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Torrenting Movies and games: Theft or no?

Is torrenting/file sharing theft?


  • Total voters
    50
  • Poll closed .

Renae

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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?
 
It's likely a form of theft, I suppose.

One can try to rationalize it though. Say you were never going to go see a movie, but there's a torrent and you're like "fudge it, i'll just torrent it then". Was there "theft", in the sense that you downloaded a movie without paying for anything, but not in the sense that otherwise you would never have paid money or seen it.

Is file sharing really causing these massive losses of profit and driving movies to be filmed elsewhere? I don't buy it. I think it may have some affect, but aggregately it isn't that large. I think the real reason you see this is so that the movie companies can maximize profit and they would have moved the filming location or underpaid some workers regardless of people torrenting or not.
 
I agree. Pirating copyrighted material is aganst the law.
 
Unless the artist allows the unrestricted redistribution of their product (The Grateful Dead, for example, have always allowed taping) then it's stealing.
 
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?

Other.
I do not agree with current IP limits, since they were harmonized with the Bern convention and are not in tune with our Constitutional limits.

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Copyright currently exceeds the limits which the Constitution allows.
If the copyright is for "limited times" and it is applied to "authors and inventors" but continues after their death, that is not Constitutional.
Right now, seeing that Hollywood and the Music industry have a stranglehold on Congress, I don't have a huge problem with it.

Is it theft, sorta, do I care, no.
 
I don't torrent movies and games but sometimes some music. Just like recording songs off the radio on a tape but newer way to do it.
 
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?

It's a grey area. For most users of torrents, the government and Hollywood don't even care. Some movies get more popular due to torrents. However, it is still illegal and really bad for you to operate a hosting site personally.
 
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 think in a lot of ways it can be a gray area and I do it a lot myself. Is it really stealing if I watch American shows I can't legally buy in Germany? What about shows that are shown free or on basic cable that I can't get here?

I'm a subscriber to Netflix and Amazon Prime, but for a lot of content you just can't get it legally because the studios don't want to let go of old business models. I can't even get most of the Netflix content because I'm physically located in the wrong geographic region. I'd pay a lot of money for a service that let me watch most things, but they'd rather force me to go through Comcast or Cox. Content producers need to get with the times or this **** is going to continue to happen. I haven't pirated any music at all since I got Spotify.
 
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Do they lose anything? No? Then it's not theft. In order for it to be theft they have to deprived of something, but since the act doesn't cause them to be deprived of anything, it's not theft.

Theft is when you take something that belongs to someone else and deprive them of it, while copying(which is what is happening) is making something identical to it and depriving no one of anything. The end result of theft is that I have your stuff, while the end result of copying is that now we both have a copy.
 
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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?

Not all of the things that you can download are being stolen. The act of using bit torrents is not immoral in itself.

And videotape recordings didnt kill the movie industry. Nor did cassettes kill the music industry.

ANd have you tried downloading a new game? They are huge. I have a game that is over 40 gb's. ANd they can barely give away older games these days.

Downloading isnt as big of a impact as you think.
 
Sure, it's theft in theory, but in practice, it really doesn't hurt anyone. Most of the people who do this wouldn't pay for it regardless, if it wasn't available for free, they'd simply do without, therefore there is absolutely no money being lost because there was never any money there to begin with. And since it is all digital, the copyright owners don't even lose anything demonstrably valuable. There's no "product" that they are losing the ability to sell for a profit. A million people can download their game or movie and they haven't demonstrably lost a thing.
 
I agree. Pirating copyrighted material is aganst the law.

Mostly because the industries have massive lobbies in Washington to make sure it stays that way,
 
Yes, it's thievery, and yes, it hurts.

Sure, it's theft in theory, but in practice, it really doesn't hurt anyone. Most of the people who do this wouldn't pay for it regardless, if it wasn't available for free, they'd simply do without, therefore there is absolutely no money being lost because there was never any money there to begin with. And since it is all digital, the copyright owners don't even lose anything demonstrably valuable. There's no "product" that they are losing the ability to sell for a profit. A million people can download their game or movie and they haven't demonstrably lost a thing.

Easy to say when you're not creating content that's being stolen.

I, however, do. Sales go down when torrents and pirated downloads proliferate. After whacking those down, sales go up again.

