A couple years ago there was a vampire movie called Daybreakers that had a cool-looking poster. “Golly,” I said to myself, “That’s a cool-looking poster. I’d like to get a longer look at those vampires.”
But the reviews were only fair-to-middling so I knew my $12 would be staying in my pocket and I would wait for the movie to come to TV.
Then I started to think, “If I pirate the movie now, the producers get no money* from me*, and if I wait until the movie comes to TV in a year or two, the producers get no money from me.”
Now my question:
Given the fact that there was never any chance of my $12 moving from my pockets to the producers’ pockets, if I had pirated the movie in 2009, how would it have been stealing?
Actually, it’s more like fencing. You are receiving know stolen goods and (if you are part of the torrent system) you are delivering known stolen goods.
No the same thing, since you’re out something if someone picks your pocket. A better analogy would be, oh, someone tapping into your cable TV signal so they can watch for free.
The watching of the movie seems to be a desire to you, something you would enjoy. Cable companies and network TV want you to enjoy watching them, as such they buy things to show you, such as this movie, because it’s what you like. But since you have already seen it, it lowers the value of their service in your mind.
This decreased value has a potential of having you drop their service, or stop watching their network, which hurts them. Perhaps you would never do that, but over many people the potential works into real numbers.
If you pirate the movie and just keep your mouth shut about it it is a pretty minor offense.
If you pirate the movie and teach your friends how to pirate the movie it is probably a bad thing.
If you pirate the movie and tell your friends it was good (without mentioning how you watched it) and some of your friends or friends of your friends then pay to see it because of your recommendation the ethical/legal situation becomes pretty murky.
Well, it gets called stealing because somebody else owns something, and you’re acquiring it without compensating them for it. It’s not legal theft because you aren’t literally taking it away from the possession of its owner, but it’s not really a wild leap in logic to call it stealing in a conversational sense. It meets the everyday dictionary definition.
I would like a dinosaur skeleton. I am absolutely never going to go through whatever process it would require to get a real one - no chance. I’m sure you don’t believe that that means that if I take one from a museum, I didn’t steal it. So that can’t be the only factor that determines whether it’s stealing or not, especially since not being able to afford a thing is like the most reasonable rationale for stealing there is. And if you can’t afford something, obviously, you aren’t going to buy it.
Networks pay to show the movie. The amount they pay is largely related to the amount of ad views they expect to sell, which is related to the number of people who watch it on TV.
So, in theory, the producer gets less money if less people watch it on TV and pirate it instead.
Or if you do steal it, don’t try to justify it. People who go on and on about why pirating is ok are horribly annoying. I have no problem admitting that I’ve been known to pirate now and then. I could tell you all about how I wouldn’t have bought it anyway and I’m really supporting the artist and so on, but really, it comes down to three things. I’m broke, it’s easy, and I have loose morals. So if you want to download, I say do it, just know that it’s wrong.
No, it isn’t that simple. Thanks to our screwed up copyright laws there’s an awful lot of work out there that isn’t legally available at all, quite a lot of which has no clear legal copyright owner at all. Calling it “stealing” if you download something when it costs no one anything and you literally can’t buy it “stealing” distorts the word.
For that matter, is it stealing to borrow a book? To read over someone’s shoulder? Glancing at a picture without paying? Those also are labeled as “theft” by the copyright fanatics. Unless you want to end up in a dystopia where you are literally charged for everything you look at, at some point you need to say “no, that isn’t theft” to these people because that’s literally what the copyright extremists are pushing for. A society with eye trackers everywhere.
But we already have a system that allows you to read out-of-print books and listen to older music that might not be currently circulating.
It’s called the library.
Agreed, that’s most annoying part. It’s stealing no matter how they slice it.
As a part time artist. Meaning I have a full time job but work on art on the side and sell pieces I would be terribly pissed if people could just download my paintings because the technology is there.
There’s also an example of a local band in my area that has some what of a following.
Their album has been stolen ahem, I mean downloaded at last count 5000 times. Not a big deal some people, it’s just music after all.
This band at one point had their electricity cutt off. I’m sure they could of used the money.
