Internet Piracy

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

Internet Piracy is increasing rapidly with the growing popularity of The Pirate Bay (http://thepiratebay.org) after several lawsuits filed by anti-piracy companies. TPB is now bigger than LimeWire could ever hope to be, with ~25 million peers on their tracker at any given point in time (yes, even at 3am). Hosted in Sweden, and perfectly legal there, TPB continues to laugh in the face of the MPAA.

Now some say this is extremly wrong, that piracy is stealing. Im about to prove to you that it is NOT stealing, however morally wrong.

Lets say you have an apple. I walk up, take said apple from your hands and walk away with it. This is stealing, and is wrong. Now, say you have another apple, and I walk up to you again. This time however, I make a perfect "copy" of this apple, there now being two. I walk away with my apple, leaving you with yours. Did I just steal? Didnt think so.

If you still say piracy is wrong, think this over. Artist do not make money form CDs. Its the truth, the music companies make the CD money. How do artists get rich and buy awesome cars? Concerts. So next time you download a CD, dont forget to buy a concert ticket as well.

STILL say piracy is wrong? Ever share your friends music via a burned CD, Flash Drive, or IM? Congrats, youve just commited piracy, and now youre a part of the family.

The latest Piracy info can be found at Torrent Freak, the largest torrent news blog with 469,000 people in the RSS feed alone.
http://torrentfreak.com

Im all for piracy, how about you?

Well heres the feedback I got from someone else,

As you mentioned that you're not stealing from the artist, but you are stealing from the company that produced the material! By "Pirating" it instead of bying it you take money out of the pocket of those companies that would have otherwise gone to produce more product at at reduced price because they can afford to reduce said price thanks to your money! By "Pirating" it you are responsible for the high price of everything, Thank You!

Furthermore had you bought it instead then companies wouldn't have to Layoff so many workers when the economy is bad, You're putting people out of work! Why? Because you want Free Songs!

No, "Piracy" is not ok! You're ruining peoples lives because you want free songs and movies! You're putting companies out of business!

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My reply to his post:

Companies are not rising their prices because of piracy. They earn money from piracy, actually.

“Anti-Piracy” is a multi-billion dollar scam which employs hundreds/thousands of people and makes the rats on the top of the chain very very rich. As an example, the RIAA has so far sued around 30,000 people of who thousands have settled for an average of $3,500. As we don’t have the exact numbers let’s say unlucky number 13k settle (we are sure the figure is much higher, estimates put it close to 22k)… that’s around 45.5 million dollars they have recovered (add 400 mil from the Napster settlement as well), now since they are supposedly fighting for the artists, logic states that this money should be distributed among the artists? But since we are talking about the RIAA, throw logic aside.
None of this money has reached a single artist nor will it ever as according to the RIAA after deducting legal and operational costs there’s really very little to give back… and did you see it? POOF!! Tens/hundreds of millions have disappeared!

http://ezee.se/articles-blog/2008/11/18/an...than-you-think/

So, theyre making money from people that dont pirate, but are scared to standup in court and settle. Is that fair? No. Keep reading, none of that goes to the artist, nor will it ever. Hows them apples?

"Furthermore had you bought it instead then companies wouldn't have to Layoff so many workers when the economy is bad, You're putting people out of work!"
Name 5 people who have been laid off as a direct result of piracy, and ill name 15 who have been given jobs as lawyers, defence attornys, and collection agencys. How about that? Its true, piracy creates more jobs than it takes.

"No, "Piracy" is not ok! You're ruining peoples lives because you want free songs and movies! You're putting companies out of business!"
No company has yet to go under due to piracy. It actually generates MORE hype about a product or software. And wait a second now, why does software like PhotoShop cost money in the first place if GIMP is OPENSOURCE and works just as well, with just as many features? Odd.

So, again, what do you personally think?

 

[FWhite]

Being a pirate rocks.

By the way, SuprNova was shut down and they were hosted in a country that had no regulations against piracy.

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

Actually, http://suprnova.org/ is still up. Its either now owned by the folks at the Pirate Bay, or always was, not sure. Its junk now, as its being worked on and I think theyre complatly re-programming it all...it gave millions of errors before :\

Right now The Pirate Bay and MiniNova are the biggest, with MiniNova being ranked number 76 on Alexa top visited sites daily [Gobal List]

 

[FWhite]

I actually think ISOhunt is larger than MiniNova.

