ZOMBIE FORUMS

It's a stinking, shambling corpse grotesquely parodying life.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:34 am

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]




Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 17 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: Morality of pirating music
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:37 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:31 am
Posts: 1587
Location: Bay Area
Obviously it's illegal, so that doesn't need to be discussed.

However, I have to wonder if it is immoral - before I downloaded my first MP3, I'd never bought a CD/8-track/whatever. I still haven't. I am not, and wasn't before I started downloading music, a source of income for the music industry. They're not losing any profit via me downloading music. Is it immoral?

I'd be especially interested to see what Kirima's theory of natural law has to say about this.

_________________
<img src="http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f340/Tossrock/sigreducedjx2-1.jpg">


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 5:38 am 
Offline
PostWhorePornStar
User avatar

Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 10551
Location: Bris-Vegas Australia
I've only ever bought three cds in my life.
Now those three CDs were bought after Napster was first introduced.
The truth is that I didn't listen to or pay for music before piracy over the internet was introduced and when it got to annoying to get music I just stopped downloading them.
I don't pirate music because I want or need music, I have 400 hours of music, I don't need more, I just did it because I didn't mind having music in the background. A radio would do the same thing.

Music piracy is responsible for a lot of the interent being so damn fast nowdays as getting music became the reason to upgrade to broadband and that available speed has lead to advances in other areas.

Actor.

_________________
"Why can't we go back to living like cavemen? I know it was a rough and ready existence - the men where always rough and the women were always ready! " - Santa.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Morality of pirating music
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:21 am 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:09 pm
Posts: 555
Location: Ziapangu
Tossrock wrote:
Obviously it's illegal, so that doesn't need to be discussed.

However, I have to wonder if it is immoral - before I downloaded my first MP3, I'd never bought a CD/8-track/whatever. I still haven't. I am not, and wasn't before I started downloading music, a source of income for the music industry. They're not losing any profit via me downloading music. Is it immoral?

I'd be especially interested to see what Kirima's theory of natural law has to say about this.


First off, good distinction between illegal and immoral, since the two are not necessarily the same.

However, in this case (unauthorized downloading of copyrighted content for the purpose of continued enjoyment with no intention to compensate the rights holders), I would have to say that it is a form of encroachment (violation of property rights), which I am afraid does raise morality issues.

Generally speaking, music is a copyrighted "product" that is produced and distributed for profit just like video, books, software and so on, and the owner/rights holder has the right to determine and/or restrict the manner in which it is distributed. The lack of intent to purchase (= no loss of profit argument) is just one of many rationalizations and is also irrelevant -- it is still a violation of property rights.

The only ways that I can see illegal downloading not being immoral are as "try before you buy" (i.e. a "trial period" not unlike a money-back guarantee), or to obtain an early release of something you fully intend to buy anyway.

Example 1:
Before I spend what to me is a significant amount of money on music, videos, software, etc., I generally look for a free copy to try out first. (Note: I always use a free copy to avoid rewarding bootleg pirates.) If it meets my standards and I want to keep it or pass it on to a friend, then I buy an official copy. If not, then I delete it and the bastards that wasted my time don't get a red cent. I do this because I have been burned too many times by paying good money for something and then finding out partway through that it was complete crap. (Cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me.)

Example 2:
There are a couple of manga that I follow that are released in weekly/monthly manga magazines. However, I am not interested in the other 10-12 manga serialized in these magazines, and I also do not want to wait the 2-3 months for the individual manga volumes to come out. So I download scans of just those manga pages, and then buy the individual volumes when they come out, thus rewarding the author for creating a good work.

Now, one reason that I stick to this policy is that my work is freelance (creating a product for a fee) and I use a money-back guarantee policy myself, which IMO is an honorable way to conduct business. If a client does not like my work and does not want to pay, fine. I would not feel right accepting money for an unsatisfactory job anyway (although it may affect whether I accept work from that client again in the future). However, if I later found out that they had gone ahead and used my work anyway, I would have a problem with that, and they would also have serious legal problems.

