BF2S Forums Piracy is just using the internet?

FEOS wrote:

Jaekus wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Yes, they are. Every time a song is played on the radio, the artists get a cut.

Again, it's been covered already a few posts just above yours - http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?pi … 9#p3684199

Fuck off. It was like 5:00 am when I did that. Surprised I could even research it, tbh.

Here is where it gets ridiculous:

I have a friend that owns a Sports Bar & Grill. He pays royalties to both the Sporting organization (Such as the NFL) AND to the (Such as FOX) to show sporting events. He was audited by the FCC and the ASCAP and ended up being fined because he was not muting the commercials, and therefore he publicly played copyrighted music in his establishment. He is currently fighting it, as the contract with the network states it includes everythignt he network airs, but the ASCAP is claiming the network didn't have proper permissions to resell those rights to him, and therefore, he would have had to get permission from each band that played a commercial on the air during the football game he aired. His lawyer countered that with the fact that the bands/record labels were paid by the commercial people to be able to use their music in their ad, whenever they played their ad, so he is covered under that....


What a mess.

HITNRUNXX wrote:

6) You might as well digitally rob a bank. It is just intangible 1s and 0s. You aren't taking it from a person, they are insured. The big bad corporate bank might see an insurance rate hike, but hey, they deserve it, they are an evil corporate business like a music company, out to provide things in return for money, right?
7) Ethically, morally, legally, however you want to look at it: You are taking something you don't own. You are taking something that you don't have the right to take. You are obtaining it without payment. The end result is just a colorfully hidden variant way to say "stealing."

#6 is where I chuckled. Digitally copying something isn't like illegally transferring funds online. What you're robbing is the potential of a sale, which is hard to define. If you were going to buy something but downloaded an illegal copy instead, it's theft of a potential sale. If you weren't going to buy it at all, there is no potential sale there to disrupt. Instead, you're left with the principle of the thing. Is what you're doing right?

These are the things that need to be focused on by anti-piracy marketeers, not ludicrously comparing a pimply 14-year-old with no income downloading Metallica from the comfort of his own home to a purse snatcher, car thief or bank robber.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

#6 is where I chuckled. Digitally copying something isn't like illegally transferring funds online. What you're robbing is the potential of a sale, which is hard to define. If you were going to buy something but downloaded an illegal copy instead, it's theft of a potential sale. If you weren't going to buy it at all, there is no potential sale there to disrupt. Instead, you're left with the principle of the thing. Is what you're doing right?

These are the things that need to be focused on by anti-piracy marketeers, not ludicrously comparing a pimply 14-year-old with no income downloading Metallica from the comfort of his own home to a purse snatcher, car thief or bank robber.

So if I walk into the patent office, I can just pick out whatever designs I want to use, as long as they have been shelved and are not actually in production... Because even though I am using those designs to build my products, I am not interrupting anyone's potential sales... So I just have to worry about my principles, but everything else is cool.

FEOS wrote:

Jaekus wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Fuck off. It was like 5:00 am when I did that. Surprised I could even research it, tbh.

Mod telling members to "fuck off" in DST, and admits that the post was poor anyway?

GG BF2s, GG

One: the "fuck off" was clearly a joke. Laughing at myself for not seeing those other posts.

Two: the post, on it's own, was not poor. It covered the issue, answered the post it was quoting, and provided a source. It was a vagary of thread-checking that led to me missing those other posts. Page refresh or something. Don't know. As stated, it was crazy early in the AM...as it is right now.

So take it easy, Francis.

Oh idk, I've received AWMs for less... Not from you though

HITNRUNXX wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

#6 is where I chuckled. Digitally copying something isn't like illegally transferring funds online. What you're robbing is the potential of a sale, which is hard to define. If you were going to buy something but downloaded an illegal copy instead, it's theft of a potential sale. If you weren't going to buy it at all, there is no potential sale there to disrupt. Instead, you're left with the principle of the thing. Is what you're doing right?

These are the things that need to be focused on by anti-piracy marketeers, not ludicrously comparing a pimply 14-year-old with no income downloading Metallica from the comfort of his own home to a purse snatcher, car thief or bank robber.

So if I walk into the patent office, I can just pick out whatever designs I want to use, as long as they have been shelved and are not actually in production... Because even though I am using those designs to build my products, I am not interrupting anyone's potential sales... So I just have to worry about my principles, but everything else is cool.

If someone downloads illegal copies of software to sell, then your comparison would be valid. Otherwise, mine still sticks.

This is abstract morality. If you were going to buy something but download an illegal copy instead, you're stealing a sale. If you weren't going to buy something and download an illegal copy, you aren't stealing a sale, but you still have to justify your use of the product with your own code of ethics...and the law (/judge dredd), if you're caught.

