Thread: Torrents!

Because torrents contain only information that can be used, with the aid of a program, to perform illegal actions, such as transmitting copyrighted content to another person (or downloading as well, depending on jurisdiction). And the information is basically a bunch of servers and some other stuff.
You can't incriminate someone for providing server addresses and some information about files. You'd have to shut down all the chemistry labs as well, for they could be used to produce drugs or explosives. You'd also have to ban all knives since they could be used to murder someone. The same goes for all burning programs, ... the list goes on.

and actually sites have been shut down...look at oink.cd no charges have been filed yet...but they are in the process of trying to punish the creators and users.

Well, quite frankly loopholes, like what Korittke said. Theres ways around everything. The long story short is that many torrents are "legal" because they require no cost/time from original distributor to host or get their work out there. Many torrents are funded by legal companies who simply bought the rights to share the product from whoever owned it at an obviously reduced price. (They know its going to get ripped, may as well make a bit of $$ (Doesnt happen often in "Big Blockbuster Movies" )). The torrent hosting site can easily make the money back through adds from sponsors/premium memberships for access to the 'top quality torrents'.

Not all torrents are rips of copywrited information, and that is the reason many websites are still going. It would be like shutting down you tube because one person posted porn. Go to your favorite torrent site and I guanuntee you will see a disclaimer along the lines of "The administrator is not responsible for any/all material posted by users on this website, its purpose is not to host illegal torrents, lala".

Of course we all know 99% of the shit on these sites are rips, and really some big lawyer making legal threats are enough to shut most sites down because they know at the end of the day they were in the wrong one way or another, so it dies.. another site takes its place. Many sites do fight, but its like trying to arrest a police officer, pick your battles.

Such is the circle of life until they make a real law, or accept public file sharing. I wouldnt hold your breath for the latter.

And certain countries have more relaxed laws, such as sweeden - where PirateBay is hosted.

I love to laugh at the idiot efforts from MPAA and friends to take down internet piracy.

I remember when they were all euphoric, saying the pirate bay had "sunk", it was on the news everywhere and a "special" logo was even made. Three days later the pirate bay comes back online, more popular than ever thanks to all the free publicity.

Ye gods, they're good at the old brainwashing, aren't they

torrents aren't illegal
(that's like claiming paper is illegal)
bittorrent is a device for distributing large files around a group

what has legal standing, is the files being distributed
(if you like, what's written on the paper)

paper isn't illegal - using paper won't get you arrested
it's the bomb making instructions and the directions to a shopping centre that will get you arrested, not the paper they're written on

torrents have lots of legitimate, legal uses
World of Warcraft is a nice, high profile example of this

it frightens me that the next generations are so thoughtless they download ALL their music these days with no regard for their favourite artists. aaaah :'(

was this even on topic? lol

I think I am doing artists a favor by downloading their stuff. Let me tell you this much: if I couldn't download an artist's CD, I sure as hell wouldn't buy it. Before I started downloading, I could count the CDs I owned on one hand. I literally *researched* a CD for like, weeks before I bought one. 10-20 dollars used to be a lot of money and I would spend a lot of time at least trying to find a preview of all the songs before I bought it. I would actually go on amazon and compare many reviews of different CDs of the same artist to know what was the best one to get. If it turned out that I didn't absolutely love every song on the CD (or any review didn't like a song or two) I wouldn't get the CD. What I am doing now for a band is downloading their discography, perhaps not liking them at first, but later discovering they are good and recommending them to other people (some of my friends actually buy CDs). I simply would not buy 99% of the CDs I get if I couldn't download. Torrents give bands massive popularity. I remember reading an article about the grateful dead becoming so popular because people would record the songs off of the radio and share them with friends. I think bands should focus on playing shows instead of selling CDs.

Ye but what about the start of a movie where that small ad comes up saying. "you wouldnt steal a car, you wouldnt steal a handbag, you wouldnt steal a movie, Piracy is a crime" then it shows a girl with a computer on screen saying downloading, then she stops the download then leaves. sureley thats saying that downloading something that would cost to buy in the stores, and getting it for free is stealing. right?