_________________
Democracy is not liberty. It is majority rule, which is mob rule. We live in a Mobocracy.

"Political power is the game of playing God. It changes a person and makes him different from the rest of us. He begins to believe he has some kind of right to interfere in the lives of others. He may even believe he has the right to choose who lives and who dies."
— Richard Maybury


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:43 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 3:14 pm
Posts: 2045
The try before you buy mantra works in my case, for the most part. Most of the music I listen to is never played on the raido, and I don't have cable for any "music" channels, so there is no real way for me to look into new stuff other than piracy. A lot the stuff I listen to doesn't even show up in the local record stores.

That said, I have not pirated anything for quite a long while. I prefer to buy CDs anymore because piracy is a big pain in the ass and the quality is rarely very good, not because I feel it is immoral. Also most of my friends are music buffs as well, so I get "fair use" rips of their stuff or go halfsies buying it (I have 1 day 4 hours 38 minutes of fair use rips of bands that start with S). However I do think it is immoral to charge $18 for a CD, and I will rarely ever shell out more than $12 for a new CD. In the case of not being able to buy the CD, I feel no remorse because the record company missed a perfectly good opportunity to make money off of me.

I've long since gotten past the phase of hoarding music for the sake of filling my hard drive.

_________________
All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:44 pm 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 12:57 am
Posts: 729
Location: everywhere and nowhere
I have never downloaded music not because I am holier than thou but because it realy does hurt the little people.

Every time a song gets played on the radio an artist gets payed a royalty which helps pay for everything they will do in the industry. Such as pay for recording time, sound mixers, advertising.

And if artists are getting paid less than they go on tour less and all those people related with live shows get hurt.

It all eventually trickels down but the less that the artists get the less that gets down there.

_________________
“Justice is a cruel cruel truckload of pointy crapâ€


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:13 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 3:14 pm
Posts: 2045
Destroyer_of_ants wrote:
I have never downloaded music not because I am holier than thou but because it realy does hurt the little people.

Every time a song gets played on the radio an artist gets payed a royalty which helps pay for everything they will do in the industry. Such as pay for recording time, sound mixers, advertising.

And if artists are getting paid less than they go on tour less and all those people related with live shows get hurt.

It all eventually trickels down but the less that the artists get the less that gets down there.
So you're saying that becase people download songs without paying for them that radio stations are not playing music? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Not to mention that very little of what is pirated is even played on radio stations.

Increased exposure of artists from piracy can only lead to increased concert attendance.

It is very unlikely that even CD sales are hurt by piracy, because with the increased exposure, better artists will have increased sales. I'd say there are far more pirates who download to "try before you buy" than download instead of buying. I do suspect that the vast majority of pirates download as an alternative to not listening to the music at all.

I'd say that piracy only hurts crappy pop artists as more people realise that the single they heard on the radio is the best part of the album and not worth paying $18 for.

I would say that record companies slapping together mouseketeer "bands," marketing them to 8 year olds and slapping a giant price tag on the album is significantly less moral than downloading to "try before you buy."

_________________
All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.


Last edited by arwing on Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:25 pm 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 12:57 am
Posts: 729
Location: everywhere and nowhere
arwing wrote:
Destroyer_of_ants wrote:
I have never downloaded music not because I am holier than thou but because it realy does hurt the little people.

Every time a song gets played on the radio an artist gets payed a royalty which helps pay for everything they will do in the industry. Such as pay for recording time, sound mixers, advertising.

And if artists are getting paid less than they go on tour less and all those people related with live shows get hurt.

It all eventually trickels down but the less that the artists get the less that gets down there.
So you're saying that becase people download songs without paying for them that radio stations are not playing music? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.


When people stop listening to the radio they also stop listening to the ads. when the ads stop becoming effective they can no longer afford to pay the station to run their ad. when there is no money from ads then the station can no longer afford to pay the roylaties to musicians. then no one listens.

Of course this is an extreme example but it is the only way to justify my line of thought.

People will always want a free way to listen to music and whether that is through the internet or the radio it makes no diffirence at the moment, but if radio support where to fall through completly this could happen.

EDIT: fixed a hilarious spelling error

_________________
“Justice is a cruel cruel truckload of pointy crapâ€


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 11:33 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed May 21, 2003 3:14 pm
Posts: 2045
Destroyer_of_ants wrote:
When people stop listening to the radio they also stop listening to the ads. when the ads stop becoming effective they can no longer afford to pay the station to run their ad. when there is no money from ads then the station can no longer afford to pay the roylaties to musicians. then no one listens.

