Americans think downloading no big deal

[RPConover]

I think people see downloading as a lesser offense because an actual physical loss is never seen. To steal a DVD from a store, one is actually taking a tangible object(DVD, case)… in downloading the movie you’re only making a copy of the information. The person you download from keeps their copy and you get a copy too. It’s much easier for people to justify something where there’s no apparent tangible loss…

 

[Paganus]

Big things getted started from little things. You say this is no big deal… to what else will you say this? Our BIG Original Sin got started with one little lie and turned into a HUGE one. Well the lie wasn’t so “little” but it was one lie and now we all lie every once in a while and say it’s no big deal. Well I say, YES it is a big deal. A lie offends God so it’s a big deal to me and it should be to you also.

I never said lying was okay, just making copies of things.

 

[Paganus]

I think people see downloading as a lesser offense because an actual physical loss is never seen. To steal a DVD from a store, one is actually taking a tangible object(DVD, case)… in downloading the movie you’re only making a copy of the information. The person you download from keeps their copy and you get a copy too. It’s much easier for people to justify something where there’s no apparent tangible loss…

No harm, no foul.

 

[Paganus]

The “Big Media” as you put it, is our authority over whatever is copyrighted in the media. We have to obey and respect authority not just our parents.

And don’t they owe us something in return?

If the big media companies are an “authority” which compels our obediance, what are their obligations to us?

Are they meeting these obligations?

 

[RPConover]

And don’t they owe us something in return?

If the big media companies are an “authority” which compels our obediance, what are their obligations to us?

Are they meeting these obligations?

I don’t know that media companies are an authority over us, so much as they do own the legal rights to the media that they produce. We don’t need ,in the utilitarian sense, movies or music. These companies have no obligation to provide people with movies or music, and therefore have no moral obligations to us regarding these services. That argument really won’t fly.

 

[porthos11]

Illegal downloading is the unfortunate consequence of market forces at the mercy of technology. Without defending illegal downloading, I’d just say that capitalism encourages best value for money. Unfortunately, the downloadable things are there for dirt, so naturally, the consumer bites. That’s the sad fact of life for the entertainment companies. Technology has caught up with them and they’re still stuck with 20th-century copyright laws designed to protect printing, not digital copies.

So what do the companies do? I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s their problem, not the consumer’s. They need to think strategically, and leverage their strengths against this external threat.

 

[AlegreFe]

I never said lying was okay, just making copies of things.

I was using “lies” as an example of something that started with one thing. You said “that’s no big deal” so I responded with my little example of what someone can call “no big deal.”

Making copies of things to which you have no rights could be considered a lie.

 

[Paganus]

Illegal downloading is the unfortunate consequence of market forces at the mercy of technology. Without defending illegal downloading, I’d just say that capitalism encourages best value for money. Unfortunately, the downloadable things are there for dirt, so naturally, the consumer bites. That’s the sad fact of life for the entertainment companies. Technology has caught up with them and they’re still stuck with 20th-century copyright laws designed to protect printing, not digital copies.

So what do the companies do? I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s their problem, not the consumer’s. They need to think strategically, and leverage their strengths against this external threat.

There is nothing “unfortunate” about any of this. I am very pleased that technology allows us to share information freely. Tyrants are always upset when their technocratic little schemes fail to keep us in bondage. They were upset when people became armed with photocopiers. They were upset about cassette tapes. They were upset about VHS tapes. They were so upset about recordable CDs and DVDs that you could not even buy them here for years when they were available in Japan. Now you walk into Wal Mart and try to get a copy made of a school photograph from twenty years ago and they scream at you that it “appears to be” copyrighted material. Thank goodness for high quality home printers and scanners and DVD burners and for free internet access. Good riddance to Big Media. Sic semper tyrannis.

“GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH?
NO WAY!
(SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE”

• illegal broadcast on HBO by John R. MacDougall, April 27, 1986, at 12:32am

 

[Paganus]

I was using “lies” as an example of something that started with one thing. You said “that’s no big deal” so I responded with my little example of what someone can call “no big deal.”

Making copies of things to which you have no rights could be considered a lie.

AlegreFe,

When I was in elementary school, I taped some rock music from the radio. I still have the cassette tape. There are songs on the tape that I would never even remember without the tape. There are songs on the tape that I have not heard on any radio show anywhere for many years - not even on those wierd late-night college radio shows.

How was I lying?

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

I think people see downloading as a lesser offense because an actual physical loss is never seen. To steal a DVD from a store, one is actually taking a tangible object(DVD, case)… in downloading the movie you’re only making a copy of the information. The person you download from keeps their copy and you get a copy too. It’s much easier for people to justify something where there’s no apparent tangible loss…

I was thinking about this this morning and hadn’t fully come to that conclusion but it makes sense.

