I want to know your thoughts on file sharing

s1mp13m4n

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I see it as borrowing, sharing, trying it out, not stealing if you go and make a purchase once you download/use it. In other words try before you buy. I can see why people do it...Microsoft has in my view no legit need to charge a few hundred $$$ for an oporating system or office suite. Charge some money yes...even $100 but not $400. I can see a CD costing $10 but not $20, same for a DVD movie. The way I see it making a copy of something for myself for personal use is not stealing.....it has been going on for years with zerox machines, tape decks, VCRs, etc. The only reason this is an issue to begin with is like Puff Daddy says in an older song "It's All About The Benjamins".
If I own a legal copy of....oh I do not know....WOW 2011 and I want to make my friend a copy of it because I think some songs on the CD might help him.....is that stealing or sharing? I am sorry but I do not buy into that theory that says we are robbing the artist of money when you copy a CD for example. They would never miss my $0.50 they might have lost on me making a copy for a friend. Now if many people make that copy then yeah I can see that but the truth is there are way more people out there buying that filesharing. :) I am not saying that I am right or file sharing is right....it is just my thoughts on it. Again it is a gray area subject....and thanks to you all for keeping it calm and not flaming each other.
 
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selfinflikted

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I see it as borrowing, sharing, trying it out, not stealing if you go and make a purchase once you download/use it.

Let's be honest here. When I was big into "file sharing", I didn't once go out and buy the music I had just downloaded for free. Maybe there are people who actually do this, but I'm fairly certain the vast majority of file sharers do not go out and pay for music, they'll just download it for free.

Microsoft has in my view no legit need to charge a few hundred $$$ for an oporating system or office suite.

It's their property, and they can charge the public whatever they like. As long as people are willing to continue to pay exorbitant prices, they will continue to sell their products for that price. They have every right to do so. If you think that you're being asked to pay too much for their product, simply do not buy it. But that does not give you the right to obtain and use an illegal copy.

If I own a legal copy of....oh I do not know....WOW 2011 and I want to make my friend a copy of it because I think some songs on the CD might help him.....is that stealing or sharing?

How are songs on a CD going to "help" your friend?

I am sorry but I do not buy into that theory that says we are robbing the artist of money when you copy a CD for example.

But you are. You've caused the owner of the property to lose money in potential sales. I know, I know - you think, well he's not missing my $0.50. No, he probably wouldn't. But if 250,000 people all did the same thing (which they do) then yes, he will be missing that income. Besides that, whether it's $0.05 or $2,000,000.000 - a loss is a loss.

...but the truth is there are way more people out there buying that filesharing. :)

Source?

I am not saying that I am right or file sharing is right....it is just my thoughts on it. Again it is a gray area subject....and thanks to you all for keeping it calm and not flaming each other.

I wouldn't do it personally, but I can't make your decisions for you. Just stop, think, and be honest with yourself before you choose to engage in file sharing. :)
 
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s1mp13m4n

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Let's be honest here. When I was big into "file sharing", I didn't once go out and buy the music I had just downloaded for free. Maybe there are people who actually do this, but I'm fairly certain the vast majority of file sharers do not go out and pay for music, they'll just download it for free.



It's their property, and they can charge the public whatever they like. As long as people are willing to continue to pay exorbitant prices, they will continue to sell their products for that price. They have every right to do so. If you think that you're being asked to pay too much for their product, simply do not buy it. But that does not give you the right to obtain and use an illegal copy.



How are songs on a CD going to "help" your friend?



But you are. You've caused the owner of the property to lose money in potential sales. I know, I know - you think, well he's not missing my $0.50. No, he probably wouldn't. But if 250,000 people all did the same thing (which they do) then yes, he will be missing that income. Besides that, whether it's $0.05 or $2,000,000.000 - a loss is a loss.



Source?



