A discussion on the ethics of piracy

[drfsupercenter]

Like Robin Hood, stealing entertainment from the rich to share it with the poor.

YES! That's EXACTLY it... LOL. I've often referred to that myself, too.

As far as making copies of DVDs you own... who's gonna find out? I've *never* heard of anyone getting sued for copying DVDs like that. The only ones I've heard of are the torrent freaks who download hundreds of movies.

As far as who does the art belong to... well, in today's day and age, it seems that it belongs mainly to the record label or movie studio. I'm all for independent music... I almost always buy those if I can.
And thankfully some of them are free to begin with. An example is The Funny Music Project, also called The FuMP. You can go to their site and listen to 128kbps mp3 files 100% for free, and they all have creative commons licenses so it's legal to share them around. But they also sell higher quality versions. (I bought one of their CDs as I wanted a .wav of a certain track) Obviously they're not begging for money... but they still find a way to offer free versions. Why can't most artists do that? Because the record labels are just thirsty for money.

As far as doing anything illegal... I also wouldn't do anything illegal apart from "stealing" digital media. Those stupid anti-piracy campaigns they have going... downloading a movie is not the same as stealing a DVD or stealing a car. They still have the original, don't they? It's not like I broke in and stole a 35mm reel of film...

In my opinion copy protection isn't stopping pirates, and its only hurting legitimate sales with all this DRM junk. I also don't think recording a movie off TV counts as piracy. If it did then DVD recorders, Tivos, and other DVRs should be illegal.

EXACTLY! Has there EVER been a DRM that hardcore pirates weren't able to break? So why do they even try? They're literally wasting space on their DVDs and other media on useless copy protection that just doesn't matter. When ARccOS came out, it was the worst thing to happen to DVDs, now it's just a standard thing that I can decrypt in 2 clicks.
And hey, Sony's rootkit isn't exactly ethical, now, is it?

And here's a prime example of DRM hurting a legitimate customer. I bought the HD-DVD of Transformers and I just can't play it right using HDMI cables. It's not a backup, I'm not plugging it in some pirate box... it's just DRM that went wrong and doesn't let me watch the movie I paid for. And the only solution is to use lower quality component cables that don't have DRM.

[pap64]

OK, now that I left my angsty, cynical act aside let's get serious for a minute...

The real question should be, is piracy truly destroying the industries?

Videogames are selling at record numbers. Movie studios tout high opening numbers. Artists see success through both sales of records and downloadable songs. The Toy Industry seems to be doing fine.

So if these assets are being destroyed by piracy why are they seeing success? Maybe piracy is really a niche concept in some places?

Of course, piracy does steal from their profit, but it has yet to be critical (unless I am mistaken).

In my case, I only download something if its incredibly rare or hard to find in real life.

[DarthPrime]

The real question should be, is piracy truly destroying the industries?

Although some sales might be lost, overall no its not destroying the industries. The people that are pirating this stuff would not buy it anyway.

People getting sued for movie and music downloads seem to be pretty random too. I've heard of a person downloading 1 movie and then getting a warning from their ISP. Then there are people that constantly leave torrents running and have never gotten a letter.

The only thing I've noticed lately that has slowed down is the casual coping of Microsoft Windows and Office. Before WGA/Activation in XP and Office 2003 it wasn't uncommon for someone to buy 1 copy of Windows/Office and install it on all their machines. Sometimes they loaned it out to their friends as well. I saw this all the time in the Windows 98 days, at high school/college. Now with WGA/Activation the pirates have still found a way around it, but people that casually copied it have slowed down and buy more than one copy if they need it.

I remember a few years ago some CDs came with some copy protection that basically installed a form of Spyware on your computer. This went one step too far in my opinion. I didn't buy any of those CDs because of that. However pirates quickly found a way around it.

[pap64]

The other question should be; if its confirmed that companies are losing billions of sales due to piracy and its forcing them to close down would YOU and ANYONE stop illegally downloading movies, songs, games etc.?

Its common knowledge that if you download something its because you have interest and even love towards the product. If its confirmed that it is truly destroying something then why continue acquiring it through illegal means?

