simple enough question: do you consider downloading music (using a P2P or torrent or other w/o paying for it) stealing?
personally.....i say no.
a few reasons for this:
first, its non-material. meaning its not an actual CD or record. its just a series of 1s and 0s.
second, fair use laws allow you to share/reproduce w/o charge. now this is a gray area and does not specify how many times you can do this.
third, from my understanding of the digital millennium copyright act of 1998, you are allowed to DOWNload copyrighted materials...just not UPload it.
so what do you people think?
To me it is worth paying the buck or whatever it cost to legally download it from itunes. It has nothing to do with the legality. It is all about knowing that I have a quality copy instead of trying to download 5 or more versions of the same song before finding a decent one.
FORGET GIRLS GONE WILD WE HAVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING GONE WILD!
If I'm looking for one song and I want a good version, I buy it off ITunes. If I want to go all-out and get a bunch of new songs, especially those that are common, I will go to Limewire without a doubt. ~90% of the songs are decent to good quality and I'd sure as heck download off a sharing network than spend $100 on ITunes! I have much better things to put that $100 into and I really don't think those artists need that $1.00 of mine for that song, especially when they still make enough per year to buy a Ferrari and a house in Malibu.
Point being, if I like an album, buy it, but if you want a song or two for a mixtape, download it.
if sharing music files on the internet is illegal in your state where you live, then is illegal.
if is not illegal to share music files in your state, then download all you want.
Technically is not stealing because you're sharing files with somebody else.
The question is can you legally share files on the internet and not get in trouble in the area where you live because if is legal, no one can't touch you.
wade/spit: i dont care for itunes. sure its a buck a song, but thats still 12 bucks for the average cd. thats still a bit high, IMO. and even if it werent, the artists see less than 10 cents per d/l. i like the idea of micropayments, like ron brought up, but there isnt much of a way to do it right now. if the artist could get the money directly i would be much more enthused at the prospect of paying for music.
n00b: the question of legality isnt with state laws....its with federal ones because federal trumps state laws.
the question was whether or not people considered it to be "stealing"
I agree. If I could pay 10-20 cents per song, and have it go directly to the artist, than I'd have no problem buying music. The problem is we pay a dollar, and the artist gets like 2 cents. I'm not paying so some middle man undeserving of my cash can profit and ride in his Benz, when he/she did practically nothing.
Is downloading music for free stealing? It depends on how you view the whole "information belongs to the people" argument. Technically it's just ones and zeroes, and you're copy pasting them.
Tabby:
Robby002 wrote:Technically is not stealing because you're sharing files with somebody else
so no, is not stealing in my opinion
I wonder if that would fly in court.
"But Judge, I wasn't stealing the songs, he was SHARING them with me!"
Sharing is caring
Is it stealing? Most certainly.
However consider:
- I live in Canada, and I cannot always reliably get a US import (for instance Lyrics Born/Asia Born CDs) from here. From the US, certainly, but not in Canada. I don't consider it theft if I am fully willing and able to pay for a recording, yet the distributor doesn't want to ship it up here (BTW, Amazon's catalogue in the US is different than Canada). If they're not willing to sell to me, then how is it that I'm stealing? If there was no possibility of a sale in the first place, then how is it that they can justify that they're losing money?
- MP3/Digital Music makes it FAR easier for a band to put their material out to the public. I'm not going to get into it again about this, but the record industry is responsible for the shallow-end of the music industry dominating sales, at the expense of a far more talented or lyrically interesting group of artists' cash. Part of the reason the 50's, 60's and 70's were so lyrically and musically interesting is because there was an entrepreneurial spirit where the record execs/producers didn't try to make the sound, they left that up to the band, they just took the gamble and put their stuff out there. Sometimes it paid off huge immediately (like the Beatles), sometimes it took a while (like the Velvet Underground) and sometimes it didn't last long (like the Troggs)... but at least there was variety... Rock and Roll is dead, it's now over-produced, and limp fisted music that may have a musical punch, but no message, or a lament, but nothing you haven't heard before. Creativity in music rests with the producers, not with the bands... and that is not the way it ought to be.
- The "sharing" schemes have forced a sea-change upon the record industry (which is NOT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY). No longer are you dealing with simple ablative contact media to transfer sound recordings, you're dealing with quite literally sonically indistinguishable copies of digital PCM recordings. They have to either adapt to the new market (like with the new Napster/Bonfire/iTunes (to a degree)/etc.) or perish.
