Stealing is Despicable

Believe me this does have something to do with SL!

My current rant and vent in my reality is against people (if we can regard them as such) who download illegally from the web and refuse to see it as stealing. I know the old excuses off by heart and have heard them ad inifinitum; "rockers/writers/artists etc earn good money and so they can afford it" - they dont consider all the people who work behind the scenes to create, promote, manage and work with all these artists. And why not get some gravy for hard work and honest living?

Sports in the real world are given inordinate amounts of money to maintain their "bread and circuses". Artists have to scrounge for art grants when there are prolly govt. funded programs for "JoJo the Dog Face Boy" to play baseball, ice hockey or soccer.

I see even people in SL have ideas and scripts etc "stolen" from them and it really pis*es me off.

Please people, support artists and creators in sl AND rl by paying for what is rightfully the artists' and creators' due. There is NO excuse not to do so. This morning in real I have had the worst kind of argument from some sanctimonious scraggy bearded bloke who claimed he was doing nothing wrong by illegally downloading music. He had the audacity to claim he was striking a blow for the common people. NONE of us are peasants hauling a plow - we can afford a computer so we can afford to pay to download music or pay for what is for sale here. And IF you can't then turn up the volume on your radio for ****'s sake.

I argued with this bloke for an HOUR and a HALF with people all around me why he berated "a certain artist" for charging a fee. I got sooo mad!!!!!

Don't copy. Don't steal. And respect the creative talents and energy of others.

Now, who's gonna argue that with me? Or who will support and generate further ideas about this crucial artistic issue?

I have to agree with you on this one. I don't use any downloading software, nor do I watch movies on my computer. I don't have an ipod or mp3 player to download anything for.

Stealing is stealing but tell that to the people that do not respect any law they do not agree with and download unlicensed content all day which leads to countries like france commencing to enact laws under which citizens can be tried and convicted without their knowledge. Abuse your right to freedom and lose it because you do not deserve freedom. Want change? Lobby congress or get yourself and a lot of your friends elected and change the laws yourself.

Break the law and when you get caught then accept your sentencing like an adult.

We won't miss you.

I agree. People want something for nothing, reminds me of government entitlements.
I know, well knew, people at my last place of employment who had any piece of software and any movie or song you could possibly want. All free and they offered copies to anyone. Photoshop, Microsoft Office etc, all hacked copies. They had burnt copies of movies available before they even came to the theaters in the U.S. This is one time I would love to be a programmer to devise viruses. The latest thing I recall them getting for free was satellite tv, just needed the dish. As long as they see they can get away with it they will. I guess I can take some blame, instead of bitc**ing about it I should call the Software Piracy Hotline but then I would have no friends.

I watch movies on my computer with no guilt. Just take the DVD I bought and insert it into the DVD player. Or connect the cable to the Cable-In connector of my ATI All-in-Wonder. Nothing wrong with any of that.

I even listen to stuff on my iPod - Creative Commons podcasts or audiobooks purchased from Audible, though I'll admit to having bought a song or two from iTunes.

In other words, I quite agree - theft is bad. But there are many legal ways to download content or watch stuff on computers.

This is true, of course. I was only referring to the illegal methods. i don't do what you describe myself, but there is nothing wrong with it.

As an occasional creator of original works, I agree with Jig 100%.

It's hard to enforce, though. Kids today have grown up with the idea that it's OK to get stuff...any stuff...off the Web, or copied from your friend's hard drive or CD or DVD. For free, of course.

The advent of the perfect digital copy is a two edged sword. It's so bloody USEFUL! And it is also the way in which content rapidly spirals out of the control of its creator and spreads...everywhere.

I think that the artist is entitled to be paid for her work. I also happen to like the ease and convenience and quality of our digital age. I don't know what the solution is, or even if there is one.

i download music all the time because it's faster than burning it from my cd's..which i am allowed to make copies of..
I like to stream the music to the land i live on is sl when i am building or when i am with friends..
I paid for it
when that whole napster thing happened there were just as many artists for mp3 format on the net as there were against it..
it's a record and movie industry thing more than it is the artist getting ripped off..heck they get more exposure from the net than anywhere just like the artists that were for it were stating back then..

look at linkin park..they put their whole first album out on the net for free..they still didn't miss a beat in sales..
they promoted the whole thing themselves..the record industry doesn't care for it because it's a channel that anyone can promote themselves..

i'm all for the artists but the RIAA can go screw themselves..they hold back more artists than they help..

only because they can't steal enough from them...

exactly..
RIAA wants every penny they can get even though music on the net has done nothing but benefit the RIAA ten fold..
The exposure people have to music we have now is light years ahead of what people had in the 90's..

more exposure more sales..Now companies are buying up radio stations and you get the same dull ass format in any state because one company owns 1500 radio stations in a region..
the net would have been a way for a lot of people to not have to deal with the RIAA..
people wanting exposure only having to get their word out in a world wide channel like the net..and the RIAA knows it..that's why they want to control it..

