If you use BitTorrent, the terrorists have won...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Verto
OMFG THIS IS HORRIBLE!!

If you don't know whether or not the song is good after 30 seconds, then the song sucks.

Let's recap for the American:

The excuse about downloading songs just to see if you like them is no longer valid, as most online stores allow you to preview most, if not all of a song.

All online stores that I know of only allow you to listen to 30s of the song (which is a far cry from "most" online stores allowing you to listen to "most" of the song).

And unless you listen to low-fi electronica that repeats after 30s -- no, it's not enough to judge with.

[Verto]

Stop trying to excuse your theft.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Verto
The excuse about downloading songs just to see if you like them is no longer valid, as most online stores allow you to preview most, if not all of a song.

Want to bet? They only store the most popular artists and even then only one or two tracks. Try finding a store which offers a full selection of indie artists like Mia Doi Todd, Cat Power, The Avalanches. Hell they're just now starting to figure out that people like bands like Broken Social Scene & Enon and those bands have been around for years and years.

Now let's talk local bands. I could think, off the top of my head, of a dozen local bands here in San Diego which make great music but which aren't carried on major labels so they aren't picked up by major distributors. That just leaves Indie labels or self publishing which would only get done on the internet on at high quality independently owned record stores. I assure you that you will not find Three Mile Pilot tracks on Borders harddrive for sampling. Not even the crappy low fi 30 second clips they give for the major labels.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Pekka
relevant similarities You aren't trying to squeeze yourself out of this are you?

Like I've' been saying ALL THE TIME it's NOT 1:1. I didn't say it's not similar. I said it's not 1:1, the REAL analogue would go differently, thus the original one IS FALSE. It's not like you can have 5 analogues, all valid to a situation and then you just choose which one works the best this time.

That's what I'm saying, the analogue fails!

Not that pirating is right or wrong.

Semantics is actually one of the most relevant things in my field, thanks. But so is logic.

Read what I said. I'm telling you the analogue fails. If there's a rule about semantics when it comes to analogues, then it's the one that the best one that fits is the analogue and everything else is NOT the analogue.

There is also another thing in the field of logic, and it's called "sufficient condition". If X is sufficient condition for theft, then everywhere you find X you find theft despite any other irrelevant characteristic.

I don't care if you think that the two examples aren't the same. This debate was about theft. If you think that the examples given were not 1:1, it's IRRELEVANT! the idea was to know whether or not there is theft. How should we have interpreted your initial comment that stealing at the supermarket isn't the same as copying a song? Was it meant to habe no implication at all to the subject at hand?

[Asher]

Who's stealing? Last music I acquired was via a dual-disc CD/DVD hybrid (Rob Thomas' album).

Stop trying to excuse your ineptitude in constructing an argument?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Verto
Stop trying to excuse your theft.

Do you ever get the feeling that no body really cares what you think? Do you ever get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong? This is as much a theft as listening to the radio and switching stations when the commercials come on.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Want to bet? They only store the most popular artists and even then only one or two tracks. Try finding a store which offers a full selection of indie artists like Mia Doi Todd, Cat Power, The Avalanches. Hell they're just now starting to figure out that people like bands like Broken Social Scene & Enon and those bands have been around for years and years.

Now let's talk local bands. I could think, off the top of my head, of a dozen local bands here in San Diego which make great music but which aren't carried on major labels so they aren't picked up by major distributors. That just leaves Indie labels or self publishing which would only get done on the internet on at high quality independently owned record stores. I assure you that you will not find Three Mile Pilot tracks on Borders harddrive for sampling. Not even the crappy low fi 30 second clips they give for the major labels.

If a band is not popular and mainstream, then it is not good.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Verto
If a band is not popular and mainstream, then it is not good.

>>>>>>>>>> this is what the mindset is of people who buy iPods

[Verto]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Do you ever get the feeling that no body really cares what you think? Do you ever get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong? This is as much a theft as listening to the radio and switching stations when the commercials come on.

Trolling people like you gives me no satisfaction.

[Drake Tungsten]

Who's stealing? Last music I acquired was via a dual-disc CD/DVD hybrid (Rob Thomas' album).

Frankly, I'd respect you more if you hadn't paid for that...

[Colonâ„¢]

bah x-post

[Asher]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Frankly, I'd respect you more if you hadn't paid for that...

And download it secretly like you do, then rename it things like "Duran Duran's Greatest Hits" so people don't think you're gay or have crap taste in music?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Digital property doesn't mean it costs nothing to produce it.

Correct, but it changes nothing. The owner still doesn't lose anything.

There's something interesting I found on /. a few days ago:

Back in 1985 a man named Dowling was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property for selling infringing copies of Elvis records. U.S. Supreme Court in DOWLING v. UNITED STATES, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) struck this down because copyright infringement is not theft. You have to deprive your victim of the item in order to steal it from them. Making copies doesn't deprive anyone of what it being copied, therefore its not theft.

I am not sure if this is true or not. If this is true, this simply says making copies of digital content is not theft.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Asher

And download it secretly like you do, then rename it things like "Duran Duran's Greatest Hits" so people don't think you're gay or have crap taste in music?

Man, I wish they had Duran Duran's greatest hits at my rental place...

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Colon
The analogy is completely beside the point. Firstly, property rights aren't absolute and there are limits, such as expropriation.

Never said anything about property being absolute.

Secondly, intellectual property rights were created to guarantee that inventors and artists could enjoy an income out of their creations, thereby also to stimulating them to create further. Such rights are even less absolute since most forms expire after a period.

Don't see how this is relevant, as obviously we are talking about non-expired property rights.

This is because if the fundamentally different nature of intellectual property rights. As Pekka already pointed out, if you take away a car from someone that person will suffer from it, but if you copy a song or a paper, the owner of the original piece will not suffer from it.

That's a silly statement, unless you think that people don't suffer from not being able to release, administer and sell their work-hours as they see fit (this includes but is not limited to revenue).

Society is served with a maximal spread of information, and without it you'd have to reinvent the wheel with every living person born on this planet.
Hence, Intellectual property rights are a difficult and always imperfect balancing act between the interests of the authors, and the interests of the wider public. It is from such point of view you have to consider the copying/piracy debate: and painting things into moralistic good/wrong terms serves no one.

To say the truth I agree with you. Heck, I never said that "theft" was wrong, I was only saying that claiming it isn't theft is completely wrong.