Your take on downloading movies

I think Harry's tongue got in his cheek.

I don't download because it's too much bother.

It's funny Will, I thought that too. I even stood on the moral high ground of it being wrong.

Its so incredibly easy to do though, it really isn't even funny.

I do take issue with folks that just call this theft and refuse to see any other side. There's just as many gray areas here as in many other things.

So, you folks on the moral high ground are really saying, what? I am a pirate and my behavior is reprehensible because I have a movie file that I choose to share with other people?

Example: I paid for a DVD, I make a copy of said DVD and give it to a friend, said friend makes copy and so on. Am I really supposed to feel some sort of remorse or something?

That's all that filesharing is folks.

You can call it stealing since a lot of you don't know where these files come from. But I actually know where a lot of them come from. And most of them come off of peoples shelves from their own personal libraries. Some of you make it sound like there's this guy out there stealing DVD's and then uploading them onto the intraweb. I assure this isn't the case.

This argument that somehow we are taking money out of other's pockets is not only false, it's a smokescreen.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

I don't want to be the Anti-Filesharing Avenger, because it's not really something that bothers me much, but I honestly don't understand some of the arguments defending it. So...here we ago again.

Sure; almost every crime has exceptions and grays areas. And theft of intellectual property is certainly a bit more complicated than traditional theft. But if one acknowledges that a) ideas and art are valuable and difficult to create, and b) that free people should have ownership over their ideas, or even c) that we should honor our contracts, then the conclusion that filesharing is wrong becomes inevitable.

I dunno if I'd qualify as one of the moral high ground people, but yeah, copying movies and giving them to others is wrong. It violates the agreements plastered all over the movies when we buy them, and it allows others to see them without paying anything. I certainly wouldn't say it's "reprehensible," but it's clearly wrong on some level. Maybe on the same level as just slacking off at work too often, but it's certainly not a benign action.

I don't think the fact that the original uploader purchased it really changes much. Whether or not the very first person paid for it or not is a pretty small matter compared to what happens after that.

Really, this wasn't a big deal until it went beyond a friend copying a movie for a friend, to the point at where people's "friends" were completely anonymous, numbered in the millions, and were spread out all over the world.

If anyone in the process who downloads these films opts not to purchase a ticket, disc, or a rental because they can get it online instead (something which has obviously happened many times), then that absolutely takes money out of other people's pockets. Why wouldn't it?

In the spirit of egalitarianism and artf@ggotry, I'd have to disagree. There're richers who are easily able to afford, I don't know, the actual reels of some of these more obscure films and run them in their private home projector like Norma Desmond. But ya know what? They don't. They don't even care. I'm almost certain Micheal Bay, to take a vulgar example, has never watched Ozu, but he could get original copies if he wanted to. I love Ozu to death. I'd lay flowers on his grave if I could. But I only illegally download medium quality versions of his films. I think I deserve to have access to him just as much as Bay does or anyone else. Great art is only pretentious/elitist because the masses don't have access to it. Downloading is leveling the playing field. Now anyone can appreciate Ozu without going Criterion crazy. I guess since I still drool over their website so much you're right that eventually I would have gotten a few DVDs, but not even a quarter of the number I "have" now.

I disagree and I'll tell you why. I, in fact do not get this stuff for free. Sure, a torrent tracker is free to sign up on and download from. But, I pay for my cable line and modem every month don't I? I also pay a fee to download directly from a site that is actually advertised here on this very site. So, I pay every month. Almost $100 a month as a matter of fact. Just because it doesn't go directly into the artists pocket means very little to me. I still pay and I pay plenty I reckon.

In reality the downloading is very close to the same as streaming Netflix online and making a copy of it when finished. As I'm sure a lot of folks have already figured out how to do.

Sure, and for that you get a cable internet connection that lets you do all sorts of other things. The movies aren't part of the deal, though. You pay an electric bill, too, but that doesn't mean you can swipe light bulbs.

But you pay less than you would have if you bought them. And it's not like any of us get to decide how much we should pay for things that other people made.

Maybe you don't download many movies, but $100 a month for what is essentially every major movie ever made doesn't strike me as some kind of raw deal. It's actually an insane bargain if one has any respect for how difficult a great movie is to make -- which you obviously do, being here and all.

Probably, and I'd wager it's against their agreement with Netflix, too. And at least in that case some money is going to the people who create the movies, even if it's indirect and/or insufficient. But yeah, that's another example of it, and I have the same general view of it.

I'm sure at some point you've downloaded a film by someone who has this ability and doesn't take it for granted, so I don't think what Michael Bay does or doesn't watch with his access and riches is terribly relevant. The fact that rich people without taste exist is hardly justification to steal whatever they might have.

If you have so much respect for Ozu, though, why not support his family and/or estate by buying his art? Why not support all great art this way, if the dissemination of great art is really the ultimate goal here?

I don't think I agree with your sentiment about prentiousness, but let's leave that aside, because the important thing is that you do have access to quite a bit of it. Having to pay for it doesn't mean you don't have access to it. And if we're perfectly honest about all this, even the poorest of us can generally afford to obtain these things if that's what we really want. If it seems like we can't, it's because we want that, and this, and that, and some other thing. We just don't like having to choose, is all.

Aye. I think most of us would, and if we don't think so, it's probably just because we're used to the idea of not having to buy them. And that's really all that's necessary to demonstrate that downloading movies online is costing someone money.

Of course I pay less. That is the whole point. DVD's and many, many other things are entirely too expensive.