Do i feel sorry for the people behind the scenes working for controlling companies..not for a second..
they mold artists into what they want..

Two wrongs don't make a right.

The fact that record producers screw over creators is no excuse for the public to bypass them and screw them over instead.

If an artist WANTS to give away their work, that's their prvilege, and it may even be a good marketing move. That does not excuse piracy either.

Like Jig, I've heard all the excuses.

"I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so they didn't lose a sale"
"I have a copy on CD, so it's OK to download more copies"
"I wanted to preview the work before deciding to buy it"
"My friend did it, so I don't think it's wrong for me to do it"
"It gives the creator more exposure"
"It's Fair Use"
"I loaned out my copy, and I needed a replacement"

Stealing is stealing is stealing, no matter what rationalization the thief uses to excuse themselves.

Yeep, I'm absolutely criminal, ripping my CD collectin into MP3 on my hard drive so I can have copies of it in my MP3 player and Car Stereo. I should buy a discman and 2 more copies of every CD instead or just destroy the original CD and keep moving the one file around without copying it.

A rockstar and their legal leeches miss a jelly donut, martini, bourbon, capachinno or cocaine hit every time you listen to a pirated copy of their music

Everything in SL should be no copy, if you want a second & third palm tree, buy them!

i've heard them all too..i was in napster from the start before it was wrong to download the mp3's..
then washed up metalica decided to get drama queen looking for something to give their dead careers a boost so they go after napster..then DR dreand a couple others ..
funny their were more artists for it in that period than speaking against it..

so we lost the ability to download mp3's for free anymore...warnings were given not to download metalic or Dre and a few others..so everyone loaded up napster in protest filling it with DR dre Metalica before the ruling..

people see it as the artists getting ripped off and it's not..in fact who was giving it away for free to gain popularity when they were doing it their own way before they sold out and got molded? the artists..
trust me the artists are not getting hurt when people do this..they are getting their money no matter what..
maybe if more artitist would take it upon themselves to promote themselves the RIAA would not be another power house and music would not be manipulated by them which it is in a big way..

Ethics..hmm..ya know..screw ethics..if corporations don't have to worry about them then i'm done being worried about them when it comes to them as well..

still i buy all my music anyways..but more power to those sticking it to the RIAA..

funniest part of that is that Metallica partially built their fanbase on pirating, encouraging their fans to record their shows, their albums, and pass them around. though if one wanted to nitpick, half of that would be considered bootlegging.

It's going to depend on your local laws, but there is a good chance that's not allowed since paying for a CD (or an MP3) only gets you a personal use license which does not allow you to use that same CD for broadcasting purposes without an additional fee.

There's even the question of whether in-world stores having an online radio station's stream on their land shouldn't be paying a fee for that as well.

TLAPD only starts in about 5 hours.

I buy all my music, but everytime this argument comes up, I always wonder about the library system. How is it any different when you take out a book from the library?? The library buys the book, but that book gets rented out hundreds of times...the author missing hundreds of sales. If not for the library system, those same people would have had to purchase the book. What am I missing here?

exactly..it was like they were traitors..And DR dre lol it was like ..wow they are getting a lot of attention..i think i'll jump corp side too..

bigger names were backing a free internet back then..Alana Morsset was all for it..i do miss the flash funnies of napster and those sell outs Metalica and Dre

the books don't get rented..you get to check them out for free in the U.S...you may get charged a late fee for bringing one back late be pubic libraries don't charge for all those books in the U.S.

they're subsidized and authorized to do so. (and videos and recordings as well)

Ah . . .thanks 23rd, didn't realize there was a subsidization in place, but should have thought of that. I knew I was missing a key point.

if you own the CD you are not committing piracy because you can prove you bought the music..you are not paying for the plastic it comes on..well thats in the cost of the cd but you are buying the music itself..as long as you can prove you own it it's not piracy..
infact you are allowed to burn your own cd's or put it on your ipod or whatever..
it's why ipods exist..
so if you download a song you already own you are not a pirate

So are you saying that you want to end all government funding for sports and arts? Cool we finally agree on something. After all government creates no wealth, it produces nothing of value. The only way it has anything is by taking it from those who do create wealth. Glad to see you are ending this belief of yours that taxation is acceptable when it is really just as much theft as every thing else you decry.

government funding. they still have to buy much of their stores, and, unfortunately, be regulated by whatever district they're in, county, city or state. for that reason alone, there actually are city (and possibly county) libraries that are forbidden to carry such books as, say, "Heather Has Two Mommies". and, no, this isn't due to some "blue law" but actually legislations passed in the late, late 20th century.

(wow. two posts at the same time containing the words "government funding"...)