Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Piracy. Theft or not? (Read 27610 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Piracy. Theft or not?

This message is posted on both the hydrogenaudio forums and the doom9 forums in the general/off topic sections. I know that by posting here I can expect more objective and intelligent responses.

Recently I have been noticing alot of discrepancies with my reality and the reality of the forum dwellers over at Divx.com. Let's not get into this "They live in a fantasy world" mode. I would like some good insight and opinion on this topic. And this topic is this -> "Is piracy theft or not". I don't mean in the strictest terms as in someone breaking into your house and robbing you. But in the most generic definition of the term. I am not out to debate the effects of piracy either. I would simply like a consesus of intelligent opinion on this.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

My thoughts are thus. Piracy is theft. As such I am a thief when I pirate. I am no better than anyone else. Piracy is theft because something is stollen. It does not matter how abstract that "something" is. It is still a theft. Some one, somewhere along the lines gets hurt by piracy. It does not matter if it is we the consumer or those in the corporations. Someone suffers even if it is in a small way. It is possible to steal by coppying. Ideas can be stolen without taking the original. The same goes for music, videos, and software. If you obtian something by illegal means you have helped to facilitate theft and are therefore a thief yourself.

Piracy is theft because Pirates are high seas thievs, and piracy is named for Pirates. The analogy fits.

If piracy is not theft in one way or another then why is it wrong?

I encourage everyone to reply with their opinion whether or not it repeats someone elses. I wish to either provide them with proof of the fact or to correct my thinking if by some fluke I am shown wrong.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #1 –
It would be quite hard to argue that piracy is not theft, imo.  So I won't  .  Whats not so cut and dried are all of the conclusions you draw from that assertion.  Is all theft the same?

I'll try to keep this short, but no promises  The way I see it: piracy of intellectual property is an unavoidable byproduct of globalization, and the information age.  Most of us wouldn't consider stealing tangible property from a local business owner, because we may know the owner, and realize who we would be harming.  Many of us would consider stealing intellectual property, usually over the net, because we have no connection with the distributors, or the creators of said property.

Not only that, but there is no real feedback from stealing IP like there may be from stealing real property:  For example, a storekeeper on your streetcorner may be robbed, and lacking insurance, be forced out of business.  However, by copying a friends mp3, or divx, etc. what kind of real-world effect is demonstrable?  Nothing, except press releases from the RIAA and MPAA with questionable estimates of profits lost.  While companies go out of business all the time, determining causality - and attributing it to piracy -  is extremely hard, with all the other factors at work in the marketplace.

What I'm saying is that while piracy is thievery, its a new type of thievery unique to our era that is *far* easier to rationalize, and much harder to stop than traditional theft.  With with Microsoft's new 'secure' OS on the way, and CPU's set to simply not run stolen IP, its logical to assume that casual piracy might be curbed, while driving the more determined highly underground and even harder to stop.  As long as large corporations and conglomerates are controlling all the cards in the IP game, piracy will be hear, in some form or another.

I'm not sure if this was exactly the 'form' of answer you were looking for, but its what came out... 

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #2 –
It's such a pity that you, and many others, use the word 'piracy'. Piracy is an overly emotive word. It conjures images of evil lawless thuggery -- the bad hordes against the few battered good souls of the RIAA and the MPAA. You've used the word, so you tell me: what *is* piracy these days? It certainly doesn't mean what it did when I first heard the term.

The words you use can seriously alter any debate. This current situation is like deciding to call talking on IRC by the catch-phrase 'Text Rape'. Spend a couple of million dollars getting the phrase into the public consciousness, get some celebrities to decry 'the evil trend of Text Rape in modern society', and then try explaining to someone that only watches soaps and adverts that there's nothing wrong with being a Text Rapist.

Well, I'm a Music Rapist, and an occasional Video Rapist as well, and there is little wrong with it. Just as with Text Rape, we're a victim of a concerted campaign to make simple and reasonable acts immoral, evil, dangerous.

My preferred analogy? It's one given by Eric Flint, in an article (1) where he assesses the effects of having all of his books available for free download:

Quote
Anyone who has ever bought a car-new or used-knows perfectly well that one of the standard techniques used by a car salesman is to offer you the opportunity to take a "test drive." So far from being concerned that a test drive represents "lost mileage," car dealers know damn good and well that it's often the test drive which closes the sale.

