could get away with it.

if you had no means taking it for free, many of those sales would not be lost sales and some would never purchase it in the first place. so if you have no intention of paying for it don't look for means getting it for free, but no, you want it, just with no intention of paying for it. LOL

Are you saying it is ok to take/copy something of value for free without having intention of ever paying for it and then distributing it to others without intention of ever paying for distribution license? - this is not even ok if you have such 'intentions' for the future.
if you have no intention of paying don't try justify using that product for free because it is technically not stealing but a simple harmless copy.  it is not right.
Let me ask you this is it ok to go to restaurant or store and taking something with having no intention of ever paying for it?
Would you put in your signature that you are a pirate and proud of it?

re HBO: call them and ask how they feel about it.  my understanding courts have agreed that you can make personal backups for yourself, would HBO approve you distributing their shows via torrents or filesharers, or tubes for the whole world to see for free? probably not.  But feel free to call them and verify as I'm not HBO spokesperson.

Xbox, - as stated above personal backups are fine, mass distribution - i don't think so.

radio: same case - you can tape them for your own personal use. broadcasting all over the net - i don't think radio station will approve, but do call them and verify.

if all these companies were fine with mass free distribution/broadcasting they would do that themselves - don't you think so?

Q: Why is it piracy to copy something for decades, but completely OK one day all of a sudden?

A: Because the expiration date is completely arbitrary, set by a bunch of corrupt millionaire "representatives".

Human rights do not work that way!

Everytime I pirate wareZ I'm pirating software/music/movies that I wouldn't otherwise purchase anyways, so no theoretical lost revenue is had from me.

If I like the music I'll go see the artist because they make direct revenue from concerts. Music sales completely go to the label unless they have at least 3 releases out already then maybe they'll get a small share. Bands live off touring and merch. As for movies, I'll pay to see it if I'm interested otherwise I'll pirate it out of curiosity/boredom. Either way I'd never hand over $15 to Michael Bay anyways so he doesn't lose out when I rip his stuff, basically I end up losing for wasting my precious time on earth witnessing his cinematic abortions.

BSD doesn't charge money, so I don't buy any software. Games I pirated for personal use over the years I can count on one hand, and all were shit pretty much anyways which reinforced my preference of being able to evaluate a full unrestricted copy before I had over $100+

There is no billion dollar pirate industry. When I was Razor1911 back in 1993 none of us made any money we did it solely for phony scene rep and for access to ridiculously overpriced software and basically this hasn't changed. In fact I paid something like $195/mth at the time in fees to run a shitty front end mailer to trade/sync files with my piracy downlinks out of my own pocket.

hypothetical digital product X retail cost $10
license to distribute it $10,000

a pirate doesn't steal it, he/she conveniently copies it for his/her personal or other use by doing so, stealing worth of $10 earnings from people who created and distribute product X
now, that pirate decides to conveniently participate in free distribution of said product to the masses on the net, conveniently stealing $10,000 worth of distribution license fee earnings. multiply it by others who use and share that product

if you think that product isn't worth its asking price simply don't use it, or create something and offer it at your own rates that you deem to be fair or give away for free since you like free so much and paying all production, pre-production, post-production and marketing expenses yourself.
don't put blame on me that i call pirates thieves because they can't afford something they want and arguing that what they do is not stealing because its a copy.

i'm not equating content theft to killing, i'm saying in cases of massive crimes there will be draconian laws set in place and that will affect innocent people in some way shape or form.

court of law can threat content theft as copyright infringement, i call it as i see it - theft. you don't steal anything physically you simply refuse to pay what it costs, doesn't make it right.

It's stealing if I grab code from somewhere and delete it when I'm done. It's theft of service if I make use of a service without paying. It's copyright infringement if I make copies of something and give it away.

Not only will you refuse to quit calling it stealing, you equate it with killings in the streets. \o/

I think we're done here.

i don't support draconian/unfair laws.
although if there was mass killings on streets you can bet there would be draconian laws in place to deal with it. and there would be innocent people affected by such laws too.

stealing is stealing even if it is a digital good.

if you got something for free that is not free - you stole it. you stole it 100x, 1000x ... more if you seeded it for others to steal or own a site that enables it while claiming you are not responsible for what is going on your site while being well aware what is going on there.

So you're only doing it because there's no repercussions, even though hot-linking a file is arguably worse than vanilla copyright infringement because while infringement isn't necessarily a lost sale, hot-linking always costs bandwidth.

You're the best kind of hypocrite!


I didn't "check out [your] stuff", I just noticed your avatar had a copyright on it and then decided to go see what the terms of the copyright was. It took all of 30 seconds and it was hardly police-level detective work. I don't consider it hypocritical because I'm only pointing out what a dick thing it is to do, I'm not even telling you not to do it - much less arguing in favor of draconian laws to stop you doing it.


First, stop calling it "stealing" - it's not theft it's infringement. Second, who gives a fuck what companies would do if there was no piracy? You're in BitcoinTalk of all places, arguing against companies doing what the market demands.

Third, lots of people make a living from shit they give away for free. Of course I agree with you that should be their choice, but you're totally dodging the crux of my argument here. I'm not arguing that piracy is right, just or good - I'm arguing that these laws will not stop piracy, but they will fuck over a whole bunch of innocent people. Just like DRM, DMCA, and everything else that came before them.

