IP Piracy

Correct me if I am wrong, we are discussing so much regarding piracy but dont you think we also somehow indulge to this fact by discussing tons of pages on media players like WDTV or Xtreamer and all. No foul intention and my apology to the owners but why we at all need these equipments. Why we need a mkv or avi or mp4 ?? Just simply go to a shop and buy BD or DVD and play it on a dedicated player.... simple man......why to rip.... copy... convert......???? You may offcourse put some valid logic as far as legal and no-piracy aspect on those media players but those will not be as simple as a dedicated player.My bad indeed, but on my opinion these media players are one of the main culprit in spreading piracy to a great extent .

Just my opinion, no foul intention here.I would like to be corrected here.

no correction sanjub22 !

completely true-

and hey! - psychotropic - bet this thread will go beyond what .........................................
 
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A white collar criminal always talks and acts in all righteousness concealing his crimes until when caught.
It is really disgraceful how a few are defending Piracy by defining their acts and deeds as acceptable.
With no morality on their shoulders they go about talking about corruption, politicians and the system.
Let's face it , with audacity they are pirating - because today they can do it and get away unlike with rape or murder. The day when their IP addresses are tracked and the long arm of the law catching up with them is not to far away.
No sound label or movie production house or Jeans company is running for charity.
If you the domestic pirate( Cause apparently you are not selling only sharing ) thinks that music and movie should be free start at your house. Make it a freeware. Let in some strangers to eat, sleep and stay at your hose for free. You can also work for no salary at your company.
At your heart you know that you are stealing and you think that you are super intelligent by doing so. SHAME ON YOU !!
 
Any act or means that deprives the copyright owner(s) to earn legitimate money is stealing. If the piracy had not occurred two results would have been possible:

It is in case (b) the group of people have been deprived of their future income. This in my opinion is a clear case of theft.

Hi,

Taking away or the act of deprivation alone would not amount to theft, but there should be a strong dishonest (criminal) intention and the original owner should be deprived of the property completely after the act.

Here, the copyrighted material which is the content remains the property of the owner even after the act, so this does not amount to "theft" in any form, way or fashion.

Video piracy is a cognizable offence as per the copyright act, but the same acts prescribes "fair usage policy" to private home owners and does exempt them upto a certain degree and does not in any way mention that piracy as close to theft. The offense is more serious when someone duplicates copy and uses the same for commercial purpose.

Piracy is an offence per se, but does not amount to theft!

In earlier days, movies were shot using camcorders from the projector room of the theatres and still the practice is in existence. So, we all know where the piracy starts!

Cheers!
 
A white collar criminal always talks and acts in all righteousness concealing his crimes until when caught.
It is really disgraceful how a few are defending Piracy by defining their acts and deeds as acceptable.
With no morality on their shoulders they go about talking about corruption, politicians and the system.
Let's face it , with audacity they are pirating - because today they can do it and get away unlike with rape or murder. The day when their IP addresses are tracked and the long arm of the law catching up with them is not to far away.
No sound label or movie production house or Jeans company is running for charity.
If you the domestic pirate( Cause apparently you are not selling only sharing ) thinks that music and movie should be free start at your house. Make it a freeware. Let in some strangers to eat, sleep and stay at your hose for free. You can also work for no salary at your company.
At your heart you know that you are stealing and you think that you are super intelligent by doing so. SHAME ON YOU !!

Hi,

There is a theory, "Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves." So, I guess all of us are in agreement that piracy is indeed an offence. However, having said that, one should always look at the root causes of piracy and not just blame the public.

If we are NOT discussing the root causes of piracy and way to control it, there is no need to have a thread for that and we can close the thread right away, as everyone is aware that video piracy is wrong! I dont think there is going to be any use of one blaming the other here!

There is a ban on usage of gutka and pan products in here, but no ban on their production!

Cheers!
 
Any act or means that deprives the copyright owner(s) to earn legitimate money is stealing.
...
a) A sale may not have happened because no one was interested in buying the product.

Since you make this sound like a law, here goes. If you are referring to an individual act of making an illegal copy of a song, how does the individual act cause the sale from not happening. There is no direct cause and effect linkage here. Yes, if someone distributed the song to millions of people, what you say is right. However, the person copying the song for their personal use is in no way causing a direct loss of sale.

