A very large issue facing the music and movie industry today is piracy and theft. Piracy is the act of illegally downloading the material while theft is physically stealing the hardware of a CD, movie, etc. and all the content inside the hardware. As of right now, Piracy is considered a more serious crime than Theft (meaning you'd be charged more severely if you were caught in the act of Piracy), even though you aren't technically stealing from the company directly with piracy. However, Piracy does cause a company to have a lowered amount of sales than expected.

Which is the more serious of a crime? Piracy because it causes lower sales or Theft because it's taking hardware from a company? Or are they equally as serious?

Let me put it this way, using a less stupid metaphor:
You mass produce a bunch of games, and it cost around $200 to do so. A friend borrows a copy.
Theft: The borrowed copy is never returned, and you lose that one sale. You have to make up for it out of your pocket.
Piracy: The borrowed copy is returned, but the data has also been ripped. So the person with the data sends it to other people, who send it to their friends, who send it to THEIR friends in an endless cycle. A lot less money is made than expected, causing even more lost profits.
Theft can only occur once at a time. No security is bad enough that something would get stolen that many times. And half the time, the person gets caught, and the material is returned or something. With Piracy, it's from the comforts of your home, in a closed room, and it's like a silent but deadly threat, spreading like wildfire. Piracy is simply easier and less risky than theft.

It is really hard to give an unbiased account when you are, somehow, integrated in piracy.

Theft is unquestionably wrong, since you are stealing the physical component, like the album, which was going to be sold. But when it comes to piracy, before saying which one is worse, you need to ask how bad piracy is. I mean it has its excuses, and honestly, they are reasonable enough.

For example, not all people can afford buying music albums or film DVDs. In some parts of the world, these things don't reach them in the first place, either because they are in a less advanced country, or because their government is too strict and has banned them. Plus, how harmful is this piracy? Is it causing major losses to companies? If you take Microsoft as an example, there is no doubt that pirated copies of Windows spread all over the world. However, Bill Gates remain as one of the richest people in the world. Of course, if these pirated copies disappear, his wealth would increase, but do you honestly think that commoners can't afford buying a genuine copy of Windows or Microsoft Office? They can't.

The way I think about is that it is true that piracy decreases the wealth of companies, but they are not facing a crisis in their life. However, those who are suffering in their lives can afford their genuine copies, so they prefer the pirated copies, in order to have a fair chance to experience music, films or even know how a computer works.

This topic's title is confusing, so I can only assume it's dealing with the theft of some physical object opposed to data. Both will be harmful since any business not making a profit will experience shrink. I'd say it's more wrong and harmful to smaller projects and businesses. Some small ma and pa shop would be less able to write off a loss than a large retail chain could.

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Originally Posted by The Spirit of Time If you take Microsoft as an example, there is no doubt that pirated copies of Windows spread all over the world. However, Bill Gates remain as one of the richest people in the world.

What I'm gonna say here has probably already been said, either last night on VRIM before the creation of this thread, or by people posting before me.

Theft

Theft is the more identifiable act, being where the consumer simply takes a piece of merchandise without paying for it. While this directly damages the profits of a company, from lost profit, only 1 physical copy is removed from a US-centered, Europe-centered, or even world-centered base of operations. On very few occasions, up to 5 or more copies may be stolen at once, but the more copies that are stolen leads to a higher rate of being caught. Because of the fact that actual, hard copies of the information are being taken, many people consider this to be the more serious crime.

Piracy

Piracy is a more recent crime, which is centered around Internet media. This crime is much simpler to pull off, because you don't have to sneak past people with jacket pockets full to bursting. It only requires you to download the media that someone else has purchased, ripped off the CD/DVD, and put on the Internet for all to see. Some people that use this method don't even know that it's illegal. This kind of crime doesn't immediately present a threat to a company's profits. With time, however, the number of people that download the pirated media will take away a chunk of their profits. This is because piracy is a crime that multiplies exponentially. As more people are exposed to the free media, they will tell other people about it. If they have a blog, any followers of the blog can follow them straight to it. Just about the only thing you need to pirate is access to the Internet, which means it is spread wider and wider every day. Obviously, if you pirate, you're not going to buy a physical copy of the media just to have a matching pair. Because of the number of people opting for pirated versions instead of paying money for a physical copy, the companies producing the media are losing money. This isn't the case in some examples, like a thing that wasn't released in a specific area (i.e. Mother 3 Fan Translation), because the companies never put it out there. No matter how many people own those pirated copies in those areas, the companies will not lose money because they never had that money in the first place. This version of piracy, however, only consists of a small percent of the whole piracy issue.

Overall

In a 1 to 1 ratio, theft and piracy would be on even ground. The amount of damage dome is the same (someone doesn't buy the media), and in both instances, one disc will need to be replaced. However, in today's technology-powered world, that simply is not the case. While theft is still a crime that is pretty common today, it usually doesn't involve media, and piracy still outnumbers it by a lot. To many people today, the Internet is the gateway to free songs, albums, or movies. As I previously said, the only prerequisite to piracy is access to the Internet. As its tentacles spread farther and wider, it becomes ever so harder to gauge how much damage has been done by the people that decide to pirate instead of buying any one product every day. Whether it's an outcry by the government to stop pirating materials, or a result of the bigtime companies leaning on the judicial systems, piracy has become the far worse crime in today's world. Personally, I can understand why it is as well.