Does it always? Of course not. Usually, in fact, people simply take the test drive and wind up walking away. Does the car dealer then start moaning about "lost sales," or whine about the mileage he's given up on a new car?

Hell, no. The dealer just shrugs his shoulders, writes it off to the inevitable overhead expense of his business, and offers the next customer a test drive. But if car dealers followed the moronic practices of most publishers (and, to the best of my knowledge, the entire music recording industry) they would sternly refuse to let anyone even sit in one of their cars-much less give it a test drive-unless they'd already paid for it.


So, I'm not a Music Rapist - I'm taking music for a Test Drive. I'm doing exactly the same thing as I was before, but now it sounds calm, sensible, reasonable. "It would be hard to argue that piracy is not theft" indeed - but is test driving also theft?

There are many other issues to discuss: the commoditization of computers; the growing 'convergence' of entertainment appliances; the history of encryption technology; questioning why the RIAA and MPAA should be the arbiters of the American public's private entertainment. All of these would make me late for work


(1) http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #3 –
I posted this thread in Gnutella forums last month in a thread that had the name "We're sharing, not thieving". I believe it's quite related to your question, so I'll put a copy in here.
(Ps. I no longer write in those forums... it seems too childish at times)

And... yes, as Jon has said in the previous post, using the word "Piracy" is not adecuated.

Quote
Subject: Re: We're SHARING not thieving!
Date: June 23, 2002 @ 2:47 PM

Let's see if we can clear this up. I will try to be concrete.

First of, sharing.
We can compare sharing, as if we all could meet in a local, and there, ask for someone who has song X, or album Y, etc...
There, we would have many TAPE recorders (I say Tape, because MP3 is a lossy format) where the owner of the CD (LP, etc..) of that song, copies it and gives the tape to that user. (copying a tape is slow, as it is downloading a file).

This is the best model I can think of, representing the sharing idea. And this clearly shows that the one that shares a COPYRIGHTED material that is not allowed to be copied, is the one that is doing an illegal action. There's nothing to say against this, although we know we do this each day, giving or asking copies of CD's to/from friends and/or family.

This applies to the uploader. Now, what happens to the downloader?
The downloader is the one that gets the Tape. We can say he has payed the Virgin Tape (as we all pay something for internet connection).
From here, serveral question appear:
1st: Is having this "tape" illegal? Meaning... having *copyrighted material* we haven't payed for, is illegal? (we've payed the medium, not the data)
Well.. the answer seems also "yes". Isn't it?
But see the exact point: "we haven't payed for". If someone, after downloading the MP3, goes to buy the CD, he is in his right to have that MP3.
The question, how many go to buy the CD? well.. that's an unclear answer, but as we've seen in here, some do.

To conclude, what happens to those that don't buy the CD?
Well.. first, if he/she deletes the file, he/she is no longer infringing any law. point closed.
If he/she doesn't, then, appart from that he/she is infringing the law, how does this affect to the sellings? Or said in other words. How many of these remaining would have actually bought a CD if they couldn't have downloaded it?

I personally use file sharing apps to get some music that I should need to go to a specialised shop to get it. It is trance basically, from artists out of my country. So here, two things take part: me having problems to locate that music on "real life", and second, not buying music much often (Neither downloading!!!) In the last month, I believe I've just downloaded about 10 files (ten songs). All of them from different artists. Am I supposed to buy 10 different CD's to get ten songs I've found I like? My pocket can't afford that (I have to pay other things).

What I am trying to say (this has gone a bit confusing) is that I wouldn't have bought the CD if I couldn't have found it in internet, and what's more, in most of the cases, is is thanks to internet that I've known of that songs/artists.

I am not a strange case, there are many like me, and like the others I've said.
The only ones that actually "thieve" are those that after downloading the music, they commercialize with it. This is where the piracy really is. But *BE SURE* that if it weren't for filesharing, they would have found it somewhere else. 

So, in the end... How much does Filesharing hurts the Industry? From my point of view (and from the point of many here), filesharing is that, sharing, making someone able to have something he is not able to have in another way, or that he wants to check out previous to have.

