File Sharing or Stealing

[AirPo]

That may be true for you, but it is not true for everybody. As I have already said I have personally paid probably tens of thousands of pounds to companies/bands that I first became familiar with through pirated downloads, I can think of only one instance where I bought a book (well a series of books) after borrowing it. I seldom pirate stuff now, as I can afford to buy the legal version, but I do still grab a copy of xxx first to see if it's worth the price of a place on my computer/shelf/whatever, or if it's better suited to a place in the bin.

True. Books vs music isn't really a good comparsion. But that is what the OP posted.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

http://themovieblog.com/2007/econom...e-the-money-goes-and-why-it-costs-us-so-much/

Theatres only keep about 25% of the ticket price (that's like $2-$3 per ticket). So to them, that's basically nothing. They can not depend on that amount to keep operating.

Do you honestly not realize how substantial 25% of revenue is for a business? It's ludicrous to categorize it as "basically nothing" when it categorically is not. At the ArcLight Cinema near where I live (Los Angeles) tickets for adults are $16.50, so 25% of that would be around $4.13. If only the occasional thief with an entitlement complex snuck in to watch movies without purchasing tickets the loss of revenue wouldn't be substantial, but such people aren't that unique so the loss isn't as negligible. Even for lower cost theaters, if it was only $3 dollars per ticket that still would tangibly impact the financial health of the business because it would add up. I'm betting that many of the thieves who sneak into movies are also too cheap to buy anything from the overpriced concession stand, so they are not contributing anything to that portion of the operational revenue either. Loss of revenue to theaters also leads to them raising the ticket prices and even reducing the hours of staff or laying them off. It's not the ArcLight executives who personally feel the crunch but the theater employees earning minimum wage. Yes, movie tickets are expensive. So are many other luxuries in life that are not necessities. If you cannot afford to buy the ticket, you don't go to the theater. It's a recreational pursuit, not a life necessity.

The filmmakers and industry as a whole are also impacted by lost revenue at the box office that is due either to people not purchasing tickets or pirating. As I wrote in my very first post, it's not the A-list stars or the Steven Spielbergs and Scott Rudins of the industry who are palpably impacted. Last summer I worked for the independent movie production arm of a major studio, and even though it was attached its operational budget was determined by the box office success of its own films. Every week details about the revenue from every single theater in the world playing each and every movie was received and analyzed. The same also happens with the studio films, but the impact from the box office revenue for lower budget films is more intensely felt. The industry as a whole has indeed suffered from piracy, both in the United States and abroad. Based on facts, The Guardian estimated that up to a quarter a million jobs were at risk due to copyright infringements in the United Kingdom alone.

And no, they don't pay for the right to use the screen. They OWN the screen. The theatre company wouldn't build it if they had to also pay to use the screen. It's outright ownership. They use the screens to sell popcorn.

You completely and rather comically misunderstood what I meant by that, haha. No, they aren't renting screens. They are however paying for the right to screen the movie.

All big budget films - everyone gets paid first, except the studio, they get paid based on ticket sales. If a movie bombs, the actors/designers/animators/sound effects still get paid (they wouldn't work for free, not for companies like Universal/Marvel/Fox/LionsGate). All actors get paid before filming is finished, regardless of how well the movie does in the box office. That's why you hear of Box Office Bombs. The studio didn't make enough to cover the costs of production, which includes payroll.

Jim Carrey, for example, demands $20 million per movie, yet, some of his movies have flopped. He still gets the money but the studio ends up recording a shortfall.

Only very few actors have the ability to ask for a percentage with Harrison Ford being the most famous example of receiving like..one tenth of one percent of all Star Wars revenue. Jack Nickelson being the only other example receiving royalties based on Batman movies. Other than that, most actors get paid for the movie and that's it, not royalties.

Major actors may take a pay cut to star in an indie film if they like the script enough, but that's the exception, not the rule.

