Illegally Downloading Hollywood Movies... Right or Wrong?

1) no one I am aware of has ever been prosecuted for downloading content. only 'making it available' for download. Love to read some examples if you have them.

2) A variety of ways. Pre and post roll ads, embedded ads, subscription via a private tracker, upsells, cross sells, permision based marketing to name but a few.

Really?

Got any examples of anything similar happening?

I question the fact that you would win as, as far as I am aware, no such case has ever happened. Love to be proved wrong though, so please, name your citations...

There is no defense for stealing movies off the internet. All of the convoluted, double-talking rationale that thieves spew cannot explain this away:

one less butt in theater seat = minus 10 dollars to the filmmakers.

movie piracy killing holywood/movie industry....

Ok so if I wasn't going to pay for soemthing I can steal it. So if I see a TV at wal-mart and I think it's too much money I can take it without payig for it gotcha. Nice logic that bitch has. Hell using her logic if I feel like taking the TV from her house I can.

1. that assuming that every person who downloads it would have gone to the theater (including people who would have had to fly to another country to get access to the movie ala bollywood movies)

2. even if that was true it more like $.97 give current distribution cost/marketing cost charges.

Just because you don't like the way money is distributed to the bands doesn't give you a right to steal music. If bands are so bad off they get together get rid of the RIAA. 41 song is a rip off. 30 years ago I was paying $1 for a 45 single. That's $2.50 in today's money. And the only thing you could play it on is a record player.


The old saying goes you get what you paid for. You and others pay nothing, so quit fucking complaining.

Not only is that an ignorant statement it's beyond retarded. You know NOTHING about what you speak. yeah yeah Metallica supported piracy back in the day when they started out. Funny thing happened when they became big. All these supposed piracy suporting bands will feel the same way.

By the way Einstien how does a band that wants it's fans to get their music for FREE make money? If a sponsor want you to promote them but said they weren't going to pay you would you do business with them. Of course not. why? YOU WANT TO BE PAID.

I swear I thought communism was dying. I guess not. Everyone wants everything for free. No different that expecting welfare.

if you download music and movies you are no better than a perfectly abled body person who COULD work but instead chooses to get welfare and food stamps. FACT. When you're done downloading music don't forget to go to the welfare office and pick up your monhtly allotment of government cheese.

Doesn't matter if NONE of them was going to pay for it. Makes it even more wrong. Logically justify getting soemthing for FREE just because you didn't want to pay for it. Why should I have to pay for something I want and someone can get it for free just because he doesn't want to pay for it. If you don't want to pay for it you do without. It's just that damned simple.

The reality is that Radiohead is going to sell out every venue they play worldwide regardless of mailers or not. They have a rabid fan base and have no trouble selling tickets. That fan base was well in place long before they gave their records away online. You are correct though, if the record label had sent out the email to the fans they would have charged the band for it and by handling it themselves it allows the band to control that and save that money.

does he make more money than he would if he were opening for a major act in a huge venue? Does he make more money than he would have if he had a major company behind him? No. He makes more than he would at his level, but if he had a platinum selling record he would get 100K plus a night to play live. I'm guessing he gets nowhere near that now. He is free to negotiate with the smaller venues, but on his own he has next to zero chance of playing somewhere big.



True. Without some type of talent you are usually doomed. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part I am with you on this. All the money in the world won't convince people that I am a rock star.

That may be the case for some, but most big artists don't count on making any money from royalties. Here is a great example. Aerosmith signs a 4 album 40 million dollar contract. They have never seen a penny of royalties from those records. They get publishing money, money from radio and places like that, but never a cent from the sale of CDs and some of those CDs sold really well. They understand this when they sign. They use the major label to get a big advance. The label gets them on the radio, on MTV and the records in stores then they cash in when they go on tour. They play a 10,000 seat venue and make 250K+ just for playing not to count all the money they get from merchandise sold at the venue. Many big bands will average $10-$15 per person in merch sales.

Aerosmith used the major label to get rich. Could they have done it by giving away all their records and taking an alternative route? Maybe. Nobody is forced to sign a contract they think is unfair. If they don't want to take that route, there is always other ways of going about it.