I hope my arguments are clear and don't hurt anyone. This is what I see that is happening. And this is what the industries should know. Killing filesharing does hurt more than help.

Oh.. btw... I nearly forgot... If filesharing affected music sellings... how much did affect the 11th of september and the recession (hope that is the word) it caused?

Thanks for reading.


edit

Addenum :
Usually people say If I've bought the CD, I can do whatever I want with it. I've paid it. . This is completely wrong. You buy the medium (the CD) and the rights to listen to that music (or view the DVD or whatever).
The problem with today's contents is exactly this: You buy rights, not something fisical. This is why it is that hard to decide what is good or wrong.

/edit

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #4 –
Theft has been around for thousands of years, but theft of copyrighted material has only been thought up in the last 200 years or so. It has become a complex set of artificial laws derived by lawyers and governments which may or may not be fair/right. So who determines if it is right or wrong? Society of course.

1) If the law does not benefit society as a whole it is wrong, regardless whether you think piracy is against the law or not.

2) If society as a whole refutes the law then it cannot be seen as a valid law, unless you live in an autocracy.

In both these cases current piracy laws can be viewed as invalid.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #5 –
Since I don't know if CDR in France are subject to a fee that is used to compensate for copies, I don't know if copying an audio CD is piracy :ponder:

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #6 –
If an area gets broadband internet access, and suddenly half the people decide that they're never going to bother buying CDs again, but will just download them from the internet, then the local record shop will go out of business. That sounds like a direct effect of "piracy" to me.


If I "test drive" a CD, then I don't have to buy the CD. Ever. I can make my own.
If I "test drive" a car, then unless I buy the car, I'll be walking home! (or driving back in whatever I came in). Hence, the analogy is inappropriate.


If everyone decides to download stuff and stop buying CDs, then the industry dies. This is what they're terrified of. Really seriously terrified. It won't happen: we had tapes, but people still bought LPs; we have pirate videos but people still go to the cinema. The reason? People like the nice shiny well-packaged "real thing". The industry should concentrate on this fact.

David.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #7 –
If I freely give someone something that belongs to me how can they be a pirate how can they be stealing something I alow them to have.  If they broke into my system and took something I have not freely given up, then that would be piracy to me.
What if the Hokey Pokey....is What it's all about?

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #8 –
Quote
...then the local record shop will go out of business. That sounds like a direct effect of "piracy" to me.

When the automobile was invented, that put many blacksmiths, carriage makers, horse sellers etc. out of business.
However, I'm sure you would agree that it was better to allow the development of the automobile rather than ban it for that reason.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #9 –
I don't want to write a novel:

- Very few people have an unlimited amount of money.
- People pirate stuff because the price of new CDs and DVDs is too high.
- Piracy keeps the interest in new music and movies up.

If piracy was eliminated and people were forced to buy what they used, we would all lose interest in new stuff and just listened to the old stuff. That would collapse the industry would collapse as well.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Originally posted by 2Bdecided
If an area gets broadband internet access, and suddenly half the people decide that they're never going to bother buying CDs again, but will just download them from the internet, then the local record shop will go out of business. That sounds like a direct effect of "piracy" to me.


If I "test drive" a CD, then I don't have to buy the CD. Ever. I can make my own.
If I "test drive" a car, then unless I buy the car, I'll be walking home! (or driving back in whatever I came in). Hence, the analogy is inappropriate.


If everyone decides to download stuff and stop buying CDs, then the industry dies. This is what they're terrified of. Really seriously terrified. It won't happen: we had tapes, but people still bought LPs; we have pirate videos but people still go to the cinema. The reason? People like the nice shiny well-packaged "real thing". The industry should concentrate on this fact.

David.

Excellent post. You took the words right out of my mouth.

Downloading music as a try-before-you-buy is great, and I often use P2P exactly for that purpose. I nowadays buy at least as much CDs as I used to when I didn't have broadband internet access yet.