Not everything playing in theaters or being pirated is a big budget film. Many of the films distributed through indie houses like Fox Searchlight and Sony Classics were made on a shoestring budget with the above-the-line crew taking substantially reduced salaries and then receiving a percentage of the box office gross. Again though, it's the below-the-line workers and those who are on the bottom to halfway up the ladder at the studios and working in the industry in contract jobs who are the most impacted by loss of revenue that is detrimental to the industry. You keep referencing the 1 percenters who do not constitute the majority of the film industry.

Those 'anti-piracy' commercials that ran a few years ago, showing carpenters and costume designers say they won't get paid if someone downloads a movie? yeah, lies. They get paid either way. It's just pulling at your heart strings.

Nope. You might think it was all lies because that's what you wish to think, but the facts prove you wrong. Copyright infringements have a systematic and sometimes insidious impact on the industry, so it's not like when you pirate a film a temp on the Paramount lot loses her job or a guy working on the construction crew for a film is fired, but it's not victimless either. To again repeat myself, there's been a mass exodus of filmmaking from Los Angeles to other areas that are more affordable shooting locations, and that has led to many people with less glamorous but vitally necessary jobs losing out. Pirating is not the only reason, but it is a contributing factor because it has indeed impacted the financial health of the industry. Carpenters and set designers can only get paid when they're offered jobs. When less films are made, or when they are made out of state and out of country and you have a family you cannot just abandon for a few months, it has a very real impact. Do you have any idea how prevalent unemployment is in the entertainment industry? Most of the below-the-line crew working on productions are perpetually looking for work because their job only lasts as long as the production does.
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/mar/01/business/la-fi-ct-oscars-hollywood-unemployment-20140225

Again, why do you think the industry invested so heavily in SOPA if piracy only has a minimal impact? Why did Ari Emmanuel make it a battle he's passionately fought?

Yes, piracy can actually have some benefits as highlighted by some posters here but to act like it's entirely benign and victimless is being willfully obtuse.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Doesn't that have the same effect, though? Both result in sale loss.

No. Because there is no increase in the amount of copies "out there".

It's a single book going from one person to the next, leaving the first with no book.
The "license" for that book has been paid for. When you copy it and pass that copy to someone else, then that person is using a copy that was never paid for. And you still have the original.

So now, there are 2 copies out there, but only 1 was paid for.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Actually, that's 100% wrong.

The movie theatres make next to nothing on ticket sales on any given movie. The only way for them to make 'something' from ticket sales is to keep the movie in the theatre longer.

So that strikes out the argument that sneaking into theatres means losing money for the theatre from no ticket sale. If anybody losses a sale from a person sneaking in, it's the movie studio. All of the actors/designers/animators/extras/directors/camera operators (basically, everyone in the credits) gets paid before the movie is in theatres. The movie studio is the one getting paid from ticket sales.

WHICH..brings up another perfectly valid point on 'stealing' from a movie theatre. Since the theatres make nearly no money from ticket sales, they have to make money on the concession stands (which is why popcorn and drinks are like $5 each and candy is like $3..everything is "over priced" because they can't keep ticket sales), is it called "stealing" by not buying at least one thing from the concession stand? It may be legal to do so, because they can't force anyone to buy something at the concession stands, but you take up a seat, pay no money to the theatre, but enjoy a product that they have, which they make no money from? Stealing? or no?

I would be surprised if this is actually true for all movie theaters, everywhere. But for the sake of the example, let's roll with it.

If that is how movie theaters work, then that is how they work. And it will be factored into the business model as well that not everyone is going to buy drinks and candy.

How can it be "stealing" if that's literally how the business is set up to work??

You are not making any sense.

 

[DogmaHunter]

But how does that cause a greater money loss?

???

Are you really asking how it causes money loss for a company if that company's products are being duplicated en masse?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Software companies rely on hackers to hack and reprogram the software so they can improve and update it for free at the cost of the actual buyer. So I hardly see this as stealing more than genuine free labor

As a software engineer who owns a startup that distributes professional software, I'm going to have to say that this is beyond ridiculous.

