So, what are you stealing today ?

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

Saying 'I don't like it' is not the same as stealing music or illegally distributing music.

Of course it is, and no-one suggested otherwise. I was responding directly to your line of reasoning that no-one is losing money therefore it's not stealing. This, I was attempting to indicate, is false.

I don't use the term stealing when relating to music because I have not deprived someone of the original good. If I broke into someone's FTP, downloaded their music and then deleted their copy then this would much better fit the stealing analogy. But it doesn't matter, you can call it stealing if you want, but then to me that just devalues a perfectly valid term. Stealing is then no longer a bad thing in the vast majority of instances. But as I say, it doesn't matter, and the whole business doesn't surprise me from the content distributers - the people who deliberately use idiotic terms like "piracy" (a serious and often violent offence).

I doubt that the homegrown band from next door is not threatening Metallica by playing Master of Puppets in a tiny bar and being paid $30 for it. Not sure though. Anyhow. It's different.

Wallmart isn't threatened by you taking the odd grape without paying. But it's still stealing. Either downloading music isn't stealing or singing music in a karaoke bar is stealing. Just because "Well the RIAA don't care that much" about something doesn't make it less/more of a "theft".

Let's say it could be proved somehow that people downloading MP3s from the internet didn't harm sales of RIAA products. Would this then somehow mean it wasn't theft anymore? That's a weird way of approaching the question.

[s|k]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Of course it is, and no-one suggested otherwise. I was responding directly to your line of reasoning that no-one is losing money therefore it's not stealing.

I never said that it's not stealing. I said the RIAA will not hound people for karaoking their client's songs because it does not pose a big enough threat. The distribution of copyrighted content is prohibited unequivically. For the RIAA to take action against a party requires, in my opinion, that two conditions have to be met:

1)The party must be breaking a law.
2)The action must bring about sufficient results to merit the cost of taking the action in the first place.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Let's say it could be proved somehow that people downloading MP3s from the internet didn't harm sales of RIAA products. Would this then somehow mean it wasn't theft anymore? That's a weird way of approaching the question.

It's not about harming someone, it's about not providing tit for tat. It's about not respecting the ownership of property.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by s|k

For the RIAA to take action against a party requires, in my opinion, that two conditions have to be met:

This may be true, but it's about stealing music, not about the RIAA. I gave an example of "stealing" content (repeating a joke) and you said that wasn't the same thing.

It's not about harming someone, it's about not providing tit for tat. It's about not respecting the ownership of property.

What does "respecting the ownership of property" mean? And who defines this, if it's nothing to do with harm?

[Boogster]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

I gave an example of "stealing" content (repeating a joke) and you said that wasn't the same thing.What does "respecting the ownership of property" mean? And who defines this, if it's nothing to do with harm?

It seems quite simple to me.

You are talking of two distinct acts. There is a difference between singing a song and downloading the product, just as the same difference exists between a stealing a joke book and telling a joke.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Boogster

You are talking of two distinct acts.

And taking a CD from a shop is yet another, yet they're all called (under S|k's definition) 'stealing'. Which was kind of my point.

[Boogster]

A CD is a product, as is a downloaded song (unless downloaded with permission), as is a Joke Book.

But I'm getting confused - I'll let you two get on with it.

[Yahwe]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

What does "respecting the ownership of property" mean? And who defines this, if it's nothing to do with harm?

the Law.

which means Jurists do it

and it is actually quite a hard thing to do.

I could spend my time teaching you. I could painstakingly pick apart your fatuous arguments such as 're-telling a joke must be stealing too'.

but we both know that you don't really want to learn. because without bothering to learn or to question you already believe that you are right.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Yahwe

the Law.

which means Jurists do it

and it is actually quite a hard thing to do.

I could spend my time teaching you. I could painstakingly pick apart your fatuous arguments such as 're-telling a joke must be stealing too'.

but we both know that you don't really want to learn. because without bothering to learn or to question you already believe that you are right.

i'm sure dante does have a rudimentary understanding of the concept of 'property' as exists in modern western society. and perhaps he would admit that its application is generally consistent.

the question he seems to be trying to get at is not 'what does property mean' but 'how is the present system of ownership designation any more (choose one) right/logical/fair than arbitrary designation by, say, ouija board?'

dante can feel free (not that he needs my permission) to correct this assertion.