Jay wrote:

Would you sneak into a movie theater to watch a movie in order to save yourself $12?

No.

i would torrent it, and watch it from the comfort of my own home.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

Hypothetically if I were to agree with a record label to sell their songs on the condition that 100% of my revenue goes to them would that be okay? What if my revenue totals 0? Is that illegal?

Say I want to watch HD movies on my tv but I dont have a blue ray player. I can easily pirate a full quality copy and stream it straight to my tele, I dont think its even possible to get hold of electronic HD movies legally?

Say a friend sends me a song I download it, like it and buy their album. I would not have bought their album without the evil piracy that I 1st committed, the record company could then track back my illegal download and sue me on behalf of the band for downloading their music illegally despite the fact it directly led to a sale that would otherwise not have occurred.

If you buy a book and you like it, you give it to a friend of family member to read, isnt that an illegal copyright breach? If yes then what defines a friend? Do my 250 facebook friends not count? What about their friends?

What If I buy a game for my PS3 but I decide id rather play it on my PC. Unfortunately its too late to take the original game back so I have to fork out the full market price to have exactly the same product in a different format. I have already paid for the game, I have contributed to the development thank you very much, I just want to watch it on a monitor not a tv.

If a music company were dumb enough to sigh that deal, than you would be legal. But usually they have a per song minimum royalty. So let's say it is $0.50 + 10% per song, and you sold a thousand for $0.00 each. You still owe them $500.

A lot of movies have a Digital Download included now. You can also buy them in HD quality from TONS of sources legally, such as iTunes, Zune, etc.

I agree with you that in some cases a "preview" of a song is similar to advertising, and makes people buy stuff by that band... I also believe in the vast vast majority of cases, the average person would just get the rest of that album from their friend. Your friend could have linked you to that band's official youtube page or iTunes song preview just as easily, and still been legal. For that matter, he could have played his copy of the song for you while you were with him. I understand that isn't always as convenient, but it is typically possible.

Loaning a book is not a copyright breach. Making a copy of it is. If you don't believe me, take a book into Kinko's (are they even still around?) and ask them to copy a page for you.

If you buy a game on PS3 and then pirate it for PC, you did NOT contribute to all of the development for that game. There are different teams that work on different programming, and driver sets. Depending on their sales on a certain format may impact that companies future investment on that format. If everyone that was playing the game bought it on PS3 and then pirated the PC version, then that developer would end up firing all of their PC teams and just make it on PS3 in the future because they took a loss.

I agree and disagree that selling pirated material makes you any worse. Either way, you are taking money away from the company that made it. But man it pisses me off so much more when I look for used DS games for my kids on Craig's List, find something they want for a reasonable price, email the seller, and they link me to a site where I can pay to download a bootlegged copy. That is happening more and more lately. If I wanted bootlegged copies, I would get them for free... That is what I really don't understand... How do people sell pirated material without passing it off as the real deal? If people are cheap enough to buy it illegally from you, why not get it for free somewhere else? I guess it is the non-technical crowd that doesn't know there is an internet full of whatever you want out there.

What about the fact that pirating less popular music is approx. 28 000 times easier than obtaining it legally?

jord wrote:

I've taken to downloading Boardwalk empire episodes because I can watch them earlier than if I wait 6 days longer for them to come on my UK cable.

I don't really see how that adversely affects the owners.

Less people watching Boardwalk on UK telly, means loss of revenue for the local providers through advertisement. It's also lost of potential sales to other broadcasters if the show had a lower TV viewership due to people watching it online.

jord wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

jord wrote:

I've taken to downloading Boardwalk empire episodes because I can watch them earlier than if I wait 6 days longer for them to come on my UK cable.

I don't really see how that adversely affects the owners.

Less people watching Boardwalk on UK telly, means loss of revenue for the local providers through advertisement. It's also lost of potential sales to other broadcasters if the show had a lower TV viewership due to people watching it online.

Well i wouldn't watch the adverts on cable because you can fast forward through them. That and I still pay the £33 a month to Sky so meh.

Maybe so, but the advertisers pay their money to the networks based on the ratings of the show. They don't care as much is you watch the commercials or not, because they have a formula for showing what the average percentage of people is that actually watches them...

HOWEVER, isn't that on HBO, which doesn't have commercials anyway?

That is the best example of a grey area I have seen on here yet... If you are paying for HBO already (since you are honestly paying them) then is that piracy? If you are downloading and you don't have HBO, or if you are distributing the show out to other people, I would say yes... BUT, technically, you are already paying to watch that show...

Hmmm... That is something to think about.

HITNRUNXX wrote:

jord wrote:

Cybargs wrote:

Less people watching Boardwalk on UK telly, means loss of revenue for the local providers through advertisement. It's also lost of potential sales to other broadcasters if the show had a lower TV viewership due to people watching it online.

