It is ok to steal entertainment content because subscription services are packaging wrong and charging too much?
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?
SPECIAL REPORT: Is Stealing the NEW WAY of watching TV?
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 100
- Views 39K
- Status
One school of thought holds that it is never okay to steal.
What you're getting at requires gathering up enough consumers who aren't petrified of saying "no more". If the people don't have the brass, the people will get walked all over as is their apparent preference.
The problem is that where you use the word "steal", not everyone sees it as stealing. If viewed purely logically, it could be argued that it's impossible to "steal" something that can be infinitely and perfectly copied, because by taking a copy you are not depriving anyone else of the use of a copy. This is an argument as old as software itself and one of the reasons it's debatable is precisely because copyright law is something of a legal fiction, much like the idea of a corporation being the same as a person. People instinctively know there's something a bit off about the concepts - a corporation is not the same as a person, even if the law says it is, and taking a copy of something that can be copied an infinite number of times isn't the same as, say, stealing someone's bicycle.
One could envision a society where there are no copyright laws, and every idea is open to be freely shared. As a thought experiment, consider that if humans somehow acquired the ability to read other people's minds, copyright law would likely disappear in short order because we would realize that no ideas are truly original, and that everyone builds on ideas and concepts they've learned or heard about at some previous point in their life.
I am a bit of a realist, in that I figure that if the law says I shouldn't do something, and I don't want to get in trouble with the law, then I'd best not do that thing. But I am very careful not to confuse what is legal with what is morally right, especially when it comes to laws that have the net effect of protecting corporate interests. You may convince me that a certain action is illegal with little effort, but to convince me that something is morally wrong is going to be a very hard sell, especially if it's not something embodied in a very longstanding tradition. For many people, you'd have an easier time convincing them that eating shellfish is wrong than that violating copyright law is wrong, simply because the former is in the Bible (admittedly in the old testament, but it's still there), whereas the Bible never alludes to any concept of "intellectual property" or gives any indication that ideas (and the expression thereof) are meant to be owned by someone.
Point is, when you set out to frame the issue using your own moral compass, you lose everyone who doesn't have the same understanding of the morality of the situation that you do. And there are an awful lot of people who think that copyright laws either should not exist at all, or should only apply to people who resell copyrighted material for a profit.
I do realize the counter argument that if no one gets paid to make content, little or no high-quality content will be made. Of course that ignores all the art and music going back to ancient times that was never protected by copyright, but was created anyway. The problem now is that we will likely never know what would be created absent the existence of copyright law, at least until such time when we have the ability to travel to a planet or dimension where they don't exist (and I only hope we don't infect them with the idea). I personally tend to think that there would be less content, but it would be of much higher quality, since it would be a labor of love for the creator rather than something excreted by a team of hack writers hoping to make a fast buck, but we'll never know for sure because copyright law is like an invasive species - once it gains a toehold it's nearly impossible to get rid of it. Although in some countries it's widely ignored, such as in many parts of Latin America where pirated DVD's are openly sold by street vendors - even right on the same street as the police station, because the police officers buy them too!
This is like people who used to pirate D*. D* would claim they lost "x" millions of dollars because of this but if those people didn't get it for free, it's not like they would have signed up as customers and paid the corresponding amount for what they rec'd.
Same can apply to software, music, movies (DVDs), etc. In many, if not most, cases, the "pirate" would simply have went without.
See, there you go again talking about the providers charging too much.... lol
I have been quiet on this as it is my understanding that this got the attention of both companies who were both shocked to see the open advertising like this. I am told they have flown out people there and now have others (law inforcement) looking into it.
I know more but can't say more.
One thing however i keep seeing here it that its up to the providers to secure their programming. In many of the cases the channels are not official feeds from the provider, but instead home users (or companies) taking the signal they are paying for and then encoding it and sending it back to the internet.
I know more but can't say more.
One thing however i keep seeing here it that its up to the providers to secure their programming. In many of the cases the channels are not official feeds from the provider, but instead home users (or companies) taking the signal they are paying for and then encoding it and sending it back to the internet.
This argument is completely absent logic or reason because it hinges on an utterly false premise: That what is being "stolen" is a simply the storage media and if the media isn't taken, there is no theft.
Copyright is uniquely about the content of the disc or file and its creator's (be they an individual or a mega-corporation) right to decide the destiny of their art. In copyright, the plaintiff is the content owner, not the person who bought a package that includes a non-sharable license to view the content.
Good. KILL, KILL, KILL!
I'd prefer prison for such vermin, but perhaps some highly restrictive controls on what they can do as they slither and scurry amongst us, would suffice. Along with severe restitution and fines. No profit. No foreign travel. Maybe restricted to X miles from their lair.
And I certainly include the "home users or companies."
I'd fine the buyers thousands of dollars AND publish their names. So everyone would know they were stupid and greedy and CRIMINAL!
Might help reduce the gullibility of the "something for nothing" crowd. Or nearly nothing.
What we need is a freeview satellite system like they have in europe..you buy the box and no subscriptions..same model would work fine on iptv
In the UK, they pay an annual license fee for each TV. They're clearly paying for something at that point.
They call it it a "license", but it is really just a tax of $163/year/television. They're really good at taxes in the UK. The VAT is 20% last I checked and it covers most everything but food and some children's articles.
IMO, it's absolutely stealing. You can play with semantics about it and make it sound different, but if you, me, any of us, wrote a book, or coded a program, etc, with the intent of selling it for commercial profit and people obtained it for free without paying us, the viewpoint would be much different. Probably 100% of us would say it's stealing if it was us personally losing money from it.
It's irrelevant if the price is too high, the moon is blue, big corporations make too much or charge too much, whatever silly rationalization is made to justify it, it's stealing and if someone doesn't want to pay for the service, then go without.
It's irrelevant if the price is too high, the moon is blue, big corporations make too much or charge too much, whatever silly rationalization is made to justify it, it's stealing and if someone doesn't want to pay for the service, then go without.
Agreed. Although I think that the consumers in this situation shouldn't be held responsible for the the theft, rather the sellers of the box. They are defrauding the public and should be held accountable. If I sold a stolen car that the buyer did not know was stolen, I would be held responsible. The buyer would lose the car and probably their money, but not be criminally charged.
I applaud those that are able to cut the cord (legally). I have a friend that told me that Sling TV was the solution that allowed him to finally cut it. I think cord cutters are putting a lot of pressure on content providers to change their business models. But people should still be paying for the content they are receiving, whether through cable/sat sub or through internet based services.
unfortunately the cablecos could care less whether you pay them for pay TV services or for increased bandwidth for streaming content. When you own the whole pipe it really doesn't matter what flows through it.
- Status
