What Are the Implications of Megaupload Being Taken Down?

[turbo]

The resources it would take to effectively police information would be astronomical, and almost certainly not worth it.

The entertainment industry is trying to foist all those costs onto the US taxpayers. They want us (our government) to root out the pirates AND to pay the costs of litigating against them at no cost to themselves, and at the risk of stifling free communication across the Internet. Nobody in the mainstream media can be bothered to report on this.

 

[AlephZero]

Ask musicians you know, the majority actually doesn't mind it because they realize it's an excellent way to get your music across (a person like Nick Drake died unappreciated 30 years back, but if he had started nowadays he would have gotten the fame he deserved). Musicians now make their money through other venues, and personally I can say that I would buy the CD if I really liked the music, irrelevant to having it on my computer from someone else or not.

Of the musicians I know, the ones who "don't mind it" are mostly those who wouldn't make any serious money out of any delivery system, simply because they aren't good enough. The ones who are good enough to make money want to keep on making it.

The irony is that the clock is actually getting turned backwards about 50 years, to the days when you got known by playing live gigs, not uploading mashups of other people's music onto websites. Get 50 people in a room somewhere, and don't let them out till they pay you $10 each for a some merchandising, and you make some real $$, not a few virtual friends on the web. Of course having the real $$ in your pocket might then change your attitide to the geek on the back row who recorded the gig on a cellphone and posted it on YouTube...

 

[Hepth]

With the same intent of law in mind should gmail/Google be shut down if people use it for planning illegal activities? Or do they hold a responsibility to monitor and report illegal activity on their servers?

 

[Pengwuino]

Of the musicians I know, the ones who "don't mind it" are mostly those who wouldn't make any serious money out of any delivery system, simply because they aren't good enough. The ones who are good enough to make money want to keep on making it.

Exactly. There are a few people who are already multi-multi-millionaires who have come out in support of piracy. However, I have yet to see someone who makes simply a decent living come out in support of piracy.

And let's get real with the "the entertainment industry just needs to get with the program" garbage. If I started printing counterfeit US currency, no one would argue that the US treasury just "needs to get with the program". The argument is even better with counterfeiting currency. The same arguments that are pro-piracy apply except the person selling to you actually gets money (excluding large transactions where the currency would be checked) as well!

At the very least, I don't hear people yapping about "Well, it's better that we don't pay because that's how lesser known musicians become known" anymore, as if it's up to the customers to decide whether or not the person gets paid.

With the same intent of law in mind should gmail/Google be shut down if people use it for planning illegal activities? Or do they hold a responsibility to monitor and report illegal activity on their servers?

I think most will agree the ideas behind SOPA are going too far, but sites do have some responsibility to monitor for illegal activities. Remember, all these sites make money off hosting these kinds of things through ad revenue and subscriptions. If a car dealership had illegal boxing matches happening behind its building and was taking a cut, possibly even indirectly, they would absolutely be held accountable. That's how western law works, even people who are not directly responsible for something can be held partially liable for something. I also am quite serious when I say some responsibility. If google/isps/services took "reasonable" steps to look for pirated content, I think no one could blame them just like the car dealership, if it took reasonable steps to prevent these fights, wouldn't be blamed.

 

[JesseC]

Where is the evidence piracy actually results in a loss of sales? Where is the evidence that if pirates were forced to stop, they'd actually go out and buy stuff instead? I am actually very interested if anyone has done proper research on the topic.

Its very easy to pirate thousands of pounds worth of material off the web. If piracy suddenly became impossible, there is no way people would go out and spend thousands of pounds legally instead. So if corporations simply add up the total retail cost of all pirated items and call that "lost revenue", then that figure is complete nonsense.

You'd think we would be bombarded by stories of poor musicians who can no longer make a living because of piracy? Why do I never hear stories like that?

 

[Monique]

And let's get real with the "the entertainment industry just needs to get with the program" garbage. If I started printing counterfeit US currency, no one would argue that the US treasury just "needs to get with the program". The argument is even better with counterfeiting currency.

