Poll: An Interesting Thought about Piracy

[Jacco]

Here's an interesting thought I had today in class while I was not paying attention like I was supposed to be.

Say you buy an iPod Touch or something and decide you want lots of videos on it. Specifically, for the sake of argument, you want the entire first season of My Little Pony and The Bourne Identity on this new iPod. The only problem is that you own them both of DVD, having legitimately paid for them, but not digital versions from iTunes.

You find both of them on The Pirate Bay. Since you bought and paid for the actual physical media, would it still be considered piracy to download torrents of them so your kids (and you, don't lie) can watch My Little Pony on a road trip or so you can get your fill of violent kickass fights from Matt Damon at the airport?

What are your thoughts and why?

 

[mad825]

Don't buy an Ipod then.....Couldn't you just rip the media off the disc then convert them into a format which an Ipod can use?

 

[Whateveralot]

Don't buy an Ipod then.....Couldn't you just rip the media off the disc then convert them into a format which an Ipod can use?

Yes you can. That's exactly what I was thinking

[/discussion]

edit @ OP: however, I still get the point of what you're saying. This is the one and only reason piracy gets away with it. But there are ways around this problem. And ripping probably gives you a better quality video as well.

 

[smokeraven]

I'm fairly certain that on most torrent websites, there's a disclaimer saying "Users should be downloading this content for data back-up purposes only." Or something among those lines. Therefore if you own the content, Torrenting the same product should be ok.

 

[HassEsser]

No, I don't think so. If you paid for it once, you deserve to do whatever the hell you want with it (outside of re-distributing it).

 

[Stryc9]

Here's an interesting thought I had today in class while I was not paying attention like I was supposed to be.

Say you buy an iPod Touch or something and decide you want lots of videos on it. Specifically, for the sake of argument, you want the entire first season of My Little Pony and The Bourne Identity on this new iPod. The only problem is that you own them both of DVD, having legitimately paid for them, but not digital versions from iTunes.

You find both of them on The Pirate Bay. Since you bought and paid for the actual physical media, would it still be considered piracy to download torrents of them so your kids (and you, don't lie) can watch My Little Pony on a road trip or so you can get your fill of violent kickass fights from Matt Damon at the airport?

What are your thoughts and why?

Legally it's still breaking the law and you can be locked up or more likely fined massively for it.

However, as someone who has ripped a few of his DVDs and understands how time consuming it can be I wouldn't blame you for doing this.

 

[Mr Thin]

Technically, legally, I think it's piracy; morally you're in the clear.

Now stop thinking about moral conundrums and pay attention in class!

 

[NoMansLand 666]

Torrenting here is acceptable.

I've converted videos from a DVD for an iPod before and it's a monumental time wasting pain in the arse.

Did a 1.5 hour movie once and it took 3-4 hours to extract it to an XviD format (my laptop sucks).

 

[infohippie]

Depends where you live. In a lot of places this is technically piracy, but I certainly wouldn't equate it morally with piracy.

Oh, also, putting My Little Pony (I'm assuming you mean FiM here) on it is definitely piracy because there is no DVD of it yet, it's being released near the end of October. The only way you could legally own this is if you did buy it from iTunes.

 

[Signa]

Laws are a sticky issue. If you can pay for it more than once, you are expected to pay more than once. Anyone with half a brain can tell you the law is wrong in a situation like this though.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Annoyingly enough, it's illegal here in the UK to rip DVDs for ANY reason, including personal use and back-up. So they have heaps of protection, so it's torrent or nothing

 

[evilneko]

Here's an interesting thought I had today in class while I was not paying attention like I was supposed to be.

Say you buy an iPod Touch or something and decide you want lots of videos on it. Specifically, for the sake of argument, you want the entire first season of My Little Pony and The Bourne Identity on this new iPod. The only problem is that you own them both of DVD, having legitimately paid for them, but not digital versions from iTunes.

You find both of them on The Pirate Bay. Since you bought and paid for the actual physical media, would it still be considered piracy to download torrents of them so your kids (and you, don't lie) can watch My Little Pony on a road trip or so you can get your fill of violent kickass fights from Matt Damon at the airport?

