Is torrenting bad

[aurum]

14 hours ago, LordFall said:

I've noticed your replies often misuse words. It's functionally literally not theft. Piracy does not function like regularly thievery does. 

Theft: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

As described merriem-webster dictionary. 

You gotta double check your epistemology my man. 

Words and definitions are constructions. I will use them how I see fit.

The point of the word 'functionally' was to avoid getting stuck in some narrow, dictionary definition of theft.

What matters from a sense-making perspective is the principle and the psychology.

Focusing on whether it fits some strict legal definition misses the point. And it's bad epistemology.  

[LordFall]

@aurum If you're okay with saying gibberish instead of communicating effectively that's on you man. Specifically from a sense-making point of view you seem to missunderstand the difference between piracy and theft and seem to be tied to it. Why is that? 

The whole point of piracy is people getting access to things that they wouldn't be able to afford to otherwise. Stealing something I guess has a similar foundation but theft refers to stealing a unique object or idea when it comes to copyright. Piracy has to do with obtaining a copy of something. 

It shouldn't be too hard to understand, you're a smart guy. 

[aurum]

14 minutes ago, LordFall said:

@aurum If you're okay with saying gibberish instead of communicating effectively that's on you man. Specifically from a sense-making point of view you seem to missunderstand the difference between piracy and theft and seem to be tied to it. Why is that? 

The whole point of piracy is people getting access to things that they wouldn't be able to afford to otherwise. Stealing something I guess has a similar foundation but theft refers to stealing a unique object or idea when it comes to copyright. Piracy has to do with obtaining a copy of something. 

It shouldn't be too hard to understand, you're a smart guy. 

I've already explained my position. And I'm not going to engage in condescension.

[Eugene12]

I think it is not good or bad, it's just change in dynamics of our world. Some 20 years ago we were buying cd's in music stores,and it was hard to clone cd, you need a special equipment to do that. Now we have super fast internet and everything is digitized and it is naturally easy to copy information and send it to the other side of the globe.

This is the reason why musicians are constantly touring this days, you will not make enough money by making contract with streaming platform and there is no practical way to force people to buy music for 20$-30$ per album,people will start torrenting. With cheap spotify subscription it doesn't make sense to pirate stuff, why bother? So world changed and musicians adapted.

Is it bad, are musicians somehow oppressed by us, consumers now? Are we obligated to buy their albums rather then using legal streaming platforms? I don't think so this is just natural change in world dynamic.

Same dynamic with torrenting, if some service is too expensive for most but desired and there is an easy way to access it then obviously people will steal it. Only way around is to make it more accessible and convenient, to the point when it doesn't make sense to steal it,in other words, companies should revolutionize their product. Companies who refuse will suffer from piracy and most likely disappear. 

And this is where we are moving to, with Spotify, Netflix, other emerging platforms. Basically adapt or perish, good or bad is not important. 

But from practical view, I do believe that torrenting is stealing and if you consider yourself a compassionate and good person, you will not pursue it.