Again, bad comparison. If I scan a dollar bill and print a million of them to fill my bath, where is the harm? I wouldn't actually go to the bank and withdraw a million real dollars.

JesseC supports my point of view:

Where is the evidence piracy actually results in a loss of sales? Where is the evidence that if pirates were forced to stop, they'd actually go out and buy stuff instead? [..]
Its very easy to pirate thousands of pounds worth of material off the web. If piracy suddenly became impossible, there is no way people would go out and spend thousands of pounds legally instead. So if corporations simply add up the total retail cost of all pirated items and call that "lost revenue", then that figure is complete nonsense.

(for clarity: I'm for paid downloads, against the stiff attitude that movies can only be bought on a DVD in a store)

 

[nitsuj]

Exactly. There are a few people who are already multi-multi-millionaires who have come out in support of piracy. However, I have yet to see someone who makes simply a decent living come out in support of piracy.

And let's get real with the "the entertainment industry just needs to get with the program" garbage. If I started printing counterfeit US currency, no one would argue that the US treasury just "needs to get with the program". The argument is even better with counterfeiting currency. The same arguments that are pro-piracy apply except the person selling to you actually gets money (excluding large transactions where the currency would be checked) as well!

Of course no one would, the annalogy is terrible. There is zero value in the vast majority of entertainment. Only the latest and greatest has value, and it depreciates FAST in most cases.

Fundamentaly, copyrights have nothing to do with capitalism. Patents do for sure, but copyrights nope not at all. The "entertainment" industry has to the best of their abilities muddied the waters in this area because of the need to protect investment gone into creating the art.

 

[nonequilibrium]

The irony is that the clock is actually getting turned backwards about 50 years, to the days when you got known by playing live gigs

Well that's easy to say, but what backs up your statement?

not uploading mashups of other people's music onto websites.

It sounds like you're talking about people on, say, youtube singing songs of other people. What does this have to do with spreading the music of the musician himself across the internet? You realize they are two diferent things? (only related by both being copyright infringements--in most cases, anyway)

Get 50 people in a room somewhere, and don't let them out till they pay you $10 each for a some merchandising, and you make some real $$, not a few virtual friends on the web. Of course having the real $$ in your pocket might then change your attitide to the geek on the back row who recorded the gig on a cellphone and posted it on YouTube...

It's not clear to me what you're trying to say here. Are you saying concerts don't let people out of the building until they pay money? And again, the statement "not a few virtual friends" seems to be unrelated to any part of the previous discussion.

 

[Deveno]

I have deeply mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I strongly feel that originators of intellectual property deserve compensation for their work. I don't have a problem paying for a copy of music, or film, or a book that I want to have forever in durable form.

On the other, a great deal of entertainment today is of the "disposable" variety: watch it once, listen to it once, read it once. The idea of public libraries, extended on a large world-wide internet scale, is a concept that seems to have fallen in disfavor, and I can't help but wonder why? We have confused "use" with "ownership" (leasing with purchasing), and have created stiff penalties for doing the former to encourage the latter. I find this disgusting. Netflix is good, DRM management on hard-copies of media is BAD.

If I were to (hypothetically) use a site like megaupload to cheat Sony Pictures out of some of their box-office, that's ethically questionable. If I use it to watch some ABC show freely available on their site, or some movie in perpetual re-runs on commercial broadcast television, the harm done seems less clear-cut.

But, be that as it may, if the charges against megaupload stand under current law, then that's the breaks. What concerns me is this:

Current legislation (SOPA and PIPA) pending seeks to up the ante considerably. Search providers face steep fines and/or possible jail time for just LINKING to a site that may be conducive to pirarcy, and ISP's would be required by law to block access to any site that violates any law (including, but not limited to, piracy and other copyright infringements).

Yes, this means YOUR ISP will censor the net for you, whether you like it or not. Sites like Google, and Youtube will NO LONGER EXIST. Wikipedia...to the slammer with them, too. Even these forums could come under scrutiny and censorship (possible blocked access) for linking to copyrighted material without author consent. These measures are truly draconian, and the risk for abuse, and the damage to First Amendment rights cannot be understated.

