THE DEVIN'S ADVOCATE: STOP PIRATING, DICKHEADS

As a film lover, there are few things more annoying that recommending a cool, older genre film to a friend/co-worker and getting "Sounds good, i'll download it later" in response. In this world of Netflix Instant View, Hulu, Red Box, etc., how is piracy still even such an issue? Fucking spoiled little kids.

I agree with you 100% about this, but I feel like this is a battle that will be lost. Everyone I know pirates freely (mostly music; people honestly look at me like I'm fucking crazy when I tell them I buy music on iTunes), and they are all otherwise decent people with a strong sense of ethics. I'm left feeling like the ethical goalposts have been moved on the issue, and no matter what you and I think about it, that's where they stand. The fact is that morality is not black and white and ethics are constantly evolving. 100 years ago the prevailing wisdom was that sex before marriage was wrong, now most people could give a shit. I feel like the internet age is going to change what the definition of "stealing" is to suit it's own morality. It already has.

Didn't get through all of this, but I agree that pirates are shitheels, and this--

-- is pure gold. Awesome. I look forward to reading the rest.

I blame piracy for this stupid 3D craze. Well, Avatar is largely to blame too but the studios have realized that you can't download the 3D experience which is why EVERYTHING is now in 3D. I stupidly watched Clash Of The Titans in 3D....urgh. DAMN YOUS PIRATES!

I think there's a big difference because sex before marriage is a social thing. Piracy is inherently economic. Should the mainstream value system come to embrace piracy we're going to get to a point where there's more or less nothing of value to pirate. If people cannot make a living producing this stuff, they won't produce it.

That seems to be the ultimate victory for the pirates - a world where it's all amateurs freely sharing the nonsense they filmed in their bedroom. It's YouTube writ large, and nobody has to pay for it.

Devin's take on "The Day The Clown Cried" angle was a good one. There is a gray area there. There are so many movies, shows, and music which will never make it to a commercial home release. Technically, it's a sin, but that being acknowledged, it is on a different level of sin from someone downloading the latest version of Photoshop or Avatar.

I hate this attitude. I write for a friend's pretty successful comicbook news site, and as a site reviewer I get a ton of free comics. But they're not 'free,' not really. Sure they don't cost me money, but I spend a lot of time, thought and effort into reading and writing reviews for the material we get sent. You want free movies/comics/whatever? Devote some time and effort to your subject, learn to write, and join/start a site dedicated to it and you might get lucky.

Seconding the love for:

Regardless of what the morality of this situation is, I do think that a cultural shift is occurring and that it will be very hard to convince people that they should actually pay for their media.

As an example of how complicated this issue is, CHUD runs this article on the same day it runs an article that features a ten minute scene from An American Werewolf in Paris, which I don't think was uploaded onto youtube legally. Not to judge. I watched that scene. It's hard to even bat an eye at something like that.

I'm also kind of confused why Devin keeps being so insistent on emphasizing the evils of downloading movies that are currently in theaters. If anything, I'm more worried about what will happen when a company like Criterion has no economic incentive to restore and release a movie.

And movies in theaters seem more protected anyways, since even now most only appear as handheld camera bootlegs. Watching a movie like that is more heinous to me than pirating it.

Red Box is pretty insane. I used to dismiss it, but it's hard to beat getting a new release for ONE dollar for an entire day (or 2 days if you work it out properly). I mean, that's cheaper than a soda. While I hate the fast food mentality of my movies in a vending machine, the "bang for the buck" value to the movie fan is ridiculously good.

Bravo.

To all of you out there torrenting/illegally streaming HBO shows because you're too cheap/poor to get HBO: stop. Wait until the DVD gets released on Netflix and put it on your queue. Or make friends with someone who has HBO and go their house for a viewing party.

Hey Devin - I think the flaw in your take on this matter is that you feel that films and music are being consumed differently - and I don't believe that's true anymore. There are dingbats who feel that movies are every bit as disposable and pointless as that "summer jam" that no one will remember three months from now (if that). It's why they can talk and text during a film in the theater - 'cause what's going on onscreen matters that little to them. I've walked out of theaters and heard people say shit like, "DUUUUUDE - that FUCKIN' BLEW! I SHOULDA' FUCKIN' TORRENTED THAT!"

And if it was out and on the torrent sites, they probably would have.