[TM2-Megatron]

I hate downloading things, personally. The quality is usually questionable, and as far as movies goes, I prefer having the bonus features, etc. I will copy the occassional DVD from the library... I've stopped buying DVD in favour of Blu-Ray now, anyway. I don't feel guilty for doing it... any money the studio made off the library purchasing the DVD is long gone, anyway... and I never distribute the movies I copy (I don't even lend them to people, as they would be easy to copy if someone get their hands on them, already being stripped of protection and compressed down to single-layer DVDs).

I do rip the Blu-Rays I buy, though, in order to create regular DVDs we can play on the non-HDTVs in the house that don't have Blu-Ray players. Ironically, the image quality on these are as good as the commercial DVD for the same movie. I suppose studios aren't putting as much time and effort into quality DVD transfers anymore these days, instead focusing their efforts on Blu-Ray.

[drfsupercenter]

Well, piracy will never go away. You can stop one person, you can even stop a handful of them. But any studio who thinks they can prevent everybody from pirating their content is just naïve.

And I think the big companies should embrace piracy, rather than trying to make it harder and harder to copy. Warner Bros. made some elaborate anti-piracy measures for The Dark Knight... and pirated copies were up within 36 hours. So THEY'RE the ones wasting TONS of money on this anti-piracy that just doesn't work.

Studios just need a scapegoat, so they blame the pirates. Like DarthPrime said, most of the people pirating stuff wouldn't be buying it anyway. I don't mind downloading a song or two because really, what's the likelihood that *my* purchase will make any difference whatsoever? I don't pirate movies that are currently in theaters, though, because I actually like the theater experience and I'm willing to pay some $10 to see it. (And that's if I sneak popcorn in from home)

And yes, the industry is still doing well... like I've said in earlier posts, Sony has admitted making a lot of money from these so-called pirates. People buy PSP systems and then hack them to get free games. (Several of my friends have done it) They're still making money from all those systems sold, and I know none of those friends would have bought a PSP if they knew they'd be stuck paying $60 a game... that's just outrageous.
Same goes for the Nintendo DS and the flash carts. Nintendo didn't even used to care until recently, when they finally started getting back at Wii users by making Wii updates that do nothing BUT cripple homebrew (I know this because I'm an avid Homebrew Channel user so I have to watch out)

As far as activation goes... I refuse to use anything newer than Office 2000, because the new ones don't do anything the old ones didn't, and they just eat more space and CPU. (Hey, what's the point of .docx? I can open it in Word 2000 with a special patch and save it as .doc, am I bothered?) I'm using XP Pro, but that's a necessary evil. Usually I try to stay away from any "phone home" types of registration or any DRM at all.

--EDIT--

TM2-Megatron, you posted before I got a chance!

I also don't download rips for that reason... I hate the quality and I like extras. And the fact that I can get 99% of DVDs from the library, what reason do I have?
And it seems some studios are actually making WORSE DVD transfers in order to promote the Blu-Ray... I'm actually interested in getting a Blu-Ray of The Dark Knight once I have a way to rip them, and making my own 480p DVD to prove that the crappy one WB did put out was intentionally bad quality.

[Mollyzkoubou]

The tougher it is to crack copy protection, the more likely it is to be cracked, because someone will take it as a CHALLENGE to crack it. This was the case ever since floppy disks on the Apple ][ and Commodore 64 could be copy-protected through all sorts of weird and crazy schemes, I don't think there was a copy protection scheme on those computers that wasn't broken.

[Elladorine]

As an artist, I feel my fellow artists and myself have two schools of thought on the whole media sharing issue. There are those who believe art belongs to the artist (or the commissioner?), and those who believe art belongs to the people. Though, maybe it's only "the people" who believe art belongs to the people, I'm not sure about that one. So, maybe everything should be public domain, as we can still know that the source is the place we will get the best quality of an item most likely. Or maybe not. Then again, I'm sure few artists agree with that, and maybe they're right, as it's hard enough for an artist to make money without having to compete with everyone else for his or her own product. I'm not even sure where I stand on this, except that currently (and I think this is usually the case) I don't mind at all to see my work passed around, as I just want it to be "out there". If I ever get famous though, I suppose I'll complain anything I see my work and I don't get paid for it. Is that selling out? If so, I think most creative people sell out... But, again, we have to eat... It's a real quizzybuck.