And, have no illusion about it, this is not being contemplated to protect the rights of the authors, song-writers and performers out there (who deserve your support...so if you steal their stuff, shame on you). No, this is at the behest of the large media corporations who see their profits dwindling in an increasingly digital world. Now, I don't know about you, but I feel that granting "corporations" the same inherent rights as actual people, is the pinnacle of stupidity. They don't even actually exist, they are purely abstract entities. Laws that do not benefit PEOPLE, are worse than just ignorant folly, they are evil.

I think these bills won't pass this time around. They might next time. Megaupload may deserve what is coming to them, but there are larger issues at stake. We need to seriously re-examine what consitutes "fair use".

EDIT: oh, and Steam totally rocks.

 

[genericusrnme]

Another problem I have is with the way these things are punished (especially over in the US)
It's something on the order of magnitude of £100,000 per infringment
Which is ridiculous and about 10^4 times the worth of the infringment
I also would dismiss claims that it's costing the music industory billions as completely made up
Why, you might ask?
Because people that pirate stuff would not have bought it in the first place, that's why.
The only thing their piracy has done is spread the word about whatever it is.
There have been plenty of examples of artists thanking people for 'sharing' their work because how else can they get the word out there?
Similarly, it hasn't cost '2 million' americans jobs like it has been claimed
(see the image at the bottom of the link)
Edit:Inappropriate link deleted.
EditV2.0
(I have no idea why the link was inappropriate but for anyone interested it was maddox's website)

I won't say that piracy is a good thing (although in some cases it can be - namely publicity) but it certainly isn't as bad as the media companies that claim to be dying from it make it out to be, no where near as bad.

I still firmly believe that megaupload should not have been taken down.
If there's an acre of storage garages and some people store ilegal stuff in a few of them, is it correct to raise the whole lot to the ground?
I think notanother little point, slightly off topic but it seems it's kinda drifted over here
it seems that most of the companies that oppose SOPA are smaller companies that would actually be hurt by piracy, the ones that support it are the ones who in all actuallity are probably barely effected by it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organizations_that_support_the_Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

 

[rollcast]

They'll never stamp out piracy completely just like they'll never completely eradicate other forms of low-level crime, unless we turn in an Orwellian 1984 Big Brother society.

The major problems will come if megaupload ends with a successful conviction for piracy then we're getting into egg shell territory where they will start cracking down more and more.

I'm a Brit but to me this looks like option 2 if the americans don't get SOPA passed - if we can't block then we'll drag you here with an extradition notice and charge you with online piracy.

 

[nitsuj]

Of the musicians I know, the ones who "don't mind it" are mostly those who wouldn't make any serious money out of any delivery system, simply because they aren't good enough. The ones who are good enough to make money want to keep on making it.

The irony is that the clock is actually getting turned backwards about 50 years, to the days when you got known by playing live gigs, not uploading mashups of other people's music onto websites. Get 50 people in a room somewhere, and don't let them out till they pay you $10 each for a some merchandising, and you make some real $$, not a few virtual friends on the web. Of course having the real $$ in your pocket might then change your attitide to the geek on the back row who recorded the gig on a cellphone and posted it on YouTube...

Point one is terrible, what do you know of music if you call some musicians "not good enough" to make serious money.

Can't be so blind as to believe it is more a talent thing then a distribution and marketing thing. That's laughable.

The only good thing I could say of entertainment-capitalism is at least it isn't milking resources, just the artists & consumers. (of course there are all sorts of different examples, such as the band U2 / Radiohead on the other end)

Capitalism picked up copyright protection and ran with it all the way to the bank. And boo hoo when people don't feel morally obligated to purchase something of little to no value. As has been pointed out here previously, it's not like it's bread & water.

Despite the lack of sustenance in entertainment, you could potentially have your rights & freedoms stripped for being in violation of someones copyright protection. That's quite a leap, bridged by pre$$ure from the "entertainment" industry.