It could happen. Here we are talking about a major restructuring of an entire industry and there is one minor flaw. Most artists suck at promoting themselves. I have interviewed hundreds of bands and almost all of them don't understand how marketing works. They need people to help them with this. That doesn't mean that they have to have a major label behind them, but they do need people to help and those people cost money. Not to count that most artists are also flakes and some will want to hire their friends or someone they know. It is a never ending struggle. The artists Vs the promotor. Something like you mention could be done, but it would be very difficult to pull off.



Maybe some day this will happen. To me all the torrent downloads in the world are still less valuable then being in heavy rotation on major radio stations. People hear your song as they drive in their car then they go home and buy the record/song or download it. Sure if you give the song away that is nice and they may pay to see you when you come through town, but it was all brought on by the radio. Without it chances are they would have never heard of you.

ok again your sort of missing the point again

by giving the music, they got in touch with people who were not fans, they expanded their marketplace. The rabid fans paid for the album, not grabbed it for free.

When you add in the commisions that they got from those people they converted into fans and the ALLOCATED cost of giving away the song was like 2.35 cents.

Traditional charged marketing for aquiring new fans when ALLOCATED is something like 6.5 cents.

basically if you ignored the huge pop they got from keeping all the money when their fans paid them anything more than a dime a song. they still made more money giving away their music.

johnathan is a folksy parody type singer the superstar success would be someone like weird al, not britney spears. His upper limit of fame is bound by the type of music he performs so even if he had a record company behind him the extra revenue generated would all go to the record company (if not more that all the extra revenue ala projectwyze)

but the RIA sueing those distribution channels out of existance kills those alternative routes, which in a sense does force them to sign the unfair contract. The unfair contract allows the record companies to kill the alternative channels

THIS IS WHY FAIR USE IS SO IMPORTANT

because without fair use legitimizing what was once considered piracy (vcr, mp3) and eliminating the threat of crushing legal juggernaut these new revenue streams would never exist (image all your dvd revenue disappearing because the VCR was made illegal)

after the technology is legitimized (ala vcr) and you lose the ability to sue to prevent such a distribution (all the fair use stuff i am talking about) then nash equilbrium point shifts significantly. Without that consequence barrier people acting flakey will suffer all of the consequences of the new distribution (lost record sales etc, reduced profits) without any of the benefits. (share of the piracy tax, market reach, etc).


but that is only because you are looking at the current economic model and comparing it to the existing model.

that like looking at the VCR back when sony was first selling the betamax for $1K and there were no movies being sold and the only use was to tape shows off the tv and saying that it would never be worth while.

Movie studioes made more money because of that technology (by selling their movies for home viewing) once the technology became legitimized by the betamax case.

There really isn't any reason why torrent based music players could exist, hell based on what the zune can currently do and the sdk for it. We are only 3 months away from such a technology.

add blackberrys, iphones and other smart phones and you have the ability to supercede radio with a completely personal music stream that updates based on your current tastes and recommends songs/bands/artist that would appeal to your preferences.

Hell you could even setup the auto updating of the library based on the songs you keep skipping (skipp a song 3 times it removed from the rotation and replace with something new).

So what you're saying is that all the billion dollar entertainment executives are wrong about the industry. And that some kids who can't afford an $8 DVD are right and using torrents for the betterment of an industry they have no financial connections to?

gideongallery, I understand why you need to make these arguments, and you do make some decent points. But what it comes down to is that the majority of people who are downloading songs are not "making backups" and not "doing it to make the industry better". They are doing it so they can get something for free. That is theft, plain and simple. Downloading a song to your computer that you have never paid for is no different than walking into a store and stealing a CD. You can try and justify it by saying "I would have never bought it anyway", it's still theft.

The laws are extremely out of date and hurt content producers. This isn't just wealthy artists, it's everyone involved in those industries. Music sales have fallen off the face of the earth the last decade. It isn't just a coincidence.

So you can talk about "backups", "fair use" and how this is all just great for the industry (yet they just don't know it yet). But the numbers tell a completely different story than what you are trying to lay out.

well the kid ripping mp3 pre diamond rio case was just trying to avoid having to pay for a less functional and more expensive cd walkman.
The billion dollar executives that sued diamond rio saying their technology was illegal/piracy were proven wrong by the courts (using a music example since we are talking about music)

add up the amount of money that is being made based on mp3 based technology and compare it to the sales of cd walkmen and cds.

until the fair use right of "format shifting" was created by the diamond rio case none of that revenue existed.

who says were are talking about fair use rights that currently exist.