 

[Dave-W]

The theater has to pay for the right to screen the movies and to maintain their facilities and keep them operational.

And no, they don't pay for the right to use the screen. They OWN the screen. The theatre company wouldn't build it if they had to also pay to use the screen. It's outright ownership. They use the screens to sell popcorn.

You misunderstood Stanfordella. They do have to pay. It is a royalty to the studio every time they project the film and how much that royalty is depends on the number of seats in the theater and location of the facility. Rural venues pay less than major urban ones.

 

[farishta]

would you tolerate someone walking up to your lemonade stand and drinking a cup of lemonade without paying for it?

What if my friend purchased a cup of lemonade and paid for it than she came to me with my empty cup and shared some with me. To me that is what file sharing is. Also you can go to your local library and check out movies at no cost. My probably is I am pretty much home bound.

 

[AirPo]

What if my friend purchased a cup of lemonade and paid for it than she came to me with my empty cup and shared some with me. To me that is what file sharing is. Also you can go to your local library and check out movies at no cost. My probably is I am pretty much home bound.

It's more like the lemonade came with refills. You take an empty cup and "refill" it yourself.

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

What if my friend purchased a cup of lemonade and paid for it than she came to me with my empty cup and shared some with me. To me that is what file sharing is. Also you can go to your local library and check out movies at no cost. My probably is I am pretty much home bound.

Well a movie versus food is two very different subjects. If you yourself used 10 million to make that cup of lemonade and owed it back to a company, you to would not like people that paid for theirs but then gave more of it away to everyone else. As for checking a movie out at a library. Well for starters the movies are usually scratched up and you borrow them for a certain amount of time. If you lose it, break it or keep it, you pay for it. The problem is as christians if we try to reason why we can do something that is illegal, then we are in sin. Example I've seen many young couples who want sex with the person they love. They get around it by saying "Well we gave each other oral sex, so therefor its not a sin since we didn't have sex the normal way!". And more importantly God says we are to obey the laws of the land unless those laws interfere with our christian beliefs. So by law this file sharing is illegal. This we shouldn't do it.

I will say being home bound I can understand for you it makes life much harder so you depend on things you can only do from your house. Me? I'm disabled and was into file sharing before. I felt to much guilt and stopped.

 

[SkyWriting]

Is it wrong to borrow a book, CD or anything else that someone has purchased if they offer it to you?
How is that any different than file sharing?

File sharing is making a perfectly usable copy of the original resource
that is not intended by the artist to be shared. Artists do have the
right to limit distribution of their work to paying customers.

 

[farishta]

Just be-sure, that the only thing you share is a 'link' to the owner's / publisher's page

How about if you recorded something with your DVR to watch that is making a copy.

 

[farishta]

It is only stealing if when someone takes something from you or someone else, those persons do not have it anymore.

Reproduction is not stealing, but giving.

God does not care about your images. It is a violation of the 2nd Commandment to even make an image. Reproducing that image is promulgating sin in this way, but not in the way of stealing.

Regarding intellectual property, what God whispers in your ear, you are to shout it from the rooftops for all to hear and know. To not do so is the actual sin.

I am not serving or worshiping them. So I don't know how that breaks the 2 commandment? Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am o jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of then that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.' Exod 20: 4-6

 

[farishta]

Not sure if pirating software, or sneaking onto a theater, is "stealing" or not. But its morally wrong, for sure.

That is what I am trying to get the answer to what morally is wrong with it? (Coping someone DVD they let you borrow and said you could do it)

 

[farishta]

I will say piracy when it comes to games has risen alot since companies stopped offering demos or trials. Best we get is "beta testing" at this point. And even then not everyone gets to play the beta. For me way back then when I game came out and I wasn't sure it would work on my PC, I'd buy it and if it didn't work I'd return it to the store. For gaming consoles I just rented stuff first. But as time went on they didn't allow you to return games on CD/DVD because people would copy the disc then return it. So it left me with demos. But soon those died off too. So I resorted to trying a game for about 30 minutes by downloading the whole game. If it worked (and I liked it) I deleted it and bought the game. If I didn't like it/it didn't work then I removed it.

