[TheHansa]

(Original post by odkfn)
What you're repeatedly failing to see in every comment directed at you is that people are implying that they cannot afford to buy music at it's current price, and as such the choice isn't:

Pay for it or download it illegally.

It's:

Download it illegally or don't get it at all.

I know, by means of analogy, you'll reason that you can't go into a shop and say "I can't afford this sweet so either I don't have it or I steal it" but it is what it is. Downloading an .mp3 is different than walking into a shop and stealing a hard-copy of a cd for the aforementioned reasons. They have already paid their over-heads and whether I download an album, or 100 people download it - they're not making a loss as I can assure you I wouldn't pay for it anyway.

Besides, there are certain bands (both up-and-coming and well established) that I'll download illegally just to get my hands on it early then pay for it anyway when it comes out. Luckily for me I can have my cake and eat it too.

crap I know loads of wealthy people who do this.

It's theft because regardless of whether or not the person illegally downloading the believes it harms the company, the company which owns the song has not given permission for this to be done. Borrowing things without permission and returning them undamaged later is still theft even though it may not have caused harm.

[odkfn]

(Original post by TheHansa)
crap I know loads of wealthy people who do this.

It's theft because regardless of whether or not the person illegally downloading the believes it harms the company, the company which owns the song has not given permission for this to be done. Borrowing things without permission and returning them undamaged later is still theft even though it may not have caused harm.

Well, Sir, I disagree.

If you had a magic vending machine that produced unlimited...carrots..and I wanted a carrot and you weren't around - if I took one - would it harm you?

Given you had paid for the vending machine, and you sold neatly wrapped carrots at the market (which cost money to wrap and to display on shelves etc) then maybe I'd feel bad, but straight out of your machine, an intangible asset, would I feel bad - no.

[TheHansa]

(Original post by odkfn)
Well, Sir, I disagree.

If you had a magic vending machine that produced unlimited...carrots..and I wanted a carrot and you weren't around - if I took one - would it harm you?

Given you had paid for the vending machine, and you sold neatly wrapped carrots at the market (which cost money to wrap and to display on shelves etc) then maybe I'd feel bad, but straight out of your machine, an intangible asset, would I feel bad - no.

Well done for calling me sir

If carrot selling was my livelihood and you get one for free why shouldn't eveyone, then bam my livelihoods gone

The people who made the films spent money doing so which is why they have right to say who gets thefilm and on what conditions.

[odkfn]

(Original post by TheHansa)
Well done for calling me sir

If carrot selling was my livelihood and you get one for free why shouldn't eveyone, then bam my livelihoods gone

The people who made the films spent money doing so which is why they have right to say who gets thefilm and on what conditions.

Well, this is true, but I'm not looking at it from the point of society, I'm purely in it for me here.

In keeping with the carrot analogy, if I was hungry and happened to be walking past your vending machine, but also had food in my cupboards at home, if you were guarding the vending machine or trying to sell me a carrot I could easily go without one, but if you werent there and free carrots were up for grabs I might just take one.

Equally I'd never walk into a shop and put a CD in my jacket and walk out, but I would download a song. That being said I go to a LOT of live gigs.

Justifying my behaviour aside - I'm a pikey. If an individual band put out a plea "we literally cannot afford to be a band unless you buy our music from this source" then I would pay definitely, but where metallica close down napster and whine that they only make tens of millions off music sales, then no. They can cry themselves to sleep on their silk bed sheets.

[odkfn]

(Original post by TheHansa)
Well done for calling me sir

If carrot selling was my livelihood and you get one for free why shouldn't eveyone, then bam my livelihoods gone

The people who made the films spent money doing so which is why they have right to say who gets thefilm and on what conditions.

Also, I'm in a band with our album on iTunes and I can honestly say that if I could either sell 100 copies, or have 10,000 people pirate it (thats probably about the ratio of legal purchases to piracy), I'd DEFINITELY choose the latter.