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by Yahwe

the Law.

which means Jurists do it

This is absolutley fine from you - I would expect nothing else and your view is entirely consistent with your other opinions. However, s|k, in posts previously has rejected "the law" as the ultimate arbriter of these matters.

I am not interested in trying to convince others that I am correct and they are wrong. On moral issues that approach seems fairly pointless from experience. However, I am interested in discussing with people the basis for their beliefs. Where that basis is transparent / obvious then we can move on. Where it is unclear, or where there could be inconsistency then it's fairly interesting.

I could spend my time teaching you. I could painstakingly pick apart your fatuous arguments such as 're-telling a joke must be stealing too'.

s|k already seems to think it is stealing (or at least, it is stealing that is not likely to be persued by content distributors, I can't tell).

but we both know that you don't really want to learn. because without bothering to learn or to question you already believe that you are right.

OK.

[SepH]

on an unrelated note*: I'm currently stealing
The prodigy - Spitfire
Joe Satriani - Midgnight

I'm trying to steal "Nubuo eumatsu - Those chosen by the planet" but there aren't enough people for me to get it.

*seeing as how the topic of this thread is now "define stealing/definte stealing songs on the internet etc."

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by s|k

But honestly, kudos for admitting that it is stealing, many others wont go that far, and I can find no fault with you.

You make the pedant inside me angry. The pedant that represents the rest of me, ditto. "IP Violations" is the term, my dear chap, or at least a variation on that is.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

So if they could prove that Maria Carey CD sales dropped when she had a negative review in the New York Times, would that make it OK to try and ban them?

It would be entirely consistent methodology, as they appear to be going by little more than post hoc ergo propter hoc, but I suspect you realise that already.

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Mostly it just seems to be Family Guy without the "this is bad as that time I..." bits (which are probably the best things about Family Guy).

If we're not counting the newest series of family guy (or SG: The Untold Story) then I probably agree, although I'd expand it a bit to include the general cut-to-gag-cut-back bits. Of course, that's also what makes Family Guy so up and down in terms of quality, both as a series as a whole and in terms of individual episodes. When all that's there is the gag, if you don't like the gag the entire scene is wasted. Obvious example of this kind of thing: that bit in the C&TCF reference episode where Peter runs home, and falls over outside the path to his door subsequently spending 10-20s holding his knee and making pained noises. Unless you like the specific joke, there's nothing there. It's dead time. Add in that a fair proportion of the jokes involve an extremely specific reference to a part of american popular culture that may or may not have crossed the pond, and you can see the problem.
That is, of course, part of what makes Futurama the best written comedy television show that I know of. None of the scenes are dead time - there's always exposition, or background gags, or character building. Even The Simpsons didn't manage that, there were cutaways to jokes tending to the non-specific that, whilst maybe amusing in isolation, broke the flow of the episode. An episode which has this problem which springs to mind is the one where Homer gains the heart bypass. There's too many instances to describe it in detail. Also, it's on Theodore which I don't have with me. Or on my DVDs of that series, but as for some reason Fox DVD commentary tracks fail to work on all of my simpsons disks and futurama series 1, there's little reason to have it to hand.

The reason I've chosen to ignore series 4 (and the associated feature) is because it just isn't as good. I don't know if this is because the writing team has changed, or whether they've just run out of ideas, but, aside from the ever decreasing number of good or intelligent gags, they've tended to fall into two categories. The first of these is just doing the same kind of thing that they've done before, but doing it less well and more often. eg: in (I believe) Stewie Griffen: The Untold Story, Peter gains a segment on the news called something along the lines of "Grinds My Gears". EVERY time this is mentioned, the conversation follows a '"Mention show" "Spurious exposition line", Peter then saying "This is much better/worse than the time I was on (TV show popular in america about the time the writers were probably growing up, probably a game show)". It's lazy, really lazy. And comedy doesn't work with lazy writers. It's no coincidence that the best comedy is written by people (Douglas Adams, the Pythons, Matt Groening, David X Cohen and the rest of the Futurama team) who put an immense of time into writing and rewriting. People who make sure that no matter what you're writing, you're writing it well. A group perspiration version of something like Decline and Fall, or any other of Waugh's books.
The second problem comes with what I presume (from the content of the show) to be their movement from "family based prime time" into a later slot, persuaded by the demographic who watch it, or the ratings the DVDs acquired, or maybe the executives realising that just because it's an animated show about american life doesn't mean it's the new Simpsons. I digress. The problem is simple, and it is this: vulgarity has replaced intelligence, or at least some stab at intelligence. Instead of an attempt at a joke that doesn't rely on more than social taboo to even have the possibility of being found amusing, we have incest gags, or the like. See point 1 for my commentary on lazy comedy.