And yea I think I get your last comment, greed is perpetual isn't it? I think that may be simply a generation+culture thing. Consumerism on this scale is still relatively new. It will be interesting to see how the "East" handles entertainment-capitalism & copyright protection. I would almost go as far as to say it is a western phenomena. I like to think entertainment is more a product of the people (society) then a product (talking pop movies & music only) of the entertainment industry.

Maybe this analogy sucks, but what if Einstein realized that he wasn't gunna get filthy rich for his historical work (done with his mind), and decided to keep it to himself. Sticking with the comparison, it's interesting to consider the relatedness of art & science even in this sense. The "creators" of successful scientific theories are comparatively poorly rewarded by society for their efforts, and that's fine, but "cheat" music/movie distribution companies of a fraction of their revenues and here comes the ground breaking legislation.

I think at the heart of copyright protection it's about recognition (and in turn ownership), not cash. Entertainment-capitalism literately flipped that around.

 

[nitsuj]

And, have no illusion about it, this [SOPA] is not being contemplated to protect the rights of the authors, song-writers and performers out there (who deserve your support...so if you steal their stuff, shame on you). No, this is at the behest of the large media corporations who see their profits dwindling in an increasingly digital world. Now, I don't know about you, but I feel that granting "corporations" the same inherent rights as actual people, is the pinnacle of stupidity. EDIT: oh, and Steam totally rocks.

I agree completely, that's well said. You make the line I was trying to illustrate in my post much more clear. However I would say "...granting "corporations" the same inherent rights [copyright protection] as actual people, is the pinnacle of capitalism."

Perhaps people would not pirate music and videos if the distribution companies were treated like charitable organizations; having to file audited tax returns that show distribution of profits back to the community (appropriately to the "artistic community") and it being available for review by the public. Maybe in that sense the "entertainment industry" needs to get with the times. Too much of a moral disconnect between the copyright culprit and the artists with the music/movie distribution companies in between; combined with anonymity of piracy. Trying to solve that disconnect with that kinda legislation in this day and age will of course get significant backlash (to the point politicians feel the pressure).

That moral disconnect between copyright culprit and artist with the corporation in between has similarities to the disconnect between stock holders (owners) and artist with the corporation in between.

Maybe a company that does this not for profit model could use a "Fair-Trade" logo on the packaging. lol how fitting.

 

[rootX]

No, it's not like that.

You two both do point out the core: if you don't like it, don't buy it. That's exactly what's happening. The companies are not adapting to a changing world and as a result people are not buying their products anymore. Some people who don't like to buy still use the product, but that doesn't change the fact that no money comes into the drawer.

I don't like the car-buying process, so I don't have a car. I still commute from A to B and sit in cars. I see absolutely no need to steal a car, because I can get around fine without one. It's the car company's loss, because their business model is faulty.

I feel the entertainment industry needs to scratch behind their ears and wonder why people are not buying and how they could turn around that process. Alternative solutions are coming on the market, but it is still very sparse (at least in my area).

IMO some services are so complex (or obsolete) to use that it is much easier to go for alternatives. I pay for services like rdio/pandora because they easy to use and simple . There is no way I would pay to buy for example a CD, it just doesn't work, I only bought one or two cds but never used them more than once.

 

[rootX]

And let's get real with the "the entertainment industry just needs to get with the program" garbage.

You are being unrealistic.

In the absence of well established laws for internet and challenges in controlling the information sharing, you cannot get rid of piracy. Neither you can properly compare the internet scenarios with non-internet scenarios. The entertainment industry does need to get with the program, it cannot fix problems with extreme things like SOPA.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Of the musicians I know, the ones who "don't mind it" are mostly those who wouldn't make any serious money out of any delivery system, simply because they aren't good enough. The ones who are good enough to make money want to keep on making it.

Exactly. There are a few people who are already multi-multi-millionaires who have come out in support of piracy. However, I have yet to see someone who makes simply a decent living come out in support of piracy.