I was thinking several things:

1. It’s easier. It’s much more of a risk to stick something in your pocket and attempt to get out of a store with all kinds of surveillance and anti-theft things, than to be in your dark basement where nobody knows (you think) you’re downloading or ripping a DVD
2. It’s WHO you’re ripping off. When you still from a store, they’re losing money. But when you download it or rip a DVD you’re screwing Big Media who seems to have so much money that they don’t deserve to have. {I know several people who believe Bill Gates has enough money and they’ve paid for enough versions of his software -they’re not paying any more for his software (see #6)}
3. Because one can. Why does one climb a mountain?
4. For the challenge. There is some sort of thrill ‘beating the system’ or trying to.
5. It’s a lesser quality. When one downloads a DVD or rips it, it’s not as good of quality.
6. Entitlement. I bought the VCR tape so… (probably goes along w/ music. I bought the LP, then the 8-track, then the cassette… How many times do I have to pay for the same media?)

I’m not condoning or justifying any of this, I’m just trying to answer the question.

 

[Hastrman]

Making copies of things to which you have no rights could be considered a lie.

Actually it’s stealing. Not, “could be considered;” it flat-out is. And Paganus, whoever said Big Media was an authority over us was as utterly wrong as you are. Big Media has no authority at all–the reverse, if anything. But as it’s a group of human beings, and human beings have rights, to violate those rights is a sin. That includes stealing from them.

Do you understand now?

 

[Timidity]

Actually it’s stealing.

Actually, I contend that it’s not stealing, as I have yet been provided with any Catholic teaching that states that monopoly control over duplicates of one’s creations are part of the natural law. If this were the case, then expirations of copyright would be immoral.

Copyright violation is only wrong because, IMO, it violates the law of the land, and therefor the 4th COmmandment.

YMMV, of course. Saints Finnian and Columba couldn’t seem to agree on this issue, so I don’t suspect we will, either.

 

[Hastrman]

Actually, I contend that it’s not stealing, as I have yet been provided with any Catholic teaching that states that monopoly control over duplicates of one’s creations are part of the natural law. If this were the case, then expirations of copyright would be immoral.

Copyright violation is only wrong because, IMO, it violates the law of the land, and therefor the 4th COmmandment.

The right to own property is an absolute. How that right plays out is cultural. Property ownership may be clan-based, as it was in most Native American cultures, or individual, as it is in most European societies. It may be absolute, as in Ancient Rome, or conditional, as in Medieval Europe. Sale may be possible, as with Europeans, or not, as with Native Americans.

But, since tenure of copyrights is defined by governments and international treaties, it has the force of customary ownership–as much as a man owns anything, he owns his copyrights (actually, if he actually made the work involved, he owns it more than he owns anything else). To abrogate those rights, or pretend that they only exist because of the authority of governments (“the law of the land”), is to play sophistical games. I’m sure the Triads applaud your interpretation, since it’s not the law of their land.

 

[Timidity]

But, since tenure of copyrights is defined by governments and international treaties, it has the force of customary ownership … To abrogate those rights, or pretend that they only exist because of the authority of governments (“the law of the land”), is to play sophistical games.

You start the statement by saying that the force of ownership is the result of the tenure of copyrights being defined by the goverment, but then you say it’s a game to say they only exist because it’s defined by the government. Your statement seems self contradictory. What did I miss?

Again, my point is that either copyright ownership is part of the natural law or it isn’t. If it is, then it would be a violation for the government to impose time limits on such ownership–it would be legalized stealing, anagulous to the government saying “this house has been in your family for too long–we’re taking it from you now.”

If it’s not part of the natural law (which is my position), then copying another’s work is objectively amoral (i.e. neither moral nor immoral). However, the Government has, with its God given authority–declared that it’s in the interest of the public good to given exclusive control (copyright) of their works to creators. (Which is also a good thing, IMO). Therefore, violating this legal right is now an immoral act.

But the immoral act is legally not theft–it’s copyright violation. And morally (I contend), it’s not theft either, but violating the moral authority that one is bound to obey. And please don’t think that I’m making the case that it’s a lesser offense–mortal sin is mortal sin.

I didnt understand the whole Triad reference.

 

[Hastrman]

But the immoral act is legally not theft–it’s copyright violation. And morally (I contend), it’s not theft either, but violating the moral authority that one is bound to obey. And please don’t think that I’m making the case that it’s a lesser offense–mortal sin is mortal sin.

I didnt understand the whole Triad reference.