Piracy should never be about avoiding the price tag. If you have to bootleg something obscure or weird, so be it - but if the thing has an SKU or a barcode or a "Click here to Buy" button - you should probably pay for it if you want it.

But, unlike you or me or a lot of the people here - the public at large just doesn't care about movies. It's just light in front of their eyes while they text somebody. Paying for it should only be done if they absolutely have to. And sure - these people should probably be hit with bricks, but as they're fond of mentioning - there's far worse shit going on in the world that no one is lifting a finger or spending a dollar to stop. That's not justifcation, it's just the way things are.

Or buy the thing when Best buy has those insano sales where all the HBO TV is like 60% off. I didn't have the cake, but the SERIES boxed set of THE WIRE was 79.00 there once.

And it will be again...

The other difference is that most true aficionados will buy a copy if the rare gem ever does get legitimately released. I had a crappy VHS bootleg of the Australian laser disc extended version of Dune that had Japanese subtitles across the bottom the entire time. I had Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste" and "Meet the Feebles" on VHS years before they came out in the US market (back when the San Diego Comic con allowed bootlegs to be sold). When the legit DVD copies were finally available in the US, I bought them the first day they were released.

While I don't condone piracy, there can still be honor among thieves. What I mean is: ALWAYS buy from the independent artist/musician/filmmaker. If you have to steal something, steal that Michael Bay shit, but don't steal something like "Dr. Parnassus".

Yes, I do agree that the major labels were dicks and the music industry got what it deserved. Yes, the major studios release mind-numbingly idiotic crap that you should not even waste your time downloading in the first place. But independent artists need your support. If they don't get it, then art dies and all we'll only have is shit like American Idol to listen to.

Sorry some kid had to pay $20 for the Caprica pilot. I rented it from Netflix. Why do you have to have a physical copy? I can't afford (and don't have the space to) buy every DVD I want. So I *gasp* rent. The filmmakers probably don't get as much money from a rental, but at least they get more than the would from outright stealing.

I agree that no one should feel entitled to fill up their iPods or have a film available whenever they want it. It's stealing, plain and simple. But there has been a cultural shift, and the media world has to adapt. Either figure out a way to enforce against piracy and thereby make it less appealing, or lower your prices.

Frankly, I think it's retarded that in this day and age I can spend $30 on a DVD and have to repurchase it if it breaks. What they should be doing is developing some kind of proprietary licensing scheme that allows me to view the movies I purchase on all of my devices for a one time charge. Same goes for music.

That's what I'm talking about. OL' SKOOL, BABY - OL' SKOOL!

The ban on premarital sex was inherently economic, too: you were defiling another man's property. In both instances, the cause of the shift is the same, i.e. people stop seeing the object in question as property.

Someone's personal estimation of the value of a good or service doesn't give them free reign on taking it for free. Nor should that line of thinking be excused/accepted with a "just the way things are" white flag.


See my comment above.

What the hell are you doing to your DVDs? Collecting for 15 years, I'm pretty sure I've never broken a single one.

Though, I do think it's retarded that you can pay to download a bunch of music, and if your hard drive crashes you lose it ALL. That is 1) why I still buy CDs and 2) one of the times that I condone piracy: to replace music you already paid for.

A lot of pirates believe that they are striking a blow against the (admittedly) sinister DRM schemes that get you paying for the same material for twelve different devices - like they're fighting the system like true modern-day Robin Hoods.

Unfortunately, their actions just galvanize the studios/labels in their thinking...and in their lobbying - and people end up being fined more money than they'll ever see because they downloaded a Lady Gaga single.

People are not going to pay for something if they can get it for free. That a fact. And there are plenty of folks who use streaming video as opposed to actual downloading because it's not punishable. Can't arrest somebody for watching Iron Man 2 on YouTube. All the anti-piracy ads are about combating downloading. They never say shit about streaming, so folks see that as okay.

Great article Devin, but I really don't see what can be done about this issue, realistically. Threatening jail time and huge fines isn't enough of a deterrent. Getting a trojan on your computer from a shady download isn't enough of a deterrent. You shut down a website and another Pirate Bay will pop up elsewhere.

It is an interesting point. It's not one that I'm saying I agree with. I just say that it's interesting. "I bought the VHS. I bought the DVD. Now I gotta buy the friggin' Blu Ray?" I understand that POV.