The fair use right i am talking about
one of the two legal precedents that i said need to be established is "access shifting"

when that gets established ooh baby watch the money roll in.

I know enough about coding to see the potential revenue from just the devices i personally have the skill to program.

Add to all the technological innovations that would be created once torrents are legitimized across the board (for all the past fair use rights) we are talking trillions of dollars.

did you read the quote
i was talking about a person like my mom who grew up in goa
remembers watching bollywood movies as a kid, and can't watch them now because she lives in a country that doesn't provide access to those movies.

They choose to make zero dollars in the canadian market
so there is no econo mic loss when she downloads such a movie.

Until the current district court ruling that insanely stupid arguement was considered valid.

I wasn't speaking specifically to you or your situation. I referring to people that download in general.

Okay. Here is my point. I think we are getting close to it. Radiohead got so many downloads of their free album because they are rock stars. That is it. If Johnathan Coulton gave away his next record would 1.2 million people download it the first day? Probably not. Why? Well you can argue that the have different musical styles or different fan bases but in the end the main difference is that Radiohead are rock stars who have sold millions or records world wide and a large part of their achieving that level of success is the fact that they have been supported by a major music label. It is that simple. Trent Reznor found this out. He released his album for free and got a lot of downloads. He liked the results so he produced a record for some unknown guy and released it for free. It got downloads, but nothing like his and he even admits they were disappointed with how it worked out. Why? Reznor is a world famous rock star and the other guy isn't. How did he get there? Good music and heavy promotion by a big music label. Tomorrow if Britney Spears gave away her album for free it would be downloaded millions of times. If, at the same time a girl from Youtube who is hotter than Brittney, sings better than Brittney, writes her own stuff and has videos on youtube that gets 300,000 + views gives away her record she might get some downloads, but nothing by comparison. Why? I think you get the point.

I'm not saying people can't make money giving away their records. I'm not saying they can't make more money giving it away than they can selling it. I'm not saying that they can't attract more fans by giving it away than they can by selling it. I am saying that people like Radiohead and Trent Reznor are exceptions to the rule because they are well known and established.

look at it from this light. The guy known as The Rock used to be pro wrestler in the WWE. He because famous there then left that and went into movies. He had immediate success in movies based strongly on the fact that he was already famous for being a wrestler. Sure he turns out to be a guy who can act a little and has charisma and that will help his movie career have some legs, but if he was just another guy off the street and not already famous he most likely doesn't land a major roll in a big budget movie.

Maybe someday everyone will use the internet to give away their albums, build a fan base and promote themselves, but using Radiohead as an example of how it can work is just a bad example. They were established in the old school and used that establishment to get attention to themselves when they gave the record away for free. They got new fans, that is for sure, but they have access to major media outlets and the news of them giving away the album was all over the place before it even was released. Most people don't have those connections. What it all boils down to is sales of concert tickets and publishing. That is where most musicians make their money. Radiohead was going to sell out world wide no matter if they gave this album away or not. Will they sell a few more tickets now that they gave it away? Maybe, maybe not. There is no real way to judge it. If they sell out a 3,000 seat venue we don't know if there was demand for 3,001 tickets or 5,000 tickets.


For someone like him there is a strong change he may not get much bigger than he is. Like you say his style doesn't lend itself to super stardom. This potential reality is also why he doesn't make a good example when compared to Radiohead. They are both indie music types, but Radiohead is a rock band that has much higher potential ceiling.



I'm not going to argue this point. If I am in a band I can make a website and put my music on it for free. I can put it on youtube and myspace for free. I happen to feel that if a tool is being used to steal from you you should be allowed to protect yourself. If you run a torrent site that gives away movies a studio should be allowed to sue you and put you out of business. I'm not going to get into the argument of the how and why and timeshifting and all that shit. That is just how I feel, regardless of the law. That said, torrent sites that just gave away stuff that it was legal for them to give away (by this I mean stuff that they had approval from the owner to give away) could easily exist.

In the end you choose to sign the contract or not. If you do, you understand where you stand and what you are getting into. If not, you are free to do as you wish.


1. all the money and opportunity in the world will not make musicians less flaky. That is simple reality. Some will fail and others will not regardless of how the system is set up.

