BitTorrents - are they legal?
sfleuriet
Texas New
Not that them being illegal is going to stop me, but do you think Torrents are legal?? It seems like they are because its p2p, and the government hasn't made a final decision on whether or not p2p is legal. It sure doesnt seem legal tho... lol tell me what you think!
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Most every illegal digital "crime" has a legitimate that gets twisted. Torrents are great for many things - Linux distros, patches, etc etc etc, but it's also very common for music/games/movies/etc.
It all depends. No vote, for now.
Download a movie? Did you pay for it? No. Do you have full use of it? Yes. Illegal? Yes.
Download a song? Did you pay for it? No. Do you have full use of it? Yes. Illegal? Yes.
So on and so forth for every single thing you can think of. eBooks, applications, games, comics, etc. At this time, the medium by which it is obtained is irrelevant (Unless you walk out of a store with it...)
If a friend gives you a DVD for your birthday...
Did you pay for it? no. Do you have full usage? yes. Illegal? no.
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If the owner of a record store gives away free copies of a new CD...
Did you pay for it? no. Do you have full usage? yes. Illegal? no.
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Same with p2p...
When someone shares a copyrighted item publicly, it is not your responcability to discover if they came by it legally. It is their responsability to make sure that they do not distrubute it outside of the law.
If that same shop owner goes out onto the street and gives his CDs away on the corner, there is no way for you to know if he is doing this legally, so is it your responsability to check his credentials as a music CD resaler? no, you can just take a CD.
If someone is sharing on a p2p network, you have no way of knowing if they share legally, and it is not your job to find out.
Just because it is not very likely that the sharer is doing so legally, does not make it illegal for you to take the free stuff that he gives away. They are giving you a gift. You don't need to check it's teeth...
That's an interesting way of thinking of it. The same could be said, though, of the downloader. They could just *assume* they were sharing a legal file. If they downloaded it having no idea whether or not it was copyrighted, they've got a "perfectly good" reason to share it.
I like it, but it'd never stand up in court.
That is quite possibly the <i>worst</i> argument, based on semantics, that I have <b>ever</b> seen in my entire life.
You introduced your argument by positing three loopholes in my argument, all of which are centered around legal distribution of an item, <i>not</i> illegal replication of an item. Giving a gift.. One copy exists, and exchanges hands.
Peer2peer doesn't operate in that manner. Peer2peer is more along the lines of one person buying a DVD.. Then making a copy, and giving you the copy for your birthday. You just obtained an item, and never paid for it.. There are now two of the item for the price of one, and one of them is stolen because you're using the item without paying for the use of it.
Give me a break.
That's a ****ty argument and you know it. There's no nice way to say it.
but i do not agree with this. I don't think its stolen- I think people argue for p2p to be legal because its like "giving someone those files as a gift".
When you make a copy, you have replicated the item, and now two of the exact same item exist when only <b>one</b> was paid for. Copyrighted items in the United States are copyrighted exactly <i>so</i> someone can sell them for profit.. Capitalism ahoy. I don't see how it even can be <u>construed</u> as a gift, because the entire concept of obtaining an item without compensating someone for the efforts invested in the entertainment you derive undermines the basic principles of our economy.
It's theft. Not a gift.. You want two of an item in existence? You pay for two items. You don't buy one, and make a copy of it.
Was the kid across the street guilty of theft? Hell, yes.
Was my sister guilty of theft? Hard to say. She was guilty of receiving stolen goods, at least.
The fact that my sister was six years old, and the kid across the street was mildly retarded made this a non-issue. The parent of the kid who owned the scooter accepted the apology and was understanding of the circumstances. My sister got a lecture on accepting "gifts" that seemed to good to be true.
Now, substitute a pirated music or video recording for the scooter, and then make the parties involved old enough to know what they're doing. What would you call it then?
I'll admit it. Alot of my games and music files are illegal. I won't post numbers, because, well, they say any publicity is good publicity, but I disagree
Do I have a lot of pirated stuff? Yeah. Do I feel bad when I download it? You bet. I'd love to be able to buy all my games, and ALL of my music. But I just can't. Things are so overpriced, especially when I don't have a job. And I can guarentee that when I do, it'll be going towards getting me my own car.
I'm not trying to feign innocence. But I'm not condoning doing it, either.
Is the torrent of a copyrighted piece of intellectual property?
