Is It Ever OK To Steal?

[Muttering Bill]

MB,

SGU was one of the most torrented shows ever. It was cancelled after two seasons. People liked it and downloaded it alot yet it was canceled because it had low viewership on SyFy. Thanks to its availability on Torrent sites.

Perhaps they needs to look into the reason why it had such low on-air viewership. Obviously people liked the show. So there must have been some other reason to torrent it instead. Lousy time slot is my guess. Are we going to just assume: "OMG, it's the pirates fault," when the answer could just as easily be network ineptitude?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

MB,

My point is that the people who torrented the show, because they liked it, contributed to its downfall by torrenting it. Do you not see that as a problem?

[MisterOJ]

MB,

My point is that the people who torrented the show, because they liked it, contributed to its downfall by torrenting it. Do you not see that as a problem?

Only if they were also a Neilson household. I wonder if people that are signed up as a Neilson ratings participant use torrents?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Good grief y'all have an exuse for everything.

[Sci-2]

I'm all for artist being compensated for their work. I have no qualms about putting up some money to make sure that those that I like keep making their art. But if it isn't readily available, in the medium that I want to buy it, then I'll just as soon get it by less than honest means.

Qualms is an odd word choice here. Do you also have no qualms about refraining from other criminal activities? ;-)

Well, being honest that you accept that you are hurting creativity based industries is better than some of the rationalization people often give to justify when [why] piracy is a victimless crime.

[MisterOJ]

Good grief y'all have an exuse for everything.

It's true though. My house is not in the Neilson ratings system. What I watch or don't watch has no bearing at all on what kind of ratings a show has. I can watch every show I want through torrents, rather than on my TV and it won't affect the ratings one bit.

Now, if folks who are in the Neilson ratings system use torrents instead of watching on TV, that will hurt ratings. I would think that those folks would be self-aware enough to realize that if they enjoy a TV program, they should watch it rather than torrent it.

[Kolantero]

Perhaps they needs to look into the reason why it had such low on-air viewership. Obviously people liked the show. So there must have been some other reason to torrent it instead. Lousy time slot is my guess. Are we going to just assume: "OMG, it's the pirates fault," when the answer could just as easily be network ineptitude?

I think that's a fair conclusion about a show that gets low ratings and really high torrenting rates regardless of time slots or whatever else a network is doing or not doing right. If there were no torrents, then at least a portion of these people would have make time to see the show on the time slot it was aired.

[Castel]

The only difference I see is that of scale. Torrents are available to a great deal more people than a Library copy of a book. It's very easy to assume that they are bad. But if one is not necessarily bad, than neither is the other. It's only different because the law tells me one is wrong and the other isn't. Either way it's free shit. It's a copy (or multiple copies) being passed around to more people than was originally intended.

No, we've explained why it's different. Even putting aside the law you can clearly see the economic issues. As for something "just" being a matter of scale...well, it is a big deal. This is not some arbitrary thing.

Anecdotal evidence, but every time I've seen this manner of discussion pop up on the internet, it's typically flooded with responses of many of these dirty pirates have gone on to invest money in the same products, or people, that they have already recieved for free. While that can't be relied upon,

Of course it can't be relied upon! The pirates that are the best at rationalizing their actions are the only ones who'll come and defend themselves. There are millions lurking in the shadows.

still... how much is it really hurting? Movies still make hundreds of millions in the theaters, and sell plenty of DVD/Blu-Ray copies. Musicians are still selling millions of albums, and having successful tours.

Movies also cost millions of dollars to make. And those are huge movies. How many didn't get made?

When does it become immoral? When people lose their jobs? When people who would have been hired but are not due to reduced profits end up becoming or remaining unemployed?

How many movies aren't made because of reduced profits? How many artists don't get signed?

And THAT is the huge issue. It's not The Avengers that'll suffer (or at least not fatally), it's the movies that don't have a big name to carry them. We've all seen all the remakes and reimaginings, is it a surprise that execs want to go for already popular titles as a defense?