I was a little unclear there, wasn’t I? Sorry . Copyrights are a form of ownership, as much as the deed to a house. Violating ownership is theft. While the nature and obligations of that ownership are legally defined, as in the case of the deed, the ownership itself is real. To violate it is theft, a sin against the right to own.

The Triads are the Chinese mafia, strongest in the South, and they’re responsible for most of the bootleg DVDs in that country. They grew out of, oddly enough, a loyalist movement to overthrow the Qing (pronounced “Tching”) Dynasty and reestablish the Ming.

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

1. It’s WHO you’re ripping off. When you still from a store, they’re losing money. But when you download it or rip a DVD you’re screwing Big Media who seems to have so much money that they don’t deserve to have.

Sorry to quote myself but I think the below news story makes me feel like screwing Big Media.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/football/nfl/specials/playoffs/2006/02/01/bc.fbn.superbowl.church.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

NFL won’t let church show game

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The NFL has nixed a church’s plans to use a wall projector to show the Colts-Bears Super Bowl game, saying it would violate copyright laws.

…

“It just frustrates me that most of the places where crowds are going to gather to watch this game are going to be places that are filled with alcohol and other things that are inappropriate for children,” Newland said. “We tried to provide an alternative to that and were shut down.”

 

[Hastrman]

“It just frustrates me that most of the places where crowds are going to gather to watch this game are going to be places that are filled with alcohol and other things that are inappropriate for children,” Newland said. “We tried to provide an alternative to that and were shut down.”

How about if they get a big screen tv? Frankly, I could not possibly care less about the alcohol (Christ turned water into grape juice, right?), but I acknowledge there’s other things wrong with some gatherings.

Or, God forbid, they could watch the games at home, as a family. Egad, Brain–astounding! No, wait, won’t work. People have the right to drink at home, where we can’t give them guilt trips for doing things that aren’t wrong.

 

[Paganus]

Actually it’s stealing. Not, “could be considered;” it flat-out is. And Paganus, whoever said Big Media was an authority over us was as utterly wrong as you are. Big Media has no authority at all–the reverse, if anything. But as it’s a group of human beings, and human beings have rights, to violate those rights is a sin. That includes stealing from them.

Do you understand now?

Stealing is taking something and thereby depriving the owner of its use. Copying is creating something and not depriving anybody of anything. If you want to paint a copy of the Mona Lisa, nobody suffers and you get a nice painting. This is not equivalent to removing the painting from the museum and putting it up in your living room.

Anyone who is capable of reading a thread knows who posted the “Big Media equals Authority” argument. However, for those of you who need a little extra help, the posters were Timidy and AlegreFe.

Yes, you have made it perfectly clear that if you were to hit the “Record” button on a loaded tape deck during the Dr. Demento Show, you would feel bound to confess it at 5 pm next Saturday. Have at it - for myself, I will play “The Funny Five” at will. Laissez les bons temps roulez.

 

[didymus]

I was thinking about this this morning and hadn’t fully come to that conclusion but it makes sense.

I was thinking several things:

1. It’s easier. It’s much more of a risk to stick something in your pocket and attempt to get out of a store with all kinds of surveillance and anti-theft things, than to be in your dark basement where nobody knows (you think) you’re downloading or ripping a DVD

But the store is still hurt because you are no longer going there to buy your DVD. If enough people download, the store may have to lay people off or close. Go ahead and laugh but you never know. My stepson works at a large bakery and they laid off half the workers when the Atkins diet caught on.

1. It’s WHO you’re ripping off. When you still from a store, they’re losing money. But when you download it or rip a DVD you’re screwing Big Media who seems to have so much money that they don’t deserve to have. {I know several people who believe Bill Gates has enough money and they’ve paid for enough versions of his software -they’re not paying any more for his software (see #6)}

You’re right and I was surprised and sed to see that excuse offered here on CAF. Stealing is stealing, even if you’re ripping off Satan.

1. Because one can. Why does one climb a mountain?

You nailed that one

1. Entitlement. I bought the VCR tape so… (probably goes along w/ music. I bought the LP, then the 8-track, then the cassette… How many times do I have to pay for the same media?)

I can sympathise with that one, actually. Is it my fault they lied when they claimed CDs would last forever? Hell, I have 15 year old cassettes that still play.

I’m not condoning or justifying any of this, I’m just trying to answer the question.

All excellent points.

I will say that I think illegal downloading IS a violation of the Seventh Commandment – you are taking something that doesn’t belong to you without paying.

 

[Paganus]

I can sympathise with that one, actually. Is it my fault they lied when they claimed CDs would last forever? Hell, I have 15 year old cassettes that still play.

It’s a good idea to make backup copies of those - just in case.