However, I do know several people who are not as "responsable" as me: they download all their music from P2P networks and don't buy any CDs at all anymore. This is a very bad thing. The most frustrating part of it is that those people don't see anything wrong with this behaviour. On the contrary: they laugh at me and call me stupid because I buy CDs that I just as well could have downloaded from the net. Somehow, I get the impression that those people just don't value music as much as I do.

When I think about those people, I do understand that the music industry is afraid, although I have no idea what the ideal solution for all should be. I really, really hate copy protected CDs. So far, I have been able to succesfully extract the audio tracks of the few protected CDs I have, but I don't like the fact that the CDs are protected in the first place. Also, all protections can be cracked and no protection will prevent an album from appearing on P2P networks. It will only annoy the end users who want to store the audio on their computers or portable players.

Here's what I think about piracy: if you download songs to sample them before you buy them, or if you download songs that you wouldn't have bought anyway (if you wouldn't be able to download or copy them), you are not causing any damage. So I don't really see this as stealing: there is no money lost.

However, I do agree that it can be difficult to distinguish between this and real thievery. How long will you keep listening to the downloaded tracks before you buy the CD ? What if you never get around to actually buying it ? Who says you wouldn't have bought the CD anyway if you didn't have a CD-R drive and didn't have access to P2P networks ?

It's a tough subject.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #11 –
to my mind, "piracy" is theft used for commercial gain. for example i could download an album in a lossless format, make many copies and sell them illegally as an alternative to the orignal cd. does everyone agree with this?

"theft" is using (listening, watching etc.) to the (still lossless) content as a substitute to buying the original cd. however, i see several perfectly legitimate uses of the files -where they are not used as a substitute, but as a service (that in most cases the record/retail industries fail to provide). for example 1) previewing a cd before you buy, the "test drive": available in some record stores but only a small range of material, and not on your own equipment. 2) listening to individual songs rather than having to buy rights for all the songs on an album: again, this is available is a select few record stores but only with a meagre range. 3) choosing the quality/format to suit your ears/equipment etc..

overall i think record companies should look at this positively and instead of demonising their customers (one tactic is using the word "piracy") should acknowledge that -inflated cd prices encourage theft  -unrestriced access to music "previews" widens people's musical tastes and increases their interest in music and could encourage increased sales -they are in a blind panic and need to just calm down

grey areas: should you pay less for: lower quality encodings; only buying the rights to listen (as compensation to the artist) then downloading, rather than the physical medium? 

any feedback? cheers, tonderai

ps sorry for the length of this, and arghhh there've been new posts while i was writing

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #12 –
Quote
Originally posted by 2Bdecided
If an area gets broadband internet access, and suddenly half the people decide that they're never going to bother buying CDs again, but will just download them from the internet, then the local record shop will go out of business. That sounds like a direct effect of "piracy" to me.

It would be, if it ever happened. Has it happened?

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #13 –
Quote
Originally posted by Annuka
- Very few people have an unlimited amount of money.

Agreed. One great thing about P2P networks is the ability to download music you wouldn't have bought anyway, because you simply can't buy everything you like. I also mentioned something like this in my previous post.

Quote
- People pirate stuff because the price of new CDs and DVDs is too high.

Hmmm. I don't really agree with this one. I've heard this argument a lot, but I don't think it's true. The price of CDs hasn't really increased much over the last 10-15 years. If you take the inflation into account, you must conclude that CDs are now more affordable than ever. I remember reading somewhere that if LPs would still be sold and if their prices would be adjusted accoring to the inflation, they would cost about €40 or €50 now.
I gladly pay €15 to €20 for a really good CD nowadays.

Quote
- Piracy keeps the interest in new music and movies up.

Yes, this is certainly true for me. However, this effect is partly negated by the "irresponsable" users I wrote about in the previous post. It cuts both ways (as it does for a lot of technology).
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #14 –
(incidentally, I put my post up as a Kuro5hin diary entry (1), linking to this discussion. The following is an expansion of a reply I made to someone in that diary, who made almost exactly the same point as 2Bdecided)

Quote
Originally posted by 2Bdecided
If I "test drive" a CD, then I don't have to buy the CD. Ever. I can make my own.
If I "test drive" a car, then unless I buy the car, I'll be walking home! (or driving back in whatever I came in). Hence, the analogy is inappropriate.