Also, why the hell doesn't Nathan the Prophet get more recognition? "Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet annointed Soloman king" it (1 Kings 1:38) goes, but do you hear anything about the person you'd think would be more important? Oh no, we just get the lowly priest's name battered into our heads when the actual talent behind the project is ignored. "I likes that Zadok the Priest from that there set of coronation anthems from that nice mister Georg Friedrich Händel, it gives me a nice bit of tune to listen to when I'm out milking my chickens." Were I Nathan, I would defintely be annoyed at this turn of events, possibly resorting to legal action or at least having a "three in a bed romp" with Courtney Love and Winona Ryder, selling the pictures and story to the red tops in an attempt to raise my public profile. It would also make me look more "edgy" and "hip" with the youth of today and thus be the popular alternative candidate should I enter the running for Archbishop of Canterbury or, mayhaps, Pope. We all know Ratzinger's not going to last forever, and I'm a ****ing prophet, give me my ****ing recognition cocksuckers.

[dda]

Souls. I then turn the soulless hulks into Republicans.

[Vaio]

Excuse me, the point of the thread was to discuss what you are currently downloading, not to get exact definitions of copyright theft, violations et al.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Vaio

Excuse me, the point of the thread was to discuss what you are currently downloading, not to get exact definitions of copyright theft, violations et al.

Cock off.

[Madina]

Just to get it back on topic - Lost S2E2.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Madina

Just to get it back on topic - Lost S2E2.

i hate it when i like something, then after x episodes or x books you get that feeling that the writer(s) no longer has any intention of resolving all the shit that is going on, and instead is just pumping more and more shit in and often rehashing the same shit you already dealt with apparently in the interest of making room for more books/episodes. did we really need an additional episode devoted to whatshisname giving up his rights to his son to his wife (we already had one)?

not sure what i hate about it most, possibly that i think there may have originally been a good 'resolution' in mind, but that it will never see the light of day because it was trampled by the additional time-filling stuff.

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Cock off.

Bite me

[NEWSBOT3]

Are Vaio and MrL playing jeopardy ?

[Madina]

Originally Posted by acropolis

i hate it when i like something, then after x episodes or x books you get that feeling that the writer(s) no longer has any intention of resolving all the shit that is going on, and instead is just pumping more and more shit in and often rehashing the same shit you already dealt with apparently in the interest of making room for more books/episodes. did we really need an additional episode devoted to whatshisname giving up his rights to his son to his wife (we already had one)?

not sure what I hate about it most, possibly that ii think there may have originally been a good 'resolution' in mind, but that it will never see the light of day because it was trampled by the additional time-filling stuff.

Yes it does seem to be a bit of a joke this episode. I thought the story would progress but instead its the same time span but from someone else's point of view (crap ones at that). Bit shit really. Im still going to watch it though.

Also did you get the DVD Rips of the 1st series?

[jerome]

stealing several albums by a band named Mates of State(word of mouth recommendation) currently, alongside an EP by The Maple State after being impressed with them on a recent gig i went to.

[dda]

Originally Posted by Vaio

Bite me

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

Cock off.

So between the two of you the message is, "Bite me Cock off."

A strange request.

[Vaio]

Originally Posted by dda

So between the two of you the message is, "Bite me Cock off."

A strange request.