I'd say a lot of it depends on what it is you're trying to do with your art.

I've worked with at least two artists trying to make a living off of their pay-sites, and "art theft" is a enough of a problem for them that it threatens the very existence of their sites and any future content. If they don't actively look for ways to protect their work or seek out those that illegally post their content, they'd have no business. It's really annoying to see that certain fans actually feel entitled to freebies and try to pass off stealing as "free advertising."

And as for myself, some of my work has ended up on paysites and I don't see a nickel for it. Is it really fair for others to be making money off of art I've passed out for free? Do the owners of said sites actually bother to listen when I ask them to take my art down? And how about work I actually have been paid for, does that or should that make any difference?

Heh, what's even worse is when people take my art and claim it as their own, either by changing the signature or altogether editing my work to their liking without permission. I suppose that's another story altogether though.

[TM2-Megatron]

If it has a copy guard on it and you have to use some form of download to bypass the copyguard to make a copy of the product, then you are breaking the law. Or don't you read the FBI warning that is on every DVD or CD you purchase.

As far as the DMCA (which is what sets down the law you're talking about there) goes, let me say that I'm among the (massive) group of people who consider the thing draconian, and completely unrealistic. Thankfully I live in Canada, and I'm not subject to that kind ridiculous law (although our current government certainly seems to want to try implementing something similar).

Audio CDs contain a form of copy protection, as well... yet pretty much every iPod and similar device comes with software that allows you to rip your CD collection so you can listen to it on the go. By your definition, this is wrong. But if so, why does as large a company as Apple have a freely available application that can do it?

And now, portable video devices are becoming common. Where is the real difference between ripping your purchased CDs to listen to, and ripping a purchased movie to watch on the go?

The laws that the Conservative Party in Canada is trying to get through right now state that while someone is allowed to create a backup copy of purchased media like DVDs, it's illegal for them to bypass said media's protection in order to do so... so how does that work? An issue like this, which generates laws that so blatantly contradict themselves, needs to be fully re-examined; because something in those laws clearly isn't right.

As far as activation goes... I refuse to use anything newer than Office 2000, because the new ones don't do anything the old ones didn't, and they just eat more space and CPU. (Hey, what's the point of .docx? I can open it in Word 2000 with a special patch and save it as .doc, am I bothered?) I'm using XP Pro, but that's a necessary evil. Usually I try to stay away from any "phone home" types of registration or any DRM at all.

I feel the same way about activation, but I long ago grew to accept this as a inescapable reality of 21st-century software. If I refused to use products with activation, I'd be robbing myself of some very good software. And I never rip-off software I think is worth owning, anyway. I purchased Office 2007 Enterprise Edition, Vista Ultimate, Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Master Collection, Sony Vegas Pro 8 and Sound Forge 9, and Cakewalk Sonar Producer Edition... all at considerable student discounts, and the software is legitimate and eligible for retail upgrade pricing as new versions are released. Every one of those pieces of software use activation in some way, but I wouldn't be able to make do without them, or only using older versions of each that were released prior to activation technology. I also own TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress (an excellent piece of software to convert video... I use it for my ripped Blu-Ray footage), and that also uses a type of activation; but the software is excellent, and I've never had any problem with the activation system (I've reformatted by computer several times, and never a hiccup or denial from it).

Also, the few times my activation has failed with a product (from reformatting, etc.), a short phone call (or IM session in the case of my Sony Creative Software products) rectifies the situation.

Finally, I will give Adobe credit for including a "Deactivation" feature in their software. This allows you to cancel your activation before uninstalling software, or reformatting your hard drive; totally eliminating the chance of your online activation being denied as a result of reaching some kind of activation limit.

--EDIT--

TM2-Megatron, you posted before I got a chance!