Originally Posted by wasup

I think I am doing artists a favor by downloading their stuff. Let me tell you this much: if I couldn't download an artist's CD, I sure as hell wouldn't buy it. Before I started downloading, I could count the CDs I owned on one hand. I literally *researched* a CD for like, weeks before I bought one. 10-20 dollars used to be a lot of money and I would spend a lot of time at least trying to find a preview of all the songs before I bought it. I would actually go on amazon and compare many reviews of different CDs of the same artist to know what was the best one to get. If it turned out that I didn't absolutely love every song on the CD (or any review didn't like a song or two) I wouldn't get the CD. What I am doing now for a band is downloading their discography, perhaps not liking them at first, but later discovering they are good and recommending them to other people (some of my friends actually buy CDs). I simply would not buy 99% of the CDs I get if I couldn't download. Torrents give bands massive popularity. I remember reading an article about the grateful dead becoming so popular because people would record the songs off of the radio and share them with friends. I think bands should focus on playing shows instead of selling CDs.

It's still theft. There are plenty of ways to legally check out music before you buy it. The same goes for almost every program, movie, book. If the bands wouldn't give two shits about selling albums, they wouldn't release a CD in the first place but focus on shows. Is that what they're doing? No.

It's funny how for music it seems to be a good argument that theft is still a form of ownership and thereby promotes the stolen product. In any other context that would seem like the most absurd justification. The only reason people are arguing with this weak excuse is that music is easy to steal, period.

N.B. I also got stolen music.

copyright infringement is not stealing
it's still wrong, but the crime is very different from theft
(in most countries, copyright infringement is a civil offense, while theft is criminal)

having said that,
I feel absolutely no sympathy for authors who complain about their work being "stolen"

They made a poor business decision
and no amount of whining will change the fact, that they made the poor decision

There's often a lot of heated words around digital distribution
some are sensible and valid
most are no better than petty name calling

scrape away all the name calling and foot stamping
and you get down to the nub of the issue
It's a breach of contract

You bought a product
This purchase comes with a restrictive license attached to it
and this license can be very restrictive
Restrictive to the point, where you can't fully utilise the product it's attached to (depending on the product)

What? I bought a CD, and can't rip it onto my mp3 player?
What? DVD's are fragile, and I can't make a backup?
Fuck off

This is what people have a problem with
So people breach the license

Then technological restrictions kick in (as opposed to purely legal restrictions)

What? I now physically can't rip a CD without cracking some encryption?
What? My 3 year old player isn't up-to-date enough, and refuses to play my movie?
Fuck off

At this point, some people say
Screw it, I'm already labeled a thief
and given the technological restrictions, what I bought isn't fit for purpose
I might as well skip the whole "purchasing" phase altogether and just download it
I'll get a better product - which, remember, is all I'm after

Nope,
No sympathy whatsoever
I'm a thief
Fuck you, and good night

I agree with you on that.
I must have missed the part where companies forced you to buy their products. Can you go into detail about that? When was the last time you went into a store and decided not to buy a product because of its superfluous copy-protection mechanism when all of a sudden a mob of people formed around you, pointing guns at your head?

Lol kortikke you make me laugh with the whole angry mob thing.

No-one forces you to buy them, no

The problem, is often the licenses are on the inside of products
So called "Shrink-wrap" licenses

you buy a product in good faith
only to find afterwards that the license is cripplingly restrictive

This is tantamount to fraud, in my books

Originally Posted by Ynot

No-one forces you to buy them, no

The problem, is often the licenses are on the inside of products
So called "Shrink-wrap" licenses

you buy a product in good faith
only to find afterwards that the license is cripplingly restrictive

This is tantamount to fraud, in my books

I agree. And I also think it's riconculous that you're not allowed to copy to different formats etc. All in all, copy protection and ridonculous licensing is a waste of time and money. I feel better buying a product knowing that I will not have to go through some stupid retarded activation process that I might as well just circumvent, considering I already paid good money for the product. What's the point? I remember when BioShock came out, they would let you install it like 2 or 3 times (you gain +1 install by uninstalling) and if you managed to fuck up your installation or something like that, you'd launch a shit storm because neither the publisher nor the copy-protection company felt responsible for handing out new licenses, let alone internationally. What a load of crap.

Originally Posted by Korittke

It's still theft. There are plenty of ways to legally check out music before you buy it. The same goes for almost every program, movie, book. If the bands wouldn't give two shits about selling albums, they wouldn't release a CD in the first place but focus on shows. Is that what they're doing? No.

It's funny how for music it seems to be a good argument that theft is still a form of ownership and thereby promotes the stolen product. In any other context that would seem like the most absurd justification. The only reason people are arguing with this weak excuse is that music is easy to steal, period.