Both 'piracy' and 'test driving' (or perhaps 'sharing') are not inappropriate, but flawed analogies. True, 'test driving' a car does not mean that I keep the car. I'm not keeping the music, either. Unless you're trading in losslessly compressed audio (as with eTree (2)), then I've not been given the original music to keep. I've been given a poor reproduction. The majority of all music out there to be downloaded has been encoded incredibly poorly. That small percentage which is encoded well is still only a reproduction, and one which I would never consider burning to audio CD.

To stretch the analogy, when I download music to test drive the album, I'm not testing the original Mercedes, but a Yugo with a picture of the Mercedes stapled to the dashboard.

(1) http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/7/9/45036/13336
(2) http://www.etree.org

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #15 –
Quote
Originally posted by Jon Ingram
Both 'piracy' and 'test driving' (or perhaps 'sharing') are not inappropriate, but flawed analogies. True, 'test driving' a car does not mean that I keep the car. I'm not keeping the music, either. Unless you're trading in losslessly compressed audio (as with eTree (2)), then I've not been given the original music to keep. I've been given a poor reproduction. The majority of all music out there to be downloaded has been encoded incredibly poorly. That small percentage which is encoded well is still only a reproduction, and one which I would never consider burning to audio CD.

You would never consider it, and neither would I, but a lot of users do exactly this. Remember that a lot of users still consider 128kbps MP3 to be "CD quality". They think the audio files they downloaded sound as good as the original CD (of course they never heard the original CD), so they will keep the MP3s and see no reason the buy the original CD.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #16 –
Quote
Originally posted by Annuka
I don't want to write a novel:

- Very few people have an unlimited amount of money.
- People pirate stuff because the price of new CDs and DVDs is too high.
- Piracy keeps the interest in new music and movies up. 

If piracy was eliminated and people were forced to buy what they used, we would all lose interest in new stuff and just listened to the old stuff. That would collapse the industry would collapse as well.


- NO people have access to unlimited money. Still this does not justify theft.
- If something is priced too high, boycott the thing. Supply and demand is a natural marketing law. A personal consideration of "too high a price" does not justify stealing
- Piracy and stealing also keeps the income of artists down when they lose a potential buyer.

If piracy was eliminated we would be forced to buy what we used, henceforth people only buying things they wanted, henceforth marketing laws apply. There's a lot of good new music coming out, that I gladly pay for. The music industry was there before piracy was a big issue. No collapse, just different marketing. Propably more diverse instead of the justified pussyfooting they have to use in today music. Yes, I do believe  that music piracy lessens the music industry from investing in more off-beat musical chances.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #17 –
Back to the evolution Question.  Only the strong will survive.  Just off subject alittle this may be a good thing we would weed out the artist that are in this business for one thing and one thing only MONEY.  No Heart - No Soul to their Music.  They would Disappear.  Along comes your Eric Claptons, Jimmi Hendricks, Stevie Rae Vaughans.  Basicly the artist who put their soul into their Music.  We could get rid of the Brittney Spears of the Music world.  When the Multi-Millions per album dry up so to Make-Believe Musicans. 
Just my .02 cents
What if the Hokey Pokey....is What it's all about?

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #18 –
Quote
Originally posted by YinYang
The music industry was there before piracy was a big issue. No collapse, just different marketing. Propably more diverse instead of the justified pussyfooting they have to use in today music. Yes, I do believe  that music piracy lessens the music industry from investing in more off-beat musical chances.

Exactly, this is one very important point I forgot to mention in my original post.

Nowadays, the truly original and creative bands are having a very hard time getting signed by record companies. Because these companies are already losing money, they are more and more defensive and only want to invest money in commercially "safe" bands/artists. A new boy band or a new Britney Spears-like singer is a much safer investment than some inspired new band trying to make a difference and doing something completely original.

If you look back about 10 years, there were a lot of truly great - alternative - bands who could still sell a lot of albums: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, ...

With todays charts full of "teenybopper" crap, it seems almost impossible for a new alternative band to come out and get great sales. I think this is mostly due to the record companies who are not giving those bands a fair chance, and keep signing the same kinds of "safe" bands/artists to their labels, in order to keep the money flowing in.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #19 –
stop the justifying.

it's wrong, you know it, we know it, we all do it.

