Ok, I was watching the news. They were (once again) going off on people downloading Music, Movies, Games (ext). They were saying it doesn't matter if you share, download, or copy games. You're still doing something wrong. I know none of this is true. If you are downloading music or anything else, it is not illegal. It is 100% Legal. It is illegal however, to sell burned copies of music, music, or games. Anything is else is not. The MPAA and the other companies need to get over IT! They already make a crap load of money and all it does is expand the movie's, music's, or game's popularity! Any one else think these companies are going a bit overboard?

Depends where you are. Downloading is illegal in some places, as is making a back up of something you have bought, etc. When you by a game, vd etc, you are buying the disc and a license to use the contecnt, you are not buying the content, that always belongs to the compnay/writer.

My opinion is that when people download things in order to avoid paying for them, it is wrong. Having said that, I also think that the laws being applied against the people performing these actions, (when we are talking about individuals that are not profiting from the act) are too harsh and were written at a time that was different than now. These laws that fine a person for 150,000 per movie or whatever, were written in order to control pirate factories or even individuals that were selling bootleg, physical items.

In addition, in the case of music, we already know the market value is about 99 cents per lossy DRM laden track, so I think that the present fines for each track are outlandish!

If you are subpoenaed now days under present laws, you cannot afford to fight it. It is basically blackmail and a method of scaring or setting an example by horrifically punishing an unfortunate few. All you can do is settle out of court, for several thousand dollars plus fees. Or risk losing your home and life savings. This doesn't seem right to me and reminds me of the days when a persons hand was severed for stealing bread. To lose everything you have worked your entrire life for over a few hundred MP3's is something I can't wrap my head around.

I would like to see some sort of new laws written. For instance, if a parent has a child that is 10 years old that shares a rap album, I don't think they should pay the same as an adult who is knowingly sharing.

As long as they can prove it. Speaking of which, I think these should be criminal cases and not civil, so that those accused have to be proven guilty and not for the accused to prove themselves innocent. This is very difficult to do, just ask O.J.Simpson.

i have to agree with crabbyappleton. i got in to some trouble with DTV. they had the money and i had a terrible lawyer. i am still paying on that one.

Yes, but if we choose to break the laws of our countries then we accept the risks of being caught and punished. If you aere unwilling to accept that risk then don't so it, that is the simple answer to it.

I basically agree with Crabbyappleton.
The punishment must fit the crime and not be so punitive as to destroy a person’s life.
When you consider what Sony was told to pay in proportion to what they own and earn over the root kit debacle and then compare that to what is being done in there name, the amounts are outrageous and unjust.
I also agree that if you break the law then you must take the consequences, providing you are judged by your peers and the punishment is just.
Regards.

While I think stealing music is wrong in of it self, some of these companies are pure evil. I hope stealing of music gets so bad they go bankrupt (it wont happen but they deserve it). They screw over the artist as well as the consumers and take a maximum profit at any cost approach which is just wrong. Going into schools trying to convince children to turn in there parents is wrong and sick. Using virus like software to protect content is wrong. Extorting money from people that cannot afford to defend themselves reguardless of guilt is wrong. Doing everything you can to fight against people even being able to fairly use the content they have paid to use is wrong. Forcing manufactures to incorperate technology in their hardware, and then make the consumer pay for it in the cost of the product is wrong. The list of horible things that they have done is endless, and if they have sued people who are dead, then it is obvious that some of the people that they acuse are not guilty. You might not agree with everything I have said, but you have to admit they are not very moral when it comes to their relentless greedy quest for more money. While stealing content in of it self is wrong, these people don't deserve a penny in reward to their actions. The more money they have, the more money they have to use against those of us that would just like to use the content we have paid for, and would like to be able to use the hardware we purchase as it was designed to work. I realize not all media companies are like this, but for the ones that are, they don't deserve anything. Its not like much of it is going to go to the artists that created the content anyway.
Just my opinion.

Let me guess ripit you don't like the greedy big companies

I totally agree with Ripit. Their witch hunt methods are down right disgusting and totally underhand, it is only going to get worse than better.

