[jmac3]

Originally Posted by ScottW

half the time i want a cd for only a few songs, so im not gonna waste 15 bucks on a cd for a few songs so im gonna keep downloading em for free

What a dumb point...You can download and pay for single songs

[ihavesuperaids]

people listen to kid rock?

[muroks]

Loved the PSA. Hopefully more people will be able to see that downloading is stealing.

Couldn't get through all 5 pages of the thread, but I'm dissapointed in all the people who have the nerve to try and justify illegal downloading in the MWAG forum. Not cool.

Plain and simple.. illegal downloading hurts artists. Artists like Patrick.


Surviving as an artist is difficult enough.

How about we quit stealing from them and support the ones we like by purchasing their work?

[ScottW]

Originally Posted by jmac3

What a dumb point...You can download and pay for single songs

yeah if you have a credit card which i dont or want to go out to the store and buy a card which i find pointless when i can just get any song for free

[muroks]

Originally Posted by ScottW

yeah if you have a credit card which i dont or want to go out to the store and buy a card which i find pointless when i can just get any song for free

Just because you can, dosen't mean you should.

[fps_frank]

you could make case for large mp3 player sizes contributing to the volume of illigal downloads.... oh man 360 gigs? lets just put songs i listen to once and dont really like on there that i got for free?!!??!

[MRev]

As a film maker, I have to resort to working for production companies to pay the bills because of the current market. And what I mean when I say the current market I mean the fact that when a film is released it is just simply uploaded onto the internet, and downloaded by anyone who wants to watch it.

Truthfully I have lost hundreds and hundreds of dollars in this sense as Patrick himself has, I sold my copy of CK2 for half the price to a friend just so he wouldn't go out and download it, Then I bought a new copy.

To the normal person its efficient, simple, and easy to just download music or videos off the internet. To the creator every time we know that our film/song was downloaded we think of how much money and profit we lost. AS A FILM MAKER I spend hundreds of dollars into my films as I know Patrick himself did too... so when you download his film, he's hoping he will have enough to gain profit let alone break even.

Think of it this way...
The Dark Knight cost over 150 Million Dollars to produce...
thats 7,500,000 DVDs sold at $20 each just to break even.

[Johnny5072]

Originally Posted by MRev

As a film maker, I have to resort to working for production companies to pay the bills because of the current market. And what I mean when I say the current market I mean the fact that when a film is released it is just simply uploaded onto the internet, and downloaded by anyone who wants to watch it.

Truthfully I have lost hundreds and hundreds of dollars in this sense as Patrick himself has, I sold my copy of CK2 for half the price to a friend just so he wouldn't go out and download it, Then I bought a new copy.

To the normal person its efficient, simple, and easy to just download music or videos off the internet. To the creator every time we know that our film/song was downloaded we think of how much money and profit we lost. AS A FILM MAKER I spend hundreds of dollars into my films as I know Patrick himself did too... so when you download his film, he's hoping he will have enough to gain profit let alone break even.

Think of it this way...
The Dark Knight cost over 150 Million Dollars to produce...
thats 7,500,000 DVDs sold at $20 each just to break even.

The problem with piracy just like online viewing, is numbers. There are no hard facts out there about how much piracy hurts the economy. Most of the extreme cases of piracy come from overseas in countries where so much revenue is generated from it, ie China. I couldn't tell you that someone I worked with didn't get hired on a film because 1,000 people downloaded a movie online and therefore the studio cut their budget on the next film so my co-worker didn't get hired. There is no hard numbers out there to support the claims. It is more Studio Math which we all know is worse than the mortgage/stock math that got us into this recession in the first place. When the world starts placing more value on perceived income and future revenues, that's when we run into trouble. Consumers got into trouble when they borrowed against the "equity" in their homes which was a perceived number from the marketplace. When the bubble burst, everyone was left out in the cold.

Piracy is stealing. It affects Paintball, it affects everyone. Just now it may be more directly felt being the state that the economy is in.

Also the Dark Knight probably cost 150 million to make, but was marketed and distributed for a whole lot more. Warner Bros sketchy accounting could probably even show you a balance sheet saying that it never made any money. That is the corrupt world we live in.

[MRev]

This is very true lol... I was just looking for a numbers example and that was the first movie that popped into mind.

[g35x]

So, what made you post that video Pat? It's pretty old, I've seen it before. Bored and randomly felt like sparking up a debate? Well, I guess this is your own subfourm, so you can do what you want. Don't worry though, I don't pirate your movies. I can't say I buy them either. There are tons of amazing paintball videos available for free. This goes for music as well. There are plenty of up and coming bands that release albums for free. Then again, I listen to music a lot more than I watch paintball videos, so I do buy some occasionally.

