College students say theft is not illegal

For every popular movie or song, there are 10 flops that won't turn a profit.

In theory you are stealing the Bart Simspon picture..

I'd love to see "Libertine" visit the offices of Vivid, Universal Music and Paramount and bring scanned foetus pictures and oranges from the grocery store with him into a conference about content piracy, to demonstrate that taking, using and keeping intellectual property without owner permission is not stealing.

Yes but i'm not in denial like 498 college students on 500, and "Libertine".
You missed the whole debate i guess.

Debate: Do you believe taking/using/keeping videos and songs without permission can be called theft?

Some members here think it can't be called theft, and they use abortion and oranges to defend their opinions.

498 college students on 500 thought downloading copyrighted video and music without paying was not illegal (so perfectly fine).

If you want to argue that copyright infringement is bad, argue that copyright infringement is bad.

Just because copyright infringement might be bad, however, does not mean that "theft" is the appropriate term.

The mere act of copyright infringement does not necessarily result in any tangible damages. It is entirely possible for someone to commit copyright infringement upon works which he would not have bought either way, with the copyright infringement thus resulting in no damages whatsoever.

Now, it can still be argued that this is immoral. However, this would require other arguments than the ones needed to deem physical theft immoral.

Simply put: don't just commit a logical fallacy and call it theft. Instead, make a strong argument explaining why copyright infringement itself is immoral.

i suggest you re-read his second point about copyright infringement

he is exactly right, it not theft it is copyright infringement

equating it to theft results in people ignoring the fact that the monopoly created by the copyright act is not absolute,

while the original sale of your product is a violation of your conditional monopoly, subsequent sales (recovery of said content) is for example fair use.

the providing of that service would be a free market, and as such you would not be entitled to monopoly profits for that action.

calling it theft equates it to a higher level of economic loss, which by the definition of the word does not apply.

Honestly with MUSIC i'm in the air on where it stands morally to download.

The prices of concerts, and lengths of tours have increased to makeup for the loss in sales from digital downloads. If downloading was to stop, do you think they'd drop their ticket prices again? No.

But as far as movies and porn and such, the initial purchase is the only source of income for the producers of the product, so downloading really does fuck them over.

that is a wise statement

You mean all the music I downloaded from iTunes was illegal? Maybe someone should blow the whistle on apple for running the biggest illegal music download service if such a thing is illegal. What a poorly worded article.

People are going to do what is convenient. If you make your service more difficult than using P2P then why would they want to use your service. If it is more convenient, people will want to pay for it. Don't complain about piracy if you are going to make it a pain in the ass for your customers. That's just the way things are.

Speaking of porn and piracy, I've seen sites that DRM their content and split up a single scene up into 6 different pieces. On each piece you have to type in your username and password for the site. Who the fuck wants to type in their username and password every 2 minutes when they are watching a movie? Then after 30 days you have to revalidate your license again. Come on fucking retards! And you wonder why people pirate your shit. Give the customer good content and make it easy for them to view it and you will make money.

Take a look at videobox. Their flash player is actually better than using a player locally. That's convenience for you. And they make recommendations that you are likely to want to see. They also have tons of high quality content for a good price. It's no wonder why they are making a ton of money.

..And our Republican/Democrat Government or corporate America really cares about its citizens?

The disparity of rich and poor is so ridicules these times and our smart govermentt answer is too give rich people tax cuts. Its a wakeup call when middle class families have to get food handouts as they cant afford there mortgage and rising costs of living. Warren Buffet is the only rich business man who actually says he doesn?t need a tax cut and when comparing on % he pays less in taxes than his secretary... There is a reason young people don?t trust Government or big business!

i love how you somehow tied this to politics and liberalism.

this has to be a joke.

You sound like someone who is trying to spin a web that is tight enough and filled with enough bullshit that it obscures reality and makes you feel better about what you are doing.