2. I agree that there is potentially endless ways to market your music in the new media. Many bands sell more ringtones of their songs then the actual song and other bands sell a ton of downloads for games like Guitar Hero.

3. Whenever there is new media the old guard is afraid. They have had things their way for a long time and they see change as bad. We are seeing that in the car industry as well right now. In some cases they adapt to the new media and benefit from it and in others they don't and either fall behind or go out of business. That said it should be up to businesses to decide for themselves if they want to change.

4. To me the bottom line is that right now most people who use torrent sites are violating copyright laws. They are downloading stuff they have never purchased. They are downloading movies that are still in the theaters. They are not backing up their own material or replace lost/damaged material, they are downloading stuff they have never owned. Again. I won't argue about lost sales VS potential sales, theft VS copyright infringement. It is pretty simple most of the people downloading off of torrent sites are getting stuff they never had before. To me that is wrong. I think an artist or producer of something should be allowed to determine how and where it is distributed. If that causes them to lose out on potential income, so be it.

Why should she be entitled to watch them? Getting to see a movie you enjoyed as a kid is not a basic human right. If the company doesn't want to release the movies on DVD or TV in Canada so be it. It is their loss. They make that choice. Just because you want something doesn't mean you are entitled to it. They should be allowed to control the distribution of their movies. If they don't want Canadians seeing them, they should be allowed to have that right and they should be allowed to defend themselves against people who are trying to take them from them.

Here is a quote from an article about this. There have been some cases where people were busted for sharing music.

In two cases, judges have ruled that making songs available on a peer-to-peer network does not constitute copyright infringement -- the RIAA has to show that someone actually downloaded the material from a defendant's open share folder. One of those cases is still mired in pretrial litigation. In the other, an Arizona judge issued a $40,000 judgment last week in favor of the recording industry, after learning the defendant tampered with his hard drive to conceal his downloading.

The so-called "making available" issue also emerged, belatedly, in the only RIAA file sharing lawsuit to go to trial: the case against Thomas, a Minnesota mother of three, who was slammed with a $222,000 judgment last year for sharing 24 tracks in her Kazaa folder.

sure why not

A further discussion here could be that the market will meet the desires of the surfer and so far the surfer has shown he is willing to spend less than 10 cents for downloadable Hollywood releases.

Where do I get this figure? The cheapest netflix account in about $5 a month and for that you can stream over 10k movie titles with no BW limit. Do the math and you will see that it can be well under 10 cents a movie for a serious watcher. Other services have similar pricing.

I recall someone in the music industry trying to get surfers to pay 99 cents a song and they got laughed at. Now 9 cents a song seems to be working.

We just can't control media for profit the way we use to.

I didn't download from a torrent


I've agreed with alot of what you've said in this thread but this one I'm not so sure about - and I'm not following any facts or figures, I'm only deducing from what I would presume to be logical.

No, I don't have a Neilson box in my home so "technically" my viewing any television show isn't recorded - but Neilson takes sample data and from that assumes X amount of homes are watching a television show. From a marketing stand point, this data is used to help come up with rates to charge advertisers because the more popular the show, the more expensive it is to buy advertising on it - that seems logical to me.

BUT - from the advertiser's stand point it's clear cut. They pay so that every eyeball that watches the show they sponsored sees their advertisement.


This is true but that's not my fault when networks use antiquated methods to produce product placement rates. There are many many many more Tivo subscribers and there are millions more cable boxes in homes that can accurately record a television shows actual viewers - not sample data - actual views.

If I want to buy a billboard to advertise on, I can ask the bum who stands on the corner how many cars he thinks drive by each day or I can get place a car counter on the road and record the actual number as they drive by. The fact that the networks are asking the bum isn't my fault

Stealing is always wrong.

buying 1$ copied dvds counts as well right?

First, I said I paid for music. And I don't like it, so I will use it how I choose. And streaming music online for free, is legal.. and I still, pay for music. I listen to it on the radio too, and change to CD during commercials. I'm a phreak..

And really, I don't give a shit what you people think about me being honest. As if you have never downloaded software, a movie, a song.. Capt moral values, as if.

By this point, if you people can't figure out how piracy has, does, and will continue to make people, more than enough money.. Then sorry, you are stupid... Or maybe a little retarded.

It's not about name calling, it's just about stating facts. For the love of god... wake the hell up in join reality.

