Should stricter laws regarding illegal downloads be enforced? [ENDS 24/01/2010]

[Nixt]

Should stricter laws regarding illegal downloads be enforced?

Ends 24/01/2010


Prior to mainstream internet use things like music, software, games and films would be purchased from your nearest retailer but, as the internet became more and more popular, the way in which such purchases were made was revolutionised. The internet made it possible to buy such things in the comfort of your own home, and internet shopping became the next big thing. However it didn't stop there. Over time, music sharing programs and torrents became massively popular; enabling internet users to get everything for free - great for everyone, apart from the musicians and companies who lose out on money...

The question is, do you think the government should start to enforce stricter laws regarding illegal internet downloads as has been suggested by some MPs and larger companies?

Before posting in this thread, please read the debates forum rules (http://habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=617161) and the thread that explains how this forum works (http://habboxforum.com/showthread.php?t=617160)!

[[Jay]]

Thats a tough one, in one hand it is unfair that the music artists and companies are loosing out but then again they are not completley loosing out. It is only a minority of people who do download music and other stuff illegally the rest buy it. The companies and artists are still able to make enough money from that.

I don't think this is a big deal and the goverment could spend thier time and money elsewere. Eventually someone will come up with an idea on how to stop illegall downloading. Until then we will survive.

Also I think most fans will actually buy the album or movie or whatever it might be that they want instead of illegally downloading it.

[iAdam]

I do believe that the laws should be enforced stricter but not stricter rules as such.

Obviously there is plenty of arguments for downloading, such as the items being too much to buy but it really isn't fair on the companies that produce these items as a lot of work goes into them, probably not as much as it's worth but still the point is there.

The laws are there but they just arn't being enacted upon and it's just too easy to download now and with empty threats coming from all angles everyone has become desensitized to it and no one cares anymore. So if companies actually started caring aswell and cracking down on downloading then maybe people would begin to buy more than downloading again, and I don't mean ridiculous law suits for downloading an album, something like that happened last year.

So in all, the laws don't need to be changed, but if something is going to happen then it needs to be the laws being enforced and the ways in which you can download narrowed and made harder at that.

[Kronics]

I don't think they should be enforced as such, maybe a fine but nothing too heavy at the end of the day all downloads can get deleted anyway. Like perhaps if you get caught once £100 pound fine and if caught again it goes higher. If caught again for the third time possible do some jail time?

I'm not sure that is a tough question to answer to be honest.

[DrLacero]

What artists and media companies don't realise (nor do I think they ever will) is that they aren't necessarily losing anything.

I pirate a lot (never been caught, cautioned etc.), but I'm what I call an equitable pirate. If I download something and enjoy it, I'll go buy the DVD/CD. If I download something and don't like it, I won't. That way they're losing no money at all from me: if I download something and I don't like it, I wouldn't have bought it anyway. To say that's costing them money is ridiculous.

Not to mention, piracy gives free publicity. I've seen many films, tv shows and heard a lot of music I would never have known existed without it.

I don't think there should be harsher punishments on piracy, I think there should be none whatsoever.

Should piracy be completely eliminated, I would probably never buy anything, as I'm not willing to pay, let's say, £10 for a DVD or £30 for a game only to find it's **** and I can't get a refund.

I find the argument that they're losing money fallacious, especially as Sony had world-record profits in 2009 (http://www.imdb.com/news/ni1261935/).

[Richie]

Stealing debates from other forums eh ;) http://www.clubhabboforum.net/showthread.php?t=257747 unless its just a coincidence :rolleyes:


On Topic: I don't think there should be because personally I'm finding it hard enough as it is to stay safe when downloading illegally. I know that what others and I do is wrong but its just people haven't got money for to be buying music, games or movies everyday.

Didn't want to make a post, because I didn't want to ruin the flow of discussion (as you would have done, had you not have quickly saved yourself punishment by adding your little 'on topic' bit - the reason this thread was posted was because Immenseman suggested it. I don't go on Clubhabbo, so I wouldn't know what there debates are. Maybe don't jump to conclusions next time, eh ;) - Garion.

[Black_Apalachi]

I don't exactly know what the current law is, but surely it's along the lines of 'it is illegal to download copied music etc'? The only way it could become more severe is if companies were allowed to have access to our personal information, which is something that should never happen.