What are your thoughts and why?

Done the way you have described, yes. Since you are using a torrent, you would still be guilty of copyright infringement because you are distributing unlicensed copies of it to others and have no authorization to do so.

You can however legally rip it yourself, or obtain it in other ways where you are not distributing it, such as downloading from usenet or other services.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Don't buy an Ipod then.....Couldn't you just rip the media off the disc then convert them into a format which an Ipod can use?

Yes you can. That's exactly what I was thinking

[/discussion]

edit @ OP: however, I still get the point of what you're saying. This is the one and only reason piracy gets away with it. But there are ways around this problem. And ripping probably gives you a better quality video as well.

Actually, ripping DVDs is still illegal under the DMCA, because you have to crack the copy protection to do it, which is specifically illegal, even when it has to be done to make a backup copy.

OT: It's illegal, but as I just pointed out, so is ripping your own DVDs. Copyright law in the US is an absolute joke.

 

[JFrog84]

Don't buy an Ipod then.....Couldn't you just rip the media off the disc then convert them into a format which an Ipod can use?

Yes you can. That's exactly what I was thinking

[/discussion]

edit @ OP: however, I still get the point of what you're saying. This is the one and only reason piracy gets away with it. But there are ways around this problem. And ripping probably gives you a better quality video as well.

Actually, ripping DVDs is still illegal under the DMCA, because you have to crack the copy protection to do it, which is specifically illegal, even when it has to be done to make a backup copy.

OT: It's illegal, but as I just pointed out, so is ripping your own DVDs. Copyright law in the US is an absolute joke.

I seem to remember a case in europe (somewhere scandinavian I think) where a guy won a court case against this exact thing because he claimed that copyprotection was illegal, because it infringed on his right to make a digital backup. Can't remember which publisher wanted to prosocute him though.

 

[Phisi]

I would say it is not but it can be questionable. If a company were to offer some software product and this product had a Windows, Linux and Mac version for sale separately, then I think it would be piracy to to download one of the other versions if you bought a different one. Some other examples would be buying a game on PS3 and then pirating it for PC or buying a creative suite that can only be installed on one computer and then pirating it so you can install it on more. The other reason I'm apposed to pirating if say; your game files become corrupted is that it provides a place for people with no ground to pirate it. So yeah... I think it is piracy and you could always buy another player or buy the iPod version as it is not you that own the media but merely own that copy. That said I think there are situations where piracy would be okay ethically but the fact remains that piracy is against the law.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Don't buy an Ipod then.....Couldn't you just rip the media off the disc then convert them into a format which an Ipod can use?

Yes you can. That's exactly what I was thinking

[/discussion]

edit @ OP: however, I still get the point of what you're saying. This is the one and only reason piracy gets away with it. But there are ways around this problem. And ripping probably gives you a better quality video as well.

Actually, ripping DVDs is still illegal under the DMCA, because you have to crack the copy protection to do it, which is specifically illegal, even when it has to be done to make a backup copy.

OT: It's illegal, but as I just pointed out, so is ripping your own DVDs. Copyright law in the US is an absolute joke.

I seem to remember a case in europe (somewhere scandinavian I think) where a guy won a court case against this exact thing because he claimed that copyprotection was illegal, because it infringed on his right to make a digital backup. Can't remember which publisher wanted to prosocute him though.

European copyright law actually has protections for the consumer, though. In the US, copyright law exists pretty much exclusively to back up big business. We used to have some decent protections, but congress has been chipping away at them for decades.

 

[Wuggy]

Is it piracy? Yes.

Is it wrong? I don't think so. The copyright law would prohibit you from ripping the media from the disc anyway, and it's a hassle. I'd just give you a green light and a thumbs up on this one.

 

[Eleuthera]

Is it piracy? That really depends on your definition I guess. I'd say "no" personally.
Is it morally or legally ok? Morally: Yes, I bought it I can transfer it (for personal use). Legally: Depends on where you are, unless I'm mistaken downloading is still completely legal here in the Netherlands, uploading (things you don't own the distribution rights for) however is illegal, so only torrent with uploads turned off I guess.