Tangential dilemma:
Recently my DVD player crashed. Now pretty much all quality DVD players being sold are Blu Ray. I still have a regular boxie tube television. I live in a small apartment and never needed anything more. Now if I buy the Blu Ray, then do I have to buy one of those flat panel HD tv's to support it? Then will I have to think about starting my DVD collection over from scratch? Or should I bother? If, in the next two years, my DVD collection will become as irrelevant as my VHS collection, then why bother buying any Blu Ray at all? Is that 3D TV going to make my flat panel irrelevant in the next few years?*

So yeah...I may not agree with it, but I understand that POV.

(*i decided to get a $25 region free DVD player and keep my shitty TV that works perfectly fine and that means my friends never want to come to my place to watch movies which means I go the their place and drink their beer. Win.)

Most people just want to steal shit, and don't care about how awful, corrupt, and distorted our copyright system has become. It's just one of a litany of excuses they trot out.

Then again, while the systemic gutting of any semblance of a fair and reasonable copyright system by endless corporate lobbying isn't a problem of the magnitude of intertron piracy, pretending that it is just a minor trifle hardly worth mentioning in the same context is intellectually dishonest.

I know people don't really like to "read" here - but look again where I say that this is how most people feel regarding media. I didn't say it was my belief. I don't like it - it's just where we are in society. That must be seen - and changed - if anyone stands a chance at thwarting piracy.

I never said it was your belief. It was an "Amen" to your point. Reading is fine, but comprehension goes a long way too.

Though I used Michael Bay as my example, I wasn't talking about the "value" of the good. I was talking about independent artists vs. giant corporations. Giant corporations may release a good of reasonable quality (Iron Man 2). Regardless, they will notice the hit of piracy far less severely than the independent artist...was all that I was saying.

Yes, but like music, the product just doesn't go from the corporation to your hands. There are retailers, independent and chain, who sell books, music, movies etc etc who use said media to make their living. Everyone is affected down the chain. This is why we have so many independent college music stores closing down, because the kids are staying in their dorms and downloading music before it even hits the street.

I understand the sentiment of "if you are going to stick it to someone, stick it to the one who can take the hit more easily". Unfortunately, I think the middle men, the mom and pops of the world get lost in that equation to most people.

the premarital sex thing was definitely economic. the diamond business is now in trouble because you can get the milk for free without buying the cow.

This bears repeating I think because it goes a long way to explaining why this shift is occurring I feel. If people don't value something they don't see getting it for free as stealing - and the majority of people see movies, tv shows (and music for that matter) as simply disposable and forgettable. It's why this battle is completely quixotic. There's just not enough of us that care about this to see the issue in an ethical light.

Your statement is just vague (or, since we're on the internet - vauge) enough for me to have read it like it was an indictment of the viewpoint as if it were mine own. Apologies.

Mine too. Context is a bitch online at times. No harm meant, no foul.

Indeed. Theft is theft, pure and simple. No rationalization will ever change the fact that it's wrong.

Yet another excellent Advocate, Devin.

i think we're over thinking the issue. piracy happens because people think "these people are richer than me, fuck them". when the people they're stealing from have no more money to make shit, they'll stop, and we'll be living in a live action version of Brazil

I haven't pirated any media in years and years. Back in the early 2000's, I did get a crapload of music from indietorrents, but I've never downloaded a movie or TV show* in my life. And I have no desire or plans to do so going forward.

Okay, bona fides out of the way: What's everyone's take on this piece from Cory Doctorow? http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...ee?CMP=twt_iph

I generally agree with Doctorow's take on copyright, yet I don't pirate. There's that whole pesky morality/ethics thing that Devin mentioned that gets in the way for me.

That said, the RIAA wants to make it so that even ripping your CDs for personal use is a violation of DMCA. Anyone who rips DVDs to use in a media server in their home theater? By defeating the DRM/Encryption to rip it, they've broken DMCA. They're a pirate. That's nuts.

More: http://societyandliving.com/so-is-cd...ht-legalities/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10442482-261.html

I have a sneaking suspicion that the fight against piracy is comparable to the war on drugs, take down one pirate and there will always be other to take his place. As it stands, most anti-piracy measures only hurt legitimate consumers and leave infringers unaffected. The only real way to fight it is by offering things that you cannot get from downloading said product. Either that or by fostering brand loyalty by producing quality products. Right or wrong, it's going to happen and so I see little point in getting worked up about it.