As people have said, there are one or two advantages to piracy from the music industry's point of view. For example, most of the stuff I have, was given to me by a friend on an external hard drive. This sounds like an empty promise, but as soon as I have enough spare cash when I'm older, I intend to purchase the whole library. Without my mate giving me it, I wouldn't have known about most of it and therefore when I did purchase various CDs, it would be no way near on the same scale.

At the end of the day, I think piracy counts for a very small percentage of the over all downloads and purchases people make in the UK, so it probably isn't something to overly worry about just yet.

[-:Undertaker:-]

No, the police and government should be focusing on things that matter such as; crime (murderers, rapists, petty criminals and anti-social benhaviour) and building new prisons as we are running out of room.

Maybe then i'll support a crackdown on this 'crime'.

[Ardemax]

No, the police and government should be focusing on things that matter such as; crime (murderers, rapists, petty criminals and anti-social benhaviour) and building new prisons as we are running out of room.

Maybe then i'll support a crackdown on this 'crime'.

It is a crime. It's like running into a shop, nicking a dvd and going out with it. Oh my bad, robbing shops these days don't "matter". Let's not focus on it, shall we? :rolleyes:

I think that yes, maybe enforce more stronger laws against it, but only as serious as if you robbed it from a shop.

[Accipiter]

tbf, they could just include it as an extra tax and make all music free to download...

and if a nerd collector wants the cd's let him buy them...

If you got fined for it the majority of the whole world would be pretty much screwed.

[DrLacero]

It is a crime. It's like running into a shop, nicking a dvd and going out with it. Oh my bad, robbing shops these days don't "matter". Let's not focus on it, shall we? :rolleyes:

I think that yes, maybe enforce more stronger laws against it, but only as serious as if you robbed it from a shop.

Your analogy isn't accurate. It's more like running into a shop, using magic to create an identical copy of it, leaving the original and walking out with your own copy. The original copy is still intact in my analogy and in actual piracy.

[Pix]

Even If they do come up with stricter laws for it i doubt it'll work

[Accipiter]

Your analogy isn't accurate. It's more like running into a shop, using magic to create an identical copy of it, leaving the original and walking out with your own copy. The original copy is still intact in my analogy and in actual piracy.

>>PIRACY<<

Both are illegal. :eusa_clap and yours just fails with logic anyway, at the beginning it is running into a shop but buying the cd downloading it / recording it then distributing it, which is still, yes, illegallll.

dunno why i rubbed illegal in so much, i do it in every day life downloading pokemon emulators, Movies, family guy & music :eusa_danc

[-:Undertaker:-]

It is a crime. It's like running into a shop, nicking a dvd and going out with it. Oh my bad, robbing shops these days don't "matter". Let's not focus on it, shall we? :rolleyes:

I think that yes, maybe enforce more stronger laws against it, but only as serious as if you robbed it from a shop.

Yeah, lets enforce the same penalty on robbing habbo furni as we have on robbing peoples television sets from their houses because afterall as you say yourself, both are stealing and illegal.

[Tash.]

It is a crime. It's like running into a shop, nicking a dvd and going out with it. Oh my bad, robbing shops these days don't "matter". Let's not focus on it, shall we? :rolleyes:

I think that yes, maybe enforce more stronger laws against it, but only as serious as if you robbed it from a shop.

It is actually nothing like that. Yes it is illegal, but you are not depriving the shop of a copy of the song/movie/game. That is the major difference.

Anyway, no I don't think so. You are going to end up making criminals of teenagers who would never actually do anything properly criminal. You can say that if we were to completely eliminate illegal downloading then the music and film industry would pick back up but its not strictly true. Alot of people who download would not buy the music if they were unable to download it.

[DrLacero]

and yours just fails with logic anyway, at the beginning it is running into a shop but buying the cd downloading it / recording it then distributing it, which is still, yes, illegallll.

I gave an analogy, you said what actually happens, you fail.

It is not the distribution which most people partake in anyway, it's the downloading from others (or in the case of torrenting it's both).

[Accipiter]

because you could download something that hasn't been distributed illegally?

[DrLacero]

because you could download something that hasn't been distributed illegally?

Well yes you could, but that was not my point. Read it again:


It is not the distribution which most people partake in anyway, it's the downloading from others (or in the case of torrenting it's both).

[Accipiter]

the downloading is not the illegal part... It is unfair to the owners, but the illegal side of it is posting it / distributing it.

[DrLacero]

the downloading is not the illegal part... It is unfair to the owners, but the illegal side of it is posting it / distributing it.

Both are illegal.

[Pix]

both the distributers and the people that download it are equally in the wrong as both of its illegal.

