Torrenting Movies and games: Theft or no?

[Cephus]

Back in the day did you ever record a song off the radio onto a tape or a movie on a vhs that was on tv?

Sure, because back in the day, most of those movies were never released commercially. Movies weren't released on VHS for a consumer market for a very long time, they were released to the rental market only.

 

[Harshaw]

It's not "stupid". If you have a quality product with quality service, you will get paid. If you don't, you won't.

Not if it's widely available for free, you won't.

You might get people who toss you a few coins, because they feel like, as you describe yourself as doing. But that's not getting paid. That's getting an occasional tip.

If people are stealing your IP on high levels, you've done something wrong, it's likely quality, service, or pricing that's the matter. Adjust or die out.

No. This is STUPID. It puts the blame for stealing on the victim.

If people are stealing things at a high level, then it's something people want. It's valuable. They should pay for it.

 

[Ikari]

The difference is those songs and movies were publically broadcast.

Or digitally distributed. Napster was essentially the tape cassette of the internet. People freaked out because it was "stealing", but all those songs were broadcast over radio too. The main difference isn't so fundamental that it isn't "stealing", but to the levels of aggregation the technology allowed.

In the end, if someone puts out a quality product with quality service, they will get paid. If you offer crap, there's a chance people will try to circumvent ya.

 

[Cephus]

Not if it's widely available for free, you won't.

I love how you spend all of your time telling people what they will and won't do. :roll:

 

[americanwoman]

The difference is those songs and movies were publically broadcast.

So do you think once it's publically broadcast, it's okay to reproduce?

Example, I know a site that converts music videos online to free music mp3s. So by digitally obtaining the publically online broadcast of a song I'm in the clear.

 

[Renae]

I already went over the labor argument. I'm sharing my property, not their labor.

Let's say, for arguments sake Henrin, you write the next great American Action Novel. Publishers are excited, Hollywood is waiting to make your story the big movie. The pay out from all this will let you retire from a real job, secure your financial future and you can write for life.

There's a catch, they publish your book digitally. If it makes a million sales, all your good things will happen.

A year goes by, despite the hype, the forums and fans... you're book sells only 750k copies. Publishers leave, Hollywood decides maybe you aren't all that. The future you wanted slipped away.

One day, at home you're pursuing your favorite property sharing site, as you like to call it, and you see your book has been "shared" 2-3 million times...

Yeah, and that really does play out in the real world like that in many ways.

All the responses have been aces everyone, but those in favorite of "Sharing"... I see a bunch of self justification for what you know is wrong. Sorry that's how I read it.

 

[Harshaw]

How many times do I have to tell you that you're wrong and you keep ignoring me? Stop being ridiculous.

You never directly answered the question. All you said was "I already own Interstellar, and I buy lots of movies." You didn't answer the question you were asked.

OF COURSE you'll take the free commercial copy instead of buying it. OF COURSE you will. You know you will, and you're just trying to avoid the question.

 

[Cephus]

You never directly answered the question. All you said was "I already own Interstellar, and I buy lots of movies." You didn't answer the question you were asked.

OF COURSE you'll take the free commercial copy instead of buying it. OF COURSE you will. You know you will, and you're just trying to avoid the question.

Yes I did. YES I WILL GO TO AMAZON! Geez, are you going to tell me I didn't answer it again because you didn't get the answer you wanted?

 

[Harshaw]

Let's say, for arguments sake Henrin, you write the next great American Action Novel. Publishers are excited, Hollywood is waiting to make your story the big movie. The pay out from all this will let you retire from a real job, secure your financial future and you can write for life.

There's a catch, they publish your book digitally. If it makes a million sales, all your good things will happen.

A year goes by, despite the hype, the forums and fans... you're book sells only 750k copies. Publishers leave, Hollywood decides maybe you aren't all that. The future you wanted slipped away.

One day, at home you're pursuing your favorite property sharing site, as you like to call it, and you see your book has been "shared" 2-3 million times...

Yeah, and that really does play out in the real world like that in many ways.

All the responses have been aces everyone, but those in favorite of "Sharing"... I see a bunch of self justification for what you know is wrong. Sorry that's how I read it.

Another question:

You write a very popular novel, and then someone makes a movie from it without your permission and without paying you. They say, "I bought your book; I can do whatever I want with it." They make MILLIONS from the movie and you never see a dime.

Henrin, Cephus, Ikari, et al, would have to say this is perfectly OK.

 

[Henrin]

It's taking their labor without compensation, and if you're actually a libertarian, that's something you should be able to understand.

If I put it up for download I'm just sharing my own property after I paid them. If I download a copy then I'm not involved with the original copy owner.

But it isn't "joint use." You aren't sharing your Twinkies or a bucket of water. You don't "share" a thing.

