How is p2p not like stealing?

[rack gear]

HOW IS P2P NOT LIKE STEALING?

What if, let's say, the Chinese just started making direct clones, or copies of physical goods just because they could and they don't respect copyright? What if they sold these goods at dramatic mark downs because they did not have to invest in the R&D? Is that fair? What happens to a free market economy when copyright is no longer valued? Who has the incentive to do R&D at a certain loss?

But I digress. Let's start with music as this is the context of the conversation here. Which is even more extreme than the example above because its not even a copy, or knock off, it IS the actual product.

THE START OF LEGITIMATE P2P

Pirate Bay could be a legitimate and legal business IF they filtered out copyrighted material placed without the copyright holders consent. This would support the argument that P2P is designed to help consumers share legitimately owned personal works. Fine. However, there are already plenty of current options for this legitimate use such as YouSendIt, which is Person to Person/s. You send it however is more legitimate as the sender has to notify the recipients individually and specifically. This is the spirit of "fair use".

OR, THE END OF COPYRIGHT

Pirate Bay (and services like it) operate in blatant disregard for copyright. For all the talk of "legitimate" uses of such a service I'd like to propose a simple solution. Either a society chooses to embrace, protect and enforce copyright or it doesn't.

CONTENT FILTERING WORKS, CAN BE AUTOMATED AND REGULATED

Let's say all music on Pirate Bay is filtered using a system like Gracenote which would match and compare metatags and metadata to all copyright holders. All material on the P2P would require uniform tagging, just like Itunes.

This is exactly the kind of thing computers are supposed to be good at doing. When I put a CD in my Itunes, Gracenote recognizes it. It's not a reach to have this type of filtering available on a P2P site which would cross reference it's "inventory" against a master copyright list and remove from the service anything that is copyrighted.

KEEPING HONEST PEOPLE HONEST

It shouldn't be that hard to do as probably 99% of all copyrighted music is distributed through some form of distributor or aggregator that could submit all the metadata in it's database to a master, international industry trade group maintained database.

This simple solution would easily allow non-copyrighted works to be shared amongst consensual people who wish to share home spun projects, etc. Likewise, even copyright holders could elect to flag their content for P2P distribution if they so choose.

COPYRIGHT, TRADEMARKS, ETC ARE IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY AND CAPITALIST MARKETS

The real problem is, for all the rhetoric, Pirate Bay and the like have no interest in protecting copyrights. Either we have laws that protect the investment in copyright or we don't. If as a society, globally, we choose that Copyright is an antiquated concept, as are trademarks - well, then anyone who wanted to could start a Cola company called Coca-Cola, or a beer company called Budweiser... Hell, that's just stealing a name, not even the product itself.

To those that support the end of copyright I wonder how many may be involved in work that relies on intellectual ideas to generate revenue.

EVERYTHING is up for grabs in this line of reasoning - I'm going to start a burger stand called McDonalds... why should they care - it's just a name, I'm even cooking my own burgers... I didn't actually STEAL anything from them. They have all of their property. I'm buying my own meat and putting in my own labor to cook it. But as a society, internationally - we recognize and maintain that to do so would be unfair, chaotic, and disruptive.

Disrespect for copyright begins with stealing IDEAS and ends with stealing actual designs, products, goods and services. Industries would simply just stop evolving without intellectual protection.

SO WHO WOULD BE LEFT IF IT WAS ACTUALLY LEGAL?

So if Pirate Bay could operate LEGALLY, without distributing copyrighted works, would anyone care? Probably not, because then you would just end up with another massive music wasteland, just like MP3.com was... But, that's the point I guess. Supporters want to operate ILLEGALLY. If supporters could not get A LIST CONTENT they probably wouldn't bother at all. Removed the "good stuff" that actually costs money to develop and requires a return on investment and then, once again you have an unfiltered wasteland of music no one wants.

LET THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS CHOOSE TO SHARE OR NOT SHARE

I have my own semi-pro studio. I get paid for my work, but it's not my sole source of income. It's mailbox money. For many of the projects I create or work on I'm more than happy to freely share them - however, that should be the CHOICE of the copyright holder. For much of my work the is more value in free open sharing than there is in a specific revenue model. But that is a CHOICE each copyright holder should get to make for themselves.

P2P ISN'T THE PROBLEM, DISREGARD FOR COPYRIGHT IS

In a manageable system, copyright holders could embrace P2P sharing as a regulated outlet for promotional purposes. Copyright Holders could have select titles available for free for a limited time to build interest and reward early adopters. Perhaps allowing a one week free download of an album by an artist about to launch a tour, or a special event to build awareness and buzz.