People won't buy if there's a free option. But if they want it, they'll pay for it when there isn't.
 
it isn't theft, but it is still wrong.
 
Yes, it's thievery, and yes, it hurts.

When are they deprived of their copy? If I buy a copy of their copy, upload a copy of my copy up to the internet, and people download the copy of my copy to make a copy of their own, is the original owner deprived of their copy?
 
When are they deprived of their copy? If I buy a copy of their copy, upload a copy of my copy up to the internet, and people download the copy of my copy to make a copy of their own, is the original owner deprived of their copy?

They are deprived of the fruits of their labor. People have taken their labor without their consent and without compensation.
 
They are deprived of the fruits of their labor. People have taken their labor without their consent and without compensation.

How are they deprived of the fruits of their labor? It's not theft to deprive people of future sales since they don't have those sales at the current time. It's just a mere potential, not something that actually happened or something that is possible for them to benefit from at the current time.
 
Not all of the things that you can download are being stolen. The act of using bit torrents is not immoral in itself.

And videotape recordings didnt kill the movie industry. Nor did cassettes kill the music industry.

ANd have you tried downloading a new game? They are huge. I have a game that is over 40 gb's. ANd they can barely give away older games these days.

Downloading isnt as big of a impact as you think.

Yeah. I don't really have much of a problem with the older stuff. A lot of it is already on Youtube for free.
 
How are they deprived of the fruits of their labor? It's not theft to deprive people of future sales since they don't have those sales at the current time. It's just a mere potential, not something that actually happened or something that is possible for them to benefit from at the current time.

When someone takes it without paying for it, they are depriving the creator (or owner) of the fruits of the labor.

If you want to sell or give away the copy you purchased, then there's no problem with that as long as you don't retain a copy for yourself. But making copies to sell or distribute to others not only deprives the creator of sales they would have had, it makes you an incredible dick. It means that you know someone's work is valuable, and that others would want it, but you're purposely depriving the creator of revenue.
 
Yes, it's thievery, and yes, it hurts.



Easy to say when you're not creating content that's being stolen.

I, however, do. Sales go down when torrents and pirated downloads proliferate. After whacking those down, sales go up again.

People won't buy if there's a free option. But if they want it, they'll pay for it when there isn't.

The most fundamental job of any producer is to make a product the public wants to buy at a price they want to pay. If you cannot do so, then you don't deserve to be in business.
 
When someone takes it without paying for it, they are depriving the creator (or owner) of the fruits of the labor.

That's like saying I deprive wal-mart of sales because I buy from Target or vice versa. You're can't be deprived of something that you never had.

If you want to sell or give away the copy you purchased, then there's no problem with that as long as you don't retain a copy for yourself. But making copies to sell or distribute to others not only deprives the creator of sales they would have had, it makes you an incredible dick. It means that you know someone's work is valuable, and that others would want it, but you're purposely depriving the creator of revenue.

How does it make me a dick to share my own property? I bought the copy and the copy is mine, so I fail to understand how making a copy of it makes me a dick. It is also only a possibility that people would have bought the product from an establishment that would benefit the original owner, not a sure thing.
 
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?

Agreed. Total theft. No different than what China has become famous for. Those who steal like this are harming the creators, and no different than any other person who steals money from people.
 
The most fundamental job of any producer is to make a product the public wants to buy at a price they want to pay. If you cannot do so, then you don't deserve to be in business.

Right. Is there anything, anything at all, that you would pay for if you had the option to take it for free?

Of course there isn't. The only reason you'd do it is charity, which isn't "business."
 
It's not theft in the normal sense, but I do feel a bit bad when it's an small indie developer versus a big brand charging $60 (!) for a new game.

That said, I know of instances where content was pirated and the reviews from the pirate convinced other to legitimately purchase. No bad publicity, and all that.

Additionally, I think there is something to the idea that the content creator should secure their products if they want them to be secure. There are game that are effectively immune from this as they depend on Internet servers to run properly. Pirates sometime set up pirate-only servers to get around this, but they don't get the full experience that way.

Utility programs often include schemes where you have continuing maintenance costs or you lose out on support/upgrades.

And my final argument is that all of these industries (comic books being a possible exception) are booming. Piracy isn't hurting them overall.
 
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