Generation Free: Piracy, distribution, and entertainment

@TomSEA;

Tom, you are tech reporter, or whatever, and you should know the difference betwen steal and copy. It is not the same thing! Steal if you steal something like car or thing, while copy if you copy song, software, game, etc. And that is not the same!

You aren't some ordinary person, you are into tech and you should know about this.

Yes yes it might be wrong, but if I would copy this or that I wouldn't bought it, because I don't have enough money for every game, mp3, movie, etc. So would you rather see me try it suggest it to friend or rather I don't try it and friend who might wanna buy it would never hear of it?

I have HBO and HBOonDemand, but I still download latest Game of Thrones from TPB, and I seed untill next episode is available (just to make myself clear I have 100/50, so I get pretty insane ratio in that time). And I suggested it to all my friends and they to their friends, etc. etc. Many of them bought BluRay if they could, still many don't think it is worth one show for sub.

I bought a lot of games throught Steam, even BF3 and Premium when they were most expensive! Do I fell stupid because I could get both for like 25$? No. I had great time playing it and I would buy it all again (another 100€) if I could. But of course I pirated first.

And don't start with that DRM thing. I bought every AC for PC, but do I play it on Steam? Nope. Cracked version is a way to go.
So tell me, how is something that I stole is still at owner "house"? Steal != copy
 
@Tygerstrike,
They have more money now than ever before internet, so how is piracy ruining them? Look at boring movies like The Hobbit! It entered 1 billion $ CLUB!??! How is that possible with all this piracy?
You most be fool to fall for millionaire and politics lies.
 
You know, theft used to be a bad thing.

Emphasis on *used* to. Our culture today glorifies thieves and the act of stealing. Ah, how I long for the glorious days when people bought stuff. Now, if you'll excuse me I have some bootleg "One Piece" videos I need to buy from Thailand.
 
At first guest.
Ok Im going to give you the benefit of knowledge. You call it copying. The reality is that IF it wasnt online, the only way you would have to watch your show is to buy the DVD. That would put roughly 5$ into the pockets of the ppl who make your favorite show per DVD sold. Since you CAN get it online and you "Copy" it, you are stealing the 5$ that the makers of the show would have gotten had you purchased the physical media. There is the theft. In the first senario you would have purchased a physical copy and the makers would have made the money they rightfully have earned. In the second senario you have still viewed the product but the makers off the show have lost that 5$ you have taken 5$ of money by watching something that someone else has paid for. You simply copied it.
@Second guest.
You are confusing overall box office sales with piracy. A movie can make as much as ppl are willing to pay to watch it. Obviously over 1 Billion in cash went into box office sales. Good for them. Atleast 1 bil worth of actual consumer dollars was earned legitimatly. Now...lets go down the road. Just a small amount say roughly 6 months. Now the DVD/BR is going to come out. Those fat little movie executives think "Hey we made 1 billion in its initial release to movie theaters, lets try and make some more." Because lets face it, NO ONE works for FREE. The same reason you would go to work, so do they. MONEY! So they have spent the cash and reformatted, reedited, re soundtracked. Added a ton of behind the scenes footage, cast interviews, special effects directors ect. And they release the DVD/BR. Now one or two individuals think "Hey this is a great movie, Im going to share it with the world". They put it up for download and lets be conservative and say only 500,000 ppl downloaded a free copy.
Now do the math....500,000 X $24.99 = $12,495,000. SO because of "copying" the movie company is automatically out 12.5 MILLIION. How exactly is this not stealing? How exactly is this NOT a crime? Simple because they just havent caught you yet.
This is what drives groups like MPAA/RIAA. Its real lost money. Its not fake numbers on a ledger. Even if you are a 50/50 pirate. You eventually buy what you have pirated. You have still stolen. If this was your movie,song,game wouldnt you be A LOT butthurt that over 500,000 ppl liked your movie, but not enough to pay you for the work you did on it. Many times these ppl have to work towards a percentage of what the media makes. I.E. 10% of gross sales, 15% after net. So these ppl who are waiting to get paid are also being stolen from. This isnt "Millionaire or Political", this is business plain and simple.
 