[212121]

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by 212121

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

The counter to this argument has been covered exhaustively. It's a terrible and grossly-misinformed justification for piracy.

[rack gear]

Read This - the 85% Lie
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music...16-85-lie.html

Originally Posted by 212121

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

[rack gear]

and how is this not like stealing again, I missed that part...

Originally Posted by 212121

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

[Gm7Cadd9]

I couldn't agree more. Even if the labels are to blame that's hardly justification for stealing.

I am not a huge supporter of unions but look at how they work when they don't like their situation. They go on strike. As in they don't work and they don't make money. A protest shouldn't be "fun" as the companies you are protesting against won't take you seriously.

I think Trent Reznor has some great ideas about the future of music, but he is a little too preachy. He is big enough now that he doesn't need labels, but he can't expect emerging bands/musicians to become successful on their own.

Labels are flawed and need to adopt newer forward looking business models, but they aren't the devil... and stealing is never ok.

[HobbyCore]

It's not like stealing because stealing deprives the other party of what was taken. Pirating music/film/software does not deprive anyone of the item being pirated. It does quite the opposite and multiplies its availability.


If I take your car, you no longer have the car. I have stolen your car.

If I copy a cd from you, you still have the original cd. I stole nothing. I did however break copyright law and potentially violated a contractually binding license agreement. I also may have decreased the potential income for the author.


Doesn't make it any less wrong, it simply makes it not stealing.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

It's not like stealing because stealing deprives the other party of what was taken. Pirating music/film/software does not deprive anyone of the item being pirated. It does quite the opposite and multiplies its availability.


If I take your car, you no longer have the car. I have stolen your car.

If I copy a cd from you, you still have the original cd. I stole nothing. I did however break copyright law and potentially violated a contractually binding license agreement. I also may have decreased the potential income for the author.


Doesn't make it any less wrong, it simply makes it not stealing.

What about stealing cable, or some other such service? Isn't that legally defined as "stealing"?

(BTW - I'm asking in earnest, not trying to make a point one way or the other)

[rectifier]

MTV and radio are dead.

All the music I have bought has been as a result of getting into the music from downloads/youtube etc. In another thread I have stated that I only buy 5 cds a year but that's because I need to buy food at the moment (3 euros for 4 pieces of cheese). Tough shit? No money = no cds? Surely not, I am not alone in my predicament, this is not the 90s. Drop prices - people need to eat (including all the people involved in making records of course). Greedy labels/RIAA are taking a chunk so release it yourself/non greedy label/internet. Take the RIAA and greedy labels out of the equation and let's get this thing on the road. A lot of bands have expressed delight in losing their (big 5) labels - why?

Oversimplified maybe but I'm not an idiot, and I'm certainly not trolling. I don't want music to die any more than any of you but it's time to move on.

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by bgrotto

What about stealing cable, or some other such service? Isn't that legally defined as "stealing"?

(BTW - I'm asking in earnest, not trying to make a point one way or the other)

Legally, I do not know if it is. There is a minor difference however in that each additional tap does reduce signal fidelity across the network, so when "stealing" cable you are depriving someone of something even if very minimal. It is still likely a misnomer given the vernacular use of the word "stealing".

If folks want to call piracy stealing, then go for it. We will need a new word to use for depriving someone of something then.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by rectifier

MTV and radio are dead.

All the music I have bought has been as a result of getting into the music from downloads/youtube etc. In another thread I have stated that I only buy 5 cds a year but that's because I need to buy food at the moment (3 euros for 4 pieces of cheese). Tough shit? No money = no cds? Surely not, I am not alone in my predicament, this is not the 90s. Drop prices - people need to eat (including all the people involved in making records of course). Greedy labels/RIAA are taking a chunk so release it yourself/non greedy label/internet. Take the RIAA and greedy labels out of the equation and let's get this thing on the road. A lot of bands have expressed delight in losing their (big 5) labels - why?

Oversimplified maybe but I'm not an idiot, and I'm certainly not trolling. I don't want music to die any more than any of you but it's time to move on.

I agree that the system doesn't work. But neither does piracy. Frankly, as far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong here), for all the flaws in the system, it's brought a lot more good than illegal file-sharing.

It's the small labels and individual artists - not the RIAA and greedy labels - that are getting hit the hardest by piracy.

The Robin Hood defense doesn't take into account that most people simply don't understand that being a musician on a label doesn't automatically make you wealthy. Nor do they understand the difference between a "greedy major label" and a smaller, more nurturing label that actually helps its artists (or even know what kind of label the artist they're downloading is signed to). Nor do they realize that their actions have limited impact on the nasty folks in this industry, and that it's largely the little guys that suffer. There's a broad misconception that the music industry is made up largely of millionaires and corporate scumbags, living in skyscraper penthouses, hellbent on sucking the blood out of every artist they meet. In fact, most folks in this biz are broke nerds who love what they do.