Of course this is an extreme example but it is the only way to justify my line of thought.

People will always want a free way to listen to music and whether that is through the internet or the radio it makes no diffirence at the moment, but if radio support where to fall through completly this could happen.

EDIT: fixed a hilarious spelling error
you're missing the point. Piracy as opposed to buying the CD does not in any way change radio listenership. If someone were to stop listening to the radio because they "have" the song illegally, the same could be said if they legally owned a copy of the song, so you have no argument there.

I personally have no idea why someone would stop listening to the radio if they had possesion of some music in any capacity. It just seems like if the radio stations is really losing listeners because they own the music that the problem is with the radio station.

_________________
All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:40 am 
Offline
Native
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 11:09 pm
Posts: 555
Location: Ziapangu
arwing wrote:
you're missing the point. Piracy as opposed to buying the CD does not in any way change radio listenership. If someone were to stop listening to the radio because they "have" the song illegally, the same could be said if they legally owned a copy of the song, so you have no argument there.


I have to disagree with you here, Arwing, based on personal experience. I know for a fact that I listen to much less radio now that I have music on my computer, and I think that this is more or less the same for much of the general populace. the big difference is that while both piracy and buying CDs impact radio listenership in a similar way, "legal" downloads still trickle back some profit through the system to the artist (or rights holder), whereas "illegal" downloads do not. Again, -big- difference.

Furthermore, the other arguments (crappy pop artists, greedy record labels, etc.) are just rationalizations for piracy (as opposed to justification for "try before you buy"). When all is said and done, the only person who has broken a free market contract is the intentional pirate.

_________________
Democracy is not liberty. It is majority rule, which is mob rule. We live in a Mobocracy.

"Political power is the game of playing God. It changes a person and makes him different from the rest of us. He begins to believe he has some kind of right to interfere in the lives of others. He may even believe he has the right to choose who lives and who dies."
— Richard Maybury


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:22 am 
Offline
<font color=red><b>STALKER/FAG ALERT.
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jun 20, 2004 2:38 am
Posts: 1579
The only music I've ever downloaded was the theme track from Planescape: Torment (Best. Game. EVAR!!!!)

Given that it's not commercially available, noone lost any money off of that.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:51 am 
Offline
Local
User avatar

Joined: Mon Mar 17, 2003 1:49 pm
Posts: 399
Location: Somewhere else
The vast majority of my downloads are not of commercially available music (and are provided by the producers/artists free of charge), so that's cool. The few things I do have of commercially available music.. Well, it's a total of six songs, from six different artists. I don't feel bad about "ripping off" the music company to the tune of $90 (assuming each CD costs $15) for my six songs. Even before I downloaded music, I still didn't listen to the radio at home. The only time I ever listen to the radio is in the car. I just use winamp for the BGM in games, rather than the game itself (after I have heard all that the game has to offer, anyway).

The other ones I have that are from real artists are so old that they probably fall under "who gives a crap, anyway," and are no longer sold by the companies who may still own the right. It's sorta like abandonware, but not codified.

-----------

So the morality of my downloading music is no question to me; It's perfectly moral. But, then, if I didn't think it was moral for me to do so, I wouldn't do it. (not all people can make the same claim, however. There are those who feel something is immoral, but do it anyway. Those are the scary ones)

_________________
--- This space for let ---


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:33 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 1276
Location: Hanging in the endless void with nothing but entropy and fluff for company.
My biggest problem with people bitching about pirating music really goes into another subject entirely...data security and ownership. An example would be having a cool jpg on your website and telling people not to save it because it's copyrighted. Wtf? Your songs are on the radio all the damn time and you want people not to listen to them for free? No, I don't think so. In these cases it's not an issue of morality for me, it's an issue of either stupidity or baiting. The closest thing I've seen that works to this type of marketing is actually what Poe & Impy do with their donation wallpapers. It's a matter of trust that they won't be redistributed, etc. Anyway...I don't have much music that I don't also own the CD to, but...yeah. I'll come back and edit this to make more sense and complete the argument later.

_________________
~ Wrin
Labrat wrote:
As screwed up as the world is, it has to have been designed by comittee. Diskworld-style.

Jin wrote:
...I cursed at the computer screen for an hour and a half while striking it with my genitals.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:01 pm 
Offline
n00b

Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 13
Location: Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada
No, they're not losing money, I never buy CDs either. I might have whenever I got HMV birthday gift certificates, until I realized HMV distributed DVDs, so I use them for those too.