I also don't download rips for that reason... I hate the quality and I like extras. And the fact that I can get 99% of DVDs from the library, what reason do I have?
And it seems some studios are actually making WORSE DVD transfers in order to promote the Blu-Ray... I'm actually interested in getting a Blu-Ray of The Dark Knight once I have a way to rip them, and making my own 480p DVD to prove that the crappy one WB did put out was intentionally bad quality.

lol, sorry about that

It was most evident with WALL-E for me, so far. Converted from my Blu-Ray to DVD with progressive playback, this movie looked incredible played through an upconverting player to a 46" 1080p LCD TV. I haven't seen the DVD version, but I can't imagine it look any better. The same was true of the fan video I made for WALL-E at 1080p from ripped Blu-Ray footage (on Youtube in their 720p quality). IMO. the H.264 codec holds up remarkably well to re-encoding to other formats (or back to H.264 at a lower bitrate)... a massive improvement on MPEG-2. That bodes extremely well for the possibility of shrinking dual-layer Blu-ray discs down for burning onto a single-layer. SlySoft is currently working on a DVDShrink-like application to do just that for Blu-Ray (and possible HD-DVD, as well, for the stragglers).

If you want software to rip Blu-Ray, give AnyDVD HD a shot. It's the best piece of sofware I've ever bought... and the only one that's capable of removing the BD+ protection from those Blu-Rays that employ it.

[drfsupercenter]

I purchased Office 2007 Enterprise Edition, Vista Ultimate, Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Master Collection, Sony Vegas Pro 8 and Sound Forge 9, and Cakewalk Sonar Producer Edition

Well... I personally can't stand Office 2007... I also hate Vista... as far as Adobe goes, most of their products are bloatware. I have the old Cool Edit Pro (no, I wasn't around back when it could be legally purchased... but it's technically abandonware now...), it's the same as Adobe Audition but it doesn't consume 75% of your CPU like Audition does.

As for AnyDVD... I have AnyDVD and also DVDFab Platinum for making my own Digital Copies. The issue is, I don't have a Blu-Ray drive. I have an HD-DVD drive (the Xbox 360 one also works with the computer ), and I've decrypted some of those... but Blu-Ray drives are still pretty expensive... and I need one that's IDE, that makes it even harder to get a good deal.

[TM2-Megatron]

Well... I personally can't stand Office 2007... I also hate Vista... as far as Adobe goes, most of their products are bloatware. I have the old Cool Edit Pro (no, I wasn't around back when it could be legally purchased... but it's technically abandonware now...), it's the same as Adobe Audition but it doesn't consume 75% of your CPU like Audition does.

Office 2007 takes some getting used to, I'll grant you that. Vista seems to be either a "love it or hate it" situation... the fact is, though, that it is an improvement on XP; just not enough of one to justify the high retail price you pay for it (I only paid around $60 CDN for the full versoin of Ultimate, though, so that never bothered me too much). The only annoying aspect of it I've found was the User Account Control warnings, but that's easily disabled. There's no getting around that it works better and is more stable than XP, though; some people just like piling on the hate for it.

Adobe's software does take a lot of resources, but most of it is also pretty capable software. I don't actually have Audition, as they took that out of the CS bundles... the Sony Sound Forge 9 application I mentioned is an equivalent program. Anyway, I've got 8GB of RAM and 4TB of hard drive space; I've never really noticed a big drain from Adobe apps. Nero 9, though, from what I've heard would tax even my system, lol I'm still on version 7 of that, with no interest in upgrading.

As for AnyDVD... I have AnyDVD and also DVDFab Platinum for making my own Digital Copies. The issue is, I don't have a Blu-Ray drive. I have an HD-DVD drive (the Xbox 360 one also works with the computer ), and I've decrypted some of those... but Blu-Ray drives are still pretty expensive... and I need one that's IDE, that makes it even harder to get a good deal.

Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever seen an IDE BD drive... have you considered getting a SATA PCI controller? You can get a BD-ROM drive now for around $100, probably.

[drfsupercenter]

Really, Vista doesn't do anything that XP doesn't except look cool... and it needs a TON more resources to just work correctly. I have 768MB RAM and 2GHz processor... Vista wouldn't even install for me if I tried.

I have no room for a SATA controller, as I already have an IDE controller for my several hard drives. I've actually seen IDE Blu-Ray drives, but they're well over $150. I'll just wait until the price comes down, or something.

Adobe's software does take a lot of resources, but most of it is also pretty capable software. I don't actually have Audition, as they took that out of the CS bundles...