Worst of all, it simply gets people into the habit of stealing music. If the pirates put all the major labels out of business, they'd do so at the cost of thousands of independent artists and labels, and I don't think anything would really change, other than we'd have a lot less good new music to listen to.

[audiovisceral]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

If folks want to call piracy stealing, then go for it. We will need a new word to use for depriving someone of something then.

we have always used the word 'stealing' to refer to the misappropriation of intellectual property.

ie. 'that guy stole my idea'.

intellectual property is no different than physical. nothing new needed.

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by audiovisceral

we have always used the word 'stealing' to refer to the misappropriation of intellectual property.

ie. 'that guy stole my idea'.

intellectual property is no different than physical. nothing new needed.

Sure it's different. "stealing" intellectual property does not deprive the author of their work (though it may deprive them of the potential income from the sale of it). Physical stealing deprives someone of their material AND all potentially derived income.

There needs to be a clear lexicon for discussion of this. It doesn't matter what words people use as long as everyone uses them the same way and we don't devolve into using a single word to ambiguously represent multiple differing concepts.

[Nahuel]

What really sucks with Peer to Peer is that majors dont sign artists anymore (well only the VERY marketable ones or already known via real TV or whatever). Peer to Peer created an impoverishment of mainstream music.

On the other hand it gives access to culture for poor ppl.

Actually the winners are the connexion providers/computer brands.

I think "legal" Peer to Peer could be a solution, a Peer to Peer network where you got to pay a lil fee for each download with a file ID/royalty system and yea "warez free". That and serious law suits for illegal networks.

[audiovisceral]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

Sure it's different. "stealing" intellectual property does not deprive the author of their work (though it may deprive them of the potential income from the sale of it). Physical stealing deprives someone of their material AND all potentially derived income.

There needs to be a clear lexicon for discussion of this. It doesn't matter what words people use as long as everyone uses them the same way and we don't devolve into using a single word to ambiguously represent multiple differing concepts.

copyright, trademarks, and patents make intellectual property as legally real as any bike or car.

the person intellectual property is stolen from does not need to lose money for that theft to be illegal. to the law, you have no right to it unless you pay or the owner says so.

i think that's all that's relevant.

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by audiovisceral

copyright, trademarks, and patents make intellectual property as legally real as any bike or car.

the person intellectual property is stolen from does not need to lose money for that theft to be illegal. to the law, you have no right to it unless you pay or the owner says so.

Please read what I wrote (why is this so hard for people?).

I've said nothing about whether loss makes it wrong or not. Both instances suffer potential loss, but only one instance actually incurs a loss by definition. Both are wrong regardless.

There is simply a difference between depriving someone of something, and copying something. There should be 2 separate words for these concepts to use in the discussion.

Both concepts are legally real obviously. Practically they are not the same thing, and should not be described by the same ambiguous word.

[rack gear]

bzzzt. sorry. wrong.

the item you are copying has a market value. the market value is known. by taking something, not given, that is stealing.

by taking something of value, without it being given, is stealing.

every copy you (and others make) and distribute deprives the copyright holder of revenue. this is called damages.

downloading copyrighted music, without the copyright holders consent, is stealing.

ideas can be stolen as much as physical property can - and have even greater impact in terms of losses.

why stop at copyrights? why not eliminate patents and trademarks?

it's lines of reasoning like this that would deprive Edison of the patent on the light bulb. without patents, invention would stop

either you have respect for someones labor (and creation), or you don't.

your argument that it is wrong but not stealing is not a symantic ploy, it is false.

stealing is stealing.

fail.

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

It's not like stealing because stealing deprives the other party of what was taken. Pirating music/film/software does not deprive anyone of the item being pirated. It does quite the opposite and multiplies its availability.

If I take your car, you no longer have the car. I have stolen your car.

If I copy a cd from you, you still have the original cd. I stole nothing. I did however break copyright law and potentially violated a contractually binding license agreement. I also may have decreased the potential income for the author.

Doesn't make it any less wrong, it simply makes it not stealing.

[triez]

Originally Posted by 212121

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

You clearly have no experience of the industry, and this is coming from someone who has worked all my life in it, and NOT for the record companies.

[triez]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

It's not like stealing because stealing deprives the other party of what was taken.


I also may have decreased the potential income for the author.

Nice self-contradiction.

[Robert Alger]

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

HOW IS P2P NOT LIKE STEALING?

