Correction: You can do it very much. You mean that we shouldn't do it.
And that difference is the problem here. Piracy actually happens. There are tens of millions of pirates in the USA alone. Even if you are not one, (that I highly doubt), there are probably multiple pirates in your close neighborhood. And the authorities could go after either of them, financially destroy them, make them bankrupt, for downloading a single album. Yet, at the same time, exactly because there are so many of them, there is only a infinitesimal chance of of your random piracy ending up in court.
Laws work on a real dichotomy. Something is either legal, or illegal. They shouldn't be as unpredictable as winning the lottery, or getting struck by lightning. That's only an attribute of non-democratic countries, where huge populations are living on sufferance, but the authority could arbitarily punish a few of them just to make an example.
Even if scaring enough people out of piracy with rumors of these lawsuits to stay legal can make enough profit for the industry to let it survive, it shouldn't be seen as a legitimate business tactic.
edited 20th Nov '11 8:14:34 AM by Ever9
The thing is you cant not objectify content.
This is materialism taken to absurd proportions... Marx would blush at it (before claiming it belongs to the poeple but that is another discussion)
edited 20th Nov '11 7:40:09 AM by Baff
I will always cherish the chance of a new beggining.Just because it's unlikely you'll be caught doesn't make it OK. I'm not a pirate, or at least I haven't been for years, you know, once I turned twelve I realized I was too mature to be doing that kind of thing.
Oh, and there's not people in my neighborhood who are pirates. Most people in my neighborhood don't even have connection to the internet. I live in a small town.
Still Sheepin'Just because something is illegal, it doesn't mean it's wrong. If unjust laws aren't broken and discredited through the people's mass contempt of them, we'd never get rid of'em.
Ethically, legality is utterly meaningless.
edited 20th Nov '11 10:34:56 AM by SavageHeathen
You exist because we allow it and you will end because we demand it.Let's be real, here; the reason 99% of people don't care about following piracy laws is because nobody seems to want to go to the trouble of punishing people who don't. You can talk about "unjust" (any way you slice it, the artists are losing money because of piracy), you can talk about "fair use", but the real reason many people do it is because a) it's easy and free, and b) they aren't going to get caught. Those two reasons, right there, are why digital piracy isn't going anywhere, anytime soon.
You can't just break laws, that's always unethical. The democratic way to do things is to change the law, and only then to do it. Or at least, taking the punishment for it (Read Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, for example. Even though the guy was wrong about everything always, he wasn't wrong about that).
Just because people do it, doesn't make it OK.
Still Sheepin'I never said it was OK, but facts are facts. There are plenty of reasons why piracy can be considered a bad thing, but if nobody can enforce the law, there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
But as was pointed out to me earlier, we aren't discussing what is, but what should be.
Still Sheepin'Well, I could give an answer meant to appeal to everyone's common sensibilities, sense of logic, and desire to see a sustainable system that would limit the damage done through piracy, but I think this answer sums my views up quite well;
You go, girl/guy.
As far as a sustainable system is concerned, I like Savage's idea of financing downloadable content through ad revenue. I think it could be applied to a more organized method.
edited 20th Nov '11 11:26:41 AM by tropetown
By what fucking standard?
Not everyone here thinks "democracy" means anything worth a shit.
edited 20th Nov '11 11:28:01 AM by MRDA1981
Enjoy the Inferno...Indeed, it doesn't. But it has nothing to do with anything. Even if piracy is immoral, the legal uncertainity and the arbitrariness that they are forced to use in punishing it makes the anti-piracy laws immoral, too, at least in a system based on the Rule of Law. Therefore, to maximalize morality, we need either a system where file-sharing is legal and moral, or one where all piracy can be stopped, or at least a meaningfully large part of it. The former seems more likely.
And since that, you never watched a music video on youtube, or stumbed upon an image with a © in the corner? Impressive.
Exactly. For all I write about how legal principles, and the democratic system make it necessary to abolish the pay-per-copying method, it's an entirely separate issue from why I personally pirate things. (free shit!!!)
In fact, I don't even understand, why would anyone think that the people who are talking about abolishing copyright are trying to "justify" their own piracy. Isn't it a contradiction itself? If I would believe that the current system, where piracy is illegal, but I still do it, is fine, I would shut up about it, and keep doing it, smugly enjoying the works produced from the money of sheeple who are not as enlightened as me.
So why would I bother proposing a new system, that can potentially hurt those creators whose works I'm pirating? Even if I'm right that other revenues plus voluntary buying would make up for the loss, shouldn't I, someone who already pirates, personally prefer a free Skyrim with no ads, rather than a free Elder Scrolls VI, with ads on every Loading Screen?
I don't know if I am legally allowed to use this avatar. Just saying.
Oh, sorry, I should have clarified: "To anyone who has any kind of basic understanding of the way society works, breaking laws is always unethical."
Hey, vaccination doesn't prevent some diseases 100% of the time, so we should just not do it at all, right?
Oh, and almost all music videos on youtube that get any amount of hits are posted by their authors, so I don't know what the point is that you're trying to make.
Still Sheepin'I see. "Anyone who has any kind of basic understanding of the way society works" = Lawful Stupid.
Enjoy the Inferno...A guy who thinks Democracy is a bad idea is calling me stupid.
I honestly don't know how to respond to that.
edited 20th Nov '11 6:00:32 PM by TheEarthSheep
Still Sheepin'How do you know that YOU have a basic understanding of how society works, any more than the people you're arguing against? You don't seem to be a sociologist, so the argument that you have privileged knowledge is not compelling.
Try making arguments instead of ad-hominems. You might get further.
edited 20th Nov '11 6:06:50 PM by SavageOrange
'Don't beg for anything, do it yourself, or else you won't get anything.'I think saying that following the law is always ethical is a stretch...
I am now known as Flyboy.I do have a basic understanding of how society works, thank you, and I also know, for a fact, that democratic governments are essentially always better than autocracies.
You don't have to be a sociologist to know that.
That wasn't an ad hominem, dear God that's one of my biggest pet peeves. If there was another topic going on, and we were talking about whether orphaned puppies should be shot or not, and I said "You think democracy is stupid, so you must be wrong about the puppies", that would be an ad hominem. Saying someone is stupid isn't an ad hominem. Sure, it's not great taste, but it's certainly no fallacy.
Could you give an example of following the law being unethical?
edited 20th Nov '11 6:07:27 PM by TheEarthSheep
Still Sheepin'I asked HOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW. It's much different from WHETHER YOU KNOW.
'Don't beg for anything, do it yourself, or else you won't get anything.'Because I've studied Society in general to a relatively in-depth degree.
Still Sheepin'A democratically-elected government in the United States of America enacted segregation as law. Does that make segregation ethical, to you?
Of course, it makes segregation moral, so long as society supports it, but that doesn't make it objectively moral. Law is how society codifies the popular morality as "true," but we're at a point at which the popular morality ("it is right to compensate others for their work, and wrong to take things others have made without giving them something in return, if they ask for it") is no longer so popular...
I am now known as Flyboy.I wonder if Steam will start offering films at some point...
The only real need for this is because of Steam sales, and that's not Valve's exclusive idea. The problem is Hollywood/Music Labels just doesn't want to try sales of digital content. iTunes sales, at least from what I've seen, are kind of pathetic.
DumboGranted.
Still Sheepin'
I wonder if Steam will start offering films at some point...