The only reason it is this way is because not enough of the general public votes with their pocket books. Which is why I will continue to buck a system that I have no faith in.

I think they do vote with their pocket books, it's just that most people find the cost of DVDs reasonable and vote the other way. I certainly find the cost of legal streaming and online rentals extremely cheap and more than reasonable, so I can still see all the movies I want for very little money.

It's not as if we don't all want things to be less expensive, but that's not usually a good reason to not pay for them at all. Anyway, whatever one thinks of "the system" as a whole, it's still individual people inside it who create and distribute the movies that lose money over all this.

I'm a card-carrying communist who calls St. Petersburg Leningrad so I don't even accept this kind of discourse, but the only thing that WOULD be immoral/bad/unethical is if I, planet news, am causing other people to live a little worse of a life.

Am I? Sure. But I also believe that there are levels to this kind of "suffering" and that, at most--now I'm no economist--I'm costing them 1-2 hundred bucks a year.

Now if EVERYONE did this, that would be bad. Not everyone is, so let's just be happy with that. Fickit, I'm an opportunist capitalizing on the underregulated realm of the internet at this dawn of the digital age.

Yeah, most of what I'm saying doesn't apply if you don't buy into the basic tenets of private property to begin with. It would raise some interesting questions as to whether or not it's consistent to enjoy the fruits of capitalism without participating in it, though that's way too off-topic for me to want to delve into at the moment.

Anyway, I agree that the industry can obviously withstand some number of people doing this, and I agree that not "everyone" is doing it, but...a lot of people are. And I imagine a lot more will in another decade, when most moviegoers will have grown up in an environment where it's possible, whereas plenty of older moviegoers don't know or don't care. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, and really, it's either right or wrong regardless of how many people do it.

Must give you points for the whole "capitalizing on the underregulated realm" stuff. That's honest, and it's a pretty good way to describe most filesharing, I think. It's hard to feel particularly guilty about something that a) has a small effect that is largely powerful only in accumulation, b) is so easy, and c) has almost no chance of consequences, at least at the moment.

I agree with Yoda that many people are doing this, and I also agree with underregulated aspect of file-sharing. We're living in a strange transitory time where restrictions are fuzzy, consequences are unclear, and money is tight. Copyright as we know it has not existed until relatively recently, and it seems possible (although I wouldn't say probable) that it won't last forever. But then again, motion pictures cost money to make, and the industry counts on people paying to see them.

I guess it always seems to me like sneaking into the first class cabin the middle of a transatlantic flight. I like flying first class, but I can't really justify the price unless someone else is footing the bill. But sometimes there are a few seats left, and it's not really hurting anyone if I hang out there. After all, the seat is empty, and I wouldn't be purchasing the upgrade anyway. So really, it's a victimless crime.

But then again, why should I get to hang out in first class when everyone else is sticking it out in coach? What gives me the right to go up front? How is it fair to everyone else? How is it fair to the people who paid for first class?

That's not to say that I haven't downloaded movies. I have. But I can't pretend it's anything more than seeing an opportunity and going with it. It feels like stealing, despite the fact that I see a movie in theaters once a week at least, and I have a personal dvd collection of hundreds. I call a spade a spade; it's stealing, and I couldn't feel morally righteous about it.

>Implying film or any art is the fruit of capitalism.

I try to stay well away from Hollywood thanks. Scorsese and Nolan are about the only two directors I indulge in there. And any true artist definitely wouldnn't want executives messing around with their final cuts. Such is capitalism.

On the contrary, I think bitorrent filesharing is a virtual communist utopia where everyone chips in a little bit of bandwidth to promote the bandwidth of the whole. Quite a beautiful process, dontcha think?

Hmmm... but what files are you sharing? Do they belong to you? Are they the intellectual property of someone else?

Not really a utopia for the filmmaker or writer or artist then, is it?

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Almost any film with a significant budget is, at least partially, the fruit of capitalism. And the means used to obtain it -- broadband internet, a PC, modern operating system, etc. -- would qualify beyond a shadow of a doubt, so the question would apply anyway.

Don't most bitorrents require people to seed and share, lest they get kicked out?

Some do, some don't. All private trackers in which you need to be invited by an existing (and respected) member to join require a fair ratio or you get the boot, the public trackers do not. There is an unwritten code throughout the torrent community that you should seed as much as you leech, but the majority of people do not practice this.

The one private tracker that I hold in esteem over all others is pretty well heaven on the internet for a cinephile. No mainstream allowed. Heck they had a "Films of the Third Reich" theme going for a month, really hard stuff to find. No advertising, they rely on donations to keep things going. People from all over the world spending hours of their free time subtitling movies, others even finding rare silent film reels and transferring them so that they might live on for years to come.

I have this list going that is over ten years in the making, films I want to see and in certain cases I haven't been able to cross off some of them for nearly a decade. Every single one of these films suddenly became available to me thanks to this tracker. Is this site wrong in what it does? Is it part of the problem or is it doing good?

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

You're part of the problem, Lime. And you should be purged.

Not the first time I've heard that before.

Even if it's not the "fruit of capitalism," it has to get it's money from somewhere. Let's say it's publicly funded, it's probably getting its budget through tax dollars. Public money comes from somewhere too, so is it fair to "pick the fruits," so to speak, of a society you don't participate in? I'm not trying to accuse, I think it's an interesting political/philosophical question.

Films don't exist without money. Even the most obscure, art house, "made this movie out of the passion of my own heart" films cost money to make. Very few people can afford to fund their own films, and those who can still expect to make some money back.

why download, when you can buy a DVD at the stores... atleast rent it