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excelsus
Guest
Is this morally wrong or not? If there is absolutely no way to get it besides downloading it without paying?
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The_Otaku
Guest
Actually, I have an active thread right now that deals with this issue. I was eventually going to ask this question specifically, but you beat me to it and made a thread yourself, so now I don’t have to.
I want to know the answer to.
The same would hold true for software and such that is no longer in production, distribution, and/or the company is out of business, or the product had a limited run and so few copies exist to actually purchase.
Obviously, the people who managed to get their hands on these products before they were discontinued (or whatever is the case), including music not available for purchase, thought ahead and knew finding these items would be next to impossible for others, so with a sense of generousity they went ahead and burned them and made mp3s knowing this may very well be the only way anyone, especially outside of their country, was going to be able to enjoy this music. So while they did something questionable, they did it so that a product that otherwise would not be available could still be used, or a song, album, or cd could be listened to and not be lost to time or history and could be shared and distributed even after the company stopped making it, selling it, or the company themselves went out of business, merged into another, etc.
I honestly want to believe that it’s not a mortal sin to download songs that are just impossible to get any other way. People who don’t agree will say it’s always possible, but like I was saying in my thread, just how far do we have to go out of our ways to do this. Do we literally have to search the entire internet relentlessly? I’ve done that before. What would be sufficient investigation in their mind, then? 1 week of searching? 6 months? What? Obviously it’s not going to end if the product is scarce.
I also brought up the question of IF you do find what you’re looking for, and the price is ridiculously inflated should you have to pay it, especially if the product is not being sold by the company anymore, but by some seller on e-bay who decides to fix his prices however he wants. I think this isn’t very charitable on the seller’s part, and yet, if you don’t want to have to download illegally, you have no choice but to pay him. And you’re not supporting the company who made the album by paying him either, you’re paying him directly. He’s the only one making the profit, not the company. So why should you have to do business with him in this case and can’t download the songs? The company doesn’t benefit or lose at all from this transaction so why should you have to make it? And if they’re not selling or making the product anymore, how is downloading it hurting them?
Wouldn’t paying the e-bay seller be nothing more than a means for you to not feel guilty for getting something for free, when really you have no reason not to get it for free at this point, since any other means to legally acquire it are not possible or available?
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excelsus
Guest
I have been reading your thread and it does make sense that it is ridiculous to pay so much for a few songs. However, my situation is that of the company that produced these songs does not market them to the public, so there is literally no way of getting it apart from acquiring it outside of conventional means, because there are no conventional means! 
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The_Otaku
Guest
Well, that’s even more unfortunate.I have been reading your thread and it does make sense that it is ridiculous to pay so much for a few songs. However, my situation is that of the company that produced these songs does not market them to the public, so there is literally no way of getting it apart from acquiring it outside of conventional means, because there are no conventional means!
A similar situation is if the company sells the items, but they don’t sell to anyone outside of their country and don’t provide international shipping.
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Matrix_Refugee
Guest
As far as I can tell, if money doesn’t change hands, it’s not a morally culpable matter, and even then, I think it would probably be only a venial sin. RIAA and other groups just turned the whole matter into a three-ring circus of horrors, when it didn’t have to be, plus, their ways of dealing with the copyright infringers wasn’t always ethical. Case in point, when they tried to get Social Services to take one kid away from his mother, because they claimed she wasn’t doing a good job raising the kid.
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excelsus
Guest
They definitely do ridiculous and unfair things. I just want to know whether it is wrong to download music that is unavailable for purchase at all, meaning you’re not really taking anything away from the artist anyway. I do want to buy it. I’ve bought the album they have released, but their whole collection is so much more than that and if they had all of it available to buy I would pay for it. The argument given for it being stealing is that you will not buy it if you can get it for free, but there is no way at all here to buy it.
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