Does the owner endorse it being shared?
Is there some method of compensation to the person who developed the item being shared? These are all relevant questions to whether "BitTorrents are legal."
Everyone can come up with excuses to justify/mitigate/explain why they've downloaded the stuff they have, but in the end, it is still taking something we have no right too. The only reason the MPAA and the RIAA haven't gone after the downloaders as opposed to the uploaders is they realized way too late the power of P2P. They are overwhelmed with the sheer scale and numbers of sharers and sharing methods and are only "shooting the largest crocodiles closest to the boat." The argument that it isnt the downloader's responsibility to determine whether the source of the download is legal just doesnt hold water logically, legally, or common sense wise. It hasn't held up in the offline world either. Acquiring stolen goods at a bargain basement price (namely free with P2P) is a crime. The counter to all this is entertainment companies not only kept up an outdated pricing scheme, but overestimated the power of their lawyers and software engineers (copy protection) and drastically underestimated the power of hackers, kids with black markers, and P2P adherents....
"Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it - Right is right even if no one is doing it."
-William Penn
On topic, BitTorrent and the technology is legal. P2P is legal (I think), until you use it to communicate pirated software/files. I think P2P is great, but all the piracy going on eventually shuts it down. (Hypocritical? Sure, but I haven't pirated anything in a few months. I'm trying to pay for stuff now.)
I think thats a bit of an exaggeration lol, but yes it is pretty fast (usually).
and yes preacher- lol we know its wrong, and its not right just because everyone's doing it. But because everyone is doing it, none of us should be telling other people to not do it or that its wrong. One of my biggest pet peeves ever, is people doing something and telling other people not to do it. That pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. I'm NOT blaming anyone or saying that you, preacher, did anything, but just stating it.
Yes i agree with that. Eventually, or maybe even pretty soon, P2P might be STRICLY monitored/limited or shut down alltogether. Its just a matter of time before someone wins a lawsuit, or the government puts their foot down.
You'll find that <b>I</b> never said <i>you</i> shouldn't do it. I merely pointed out that it is, in fact, illegal.
I'll say this again - I'm NOT BLAMING ANYONE or saying that people are telling other people not to do it. Please read the entire post.
using guns for some things is legal.
shooting people...not so legal.
You're right, it doesn't hold much water, and I wasn't expecting it to, but I wasn't expecting quite so much vehemence in your rebuttal either... Yeesh...
/me pulls on his collar, David Letterman style.
The real reason that it is not inherently illegal to download copyrighted material is that you might have paid for the rights at a previous time...
I own a copy of They Might Be Giants - Flood, great album. I paid for this album in a store, and have the original CD and it's packaging. Therefore, it is not illegal for me to download a copy of Birdhouse In Your Soul, if I feel inclined to do so. It is also okay for me to burn a copy of my CD, in order to keep it in my car (which I do with all of my CDs, so as not to loose the originals). I did purchase the rights, and I can make whatever copies of the data I want, as long as it is only for myself. This same concept is what makes it possible for places like gamecopyworld.com to exist legally, but that's another issue.
I'm not saying that this makes it legal or even okay to download items of which you don't already have a purchased copy, just that it is not always illegal to download copyrighted material.
No agency has the resources to investigate every download, just to see if you already have the rights to that song or not. That's why they don't go after downloaders.
Again, I'm not saying that makes it okay.
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The only point that I was trying to make with my earlier post, is that "did you pay for it?" has nothing to do with it. The real question is "Were the 'access rights' to the data legaly obtained by you?"
The rest of that post was a mixture of digression and malarkey.
using a BitTorrent client to download some things is legal.
using a BitTorrent client to download the latest RIAA album that you do not own is not legal.
(You may want to prep a little for the analogy section of the SAT if you've yet to take them).
Unfortunately this is not true globally - Australian copyright law is very different (and very backward)
If I purchase "they might be Giants - Flood" here in Sydney I cannot copy it for ANY purpose, including my own use, I cannot have a CD-R version in my car, I MUST have the original. I cannot transfer the music to my computer or to an MP3 player, I have only bought the rights to use the medium in it's original form.
This said, I do not know of anyone who complies with this law, also there has never been a case of a person being prosecuted. The only fair use statement in Australian Copyright law is stated on video taping Television programs from free to air, this currently does not extend to any other media.