This is crap. Most of the musicians I have met that are hardline against piracy are small time artists who are not very good but think that they are great and ought to be making a lot of money except that some bastard somewhere is stealing from them. You realize that the whole punk genre became famous and mainstream and started making money only because of the sheer number of people spreading around bootleg cassettes? You can find multiple artists who have even gone to the trouble of finding the old bootlegs so they can upload them for free download. Green Day allegedly leaked one of their own recent albums before release.

Who are those multi millionaire artists that are hardline against piracy? The ones that own or are invested in record labels.

Unfortunately it is not on a site that is likely to be considered appropriate, and the source is in dutch, but there was a Dutch study that allegedly shows most artists either do not believe piracy hurts them or are not sure that it does (may have only been dutch artists surveyed). Apparently approximately 20% of the interviewed artists admitted to downloading pirated content from the internet themselves.

And let's get real with the "the entertainment industry just needs to get with the program" garbage. If I started printing counterfeit US currency, no one would argue that the US treasury just "needs to get with the program". The argument is even better with counterfeiting currency. The same arguments that are pro-piracy apply except the person selling to you actually gets money (excluding large transactions where the currency would be checked) as well!

If it became so easy to counterfeit currency that any kid with a PC could do it I am fairly certain that the consensus of those with a shred of intelligence would be that it is time to go paperless, that is to say "time for them to get with the program".

 

[Monique]

IMO some services are so complex (or obsolete) to use that it is much easier to go for alternatives. I pay for services like rdio/pandora because they easy to use and simple . There is no way I would pay to buy for example a CD, it just doesn't work, I only bought one or two cds but never used them more than once.

About ten years ago my boyfriend had the idea of streaming music, a website like Pandora, Sony laughed at him and told him it would never happen.

Now then ten years later I go to the Pandora website and get the following message:

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

Sony is still laughing.

 

[Pythagorean]

In the words of Notch, if I write a bad review about a game/movie and cost them 10,000 in sales, am I a pirate?

 

[genericusrnme]

In the words of Notch, if I write a bad review about a game/movie and cost them 10,000 in sales, am I a pirate?

Resturants have sued bloggers for giving them poor reviews;
http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/kuwait-restaurant-sues-blogger-for-bad-review

So maybe one day we could very well see bloggers being sued for having the audacity to claim that Call of Duty™®© isn't the single best gaming franchise ever to exist.

 

[wuliheron]

Forget the litigious nature of modern society, its all about the money these days. The courts have decided corporations are people with constitutional rights, but allowed them to continue repeatedly defrauding people to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars at a pop despite their bringing the entire world economy to its knees. Obama has warned CEOs they could go to jail if they continue to repeatedly hire illegal aliens and commit medicare fraud as if we should warn every bank robber to stop or they'll be arrested. When the law isn't applied equally and money buys you leniency and a get out of jail free card it becomes meaningless ritual and the Mafia starts to look appealing as an alternative.

 

[rootX]

About ten years ago my boyfriend had the idea of streaming music, a website like Pandora, Sony laughed at him and told him it would never happen.

Now then ten years later I go to the Pandora website and get the following message:

Sony is still laughing.

Fortunately, rdio is accessible outside U.S. too.
http://www.rdio.com/

 

[StevieTNZ]

I always find it odd that people think that it's okay to steal something just because they don't like the costs and ways something are sold.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's entertainment, not water and bread.

How do you know if you don't like it, if you've never watched it?

 

[turbo]

When I was still able to tolerate perfumes, I used to be able to pick up over $30/hr hosting open-mic jams at a couple of local taverns, along with free drinks. From time to time, people would bring in cam-corders, and I'd encourage them to share the footage with friends because the more people that showed up, the more money the tavern-owners made and the more secure my pocket-money jobs were. It was nice to play music for a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and go home with $125 or so. That was fun, especially since lots of young ladies would come into socialize and avoid the meat-market scenes on Friday and Saturday nights.

If I had to rely on recordings to stay alive, I think I'd take the Grateful Dead tack and actually encourage fans to record performances. Those GD bootlegs did a lot to keep the band popular and relevant when other bands were fading.

