Is it ethical to steal from hectomillionaires?

No comment, mostly a poll.

What I mean is that most singers and artists producing music and films are hectomillionaires or at least decamillionaires.

 

Theft is wrong.

So, No.

 

Indeed, on average actors and singers lose 50% of their income due to effective theft.

But they are decamillionaires or hectomillionaires.

 

Doesn't matter. Theft is wrong.

 

Perhaps you are right.

 

US law says I am.

 

But at least 50% of Internet users in USA do steal copyrighted material from decamillionaires and hectamillionaires.

 

Millions of people commit crimes daily.

Does their numbers make them "right"?

 

Well the companies get greedy and force low income people to pirate media to enjoy it, so, cry me a rive if instead of $20 million a year you get half that your still getting rich and movies are still being made.

 

Is watching music videos on youtube 'stealing'?

 

It all depends on how you view the concept of intellectual property, I think. The laws we have today very, very much favor content creators, whether human or corporate, poor or ridiculously wealthy. I feel that these laws are too kind to them and anti-consumer to a fair extent.

 

If you copy them to your computer then yes.

Do not use this site -- you may make a hectomillionaire lose several dollars.

 

How is it stealing if I save it to my computer, but not if I watch it online?

 

I wouldnt have bought it if it was only available for sale, and I dont sell it. So while I am gaining something for free without permission, no one is losing anything.

No victim, no crime.

 

Yeah, that's one rationale I've considered before as well, not being willing to pay (the asking price, at least) for something that I would get for free.

Another one for me is availability - it's hard, for example, to get Russian language shows and movies, or video games, in the US. From lack of available inventory to region locking nonsense, it's a bit of a challenge to get a hold of these things here. But torrents make it really easy, and then a good amount of what I have gotten that way I also do possess a legitimate copy of in English. I'll watch these things and play those games as a language learning aid. Same with German stuff. I recently did shoot for a German DVD of Wreck-it Ralph, for instance, and of course it won't play back in any US player. It was even struggling on the PC I was trying, which is a small one hooked to my TV with a USB DVD drive plugged into it.

Something similar applies to music at times, considering the copy protection often found on music CDs. I like to rip any CD I buy for convenient digital playback, but wouldn't you know it, many CDs make ripping difficult to impossible. Talk about anti-consumer! The music and movie industries have to be the worst in this regard. Screw them.

 

I apologize -- I am not a lawyer. I may be wrong.

 

Not only is it permissible, it's an obligation.

"To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral." - Abbie Hoffman

 

Given that the purpose of copyright laws was supposed to be to encourage creators of such works to created extending the copyright periods into the lifetime of their great grand kids serve no public purpose and just end up unjustly enriched the holders of copyrights such as Disney for forever and a day.

Copyrights need to be shorten back to a more reason time period and out of print books and movies after ten or at the most twenty years should be in the public domain.

 

I was in Mexico a few years ago and wish to hear the live stream of an all news Detroit radio station and found I was block from doing so as the radio network did not allow live streaming out of the US over music copyright issues.

Now this was an all news however they just block all their stations anyway those carrying music and those not carrying music.

To hear the news I needed to go by the way of the tor network and picked a US exit node and the same kind of nonsense apply to some streams from the UK.

 

I don't see why. There is just about nothing on Music that I can't get from YouTube.

I hadn't even thought people listened to anything other than that or i-Tunes, and I don't think you can steal i-tunes, can you?

 

Disney are ****ing pigs. They've made most of their money through doing to the public what Harvey Weinstein did to starlets. Copyrights should die with the holder, unless the estate makes application for extension and has a good reason

 

You can record anything.

 

But why would I want to?. Again, YouTube is free. I suppose there must be music that doesn't go on there but WHY would any group not simply put the music up and take their cut from the advertising?

It's nol like that's all that new or innovative a business plan, Television has made billions on it for over 50 years

 

Isn't most of that loss due to record companies and unsavory business practices in the music industry?

Musicians have discovered Youtube is a two-edged sword; it allows theft of their music, but it also frees them from record companies. They can make whatever music they like and present it to the world without some douch bag record executive saying "it needs more auto-tune because that's what all the kids are listening to today".

Musicians have also discovered that they make more money giving concerts than selling CDs.

 

That was not the case at one time though. It used to be that very successful groups wouldn't do concerts at all, not enough money in it.