More than once I've heard directors complain that they can't get funding for original/obscure works and have to go do thinks like The A-team because they'll pay the bills.

I think that's a fair conclusion about a show that gets low ratings and really high torrenting rates regardless of time slots or whatever else a network is doing or not doing right. If there were no torrents, then at least a portion of these people would have make time to see the show on the time slot it was aired.

And there's still the matter of the moral position of pirates.Just because networks can't get rid of them and have to work around them doesn't change their responsibility.

[Sci-2]

No, we've explained why it's different. Even putting aside the law you can clearly see the economic issues. As for something "just" being a matter of scale...well, it is a big deal. This is not some arbitrary thing.

Of course it can't be relied upon! The pirates that are the best at rationalizing their actions are the only ones who'll come and defend themselves. There are millions lurking in the shadows.

Yup. "No one drop thinks it is responsible for the flood."

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Movies also cost millions of dollars to make. And those are huge movies. How many didn't get made?

And THAT is the huge issue. It's not The Avengers that'll suffer (or at least not fatally), it's the movies that don't have a big name to carry them. We've all seen all the remakes and reimaginings, is it a surprise that execs want to go for already popular titles as a defense?

More than once I've heard directors complain that they can't get funding for original/obscure works and have to go do thinks like The A-team because they'll pay the bills.

As far as I am aware, there is absolutely zero credible data on what kind of losses are experienced by the motion picture industry as a result of movie piracy. To the best of my knowledge, the two most commonly touted numbers are basically nonsense. There is simply no reliable way to translate a movie download into a "lost ticket sale" with any accuracy.

In addition, I'm not sure your argument about smaller movies being the most impacted makes any sense, since my understanding is that the extent to which a movie is pirated tends to track how popular it is generally. Box office hits are generally the most pirated movies and still end up making the most money.

[Robin Of House Hill]

Everyone keeps coming up with smoke screens. Who owns the movie? Did the owner of it, give you permission to download it? If they didn't, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know whether you have any right to download it.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Everyone keeps coming up with smoke screens. Who owns the movie? Did the owner of it, give you permission to download it? If they didn't, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know whether you have any right to download it.

Not accepting the legitimacy of Intellectual Property rights is not a smokescreen. You can engage the argument on its own merits or not. But it's a position based on clearly articulated principles.

[Robin Of House Hill]

I've got to walk away from this for a while. When someone says they believe it is right to benefit from the work of others without the permission of those who did the work, I see a whole new dimension of welfare recipients.

You are essentially saying, "it isn't mine, but I am going to take it anyway, and screw you".

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

I've got to walk away from this for a while. When someone says they believe it is right to benefit from the work of others without the permission of those who did the work, I see a whole new dimension of welfare recipients.

You are essentially saying, "it isn't mine, but I am going to take it anyway, and screw you".

No, what I am "actually" (not "essentially") saying is that I dispute the legitimacy of the rule that you are using to determine ownership of ideas, arrangements of words, musical notes, or pictures on a screen.

The irony of your "welfare" comments are that my position is fundamentally libertarian in tenor - which is to say, it was pioneered by people who believe in the total elimination of the modern welfare state.

*Edited to add: Just so we're clear, I don't think it's okay to demonize welfare recipients, either.

[sologdin]

Everyone keeps coming up with smoke screens. Who owns the movie? Did the owner of it, give you permission to download it? If they didn't, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know whether you have any right to download it.

that's axiomatic, but it's not really relevant to the premise upon which the thread proceeds.

[Lord Flashheart]

No, what I am "actually" (not "essentially") saying is that I dispute the legitimacy of the rule that you are using to determine ownership of ideas, arrangements of words, musical notes, or pictures on a screen.

The irony of your "welfare" comments are that my position is fundamentally libertarian in tenor - which is to say, it was pioneered by people who believe in the total elimination of the modern welfare state.

*Edited to add: Just so we're clear, I don't think it's okay to demonize welfare recipients, either.

Just an arrangement of words, notes, and pictures? That is an extreme oversimplification. If that is all it takes why bother yourself downloading such mundane works? Spend more time crafting some word arrangements of your own.