N.B. I also got stolen music.

I don't think I said once that I download solely to check music out. I said I found places to preview music... but that was always at CD stores where you can do the little preview thing with a headset or on sites like amazon or itunes to listen to 30 second previews.

Furthermore, your whole argument is null because as I said, I would not buy any of the CDs I have if I didn't download them. Music is not worth 20 dollars a CD. Without downloading, I would have had to spend more than 10,000 dollars on music.

And comparing stealing music to stealing something like a car is ridiculous. Again, I would not have bought any of the CDs I have. So they don't lose any "opportunity" profit (money that they would've gained if I had not downloaded). Secondly, it doesn't cost any money to make copies. A car cost the car maker thousands of dollars to create it, so stealing it cost them money. Stealing digital media doesn't cost them any money.

Originally Posted by wasup

Furthermore, your whole argument is null because as I said, I would not buy any of the CDs I have if I didn't download them. Music is not worth 20 dollars a CD.

It is. That's why it's sold at that price. If you think it isn't, you don't need to buy it. There are plenty of indie bands who are just waiting to sell you their CD for a fraction of that price. There are plenty of bands who don't charge anything, plenty of bands whose music you can listen to or download on their website, 1000s of free internet radios for any taste imaginable.

Without downloading, I would have had to spend more than 10,000 dollars on music.

So...? You don't "have to" spend money on music. You don't "have to have" every type and variety of music you like. If you think you do, you need more money. If you don't have it, you can't listen to that music whenever you want to. That's life.

And comparing stealing music to stealing something like a car is ridiculous. Again, I would not have bought any of the CDs I have. So they don't lose any "opportunity" profit (money that they would've gained if I had not downloaded).

That's ridiculous. A car thief could say exactly the same: "I wouldn't even have bought this car. I don't even have the money."
It's still theft.

Fact 1: You want to have the music.
Fact 2: You need to pay money for it.
Fact 3: You don't pay money for it.

You would have bought the CD if you wanted to make a morally and legally acceptable choice.

Secondly, it doesn't cost any money to make copies. A car cost the car maker thousands of dollars to create it, so stealing it cost them money. Stealing digital media doesn't cost them any money.

The price of the copying process is irrelevant. The price of the material is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the price that's on the label. They need to pay the band, the employees, the service and they want to put something in their own pockets too. It's their music, their license and their product, so they get to charge whatever they want.

Originally Posted by Korittke

It is. That's why it's sold at that price. If you think it isn't, you don't need to buy it. There are plenty of indie bands who are just waiting to sell you their CD for a fraction of that price. There are plenty of bands who don't charge anything, plenty of bands whose music you can listen to or download on their website, 1000s of free internet radios for any taste imaginable.

Whut. By that logic, I can slap a 1000 dollar price tag on my toothbrush and say "SEE, IT'S WORTH THAT MUCH CUZ IT'S SOLD AT THIS PRICE." Yeah, okay. Let me guess, you'll respond "but nobody will buy it!" Guess what... nobody is buying CDs (or at least, the number buying them is decreasing rapidly... so obviously it's not worth that much.)

So...? You don't "have to" spend money on music. You don't "have to have" every type and variety of music you like. If you think you do, you need more money. If you don't have it, you can't listen to that music whenever you want to. That's life.

Hence I download the music...

That's ridiculous. A car thief could say exactly the same: "I wouldn't even have bought this car. I don't even have the money."
It's still theft.

That part wasn't really referring to the comparison as much, the fact that the making of the car costs money is what I was referring to with the silliness of the comparison.

You would have bought the CD if you wanted to make a morally and legally acceptable choice.

Nope.

The price of the copying process is irrelevant. Don't take my quote out of context. The price of the material is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the price that's on the label. They need to pay the band, the employees, the service and they want to put something in their own pockets too. It's their music, their license and their product, so they get to charge whatever they want.

Yeah, and if they charge "whatever they want" and that price is ridiculous, I will download their music for free. The price of the copying process is not irrelevant whatsoever. Basically it is relevant because my downloading does not affect the band negatively because I wouldn't have bought the music anyways. They don't lose any money that they would have gained, they gain a fan, and they gain a fan who will tell others of how great their music is. And yes, they need to pay the people, but they don't need to pay as much as they sell it for. Popular bands don't need to be making millions. Most smaller bands get their money from concerts and such. Obviously you cannot "steal" going to a concert. So for big bands, they do not need my monetary investment. They don't need to be making so much. For small indie bands, I can't download their stuff anyways (not available). Even if it is, most small bands need popularity more than initial CD profits. Especially if the CD profits are 0 dollars because I won't spend money on CDs.