It's a GD chatup line

[Radical Edward]

Originally Posted by s|k

It's not real violence, it's fake violence. Yellow blood, weird shaped testicles, etc.

heh. It would be interesting that "this is disgusting, look at all that blood"

"you stupid woman (a-la Rene from Allo Allo) , the film is is black and white, that is clearly not blood, because if this film was in colour, it would look yellow"

[Dante Hicks]

Originally Posted by acropolis

i hate it when i like something, then after x episodes or x books you get that feeling that the writer(s) no longer has any intention of resolving all the shit that is going on

When I first started watching Lost I was under the impression it was a one season only show, which seemed a fairly interesting idea. Then I heard that the writers/studio were considering stretching it out upto seven seasons long, and I realised that it would be full of X-Files esque cop-outs when it came to explaining things. It's not just that the writers have to put in loads of filler, it's that the characters have to start to behaving in increasingly silly ways to sustain the tension.

I'll keep watching it for now, as it's still fairly enjoyable but I won't hold out much hope for it in the long term.

[acropolis]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

When I first started watching Lost I was under the impression it was a one season only show, which seemed a fairly interesting idea. Then I heard that the writers/studio were considering stretching it out upto seven seasons long, and I realised that it would be full of X-Files esque cop-outs when it came to explaining things. It's not just that the writers have to put in loads of filler, it's that the characters have to start to behaving in increasingly silly ways to sustain the tension.

I'll keep watching it for now, as it's still fairly enjoyable but I won't hold out much hope for it in the long term.

I think they could have set it up to run 2-3 seasons and still have a serious 'logical' story line (i hesitate to apply 'logical' to a story involving a magic island apparently peopled largely by paedophile pirates, but i suppose it could turn out to be Neverland. 'self-consistent' works here too). they don't have to do much story progression in any given episode given all the flashbacks.

Anyway, the nice thing about the X-Files is that even though the underlying story never went anywhere and was dragged out without answering anything, the individual episodes could still have a point. One episode about one case, which gets largely resolved. So far on Lost, they haven't resolved anything. It's like we've seen the first halves of 40 X-Files episodes.

[Marilyn Manson]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

We all know Ratzinger's not going to last forever

Like the old testement prophets, he will live until he is 456.

[dda]

I have been without a computer at work for two weeks. I ran out of things I wanted to do so I got onto the computer of another dda who was on vacation for the day. I then used her computer to post on GD. As I was pondering the many witty and sagaceou remarks I might make to dazzle my friends on GD, I became aware of a rather large sack of Sam's Choice Tropical Trail Mix. Well........I figured if it was good enough for sam and my fellow dda, it was good enough for me.

A small handful surely couldn't hurt anything, so I dipped into her thirty-two ounce bag of trail mix and helped myself. There is now considerably less than 32-ounces of trail mix in her reclosable bag. I don't like to think of THIS as stealing but rather appropriation for the greater good.

I hope she sees it the same way.

[G.K Zhukov]

Mike Stern -about five albums. Ive got one of them on CD, so Im not stealing that one.
5-6 albums worth of jazz, like Ella Fitzgerald and so on.
Im also looking for Grant Green.

[Ste]

Sorry for the bump but I didn't want to start a whole new thread on it...

For people in the UK (that haven't downloaded it) American Dad is on at 10:30 tonight after family guy on BBC2.

Any idea which series of FG it is btw?

[MrL_JaKiri]

The episode in question is The Thin White Line, which if memory serves is the season close of S2.

[Vaio]

I've never seen it, is it any good ?

Getting lots of CSIs' btw

[Ste]

Originally Posted by MrL_JaKiri

The episode in question is The Thin White Line, which if memory serves is the season close of S2.

first episode of Series 3... which if I'd bothered to look at my shelf before I posted I would have known...
oh and the family guy film is out on monday
(I haven't seen it yet)

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Ste

first episode of Series 3... which if I'd bothered to look at my shelf before I posted I would have known...
oh and the family guy film is out on monday
(I haven't seen it yet)

I have, I commented on it earlier in the thread.

[KaneED]

I'm still trying to steal the 2nd episode of season 2 lost and the third, but i can't use bit torrent and the only thing i can do is download and dcc and i'm too stupid to work out how to find those dcc bots on the intarweb