I know it's all relative but recording the songs, buying equipment and getting photos for the cover, etc, cost me, personally, in excess of £1000. Even selling our EP (6 tracks) on iTunes for £5.95 see's us get £4(ish) per sale. My band don't make music for album sales - it's for touring and the fun that comes with it.

That's all conjecture, though...

[py0alb]

Technology has progressed to the point over the last 10 years where music is now an indivisible good, similar to street lighting.

As everyone knows, the equilibrium price for indivisible goods on the free market is equal to their marginal cost of £0.00. This is the allocatively efficient solution, any deviation away from this price is damaging to the public good. This is not theft, its social justice and the free market in action.

Music companies need to realise that recorded music is no longer a good or service that they can make money off via direct sales. They're fighting helplessly against the tide of progress. An album is simply a commercial to attract people to come to a gig or festival.

[marshymarsh]

Every 700mb .avi is essentially a string of 1s and 0s on your computer.

You can't like own 1s and 0s man, its mother nature.

[xShadeFatex]

(Original post by marshymarsh)
Every 700mb .avi is essentially a string of 1s and 0s on your computer.

You can't like own 1s and 0s man, its mother nature.

Generally agree with the arguments why piracy is necessary, but this was a bit ridiculous. Numbers are not part of nature, and even if they were, your statement suggests that anything plastic/metallic/wooden can't be "owned" because they originate from nature - that's just ridiculous.

[WelshBluebird]

(Original post by TheHansa)
crap I know loads of wealthy people who do this.

It's theft because regardless of whether or not the person illegally downloading the believes it harms the company, the company which owns the song has not given permission for this to be done. Borrowing things without permission and returning them undamaged later is still theft even though it may not have caused harm.

Theft is taking a physical object.
Downloading something does not involve a physical object, thus it is not theft.
it is copyright infringement.

[bengalisoldier]

Website was down yday, but now back yay!

[tanveer2k12]

One falls, another rises.

[chrislpp]

(Original post by Alofleicester)
Stop bitching, make DVD's/CD's etc sensibly priced and then people might actually buy it.

As it is, I'm not paying £10 for an album where about £2 will actually go to the artist and the rest to ****ing record companies and all those soulless, suckers of satans cock that work for them.

Thing is, when artists ask for direct cash or donations on their site, they get **** all as well.

[plimsolls]

Sky Broadband has blocked it as of today.

[tekk]

The ISPs have only blocked access to the domain name, YOU CAN STILL GET ON IT WITH A PROXY!

[bengalisoldier]

I can still go without proxy.

[pete248]

Can someone please explain to me how the movie industry justifies releasing blu rays/re releases of films that have already been made and charging the same price as when it first came out? They didn't re film the movie in HD, they didn't re record the movie with high definition microphones. A small team of people sat down, converted the movie from the original master tapes/files, and hit the "burn" button. It's laughable. Also, its hilarious how the TV industry haven't realised that releasing/broadcasting shows almost a year behind the US is not acceptable and people aren't putting up with it anymore.

And the music labels have finally realised that they are a redundant and a worthless industry now. They used to be a connection to promoters, CD manufacturers and recording studios. Now anyone can pretty much contact people with these services themselves using the internet. It's not just the fact people can download their stuff for free, it's that the artists don't even need them anymore now either. Take a look at a site like www.bandcamp.com. That's selling music done right.

[Kevin J]

(Original post by tekk)
The ISPs have only blocked access to the domain name, YOU CAN STILL GET ON IT WITH A PROXY!

dropping knowledge on your first post, thats whats up.

[tekk]

That's what I'm about, saw a window of opportunity and I seized it

[tanveer2k12]

how the hell is it blocked? I just got like 5 torrents of it...

[hothedgehog]

Oh, O2 has blocked it at some point in the last few weeks when I was at home. How on earth will I be able to get torrents now that tpb is blocked? </sarcasm>