bit torrent tracker

Woebot

Well-known member
not the torrenting as much as the pirated content, arguably. torrenting is quite egalitarian

hilarious from the wiki

"In the study used to value NBC Universal in its merger with Comcast, Envisional examined the 10,000 torrent swarms managed by PublicBT which had the most active downloaders. After excluding pornographic and unidentifiable content, it was found that only one swarm offered legitimate content."


oof - yep you're right but no fanks ;-)
 

droid

Well-known member
Second hand dvd's on Amazon, tons of stuff that comes to about £3 incl. postage. Might as well get a physical copy if it's cheaper or similar in price to a download.

Legal, but surely no more ethical in that the original creators get nothing, other than perhaps satisfying some abstract moral desire to 'pay' for something? The end result is the same as pirating - perhaps worse as the second hand buyer is in fact willing to pay something, where the pirate is not, so it is genuine 'lost' revenue.

See also, libraries and the paltry fees they pay.
 

Leo

Well-known member
agree droid. on the other hand, i can justify buying second-hand cds/vinyl by looking at the potential promotional value. i wouldn't pay $20 for a new copy of an album by an artist i didn't know or was unsure of, but i'm sometimes willing to take a chance on discovering that same artist if i find a used copy for $3. while it doesn't happen all the time, there have been cases where i've purchased a discounted used album, loved it, and subsequently went out and bought new copies of the artists back catalog and/or went to see them perform live.

re: the ethical issue, pretty much the only music i've illegally downloaded was stuff that's hopelessly out of print (old, or sold-out ltd edition vinyl, etc.)
 
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droid

Well-known member
Exactly the same argument could be (and is) used to justify piracy though.

I suggested on a reggae board a few year back that some kind of droit de suite for the resale of records could be a good thing in terms of keeping prices down and allowing artists to claw back money that would be otherwise go to collectors. Met with derision of course, but the fact is that secondhand sales give absolutely no benefit to the author and have the potential to deprive them of huge amounts of income, whist allowing third parties to profit.

So yeah, buying secondhand. Eases the conscience, but arguably morally worse than piracy.
 

Leo

Well-known member
that can also apply to sales of used anything. if i buy a used 2011 corolla, toyota doesn't get any money from that sale. same if i buy an old sweater at a thrift shop or a coffee table at my neighbor's yard sale. i understand your point and agree in theory, but it doesn't seem realistic in the real world.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Ah - but it already exists! This isnt an aspiration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_de_suite

I would also make the distinction between mass produced consumer goods and 'art'. Difficult to disentangle from entertainment I agree, but you could make a reasonable argument that resale rights should extend to recorded material.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
Legal, but surely no more ethical in that the original creators get nothing, other than perhaps satisfying some abstract moral desire to 'pay' for something? The end result is the same as pirating - perhaps worse as the second hand buyer is in fact willing to pay something, where the pirate is not, so it is genuine 'lost' revenue.

See also, libraries and the paltry fees they pay.

interesting thought.

though i suppose i'm less cynical about what you describe as "the moral desire to pay for something" - using your argument secondhand music shops wouldn't ever have existed which would would both have weakened music (second only to the dole in propping up the culture) and deprive lots of people of jobs (often but not quite the same thing)

and also where would that place reissues?

i'm no socialist though - and to my (obviously decadent, spiritually bankrupt and corrupt) mind - often money=energy.
 

droid

Well-known member
interesting thought.

though i suppose i'm less cynical about what you describe as "the moral desire to pay for something" - using your argument secondhand music shops wouldn't ever have existed which would would both have weakened music (second only to the dole in propping up the culture) and deprive lots of people of jobs (often but not quite the same thing)

This is kind of a side argument though. People could easily claim 'without soulseek/piratebay I never would have discovered artist x/y/z and bought their music. It doesn't address the assumption that buying 2nd hand is more 'ethical' than pirating.*

if there was a Droit de suite for 2nd hand sales I imagine it would work something like publishing. 2nd hand shops document sales and pay % royalties to a central body which would then pass them on to registered artists...

and also where would that place reissues?

No effect I would say. reissues often tend to pay the original creators better than the first releases. Bootlegs would still be bootlegs.

i'm no socialist though - and to my (obviously decadent, spiritually bankrupt and corrupt) mind - often money=energy.

If you really believed that you wouldn't have spent so many years writing for free on the internet! ;)

*In case its not clear, Im just ruminating here, not passing judgement on anything or anybody.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Who actually gets paid if you buy a new DVD though?

Genuine question, because I don't know. I'd imagine most of the crew working on a film don't get paid because they would have earned wages whilst doing it. Or the minor "extra" actors for that matter.

I'd guess the director and producer and the major actors get paid something, but presumably they have been handsomely rewarded for their efforts already anyway?

I don't think a "flat" ethical framework is useful for illegally downloading stuff. If people want to get free copies of things produced by millionaires that is fine by me, but I'd baulk at people ripping off stuff produced by struggling artists.
 

droid

Well-known member
Who actually gets paid if you buy a new DVD though?

Genuine question, because I don't know. I'd imagine most of the crew working on a film don't get paid because they would have earned wages whilst doing it. Or the minor "extra" actors for that matter.

I'd guess the director and producer and the major actors get paid something, but presumably they have been handsomely rewarded for their efforts already anyway?

I don't think a "flat" ethical framework is useful for illegally downloading stuff. If people want to get free copies of things produced by millionaires that is fine by me, but I'd baulk at people ripping off stuff produced by struggling artists.

The crucial question.

There are 3 reasons to pay for art/media:

1) So that the 'creators' (artists/corporations/publishers etc..) will/can continue to produce work.
2) Because it is ethical to pay for the work in question in the spirit of fair exchange.
3) Because people like to feel that they are honest and principled and paying makes the consumer feel like they are doing the 'right' thing.

These are the motivations we pick and choose from when we decide to pirate or not pirate.

If you download an out of print 80's dancehall LP that is only available secondhand for $300 then 1+2 do not apply.

If you download a Hollywood movie, then 2 and arguably 1 does not apply.

If you download an LP by an underground artist from an independent label, then 1 & 2 both apply.

3 is the only absolute as its a personal principle, and, as in the 2nd hand example, it could be argued that this is morally worse than piracy anyway. An ethical fig leaf.
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
Yes I think that is a good way of looking at it.

There is a secondary aspect to (1) which I think Matt was getting at, which is to support a wider culture of music makers / shops / venues etc.

I personally think that buying records from actual physical shops - regardless of whether the record is new or used, is a good thing. That is because I want to support the survival of record shops and those who work in them (except some of the twats at MVE).

The same applies to small labels, distributors etc and also maybe people I know who create music that flog second hand records as sideline.

There is a problem with this though, which means it has to be of secondary importance. Most of the shops are staffed and managed by white men who live in London. If I buy a 2nd hand dancehall record from them it is whitey who is getting the money rather than the creator of the music in Kingston. (Obviously this doesn't take into account the galactic levels of fuckery in the JA music biz which mean artists rarely get paid anyway).
 

Woebot

Well-known member
There is a secondary aspect to (1) which I think Matt was getting at, which is to support a wider culture of music makers / shops / venues etc.

lots of us run an attractive trade on second-hand stuff these days.

a collector will sell her unwanted things (music/films) - or indeed things that she picks up and knowing she can make a profit on - on ebay or discogs etc etc

then they can either plough the profits into a collection or - like a number of my record-dealer friends - actually live on them.
 

Pandiculate

Well-known member
whatever happened to the shared dropbox folder that everyone was plonking music into for a bit? Got some great Vinyl rips that I've since long lost.
 
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