Is downloading copyrighted music and movies without paying for them illegal? Yes.
Is it theft? Yes.
Is copyright infringement and theft essentially the same thing when it comes to the download of music and movies? Yes.
Here is why the argument that you aren't hurting them if you would have never bought it in the first place doesn't hold any water. Say for example a band releases a record. I have never heard of the band, but hear their song on the radio and I like it. I'm not the kind of guy who buys a record after hearing just one song so I would never actually go out and buy the CD. I jump on my favorite torrent site and download the CD. I just broke the copyright laws and I stole from the band. How though? I was never going to buy it so it's not like they are out any money. Simple. I have a copy of their product that I didn't pay for. They don't get paid. The record company doesn't get paid. Any producers/musicians/writers that worked on it don't get paid. But I still have it. That is theft.

The idea is simple. If a band records a record and you want it, you pay an agreed upon price and you get the songs. You now have the songs in your possession and you didn't pay for them. That is stealing. The fact that you would have never purchased the CD in the first place is just semantics.

I agree that convenience has a lot to do with things, but I still doubt that a lot of people that aren't paying will pay if it were made easy for them to do so. This study noted in this thread and an article I read about Rick Rubin (music producer and new head of Columbia records) backs that up. In the article about Rubin one of the first things he did when he got his job was bring in a bunch of focus groups made up of high school and college age kids. He asked them to be honest with him and tell him where and how they found new music and got music. Almost everyone one of them said they found out about new music through places like Myspace, Facebook and other online sites and that they just downloaded it. They don't see anything wrong with it. They feel if it is online they should be able to have it free. I don't think you can make buying music simple enough to convince people like that to buy.

This is the dumbest argument you can make about this idea.

First of let's say an actor works on a movie. They get paid a salary for being on the movie then they get a smaller residual when it is shown on TV, sold on DVD and pay per view ect. They may or may not get profit share. So sure, they only worked 6-8 weeks on this movie and are now going to get paid forever. Most actors, even popular ones, are only in 1-2 movies a year. So it is not like a regular job. They may go months, if not years without getting another paying gig and the amount they make on past projects goes down every year as the project gets less and less attention.

The same can go for musicians. They make an album and do a tour and then when that is over it may be a while until they do anything else. The band might break up, they might get dumped from the label. Again, it is not like a regular job where you show up for 40 hours a week and collect a paycheck so you get what you can while you can.

These people get paid what they do because they earn it. If you are an actor and your movies all flop, you won't be able to demand much of a salary and you stop working. If your movies are hits you can get more because people are willing to pay to see your movies. There is no law that says you have to go see a movie or buy a CD or watch a TV show. You are free to not do any of them. But millions of people do choose to go to the movies and buy DVDs and CDs.

Say for example you wrote a movie and sold it. You are an unknown so you didn't get much for it. The movie ends up getting made and released and got great reviews and was a huge box office hit. So your agent comes to you and tells you that they can get you 2 million dollars for you next script because you are now hot and people want to work with you. Are you saying you would turn it down and tell them, "No, movies cost too much and we get overpaid. I'll just take $15 an hour for every hour I worked on the script." I think we both know the answer to the question.

Terrific read, tks for the link.

Music piracy has been mainstream since cassette tapes became popular.

You could argue that tape and CDR piracy was just as big then as P2P MP3 piracy is today. I think the "listen and delete" P2P downloads have inflated the numbers today, whereas 10-25 years ago people copied only what they knew they wanted since there was a physical cost involved.

Back then it probably hurt music more than it does now because everything revolved around album sales. Whereas today you see much bigger tours, merchandise in stores, TV stuff, etc... The odd man out here in 2008 seems to be the record label industry. Fans are shifting album sales profits into these other areas, and the record labels do not get a cut of that. That's why they are causing such a P2P stink.

