Comments on: What’s Right is Rights: Piracy is Theft

By: passingby

passingby — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:16:27 +0000

i download it and if i like i buy it. that is piracy? i don't care.
why should i? and why should anyone care?

if i buy without seeing and listening to it first, what happen if it turn out to be suck, or it doesn't look at good as the movie preview promise?
"they don't care too"

why should they?
and
why should i?

By: Treebadger

Treebadger — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:48:40 +0000

got to agree on what the man said about pizza producers and car rental dealers. Piracy is piracy whatever form it takes and creators have a right to protect themselves and make a profit.

By: Treebadger

Treebadger — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:48:04 +0000

got to agree on what the man said about pizza producers and car rental car rental dealers. Piracy is piracy whatever form it takes and creators have a right to protect themselves and make a profit.

By: PeterPike

PeterPike — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:22:40 +0000

Is that why it's called Intellectual Property Theft? What about Identity Theft?–I mean, someone obviously hasn't stolen me, they just have information about me that they've obtained illegally. "But your honor, I didn't deprive him of the use of his Social Security Number just by taking a copy of it!" Try that defense and see how far you get.

By: Max Cady

Max Cady — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:43:32 +0000

Many people tend to use the "I'm promoting da artists". Nope it doesn't work that way. Unless there is consent from the original creator, posting it in a public domain does not work.

But you know, I try to use legitimate MP3 file stores such as musicaonline.sapo.pt, there for a measly 1€ you can buy whatever you want. I bought some great MP3 from Alan Jackson and even a childhood favorite song of mine, Somebody's Watching Me from Rockwell.

There's just one catch. Most of it is not DRM-free.

The problem is the darn DRM security patch that actually hurts consumers more than some may think.
I mean if I want to buy MP3 legally but can't play it on my 3G cellphone or music player is just BS.
What's worse is that DRM is remarkably easy to get around, just burn your the files you bought into a CD, rip them and presto they DRM-free, but I wasted a damn CD for nothing. You can see how impractical this might become in the long run, unless your willing to spend loads of cash on recordable CDs that will end up being thrown into the garbage can.

People will find it much easier to go onto p2p networks and get that one song for free and none of the hassle of getting through the DRM systems.

By: Hanson

Hanson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:35:15 +0000

If you don't release it in public, no one knows about it (unless through criminal means of course), and it's a non-issue. If you decide to expose it to the public and then feel you have some entitlement of control, well, then it's a different issue.

By: Hanson

Hanson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:33:38 +0000

And let me reiterate: If you don't lose use of the item, in this case an MP3 song, it's not STEALING. In your example, it would be breaking and entering, and maybe something else, but find me a prosecutor and a court that could produce a theft conviction in your example. Cannot be done. Because it's NOT stealing. For God's sake man, read the law.

By: Hanson

Hanson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:31:03 +0000

You're the one manufacturing a "right" here. Or more accurately, an entitlement. An entitlement granted to you by the law. A monopoly.
But you didn't answer my questions. Why not?

By: PeterPike

PeterPike — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:47:15 +0000

If, instead of that, I burn it on a CD and tell people, "If you buy this CD then you can have the song I wrote" how does that alter the circumstances? You are still hacking something you don't own (i.e. illegally copying a CD) to take something that's not yours.

Again, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT to do this. *I* do have the right to protect my property and to decide what to do with it. It is therefore encumbant upon you to prove why YOU are entitled to something you spent no capital on, put no work into, and had nothing to do with. Again, it's not like this is essential to your survival so you can't even make THAT argument.

By: PeterPike

PeterPike — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:47:06 +0000

Actually, I don't make a living producing intellectual property. I used to be in a band, and when I was in my band we put our songs on our own website for free. But that was OUR decision to do so, and if someone else decides not to do so, it's not your right to take it from them anyway. That's the point.

This has nothing to do with "fairness." It has to do with you manufacturing a right to someone else's intellectual property. You don't have a right to do that. Consider this: if I make an mp3 of a song and I decide not to put it online but just use it for my own pleasure, then you have no right to take it at all. If you hack my computer and steal my mp3, you are STEALING.