By the way, the NFL is now preventing websites and news channels from reporting match scores. In the US, you cannot play the radio in a public establishment unless you pay radio royalties to ASCAP (i think). US companies are trying to patent stuff like Neem and Basmati. Man, soon you will be jailed if you accidentally break a neem twig and use it as daantun, or if you tell match scores to your friend. Jokes apart, I'm dead serious - you will actually be sued in the US if you play your radio too loud, especially if you happen to be running a shop. Similarly, the media companies and publishing houses have recently successfully lobbied governments across the world to get copyright expiration timelines extended by several years.

Please consider the hypothetical scenario - however unlikely; however remote. A small artist publishes a compilation of songs. They become very popular. Suddenly all over the internet torrents or rapidshare links appear that allow you to freely download these songs. This artist guy is now deprived of the income. Is he not being cheated out of his livelihood? Is this not theft? Else what do we call it then?

This is actually a fair point.

One thing you forget though: This starving artist that you are referring to - in the days before the internet, she/he would not have had a snowball's chance in hell to market themselves or to "get discovered". This is the primary reason why almost ALL artists (except movie and TV actors) down the ages lived and died in penury. The same evil technology (namely, the internet) that is depriving these artists of their hypothetical income is also causing these artists to become popular across the globe with zero marketing effort from the artists' side.

In fact, the record companies and media companies, which started off as "middle-men" between the artists and patrons, are getting their livelihoods threatened by this pervasive technology. As with all middle-men everywhere in every sphere of commerce, they are now realizing how little value they actually add to the whole commercial cycle, and are fighting tooth and nail to protect "their turf".

Yes, I know my comments have strayed far and wide from the original topic of "piracy" (shiver me timbers!). However, I digressed to talk about the root cause of the illegal downloads and torrents that enables this whole thing. Forget about the illegal bootleggers of yore - they were always marginal players, selling their camera prints to people who would not have spent money on media anyway. The real root cause is the internet.

We are all collectively trying to cope with the pervasiveness of this wonderful technology and the immense power and freedom it is bringing to people who didn't even know what they were missing.

There are companies an countries dealing with this in an evolved manner, and many others that are dealing with this in a completely clueless manner (example: countries that shut down entire sites because of some offensive content or erect firewalls etc.). The second party fears the freedom and information the internet brings.. after all they are in power precisely because they have been very very good at controlling those freedoms and curtailing information.

Nonetheless, take some cues from the software industry. How are so many software companies thriving despite rampant illegal usage? How are companies able to make money despite promoting "free and open source" software? Radiohead and Stephen King have been one of the first to conduct such online experiments, with honor based payments of their songs/books that you could download for free, legally, from their websites. Phish was famous for doing something similar even before the days of the internet.

Not saying that all of these experiments have been successful. However, some of them are proving to be successful, and in surprising ways. However, to take an overtly moralistic stance or on the other hand, an overtly immoral stance, are both missing the point. One is foolish, the other, illegal.
 
In most career and other options there is something wrong in smaller or some what bigger ways, so does that make us and you white collar criminal? In view to this please try to take a good walk and let us know your renewed thinking.

I think you should consider various points which are written on this thread and reply them instead of getting worked up on near to blank basis.

V.

A white collar criminal always talks and acts in all righteousness concealing his crimes until when caught.
It is really disgraceful how a few are defending Piracy by defining their acts and deeds as acceptable.
With no morality on their shoulders they go about talking about corruption, politicians and the system.
Let's face it , with audacity they are pirating - because today they can do it and get away unlike with rape or murder. The day when their IP addresses are tracked and the long arm of the law catching up with them is not to far away.
No sound label or movie production house or Jeans company is running for charity.
If you the domestic pirate( Cause apparently you are not selling only sharing ) thinks that music and movie should be free start at your house. Make it a freeware. Let in some strangers to eat, sleep and stay at your hose for free. You can also work for no salary at your company.
At your heart you know that you are stealing and you think that you are super intelligent by doing so. SHAME ON YOU !!
 
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the point is that when you see people go around making patently wrongheaded statements, you do feel the urge to correct them. And then they snipe at you for that, and then you respond. So yes, that would be the point :) If someone went around saying that tube amplifiers are too old to be useful, or something daft like that wouldn't you be very eager to disabuse them of that absurd notion?

When you put it like that, Vinay, umm OK :).
 