I never bought any bundles to begin with... I have Photoshop CS2 (I won't say where I got it ( ) but that's the only one I use. People also seem to like Adobe Premiere... but I'm addicted to Ulead Video Studio myself. It only costs $100 (it's actually like $80 on third-party sites) and it can do more than Windows Movie Maker, but still pretty close to what Premiere can do.

And for Nero, I'm happy with Nero 6... LOL. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... and it burns just fine. What does 7 do that 6 doesn't? Um, nothing? Though it does have a 5.1 wave editor... which is kinda useless with Audacity being free anyway.

[TM2-Megatron]

Really, Vista doesn't do anything that XP doesn't except look cool... and it needs a TON more resources to just work correctly. I have 768MB RAM and 2GHz processor... Vista wouldn't even install for me if I tried.

It wouldn't run on that, no... I think it needs 1GB of RAM, at least. It does do more than XP, under the hood, but admittedly it isn't as stark a contrast as XP was compared to it's immediate consumer-level predecessor (the disaster otherwise known as Windows Me ).

People also seem to like Adobe Premiere... but I'm addicted to Ulead Video Studio myself. It only costs $100 (it's actually like $80 on third-party sites) and it can do more than Windows Movie Maker, but still pretty close to what Premiere can do.

Premiere Pro has advanced features that Ulead wouldn't, although the catch is that the average user would never need, or even know where to access them within Premiere. It does come with Encore CS3, though, which is an excellent DVD & Blu-ray authoring program. I do most of my editing in Sony Vegas Pro 8, which has pretty much all of Premiere's features, takes almost no resources, and has the most intuitive UI of any NLE I've ever used. I still do my authoring in Encore, though... it accepts MPEG-2 *.m2v files I generate out of either Vegas or TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress, and H.264 *.mp4 files from TMPGEnc without ever wanting to re-encode.

And for Nero, I'm happy with Nero 6... LOL. If it ain't broke, don't fix it... and it burns just fine. What does 7 do that 6 doesn't? Um, nothing? Though it does have a 5.1 wave editor... which is kinda useless with Audacity being free anyway.

I bought Nero 6 a couple weeks before 7 was released, so I was able to get a free upgrade to 7. Honestly? I don't think it does any more, but I like the way 7's Smart Start centre looks, lol. I do most of my burning with ImgBurn, anyway.

[drfsupercenter]

I do most of my DVD authoring by hand... I convert using either DivX2DVD (for low-quality source material) or TMPGEnc, then author using various programs and PgcEdit.

I also bought Nero 6 right before Nero 7 came out (it was downloadable-only at that point)... and I have a spare Nero 7 serial sitting around. I really don't care about it because I like Nero 6's look better, but the only reason I paid for it at all was to get two for the price of one.

[DarthPrime]

Vista only shines when you have a lot of system resources... I will admit that. However if you have them Vista is arguably better, and Windows 7 is shaping up to be better than Vista and XP.

As cheap as RAM is right now I don't see the problem upgrading. XP ran great with 512MB to 1GB, while Vista takes 2GB or better to run well. I think when it all comes down Windows 7 will be similar, but things seem to be tweaked and 7 seems faster right now. They are also planning a netbook edition of 7 that will be lighter on resources for the new netbooks that still ship with XP Home. They tend to ship with small drives and 1GB of memory. Also XP will be supported until 2014, which I think is great for people that need to run it.

My personal rule on RAM is take whatever the operating system requires to run and double it. If your gaming, go even higher. Although some games like GTA4 on the PC you might be better off just getting a cheap 360 Arcade. That game is impossible to run at a decent frame rate, even on top end hardware.

Vista is also great if you have a 64 bit CPU and 4GB + RAM. XP 64 bit was never really supported that well, so Vista is really your only "good" option for these systems if you want Windows, in my opinion.

Would I recommend upgrading to Vista right now, with 7 coming out possibly at the end of 2009? I wouldn't at all. I will say that Vista gets too much hate. It has had big problems, but SP1 has fixed a lot of stuff. If your computer has the drivers and resources for it, it is a nice operating system. XP and 2000 have been around for awhile, and a lot of people have forgotten that neither one had a great start. Vista did start out worse than XP and 2000, but its not going to have the time to mature like XP and 2000 did. I remember upgrading to XP, and going back to 2000 because of problems at first. When drivers got more mature, and SP1 became available XP was clearly ahead.