Nobody is buying CDs because everybody's downloading them. They wouldn't even buy them for a fraction of the price, they just like the idea of getting stuff for free without having to expose themselves to security cameras.

So your basic argument is that intellectual property shouldn't exist because if you steal it you don't steal something that has already been produced separately so you might as well just not copyright it?

As for "the making of the car costs money"... it's not relevant.



If you made some great discovery with 10 minutes of work, would you like to be forced to get no higher bids than 5 bucks because not enough effort went into it?

Originally Posted by Korittke

Nobody is buying CDs because everybody's downloading them.

...and people are downloading them because it costs way too much to buy them (if a=b and b=c then a=...?)

They wouldn't even buy them for a fraction of the price, they just like the idea of getting stuff for free without having to expose themselves to security cameras.

I would buy them for a fraction of the price. I would spend about 1 dollar or less on an album. Not the physical CDs though (they are a waste of material, time, and money. I mean, I don't own a CD player and the music would only end up being converted to digital music so I'd just want digital music to start with).

So your basic argument is that intellectual property shouldn't exist because if you steal it you don't steal something that has already been produced separately so you might as well just not copyright it?

How did you get that out of what I was saying....

As for "the making of the car costs money"... it's not relevant.

Yes... yes it is. If I steal a car, they literally lose money. If I steal music, they don't lose money. They gain money indirectly because I promote their band. There is not even the fictitious "opportunity profit" because I would not buy their music anyways.

If you made some great discovery with 10 minutes of work, would you like to be forced to get no higher bids than 5 bucks because not enough effort went into it?

Relevance?

Torrents aren't illegal, pirating copyrighted software is.

Originally Posted by wasup

...and people are downloading them because it costs way too much to buy them (if a=b and b=c then a=...?)

If you don't have the money to buy a commercial product, you're not eligible for ownership.

I would buy them for a fraction of the price. I would spend about 1 dollar or less on an album. Not the physical CDs though (they are a waste of material, time, and money. I mean, I don't own a CD player and the music would only end up being converted to digital music so I'd just want digital music to start with).

I think you would be interested to know that most musicians want to make some money off their music. Creating quality music is actual work and if you're a professional, this is your main source of money. If CD sales wouldn't matter to them, they'd release their music freely.

How did you get that out of what I was saying....

See below.

Yes... yes it is. If I steal a car, they literally lose money. If I steal music, they don't lose money.

The difference between the car and the music is that the one is material, the other is information. When you buy music, you're only paying for the material as a necessary medium of transportation of the information (or you don't get material at all). You're actually paying for a copy of the information.

The difference is that music as a form of information can be copied, so when you do that you're not taking something from someone, you're just copying it and leaving the original where it is. So according to you that makes it OK. This is why I drew the above conclusion. The same goes for movies, software etc.

The creation of information requires effort, no less than the creation and formation of material. Hence, when you create information this is intellectual property. Hence, for someone to copy this, they need to have the copyright.
All that this does is apply the rules of material products to intellectual ones. You want to get paid for the work you have created and the time and energy you have invested, no matter if that work is music, software, teaching, art or a car. According to you, if something can be copied without removing the original, you're not stealing, hence we don't need intellectual property and copyright.

They gain money indirectly because I promote their band.

How so? If you mean concerts, then why don't all the bands just release their songs for free and earn money from touring? What's with bands who aren't interested in concerts? If you mean other people will buy their CDs because you told them about it, that's like saying it's OK to murder someone so long as you are a member in an anti-murder interest group.

Originally Posted by Korittke

How so? If you mean concerts, then why don't all the bands just release their songs for free and earn money from touring?

Good question!

If you mean other people will buy their CDs because you told them about it, that's like saying it's OK to murder someone so long as you are a member in an anti-murder interest group.

That's a horrible analogy. It's more like me sneaking into a movie theater to watch a movie that I wouldn't have paid to see anyways and then after seeing it and loving it rallying hundreds of people to come to the movie theater to watch the movie and pay to see it (and PS: in this movie theater it doesn't cost any electricity or money to run)

Why not sneak "hundreds of people" into the theater so that they can tell thousands of people about the movie who will then again sneak into the theater until the movie is no longer available? In the end, someone will pay, right?