The arguments are retarded. Listening and trading songs online helps quality artists sell records. It exposes shitty music for what it is and hurts those record sales. There is no lack of ethics or morals with file-trading. Its basically a sample of the product. If you like it you will eventually end up spending money on it.

What you are suggesting is utterly ridiculous. Who is to say what someone might or might not have done anyway in a theoretical world? If you enjoy the benefit of a product or service without paying for it it is THEFT of that service. The damage is the loss of revenue from what the thief (the thief being the wise ass who supposedly "wouldn't have used it anyway") should have paid. What is so hard to understand about that?

For example if you pirate satellite tv and get caught, you are going to get your ass sued and possibly criminally prosecuted for theft of services which could even be a felony charge! Just try telling the judge, "Your honor, all I did was watch some tv" I mean the signal is out there bouncing around in the atmosphere anyway, and I didn't deprive anyone else of the service. Besides I wasn't going to pay for it anyway..." See how far that gets you...

Says who? There are lots of people, especially young people who take pride nowadays in never paying for *any* music. And why should they when they can get it all for free pretty much and apoliogists like yourself say it's okay?

Please tell me you aren't in the "against camp" for Net Neutrality? If you are, would you mind telling me how you can justify a system that fucks the consumer over by essentially making the Internet operate as either a walled garden, or by imposing a higher tariff to access more of the web?

Amen to that! I've seen quite a few sites doing that now - splitting content into stupidly small clips - and it makes me wonder why. Surely as a surfer you want to be happy; if you keep splitting the entire movie up when I am expecting to be able to time-scroll through it, much like a DVD, VHS, Blu-ray, time-shifted TV (i.e. Sky+, Tivo) etc. then I'm not likely to put up with such treatment for very long, and will probably take my business elsewhere.

Not this shit again.

I heard that story on NPR.

Yeah. It's some asshat's opinion on the future of the web, and crossing your toes that online advertising will be the paying model to keep everyone in business (aka the dot.com bubble burst, version 2.0 if you believe in that shit).

Anyone who produces any kind of content, music, movies, video games, software, material that is being stolen does not believe in any such idea. It costs money to make, and market fresh, new, high quality material and programs.

Free doesn't pay the bills for those who MAKE the very content you want to steal or have for free. It's basic economics 101. Anyone who subscribes to the notion you can run a business for free is a fucking retard.

What I'm doing? I'm trying to remove tendentious wordings from this debate. I don't see how I would have reason to feel bad about that.

As for copyright infringement, I actually don't do that. I have unlimited memberships to both the video store and the cinema, so I have no reason to pirate movies. Music I listen to on the radio, and when I like a particular band I buy the cd.

So you can take your ad hominem and shove it up your ass.

Actually, not necessarily. I happen to live in a country where downloading copyrighted materials isn't illegal - just uploading.

Simply asserting that something is the case doesn't make it so.

Do you have regularly have sex with your mother? Yes.

See why that line of argumentation isn't a particularly strong one?

You actually did not prove in any way, shape or form that it does hurt them, or that the argument that it doesn't hurt them "doesn't hold any water".

You made it clear that now you have the album without paying for it, yes, but how does that hurt the people who created the content? If they aren't losing a sale, aren't losing labor, aren't losing materials, and aren't losing money because of your action, how does it hurt them?

Let's compare it to something else.

Books. Many people regularly lend out books. In effect, this causes people who did not pay for the books to get the valuable part of the content - the experience of reading it. Of course, you could argue that this is different, since the actual book is eventually returned to the owner, instead of being duplicated. However, books are bought and sold based on their content, rather than their physical properties, and someone who buys a book actually pays for the experience of reading it.

Is it theft to borrow books from your friends? You gain the knowledge, thoughts and stories contained in the book, without paying the creator.

If this is different, and is not a problem, surely the same goes for borrowing DVDs.

However, then you get the odd situation that lending out a DVD to a friend is ok, while sending that same friend a digital copy of that DVD which he watches and then deletes to free up HD space is not ok. In both cases, the result is exactly the same: someone who did not pay for it watched the movie.