Examples of what? A case where the fed kicked the door down and took someone to jail for watching a streaming movie online that they have no record of, no proof of, and have no idea what movie it was, or if I owned it first? Hell, it may have been legally online, how would I know?

I'm smart enough to know they can't do shit... IE: they can't win, so if they did break my door down.. I wouldn't need a lawyer to win.

but that is exactly what you were doing when you responded that way to my post

The fundamental problem with that type of knee jerk response is that it justifies assinine
responses like this one.
The fact is the copyright act has never and should never be a CENSORSHIP tool.
The copyright act granted you a monopoly (conditional) for the express purpose allowing you to make money from your work. Those exclusive rights are explictly bound by a thing call fair use (the free expression outside the scope of the money making venture the exclusive right are suppose to protect)

It was designed to be a balance between your right to make money from your work, and my rights of direct and indirect free expression.

luckly the courts are smart enough to see this intent of the law and have started the process of reversing the unreasonable legal precedents set by uncontested RIA judgements.

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=882828

The reality is that every new fair use right has come about because the copyright holders cross the line between legitimate protecting of income and censorship.

from the vcr (you only have a right to watch it at the day and time i give you) to the mp3 (you only have a right to listen to it on the format i give you), when the look at it you can clearly see that the censorship line has been crossed.

quite clearly from your little statement that line is currently be crossed again and we need a new fair use right to deal with that abuse of copyright (access shifting).

a dutch study commissioned by the record association (because there laws are closer to this ruling) came to the conclusion at 1/20 downloads are paid for, but only one sale is lost for every 10 unpaid download.

while you like to misrepresent the 9 people as thieves, i see them as POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS. IF you were to licience the distribution for a fee 1/10 the cost you would break even, but if you were able to extract fees 1/5 you would DOUBLE your revenue and since that revenue would come it without any additional marketing cost more than double your profit.

The problem with the content industries is that they never see this fact, never claim this money until the censorship based mentality is struck down by the courts. And they are forced to look at those non income reducing "infringers" as potential customers.

Set aside who may have purchased and who may not have purchased something that is a download. Set aside who is a thief and who is a potential customer. Set aside any and all real or potential economic gains or losses affiliated with whether something is sold or not sold to any one part of the world or not. Set aside any and all potential income from allowing downloads. Answer these basic questions:

1. If I produce a movie should I have the right to determine how it is distributed?
2. If I choose to not sell it in Canada or any other country (for whatever reason) should I not be afforded that right?
3. If someone in Canada (or other country) then downloads my movie without my permission should I not be allowed to sue them to protect how and where my product is distributed?

I feel a producer of something should have the right to determine how and where it is distributed. If they choose not to make it available to some people for whatever reason that should be their right. They are choosing to leave that money on the table, but they should be allowed to make that choice for themselves.

[QUOTE=gideongallery;15369534]1. that assuming that every person who downloads it would have gone to the theater (including people who would have had to fly to another country to get access to the movie ala bollywood movies)

That is the dumbest argument ever.

So if I need a shirt, I can just put it on in the store and walk out, because I wasn't going to buy it anyway.

[QUOTE=bronco67;15374491]you are either have the reading and comprehension level of 3rd grader or you are deliberately misrepresenting what i am saying.

in your case you are cause economic harm, you are costing a sale, both in the lack of a sale to you and to the person who would have bought the shirt. In your case there are three choices

1. take the item without paying
2. buy the item
3. or go without

choose either option 1, 3 cost you the money you would normally earn from option 2

my case no sale is happening in canada, even if i wanted to buy, even if i was willing to pay for it, there is no way i can get from. There are only two choices

1. copy the item without paying
2. go without

choice option 1 or 2 results in the EXACT SAME CONSEQUENCE.

legally under what the copyright act is currently writtent

1. only so far as distribution effects the "potential market for or value of the copyrighted work"
2. no see 1
3. no see 1

the copyright act defines the four conditional test for fair use of copyrighted material that allows cede use without violating the "exclusive rights" of the copyright holder.
they are

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
   
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
   
3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
   
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

the betmax case is a paramount case in the context of fair use because it also established the limiting characteristic of each of these "tests"

1. sony sold the VCR for 1K (commercial)
2. video (na)
3. 100% of the video was copied
4. the fourth conditional test was the tipping point and was the entire bases of the fair use right of timeshifting

there lies the rub, the economic value of the work in a country you refuse to sell it in is zero, there is no "effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of the copyrighted work" both because you choose not to sell it in canada (potential market) and because you don't currently sell it in canada (value).