Does the industry suffer: yes, but not as much as they think.

I would buy all the things I download but perhaps some of it....therefore the industry does suffer.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #20 –
Making a personal copy from an original source is considered legal in Denmark.
Libraries in Denmark lend CDs and DVDs.

My collection of copied music and movies is therefore completely legal.
In some countries it would be illegal.

There is no wrong or right.

I buy around four CDs or DVDs a month.
This has stayed constant since 1994.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #21 –
Quote
Originally posted by PoisonDan
If you look back about 10 years, there were a lot of truly great - alternative - bands who could still sell a lot of albums: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Rage Against The Machine, ...

So, things were better in your day, were they? The early 90s. No crap derivative boy-bands? No mindless techno churned out by the bucketload? No formulaic crooners? No hyped up, one hit wonders?

Things have *always* been this bad, and they *always* will be. Sharing of music has has no effect on this. None. The 60s, the 70s, the 80s... they were all just as bad.

Quote
Originally posted by Jan S.
stop the justifying.

it's wrong, you know it, we know it, we all do it. Does the industry suffer: yes, but not as much as they think.

This would be the industry that saw CD album sales *rise* in this supposedly apocalyptic post-Napster age? (1)

If the industry is in trouble now, then I hate to think how much worse it would have been for them if the MP3 'revolution' hadn't saved their skins.

(1) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertain...000/1478158.stm

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #22 –
Quote
Originally posted by PoisonDan

Hmmm. I don't really agree with this one. I've heard this argument a lot, but I don't think it's true. The price of CDs hasn't really increased much over the last 10-15 years. If you take the inflation into account, you must conclude that CDs are now more affordable than ever. I remember reading somewhere that if LPs would still be sold and if their prices would be adjusted accoring to the inflation, they would cost about €40 or €50 now.
I gladly pay €15 to €20 for a really good CD nowadays.


If the CD is really good, price really doesn't matter. But you can't really tell if a CD is good before hearing a few times.

When I say the price is too high, I am talking about convenience. It takes a lot of time to locate stuff on the net and download. You also have to organise it and probably live with a poor quality.

If a CD/DVD cost about $5-$8, I would be willing to take the chance with a lot of music/movies and simply buy without hearing first. And I wouldn't waste my precious time and energy locating the stuff. It is much more obvious with movies than with music. We want music on the computer because changing discs is annoying. But it is much more acceptable with a movie.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #23 –
Quote
Originally posted by Annuka
Making a personal copy from an original source is considered legal in Denmark.
Libraries in Denmark lend CDs and DVDs.

My collection of copied music and movies is therefore completely legal. 
In some countries it would be illegal.

There is no wrong or right.

I buy around four CDs or DVDs a month. 
This has stayed constant since 1994.


I know that and almost my entire collection comes from the library (and are therefore legal) or are bootlegs that you can't buy.
But I do occasionally download something that are illegal and therefore steal.
I'm not gonna try to justify that as it seems everybody is trying to.
It's stealing althought it will only in the rarest cases cost the industry anything.

Piracy. Theft or not?

Reply #24 –
Quote
Originally posted by YinYang

- If something is priced too high, boycott the thing. Supply and demand is a natural marketing law. A personal consideration of "too high a price" does not justify stealing
- Piracy and stealing also keeps the income of artists down when they lose a potential buyer.


Boycotting CDs, DVDs and games does not put any money in the pockets of the artists and labels. Not a single cent!

Making a personal copies will result in increased sales of CD-R, hard drives, fast CPUs, 3D graphics cards,  computers, PC magazines, broad-band, etc.

Will anyone buy a $500 graphics adapter to play the one game they found worthy of buying.
Does anyone really need a 1 Mbit internet connection at home?
Why did I buy a P4 1,8 GHz computer. My Dual P3-450 was fine...

So boycotting the stuff will cause a lot of people to lose their jobs. Some of these people might have purchased CDs, DVDs, games, etc. So by boycotting I am hurting another industry and hurting the artists in the end.

What people do at home behind closed doors really doesn't hurt anyone.

So it might be theft, but it will be theft for a greater good :p