Funny enough, I buy the DVDs for anime I've already downloaded free to watch.

Those are the industries that need funding, not music. Music will always be spoiled like that.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:02 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 12:31 am
Posts: 1587
Location: Bay Area
I was going to be all angry at your <i>amazing</i> act of quintuple necrosis here, but then I saw Kirima's posts and I felt sad. I wonder whatever happened to that guy. He was a top notch poster.

_________________
<img src="http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f340/Tossrock/sigreducedjx2-1.jpg">


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:52 pm 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2003 2:39 am
Posts: 1756
Location: The border of civilization
Tossrock wrote:
I was going to be all angry at your <i>amazing</i> act of quintuple necrosis here, but then I saw Kirima's posts and I felt sad. I wonder whatever happened to that guy. He was a top notch poster.

Herbal Enema too... Anyone knows what happened to those guys?

Back to topic:
Buying a disc is expansive here (like everything else, it costs nearly twice than the price at the U.S), really expansive.
I'm a poor bastard. I don't get a salary, but mere pocket money (the army doesn'ot feel obliged to pay for a service I'm required by law to do), and the only way I can "live" without bumming too much from my parents is to be a cheap bastard*.
These facts put together means that I won't by music discs. Nor will I buy anything else with similiar ratio of need/greed**. Therefore, even though I do not like it, all the music I have is pirated.

But this is all high words. Put simply: I steal it 'cause it costs too much.

*Though I was a cheap bastard years before I got drafted...

**The Value versus Cost dillema.

_________________
Warning! The owner of this property is armed and willing to defend life, liberty and property.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:40 am 
Offline
Addict
User avatar

Joined: Wed Sep 18, 2002 5:00 pm
Posts: 2428
Location: In the ether, Hand of DM poised for enervation at will
From what I understand (and I could very well be wrong), the artist doesn't make much money from the CD. The production company gets most of that money, and the bulk of the artists' income stems from tours and merchandise.

If the production companies want to sell CDs, they honestly need to sell them at a lower price. I still buy CDs when I can afford them, because I walk everywhere, and I listen to CDs wherever I walk to. But I can't buy them most times, because the cost of 1 CD is often what I'd pay at the grocery store for a night's worth of dinner for 3.

_________________
The scent of Binturong musk is often compared to that of warm popcorn.


Top
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: Morality of pirating music
PostPosted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 1:00 am 
Offline
Tourist

Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:35 am
Posts: 25
KirimaNagi wrote:
First off, good distinction between illegal and immoral, since the two are not necessarily the same.

However, in this case (unauthorized downloading of copyrighted content for the purpose of continued enjoyment with no intention to compensate the rights holders), I would have to say that it is a form of encroachment (violation of property rights), which I am afraid does raise morality issues.

Generally speaking, music is a copyrighted "product" that is produced and distributed for profit just like video, books, software and so on, and the owner/rights holder has the right to determine and/or restrict the manner in which it is distributed. The lack of intent to purchase (= no loss of profit argument) is just one of many rationalizations and is also irrelevant -- it is still a violation of property rights.

The only ways that I can see illegal downloading not being immoral are as "try before you buy" (i.e. a "trial period" not unlike a money-back guarantee), or to obtain an early release of something you fully intend to buy anyway.

That’s not really an argument for immorality, it's more properly a restatement of the fact that it is illegal, and of course "try before you buy" is also a violation of property rights. The rights holders suffers no more economic loss, from a person who wouldn't buy the record anyways than he does from a person who tries it before he buys it.

You could of course plausibly argue though that I can't really know for certain whether I might have started buying records in the absence of easily available free music. Also defending my music piracy on the grounds that I wouldn't have bought it anyways, would be a bit disingenuous since I also download movies and games which I might convivially have bought. That I’ll freely concede is immoral though not exactly on the serial killing level.

Herbal Enema wrote:
So the morality of my downloading music is no question to me; It's perfectly moral. But, then, if I didn't think it was moral for me to do so, I wouldn't do it. (not all people can make the same claim, however. There are those who feel something is immoral, but do it anyway. Those are the scary ones)


BOO!


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Forum locked This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 17 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 8 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 26 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group