Lol, I'm not gonna say they had it coming, but they had it coming. Why would you let people have CD/DVD Burners/Rips and not expect them to use them and spread the free content? It was pretty much a chain of things.

Thing is, these big companies will continue making their gains and really just want to ensure every cent goes to their accounts. Nothing wrong with that, their entitled to it since they made it. If this were also true, I don't see why stores that sell used products aren't stopped since profits of those licensed materials are not going to their original owners, usually.

Theft itself (physically) is a huge problem, especially for clothes designers. They lose BILLIONS on shoplifters, so I can see why the music industry is pissed. Hell, I'd be pissed if I didn't get my billion dollar share, even though I'm already wealthy as can be! *I'm biased, I know. FREE STUFF FTW! SCREW THE RICH!*

Edit: If artists would sell their music themselves (really hard to pull, especially nowadays), I'm hopeful people would actually buy it because it's directly from the ones who actually do the work. I would. o.o I'm not a fan of big companies at all. They're *insert foul word here*.

Edit 2: Theft is the more serious crime as it can quickly lead to being a Robbery or Aggravated Robbery (Texas codes).

^ I pretty much agree with everything. I just can't agree that piracy is a bigger deal to the community than theft.. It also doesn't help that this thread title is so vague, but whatevs. My mindset is the community, not big corporations. True, theft in general is just bad, but physical theft can occur to anyone at any given time, not just big corporations. Naturally, I can't deny that indie artists can also have their content "stolen", but it's completely better to be pirated than be stolen from in person. You don't run the risk of losing your life.

This thread title is pretty vague since theft =/= piracy. Not in my eyes, anyways. Besides, I like the idea of Robin Hood and saying that "taking from the rich won't hurt them much." :3

A little bit vague? Well I think I still remember the VRIM conversation I was having with Quaddy before the thread was made. Somehow the conversation lead to hardware vs. software and how which would have the worst impact. Tic-Tac suggested it should be a thread and so it was done. Theft doesn't refer to stick-em-ups, it's more along the lines of robbing a warehouse at midnight without the chance of civilians being harmed. But you added a good point by thinking that, because there are plenty different kinds of theft.

One time I used to be naïve and I thought piracy wouldn't affect anyone because they made so much money. And now I'm a 90% reformed pirate because I realized I wouldn't want to be doing that to someone if they were to the same to me. I try to avoid hypocrisy because I already hate every disgusting adult who does that. I've stolen things from a store about 3 times, and no one even noticed (that's actually more sad than amazing.) I felt bad after doing it but it didn't even come close to the amount of content downloaded.

While not directly related to the question of whether piracy or theft is more serious, I may as well state my opinions.

Piracy is something I feel quite strong about, but at the same time it feels weird to support certain large companies. I prefer obtaining my movies, music, and video games as legally as possible, physical if possible, and in the easiest format to manipulate. However, I start running into troubles once I want to start managing my movie collection, which runs well over 100 DVDs. You see, DVDs contain a type of encryption known as Content Scramble System (CSS), which is illegal to break per the DMCA. It's extremely weak due to the ease of obtaining the master encryption key (break one DVD = break all DVDs).

Personally, I see absolutely nothing wrong with breaking DVD encryption simply to copy my legally-owned movies to my own media center. I'm not planning to get rid of the original discs, nor am I planning to give away or sell either the discs or the rips. It seems, though, that the movie studios are targeting the people who create ripping software simply because it breaks their terrible encryption and "encourages" piracy. I think that's bull because someone else has already broken the encryption and distributed the illegal copies; the vast majority of people actually buying the ripping software intend to do so only to copy Avatar to their iPod. With music CDs, what are the vast majority of people doing with their ripped CDs? Putting them digitally on their own devices, not posting them online.

I'm not going to get into my opinions on pirated video games (to keep it short, I hate when people do it for anything more than testing a game for a few minutes to see if they'd like it) or record labels quite yet. I'll save those for another post.

There's different levels of both sides. I think to most people, pirating all of Adobe CS5 is a wee bit more severe than stealing a stick of bubble gum, while stealing a television out of someone's living room is a little more severe than downloading an obscure DS game that most people have never heard of. That being said, I've had multiple friends to me about downloading all of CS5 as if it was some kind of achievement. In fact, most people in my age group think there's nothing wrong with it, well justified ("I can't afford it!" "Adobe has enough money anyway!"), and is a rite of passage or something.

I don't care too much when people emulate GBA and PS2 games that have been out of production for a decade (Amazon gives no profits to the publishers, last I checked), or when they keep ROMs of games they already own (and even that's debatable), but when a company puts time and effort - a lot of time and effort - into making a piece of software and then people just go and pirate it for free . . . we have a problem.

