What is your stance on illegal downloading??

Overheal

Overheal wrote: »

Its sad as well,

When I pay $15 for a DVD Movie I shouldnt have to deal with crap. You have the FBI warnings, the piracy warnings, bla bla bla, then you have previews (Advertisements) - im sorry, are you not making enough money off of my purchase?

So instead of buying it I downloaded taken. Now no BS, I can just pop in the disk and play. Satisfying.

that said, CDs sound much better on my car speaker system than the vast majority of available torrents, which typically are 128, 192 or sometimes 256 or 300kbps... Its just not the same as full CD. I used to think people were mad for making this same claim, till I ripped one of my CDs and re-burnt it at 300k for a side by side comparison. I was horrified at the results: CDs are still great.

indough

of course it is theft, you are taking the intellectual property of others against their will and using it without paying them the associated price

i think some of you just have outdated notions on certain concepts, for example just because something is not a physical entity and it is replenishable doesnt mean it cant be stolen

and this whole argument that 'i wouldnt have bought it anyway' is nonsense also, as it can only exist because of piracy, you dont know whether you would have paid to use/see/listen because you were never in a position to have to choose

if you dont like something enough to pay for it then dont use it, or else do, but at least dont try to convince anyone that what youre doing isnt wrong

Overheal

indough wrote: »

of course it is theft, you are taking the intellectual property of others against their will and using it without paying them the associated price

i think some of you just have outdated notions on certain concepts, for example just because something is not a physical entity and it is replenishable doesnt mean it cant be stolen

and this whole argument that 'i wouldnt have bought it anyway' is nonsense also, as it can only exist because of piracy, you dont know whether you would have paid to use/see/listen because you were never in a position to have to choose

if you dont like something enough to pay for it then dont use it, or else do, but at least dont try to convince anyone that what youre doing isnt wrong

you cant tell me that the entire thing is not blown entirely out of proportion:

http://gizmodo.com/5344159/second-degree-murder-and-six-other-crimes-cheaper-than-pirating-music

Gizmodo wrote:

SECOND DEGREE MURDER AND SIX OTHER CRIMES CHEAPER THAN PIRATING MUSIC

I'm outraged that the Obama administration is supporting the RIAA on the case against Jammie Thomas, a single mother of four who has to pay them $1.92 million for downloading songs. That's more expensive than murder and six other crimes:

• Child abduction: Fine of $25,000 and up to three years in prison, which can be accounted as $50,233 per year (that was the median household income in 2007, probably down because of the economic crisis). Total: $175,699.
• Steal the CDs: A total of $275,000, $52,500 fine for the CDs.
• Steal a lawnmower from your neighbour: A total of $375,000.
• Burn someone's house while playing The Doors: Another $375,000.
• Stalk a Gizmodo editor (yes, you know who you are): A Class 4 felony that will result in just $175,000.
• Start a dogfighting ring: $50,000.
• Murder someone on the second degree, a Class 1 felony: $778,495, which accounts for a $25,000 fine and four to 15 years in prison.

Heck, you can do all these crimes, and the total amount will be only $2.2 million. Of course, you can't really quantify years spent in prison using dollars, but I don't care. The case of Jammie—and many like hers—is still absolutely outrageous.

Ms. Thomas got fined $1.92 million for downloading 1700 songs songs. For some reason, a popular jury thought that was fair. That's ok. There are mentally disturbed people everywhere. But I don't care if it's 1700 or 17000 songs, nobody can be punished like this for downloading songs. It may follow a draconian law to the last comma and period, but that doesn't make the verdict just. The law is what is at fault here, with a punishment that is not proportional to the magnitude of the "crime." This goes against the most basic sense of justice.


I know that el Señor Presidente has more serious issues to worry about that this case, but something needs to be done about it. Something drastic. Unfortunately, nothing will happen, given the "class" of people now at the Department of Justice:






What a crying shame.