I have used several different sharing methods, and I have in fact, bought music (sometimes at a premium because the distributor won't ship to a record store in Canada) that I auditioned because of mp3/digital music sharing methods.
The RIAA would have you also believe that for every song you DL, you're stealing an ENTIRE ALBUM'S WORTH OF SALES... so, you download an album that has 13 songs, you're technically stealing 13 cd's worth of sales.. and everytime you UL part of a song, well, that's another CD's worth of sales.
Now, I may be stealing, but I've paid for 3000 CD's fair and square. I think we're about even.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
It is stealing. And I'm a theiving bastard.
Go.Stop (Ron Carvalho) wrote:http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/icst/icst-6/icst-6-full.html
My thoughts on the matter.
That's more or less what iTunes was supposed to facilitate, but the problem is that they still charge you $13-$15 for an album... and the one thing you don't see now (which REALLY sucks) is the Artist's cut tab.
IF this type of an economic venture is to become a reality, you'll have to get a couple of the major top-ten acts to first break from their Distributors' contracts, and sign a distribution deal with one of these services. Until that time, you're going to have to deal with the RIAA and kick them in the nuts periodically.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
Stealing
see this is whats wrong with music,,,
everytime i get a cd, its immediately in the cd player as soon as i hit the parking lot, excited, opening the cd, reading the lyrics and checking out the album art.. its a great feeling... problem is, its hard to find much music to get excited over anymore, not many bands have cds that are solid from beginning to end, just an okay song here and there,, which makes it more easily justifiable if you only want one song and the rest of the disk sucks just to download.
As a musician who plays out, i still have the dream of making it someday in the biz, and i buy all my music, without any sales they may not have the oppurtunity to make another album with music that you like, sure some can spare it, but thats not the point, that is their livelyhood that they worked to achieve, noone should be able to take that away.
BTW anyone know how much goes into recording and promoting an album? a f'"in ton
Stealing
hop on in i've got a J
It is absolutely stealing.
If you think there is a difference between downloading songs, movies, software, etc, from the Internet, and walking into the store putting an item under your coat and walking out without paying, then you are fool, and only fooling yourself.
**there is only one true love in my life... and my girlfriend has learned to live with it**
Gutty96 wrote:It is absolutely stealing.
If you think there is a difference between downloading songs, movies, software, etc, from the Internet, and walking into the store putting an item under your coat and walking out without paying, then you are fool, and only fooling yourself.
i think there is a huge difference between stealing an item (something that is physical, such as a cd or dvd or whatever) and transferring a series of 1s and 0s (something that you cannot hold in your hand, or put under your coat for that matter)
in one instance, a company or individual is hurt because they produced a physical item that not only was not sold, but was actually stolen (hence costing them money on the lost physical item)
in the second scenario they do not lose anything. the cd or dvd is still physically available for sale to whomever.
now the record and movie industries will try to tell you that just because i d/l'd a song or album or movie or tv show that it counts as a sale that they would have had. but i can guarantee you that it most certainly doesnt. occasionally, maybe. but not nearly as often as they like to say.
so the way i look at it is this: would i make a physical purchase if a digital version was not available for free? if yes, and i choose to d/l it anyway, then that might be considered wrong as i WOULD be taking a sale away. but if i had no intentions of purchasing it? then there would not even be a lost sale for them to argue over.
and, again, with the gray area surrounding what should be considered "fair use" (where you are legally allowed to freely redistribute copy written information) i think that one person could effectively distribute "legally" any copy of anything out there. ex: if a person were legally allowed to redistribute to 6 friends a cd, then those 6 people would also be allowed to redistribute to another 6 people each, et al until everyone has a copy. now i dont think the fair use laws dictate a 6 person distribution area, but i also dont think that it limits how many re-redistributions allowed. again, its a very gray area.
Technically, it's not stealing, but copyright infringement. But overall, the RIAA has a broken business model and I don't feel one bit bad for downloading music that I hear on the radio.
http://arstechnica.com/search.ars?Tag=riaa has some interesting articles on how greedy, two faced and out of date the RIAA really is.
Promise that forever we will never get better at growing up and learning to lie
(tabs) wrote:Gutty96 wrote:It is absolutely stealing.