Well i wouldn't watch the adverts on cable because you can fast forward through them. That and I still pay the £33 a month to Sky so meh.

Maybe so, but the advertisers pay their money to the networks based on the ratings of the show. They don't care as much is you watch the commercials or not, because they have a formula for showing what the average percentage of people is that actually watches them...

HOWEVER, isn't that on HBO, which doesn't have commercials anyway?

That is the best example of a grey area I have seen on here yet... If you are paying for HBO already (since you are honestly paying them) then is that piracy? If you are downloading and you don't have HBO, or if you are distributing the show out to other people, I would say yes... BUT, technically, you are already paying to watch that show...

Hmmm... That is something to think about.

So really the long and short of it is publishers cannot be arsed to change their business model to take advantage of the real world, so they just sue you instead.

So legally I could give my book to as many friends as I wanted to read and that would be fine? But to give them a file is completely illegal, disgusting, immoral etc etc.

Ultimately piracy is so common because it is so much easier than doing it the proper way with a load of hoops to jump through and the bloody thing still wont work.

Good example: I bought Far Cry 2 when it came out, recently tried to reinstall it to have another play through and apparently ive exceeded the number of installs I am allowed to do.....okay...I can go to a website to try to reset it.....try it numerous times and there appears to be so some sort of error with it "at the moment" end up downloading a pirated game which works 1st time. I suspect this almost counts as being legal, but the uploader could be sued for supplying to me without anybody ever realizing the technicalities.

Also FYI I dont have the horrible awkward software that is Itunes. Thank god. "You can buy music from us but you can only do what we want you to with the file" Im sorry, but once ive bought it I should be able to do whatever I like with it, being known as "good with IT" nearly every problem I get asked to look at starts off with "my itunes doesn't work" "im trying to do this with my itunes but..."

Anyway back on topic, nobody answered how you legislate between files that your pc downloads for the pure action of viewing them on screen and downloading files for reuse?

To illustrate a point I just searched for "Download avatar HD" reason being its a very well known popular movie so it should be easy to download a legitimate version yes?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index … 616AATHt21

first link is yahoo answers, first reply is "thepiratebay.org"

followed by a list of other torrent sites.

http://movieberry.com/avatar_70/

2nd link appears legal, well I assume it is as you have to pay for it, whether it is legal or not I couldn't tell you. 8GB download for $4, im not going to go through the hassle of making an account, authorising my bank card and hoping the site doesn't just steal my credit card details but i'm sure you could.

http://www.filestube.com/a/avatar+hd+download

3rd link is a straight download, one click and its on your hard drive, no registering, no spam emails, and best of all no worrying about your bank account being hacked.

The only reason you would pick the 2nd link is because morally you want to be doing the "right" thing.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

Good example: I bought Far Cry 2 when it came out, recently tried to reinstall it to have another play through and apparently ive exceeded the number of installs I am allowed to do.....okay...I can go to a website to try to reset it.....try it numerous times and there appears to be so some sort of error with it "at the moment" end up downloading a pirated game which works 1st time. I suspect this almost counts as being legal, but the uploader could be sued for supplying to me without anybody ever realizing the technicalities.

Also FYI I dont have the horrible awkward software that is Itunes. Thank god. "You can buy music from us but you can only do what we want you to with the file" Im sorry, but once ive bought it I should be able to do whatever I like with it, being known as "good with IT" nearly every problem I get asked to look at starts off with "my itunes doesn't work" "im trying to do this with my itunes but..."

To illustrate a point I just searched for "Download avatar HD" reason being its a very well known popular movie so it should be easy to download a legitimate version yes?

That is a good example. There was a period of time where every CD had DRM crap on it. I BOUGHT some CDs that had crap on them that prevented me from using the music in a reasonable way. I could listen to the CD in a CD Player just fine, but I couldn't play it on the computer or rip it to an mp3 player without first loading their software, letting it connect to the internet and download a license, and then count how many times I ripped it, and limit me at like 5. It also reported information from your computer and would not let you load the software on more than 2 computers. Since I rebuild a computer about once a year, this became a huge problem really quickly. I thought this was crap and since I PAID for it, and so I happily downloaded a version of it that had the DRM stripped out. I have always felt that the means the companies go through to prevent pirating end up hurting the legitimate users more than the pirates. The pirates don't care and will find a way around it in about 2 minutes.

I don't feel it is pirating to download something you already own.

ITunes does suck. I agree with that... But it is used by so ridiculously many people that it is a valid source for stuff.

Avatar is also a great example. The first place I went was Amazon. It was available there, but apparently their license ran out. The second and third places were a bust too... BUT, buy the DVD and rip it... FOR your own personal use. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I have a hard time believing the companies would either. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think that is pirating, and you can buy DVDs and Blu-rays all over the place.