I'd already seen this - yes it's brilliant. First I'll say I think if a product is not given away free then taking it without paying for it is wrong. Abusing someone's copyright is not free speech, it is crime. However "theft" and "stealing" are wrong words, they apply to depriving someone of the use of something that is their property. Selling a copy does not do this therefore it is not theft or stealing. The idea that billions is "lost" is predicated on (a) insane Math [see video] and (b) the idea that the people who enjoyed a "not paid for" copy would actually have bought it in the first place. For which there is no research or evidence. However the idea that so-called piracy benefits sales and awareness is equally unproven. So discussing any of those points is pretty irrelevant, since there is no proof one way or the other. I think the most telling point is that at present the movie distributors go out of their way to make it hard for people to view the material other than through the old-fashioned channels. It is my opinion, and I'm not the person who thought of this but I agree wholeheartedly, if they instead got together and created a channel which made it *easy* to view the material at a reasonable cost they would solve the "piracy" issue overnight. I do not think this will happen any time soon because they are stupid and hidebound, clinging to the old ways like the music industry did. They are already being bypassed by independents who are using the new distribution media to make their business models work. The question is: will they realise their mistake before thay collapse under their own dead weight?

It's easy to ridicule the MPAA and their fuzzy math, that much is clear. It's much harder to make a compelling argument why any type of piracy is good for anyone but the pirate. If a content owner decides to share his or her work for free in hopes that it will generate publicity and future revenues, good for them. I'm sure it works for some people and there are probably studies proving that it does work. However, if someone is not interested in that and actually wants to get paid for their work, just like everyone else who works for a living wants, there is no argument that can support the idea that someone's work should be shared or given out for free if that's not what the content owner wishes to do. Songwriter Jason Robert Brown published an email conversation he had a with a teenage fan who argued that she should get copies of his songs and sheet music for free. It's well worth the read and gives a great insight into not only the mindset of an average content consumer with a sense of entitlement, but also an actual content creator who wants to get paid for his work. I agree with him 100% and I cannot express myself any better than he does. http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php

If you don't like the words "theft" and "steal", then I guess we need to come up with a new word. A writer spends time and money (research costs money) in order to produce something. Same for a musician. To say that the digital copy you steal or thieve or mcgergal or whatever word you want to make up (to make yourself feel better) deprives them of nothing is disingenuous. If you hate the term intellectual property, then look at what they do as a service. They've provided entertainment to you. Do you get any other service for free? You may not see the writer sitting in front of you writing, but that doesn't mean they didn't sit down at a computer and type thousands of words in order to provide you with a story. For a writer to devalue the work of writers is even more egregious. If you want to write for free, then by all means do so. But to say that an author shouldn't set prices and expect people to pay them (or not, if you don't like the cost of something, you're not entitled to still have it) for his intellectual property or entertainment services means you believe writing is a valueless exercise. And to take your example of how a copy doesn't deprive you to its logical conclusion, if a writer sits down and creates a screenplay in Final Draft, he ends up with a digital file. If a movie studio takes a copy of that file, they should feel free to create a movie with that screenplay and not pay the writer a cent because they haven't deprived him of his original screenplay file. I don't know what you want to call that, but it isn't something nice.

Which proves that it's virtually impossible to have sensible discussion on this subject since you have said I said something I didn't say.

It's not like they don't know this. It's just an easy scapegoat when a shitty movie fails to be able to point to piracy. We're on the cusp of an era where quality can truly rise to the top.

You said, "Selling a copy does not do this therefore it is not theft or stealing." So if I take a copy of someone else's digital file and I sell that copy, I've committed no crime? Or have I committed some other crime than theft or stealing? Reading this statement, it sounds like you're arguing that selling digital copies of someone else's work isn't a crime because I haven't deprived them of property. If you make a copy of something for your own personal use and don't sell it, then you might argue it does no harm to the person who created the original file. But SELLING copies of something you didn't create is a whole different animal.

[sigh] Yes I did, because those definitions are incorrect and I explained why. I also said "First I’ll say I think if a product is not given away free then taking it without paying for it is wrong." I think that's pretty clear and I said it *first* to avoid this sort of thing. But, as usual, people just see what they want to see and assume I approve of what is termed "piracy". (Yes, I've had this sort of stupid discussion before which has absolutely no value, as I also said in my original posting.) I notice that *you* are the one suggesting not paying might be okay. I don't even think that's acceptable, and I won't do it.

When someone is brought to court for illegal filesharing, they're charged with copyright infringement, not piracy. It is common parlance in the media to refer to this activity as piracy. I'd say the studios and record companies are to blame, but one of the largest filesharing websites was called the Pirate Bay, so even the copyright infringers call themselves pirates. So one of your points is that copyright infringement is wrong, but we shouldn't call it piracy. Is that correct?

I finally watched the video (which wasn't that helpful to the debate, I'd recommend Lawrence Lessig's works if you really want to learn about this) and he makes a big deal about the $150,000 in damages and how he can't figure out where they come up with that number. Well, that number is essentially a fine, not meant to represent just the cost of one song being stolen, but to cover that plus damages and court costs, etc. If I park at a meter for an hour without paying, I get a ticket for $150 or more. The cost of parking at the meter for an hour is only $1. So fines being hundreds of times larger than the cost of what is taken are quite common. Sometimes a city comptroller will even calculate how many parking violations are missed (however you come up with that number) and then determine how much revenue the city would have earned if tickets had been issued and fines paid. In that sense, the MPAA is no more full of s*** that any number of municipal governments. The only number that seems hard to justify is the number of lost jobs. The only thing I can figure is that the MPAA assumes they would have produced more TV and movies with money that would have come in from people who aren't paying for it now (copyright infringers). I find that dubious because I would imagine the studios would have just kept that money as profit and not added any extra content. But that's an issue with how modern corporations work, not a copyright concern.

I always love hearing the debate around this as there are usually so many varied points of view. As a Gen Y'er, someone who used to constantly pirate a variety of media, I'd like to weigh in with a few thoughts. 0) I do believe that if you've "pirated" content without the creator giving it away, it is wrong, but that said... 1) If you're pirating, you were never going to pay for it in the first place - this is perhaps the simplest fact that is always overlooked. The argument over lost revenue is bogus. Pirates were never going to pay to consume the content. On the flip side, myself and friends I know have pirated something and then proceeded to buy it because it was good and it deserved to be supported. Quality is still rewarded. That's the mentality. As Youtube and other free mediums have shown, giving away your creation can launch a career. But I do agree, it should be the artists choice. 2) As a pirate, you don't really think about the individual. You see the massive corporations who are faceless. Corporations who try to poach every penny they can from your pocket. As dumb as it may sound, you feel a little like Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. So in a way it feels good, but you know deep down that that same corporation will make up their losses by paying their artists less, or firing people... probably. 3) "Stealing" and "Theft" are probably the wrong words. Pirating, you could say, has always happened. A used bookstore never had to pay the authors for selling their books. If a friend loaned me a VHS or DVD, I didn't have to pay to watch it. I consumed this content for free, wasn't that pirating? The only difference today I can see is that the Internet has made it easier to access "free" content. New techs create new problems, we should find new solutions, we need to think differently for the times we live in, not use old outdated methods that have 0 chance for success. It's easy to scream, "punish them", but the problem won't go away. 4) On that note, as Steve said, "If it's easy and reasonable" people will pay. iTunes made it more convenient to let me pay $0.99 a song than go through the trouble of pirating it. That's how the vast majority think now. The Music Industry learned their lesson, but it took them awhile to figure it out. Movie/Film will learn in time too.