Is downloading really stealing? The ethics of digital piracy

rpm said:
Is downloading really stealing? The ethics of digital piracy

Many millions of people throughout the world will illegally download the fifth season of Game of Thrones, released today by HBO. Legally speaking, what they will be doing is a violation of intellectual property rights, or “piracy”. But will they be doing anything morally wrong?
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Depends on ones morals. Not a lot of morals left in SA, and that's about the serious things, never mind baby things like copyright violations, it's the human rights violations...
 
R800 a month for one show is a bit much. I'll get the box-set eventually ...
 
supersunbird said:
Depends on ones morals. Not a lot of morals left in SA, and that's about the serious things, never mind baby things like copyright violations, it's the human rights violations...
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Murders, xenophobic killings, looting, Nkandla ...... downloading ......

I am with supersunbird on this one.
 
Content providers had years & years to give us what we want but still they persist with their outdated models. Easy, give me local Netflix at the right price & you'll get your money while taking away my incentive to download.

Piracy is a form of transformation, change or live with the consequences.
 
The first mistake is to call it "piracy" - the copyright holders love it when we make that mistake - it makes the "crime" appear far worse than it really is. Piracy is what happens when a bunch of thugs on the high seas board another ship and rape, steal, murder and loot. At worst we're stealing the marginal cost of a movie/song/book, which really amounts to maybe 3 cents. I'm not sure what the legal classification for that crime is - perhaps "misdemeanor" ? If we all referred to it as that, the courts would not want to prosecute it.
 
From what I see, the TV and music industry is doing just fine (making millions and probably more than a ton of "pirates" would make it many lifetimes) despite piracy.

Cry me a river.
 
It is stealing but the mechanism is such that the perpetrators are sufficiently remote from the owner of the content to feel nothing when we steal it. It's been that way since people were dubbing LP's onto cassettes and giving them away to their friends.

evilstebunny said:
Content providers had years & years to give us what we want but still they persist with their outdated models. Easy, give me local Netflix at the right price & you'll get your money while taking away my incentive to download.
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I don't see the direct market model being anymore affordable (and probably more expensive) if seen as a whole. It's highly unlikely that you are going to source all the content you're currently watching via one provider...and even if you did, once the companies licencing their content to Netflix get their own distribution networks going (to avoid handing over margin to Netflix), you'll have to deal with multiple concurrent subscriptions...I can only see that becoming more expensive with our currency being what it is.
 
Pythonista said:
The first mistake is to call it "piracy" - the copyright holders love it when we make that mistake - it makes the "crime" appear far worse than it really is. Piracy is what happens when a bunch of thugs on the high seas board another ship and rape, steal, murder and loot. At worst we're stealing the marginal cost of a movie/song/book, which really amounts to maybe 3 cents. I'm not sure what the legal classification for that crime is - perhaps "misdemeanor" ? If we all referred to it as that, the courts would not want to prosecute it.
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Copyright infringement has been referred to as piracy as early as 1603 so it's pretty well established by now and not a mistake. ;)
 
Neoprod said:
I don't see the direct market model being anymore affordable (and probably more expensive) if seen as a whole. It's highly unlikely that you are going to source all the content you're currently watching via one provider...and even if you did, once the companies licencing their content to Netflix get their own distribution networks going (to avoid handing over margin to Netflix), you'll have to deal with multiple concurrent subscriptions...I can only see that becoming more expensive with our currency being what it is.
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Then the piracy will just grow again, and instead of making some money off their content, they will make none, just as now.
 
biometrics said:
1603?!
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"Piracy"

The practice of labelling the infringement of exclusive rights in creative works as "piracy" predates statutory copyright law. Prior to the Statute of Anne in 1710, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labelled pirates as early as 1603.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#.22Piracy.22
 
With the internet being everywhere today until they open it up and make it one level playing field it will not get better. If I can have the the British or US Netflix at a decent price I will gladly pay. So in the meantime I just carry on
 
I'm happy to pay, say R5 per hour to watch what I want, when I want.
 
sa-rab said:
With the internet being everywhere today until they open it up and make it one level playing field it will not get better. If I can have the the British or US Netflix at a decent price I will gladly pay. So in the meantime I just carry on
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You can have the British AND U.S. Netflix at a decent price.
 
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