But temptation took place and sometimes I wouldn't delete the game either way. So I stopped doing that not to long after because I knew it was wrong. Today though most people who download games don't do it for the reasons I did. They just do it because they can. They want it for free.

The conversation is still not answering my question or maybe I didn't ask it correctly. If person A buys a movie and person A gives it to person B and person B ask if they could make a copy to watch at a latter time. And person A gives them permission. Is that stealing or sharing. And if the factor is that the maker is missing out on revenue than what do you say to library that check them out for no money to everyone.

 

[farishta]

It's more like the lemonade came with refills. You take an empty cup and "refill" it yourself.

No in the example I just had an empty cup with me. I didn't purchase it from the lemonade stand. But my friend she did buy it so is it not her choice to share with me if she wants.

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

The conversation is still not answering my question or maybe I didn't ask it correctly. If person A buys a movie and person A gives it to person B and person B ask if they could make a copy to watch at a latter time. And person A gives them permission. Is that stealing or sharing. And if the factor is that the maker is missing out on revenue than what do you say to library that check them out for no money to everyone.

Its stealing in the case. Sharing is like what the library does. Or even something like Netflix, although the difference is you pay for netflix. You let a friend borrow it and return it. Companies have no problem if you let your friend watch the movie. But the minute that movie is copied by a friend, then it becomes illegal because its no longer a borrowed copy. You may have bought the movie and it may be yours, but the movie itself on the disc is still the companies property. And copying that is illegal. Now its true that almost never does anyone get caught who copies movies. But it doesn't justify the use to do it.

Lets use you as an example. Lets your gifted as music and release a music cd called "Farishtas Melodies!". You have bought cds to put the music on. Ink to print the inserts for the plastic disk. Paper to print on. And obviously you paid for the instruments you made to make the music and the software to code the music to a cd. And the software to make artwork for your disc. And any number of other things like copyrights...etc. Thousands of dollars later you have 1,000 CDs all made up and are ready to sell for lets say $10 each. If you sell all 1,000 cds you make $10,000. Which pays for everything you spent, plus time and a small salary back for your work.

Ok so now you spread the word about your music and many people like it. Lets say you sell 150 of those cds. Its great you made some money. But suddenly you see more and more people talking about how they love your music that they own. But there are like 2,500 people who own your music despite you only have sold 150 so far. So you find out some have put your music from your cd on youtube. And people are downloading the song from there (there are ways to). You also find out some of the people who bought your cd have given it to their friends. And their friends made copies for themselves and others. Well within the next year you total CDs sold reaches about 325.

And yet now more then 12,000 people own your music somehow. Your sales have dropped now and you can no longer sell anymore cds. You've not made enough money to cover your expenses and now its hard to keep up with turning in the people who are releasing your music online for free on youtube and those who are copying your music. In other words its a total loss.

Now are still ok with people borrowing and copying music? I would not be. I'd be losing out on money I worked hard to earn. I know this because our friend from church is a professional musician who makes soundtracks for indie movies. It costs him ALOT to make them. Even when hes paid it still doesn't mean anything is free. And sometimes he gets hurt because of those copying things. He can only make enough money to live if he sells/gets paid for this music. So when copying happens his family loses food, money for bills and even their house in an extreme case, its his job after all.

 

[Skavau]

Its stealing in the case. Sharing is like what the library does. Or even something like Netflix, although the difference is you pay for netflix. You let a friend borrow it and return it. Companies have no problem if you let your friend watch the movie. But the minute that movie is copied by a friend, then it becomes illegal because its no longer a borrowed copy. You may have bought the movie and it may be yours, but the movie itself on the disc is still the companies property. And copying that is illegal. Now its true that almost never does anyone get caught who copies movies. But it doesn't justify the use to do it.

