Piracy and File Sharing

[Hammered Pizza]

To be honest, I'm surprised there hasn't been a debate on this so far on here.

What side of the fence do you sit on? Do you pirate media or use file sharing sites illegaly - if not, do you have any sympathies with those that do?
The billion dollar question, can it be stopped, if so, how?
And finally, do you think piracy and file sharing is even stealing?

Looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
Keep it civil,
HP.

[Reverend Gooner]

I do not download any illegal materials but I do not consider it as theft because to steal something you have to deprive the owner of it but if you copy then the original owner still has it. Yes it does in cases deprive companies of a sale but from my experience through talking to people, most people who pirate films,music, games would not go out and pay for them if the illegal downloads were not there so are in fact not lost sales.

Corporations love to claim that every illegal download is a lost sale but I reckon the number is at most 30%.

Personally I don't do it but I don't consider those who do as criminals.

[Herrpoja]

I do download copyrighted material, i don't consider it stealing cause it's not, simple as that, having said that i dont mean that it's justifiable because of that.

you cant stop piracy, you just cant.The only thing you can do is provide a fast and simple way to buy stuff (ie steam and itunes) free of any horrible drm
i don't consider those who do it as criminals also.

[Hammered Pizza]

I .The only thing you can do is provide a fast and simple way to buy stuff (ie steam and itunes) free of any horrible drm

Isn't iTunes now completely DRM-free?

[Pen]

Surely if they dropped the prices to a more reasonable level then people would be more inclined to buy it legally.

[Dejan]

I download EVERYTHING. Simple because i can not be arsed to pay 20 balls for a CD or a movie. If I had to buy all my CD/Movies which i have ever downloaded, I would of been living on the streets by now, that broke.

Its just not affordable.

[Git]

I'll pirate anything, if I like it enough I will buy it to support the developer.

Except EA. f**k those guys.

Sent from my GT-I9100P using Tapatalk

[ThereIsBearCüm]

I don't want to pay $30 for a CD that might have one or two good songs (if that) on it
I download songs to see if I like the band, if I do, I usually buy their albums
If I don't, they never had a sale anyway

[elkanofan]

To be honest, I'm surprised there hasn't been a debate on this so far on here.

What side of the fence do you sit on? Do you pirate media or use file sharing sites illegaly - if not, do you have any sympathies with those that do?
The billion dollar question, can it be stopped, if so, how?
And finally, do you think piracy and file sharing is even stealing?

Looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
Keep it civil,
HP.

[TheLittleMozart]

Criminals!... Your all going down for this!!

[StLGooner]

I use to but not anymore. When I want some music I just buy it, to me it seems cheaper than it has ever been, so it doesn't bother me much.

[TartanRaven]

Wait! People buy music??? When did that start?