Don't get me wrong Pat, I respect you for your work, and I do plan to buy the movies and check them out sometime, but my point is that times are hard these days and you can't always expect people to be able to shell out a lot of cash for entertainment. Especially when there is so much available for free- be it legal and free, or illegal and free.

[Blazestorm2]

Originally Posted by MRev

Think of it this way...
The Dark Knight cost over 150 Million Dollars to produce...
thats 7,500,000 DVDs sold at $20 each just to break even.

"Box Office: $533,316,061"

Considering it did that in theaters alone, I think they're fine on DVD and Blu-ray sales... Most major movies are this way. And if they were flops, they were flops... you can't blame it on piracy because it's not like people pirate every movie in existence, they pirate good movies that they'd enjoy watching. ****ty movies that don't do well in theaters, don't do well on DVD, and won't be pirated anywhere near as much as a good movie. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying how it is. Wasn't the original Star Wars done on like 1 million? You don't need big budgets to do great films...

You simply can't say that you lost any profits from people pirating films. You can't assume they would have paid for it if weren't able to download it. You give someone the opportunity to have something for free, they'll take it. But once you ask money for the same thing they might not be so inclined to pay especially if it's a luxury.

A good example of this is the PSP Webcast recently... it was free for the first 3 events and now you're paying per match. This isn't something that Pat has control over but it's emphasizing my point. It was free before, lots of people watched it. It's now pay-per-view and significantly less people will watch it.

rabblerabble.

[baller3388]

It wouldn't get pirated as much if it was less expensive to begin with

[TzeentchianGod]

Originally Posted by baller3388

I make baseless assertions with no data to back it up.

[som3 dud3]

Originally Posted by som3 dud3

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4206.html

Edit: Or if you have more time try http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6223.html too.

BTW, morals are pretty subjective so arguing that seems kinda idiotic.

Originally Posted by TzeentchianGod

If you would like some, try reading the second link.

[the PMR guy]

stealing music\software- no physical matter lost. it doesnt cost money to make (in terms of building up, or shaping) a song.

stealing a car, ring, or something that physically exists costs a company money for materials and supplies. that is the difference.


if you steal a song, the company doesn't gain money.( $-0 )

if you steal a car, the company loses money.( -$25,000)

[MRev]

You say no one loses money... you forget peoples time, production costs, marketing, etc... lol downloading a song is still profit loss.

[NoLimitz_07]

Originally Posted by MRev

Think of it this way...
The Dark Knight cost over 150 Million Dollars to produce...
thats 7,500,000 DVDs sold at $20 each just to break even.

They made all there money back and then some in theaters.
And how many copies did block buster and hollywood video and other video stores buy to rent out?


Dl music online is not stealing its sharing. How did it get there to begin with? Most of the time some one bought the cd and then decided to share it with everyone else. The CD industry got away for many years selling them at $20 a pop now when people have found a new way to get it and the demand is down they have dropped to around $12. Also if they are loosing money everytime why do they continue to produce music?

[muroks]

Originally Posted by som3 dud3

If you would like some, try reading the second link.

Potential profits lost or not lost..

No matter how you try to rationalize illegal DLing, its wrong. When an artist has a work copyrighted, hes asking you to pay for it and not steal it. If the artist is okay with you copying their work, they register with CC/Creative Commons.

No means no.

[muroks]

Originally Posted by NoLimitz_07

Also if they are loosing money everytime why do they continue to produce music?

If attitudes like this prevail, I worry what art in the future will be like.

Shouldn't you support music/art you like? and not steal from the artists that make it?

Someone mentioned the "Dark Knight" movie. Sure they lost some potential profits, but its people like Patrick and MWAG that hurt the most. He dosen't have a major hollywood budget like Dark Knight, but hes put in too much time and money to just give it away on youtube. Artists like that need the support of media sales.


If enough people DL and steal from artists, I'm afraid we'll lose some of them forever.

[MRev]

I agree!

[som3 dud3]

Originally Posted by muroks

Potential profits lost or not lost..

No matter how you try to rationalize illegal DLing, its wrong. When an artist has a work copyrighted, hes asking you to pay for it and not steal it. If the artist is okay with you copying their work, they register with CC/Creative Commons.

No means no.

I'm not rationalizing the morality of it. Remove yourself from the human condition, eliminate morality as an issue first. File sharing studies show that it isn't nearly as harmful to the artist and consumer as the current market systems put in place by the RIAA and other major labels. After you have that part what your morality says can be factored into the solution, but not before.

I'm not advocating that you do/don't pirate things, much less even getting into the problems of intellectual property. What I am advocating is critical thinking towards the topic at hand, not emotional fingerpointing and namecalling.