Lets use you as an example. Lets your gifted as music and release a music cd called "Farishtas Melodies!". You have bought cds to put the music on. Ink to print the inserts for the plastic disk. Paper to print on. And obviously you paid for the instruments you made to make the music and the software to code the music to a cd. And the software to make artwork for your disc. And any number of other things like copyrights...etc. Thousands of dollars later you have 1,000 CDs all made up and are ready to sell for lets say $10 each. If you sell all 1,000 cds you make $10,000. Which pays for everything you spent, plus time and a small salary back for your work.

Ok so now you spread the word about your music and many people like it. Lets say you sell 150 of those cds. Its great you made some money. But suddenly you see more and more people talking about how they love your music that they own. But there are like 2,500 people who own your music despite you only have sold 150 so far. So you find out some have put your music from your cd on youtube. And people are downloading the song from there (there are ways to). You also find out some of the people who bought your cd have given it to their friends. And their friends made copies for themselves and others. Well within the next year you total CDs sold reaches about 325. And yet now more then 12,000 people own your music somehow. You've not made enough money to cover your expenses and now its hard to keep up with turning in the people who are releasing your music online for free on youtube and those who are copying your music. In other words its a total loss.

Now are still ok with people borrowing and copying music? I would not be. I'd be losing out on money I worked hard to earn.

I'm just curious, because I think it is a good question.

A lot of bands actually put their entire discography on websites like bandcamp with an option to purchase a physical copy or download the files in good quality. You can stream all of their material whenever you like. Why do you think they do this?

 

[farishta]

Its stealing in the case. Sharing is like what the library does. Or even something like Netflix, although the difference is you pay for netflix. You let a friend borrow it and return it. Companies have no problem if you let your friend watch the movie. But the minute that movie is copied by a friend, then it becomes illegal because its no longer a borrowed copy. You may have bought the movie and it may be yours, but the movie itself on the disc is still the companies property. And copying that is illegal. Now its true that almost never does anyone get caught who copies movies. But it doesn't justify the use to do it.

Lets use you as an example. Lets your gifted as music and release a music cd called "Farishtas Melodies!". You have bought cds to put the music on. Ink to print the inserts for the plastic disk. Paper to print on. And obviously you paid for the instruments you made to make the music and the software to code the music to a cd. And the software to make artwork for your disc. And any number of other things like copyrights...etc. Thousands of dollars later you have 1,000 CDs all made up and are ready to sell for lets say $10 each. If you sell all 1,000 cds you make $10,000. Which pays for everything you spent, plus time and a small salary back for your work.

Ok so now you spread the word about your music and many people like it. Lets say you sell 150 of those cds. Its great you made some money. But suddenly you see more and more people talking about how they love your music that they own. But there are like 2,500 people who own your music despite you only have sold 150 so far. So you find out some have put your music from your cd on youtube. And people are downloading the song from there (there are ways to). You also find out some of the people who bought your cd have given it to their friends. And their friends made copies for themselves and others. Well within the next year you total CDs sold reaches about 325.

And yet now more then 12,000 people own your music somehow. Your sales have dropped now and you can no longer sell anymore cds. You've not made enough money to cover your expenses and now its hard to keep up with turning in the people who are releasing your music online for free on youtube and those who are copying your music. In other words its a total loss.

Now are still ok with people borrowing and copying music? I would not be. I'd be losing out on money I worked hard to earn. I know this because our friend from church is a professional musician who makes soundtracks for indie movies. It costs him ALOT to make them. Even when hes paid it still doesn't mean anything is free. And sometimes he gets hurt because of those copying things. He can only make enough money to live if he sells/gets paid for this music. So when copying happens his family loses food, money for bills and even their house in an extreme case, its his job after all.

If my music was about spreading the word of Jesus I wouldn't care because I know these people were suppose to hear it and I am 100 percent sure the Lord will provide for me.

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

True, lots of artist (christians especially) don't mind if their music is stolen or if they themselves stream it for free because its spreads awareness of the music. For a christian it gets the message of God out. For non-christian groups its free advertising. This way when they make a second album they can charge for it and their fans will buy it.