I stopped using Office a few years ago when I started messing around with Linux. Although I still can't replace Windows as my main operating system yet, I have replaced several applications with open sourced software. For my purposes OpenOffice and the Gimp work just as well as the expensive Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

Nero 6 is great. I still use it on my Windows 2000 machine, but it doesn't run good in Vista. I have never used 7... Lately I've been using ImgBurn on my Vista machine, and I might replace Nero with it on my 2000 box. Great software that's also free. CDBurnerXP has also impressed me lately.

Windows ME? For anyone that thinks Vista is bad, they should check out that version of Windows. No wonder it was only on the market for about a year. Its terrible...

[drfsupercenter]

As cheap as RAM is right now I don't see the problem upgrading.

The problem is that my computer is from 2003 and the motherboard only supports 1GB max. That's 512MB per RAM stick, and I have a 512 and 256 in.

I should look into Windows 7 though... maybe once I'm in college and I have a new desktop with more computing power.

Nero 6 is great. I still use it on my Windows 2000 machine, but it doesn't run good in Vista. I have never used 7... Lately I've been using ImgBurn on my Vista machine, and I might replace Nero with it on my 2000 box. Great software that's also free. CDBurnerXP has also impressed me lately.

Ah, Vista and its compatibility issues, tisk tisk. But seriously, LOL...
And ImgBurn, I love that program. I forgot to mention I use ImgBurn to burn anything DVD-video related... Nero I just use for audio CDs and data.

[TM2-Megatron]

Ah, Vista and its compatibility issues, tisk tisk. But seriously, LOL...

lol, it's unrealistic to expect every new OS to run 100% of all the dated software floating around out there. Nero 7 works perfectly on Vista x64, though.

[drfsupercenter]

But XP runs 100% of what I need it to... and if you have old DOS-type programs, there's stuff like DOSBox, etc.

And heck... Halo 2 was Vista-exclusive, but it was hacked to work for XP. What does that say about Vista and being such an "improvement" over XP?

[TM2-Megatron]

But XP runs 100% of what I need it to... and if you have old DOS-type programs, there's stuff like DOSBox, etc.

Which is why I've kept my old Pentium up and running all these years, with Windows 98 SE (the last good consumer OS prior to XP Home, IMO; though I never used Home, myself). All my DOS games (of which I have many, being a child of the 80s) run perfectly on it.

And heck... Halo 2 was Vista-exclusive, but it was hacked to work for XP. What does that say about Vista and being such an "improvement" over XP?

Nobody's defending stupid marketing ploys by MS to try and sell more copies of Vista, lol... which is clearly what that was. Anyway, I imagine most Halo players do so on an XBox.

[DarthPrime]

DOSBox also works with Vista.

Anyway Windows XP is the best OS as far as compatibility right now, but that's because its been around since 2001. Vista was released in 2006, and 7 will be out in 2009/2010. I wouldn't expect a new OS to be fully compatible with all applications. XP wasn't compatible with all the older 95/98 programs.

There will eventually come a time when new things will not work on XP, and I think its coming soon. If 7 has a good launch Microsoft will stop upgrading things on XP. Like 2000, newer versions of IE, Media Player, etc... will only be for the newer versions of Windows.

Just because a game was hacked to work on XP doesn't make Vista bad. I'm sure if Microsoft wanted to Windows 2000 could run the same game. Windows 2000 is NT 5, and XP is NT 5.1. They are very similar. Microsoft has just chosen to not support 2000 anymore and only provide critical updates (which end in July 2010).

XP will be supported with critical updates though 2014, but its mainstream support will be ending soon. This is also the last year you can buy XP, but copies will be around for awhile.

I am glad that XP is going to be supported for awhile. There are a ton of XP machines on the market that can not easily run Vista (and probably not 7), so keeping XP up to date for them is key for Microsoft. They don't want everyone to run off to another OS, if Windows is no longer available.