Copyright Infringement/Pirating

[Lipp]

Arr!

Just out of curiosity, what are your opinions about copyright infringement/illegal downloading/pirate copies in all its shapes and forms?


It's a pretty regular practice by us swedes due to a loophole in the law, and yeah, even here in Aussie-land I'm making plentiful of use of it, primarily to get ahold of music, movies and programs.
For music I know that for the big-shots the usual split is that the record company takes the profits from CD sales, and the band gets it from concerts, so I haven't any qualms about it. Movies and programs are a bit different, personally I think I'd just not watch movies or just visit cinemas a bit more often, but not much, haven't bought a proper DvD movie in forever since the price is way over the top, and borrow them on a regular basis from a uni library instead which is running out of good titles by now. For programs I've picked up architectural ones to play around with but not use seriously yet, no point in spending hundreds of bucks if I wont use them after all, and if I ever hop into a job and make actual commercial use of it I think I'd pick up a real copy.

[IndiReloaded]

I think the onus is on the protector & that its virtually impossible to guarantee w/digital media. iTunes was a brilliant idea, IMO.

[DoesntMatter]

My college has a file sharing network and people can download almost ANY full length movie, TV show, computer game, or song. So nobody ever buys movies or music here

[LadieNisha4u2nv]

I think it's extremely common here and in the US...probably everywhere. I'm always downloading music and other programs.

Who listens to the law anyway? That's so boring

[Gribble]

I think it depends. Currently you can't return computer games to the store so developers release unfinished products to get cash now and then patch the game a month or two down the road. If a company releases games in buggy, unfinished states I feel their products are fair game. Or if a company uses prohibitive copy-protection that harms paying customers. See, copy protection doesn't stop pirates. At best it slows them down a few days. However, it does **** over the honest man pretty damn good.

If a company releases finished products, if they don't try to slip malware onto my computer, I refuse to pirate their products. People work damn hard on that stuff. They deserve to make a buck.

Music, though, that's different. I'm all for pirating it. I say take the losses out of the "artist's" pocket. They'd only use it for a pound of cocaine, anyway.

[doppelgaenger]

Anyone who downloads shit off the internet for free is a commie.

[Junket]

No.

Anyone who gives shit away on the internet is commie.

It's really rather capitalistic for someone to take what they can get for free. Even more so if they manage to sell it.

[IndiReloaded]

Its a waste of time & resources to try and protect stuff that isn't inherently 'protectable'.

Stuff like OpenSource and gnu licencing is brilliant, IMO. Ppl can take it, improve it and sell it provided they acknowledge the source and make it available.

Imagine if ppl did that with pharma or biotech instead of trying to protect everything? Who knows what we would have already discovered?

[boobaa]

When talking about music, more and more artists are making their albums shareware, free releases. Its action against evil iTunes which has manymanymanymany court cases for now because of illegal possession of tracks and ignoring the artists needs. Most of the musicians get nothing out of it, all money goes to people who deal the contracts. I will never ever pay for download. if I pay, I want a hardcopy with all the art.


I pirate a lot, its veryveryvery common in my country, also due to loopholes. And no-one cares. I usually try things out before buying them.

But America, oh it sucks. I bought a Dell laptop, an american company, right? Anyway mine came from ireland, don't know where it was before that. But there is this ****ing act against piracy on Dells computers, you can't record master sound. Like WTF, WHY THE HELL??? I need it, I do music! Go burn in hell greedy USA!

[Mish]

I think it takes too much time to download movies and games, it's easier and less time consuming to just buy them. Especially now that most DVD cost like $10. The time spent searching for the right links, double checking, cross checking to make sure it's the right thing, downloading, extracting can be better spent elsewhere imo.

The music they don't sell in the shops I think is fair game though.

[boobaa]

Yes, time is important. This downloading shit gets on my nerves also. Thats another reason why I will never pay for download. besides, if I have the hardcopy, no one can make any speculation.

But funny thing about piracy is that some things get to be released before they reach into stores heheh. Fallout 3 for example. And few years back George Lucas got really pissed because Star Wars 3 appeared too soon. So they took down some good servers.

[IndiReloaded]

I don't care about .99c for a song from itunes. What I do find annoying is that, once I've bought it I cant just do what I want with it. There are ways around this, and I do them, but its just my point: you can't stop ppl from doing what they want w/digital media, so why bother trying?

[snoz]

Yeah I'm all for music, there was never really an issue back in the old days when you record it with a tape recorder or even when that MD player phase kicked in so why now? It's so lame just because now it's all over the internet lol

As for games and software I'd usually buy a proper copy if I know the game is worth it (online multiplayer stuff) or if I actually produce work with programs but that said most these software companies have trial versions for a reason anyway.

People should get what they want, if they really like something they'll buy it and own it, simple!

[tooxshort]

I think it takes too much time to download movies and games, it's easier and less time consuming to just buy them. Especially now that most DVD cost like $10. The time spent searching for the right links, double checking, cross checking to make sure it's the right thing, downloading, extracting can be better spent elsewhere imo.

The music they don't sell in the shops I think is fair game though.

Actually, a movie doesn't take too long to download. A couple of hours with a decent connection.

[doppelgaenger]

Ahh go put a scarf on.