What about recording songs you hear on the radio with an audio cassette? What about recording a movie with your TIVO? What about saving a (professionally produced) picture a friend emailed you? What about retelling a story you read in a book?

This issue is by no means clear. Copyright laws were originally intended to stop people from selling works they did not create or pay for. They were not intended to stop consumers from sharing content or information, because that was not an issue.

These days, it is an issue, because consumers now have the means to share content among each other. Since this is the first time in human history that this issue even exists, simply parroting the lines of the RIAA and the MPAA - organizations with a vested interest in one of the possible outcomes of the debate - and pretending this is a cut-and-dry issue is intensely stupid.

Its amazing the excuses made when one doesnt want to pay for something and still get it.
The funny one is the big greedy companies fuck them and the guys from pirate bay are worth how much? lol

So I misjudged you and assumed you were someone that did a lot of illegal downloading. I appears I am wrong.


I assume then that this means you are not in the US. If that is the case then it might be true by downloading a copyrighted material you are not breaking any of your country's laws, but it is still breaking the law of the country of origin. However, there is probably little recourse the actual copyright owner has in enforcing that law.

I'm not really sure where this comes from. It makes no sense and proves no point.



It hurts them because you now have a copy of their work and you didn't pay for it. That is a damaging to them. It doesn't matter how much the band might be worth. If they are a new band and are struggling to get noticed then it could be damaging to them and they would notice the loss of income. If they are a well established act they may not notice it a bit and it won't change their lifestyle at all, but that doesn't mean the damage doesn't exist. It is simple. You have a copy of their work and you didn't pay for it. Whether you would have purchased it or not doesn't matter, you have it, you didn't pay for it, damage done.

It is different you make that point yourself. If I lend you a DVD or book (or even give you the DVD or book) you now have it and I don't. It is a gift. It is no different really than if I bought them for you for you as birthday gift. Sure we both have watched or read it, but there is still only one copy of it between us.

Songs on the radio are meant as give aways. Yes they sell them as singles and often make a lot of money off them but many bands give them away on their websites and on Itunes and places like that. They want that single to get heard so you will go out and buy the CD. If a show is played on TV and you TIVO it they gave it away. The do so understanding that there are some people out there that will fast forward through the commercials, but they still gave it away to you TIVOing it isn't the same as you ripping a copy of the DVD and sharing via torrent with 10,000 different people. Most TV shows can now be watched on the networks website with very few commercials.

It is a complex issue and this is a new world and something that many companies and people were not prepared for. To me the difference is pretty simple and I understand why the media companies are upset. When I was a kid in the 80's If I bought a band's tape and a friend liked it I could make a copy for them. The quality of the copy was typically not as good as the original, and it still cost us a few dollars for the blank tape. And I made a single copy for a friend or a few copies for a few friends. Now I can rip the CD and put CD quality MP3s up on a torrent site and 20,000 people can download them from me. Before my actions may have spawned a few copies in the hands of a few people, now in less time I can get it out to the entire globe and anyone around the world can get a copy. To me this is damaging on several fronts. First the artists/owners of the material have lost control of how and where it gets distributed and second it could be damaging to them. Many of the people that download a CD or DVD may have never bought it, but that doesn't change that fact that some of them would have, but now they get it for free and those who wouldn't have paid still own it and haven't paid for it.

It seems in the modern age there is no such thing as copyright anymore. As soon as you put something online it seems like the prevailing attitude is that it now belongs to the world. We see it everyday in our business. How many celeb sites are out there that run using copyrighted material they haven't paid for? Many of the tube sites have gotten huge using content they haven't paid for and everyone seems to want to hide behind technicalities in the law. To some it is a great revolutionary step forward, to me it is sad.

he is making an assertion without a foundation of proof JUST LIKE YOU WERE.

