(07-14-2009, 12:51 AM)pluralone Wrote: Too bad, too, because I do have my "guilty pleasures". (Mostly shows that focus on the paranormal, albeit in a pablum kind of way, it being commercial TV and all.)That's alright, this thread has changed focus a couple of times so it's more of a sandbox at this point
Sorry. Off-topic.

(07-14-2009, 12:51 AM)pluralone Wrote: I'm not a pirate of music or movies, but for me I'm afraid it's more a matter of I just don't care.... Although, strangely enough, I care enough about you all that I read through this entire thread!
Haha, Cheers to you as well, Pluralone!
(07-10-2009, 09:21 PM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote: Are you saying the permission is what makes the difference? What about books? We've all loaned books to others. If another person reads a book we bought, is that stealing from the author? Authors know that their books will end up in public libraries, but have they given explicit permission for us to loan their books? - For that matter, what about buying used books at garage sales or used book stores? Or buying used cds or dvds? Used anything? Are we robbing the artist by buying the item used instead of new? How many of us have purchased used books, cds or dvds on amazon.com?
Yes, I would say permission is exactly what makes the difference. Theft is, as I understand it, is the taking of something without permission.
In the case of books, the difference is that they are a physical good that cannot be replicated with a few mouse clicks. Since you would have purchased the book from someone, the book itself becomes your property, just like anything else. So if you decide to give it to your friend for free, sell it at a garage sale, or even just loan it to someone, there is nothing wrong with that because you are the owner of that item. But what you don't own is the right to copy and distribute the content (via Xerox machine, PDF scanner, etc.) to others, which is where copyright laws come in. By and large it's not a problem with books because people generally speaking don't want to read a book that has been printed out of a Xerox machine or squint their eyes at the computer screen, and people also like the experience of opening and reading a book.
But the same cannot be said of digital music files, where you are making an identical copy. A MP3 I get from iTunes is identical to the one I download with bittorrent. Therein creates the problem- you are not loaning your music to someone so that you do not have it when they have it. You both have it at the same time. Same thing can apply to computer software, movies, stock photos, and most other digital assets that are bought and sold.
(07-10-2009, 09:21 PM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote: That's true in the case of someone routinely downloading instead of buying, but it's not necessarily true in many cases. Serious fans of certain artists tend to support their artists.
Agreed. Would that everyone would do the same! Alas...
(07-10-2009, 09:21 PM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote: And this is my main complaint about the music industry: that it is an industry at all. Artists are not free to create art for the sake of art; they must create what sells or get dropped from the label.
I agree that this is bad, and that reform is needed. But in the interim, should we use this as a right to pirate music from the bad guys? As 3D Sunset said earlier, is it alright to do bad things to bad people? How does that make us better? Forgive me if I am making the assumption that you feel this way as you did not explicitly state this- but it is a common theme in the pirate community (I of all people should know )