Not sure your position is Libertarian either. Urban Dictionary defines your position as a "Mooch."

[sologdin]

*Edited to add: Just so we're clear, I don't think it's okay to demonize welfare recipients, either.

that welfare recipients/benefit from work of others bit is always comical in the usual haha look at the proto-fascist producerists who don't understand the theory of surplus value.

[karaddin]

Should you have a right to a digital version? Aren't there benefits that would justify it being a separate thing? Searching, zooming,changing the font/page color, copying, cloud storage, all these things aren't available on regular books. Don't those things kinda add to the price?

Those would be features of the electronic reading device which you have separately paid for already, not a feature of the piece of intellectual property. This kind of argument really pisses me off, the big industries of IP have spent decades convincing us that they don't actually sell us a physical thing, they are really just selling us a license to consume that piece of IP which happens to come on a piece of physical media. As soon as you try and follow that logically however, that being that since you have a license to consume this piece of IP the format it is in is irrelevant, they flip it around and it's suddenly tied to the physical media. You can't have it both ways, either we are buying a physical thing and we can do with it what we want, or we are buying a license in which case we can consume it how we want.

Anecdotal evidence, but every time I've seen this manner of discussion pop up on the internet, it's typically flooded with responses of many of these dirty pirates have gone on to invest money in the same products, or people, that they have already recieved for free. While that can't be relied upon, still... how much is it really hurting? Movies still make hundreds of millions in the theaters, and sell plenty of DVD/Blu-Ray copies. Musicians are still selling millions of albums, and having successful tours.

If someone empties out $X for your bank account, is it okay? Or steals $X from a company?

When does it become immoral? When people lose their jobs? When people who would have been hired but are not due to reduced profits end up becoming or remaining unemployed?

How many movies aren't made because of reduced profits? How many artists don't get signed?

Studies are inconclusive, there isn't evidence that piracy hurts content creation. However there is plenty of evidence that it hurts business models and that's why big industry is fighting back against it, because they have a business model that used to work and now technology is making it harder. Instead of evolving with the technology they try and fight back. As I already pointed out in this thread, HBO have accepted that piracy helps GoT profit margins, not hampers it. This is far from a unique situation.

You also see it in the SGU example, SyFy only examine the old distribution methods and so conclude a show is a failure, when in fact it had a wide audience - just not following their traditional business model. This is a failure of the old TV model of content when the network gives it to you, instead of content on demand which is a more natural mode of consumption. How ridiculous is the idea of being told you can only read a chapter of a book at a certain time? In time TV will head this way to, and is slowly getting there even if they are fighting it.

Also I love how this argument is always phrased as the evil pirates being the only ones of questionable morals. How about the major record labels slapping their ads all over everything they can possibly justify on youtube, even when it has nothing to do with IP they own the rights to? This allows them to collect ad revenue from other peoples content. There are tons of examples of it, just take a look at DMCA takedown articles on arstechnica. There was 1 really good example of this last year, but I haven't been able to find it so far this morning, it didn't include any song in any form and the content owner had to take the record label to court. If I can find it I'll add it in later.

[Robin Of House Hill]

No, what I am "actually" (not "essentially") saying is that I dispute the legitimacy of the rule that you are using to determine ownership of ideas, arrangements of words, musical notes, or pictures on a screen.

By what logic, does the ownership of those arrangements of words, musical notes, or pictures on a screen belong to anyone other than their creator or whoever they assign them to?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Just an arrangement of words, notes, and pictures? That is an extreme oversimplification. If that is all it takes why bother yourself downloading such mundane works? Spend more time crafting some word arrangements of your own.

It's not an oversimplification. It may be reductionist, but that's not the same thing. And I never claimed that these things were (necessarily) mundane.

Not sure your position is Libertarian either. Urban Dictionary defines your position as a "Mooch."

That you use Urban Dictionary as your primary reference tool explains quite a bit about the content of your posts! As for the libertarian pedigree of my anti-IP position, see here, here and here.