What if, let's say, the Chinese just started making direct clones, or copies of physical goods just because they could and they don't respect copyright?

They do.

It's a big problem in the golf club market.

[rack gear]

I know. I was being sarcastic. The Chinese will get there come uppins too... You can only steal for so long before you're not allowed a seat at the table.

I don't think it's just golf clubs either.

Originally Posted by Robert Alger

They do.

It's a big problem in the golf club market.

[triez]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

It's not like stealing because stealing deprives the other party of what was taken.

Here is what you don't understand.

When a company or person builds something on the hope of making a return on it, they put up a lot of money up-front on the assumption that in the future they will gradually make back their investment and some profit. This applies if you are building a cable network, which may cost 100 million dollars, or recording an album, which may cost 100 thousand dollars. The return on an album is gradual, it takes time to gradually, record by record recover the cost, and to then start making profit, ie: the thing which the artist pays rent and buys food with.

Every "virtual" album that you steal is the work of the artist and the engineer, producer, label, cover artist, mastering engineer, record shop employee, delivery driver and so on, and you have just stolen from all of them. There is no excuse for this, it is a low life act which effects many people in the community, and you are stealing their work and effort for your own use, and it is disgusting.

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by HobbyCore

Sure it's different. "stealing" intellectual property does not deprive the author of their work (though it may deprive them of the potential income from the sale of it). Physical stealing deprives someone of their material AND all potentially derived income.

There needs to be a clear lexicon for discussion of this. It doesn't matter what words people use as long as everyone uses them the same way and we don't devolve into using a single word to ambiguously represent multiple differing concepts.

then let me clone your credit card seeing as it doesn't take your card away.

[narcoman]

Originally Posted by 212121

People getting too much money for selling a cd, and most of the time the one who gets the money is not the artist or another person that should get.

People will buy their stuff when labels stop stealing them first!

That's the problem

too much money? £10? too much? That's barely a couple of drinks.

If you can't afford - you can't have.

CDs have never cost too much money. That argument has always been buttfaced..... not you - the argument thumbsup

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by narcoman

then let me clone your credit card seeing as it doesn't take your card away.

Sure, go ahead. I don't care who has a copy of my credit card unless they use it. In fact, at this moment I can think of a few dozen companies who have all the necessary information to clone my credit card and it doesn't bother me in the slightest.

When you use it then you are depriving me of my property. Then it becomes physical theft as I will no longer have access to property that I previously had access to.



Keep in mind I'm making zero correlation in this example to piracy. This is a red herring if there ever was one.

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

bzzzt. sorry. wrong.

the item you are copying has a market value. the market value is known. by taking something, not given, that is stealing.

by taking something of value, without it being given, is stealing.

every copy you (and others make) and distribute deprives the copyright holder of revenue. this is called damages.

downloading copyrighted music, without the copyright holders consent, is stealing.

ideas can be stolen as much as physical property can - and have even greater impact in terms of losses.

why stop at copyrights? why not eliminate patents and trademarks?

it's lines of reasoning like this that would deprive Edison of the patent on the light bulb. without patents, invention would stop

either you have respect for someones labor (and creation), or you don't.

your argument that it is wrong but not stealing is not a symantic ploy, it is false.

stealing is stealing.

fail.

You need a serious course in reading comprehension. I am not implying that intellectual property violation is OK, and in fact I believe quite the opposite.

I'm simply saying that no viable loss intrinsically occurs in intellectual property violation, and with physical theft there is an actual deprivation of physical goods. One is copying a CD (where both parties now have goods), and one is taking the cd (where there is a complete transfer of possession)

One is not more right or wrong than the other. They are different mechanisms and should require different words to describe them.


You are also wrongly stating that all intellectual property theft results in loss of income. That is not true at all. It maybe common, but not all intellectual properties will result in the expected (or any) positive return. Physical theft always by its nature deprives the victimized party of proceeding positive returns.

THEY ARE DIFFERENT THINGS. USE DIFFERENT WORDS. Stop bloody trying to debate me on why they're both wrong. They are, no doubt about it. There's laws in place that guarantee it regardless of your opinion. For the sake of concise discussion we should use more concise terms. Nothing more.

[teleharmonium]

It's not like stealing because it is stealing

[hello people]

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

HOW IS P2P NOT LIKE STEALING?

What if, let's say, the Chinese just started making direct clones, or copies of physical goods just because they could and they don't respect copyright? What if they sold these goods at dramatic mark downs because they did not have to invest in the R&D? Is that fair? What happens to a free market economy when copyright is no longer valued? Who has the incentive to do R&D at a certain loss?

