Thread: Piracy Ethics

I would like to start a discussion about ethics in piracy to see if anyone has any ethics or morals regarding what you download and what you wont download, and why you wont download those items.



I have spoken to a lot of co-workers throughout my years in the torrenting community and It was shocking to find out how many people actually have rules regarding what they download and what they do not download.


My Opinion:

I will download only things I use i tend to not download things with high price tags for instance Adobe CS4 or other applications as far as games go I will download a game that I don't know and try it out. If its a good title then I will go out in buy it if its not I just throw out the disc. I don't really listen to music mostly radio so I almost never download music. I do download TV though on the topic of television i feel that since I pay for cable I have the right to have a digital copy of the program just as if I had a VCR. As far as movies goes I don't feel the pain that associations like MPAA and the RIAA for that matter say they feel most of them are millionaires and considering most pirated movies actually end up making the movie studios money in the long run I fail to see any problem regarding that issue.

I only download what I will use or watch, no matter the content. An exception is my seedbox, that strictly depends on torrent popularity. In Canada the only thing they'll get you for is selling material, not copying it for personal use; So I'm not to concerned regarding what it is I choose to leech.

This could be a very interesting topic. I personally do not download anything that I don't plan on listening to or watching AT LEAST once. I know people who will just download hundreds of gigs and never even touch a quarter of it. That's stupid in my opinion. Also, I don't pick and choose files from torrents, I always DL the whole thing, just so that people can get the whole thing from me.

Ethically speaking, I feel as though I spend enough on concerts, CDs, Movie theater tickets, and other things to pay for more than my fair share of music and movies. Even though it's not technically legal, I think I've done my part for the artists, and the producers, and will only continue to leech what I will use.

I download everything that i need specially if we are talking about movies and musics...

Games not that much, one or another, but movies and musics i download lot's of them.

I download the movies but if the movie is good i'll go to the cinema to watch it.

I look at piracy like a free trial. I download and use/listen/watch it and if dont like it, it goes in my recycling bin. But if I do like it I will almost always buy it, unless I dislike the company selling it (phucka you valve for selling me a game i cant activate)

Great topic. I download pretty much anything and everything. I have no morals on what I download. This is the way I look at it....

I have no money as I've posted many times and those paying attention to my posts have probably gotten to know quite clearly now. So in my case I very rarely buy DVDs CD's ect. My morals stand as this. As long as my torrenting does not affect in a negative way my contribution towards those who make the information that I download and thrive on I am ok. I go to movies every now and then. I have cable that was paid for. And I have a zune pass. Considering the little money I have a large portion of it goes to those that create the media I love. I am going to buy all the seasons of dexter. I haven't bought a DVD in my life. And I started downloading about a year ago. I also already own every episode in 720p.

My next point lets say you have made something pretty neat and you sell it. Now everybody that would buy it lets say buys it and you made a lot of money off of it. However because everybody who bought it bought it so now nobody will ever buy it again. Would you then want other people to have access to your creation without paying for it. I would I would want it to get as much publicity as I could. I look at it like that I've bought everything I'm going to buy reguardless. I see something that looks pretty cool, however I would never buy it. Am I hurting the publisher buy using their information that I would never buy. No I am only helping.

If everybody followed this set of ethics I think that free and openly shared information could have a tremendously positive impact on the way our society functions. However there are so many selfish people out there that I don't think that the ones who have the true sharing dream can make up for them.

As for downloading something I wont use. I don't think theres any problem with that. I'm not hurting the publisher in anyway by simply downloading it.

Also selling bootlegged copies of anything in my morals. Is the GREATEST torrenting ethics violation by far. Information should be free and by getting something that isn't yours for free and then SELLING it is absolutely outrageous! That truly disgusts me.




One final word. I love when the RIAA says that downloading a movie/song/whatever is EXACTLY the same as stealing from a record store. This is completely untrue. When you steal from a record store your stealing more from the record store than you are from the publisher of the music. The record store already bought the CD and the music company already got their money. I laugh at the RIAA and their propaganda.

I download anything i need and i use everything that i download.
Sometime I download something that i think i will like but i end up not liking it and then i will get rid of it.
That happens rarely.

I use torrents simply because of the speeds and that they are free.
I love the community as well too.
Certain communityes.

As of ethicks, not really. Besides give back what you get.
Which should be a norm

The way I see it, companies legally rip us off every day, using complex formulas to squeeze as much as possible out of our wallets. Pirating music & software doesn't lose them anywhere near as much as they claim simply because most of us (or I at least) would not spend a dime for most of the stuff I download anyway. I'm not so ethical or hypocritical as to say downloading is just a "free trial" for something I plan to purchase anyway. They are mostly luxury items I take and use simply because I can, but my life would not change very much if they weren't there.

Originally Posted by Jingleheimer

I'm not so ethical or hypocritical as to say downloading is just a "free trial" for something I plan to purchase anyway. They are mostly luxury items I take and use simply because I can, but my life would not change very much if they weren't there.

truth. if not for the movies and TV shows I download, you know what I'd be doing? watching TV on the cable I pay for anyway. "luxury" is exactly the right word. it's hard to spot a difference between the two for me.

if I'm watching TV, I'm bound by their schedule. if I have TiVo, I'm not bound by it and I can watch it whenever I want, and I can skip commercials, where releases in the torrent world just don't have any.

if I'm watching a movie, I have plenty of friends who purchase them as soon as they come out on DVD. is there a difference between downloading it and watching it at my own pace, or waiting til I meet up with a friend to borrow the disc from them?

very hard to see a difference.