Murdoch: illegal downloading is like stealing a handbag

Horse Towel? thats new. even if you aren't caught you still have stolen, you just haven't been penalized....

Hi guys
Widening the question a bit.

What's your take on say buying a DVD but then finding that it will only work on specific hardware in a particular country - and then being offered an "alternative" that will work on your laptop WHEREVER you are.

Same with music -- PAY for songs but when they have DRM in them what are you going to do -- get versions that DON'T have DRM or play restrictions on them.

What about lending CD's / DVD's to colleagues who *might* copy them or what about copying for your OWN use TV / Radio programs -- technically illegal but SO STUPID that it brings the entire law into disrespect.

I'll bet that NONE of the posters who are complaining the most about Piracy can honestly ever say that they've NEVER borrowed a tape, book, CD, DVD etc from someone else or have NEVER made a TV or Radio program recording. They've also broke the law (albeit a totally stupid and rediculous one at that).

If products didn't have so many restrictions on them and movies etc were released at THE SAME time a lot of piracy would disappear -- these days with FAST broadband you'd have to have an I.Q of about 3 to realize that if you only release a movie in one country it will be seconds before its copied and "available " in another.

Whatever the "Morality" of the argument most if not ALL the problems have been generated by Hollywood / Sony etc themselves. They had LOADS of warnings about how the newer digital methods rendered the old delivery systems useless -- but did they take any notice -- not until it was FAR TOO LATE.

You've got about as much chance now of stopping this stuff as making Water flow uphill whatever the "Moral Issues" are. You aren't going to fix it via technical solutions either -- it doesn't matter what encryption methods are used it doesn't take long before someone had broken them.

The whole business model needs to be looked at -- whether it's Education, Soceity in general or Corporate practices -- and some of these can be really greedy and "anti-soceity" too.

I DON'T know what the end answer should be - but attempting to log people's Internet usage / emails etc etc will NEVER work, and slinging a few youngsters in jail won't do the trick either.


Cheers
jimbo

I plead the 5th lol

but it is not a stupid law it is there to protect copyrights and keep people from pirating. I do think it is enforced incorrectly and that people who are charged $5million in court are being made an example. If you speed in your car you get a ticket for ~$100...you dont get fined 100,000,000 for the wrecks you could have caused by speeding because you happened to be next to 10-15 cars.

The use of Zones is to keep people from buying pirated stuff in say China and then bringing them back to the US or EU. I dont agree with the zone usage. if you make a product, you offer it to the world at a price. Dont sell it in the US for $50 and then China for $15, just sell it everywhere for $25 right?

illegal downloading is like stealing a handbag from someone who has many identical handbags.

it would only be like stealing a handbag if the original was deleted from where it was downloaded and the person who owned it had to call 5 different numbers to cancel all their cards.

Steal: to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force.

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Steal | Define Steal at Dictionary.com

I agree with the terminology of Stealing, I just dont think the analogy of a handbag is fitting

Thorsen said:

I agree with the terminology of Stealing, I just dont think the analogy of a handbag is fitting

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My thoughts exactly.

Illegal downloading (the digital revolution) has forced a change in the market place. It is up to people like Murdoch and the film and music industry to find ways to win customers back. Murdoch simplistic analogy is not a way of doing that. Murdoch still lives in the past and brings no solution.

YouTube - LOL! LIMEWIRE!

RST101 said:

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lmao That was good

what about people not having job nor money?they should not listen nor watch nothing new?you people leave in apathy.
when all people in all around the globe have jobs and proper life then piracy will end even so all other kinds of criminal.so that will be....like.....never? yea thanks
I have job luckily and money luckily and I'm buying but I'm speaking in front of mass people.

Can we all agree to disagree on each others thoughts?

What I think people should do instead of complain is do something about it. The companies are doing something about it but I never see the people do something about it. Like a previous poster said, speak with your wallet and not buy those products. When will the people march and protest about high dvd prices or high video game prices or whatever they steal, just like these political issues like dam health-care issue for USA I see people complaining about but then just go about there day doing nothing about it?
Probably never, they will just keep complaining about it and or pirate. Then they will claim the price is high and claim pirating is a way to stick it to the company but never try to fix it. Both ways that the company and people are taking are broken ways to me, but at least the company is trying to block it.

I feel though if a company took the time to create a product and they price it the way they want they should be entitled to it.

When there is a will there is a way and it applies to both sides. I work for the things I need or want. I skip things for the item I want even if I have to use raggedy shoes or less food etc. People now a days just want everything to just be there it is annoying. Instead of playing a pirated video game for hours you could go out and work or if no work, do something productive. Running feels so good but takes effort, but once you get past it that effort feels even better. People are just used to being fed now and instant gratification and instead of working for it. Probably why so many countries talk so bad about USA and its obesity even though it is not a USA issue but worldwide.