When the copy is up for download it is sharing, but after that point it's two or more people using their own copies.

Actually, I was asking why you'd make copies and distribute them to others, but here you answered the $64,000 question: you just want to take stuff without having to pay for it.

Which makes you a thief. It simply does.

Because people would like the product too and I have it. Also, deciding on an avenue to acquire a product that doesn't involve payment just avoids the hassle of paying for it.

 

[Ikari]

Not if it's widely available for free, you won't.

You might get people who toss you a few coins, because they feel like, as you describe yourself as doing. But that's not getting paid. That's getting an occasional tip.

Wrong. Everything on TV is easily available for free, even stuff from the pay channels. Many many streaming services that you don't have to pay for that have everything you'd want and more. Yet the really good shows are still around, pounding out episodes, and being aired. Why? Because they are good, people buy them. HBO Go makes a crap ton of money, but you can stream all their programs for free. Why does it make money? Quality and service.

No. This is STUPID. It puts the blame for stealing on the victim.

If people are stealing things at a high level, then it's something people want. It's valuable. They should pay for it.

No, this is STUPID. This is trying to shove subpar products down people's throats and then claiming its their fault for not wanting the service. If people are stealing things at a high level, they may be curious, there may be some base value but they get no service for it, there may be some base value but the price the company sells it for is far above and beyond that. I won't pay a 100 bucks for something worth 10. And if your magical Torrent Robot stops by with a brand new copy of it for free, I'll take it.

Value your products correctly, offer quality products and quality service and you will get paid. End of story. If you fail at any of this, people will look to circumvent you. End of story.

 

[Zyphlin]

It's not "theft", because it's not "stealing", because you're not taking any persons property, but rather you're making a copy of that property.

Now it is illegal, and in a general sense I don't even mind that it's illegal, but it's not "theft"...it just gets called theft because that's the easy connection to make to a common crime.

If you take a game or movie off a shelf, then you are physically removing that piece of property. No profit can be made for that physical item that you have taken. You have deprived the other person of actual property.

If you make a copy of a movie or game, then the original is still there to be sold. You have not deprived the person of their property nor their ability to profit from that specific instance of the property. That doesn't mean what you did is right, or that it is legal, it just simply means you didn't steal it.

 

[joG]

Absolutely, which is why I have a ridiculously large commercial DVD/Bluray collection. I could go out and download every single one of those movies any time I want but I went out and spent money on them because it was worth it for me to do so.

It is not theft to borrow a movie to look at it privately from a friend. To download from torrents is criminal a lawyer friend in Germany told me. Every jurisdiction has its own laws.

 

[Renae]

Another question:

You write a very popular novel, and then someone makes a movie from it without your permission and without paying you. They say, "I bought your book; I can do whatever I want with it." They make MILLIONS from the movie and you never see a dime.

Henrin, Cephus, Ikari, et al, would have to say this is perfectly OK.

That is a good example, I like that as well.

 

[Harshaw]

Yes I did. YES I WILL GO TO AMAZON! Geez, are you going to tell me I didn't answer it again because you didn't get the answer you wanted?

No, this is the first time you answered the question.

Now, why would you buy it when you can get the exact same thing for free? The thing you want, the commercial product, the thing on your shelf. The real deal. UPC code and all.

You already said you only buy because it's more convenient and it would take less time to buy it than to find it all online. But now you're saying you'd refuse a brand new commercial copy you could have right NOW, for FREE, and go order it on Amazon and pay for it and wait for it?

You contradict yourself. Thus . . . I really don't believe you. You would not buy it if you could get it for free.

 

[Cephus]

No, this is STUPID. This is trying to shove subpar products down people's throats and then claiming its their fault for not wanting the service. If people are stealing things at a high level, they may be curious, there may be some base value but they get no service for it, there may be some base value but the price the company sells it for is far above and beyond that. I won't pay a 100 bucks for something worth 10. And if your magical Torrent Robot stops by with a brand new copy of it for free, I'll take it.

Value your products correctly, offer quality products and quality service and you will get paid. End of story. If you fail at any of this, people will look to circumvent you. End of story.

Exactly. Product people want at a price people are willing to pay. I'm sure Harshaw is putting out utter crap at a price nobody wants to pay, hence they are just going elsewhere. That's why he's all pissy.

 

[Cephus]

No, this is the first time you answered the question.

Now, why would you buy it when you can get the exact same thing for free? The thing you want, the commercial product, the thing on your shelf. The real deal. UPC code and all.

You already said you only buy because it's more convenient and it would take less time to buy it than to find it all online. But now you're saying you'd refuse a brand new commercial copy you could have right NOW, for FREE, and go order it on Amazon and pay for it and wait for it?

You contradict yourself. Thus . . . I really don't believe you. You would not buy it if you could get it for free.