They are not pirates they are thieves and the only question they ask themselves is "can I steal this for free?"
Oh dear, here we go again.
Copyright infringement is not theft. It is not stealing. It never was, and it never will be.
If someone does not dispossess you of something you have in your possession it is not theft, of any sort, in any way.
When people use the word theft to describe copyright infringement it serves only to highlight the fact that they have not thought about, or are unwilling to think about, what they are saying.

I've thought about it, let me explain it to you. Preventing someone from making what they would otherwise make is still something that will get you sued. http://www.lawleaf.com/lawsuit-funding/lost-wages-and-income-compensation.html. If you pull the fire alarm at Best Buy on black friday, they could sue you for lost revenue. If you text and drive and crash into someone who needs to be on their feet for work, and they're out of work for a year, they can sue for lost wages.

If you paid a little more attention, you'd notice that the ones who've been prosecuted for piracy were sued, not convicted of theft.

Kudos to Julio for bringing a little more awareness to this.
 
All this discussion is pretty interesting and funny.

I'm going to be honest that I pirate quite a bit. I don't pirate any movies and music though but I do pirate a lot of applications and software. Why do I pirate? Simple. Because I can and I want the software without paying for it. That's all there is to it.

What I don't get however is all of these justifications of why some people pirate. "It's not stealing". "They are not losing any money". "Blah blah blah". Why?

Ok. It's not "stealing" because technically it really is not stealing. BUT when we pirate, we are "taking" something that we should have paid for so we are devoiding the author of something that he/she should have gotten in the first place. So it's not stealing but it's something that is devoiding the author of something. Basically, stop playing with words and try to understand what people are trying to say by "stealing".

About the whole "not stealing since it's a copy". I make a prototype of a dish. Sent the design to the factory and let say that I have a super great deal of being able to manufacture those dishes for free. I made 200 copies of my dish and try to sell them. Some guy ran in and stea... uhh... I mean take those dishes. I'm not losing anything since technically I still have my original dish right? But hell, I was making copies to sell but that guy just took a bunch of dishes so he/she pretty much just "took" away my potential money. I just lost something! Of course we all know manufacturing is not free. Electronic distribution is also not free. You need the servers, the electricity, the staff to maintain it, and many other things.

"Information should be free". True. I agree with that. Einstein worked for the better of mankind and he in a sense, worked for free. Who feeds him? Where is his house? His expenses on books, pencils, pens, and etc? Those are definitely not free. He needs money to survive to work for you for free. Entertainment is information. It should be free. Hell yeah it's free but the process of making it requires money. Money that they hope to get back so that they can produce more for you to enjoy. Do you work for free? Perhaps you work on open source software. Who provides you the food, energy, resources? You might not get funding directly but you do need some funding elsewhere for you to survive and continue to contribute to open software. The only difference now is you get resources from outside of what you do. The people in the entertainment industry however don't get their resources from outside but DIRECTLY from what they're working on.
 
You know, theft used to be a bad thing.

Emphasis on *used* to. Our culture today glorifies thieves and the act of stealing. Ah, how I long for the glorious days when people bought stuff. Now, if you'll excuse me I have some bootleg "One Piece" videos I need to buy from Thailand.
Of-coarse, you think we wouldn't learn to follow suit behind our nations and their taxes. What about when your property is repossessed, you think they care how much you have invested?
 
There are many non-profit organization that works for world improvement. One way to reduce malaria, transmitted by mosquito, is to use bed nets. Many of these non-profit organization programs give out bed nets for free to really poor families in developing countries. Do they work for free? Hell no. They needed money to feed themselves so that they could work to provide bed nets to other developing countries for free. How do they seek money? Fundraising, contracts, grants, and misc. They giving for free but they're aren't working for free. They needed all that money to handle the project so that it could provide nets for free.

Entertainment industry core business is making entertainment and selling them. They're aren't working for free either. When you download copies of their products without paying them, they are losing potential sales that they were working for.

Many developing countries need better ways to cook stuff. Companies can provide them the better cooking methods by selling the methods to US citizen at a higher (but still affordable price) so that they can subsidize the cost so that it's possible to sell it to developing countries at a very very reduced price and in certain cases, for free. They definitely don't work for free but they are doing something noble.

