Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
I have always posed this example to content Pirates.
If you could duplicate an exact replica of a Calgary Flames ticket, that guaranteed you access to the arena for games, would you use it to print tickets for personal use? If your answer is no, then you should be against piracy, because it is the exact same thing. If you rip a counterfeit album you have no tangible "thing". If you pirate admission to a game neither do you as well. Like c'mon.... have you seen the price for those new fangly hockey tickets, they are expensive as hell. I should steal them because I am OWED the right to admission, because I like the team. Same goes for airline tickets. Damn flights overseas are pricey. I should pirate those too. Hey Jetfuel, and 777 maintenance is free right?
The only reason people are piracy apologists, is so they can justify the fact they know they are stealing someone else's product or service.
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It isn't really a clear parallel at all. Attending a game in person or concert in person is not identical to watching the game on TV or watching a rip of the concert later. In the case of the games one way in which it is different is that there is a limited number of seats and assigned seating. So in attending a live sports event there is an exclusivity. If 100 million people wanted to go to the Saddledome to watch the next Flames game it isn't possible. If you print off a counterfeit ticket and sit in someone's seat you are stealing their exclusive access to that event.
It just isn't the same with movies, TV. These are digital representations that are easily copied across the world. 100 million ppl could download the next Flames game and watch it after it had aired and been uploaded. This would not disrupt any season ticket holders who pay to watch the game live and in person.
Intellectual property is a tricky issue. It seems impossible to enforce or prohibit. As many have pointed out in this thread capitalism shows us that a model like Steam can work and prevent a lot of piracy of video games. Piracy being theft isn't necessarily a straightforward claim either. People are not stealing a single item that has value in and of itself. People are copying digital data which required some money to produce. However if it were not profitable to produce this digital data in the first place then it likely wouldn't have been produced. If people stopped downloading would they then go to more movies? I go to movies despite downloading as well and I don't feel like my ratio of seeing movies at theatres has changed since the introduction of torrents. Would the people who download movies and tv shows buy them if they could not download them or even if they could? Probably at a certain price point some would. I've seen people who collect movies and tv shows and I certainly bought many at some points.
Lets face it there is no simplistic parallel for piracy of intellectual property. It is not at all like printing a counterfeit ticket and going to watch the Flames live for free. It is a new phenomenon and should be treated like one. It makes us question if there shouldn't be a completely different way of compensating movie makers and tv show producers. It has the potential to undermine the entire tv and movie industry as they exist now.
Intellectual property is going to continue to be a massive issue as we move forward. Anyone with some technical knowledge can get almost any TV show, any movie, any book, any comic, etc at the click of a button. Trying to prevent the spread of this data seems impossible. Therefore attempting to stop it or limit it through the courts seems ridiculous. Which means that tv and movie producers may have to re-imagine the compensation model of their industries.
What we haven't seen is Hollywood and TV producers going broke so clearly the model isn't unsustainable yet. People still pay for cable, premium cable and still go to movies. I don't think its realistic at all to expect people to not download movies, tv shows, and books based solely on morals and not "stealing". Capitalism will have to find a solution so that people are still compensated for their creative efforts. These things will be shared, it seems inevitable at this point.