 

[spyka]

Lets say you have an apple. I walk up, take said apple from your hands and walk away with it. This is stealing, and is wrong. Now, say you have another apple, and I walk up to you again. This time however, I make a perfect "copy" of this apple, there now being two. I walk away with my apple, leaving you with yours. Did I just steal? Didnt think so.

So if I make a perfect copy of YOUR forum, including name, skin, posts, style etc but host it on MY host, you'd be fine with that then?

I mean you still have your copy of the forum and I have one - that's not stealing - is it? 😉

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

If you managed to make a copy of my forum including the posts and such, id say have at it. At that point I would have failed as an admin to keep my backups protected and safe, thus meaning im not suited for being an admin at all. Honestly, thats the way I would react.

Now if was a expoilt in my software or something, well thats comparable to a music company putting free downloads on their site due to a software conflict that causes thing to be free, and like they would be, id be rather mad.

Im sure theyre are others that as you said, would be rather mad about that though. The world is full of hypocrits, what else is there to say about that?

 

[inpaqt]

I disagree with it all. -evil-

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

I disagree with it all. -evil-

Do you have reasons, or do youre morals have alot to do with it?

 

[Van1lla ™]

But then who gave you the right to copy the apple?

Anyway i am a pirate too and so are my college mates.

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

Do you need a "right" to copy an apple? If you beleive in god, then did jesus commit a crime when he copied all that fish and bread? If so, then why are you worshipping a crimmal? Not trying to start a fight here, but really, think about it.

 

[spyka]

Well that is completely different, the fish and bread do not have a creator and no one has the "rights" over them so he did not commit a crime. Just as if you copy a public domain photo - it's not a crime - because no one has a right over it. However other photos will have rights to them - the person who created them.

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

Im just throughing it out there. Personally, I think there should be no laws to do with copying at all. If so, yes a certain number of compaines would be forced to close, but only the best would survive. Images and videos could be protected by watermarks and such. Music and movie? Well right now there are many music networks full of artists that arnt "main stream" per say, and release their music for free. They make money through donations, same with the movies. A world wide "wikipedia" is what I would love to see, everything can be editted and shared by anyone.

 

[Killman]

It does not matter much to me.

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

Out of the 5 people who have voted, no one has yet to hate it. Shows what our world has come to eh?

 

[spyka]

Im just throughing it out there. Personally, I think there should be no laws to do with copying at all. If so, yes a certain number of compaines would be forced to close, but only the best would survive. Images and videos could be protected by watermarks and such. Music and movie? Well right now there are many music networks full of artists that arnt "main stream" per say, and release their music for free. They make money through donations, same with the movies. A world wide "wikipedia" is what I would love to see, everything can be editted and shared by anyone.

You do realise how many jobs would be lost though?

Microsft employ nearly 100,000 people alone, not counting all the music, movie and other software companies.

Not only would the companies that make the products close, so would the shops that sell them. HMV, Apple iTiune, Amazon, Play.com who sell MP3s, DVDs and software would close without getting money from people paying for the software.

The music industry was worth $40 billion in 2004, the software industry was worth $451 billion in 2007. The film industry was worth $9 billion in 2006 in the UK alone.

Do you really think donations would replace all that money? Do you really think all that money does not effect the world?

Not to mention that no laws on copying would also effect art - people could copy peoples artwork. Education - people could copy others work. Photography, news papers, websites. Heck, the list is endless.

If I, or anyone else, spends time and effort creating a bit of work, whehter it be a website, film, song, artpiece, article or whatever I should have the right to decide who can use it and how.

If people don't mind they can release it to the public domain however people have to make a living and donations don't always cut it. The reason why people pirate things is because they can't afford it so why would they donate the money?

 

[ℓєσ gнσѕт]

The truthful reason why people pirate isnt because they cant afford it, and every pirate knows that. We do it for a few reasons, and they differ per person. For example, some do it just to get stuff for free, others to try before they buy, and some just to "stick it to the man".

Microsoft has yet to file a single lawsuit against someone for having an illegal copy of their software. Theyve had people arrested for selling the copies, but not private home users. Microsoft wouldnt be effected anyway, as remember, there are enough people in this world that would call in and be willing to pay for tech support from "people who know what theyre doing".