Here's a good example: consider the various games with always-on DRM. If you get disconnected from the internet, you can't play the game you paid money to license. If I pirate it, I'm still playing even while the whole neighbourhood's internet is dark. Do you think that equates more sales? Consider DVDs, where you've got between 30 seconds and 5 minutes of typically un-skippable FBI warnings and trailers that the legitimate purchaser (term used loosely, as I acknowledge you're only purchasing a license, you don't own shit) must sit through, while the pirate... if the uploader left the FBI warnings in ironically, are typically skippable so you can get straight to the movie.

The solution is adjusting your business to the whims of the market, not demanding the government fix the market for you (which again, the crux of my argument is that government action to curb piracy is wholly ineffective and does more damage than good).

eggawf,
my hypocrisy   lies in terms if that was really punishable i wouldn't have that avatar in the first place - if i knew if it would lend me in jail or with a fine. that's the point that piracy is so huge today, everyone does it because there is no repercussion. I at least recognize that it is an issue in today's world - massive distribution of content that is not authorized for such distribution.

I also find it ironic you started checking out my stuff to see if and where i was at fault, as a policeman, when it suited you and your argument. hypocritical much? when it suits you - others should play fair, when it doesn't everyone free to steal stuff left and right.

at least we both agree that DMCA in it's current state is BS although for different reasons, and they all are valid reasons.

> Again, as stated above, many content providers are figuring out there's ways to work around piracy and turn some of those into actual sales.

would they start doing it if there was no piracy?  why don't companies that produce anything go free route from the get go, why don't they just release stuff on torrents and save a bunch on hosting bandwidth. who will pay for resources to be able to produce anything if final product is free - you don't see conflict there?

I know some producers monetizing on free distribution, but that is not an excuse for stealing in the first place, isn't?  you create something - it is your business whether you want to give away for free or sell it. anyone else shouldn't be able to dictate you to go free route or any other way just because everyone loves free stuff and much less steal ('copy' as some of you like to make it sound like) your work.

It wasn't really joking - I was pointing out you're a hypocrite. Like almost every other person I've met that white-knights movie studios about piracy, you're a pirate too when it suits you. You're just butthurt others are having fun (as for many crews it's not about money at all) and while yes, it's against the law, the fact is that the intellectual property market is going to have to change how it operates in order to make money. Observe things like Netflix, Steam, and the HumbleBundles. Most people pirate because it's convenient or because something is only slightly out of their price range. Give 'em a good deal and/or make it convenient, and they'll stop. Some people are going to pirate no matter what, and those people aren't really lost sales because you were never going to make a sale.


YouTube only removes material that matches filters for material that's already been reported. That's as proactive as you can get, seriously. There's been numerous cases of an artist giving away their work for free, who's been shut down by an ISP that's so shit-scared of the DMCA, when it's their bloody work. No infringement is taking place, but some douchebag ISPs try to be "proactive" when the important part is that through DMCA safe-harbor they don't have to be. It's not a loophole, it's there for a reason - ISPs should not have to take guesses at what constitutes infringement, they should wait on the copyright holder (or someone legally authorized to act thereof) to make a statement under penalty of perjury that it's infringement.

Nice weasel words: what "some other sites" are you referring to? Many, many sites don't use algorithms to scan content, but they do hash-match to at least make sure the exact same file doesn't get uploaded again.

Finally, there's virtually no repeatable proof that it "economically degrades investment into creativity". Movies keep breaking box office records despite the fact that people are going to the movie theaters less often, Netflix is doing great, Steam is doing great, and there's been repeated observances that piracy may actually help sales (though they're often quite flimsy).


Bullshit, it has everything to do with free speech because the DMCA is already abused to curb free speech and to curb legitimate competition. Most successful ISPs are quite adept and fast at dealing with takedown notices, but don't have any idea what to do with a counternotice on a fake claim. They don't bother checking the DMCA notice comes from an actual person, and legitimate content owners have a really hard time getting their content put back online when some interested 3rd party arranges a bogus takedown.

If you don't think that newer, more draconian laws, with less safeguards are going to make that worse (and as noted above, without any real implications to real pirates), then please don't breed.


Again, as stated above, many content providers are figuring out there's ways to work around piracy and turn some of those into actual sales. Again, as stated above, some of those people pirate simply because they can and it's easy and no matter what the price they were never going to pay for it anyway. I personally have had some of my creative work taken and used by a for-profit entity, and once I figured out the correct process for a DMCA takedown, it was removed promptly and the site in question now prevents any matching images from being uploaded again.

Finally, again, pirates are going to keep doing it without any repercussions regardless, these laws are just going to fuck people like you and me.

enjoy seeding ripped dvds while you can, your time is coming to an end.  then cry about your limited free speech in a form of stealing others work. and hope you won't end up serving time.

The laws of economics are not going to be kind to your desires.

Pirates can try to justify content theft how ever they like, i call it as i see it.  I hope the law will catch up to those who participate in mass distribution of unauthorized content.

Doesn't make it wrong either.

It's not 'technically' anything.  Copying is not theft.  It might be infringement, but then the question becomes "infringement of what?"  Infringement of a government enforced monopoly on the dissimination of useful information.  That's what it boils down to. 

copying and distributing work without copyright holder permission doesn't make it right even if it's technically not stealing.

i guess i have to spell it out what i mean by "stealing"

stealing copyright holder's ability to rightfully benefit of of their creation  by freely distributing that creation for all to see/use for free while many times monetizing that traffic by means of advertising other not so ethical sponsors who support piracy.