An explosion has happened at FSM...

What don't you agree with specifically? I think I made some valid and important points that people tend to forget in these kinds of debates.




I base my actions on whether they're harmful or not. The legal system does not determine my morals, though they are usually in agreement.

And, no I don't agree that stealing and copying is the same thing. There are similarities for sure, but to call them the same is to oversimplify, since the latter doesn't necessarily take anything away from the owner. It's only if you would otherwise buy, but choose to download instead, that the owner will lose out.

Peter

My opinion is that anyone who downloads this should be brought to justice. Not because downloading is illegal, but because you'd have to be clinically insane to want 14 discs of Jones' music from the show.

As for the legal side, it really is very complicated; strongest recent proof: piratebay. Fighting the pirates is a battle already lost.

Trekdom? Have I missed some life changing moment??

Oh right!? I had/have no idea? ( that's me n' you both then )

Trekdom eh?

p.s. My nerdiest ability is my dexterity in doing Spock's 'live long and proper' schtick with either hand.

So do I, but I tend to accompany it by saying 'nah-nu nah-nu'.
It's lost me much respect in that community.

Record labels haven't really been able to adapt very well to the new digital era I think. I suppose that they tried that with DRM - and that was a bit of a disaster. Getting that balance between retaining copyright but not limiting the purchaser's ability to use the music as they see fit once they have bought it (which could include giving it away to their friends or the wider community.)

And what's with this geographic restriction on purchasing of music? I know that it's all to do with licensing and maybe it's even to do with an assessment of whether it is financially feasible to release a digital title in a backwater like Europe, but it does tend to stimulate illegal sharing.

Not sure where this adds anything to the discussion, but it was just a thought that the discussion sparked.

The fact that you didn't buy those DVDs simply means someone else can buy them. On the other hand, If you had stole them from the shop, then there's no chance they'd be purchased - you'd have them. Sure, the shop has lost a potential customer thanks to piracy, but this is very different from having their stock literally reduced by theft.

As for your analogy, stealing a credit card number only becomes theft as soon as you use that number to purchase something in someone else's name. This is not the same as downloading a copy of a file since using the file doesn't require money to be spent by the owner of the file each time you use it. Your analogy, I'm glad to say, is not a very good one. As for "stealing" the CD and making copies then returning it, although morally dubious, it's clearly not the same as literally stealing the CD. Ultimately you've ended up returning the product to the store, in which case they haven't made a direct loss such as stealing would incur. Again, this just illuminates the difference between stealing and piracy.

I think what you've done is wrongly assumed people are advocating piracy simply by illuminating the obvious difference between stealing and piracy. The fact is they're not the same. But that doesn't make piracy any more justifiable.

The point worth debating is that piracy is not quite as clear cut as theft.

This is where the law stands!

Or, indeed, make things even simpeler!

epic

Get a life.

We can agree to disagree on this situation

Since you otherwise would have bought it, the copyright owner has lost a sale. This is different from a situation where a person downloads, but wouldn't otherwise have bought it. In the former, the company ultimately loses out due to the copying, in the latter situation there's no lost sale at all, as there would be no sale to lose.

If your point is that even though a person might say that he wouldn't otherwise have bought a certain product, there's no guarentee this will necessarily be the case, then you have a valid point. Reality is never that clear-cut.




No, you would be actively doing harm, to both me and the bank. You're harming me by causing a hassle and you're taking money away from the bank, harming the company and their customers. This is a totally different situation than copying something you wouldn't otherwise have purchased, where no one is ultimately harmed.




I somewhat agree, though I notice you ignore the promotional value downloading can have, a point I think it's important for you to acknowledge, if you have any interest in what effects downloading can have. Whether the owner loses out or not aren't the only options. There's also the possibility that the owner gains because of downloading.

Downloading has promotional effects similar to radio, in that it gets alot more people listening to and talking about music that they would otherwise never have heard of, thereby generating sales. Of course it can also have worse effects on sales than radio, since people can download the full products (almost), but this fact doesn't take the positive promotional effects away. I know personally that I've convinced people on several occasions to buy CD albums, simply from me ranting about how good they are. These aren't imaginary or minor effects, promotional effects can have huge impacts.

So which downloading related factors are biggest? - the ones that decrease sales, or the ones that increase sales? This question is in fact very complex, and not at all as easy to answer as many people pretend. I've read about various studies on this, and the results tend to differ. Some say downloading hurts sales, others say it helps sales, and probably the most reliable studies are the ones concluding that whether sales are affected positively or negatively pretty much depends on the circumstances; for instance whether we're talking about niche markets or popular music; or how well the products in question are promoted by other means.

Peter