I don't condone piracy of copyrighted material, but if performers encourage their fans to record them and share the recordings with others, it only helps promote them. The production values of the bootlegs are generally poor, but they generate interest and probably boost record sales, overall.

The biggest problem with the "megaupload" style sites is that movie studios spend millions of dollars to produce movies, and are rightfully affronted when people steal them instead of renting or buying a copy. I have a neighbor who is a movie-nut, and he buys DVDs all the time, so I get to borrow his. The tastes of his wife and him don't line up all that well with mine, so it's nice that I don't have to pay for borrowing movies that I would not have paid for anyway. The up-side for the movie companies is that if we end up borrowing some vacuous chick-flick or silly comedy, my wife and I have big families, and we can make recommendations to other family members that we think might enjoy seeing them. There are not a lot of theaters around, and the local video-rental stores have folded, probably due to NetFlix. The way content is distributed is changing quite rapidly.

 

[Pythagorean]

I'm stealing Pengwuino's posts in this thread to make a troll account on pirate bay. Good thing he can't afford to come after me.

 

[xxChrisxx]

I don't condone piracy of copyrighted material.
I have a neighbor who is a movie-nut, and he buys DVDs all the time, so I get to borrow his. The tastes of his wife and him don't line up all that well with mine, so it's nice that I don't have to pay for borrowing movies that I would not have paid for anyway.

Look on the back of said DVD. You'll find something along the following lines.

WARNING:The copyright proprietor has licensed this DVD for private home use only. Unless otherwise expressly licensed by the copyright proprietor, all other rights reserved. Any authorized copying, editing, exhibition, renting, lending, public performance etc..., is strictly prohibited.

You'll be hard pushed to find anyone who finds lending someone a DVD morally abhorrent.
Copying for non profit isn't that big an extension. The scale of 'lending' is simply larger.

So hypothetically speaking, what if we have a digital copy that self destructs after a week. It's simply like lending someone a copy of your DVD.

How and why is the line drawn there?
Who decided where the line was?

edit: Removed my rambling.

 

[Pythagorean]

Because people will say/do anything to make you feel guilty about hurting profit margins. Even when you're not breaking the law.

 

[rootX]

The way content is distributed is changing quite rapidly.

The problem is big companies are not willing to accept that (as Monique already pointed out). I am not in the favor of protecting theaters/dvd-cd/rentals industries because I feel these are things of the past.

 

[burklegirl]

I understand why Megaupload was shut down. I know there's users out there that use it for fully legal reasons, but the majority use it for pirating. I'd be upset if I paid a subscription for Megaupload though. I hope the customers are refunded.

I own Photoshop CS5 Extended. That's a $1,000 software program. I know another person who uses the same program, and pirated it. It peeved me simply because it's unfair to consumers like me who pay for it, and Adobe itself despite the fact that they're such a large company. Piracy affects consumers, as well. It's not just a slap to the creators of the product, but the consumers who pay for it.

I know a lot of people say it's okay to steal music, for example, because the musicians are "so rich". Therefore, it's okay to steal someone's car if they're rich? Virtual thievery isn't on the level of physically, but I do believe the same mortality should apply to both.

I also don't quite grasp the "it's alright to steal from well-off musicians since they're established financially". It's like saying, it's okay to steal Elton John's music due to the fact that he's rich, but not an unknown artist because he's still relatively poor. Either way, the musicians are creating a product to profit off of.

I don't see the need to illegally steal things today with services such as Rhapsody, Hulu, Pandora, Netflix, Amazon Video, Netflix etc. They make things accessible and cheaper.

It's a lot easier to subscribe to Netflix within 5 minutes then spend an hour downloading a low-quality pirated TV show.

 

[genericusrnme]

I know a lot of people say it's okay to steal music, for example, because the musicians are "so rich". Therefore, it's okay to steal someone's car if they're rich? Virtual thievery isn't on the level of physically, but I do believe the same mortality should apply to both.

I am in firm oposition to this statement.
1. physical thievery involves items that were produced and cost money to be produced, the thing you are stealing has value
2. piracy involves copies that cost nothing to produce, the copy is nothing more than a copy in an infinite sea of other copies, does it have any inherent value?