OK. There are two factions here and one will never be able to convince the other group. I am from the group that believes that piracy is not only morally wrong but a crime/theft also. The other group is a large majority that believes that piracy is OK (even if wrong).

As far as I am concerned, I used to download stuff a couple of years ago but since then completely stopped it. Not only that, I am buying the originals of the stuff that I downloaded. I have made a promise to buy legitimate stuff only. I buy genuine stuff because not because I care about "right" people getting their pay/profit (no I couldn't care less about that); I buy original because I want quality. I am not saying other don't care about quality but to each his/her own.

(Here is my collection of originals: My Movie Collection)

Amen!
 
OK. There are two factions here and one will never be able to convince the other group. I am from the group that believes that piracy is not only morally wrong but a crime/theft also. The other group is a large majority that believes that piracy is OK (even if wrong).

As far as I am concerned, I used to download stuff a couple of years ago but since then completely stopped it. Not only that, I am buying the originals of the stuff that I downloaded. I have made a promise to buy legitimate stuff only. I buy genuine stuff because not because I care about "right" people getting their pay/profit (no I couldn't care less about that); I buy original because I want quality. I am not saying other don't care about quality but to each his/her own.

(Here is my collection of originals: My Movie Collection)

Amen!



Just4kix,

I know an exact opposite case. A friend of mine used to regularly buy original discs of old Hindi movies at around Rs. 399 each (now slashed to Rs. 99). Every disc he bought in India used to show the Audio stream as Remastered to Dolby Digital 5.1 even the movies with mono aural soundtracks. We all know how those movies sound on even ordinary amplifiers. And then one day he picked up a copy of one of the old Hindi movies (a original copy of which he already has) from the grey market and was astonished at the crisp audio and high quality video. On enquiry he was told by the supplier that these are copied from the discs meant for US market. Later when I checked the copies of US DVDs I found the audio stream to be honestly mentioned as 2 channel stereo or mono, as the case may be. Now this guy (my friend) swears by copies from the grey market for their quality.

How can these companies have two sets of standards for two sets of people? I suppose honesty and fair play should be a two-way street. Even the English movies you buy here are totally different from what you get in US. I bought an entire set of 2-disc James Bond movies (with truly and professionally remastered audio and video) with a very good Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, from a music store here. Later, I was surprised to see the US release with DTS stream and sounding far better than the Indian originals.

I am not taking sides here. Just mentioning a few facts and incidencts I had come across over the years.

Regds / Shailender
 
Just4kix,

I know an exact opposite case. A friend of mine used to regularly buy original discs of old Hindi movies at around Rs. 399 each (now slashed to Rs. 99). Every disc he bought in India used to show the Audio stream as Remastered to Dolby Digital 5.1 even the movies with mono aural soundtracks. We all know how those movies sound on even ordinary amplifiers. And then one day he picked up a copy of one of the old Hindi movies (a original copy of which he already has) from the grey market and was astonished at the crisp audio and high quality video. On enquiry he was told by the supplier that these are copied from the discs meant for US market. Later when I checked the copies of US DVDs I found the audio stream to be honestly mentioned as 2 channel stereo or mono, as the case may be. Now this guy (my friend) swears by copies from the grey market for their quality.

How can these companies have two sets of standards for two sets of people? I suppose honesty and fair play should be a two-way street. Even the English movies you buy here are totally different from what you get in US. I bought an entire set of 2-disc James Bond movies (with truly and professionally remastered audio and video) with a very good Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, from a music store here. Later, I was surprised to see the US release with DTS stream and sounding far better than the Indian originals.

I am not taking sides here. Just mentioning a few facts and incidencts I had come across over the years.

Regds / Shailender
You do have a point there. But I buy from US/UK only. Just a few I have purchased from local market.
 
just4kix, let me propose a rapprochement. :)

My point is that factually piracy is not theft. theft removes the original, piracy makes a copy. Your point is a moral/ethical one, and so, would you permit me to rephrase your position like this?

"piracy is AS BAD as theft" ?

That is an important and subtle difference. Because factually, piracy is not theft. But you (and anyone else) are free to consider piracy as being AS BAD as theft, because that is a moral estimation, and therefore a personal one.

And others are free to not believe that piracy AS BAD as theft (and yet not endorse or condone piracy). How does that sound to you?



OK. There are two factions here and one will never be able to convince the other group. I am from the group that believes that piracy is not only morally wrong but a crime/theft also. The other group is a large majority that believes that piracy is OK (even if wrong).