I Guess The REAL Question Here Is:

"Why?"

I mean if you can't even afford a video rental why are you on this forum? Think of them as overpaid movie recycling deposit. For instance instead of having a wall full of copies (taking up precious room space), they take away your garbage for a fee and part of that fee goes to making new junk they can recycle. It's a circle. Like a circle. You know, the round kinda circles.

Okay, maybe I asked too much. Here is what I want:

- no legal mumbo jumbo.
- no betamax
- no references to VCR, economy, copyright etc.
- maybe just go with yes or no.
- forget the law. I am simply asking your personal opinion, not the opinion of a law or how you interpret a law.

Here are the questions:
1. If I make a movie with my money should I be allowed to determine how and where it is distributed?
2. If I choose to only sell it in certain markets or via certain methods should I be allowed to do so?
3. If I choose to not release the movie where you live or sell it where you live or make it available in any way shape or form where you live do you have the right to now go online and download a copy of it?

Again. No legal rulings. Forget the economic impact of any of this. Take money completely out of the equation. We are talking strictly about me controlling where or how the movie is seen. That is it. As the copyright holder and the owner of the movie should I, in your opinion, have the right to control where and how my movie is seen?

That's it. That is all I want to know.

Music sales have fallen off the face of the Earth since MP3 technology has been made legitimate. You keep saying how all this revenue potential is out there, but when the technology is put on the market, it doesn't make anywhere near the amount of money it did before.

And the revenue did exist, except it was in CD sales. Shifting from one format to another is not "adding revenue".



Torrents are legitimate. BitTorrent is a real company in the United States. They work with all the major entertainment studios. They are also not making any money. The same can be said for the studios.

Do you really believe that when a legal definition is determined for "access shifting", everyone is going to start paying for their music and movies? That the kid downloading 10,000 songs for his iPod is only doing so because the courts haven't ruled yet? You honestly can't believe that.

You won't get nothing more out of him than the same tired rap he repeats in every post.

He is of the opinion, that if you, as an artist, create something, you have no control or say over what happens to it. If you create something, apparently everyone and their dog has some bullshit "fair use" to it and can download it willy nilly, depriving you the artist of a return on your hard work.

Wait and see...

Oh and Gideon, I DO get it and Kane is talking about it right now. If I create something and I am fully behind marketing it through torrents or the like, awesome. But when that right is taken from me by some shit who bought my DVD or CD, ripped it and put it on the internet for everyone to take FREE OF CHARGE, there is no way that can be seen as anything other than fucking wrong.

I have seen first hand with a friend of mine who had a DVD put out last year all of a sudden had a decline in sales. After some investigation he said he had found his shit all over some torrents and other websites. So once word of mouth got around about his DVD and then someone finally uploaded to share to everyone for free he began losing sales.

I don't want to hear your same lame, Catch up with the times bullshit. As a matter of fact don't bother at all, I already know what your going to say and so does everyone else.

Yep. This has always been my my argument. If I create something I should have the right to say where and how it is distributed regardless of money.

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes

that because you are talking about only the music revenue
add all the players etc it is a hell of a lot more money


they don't have to pay for music for you to get paid
musicians will licience their songs to trackers, trackers will pay to be the funnel source of the traffic. torrent search engine will giving away the torrents to users for free
and advertisers will pay the trackers holding the exclusive rights.

once fully licienced across all formats, across all distributions their will be a clear economic loss of value for creating the competition in that stream without paying a liciencing fee and the fair use distribution (for the non licienced distributors) will not exist.

content will become a traffic source and paid for in that context.

It depends on what you were taught to be right or wrong but then again some people follow the "created" "fantasy" rules of society and some do not regardless of what they were taught.

then you need to convince congress to turn your conditional monopoly into an absolute monopoly.

Considering how bad the government thinks monopolies are (sherman)
considering that it would decimate the fair use economy
destroying 1/6 of the GDP or approximately $2.2 trillion dollars

The thread asks if it's right or wrong. Not if it's legally defensible.

illegal legal

but that is not nore has it ever been what i am saying and you know it
we were talking about the insanely stupid arguement that downloading of content by a person outside your market, should represent a full sale, when a full sale is impossible because the content producer chooses not to sell it there.

simply put your rights end the second my rights begin, and vice versa

if you sell to a market in the appropriate format/timeliness/etc then your right to make a profit is violated by my consuming your good without paying

conversely if you choose to not make money in that market, my consuming the good without paying doesn't violate your right to profit (since you choose to make no profit) and your attempts to block my consumption you would be corssing that line.