The subject of illegal downloads of rare or 'out of print' films reminded me of how upsetting it is that with each "upgrade" to a new technology, VHS-DVD-BluRay, we seem to be loosing more and more films that are not considered 'classic' or were not a blockbuster. On top of that, the major brick & mortar stores are carrying less and less diversity in their products. I imagine the economy shares a large part of the blame, but I'd also like to blame stupid people.

And yet, I keep seeing glimmers of hope like the Warner Archive Collection and some of the selections inside Netflix Instant.

I'd hope that we would one day not need a 'gray area'. A world where those rare gems would be a legal download away. And then I see the selection of movies in those RedBox things or the front page of the iTunes store and I wonder how anyone on the Starship Enterprise would have even heard of Shakespeare or Berlioz.

(Good lord, I'm a dork.)

I'm not worried about Captain Kirk's access to Shakespeare. But will Dr. McCoy get to kick back with a bottle of Saurian Brandy and ROLLING THUNDER starring William Devane?

Last week I heard about a friend of mine who downloaded Kick-Ass. I wanted to punch him in the face with my car.

I see a whole lot of baggage in this thread from Devin's division of crimes along economic/social lines. You, meaning all of us and Devin as well, should throw out this distinction. All economic crimes are social at their base since economics is fundamentally a social construct. I see no problem with society at large deciding upon which actions are acceptable on a certain level -- it's a necessary antecedent of acknowledging the ability of the state to regulate behavior (which some wackos would argue against).

If you give economics a "hard science" aura of universality, and thence inevitability, you consequently end up with a lot of bullshit being regarded as inevitable. If something doesn't exist outside of human culture it is social pure and simple.

By the way, this bolsters Devin's argument, from my point of view, since it argues against the inevitability of people's actions to some extent. To listen to a lot of pirates, they have no choice. Bullshit, I say.

Sorry for the rant but economics as hard science is a huuuuuuge pet peeve. People made all of this (culture, society, etc.) and we could change it if enough of us really wanted to.

It's all about agency y'all!

Back in the golden days of Napster, and my undergraduate, I downloaded music. My conscience got the better of me, then a teacher assigned a paper on music pirating. After a cursory investigation into the RIAA, I realized everyone was getting screwed by the RIAA, including the artists. The (2002) price of a CD was still 16-18 dollars. So I said F#$% the RIAA! Then Itunes and Amazon MP3 came out. I haven't stolen a song since. I get the song I want, when I want it. I am not a musicologist, so I rarely listen to an entire album more than once, unless it is great.

I have never downloaded television shows. Hulu is a god-send. Do I want more availability? Yes, but I love my Netflix Instant and the broadcast networks are putting their shows online. I like the ad structure on Hulu. Why can't we get that on television? Television and movies are getting much better with 'transmedia' or 'new media' and do so much faster than music.

Also, you have to worry about the vagaries or technology in general. I remember reading a Smithsonian (I think) article a few years ago about the data loss that's occurring from the normal procession of newly outmoded technologies. It had an interview with some guy in the Smithsonian's bowels who does nothing but try to figure out how to "rip" material from mothballed data formats before they rot. It's scary stuff.

And the authors even mentioned film! Apparently there's a good bit of war footage shot on ephemeral formats that is disintegrating as we type. There's way more than anyone could possibly save and now they're trying to prioritize what they digitize on the basis of half-ass summaries.

The whole long-winded point is I agree with you! There is no way we will not lose films in the shift to different formats. Of course, these will be films that are deemed not terribly important now. What of opinions a hundred years hence?

It's worrying.

Any lover of film will be tempted steal eventually. This doesn't make it right, but fuck it.

The only response that would piss me off is "Well, you must not really love movies, then!" I think some pirates are reacting (in a knee-jerk way) like that's the accusation.

Everyone views illegal materials on the internet at some point. I guess we can try to discern much pirating is "bad" or may as well be neutral. Either consideration is intellectually disingenuous.

I've seen a write-up of a study arguing that illegal downloads actually benefit small-time musicians since they depend upon touring for such a large amount of their income.

I'm honestly somewhat dubious about this, but I wouldn't discount it outright... it does make a certain amount of logical sense.

I recall that the economists behind the article even argued that the overall impact of downloading on the "music industry" was positive... I have NO idea how anyone would ever quantify what constitutes the "music industry" let alone what the impact of downloading on that industry might be. Are my sister's stupid-ass Casio tunes included? I kind of hope not.

Of course, I can't seem to find the write up now (Yglesias -- who is a tool about copyright -- linked to it a year or so ago).