Your statement would be correct if in real life there was an unlimited supply of copies of cars. Sadly in real life there is not an unlimited supply of copies of cars. In real life, when you steal something you remove one of that item from the pool of available that items, when you pirate it you do not. There is still the same number of that items available irl.
Theft in real life costs sales because the people selling no longer have those goods to sell. Online 'piracy' does not have this issue, IRL sellers are unaffected.

Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that people who pirate material would not have bought it in the first place. Has there been any loss of profits?
No, there has not. There has been, however, an increase in publicity for the band/film/whatever, one person might show their friends who might like it and end up buying it, giving a net result of 1 extra sale.

There is also no way of accurately gauging what the end product is going to be like, another reason the car analogy fails. You can take a car for a test drive legally, you cannot 'test drive' films/music/whatever without breaking the law, this makes every single purchase you make a risk.
I'd further be willing to be that the VAST majority of pirated goods are watched/listened to once and once only to find out if whatever it was was actually good.

It really is not as clear cut as you would think it is and there are plenty of other reasons I could bring up as to why 'piracy' and irl theft are not the same.
I use the apostrophes around piracy because as I said, I'd be willing to bet the majority of piracy occurances are nothing more than test drives.

 

[burklegirl]

I am in firm oposition to this statement.
1. physical thievery involves items that were produced and cost money to be produced, the thing you are stealing has value
2. piracy involves copies that cost nothing to produce, the copy is nothing more than a copy in an infinite sea of other copies, does it have any inherent value?

Your statement would be correct if in real life there was an unlimited supply of copies of cars. Sadly in real life there is not an unlimited supply of copies of cars. In real life, when you steal something you remove one of that item from the pool of available that items, when you pirate it you do not. There is still the same number of that items available irl.
Theft in real life costs sales because the people selling no longer have those goods to sell. Online 'piracy' does not have this issue, IRL sellers are unaffected.

Furthermore, I'd be willing to bet that people who pirate material would not have bought it in the first place. Has there been any loss of profits?
No, there has not. There has been, however, an increase in publicity for the band/film/whatever, one person might show their friends who might like it and end up buying it, giving a net result of 1 extra sale.

There is also no way of accurately gauging what the end product is going to be like, another reason the car analogy fails. You can take a car for a test drive legally, you cannot 'test drive' films/music/whatever without breaking the law, this makes every single purchase you make a risk.
I'd further be willing to be that the VAST majority of pirated goods are watched/listened to once and once only to find out if whatever it was was actually good.

It really is not as clear cut as you would think it is and there are plenty of other reasons I could bring up as to why 'piracy' and irl theft are not the same.
I use the apostrophes around piracy because as I said, I'd be willing to bet the majority of piracy occurances are nothing more than test drives.

I mentioned that virtually thievery is not equal to physical thievery. It's a completely separate issue. However I do believe that stealing is stealing. Obviously there is a differential level of stealing such as stealing a car vs. pirating PS CS5, but I believe that stealing virtually is stealing regardless if there is no physical contact or physical lost.

I disagree with your test-drive theory. Youtube, iTunes samples, or Amazon music will let you sample the music. Most companies also offer free trials for software. You can trial products from anywhere between 2 weeks to a month. For eBooks, you can download samples.

Pirating is not necessary.

I wouldn't buy a shirt if I couldn't afford it. Therefore, I won't buy an album if I can't afford it.

I also disagree with your loss of profit theory. There is a lost of profit. Movies, for example. Most people will not buy a ticket nor buy the DVD when you can download it for free then burn it to a DVD-R disk. I cannot even imagine how many artists, movie producers, authors. that have had their work stolen from them.

I do graphic work for my part-time job. If someone made numerous copies of my design and shared them for free, I would lose profit. Not only would I lose profit, but my copyright rights are affected. It'd also be unfair to my customers who pay for my work. It lowers the value of the product. Why spend it when the same product is available for free?

The same is happening for the people's creations that are being pirated.