OutlawPete

Overheal wrote: »

that said, CDs sound much better on my car speaker system than the vast majority of available torrents, which typically are 128, 192 or sometimes 256 or 300kbps... Its just not the same as full CD. I used to think people were mad for making this same claim, till I ripped one of my CDs and re-burnt it at 300k for a side by side comparison. I was horrified at the results: CDs are still great.

Exactly and it's up to the industry to get better and better and give us more value for our money - then piracy won't matter.

I'm going to see Funny People tomorrow (opening night) yet I could have downloaded it for free the past three months. So why didn't I?

The same reason 99.9% of people don't and that is that they want their entertainment to be as good as it can be .. if I watched that at home I'd miss out on the whole experience of seeing a movie.

Same with DVDs and CD's .. if they give us stuff like Band notes and extra tracks, behind the scenes, commentry, deleated scenes etc etc then people would much rather pay for that as they are getting an excellent product that is ligh years better than anything they could 'steal' online.

Quality product will negate any threat that the entertainment industry thinks P2P sites harbour.

meepins

This has to stop!

Anti

Bring back the return of this:

Overheal

Anti wrote: »

Bring back the return of this:

do you think kids will really know what that means?

From instance:

Here's what happens when you give a 13-year-old from 2009 a Sony Walkman—the tape kind—and ask him to figure it out without any outside help: incredible confusion.



To the kid's credit, he was able to deduce that the tape had two sides (took him three days) and that you could switch between two kinds of tapes fairly easily. He was also given weird looks on the street and allowed to listen to music in class because of his teachers' nostalgia. Other choice quotes:

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured.
I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don't have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, "Walkmans eat tapes". So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.

Another useful feature is the power socket on the side, so that you can plug the Walkman into the wall when you're not on the move. But given the dreadful battery life, I guess this was an outright necessity rather than an extra function.

But in the end, which did he like better: his Walkman or his iPod? The iPod, of course, except for the fact that the Walkman had two headphone ports for easy music sharing.

Amalgam

I can see distributed sharing being strangled quite soon.. never underestimate the stupidity and short sighted nature of elected politicians. It'll have sod all to do with the likes of Eircom, the stranglepoint will be further up the pipe and strictly mandated.

I see a future where data will be like the drug trade, in as much as someone will create a criminal structure for the distribution of it. Fun and $$$ for one person, misery for others.

eamonpendergast

evil-monkey wrote: »

What are all your thoughts on illegal downloading of software??

Do you think that companies like Microsoft are OK with individuals torrenting their software etc, as these people, particularly students, are more likely to then go on and suggest use of these packages in work, where Microsoft will then make back their money??

Basically, what I'm trying to get going here is a discussion on how unethical is it to torrent commercial software etc...

I do remember Miscrosoft saying before that they would rather people use a pirated version of XP rather than using Linux...

I can't remember exactly where I heard it though (Slashdot maybe?)

Amalgam

eamonpendergast wrote: »

I do remember Miscrosoft saying before that they would rather people use a pirated version of XP rather than using Linux...

I can't remember exactly where I heard it though (Slashdot maybe?)

I think that's why there's been such a slack 'security policy' on Student versions of Office, I can't see that as being an oversight or accidental.

Khannie

Amalgam wrote: »

I think that's why there's been such a slack 'security policy' on Student versions of Office, I can't see that as being an oversight or accidental.

Like students pay for software anyway.

Venom

Do people still download movies and tv shows in this day and age?

Just watch them online :cool:

TarfHead

Venom wrote: »

Do people still download movies and tv shows in this day and age?

Just watch them online :cool:

32" TV screen versus 15" computer screen ?

No contest !

HandsomePete

evil-monkey wrote: »

What are all your thoughts on illegal downloading of software??

Simply Put:

jingx3

HandsomePete wrote: »

Simply Put:

I disagree. Any reasonable person can see that this diagram is dangerously misleading.

I have modified it appropriately:

Blowfish

jingx3 wrote: »

I disagree. Any reasonable person can see that this diagram is dangerously misleading.

I have modified it appropriately:

Wait, haven't you just copied someone elses intelectual property in the form of an image, modified it and re-released it? Where do you draw the line?