Online Stealin

With POPA and PIPA and ACTA and what not going down, this seems a good time to discuss what do you steal online?

How do you justify it... if you bother to justify it at all?

In general I think getting something for free over the net that you could have paid for fairly is a bad thing. But then again it's so easy!

Obviously a fan-edit enthusiast has certain views on the legal grey-areas of the download. I own a legal copy of every fan-edit I have, including a copy of stinkin AOTC that I had to go and buy just to have the "Attack of the Phantom."

I've stolen a few movies off line that were not otherwise available, the "Lensman" anime and the film "Over the Rainbow" are a couple.

Otherwise the only movie I straight up bootlegged when I could have paid for it was "X-Men Origins Wolverine" which came out the weekend my son was born, and dammit I was stressed and wanted to see it!

I download a lot of music, but most of it I delete after a couple listens. The stuff that I keep on my iPod I own legally, and if I really like something I do buy it (not often, most music bores me). This doesn't make it legal of course.

If I miss a TV show sometimes I'll torrent it, but only if it's not available for streaming on the channel's website (a lot are these days).

I also download computer games. I'm an enthusiast of old adventure games, and most of the ones I play fall into the legal greyzone of "abandomware". I'm not a stickler on that, and I'm sure of the ones I download are still for sale somewhere if I bothered to or wanted to look.

I'm not claiming to be paragon of online virture obviously.

What are your views and experiences in the online world of 'piracy' and what not?

I have stolen your hearts but you just don't know it yet.

I've been known to rob my Ringo sock to pay my Paul sock (a Peter Sock sounds kind of kinky in a bad way).

Rhymin' and Stealin'

Computers can't steal, they can infringe on copyrights.

H.A.L.9000 communicates :

My instructor was Mr Langley and he taught me to sing a song, if you would like to hear it I can sing it for you?

Harry Dacre interjects :

You try it and I'll sue your electronic ass buddy!

Mike O said:

I don't. The only exception I could make is if it was something out of print or unavailable (ie, not subtitled in English). I understand that there's lots of shady stuff that goes on with how customers are gouged, but I don't think that gives me the right to steal anything.

This is how I feel.  I've even gone back and purchased the originals once the CD's were re-issued.

I download mostly music and comic book files, with novels and short stories being the peripheral material; I don't download movies because my computer doesn't have much memory and is incapable of burning DVDs.

And I would definately rather buy all this stuff than download it, but lack of money/availability makes that terribly impractible for me.

TheBoost said:

With POPA and PIPA and ACTA and what not going down, this seems a good time to discuss what do you steal online?  How do you justify it... if you bother to justify it at all?

I download HDTV broadcasts and preservations (usually laserdisc ones) of films and TV shows that are not currently commercially available.  Only very rarely do I download commercial Blu-rays, HD DVDs and DVDs.

My reasons for downloading preservations probably don't need much explanation.  I don't want things that I like to become lost, I want to be able to watch them, and as soon as they became commercially available again I buy them.

I download HD broadcasts that have what I judge to be superior transfers/masters/encodings/whatever to commercial releases.  Obviously this is done out of a desire to see films in the highest available quality; but the fact that there exists an alternative way of acquiring films that studios have DNRed, badly color timed or otherwise marred also affords a certain degree of satisfaction.  It would be nice to believe that all films with poor releases will eventually be done justice by the industry, but this is hard to believe, and I think that the films themselves are more important than copyright.

Moreover, downloading broadcasts that anyone with the right equipment can access doesn't feel the same as downloading rips of commerical releases.  If it's not legal to own copies of broadcasts why is it legal to sell set-top boxes that burn copies to disc?  I suspect that many people who think that downloading broadcasts is wrong have done this and lent copies to friends, in which case the difference is simply the extent of distribution.

I only borrowed inspiration from this thread.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I download mostly music and comic book files, with novels and short stories being the peripheral material; I don't download movies because my computer doesn't have much memory and is incapable of burning DVDs.

And I would definately rather buy all this stuff than download it, but lack of money/availability makes that terribly impractible for me.

Worst justification ever.

You need to get out more.