I'm a rebel.

I only pirate when there is no other way to get the music/game/film. I'm not like you Americans (or Europeans).
We have *bleep* all access to internet shopping sites and what ones we do have (Mightyape.co.nz) are very limited.
Going into a store to buy something is even harder - your more likely to get struck by lightning then to find what your looking for.

So, I pirate.

IMO, it was exploitation in the beginning when the first musician bozo decided "I'm gonna charge $5 for people to buy my recordings".  And piracy, though illegal, is buying back that power from the people that should have never had it in the first place.  Music will still be there in the morning, I promise.

Buying back power? What power?

Are you saying music should be completely free? Those who want music should be able to succumb into greed by gaining it freely? What happens to the musicians? From what I see, it seems that people become jealous that musicians can get paid to do what they love because they have a special skill.

Let's say everyone had a device that can duplicate anything they wished (computer). One person buys a car (music) and lets everyone copy it. Now everyone can enjoy that car everyone is happy in the world, right? Well, now that everyone can get the car for free, the dealership (publisher) doesn't make any money. So now everyone who worked there is out of a job, including the engineers (artists).

But hey, just like our founding fathers said:

Majority Rules, Minority Rights... Except that second part, I guess no one should care about that.

If that's your comparison to piracy you obviously have no idea what piracy is and what harm it does. First of all, that is YOUR BAND playing it. They call that "Artistic Freedom". It can be the form of a Cover (music), mod (game), or parody (anything). The point is, because it's not the Eagles playing it, it won't effect them because people will still want the Eagles to play it. It's like someone making a remix of it and posting it online.

Secondly, there are two parts of a song that is considered property. The first one is intellectual property. The Eagles own the song. You don't. The second part of the song that's considered property is that copy of the song. You own that copy of the song, they do not.

Seriously, if it's that difficult to know the difference between piracy and artistic freedom, then you really shouldn't be arguing about it.

Let me sum it all up for them:

Definition of Theft - the wrongful taking of another's property
Wikipedia article on Property.
Intellectual Property is a type of Property.

If, however, you choose to cimcumvert the trade, and benefit from the trade regardless, then you are stealing. If you steal someone's ladder that they are selling, then you are stealing a possession. If you get someone to build you a conservatory for pay, and don't pay them, then you are stealing labour. If you get someone to teach you mathematics for money, but don't pay them, you are stealing labour and knowledge.

So what I'm trying to say, is you are taking a benefit you are not entitled to, and this benefit comes at the cost of another. It has not been given to you. You have taken it. This is theft.

This is the essence of fair trade. Learn it.

Swaffles, stealing something because you haven't got the money to buy it is immoral. Justifying it like that is both immoral and stupid. And then raging that everyone who thinks you are doing something wrong must be an atheist is stupid. So yeah, your ignorance and immorality kind of balance out on this issue. Interesting, right?

tl;dr Digital pirates are hateful thieves, and are nowhere near as ballsy as real pirates.

You may say the difference is that it's a cover and not the original recording.  But what are we arguing is the product to be sold?  The song?  or the recording?  Both?  Are the lyrics of the song included in that?

I was watching a music piracy documentary that had a guy say, "If piracy keeps up, it will be impossible to make a living off of making music."  What a bunch of bologna.  Not only will they, 'should they', have several opportunities to make money with live performances, but to question the legitimacy of music being an occupation is limiting.  Sure, I know people personally that are into music so much, that it's their occupation.  Whether it's recording or playing an instrument.  But this quote speaks as if people have relied on music to put food on the table for them and their family forever.  Only for the past century have musicians made a large sum of money for the songs they write and the music they perform.  And even with piracy, they are still making more money than the faithful bluegrass roots bands made in the late 1800's.

I also heard another argument that says musicians are not getting the accolades they deserve because for every 500,000 downloads of a song, they lose a platinum record.  Boo Hoo.  And anyways, music media has already started giving recognition to the amount of downloads artists get in addition to all of the crappy CD's they release.

IMO, it was exploitation in the beginning when the first musician bozo decided [i]"I'm gonna charge $5 for people to buy my recordings"[.i].  And piracy, though illegal, is buying back that power from the people that should have never had it in the first place.  Music will still be there in the morning, I promise.

and the thing about everyone thinking you're supposed to be perfect, you kind of act the same way with everyone else...sometimes it seems like you expect us all to be perfect too

@original discussion

I don't think that giving a song free to download is considered piracy. however if you're making money off of your cover without legal permissions, that's not good.

I'm no expert on copyright laws, so I could be wrong about this, but I'm trying to base my definition of piracy on what I understand to be the legal definition, not my opinion.

But seriously, I do have a argument:

I think it's too much of a gray area of what is considered stealing as far as music goes.  When you relate it as stealing a CD, of course, that is wrong.  But consider this story I have outlined below and tell me at which point you consider it music piracy:

You whistle "Hotel California" by the Eagles.

Somebody listens to you whistle "Hotel California" by the Eagles.

You sing to the person "Hotel California" by the Eagles.

You sing to the person "Hotel California" by the Eagles and play a guitar while doing it.

You get a band together and perform for free to the person "Hotel California" by the Eagles.

Your band performs for free "Hotel California" by the Eagles in front of a few hundred people.

A friend makes a video of your band performing for free "Hotel California" by the Eagles in front of a few hundred people.

A friend uploads the video online of your band performing for free "Hotel California" by the Eagles in front of a few hundred people and make it free to download.

OK, so tell me IN YOUR OPINION, where you think it's considered piracy.

Neotyguy40 wrote:

Pirating is stealing. Just because you can't see the person you harm, doesn't mean the harm isn't there.

Yes, I am aware of that.

Neotyguy40 wrote:

That was...
Sort of out of the blue...

I have enough blue to go around, would you like some?   : )

Neotyguy40 wrote:

Again, where the heck did that come from?

You treat me like I'm supposed to be perfect.

Neotyguy40 wrote:

The reason I take offense to pirating is because I ...

When I get a job, I'll buy instead of pirating. Bottom line.
[hr:720e98ccb1]

...You're aware that not having a job or money is a pretty poor excuse for stealing something you don't need, right? Would you go into a store and walk out with a candy bar you didn't pay for in your pocket because you "don't have the money"? One song usually costs about that much....

As for the original topic, I rarely used CDs to begin with, but the last time I did was probably to install software. I've never bought a music CD for myself. I have an old CD player my dad gave me, but the last time I even saw it it was years ago.

Ok so we can't hang even sea pirates but we can jail them for life.

Pirates may go to jail for life, but pirates can only be sentenced up to 10 years...

Something must be done...

If only we could hang online pirates like we can with sea ones...

Hm, and I was under the impression that you lived in the UK, not Somalia.