Nevertheless, I think there's a definite difference between the effect of downloaded music and film on their respective industries. Still, stealing is stealing. The economic effects of an action should (ideally) have no influence upon its moral rectitude.

Although I agree with Devin's stance on media pirating, I have to admit that I've scratched the pirating itch in the past.

Movie and TV show pirating? Nah, not really, although I did borrow a friend's copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark, ripped it, and threw it on my iPod Touch. Aside from that, why pirate when I can just stroll over to a Redbox and get most recent releases for a measly $1?

Also, my public library has a pretty great DVD movie and TV show collection, so I also frequent that.

(BTW, is borrowing a CD or DVD and ripping it, considered piracy?)

All of the music piracy I've done, I'm actually comfortable admitting; it consisted of music that wasn't available in the U.S., never WAS going to be available here, and the only way to get a legit copy was to buy a plane ticket to Europe, get out in Eleftherios Venizelos Airport, aka Athens International, take a cab ride into Piraeus, and patron a music store.

Considering importers weren't bothering with filling my need, I don't feel too guilty about getting copies of certain music from Rapidshare. Yes, I know that's a shaky argument to make, and I normally wouldn't but context matters; I don't think I'm stealing food from someone's table by grabbing an out of circulation CD (or a performance bootleg) from obscure Greek folk singers.

I don't agree with Devin Faraci about "The Day the Clown Cried". It's still stealing, it's just a movie you're especially curious to watch. Most of these lost movies are tied up in legal red tape as well, for reasons like the rights to a song in the movie not being cleared. The movie may be widely unavailable, at least in most regions, but it's your fault you can't access it without stealing. Look at Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" - you will probably have to steal that to see it. It's tempting, but you're not in a "grey area" just because it's being withheld from you because you live in the wrong place, or don't know the right people, to see the movie legally.

If you're interested, Lawrence Lessig devotes a small chunk of Free Culture* to the subject of these types of films, specifically to Michael Agee, chairman of Hal Roach Studios, which owns the rights to the Laurel and Hardy films.

You know what's keeping a lot of these old movies from being ripped to new formats? An expansion of copyright terms, that's what. With the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act**, there's virtually no public domain when it comes to movies. And if there's no public domain, that means that it's on any party interested in revitalizing these disintegrating films to locate the copyright holder and secure the rights. It's time-consuming and, despite the fact that some of the rights holders would probably have no problem with this, it's prohibitively expensive for most due to legal fees. And there's not much money to be made because barely any of these movies have any commercial value.

Despite the fact that Agee technically benefits from the CTEA, he opposes it because it's incredibly fucked up.

* A recommended read for anyone who's interested in the substantial space that exists between piracy and being concerned that corporate interests have led to an unwieldy, overly restrictive system of ownership.

** For the record, that's a whopping 75 years after the death of the author for a work to become public domain. For works-for-hire, that's 120 years from the year of creation.

Okay, this really needs to be ironed out:

So because the government isn't doing the right thing, it's OK for you to perpetuate the system? Come on, this is rationalizing as bad as anything pirates have come up with. If nobody bought drugs, then that would take care of the problem too, wouldn't it? Of course the government should take a more sensible approach to enforcement. In the meantime, though, things are what they are, and you're engaging in illegal behavior that hurts people you'll never meet far more than any pirate could. But your desire to fuck yourself up trumps that. You can't criticize the speck in a torrenter's eye when this log is skullfucking your own.

Of course. How could it not be? It involves the same basic practice as downloading a copy of something.

Although I think there's an argument to be made for degrees of "piracy". Piracy absolutely operates differently when you're talking about intellectual property (manifested as an mp3 with infinite copies) instead of physical property (a CD that a store can sell). I'm not saying that excuses piracy, but the ethical components are considerably different in me stealing your car and me stealing your infinite supply of something.

Here's a link to the Google Books preview of the Lessig book I referenced above. I recommend checking out the chapter on Piracy (p. 62), particularly the models of file sharers on p. 68, which runs beyond p. 73, but that's where the Google Books preview cuts off.

If you believe that FBI warning at the beginning of every DVD, yes.

When you copy your own movie/CD as a back-up is it piracy? That's the thin line; but it's personal use, so maybe not.

Just had a flashback: "Oooh, I'm so scared" [<- irony of posting a link to youtube in a thread on piracy duly noted]

It's a wonder that nature still makes girls.