Copyright infringement is not theft because it does not deny you possession of the property, which means it does not meet the minimum requirements to be classified as theft

It is closer to "fraud" , in that you are cheating someone out of the rightful revenue by misrepresenting yourself to have a right you do not have.

But there is the rub, if you actually have bought or were given the right to view/listen to/ install etc you CAN'T be guilty of fraudlently misrepresenting "yourself to have a right to view/listen to/install etc"

It was merely meant to make clear why your original formulation of "Is X the case? Yes." wasn't a particularly good one, and didn't actually strengthen your case.

I still fail to see why me having a copy damages them if it didn't actually result in them losing a potential sale.

There is no loss of income if they didn't lose a potential sale. There is only loss of income if the downloader would have bought the content had he not downloaded it.

Oh, but it is very different from a gift. If you had bought them as a gift, there would be another sale. Instead, now, there only is a single sale.

The thing about there only being a single copy when something gets borrowed only really makes sense if you consider the physical item to be the important part, rather than the intellectual content. But physical copies aren't usually what people are paying for - they pay for the intellectual content.

With things like books and movies, which people often only read or watch once, borrowing a copy has the same possibility of preventing a potential sale from happening as downloading a copy does.

A good example is a certain site I know, which arranges for people to trade their DVDs. This allows people to watch tons of movies for the price of one or a few DVDs, since they just keep trading out the ones they have already seen for new ones.

The only fundamental differences with downloading movies here are that a physical content bearer is coupled with the content, and that only 1 person at a time will be using the content - but with possibly dozens of people eventually using a single paid copy of the content.

Imagine two students in a dorm. One has a DVD that the other wants to watch. Is walking over to the other's room and handing him the DVD that much different from sending a digital copy?

I think you will find that many content producers disagree with you on the idea that songs on the radio or shows on television are meant as gifts. In fact, a number of content producers have been taking action against exactly these things.

This has caused many countries to impose a kind of "content tax" on writable media (cds, dvds, tapes, etc), the proceeds of which go to the content industry. Ironically, that's given a pretty strong justification to downloaders - they pay the content industry whenever they buy writable media, so why should they not be allowed to take the product they're already paying for?

I think you've hit the real problem at the heart of all this here: the problem isn't so much one of principle, as it is one of scale.

Before, sharing was limited by technical means, meaning it could not have any serious impact on the content creation industry. These days, technology enables people to share content with a virtually unlimited amount of people, causing it to have a much bigger impact on the content creation industry.

The question is whether this development can be stopped without arbitrary, draconian laws being imposed, though. Remember, laws that stop the spreading of content can usually also be used to stop the spreading of information.

A new balance between content creation, consumers and laws will have to be found. Ineffective laws can only be arbitrarily applied for so long, but eventually, something serious will need to change.

I guess this is where we fundamentally disagree. To me is a clear situation. If you download a CD illegally you now have a copy of it and the band (or whoever owns the music) didn't get paid for it. You have something of theirs and you didn't pay for it. It doesn't matter if you would have never bought it or not, you still have it and they didn't get paid for it. Maybe some bands benefit from this because there are people that would have never bought the CD that listen to it and end up liking it. Maybe they buy future CDs or they pay to go see them in concert when they come to town. In the end though it still doesn't change the original situation. If you download a CD you have it. You are in possession of the music and you didn't pay for it and that is damaging to owner of the music.

Think of it like this. Say you own a giant apartment complex. At any given time 10% of the apartments are empty. I find this out and sneak into one of them and I live there. I don't pay rent, but I don't bother anyone either. You aren't out renting the apartment because if you found out I was there I would leave and if you ever rent it out I would leave. So it is empty. You are gaining nothing by having it sit empty, so then really, you are losing nothing by having me live there for free. I would have never paid to live here if I was forced, so you don't really lose anything. Correct? I really don't think so. I get a benefit. that benfit being a place to live. You, the owner of that apartment, are not being compensated for my use of that apartment so I am damaging you. The same goes for music. You download a CD you get the CD and have the benefit of owning it. The owner of it gets nothing from you owning it so they are damaged. The argument that you would have never bought it doesn't matter. You have it, that is what matters.

