Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean
No point in replying to the silliness that has ensued in this thread from "3...." and Jan since I left it, but what I will say is that if you look back in this thread, you'll see that the answers to every one of your points since I stopped replying are contained in my previous posts. Like here for Jan: and here for "3...": That's why I stopped - there's really nothing more to say without repeating myself over and over and over and over and over and over......
That being said, why I'm really posting in this thread again is that I just got back from an interesting lunch a couple hours ago where this subject was brought up in the context of the film industry. First off, everyone there was a professional artist - an art director, a storyboard artist/voice actor, a feature film writer, and me. It was unanimous among the others that illegal downloading has done damage to the entertainment industry, from music to film. When I mentioned that I had been debating that very subject here, and that there were some people who literally didn't consider illegal downloading to be "stealing", the initial reaction was a chuckle and a flippant "well of course they realize it's 'stealing' - they're just saying they don't to justify doing it". I said that no, I had spent like a week or so trying to explain how it qualifies as stealing, and that when all was said and done, those who started out saying it wasn't had clung inexplicably to their beliefs. The others had a very hard time believing that anyone could actually fail to grasp the clear theft aspect of it. In fact, by the end of lunch, they still didn't really believe that anyone actually thinks it's not stealing. It was just too bizarre for them to think that anyone could fail to get it.
So that's it really. I thought it was interesting that the concept of illegal downloading somehow not qualifying as "stealing" is viewed as so unbelievable as to be laughable, and by a bunch of artists no less! Although once they started to even entertain the thought that people may actually believe this, the laughing was replaced by much more serious, concerned expressions...
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Not surprised the movie industry would say that. You know, the same guys whose piracy concerns nearly killed off the very device that saved their asses (Betamax). I don't think they're the smartest group of guys when it comes to these matters.
I appriciate all the downtalking in that post though. The last sentence was my favorite. "So we sat around talking about how stupid and ignorant you were, until we realized that you are going to put us all out of work"...nice. Could have done with a few more instances of the word "illogical" and a couple more italicized phrases...otherwise, bravo.
Again, I do agree it's stealing if you twist the definition of stealing to fit copyright infringement as well. As Webster defines, they do NOT apply equally to the idea of downloading. And even if you believe they do, it's kind of silly to say it's hurting artists when I'm providing scenarios where they are profitting where otherwise they would not? What other kind of theft can you say that for? Mike Doughty claims that illegal file sharing saved his life. How can you say there's no gray area there?