IT is equally fair, and that what the balance of fair use was designed to protect.

but if it is legally defensible then it NOT illegal.

which means that the question is a misrepresentation of the fact
like
"have you stopped beating your wife"

Irrelevant.

He asks if it's RIGHT or WRONG.

Obviously setting aside that he asks if "illegally downloading" which is an automatic "wrong" of course.. but still. legal or illegal is not equal to right or wrong.


The judge in the music case states 100% that allowing downloading leaves little incentive for the person to purchase the product. That was not in question. The only thing the judge stated they failed to prove was that 1 download equals 1 lost sale. He NEVER said downloading does not equal lost sales, in fact he stated that it does.

so who gets to decide what is "illegal" the copyright holder, if that was the case none of the fair use rights established by the courts would exist (timeshifting/format shifting)

IF it is the accused, he/she is going to say nothing is illegal and the copyright holder lose completely

The reality is only the judge has a right to make such a ruling

and based on the current ruling

using cloud to timeshift (download tv shows aired on your cable subscription) is legal
downloading content which the content producer chose not to sell in your market (where there was no sale to lose) is legal

which is what we are talking about, now the second one has to survive appeal all the way to the supreme court or RIAA has to conced the point by refusing to appeal, until one of those two happen it still valid, but potentially unsafe precedent to use.

Well I was speaking as someone who either makes affiliate sales, or sells a product that is often pirated.

The judges straight speech that one who downloads has little incentive to purchase is honestly all I need to hear.

It's handwriting on the wall for all to see.

The only mistake was them claiming that 1 download equals 1 lost sale. There was no argument that downloads do not equal lost sales however. Only the number was in question. 1 is enough when you feed your babies from your affiliate income right? right.

I see you artfully side stepped this. A REAL WORLD example I am personally witness too.

So what you're saying is, when he created his work, distributed it (independently), he lost his right to make money from it? And that your right to download a pirated copy of his work FOR FREE is just hunky dory, nothing wrong with that at all?

I wont go into details, but his work would only appeal to a certain type/group of people that are tightly connected through the internet, ie. message boards, etc. When his sales dropped off, he found that someone had ripped his DVD, and was passing it around in this online community. From there is spread like wildfire to torrents and other places.

This is proof that all your arguments that you made in this thread are irrelevant. As well as all your "time-shifting", "cloud", "no lost sale", "wouldn't have bought it anyways" arguments and case precedents.

i didn't side step i quite clearly define the scope of my statement so it would not be artifically expanded to a scope i were it did not apply
I was counting on either your honest or intelligence to not make that misappropriation.
oh well i guess i can't count on that

so in your example he did not limit the sale in any scope (no regional block out etc)
therefore everyone person who downloaded it without paying for it world wide was violating his right to make a profit from his work

it is both wrong and illegal.

quite clearly the two scope considerations we were talking about don't apply.

BAMA arguement about downloading a movie because he doesn't go to the theater and therefore is not costing them a sale, is consistent with the district court rule

IF the movie studios released an online streamed version for a fair fee (the profits from the movie sale + cost of the distribution) then what he would be doing would be illegal.

the fact that i don't want to take advantage of that ruling because it has not been upheld at the supreme court level. And instead choose to only download content i have paid for (timeshifting) because that HAS been upheld by the supreme court is in my mind both a moral and legal decision.

ah but there lies the problem
if 9 downloads don't cost a sale (and are therefore legal based on rule 4 of the fair use section)
and 1 download cost a sale (illegal)
the act of stopping that technology to stop the one illegal download denies 9 people there legal right to download.

especially if you consider that liciencing the 10 people for a fair price (profit of lost sale + distribution cost of torrents) would eliminate the problem too.

The judges point was that downloading leaves little incentive for the downloader to then purchase legitimately the product or service. And his only ruling was that 1 download was not proven to equal 1 lost sale.

Various other scenarios were not included in the judges comments that I saw and I'm not going to presume anything.