[Black_Apalachi]

To be honest, you know when you go on torrent sites, I always wonder why people even bother uploading things onto them. I mean I may download stuff, but I'm never in a million years going to register on some illegal website and upload things to it. The only people I could imagine bothering to go out of their way to do so, would be people who have hidden viruses in the files, So it surprises me how it all keeps going so smoothly.

[DrLacero]

To be honest, you know when you go on torrent sites, I always wonder why people even bother uploading things onto them. I mean I may download stuff, but I'm never in a million years going to register on some illegal website and upload things to it. The only people I could imagine bothering to go out of their way to do so, would be people who have hidden viruses in the files, So it surprises me how it all keeps going so smoothly.

Contrary to your baseless accusations, I'm both an uploader, former-helper and VIP on TPB and none of my stuff has viruses.

[Sammeth.]

To be honest, you know when you go on torrent sites, I always wonder why people even bother uploading things onto them. I mean I may download stuff, but I'm never in a million years going to register on some illegal website and upload things to it. The only people I could imagine bothering to go out of their way to do so, would be people who have hidden viruses in the files, So it surprises me how it all keeps going so smoothly.

Why would you download stuff if you thought the only people who uploaded stuff were people who put viruses on files? Surely you would want to not download stuff if those were your views :P

[xxMATTGxx]

I don't like what they want to bring in regarding illegal downloading. Tons of information can be found on this website set up by the ISP "TalkTalk". (http://www.dontdisconnect.us/) The petition already has 31,449 signatures so far, so I'm not only one in the country hating the idea.

People download because its easy to do and its basically free, I know I download because of the stuff I do download I wouldn't be able to afford all together. Everyone will just switch to usenet or whatever its called sooner or later.

[[Jay]]

I read an article in the newspaper a few days ago about kids as young as 10 downloading movies from the internet and began thinking that while there is only a minority thats downloading stuff illegally at the moment in the future this could become a norm and evryone will be doing it.
I still think that somoene will find a way in stopping people downloading stuff in the future but until then I dont think it will be a huge problem.

[Special]

I suppose they should but i can't see how they can

But punishments shouldn't be harsh like jail, that's what murderers and rapists are for. A fine is quite acceptable for this minor crime

i say 'minor crime' because as someone said earlier, it is kind of advertising, if you're looking for a song or film, and come across something else, watch it and think it's good, you then tells your friends, so in that aspect it's a good thing

and also this whole 'random check' thing is unfair also, they could have downloaded 1 song and the person next door hundreds of albums. if they start to punish, they need to do it fairly.

I myself download very little, maybe a album every other month, but I do think fines & punishments should be enforced.

[Black_Apalachi]

Contrary to your baseless accusations, I'm both an uploader, former-helper and VIP on TPB and none of my stuff has viruses.


Why would you download stuff if you thought the only people who uploaded stuff were people who put viruses on files? Surely you would want to not download stuff if those were your views :P

Didn't make any accusations. I know but I still don't get why people upload things.

[untrustus]

Didn't make any accusations. I know but I still don't get why people upload things.
people upload things because they're not selfish and they realise that to keep the file sharing community going you have to do just that - share. like if you download a torrent, you should seed for a while.

..not that i really agree with pirating whatsoever

[Black_Apalachi]

people upload things because they're not selfish and they realise that to keep the file sharing community going you have to do just that - share. like if you download a torrent, you should seed for a while.

..not that i really agree with pirating whatsoever

I know but I'm surprised that people aren't selfish. People generally don't go out of their way to help strangers especially in a way like that where it's indirect.

[Sharon]

Pfft there are some people out there buying each and every song on iTunes, suit themselves. I download songs, fair enough. But they shouldn't class them as illegal, infact I reccomend it to people to download illegally. They should just make it free anyway.


DOWN WITH ITUNES.

[untrustus]

Pfft there are some people out there buying each and every song on iTunes, suit themselves. I download songs, fair enough. But they shouldn't class them as illegal, infact I reccomend it to people to download illegally. They should just make it free anyway.


DOWN WITH ITUNES.
what are you on about?

[Accipiter]

what are you on about?

that you purchase songs on itune? and that downloading isn't as bad as it sounds.

which is true because online piracy of movies is probaly at its peak, yet the year of 2009 had the highest grossing income for 7 years. (in news today, i dunno if its highest income i cba to look for it at this time)

so it only targets music mainly, or not everyone knows about the huge wave of online sites were movies can be watched.