If you think there is a difference between downloading songs, movies, software, etc, from the Internet, and walking into the store putting an item under your coat and walking out without paying, then you are fool, and only fooling yourself.
i think there is a huge difference between stealing an item (something that is physical, such as a cd or dvd or whatever) and transferring a series of 1s and 0s (something that you cannot hold in your hand, or put under your coat for that matter)
in one instance, a company or individual is hurt because they produced a physical item that not only was not sold, but was actually stolen (hence costing them money on the lost physical item)
in the second scenario they do not lose anything. the cd or dvd is still physically available for sale to whomever.
now the record and movie industries will try to tell you that just because i d/l'd a song or album or movie or tv show that it counts as a sale that they would have had. but i can guarantee you that it most certainly doesnt. occasionally, maybe. but not nearly as often as they like to say.
so the way i look at it is this: would i make a physical purchase if a digital version was not available for free? if yes, and i choose to d/l it anyway, then that might be considered wrong as i WOULD be taking a sale away. but if i had no intentions of purchasing it? then there would not even be a lost sale for them to argue over.
and, again, with the gray area surrounding what should be considered "fair use" (where you are legally allowed to freely redistribute copy written information) i think that one person could effectively distribute "legally" any copy of anything out there. ex: if a person were legally allowed to redistribute to 6 friends a cd, then those 6 people would also be allowed to redistribute to another 6 people each, et al until everyone has a copy. now i dont think the fair use laws dictate a 6 person distribution area, but i also dont think that it limits how many re-redistributions allowed. again, its a very gray area.
Like I said before, if you think there is a difference. Then you are fool, and you are only fooling yourself.
**there is only one true love in my life... and my girlfriend has learned to live with it**
if bands/artits these days put out decent albums instead of 2 or 3 good songs on one cd then people wouldnt need to DL certain songs. or instead of charging $20 for an album filled with crap charge like $10. and if they want to charge $20 an album put like a bonus dvd along with it. like music videos, footage from the previous tour, etc etc
if anyone is stealing its these so called bands
Im a Xbox 360 fanboy...and damn proud of it!!
Do I think it is stealing? Nah, I have been "sharing" music since the beginning of Napster. Never had a problem doing it. Along with roms, and anything else binary.
Gutty96 wrote:Like I said before, if you think there is a difference. Then you are fool, and you are only fooling yourself.
im giving the floor to you so you can explain how you think stealing some THING is the same as your friend burning you a cd or making you a tape.
so if you are going to be calling people fools, maybe you can try and support your side.
(tabs) wrote:Gutty96 wrote:Like I said before, if you think there is a difference. Then you are fool, and you are only fooling yourself.
im giving the floor to you so you can explain how you think stealing some THING is the same as your friend burning you a cd or making you a tape.
so if you are going to be calling people fools, maybe you can try and support your side.
Having a friend make you a copy is not what we are discussing here (although, I still think that is not legal within the copyright) unless you are telling my that every person you ever downloaded something from is a personal friend, which I doubt.
As far as stealing some THING, that is not the case, what you are stealing is the SONGS themselves. The media is irrelevant. Be it a CD, or a digital file, it is the content that has the copyright, and that is what is stolen, not the 10 cent CD. If you acquire it without purchase, you stole it. I can't explain it any clearer then that.
**there is only one true love in my life... and my girlfriend has learned to live with it**
Casey, most artists make far more money from concerts than from CD's. Not showing up to their concerts would hurt them more than downloading their music.
As far as US copyright is concerned:
- If you have a CD/DVD whatever type of digital media: you are allowed to make 2 copies of them for backup purposes only. As long as you own the item, you're allowed to copy it.
- When you buy a CD/DVD, you are buying 2 things, the medium and the art (music/movie). The Medium itself is nothing... like 10-15 cents. The Art itself is what you're stealing when you pirate stuff.
Ben:
Ask yourself if it's stealing if someone grabs your credit card number, address and phone number from a purchase you made... it's just 1's and 0's right? The medium doesn't matter, the content does.
Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.
i dont see what the big deal is, i download music for PERSONAL use not for profit
and in lots of cases i am more compelled to by a CD once i have heard more than just a radio single from a band
i havent downloaded music in awhile, but i do have a decent collection. Now i just use myspace pages and youtube to see/listen to songs i wanna hear
wait.....music isnt free?