I wouldn't do it personally, but I can't make your decisions for you. Just stop, think, and be honest with yourself before you choose to engage in file sharing. :)

Thank you for some perspective on this issue. I am not saying that I do it....I am wanting to understand....for the moral part and learn what the Bible would say....WWJD? :) I like your responces and questions you brought up, it does make you think. :) Thanks for the help.
 
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Fantine

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Most "starving artists" aren't leading anywhere near the romantic, poetic life we would like to imagine they are leading. They would like to earn a living at their craft and be fairly compensated for their intellectual property.

And while some notable exceptions are tremendously overcompensated, most eke out a meager living doing what they love.
 
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ChrisLeishy

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I don't think Jesus would illegally share copyrighted material. ;)
Thats probably the key I think you hit the nail on the head. Imagine Jesus sitting beside you at your computer.
 
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Schneiderman

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Substitute a CD from a shop and a boxed software application above. Now we have a physical object in the mix. And that's what we're really talking about, isn't it? Is it acceptable to steal (or do you prefer burglarize?) a physical copy of the song or code?

I don't understand your point in asking this question. No, it is not acceptable to steal any object. A song in and of itself is not an object, and when you download a song no tangible property changes hands.

When you steal a CD from a shop you are actually depriving that shop of an object.

When a song is downloaded, nobody is deprived of anything. For example, I do not buy music. In my entire life I have purchased one CD (with a gift card...), and the primary artist featured on that CD is long dead so the people who profited from that sale are his dirtbag relatives who exploit his music. Other than that I have never purchased any form of music. If file sharing was not available, I still would never purchase music. I'm not really that into it. Even the music that I have downloaded, I barely ever listen to. I'm not depriving anybody of any profit by downloading music that I otherwise would have simply not sought access to.
 
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Skavau

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I tend to download music entirely unknown by the music industry, and so my only options (if I were to purchase it) would to be pay to have it shipped over here and wait ages or pay to electronically download it (many places not having the music I want).

The ironic thing is that what is illegal, lets say, of me putting stereo mix on, playing a song from youtube and recording it through the sound card?

(And concerning support, the artists I get need word of mouth to their existence just as much if not more as they do financial support).
 
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I torrent things all the time. As I don't have a job currently, I don't have the money to be buying things, so I just download them. Don't get me wrong, I would prefer to be buying things, but I don't have the money for things at the moment. When I do have the money, of course I'll go out and buy everything I've downloaded. Besides, in a few years, all the things I want to buy (CDs, BluRay movies, Ebooks) will all have gone down from their already inflated price, so I'd be saving money that would otherwise be wasted by retailers' theivery, but not still stealing.
 
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sandwiches

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Hm. Personally, I don't download files from P2P servers or anywhere else when I haven't paid for them. I used to do this, when Napster first came out (I'd set up a queue for download before bed at night, and wake up with 20-30 new songs by morning! Ah, the dialup days.), but always felt guilty for doing it. So, I stopped. I just don't feel right about it. I wouldn't try to stop someone else from doing what they want as far as digital copies are concerned, but I just know that for me, I can no longer bring myself to do it. I'm not sure how I feel about it, from a moral standpoint.

For me, copyright infringement isn't immoral. I always measure morality by how much harm or good it does. When I download a song, movie, book, etc and I don't pay for it, I don't cause to the copyright owners. If people want to claim that they lost money, I'd like for them show me the amount of money they had before I downloaded the song and after I downloaded. If they claim that they lost out on a sale, I'd like for them point to me the machine that enables them to know I would've bought the songs, books, etc.
 
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lawtonfogle

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The true violate with this is privacy. You are invading their privacy by using their creation without their permission, but we are entering a world where privacy is second rate and barely even exist. Violating privacy to find a criminal is becoming more common place. Read some of the EULA's on software and see the privacy violations they try to sneak past you.
 
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plindboe

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It's amazing how people will oversimplify this issue. Saying that every download is a lost sale is oversimplification in the extreme. Calling it stealing is oversimplification. I'm amazed by how fanatical some people become with these oversimplifications.