Product FRED said:

I'd have to say the best and least-intrusive DRM format I've encountered ever is Steam. It doesn't look like DRM and doesn't act like DRM. It let's you back up and restore your games, even if you bought a digital download. Plus, you can also re-download everything to as many computers as you want. And it works offline too incase you want to have a LAN game with one copy of the game on multiple computers. If everyone trusted and treated
their customers like Valve does, the world would be a better place.

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You're being a bit ambiguous there. Steam isn't just for Valve games anymore. Sure Valve games don't have any such DRM with limited installs etc and it's great not having to worry about it, but now Steam is just a digital distribution platform, any game that a developer puts on there that has DRM, will have DRM on Steam. Like Battlefield Bad Company 2 has it's DRM on the Steam version and you can only install it 5 times (though it still does allow you to unauthorise an install and get that "install" back).

Though unfortunatley, Valve games are still pirated just as much as the next game, so Steam isn't the holy answer to all DRM problems.

If they really want to stop piracy, instead of implementing more and more DRM, why not cut off the source of the problem?

Most software (or large majority of it) is pirated through torrent sites.

So you can shut these down. But, for some reason they can't seem to shut them down, I guess becauss technically they host no files.

Or you could try to stop it at a local level.

Couldnt be that hard for a internet provider to figure out whos running a bit torrent client 24/7 and report it.

Sure, theres some legal use of torrents, but it shouldn't be to difficult to figure out.

Maybe thats overboard, but seems the most simple way.

Wishmaster said:

If they really want to stop piracy, instead of implementing more and more DRM, why not cut off the source of the problem?

Most software (or large majority of it) is pirated through torrent sites.

So you can shut these down. But, for some reason they can't seem to shut them down, I guess becauss technically they host no files.

Or you could try to stop it at a local level.

Couldnt be that hard for a internet provider to figure out whos running a bit torrent client 24/7 and report it.

Sure, theres some legal use of torrents, but it shouldn't be to difficult to figure out.

Maybe thats overboard, but seems the most simple way.

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Who even uses torrents anymore? Direct Download is far superior.

Just to give some background here before I comment, I used to own a music store and have numerous friends in the music industry. That being said, the music industry as a whole shot themselves in the foot in the early 90s. I had my music store at the time, and was selling the heck out of vinyl and cassettes. Along came the CD with its digital technology. I tried to tell the distributors and labels that it was the beginning of the end, and no one believed me. I went from a thriving store to being out of business within a year after I put my first CD on the shelf. The prices on them were too high, and people stopped buying from me. Then along comes Napster and the game was on. Just try to find a "music store" today, and see how much luck you have. The mall near me had 4 at one point, and now there are none. I used to sell new release albums on their release date for $7.99. The cool thing was, you not only got a nice vinyl record that you could record and put away, but you got some amazing album art in a big 12"x12" format. I miss those days.

Digital has ruined the cell phone industry also. I remember the good ol' days when I could talk to someone, and when their signal would start to degrade, I could pick out the words through the static. Now, when someone's signal starts to drop, you find yourself trying to carry on a conversation with Goatboy from SNL.

I don't agree that pirating is taking money away from software developers. If I can't afford several hundred bucks for MS Office, I just download Open Office. Instead of Photoshop, it's Gimp. If they lowered their prices to become competitive, they would actually increase revenue. In the case of the music industry, piracy mainly takes money from the suits. The artists get very little compared to management, PR, production, label, etc.

Frostmourne said:

Wishmaster said:

If they really want to stop piracy, instead of implementing more and more DRM, why not cut off the source of the problem?

Most software (or large majority of it) is pirated through torrent sites.

So you can shut these down. But, for some reason they can't seem to shut them down, I guess becauss technically they host no files.

Or you could try to stop it at a local level.

Couldnt be that hard for a internet provider to figure out whos running a bit torrent client 24/7 and report it.

Sure, theres some legal use of torrents, but it shouldn't be to difficult to figure out.

Maybe thats overboard, but seems the most simple way.

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Who even uses torrents anymore? Direct Download is far superior.

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Both have their advantages/disadvantages really. There really isn't enough legal scenarios where it's used to fully benefit from it really. Like if you put a file on a server, as more and more people connect to that server, the speeds get slower and slower.

Throw that same file in to a Torrent network, and the more and more people who download/upload, the faster and faster speeds generally get.

Look who's talking. They probably would not object if we downloaded their commercials - or what do they call charging $50 for the priviledge to watch commercials all day long.

There is one thing I'd like to ask everybody here concerning piracy.

I know you would say it is wrong to download something and you should just buy it, but what about stuff that can't be legally bought?

IE: there are lots of old TV series that never were released on VHS or DVD (which can suck)

So anybody like to share there opinion on that matter?