As far as I am concerned, I used to download stuff a couple of years ago but since then completely stopped it. Not only that, I am buying the originals of the stuff that I downloaded. I have made a promise to buy legitimate stuff only. I buy genuine stuff because not because I care about "right" people getting their pay/profit (no I couldn't care less about that); I buy original because I want quality. I am not saying other don't care about quality but to each his/her own.

(Here is my collection of originals: My Movie Collection)

Amen!
 
My point is that factually piracy is not theft. theft removes the original, piracy makes a copy. Your point is a moral/ethical one

Yes in our 150 old rotten legal system it may be so.

here in India we think only things in a physical form need to be paid for.
Then why do we pay for making phone calls? why do we pay for cable Tv?
Because if we don't pay they will arm twist us to pay.
Those who don't have the muscle/money power need not be paid.

Suppose a photographer makes a trip to Africa to catch some "elusive" leopard attacking prey shots and comes back and sells his pic to some guy for 10k, and this guy puts it up for download in the net, imagine the loss the photographer incurs. He would have spent atleast 3 Lakh( 2L for travel/accomodation + 1 Lakh for equipment + 3 months of planning)
He would have priced it at 10k, expecting atleast 50 people will purchase from him over a period of 5 years.
Now imagine the loss. He too will have a kid, wife and parents too feed.
Imagine the pain he will have to go through to repay/earn that 3L he spent.

I find it strange that people here saying 'anyway movie companies make lot of money'. If a roadside vendor refuses to give you 5 rupee change saying "saar you're earning 50k..this is peanuts for you" will we walk away?
And when a large movie/CD producer incurs a reduction in income it also affects the poorest worker in his firm. His salaries are reduced/ not paid.
But our sympathies always lie with the roadside CD vendor.

A Legal stand is stopping at a red signal because a cop/ camera(proof) is watching.
A moral stand is stopping at a red signal even if no cops are watching you.
many stop, some speed away(where?):sad:
 
Yes in our 150 old rotten legal system it may be so.

here in India we think only things in a physical form need to be paid for.
Then why do we pay for making phone calls? why do we pay for cable Tv?
Because if we don't pay they will arm twist us to pay.
Those who don't have the muscle/money power need not be paid.

Suppose a photographer makes a trip to Africa to catch some "elusive" leopard attacking prey shots and comes back and sells his pic to some guy for 10k, and this guy puts it up for download in the net, imagine the loss the photographer incurs. He would have spent atleast 3 Lakh( 2L for travel/accomodation + 1 Lakh for equipment + 3 months of planning)
He would have priced it at 10k, expecting atleast 50 people will purchase from him over a period of 5 years.
Now imagine the loss. He too will have a kid, wife and parents too feed.
Imagine the pain he will have to go through to repay/earn that 3L he spent.

I find it strange that people here saying 'anyway movie companies make lot of money'. If a roadside vendor refuses to give you 5 rupee change saying "saar you're earning 50k..this is peanuts for you" will we walk away?
And when a large movie/CD producer incurs a reduction in income it also affects the poorest worker in his firm. His salaries are reduced/ not paid.
But our sympathies always lie with the roadside CD vendor.

A Legal stand is stopping at a red signal because a cop/ camera(proof) is watching.
A moral stand is stopping at a red signal even if no cops are watching you.
many stop, some speed away(where?):sad:

If you truly want to have a meaningful discussion, then please look at the various counter-points mentioned in previous posts and try answering them.

In the Lee example mentioned above, do you find it immoral to take a photograph of a pair of Jeans and getting it replicated from your tailor?

One common thread I find in all the righteousness and morality on display here is an (incorrect) lumping of examples. A chai-wallah is NOT the same as a mega-corporation.

I will ask you this other question. Dow Industries (formerly, Union Carbide) has acted strictly within the framework of Indian law, and has promptly paid whatever the government asked it to pay. However, do YOU think what they did was immoral?

Similarly, please try to look at what the recording and media companies are doing, the kind of lobbying and bribery they are indulging in to get laws passed that suit their business model, the way they are suing people left and right, the way they are trying to patent and copyright EVERYTHING, the way they are trying to not allowing copyrights to expire by getting laws passed, etc.