Entertainment industry aren't doing something noble. But why should they? You don't need entertainment to live. It's a luxury so the entertainment industry produces these entertainment in hope of high potential sales which you devoid them off if you download copies without paying. Their core business is to sell you entertainment.

"Nope, never was theft, never will be. It is infringement of an artificial, government-granted monopoly."
The government is "evil" but the opposite of government is... chaos. Besides, the government are being stupid and "evil" about... entertainment. It's not liberty that is being risked. It's not life that's being risked. It's entertainment. Of course you don't want to be overly oppressed either. But saying it's ok because the rules are made by an artifical blah blah blah is pretty stupid.

Companies make retarded DRM. Instead of pirating it, email them, call them, find ways to tell them that you don't like it. Hell, tell them "f**** you. you DRM is too f****** restrictive". It's probably more effective than pirating and not telling them how shitty their DRM is because if you go this path, they probably make their DRM even more shittier.
 
"We must vote with our wallets and that's exactly what pirates are doing."
"Best answer ever. Don't be the sheep, be the shepherd.You make those companies exist in the first place, make them treat you accordingly."

I rather be the smart sheep that can lead the Shepard around rather than the dumb-*** Shepard whose only competent ability is his own title. Anyways, can you guarantee that most pirates are voting with their wallet by pirating and not because they pirate because it's free and can easily do so? I can simply install uTorrent, go onto thepiratebay, and hit a link and voila! Downloading starts. That versus, taking out my wallet, type in my card number, and go through the entire buying process to get what I want. Are you REALLY sure?

That leads to: Why don't people vote with their wallet when physical goods don't meet their demands by "pirating" it? That should teach companies! Oh... because there's potential immediate repercussion for it. But online... *smirk... I can do it without anyone knowing... *laughs evilly
 
But what about the unauthorized reproduction or dfistribution of such copyrighted work being illegal? Not thieves, but criminals instead?

Criminals to be sure; but the question is, if the law upholds oppression, is it wrong to break it, or is it wrong to follow it?

We live in a democracy, a prerequisite of which is freedom of information. Knowledge is power. When information becomes the province of the rich and is unaffordable to the poor there can only be sham democracy. Information must be free to all, no ifs, no buts.
That's not a reason to record bootleg copies of a cartoon >_>
People have been paying for movies since the early 1900s
Movies have never been unnaffordable. The prices may seem ridiculous to some, but that doesn't mean it can't be paid for. People out there with $200 sneakers, ipads, smartphones and all that **** but wont bother buying an album?
 
I think if you RENT a movie from a kiosk, then you should put up with the BS before you watch the movie.
But, if you PURCHASE a disk, then it should give you the stupid FBI splash screen, AND THAT'S IT, right to the movie.
Maybe put the "coming attractions" in the menu, but it's a pain to sit through 5-15 minutes of BS before you get to the
movie, which is another reason I try to wait for movies to hit Redbox before I watch them...in the theater, not only do you
have to put up with *****s yapping through the picture, but you have 15 minutes worth of commercials & trailers before the
d*mn movie starts.
 
Not careless with my words at all.

Simple example. Your Metallica CD is on sale at WalMart for $9. You pass on that and instead illegally download it so you can have it for free.

That's theft.
you know, when people have 20 albums on their Whatever, that turns out to be 200 dollars. I cant hand out 200 dollars for 200 songs. Nor do I want to when the artists are getting what, 5 percent likely? Id gladly pay 4 dollars an album though.

im Still going fine with youtube/spotify tho, dont need to pirate.
 
Bitches at evil invisible internet takers while posting cartoons from The Oatmeal without crediting Matthew Inman.

Create something again so I can not pirate it. Your words are holier than your actions.
 
No. I won't pay an outrageous pile of money to sign up for cable so that I can watch 1 show.

Call Comcast. I want to watch Game of Thrones!

Ok you will need this package. Quotes price. $$$$

Is that in hd? No you will need to add this much $$$

Does this service come with a dvr or any kind of time shifting??? No you will need to add this much more $$$

All to watch 1 show.

Until I can download individual episodes the same day they air or buy a season pass to a specific show.

I will continue to torrent the **** out of content.