It's also interesting how the anti-download crowd tends to ignore any promotional effects that downloading can have. I never hear this issue mentioned even though it's likely to have a significant effect on sales.

Whether sales are overall harmed or helped by downloading is not as easy of an issue as many people imagine it to be. Personally I don't know, and I think in reality it probably depends on the circumstances, for instance how famous a band/composer is already and how much promotion they have, but the oversimplifications concerning this issue I'd like to see go away.

Peter :)
 
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sandwiches

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The true violate with this is privacy. You are invading their privacy by using their creation without their permission, but we are entering a world where privacy is second rate and barely even exist. Violating privacy to find a criminal is becoming more common place. Read some of the EULA's on software and see the privacy violations they try to sneak past you.

This is a new one for me. How am I invading the author's privacy by COPYING a file from some random person's computer?
 
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Bungle_Bear

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This is a new one for me. How am I invading the author's privacy by COPYING a file from some random person's computer?
Because the person who copied the file to the computer and then shared it didn't ask the author's permission. Agreed that's not necessarily an invasion of privacy but I think that's what they're getting at.
 
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sandwiches

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Because the person who copied the file to the computer and then shared it didn't ask the author's permission. Agreed that's not necessarily an invasion of privacy but I think that's what they're getting at.

If that's the case, then I disagree that not asking permission to copy is the same as invading people's privacy.

I have a feeling this will turn into another semantics game of conflations and equivocations. :doh:
 
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Chesterton

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My thoughts on file sharing:

YouTube - DIRE STRAITS - MONEY FOR NOTHING

All the "artistes", the actors, musicians and writers, love to claim that they're only in it for the love of creating their "art". I remember after Springsteen got rich in the '70's he famously said he would clean toilets if that's what it took to allow him to play his music. Well, Bruce, you can come play at my house anytime. I'll even loan you my Clorox and brush to clean the toilet.
 
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sandwiches

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My thoughts on file sharing:

All the "artistes", the actors, musicians and writers, love to claim that they're only in it for the love of creating their "art". I remember after Springsteen got rich in the '70's he famously said he would clean toilets if that's what it took to allow him to play his music. Well, Bruce, you can come play at my house anytime. I'll even loan you my Clorox and brush to clean the toilet.

Yep. Selfishly and arbitrarily, I believe that those who truly love their art will do it regardless of how much they get paid. There's millions of artists out there already making great music, paintings, drawings, books, video games, programs, etc. So, to me the old argument of "If people stop paying for music, then no one will make music" is complete bullcorn, specially in this day and age when the barriers to entry have never been lower.
 
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highlife

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Seeing as how my time is valuable the hoops one has jump through to find "free" stuff on bittorrent, etc is alot more expensive than just doing an itunes down load for a buck. You could chew up 8-9 hrs just reformating your hard drive to deal with viruses and at 8-9 hrs at 40$/hr thats like 360$, I will just pay my 20$ for the DVD or 1$ for a song or just listen to pandora or online radio.

Now MS office or autocad thats another story, however you can always just register for a class for a few hundred bucks (since your going to have to learn how to use the software anyways) and get 1000$ software at student rate for like 100$ and then you get tech support.

I have found the "free" stuff is not really free, if it takes me longer than 2 min to hunt and peck around for something thats worth 1$ then its not worth it. Pandora is cool because I can listen to music while im doing a training class or working on my Masters degree homework and if I like a song I can just click on it and it adds it to a list and im guessing I can just purchase the list on itunes in a few clicks then I have it in my truck and I dont have to mess around with bit torrants (I so hate bittorrants, the web sites look like spam and unless you have a friend that knows of the super secret ones you going no where fast).

Sin seems good on the surface but it ends up costing us more in the end than just doing things lagitimatly in the first place. If your broke you can just listen to pandora and not buy the songs, heck I have been listening to it for months and have built up a like list but still have not actually bought anything yet.
 
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