But I digress. Let's start with music as this is the context of the conversation here. Which is even more extreme than the example above because its not even a copy, or knock off, it IS the actual product.

THE START OF LEGITIMATE P2P

Pirate Bay could be a legitimate and legal business IF they filtered out copyrighted material placed without the copyright holders consent. This would support the argument that P2P is designed to help consumers share legitimately owned personal works. Fine. However, there are already plenty of current options for this legitimate use such as YouSendIt, which is Person to Person/s. You send it however is more legitimate as the sender has to notify the recipients individually and specifically. This is the spirit of "fair use".

OR, THE END OF COPYRIGHT

Pirate Bay (and services like it) operate in blatant disregard for copyright. For all the talk of "legitimate" uses of such a service I'd like to propose a simple solution. Either a society chooses to embrace, protect and enforce copyright or it doesn't.

CONTENT FILTERING WORKS, CAN BE AUTOMATED AND REGULATED

Let's say all music on Pirate Bay is filtered using a system like Gracenote which would match and compare metatags and metadata to all copyright holders. All material on the P2P would require uniform tagging, just like Itunes.

This is exactly the kind of thing computers are supposed to be good at doing. When I put a CD in my Itunes, Gracenote recognizes it. It's not a reach to have this type of filtering available on a P2P site which would cross reference it's "inventory" against a master copyright list and remove from the service anything that is copyrighted.

KEEPING HONEST PEOPLE HONEST

It shouldn't be that hard to do as probably 99% of all copyrighted music is distributed through some form of distributor or aggregator that could submit all the metadata in it's database to a master, international industry trade group maintained database.

This simple solution would easily allow non-copyrighted works to be shared amongst consensual people who wish to share home spun projects, etc. Likewise, even copyright holders could elect to flag their content for P2P distribution if they so choose.

COPYRIGHT, TRADEMARKS, ETC ARE IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY AND CAPITALIST MARKETS

The real problem is, for all the rhetoric, Pirate Bay and the like have no interest in protecting copyrights. Either we have laws that protect the investment in copyright or we don't. If as a society, globally, we choose that Copyright is an antiquated concept, as are trademarks - well, then anyone who wanted to could start a Cola company called Coca-Cola, or a beer company called Budweiser... Hell, that's just stealing a name, not even the product itself.

To those that support the end of copyright I wonder how many may be involved in work that relies on intellectual ideas to generate revenue.

EVERYTHING is up for grabs in this line of reasoning - I'm going to start a burger stand called McDonalds... why should they care - it's just a name, I'm even cooking my own burgers... I didn't actually STEAL anything from them. They have all of their property. I'm buying my own meat and putting in my own labor to cook it. But as a society, internationally - we recognize and maintain that to do so would be unfair, chaotic, and disruptive.

Disrespect for copyright begins with stealing IDEAS and ends with stealing actual designs, products, goods and services. Industries would simply just stop evolving without intellectual protection.

SO WHO WOULD BE LEFT IF IT WAS ACTUALLY LEGAL?

So if Pirate Bay could operate LEGALLY, without distributing copyrighted works, would anyone care? Probably not, because then you would just end up with another massive music wasteland, just like MP3.com was... But, that's the point I guess. Supporters want to operate ILLEGALLY. If supporters could not get A LIST CONTENT they probably wouldn't bother at all. Removed the "good stuff" that actually costs money to develop and requires a return on investment and then, once again you have an unfiltered wasteland of music no one wants.

LET THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS CHOOSE TO SHARE OR NOT SHARE

I have my own semi-pro studio. I get paid for my work, but it's not my sole source of income. It's mailbox money. For many of the projects I create or work on I'm more than happy to freely share them - however, that should be the CHOICE of the copyright holder. For much of my work the is more value in free open sharing than there is in a specific revenue model. But that is a CHOICE each copyright holder should get to make for themselves.

P2P ISN'T THE PROBLEM, DISREGARD FOR COPYRIGHT IS

In a manageable system, copyright holders could embrace P2P sharing as a regulated outlet for promotional purposes. Copyright Holders could have select titles available for free for a limited time to build interest and reward early adopters. Perhaps allowing a one week free download of an album by an artist about to launch a tour, or a special event to build awareness and buzz.

Because it's so easy. If Walmart left their doors open all night long with no security guards for days and weeks on end I'm pretty sure people would stock up.

[HobbyCore]

Originally Posted by hello people

Because it's so easy. If Walmart left their doors open all night long with no security guards for days and weeks on end I'm pretty sure people would stock up.

Every walmart here leaves their doors open 24/7 with no security guards. Is it different in other places?

[hello people]

We don't have no stinkin' Walmarts here