I don't disagree with Ripit either. I just think we need to have someone take a look at these current laws. We live in a different world now. Actually, France and Canada are setting a good example. They just charge a levy (which sucks) but, it shows that they realize the Pandora's box is open and it cannot be closed. Lets save our courtrooms and legal expertise for other matters. The present system is like playing Whack-a-Mole with a giant sledgehammer. As soon as you pulverize one, another pops up. The courts are going to be clogged with such cases and it wont stop a thing in the long run! For the same reason people smoke cigarettes or take other risks - they will continue to download illegally. They figure the odds are so great, it wont affect them, they wont be the one punished. And by golly, they are right!

Statistics are showing that the current RIAA and MPAA strategy is a failure. Even with iTunes selling 1 billion tracks, the demand for downloaded digital content is so great, that P2P is not getting a bit smaller. People don't think downloading music for free is that big a deal.

I agree completlly, we do need reform in the laws. An 8 year old child downloading a few songs is certainlly not that same thing as as a large scale piracy operation making a fortune selling bootlegs of those same few songs and the punishment should not be the same. As far as their tactics of forcing setelment out of people, it is nothing but extortion and they should be held criminally liable for it. If they don't have solid evidence against someone they have no right to go after them, much less threaten and coerce a setelment out of them. They are not threatening on the basis of guilt and punisment, they are threatening on the basis of you cannot afford to fight us.

@JayC30, I really don't have any problem with big companies or the concept of making a profit or getting rich. I do have a problem with the kind of tactics they use. This is a lot more than fair buisness practices making an honest profit.

Hence why I said big greedy companies and used a smilie. I agree there are profitable companies that don't treat the consumer like crap.

Theft is theft no matter how nicely we try to dress it up, regardless of the quantity, it just so happens that it happens to large companies that makes it acceptable. Analogy time, a pen is cheap isn't what if every employer took a pen home, it is theft, once a week and that company had a million employees that is a lot of money, and that is why companies have fired people for taking their property home. When they do there can be a public lynching because it was only a pen after all, but 52 pens is a lot and someone has to be the example.

Don't get me wrong I am not on the side of the companies but I also don't pull the wool over my eyes that downloading is an "innocent" thing if not for profit. THat is why there is a seperate criminal crime in many countries for those that make a profit as opposed to the civil crime that deals with those that don't.

I am not using any of the p2p sites. However I would like to give some input. I cannot understand the heavy handed approach by the companies who think they are being ripped off. There is certain content which I do agree should be illegal. An example would be movies which were recorded in a movie theatre with a video camera then copied and allowed to be downloaded on the internet. I think the companies may have a point there albeit a small one.
However I do not see how downloading music and/or movies from the internet differs from recording a movie off the television. How about recording music off the radio? Is this deemed illegal? Is it illegal to use your VCR to record a movie or a show or whatever off the television set? It is exactly the same as downloading from the internet except you have more choice on the internet.
I can understand the need to go after the people that make copies and sell them because they are making a profit from it. However if they are only for personal viewing then these companies are living in the dark ages. The next thing you know they will be hunting down people who have loaned a video tape or a DVD disc to a friend or family member. Oh sorry that is illegal as well is it?
These companies need to spend their resources going after the big boys who pirate these things for big profits.

They do not want you to be able to record television or radio and they are doing all they can to put a stop to it. search the term "brodcast flag" and you will see an example of what I mean. I will be boycotting blue ray formats (and I'm not the only one that has said that), as the avalable formats completlly criple fair use. They even go so far as to criple what you can do with content that you do own. If your hdtv doesn't have inputs that are compatible with their copy protection which aparently many dont, it will not work with future players, so you should throw away your hdtv and get another one. They dont even want to have analog outputs avalable as it allows copying, so they are doing all They can to criple that too. If they get their way, not only will you not be able to back up anything, and if it gets scratched or damaged (with the hight density of data on blue ray, I'm predicting that this will be easy to do), they expect you to throw it away, and go pay full price for another one. They want you to be able to play it only on equipment that they aprove. And they even want to control how you can use the original (and I don't mean copying, I mean the manners in which you play it).