I don't care what you believe. I care what's demonstrably true. All you're doing is having a conversation with yourself, you're insisting everyone has to answer the way you want them to answer. I pass.

 

[Harshaw]

Wrong. Everything on TV is easily available for free, even stuff from the pay channels. Many many streaming services that you don't have to pay for that have everything you'd want and more. Yet the really good shows are still around, pounding out episodes, and being aired. Why? Because they are good, people buy them. HBO Go makes a crap ton of money, but you can stream all their programs for free. Why does it make money? Quality and service.



No, this is STUPID. This is trying to shove subpar products down people's throats and then claiming its their fault for not wanting the service. If people are stealing things at a high level, they may be curious, there may be some base value but they get no service for it, there may be some base value but the price the company sells it for is far above and beyond that. I won't pay a 100 bucks for something worth 10. And if your magical Torrent Robot stops by with a brand new copy of it for free, I'll take it.

Value your products correctly, offer quality products and quality service and you will get paid. End of story. If you fail at any of this, people will look to circumvent you. End of story.

Dude. No one's shoving anything down anyone's throats if they're out there in mass numbers downloading it, as you describe. They're taking it freely because they want it.

 

[Cephus]

It is not theft to borrow a movie to look at it privately from a friend. To download from torrents is criminal a lawyer friend in Germany told me. Every jurisdiction has its own laws.

Nope and I have lots of friends that borrow movies all the time. The RIAA wants to make that illegal because they're money-grubbing assholes.

 

[Ikari]

Dude. No one's shoving anything down anyone's throats if they're out there in mass numbers downloading it, as you describe. They're taking it freely because they want it.

Because the company has gone wrong somewhere on the road of quality, service, or pricing.

If you're trying to rip people off, don't expect folk to just sit there and be like "oh OK". They'll turn around and try to rip you off too.

Take pirating as a data point, adjust your structure to remove the incentive.

 

[Harshaw]

I don't care what you believe. I care what's demonstrably true.

It ISN'T "demonstrably" true. It would be demonstrably true if you've actually refused someone's offer to give you a brand-new Blu-ray that you wanted, and instead went and bought it yourself.

 

[radcen]

Greetings!

I was having a heated disagreement with a good friend over the issue of movies and games being torrented.

His position is basically that because movies and games are merely "ideas" and that digital products like movies, music and games can be replicated with no loss to the person in possession of said media thus there is no "theft", they have no value. You cannot "put a price" on ideas. He used the old tropes of "I wasn't going to buy it anyway, I wanted to test the game first so it's okay..."

I contend that Torrenting movies, music and games is inherently an immoral practice. You are in fact, stealing from the creators of the content. While I have very little pity for the A-List actors whose payout might suffer if their movies don't do so well at the box office due to torrents being released, it's still wrong. Often the "talent" isn't who suffers, it's the stage workers, construction teams, set designers and the like who get paid less. Who watch as productions move overseas for cheaper rates to help alleviate the cost of loss from file sharing theft.

What say you DP denizens?

I've never understood how not paying someone for something that they are legally entitled somehow does not harm them? To me, this is rationalizing to the highest degree.

Having said that, I do feel that current copyright laws go too far in general and need revising downward a bit. Not total elimination, but some scaling back.

 

[Cephus]

It ISN'T "demonstrably" true. It would be demonstrably true if you've actually refused someone's offer to give you a brand-new Blu-ray that you wanted, and instead went and bought it yourself.

By all means, come on over here and hand out free Blu-rays and we'll see.

 

[Harshaw]

Because the company has gone wrong somewhere on the road of quality, service, or pricing.

This is idiotic.

This is saying that people, in general, will pay for things they want even if they can easily get them for free, and if they take the free option instead, it's because the creator did something wrong.

Because people generally LOVE paying more than they have to.

If you're trying to rip people off, don't expect folk to just sit there and be like "oh OK". They'll turn around and try to rip you off too.

Who said anything about "ripping" anyone off? This is baggage you're bringing into the conversation.

Sounds like you've got issues with the gaming industry. That's got nothing to do with anything I said.

Take pirating as a data point, adjust your structure to remove the incentive.

This is so unbelievably stupid. "People steal your stuff, so you're doing something wrong. When faced with the choice of paying for your product or getting it for free, people choose free, so you're doing something wrong."

 

[Cephus]

I've never understood how not paying someone for something that they are legally entitled somehow does not harm them? To me, this is rationalizing to the highest degree.

Having said that, I do feel that current copyright laws go too far in general and need revising downward a bit. Not total elimination, but some scaling back.

That's the thing, they are not entitled. All production is risky. All companies go into business hoping to make enough money to stay in business. It is not guaranteed. You are not entitled to make a profit. You make the profit that you earn, not the profit that you might want.