Piracy is currently the only alternative I have.

Do I purchase and support the shows I love when they come out on Blu-ray?

Hell yes I do.

Tv show executives please come up with a business model that suits me the paying customer.
Personally, I I think you bring up some extremely good points here. People bring up the argument against piracy, and then with conditions like you cite, wonder why people pirate.

Before anyone gets the idea that I am in favor of piracy, I will say I am not at all in favor of piracy.

That said, I think your post brings up an enormous point, that is, the lack of being able to choose what channels you want for a less than all fee. There are many stations that I never watch in my Dish package, however, I have to pay for them even though I could care less about them. I find it ironic that Dish is in the same position that they are placing their customers with their ongoing refusal to carry MSG's music video stations as a prerequisite to carrying MSG's sports programming. Dish, in the mean time, has refused to offer any replacement sports network or give a discount to those in the northeast that would have MSG as their local sports network even though their standard packages cite inclusion of a local sports network in their package.

So, my wife and I are paying almost $84 / month for perhaps 10 programs that we watch, and we are considering dropping Dish in favor of legal, online outlets for all the material we watch. At $84/month, it would be far cheaper for us to buy each of the shows that we watch on DVD/Blu-ray when they are available than it is for us to continue to subscribe to Dish. It is just common economic sense to look at it this way, and no longer buy into the endless upsells.

While I do not agree with the piracy, I am sick of the endless upsells that cable/satellite providers use to squeeze every single penny out of the consumer's pocket that they possibly can. IMHO, this is also stealing be it legal stealing.

Until articles like this consider all sides of the equation, I think viewpoints will remain unbalanced.
 
@Wiyo
Where they do bring up a valid point as do you. The problem is you want your way. The cable companies do not care that you dont watch those 10 channels. There are contracts that are signed that dictate where a particular channel is placed. You guys scream its too expensive. Point your ire towards the real bandits. The actual Channels themselves. CNN Fox TNT. They all sign contracts with the cable providers. Those contracts do two things. 1. It keeps some VERY sub par channels on. 2. It forces the cable companies to "buy" those sub par channels if they want the major channels. And if the cable companies do not wish to play ball, the cable channels themselves will "get the word out" by making the cable company themselves look like the bad guy.
 
I was using explorer and *shurgs*have no idea why it doesn't work with this site. Do you really think I'd ignore spell check underlines? That's more believable? Yeah .. right .. beat up on the dyslexic girl .. You're such a noble big man for it. *rolls eyes* Can you go any lower?

The music/movie/television industry is completely at fault here. If they want me to buy something don't offer me **** and tell me it's candy. Metallica album for 30 bucks, but it has 1 good song, Blu-ray movies for 30-60 bucks for a single movie and a ton of behind the scenes garbage.

Why do people download? Because they know damn well they are stealing from the real pirates already and you can't steal from thieves!
So why not buy the one song. In this day and age of music that is totally doable. Again ... another lame excuse.

This is why I get all my stuff from Hulu. $7.99/mth and I get movies, fav shows and all that. Yes there are ads, but hey. Ads are everywhere.
 
It is not theft, it is not stealing, it is not piracy, it is copyright infringement and it is illegal. How much money the artists have or make or how many FBI screens you have to watch is irrelevant to the above fact (although having the screen on bought video's seems like preaching to the converted). For movies I use Netflix, no ads, a whole $10 a month, they have some TV shows on now (I have no TV, it is not worth the money and to sit through 17 minutes of ads per hour of programming). For other sports I buy a videopass that allows commercial free watching plus archives of previous races. Music, if you like them, support them as they are already getting bent over so hard and @#@% up the rear it is not funny. Plus you get the booklet and the great sound quality. MP3's and flac suck

All I'm saying is if you are going to infringe copyrighted works, you are going to do it, but just don't tell me you are some kind of social rebel, or activist. BTW copyright infringement also occurs if you photocopy too many pages out of a book or magazine, if you borrow CD's/DVD's from your local library and rip them to your computer etc. It's not just limited to music and movies. And again, your life is your life, if you want to infringe you will, but don't bs me and tell me what a great person you are and the great service you are doing for humanity as you torrent or do whatever else it is.
 
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