Then, if you are truly convinced, by all means, please get moralistic. Nobody is saying that "piracy" is morally tenable. However, what IS or should be a copyright? What IS or should be a patent? What IS or should be "fair use"?

We need to fully understand these things before blasting others.

For example, do you feel that creating a personal backup copy is OK? According to certain laws, it is actually illegal, and you can get fined or jailed for it. In fact, a lot of content and even hardware that you buy nowadays has encryption, spyware, hidden software, etc. that actively prevents you from making a copy.

Amazon got a patent for a "1 click" process of buying something online, which is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. Its like someone creating a patent for say, running backwards.

One more thing, many many medicines that we buy in India are illegal copies of medicines made by US pharma companies. The US companies have spent billions of dollars research the drugs, and Indian companies copy these medicines and sell them in India making huge profits, while the US companies get zero.

So, you should stop buying Indian medicines too! One immoral act does not justify another, I agree. But, to focus one's morality on certain acts, and conveniently neglect other acts is also double standards.

Not saying anything to you (general rambling), but we Indians are very good at this double standard business. We go out and date other people's sisters, but dare anyone date our sister! We will go beat them up!
 
and the hydra refuses to die!

it is not just in our legal system. in no legal system, or any system that includes logic is piracy the same as theft. Like I said you are free to say that it is as bad as theft, because you disapprove. Your photographer's story and the story of the movie producer and everything is about personal value systems.

In your personal value system you can say that piracy is bad and that is is as bad as theft, but the fact remains that theft removes the original, piracy makes a copy. Instead of emotional examples of photographers and their starving family and children is there any logical counter-argument to that?

And no, the red light thing is nowhere as simplistic as that!

Yes in our 150 old rotten legal system it may be so.

here in India we think only things in a physical form need to be paid for.
Then why do we pay for making phone calls? why do we pay for cable Tv?
Because if we don't pay they will arm twist us to pay.
Those who don't have the muscle/money power need not be paid.

Suppose a photographer makes a trip to Africa to catch some "elusive" leopard attacking prey shots and comes back and sells his pic to some guy for 10k, and this guy puts it up for download in the net, imagine the loss the photographer incurs. He would have spent atleast 3 Lakh( 2L for travel/accomodation + 1 Lakh for equipment + 3 months of planning)
He would have priced it at 10k, expecting atleast 50 people will purchase from him over a period of 5 years.
Now imagine the loss. He too will have a kid, wife and parents too feed.
Imagine the pain he will have to go through to repay/earn that 3L he spent.

I find it strange that people here saying 'anyway movie companies make lot of money'. If a roadside vendor refuses to give you 5 rupee change saying "saar you're earning 50k..this is peanuts for you" will we walk away?
And when a large movie/CD producer incurs a reduction in income it also affects the poorest worker in his firm. His salaries are reduced/ not paid.
But our sympathies always lie with the roadside CD vendor.

A Legal stand is stopping at a red signal because a cop/ camera(proof) is watching.
A moral stand is stopping at a red signal even if no cops are watching you.
many stop, some speed away(where?):sad:
 
He too will have a kid, wife and parents too feed.
Imagine the pain he will have to go through to repay/earn that 3L he spent.


Oh cmon dont give me that reply!

1.) You have just taken 1 example whereas we are talking about the whole industry in general here.

2.) Even I can say the foreign producers, directors, music composers etc have a family to support, kids to feed etc but that doesn't stop Bollywood people from shamelessly taking their stories and work without paying even a penny and on top of that they blatantly refuse that they were inspired from the movie.



Ever heard a phrase "stealing from the robbers"?
 
but the fact remains that theft removes the original, piracy makes a copy.

that holds true in the case of a physical product which cannot be duplicated 100%,(olden days)
but in the digital era when you can make exact replicas of originals shouldn't the laws be rewritten?

Tomorrow we may have to deal with competitors/enemies who duplicate ourselves..by cloning :)


Oh cmon dont give me that reply!

1.) You have just taken 1 example whereas we are talking about the whole industry in general here.

2.) Even I can say the foreign producers, directors, music composers etc have a family to support, kids to feed etc but that doesn't stop Bollywood people from shamelessly taking their stories and work without paying even a penny and on top of that they blatantly refuse that they were inspired from the movie.



Ever heard a phrase "stealing from the robbers"?

how is a bollywood 'cheat' producer/director related to an innocent genuine photographer?
He hasn't stolen anybody's..
 
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