I guess I miss-spoke when I made my original point. I meant to say if I bought you a book and gave it to you as a gift, I purchased it, but gave it to you. I didn't read it, I just gave it to you. So there would be only one copy in existence.

It really isn't the same. If I buy a DVD and watch it then give it a friend who watches it and gives it to someone they work with who watches it and gives it to their mom then four or more people all got to watch the movie but only one DVD was ever purchased. Here is the difference. If I rip that DVD and send you a digital copy of it. I still own the DVD and you now own a copy of it. If you give it five friends they now all own it. So now there are seven copies of it in existence. Sure six of them are digital, but they are still copies. People can and do delete them, but many don't and they can watch the movie again whenever they want. With the original scenario I would no longer have the DVD if I wanted to watch it again I would have to borrow, rent or buy it. With downloading I was able to share it time and again without ever having to give it up.


I won't pretend to be well versed enough in intellectual property law and international content tax law to argue this. My original point is that TV shows are shown for free with a basic understanding. You get to watch the show for free in exchange for sitting through some commercials. One of the problems the industry is wrestling with is the TIVO situation because people record the shows then fast forward through the commercials. That problem has existed ever since the VCR has been around, but TIVO makes it much more convenient to record multiple shows. Many people record shows all week the watch them on the weekend and fast forward past all the commercials. The studios are now working product placements into the shows as a way to get sponsors more visibility. In the end the studios understand people record the shows and watch them later and often watch them multiple times. they aren't too worried about it because they give the shows away on TV and were not expecting you to pay for them in the first place. The same can be said for some music singles. They play them on the radio, TV and websites as a promotional tool. Many bands give away a single song to encourage people to buy their full CD so recording a song off the radio isn't a big deal because they put it on there for you to listen to for free and were not expecting to get paid from you for it.

In the end this is the real case. Downloading isn't going to stop. As broadband rolls out worldwide it will be harder and harder to stop illegal downloading. Companies could bankrupt themselves prosecuting it and it would still not stop. Any broad measure they might take would greatly hinder access for all those that don't do this. Rick Rubin has often wondered if in the future you just give the music away for free and try to make the money in different areas like touring and licensing and merchandise and stuff like that. I don't know that something like that would work, but you never know. I think over the next five years or so we will see some pretty big cases and ideas coming forth on how to deal with older copyright laws and rights of copyright owners in the modern digital age.

According to my dictionary stealing is defined as: "In the criminal law, theft (also known as stealing) is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's freely-given consent." Does this not extend to intellectual property? Sure if you download a CD without permission the band may still be in physical possession of the CD, but you have stolen their intellectual property without their permission and without payment. That is stealing which is another word for theft.

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websters defines theft as

vs fraud

ti quite clear that the copyright infringement is closer to the latter then the former quite simply because you are not depriving the rightful owner of the content.

When you commit an act of copyright infringement you are misrepresenting that you actually have some right to that content (view/listen/install) and that misrepresentation forces the copyright holder to surrender the exclusive right of distribution for a fee (value).

Fair enough. When I read those two definitions it seems like download music illegally falls somewhere between the two. You are not taking away the owners right to continue to use it so it isn't true theft. But you aren't really committing an "intentional perversion of truth" either. You are just taking it. You aren't lying to someone and saying you are paying for it or that you have a right to it, you are just taking it.

yeah that the most accurate statement about it, i would say you are closer to the defination because the act ot taking the content implicitly declare a right to take it. However given the fact that many torrent sites put up a tos that defines a declaration of rights (ie only download if it is legal in your country etc) so by using the services that is only provided under such a restriction you are in fact "perverting the truth".