I think this topic should be "Is piracy a problem?". Piracy is theft... I still don't understand what's to compare of the two. If it isn't under theft now, it will be because separating it is just a pain.

Also, can anyone explain how this a problem towards society?

Problem towards society? It's not like an atom bomb that effects everyone in the surrounding area. In some instances it hurts a company or person so much that they shut down, so I guess society would lose that person's creative contribution.

Piracy has many motivation and the intention varies by the person doing the act. A lot of the time it's because, like you said, stuff is getting expensive. Some people make copies, others distribute copies to make their own profit, others are in an area where that item is not sold and usually will never be.

Some "big time artists" have free full samplings on their websites and stuff, but I don't think they'll ever release things for free. I mean, they release their most popular songs on compilation albums like every 7 years, don't they?

Piracy is like a guilty pleasure for all people. How many times have you heard "Who buys music anymore? Ha!"? Piracy can't lead to someone's death so it isn't treated as a serious problem until someone from the MPAA realizes they're down a couple hundred bucks from their few billion. It's very much so an illegal activity, but treated like such a joke.

Songs from upcoming albums? Oh, those are called singles, and they STILL cost money Album filler doesn't get released until the album comes out because they don't think it's good enough to represent the artist. The closest you have is radio advertisement.

*moves posts to a more appropriate thread*

I saw that video some years back. While it is pretty funny, the anti-piracy message in it still holds.

Well I guess now if I can analyze more for its anti-piracy message more than its hilarity, The part where the development team is the most important. Kinda outdated in terms of size, so the effect it has on video game companies has increased exponentially. Why, if I was one of those programmers and I found out about kids making endless copies of my game I'd PERSONALLY step in.
This looks so old it reminds me of those "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR" commercials at the beginning of movies.

Eh, I always remembered the parody more for being more stupid than the original. I mean, who wouldn't download a car?
You wouldn't steal this and this and that, so don't pirate movies because it's also stealing. But that's the whole thing behind piracy; people do it because it's EASY. A man with the knowledge of the web and a fast internet speed could download the entire Disney collection of movies and store them on an external hard drive faster than most people could come up with plans for stealing cars. (But downloading cars? That I would try.) And like you said, when stealing a car there is a lot of physical evidence left behind. Handbag and television are also in there. It would take an absentminded lady to leave her purse unguarded, and stealing a TV is bound to cause a lot of noise. Downloading movies is just a different tier of theft.

Right, so I want reopen this conversation and attack the issue directly without comparing it to something else.

I also hope the staff don't mind me using this as the content of my post here, since I think a video makes more of a statement than a wall of text in this case. (I'll post a transcript anyway later.)

Well, it looks like you're going against piracy straight up. Going on your thing of moral ethics;

Not everyone is a goody two-shoes, in fact none of us are truly good. Just because it's the right thing to do doesn't mean it's always going to be the popular opinion, and sometimes the illegal thing is the most popular just because of the illegality (I once thought it made me feel edgy and cool, but I'm twice as edgy and cool now and I don't need to pirate.) However, people who pirate just to steal from a company are truly evil, as most pirates have their own reasons for their acts. Now your question at the end, would pirating something be the right thing? It is never the right thing, the right thing involves equivalent exchange. If you take something that benefits you, what do you give in return as appreciation for it? This also leads into a more personal side, pirating based on position. Now I'm a music man and I use Finale 2012 to write all my sheet music. It is such a great program but it was really expensive, and rightfully so with all the things it lets you do. But someone who likes science wouldn't find this as useful as me, but would still like to use it themselves (for some unknown reason) so why would they pay the price to play around? This is the reason I have not yet purchased FL Studio, I can't buy the program and have it sit on my desktop for years knowing that I'll never touch it because I'm afraid of it. I, not having any knowledge of Photoshop and all that stuff, find it pointless to cough up that ridiculous amount of money. I'd pirate it just to see how it works, and then possibly pay for it later. I'm not promoting or justifying piracy, just describing what would possibly make a person stoop that low.

But I think it's really cute that you're such a good person, please keep it up.

I could go for that argument about "being defiant against those in money" as that has always been a reason for any kind of theft since humans existed. It is morally wrong, though. No argument there.

I'm glad you (Dragonite) brought up the point of it being a sign of "disrespect" towards society, namely people who actually purchase the software. I believe that to be a very big part of the Piracy problem, as I can see anyone being ridiculed for "spending your money when you can get this free from a torrent site."

Good video. You talk kinda fast, too. D:

I think I'll bring up DRM again, which I touched on before with ripping DVDs. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is intended to be a way to control the consumer after purchasing a product.

I'm going to use an example that I know will get me a lot of flak: Steam. (This same system also applies to uPlay and Origin.) For the uninformed bunch, Steam is a digital distribution service for computer games. You download and install the software, create an account, link up a credit card, and purchase a game through the service. You can also purchase Steam keys elsewhere, which can be activated within the software. After being tied to your account, the game downloads in pieces to your hard drive. Once downloaded, you can launch the game. It also periodically installs updates for games you have downloaded to fix issues. While this service is incredibly convenient (to the point that some PC gamers are annoyed by the lack of Steam support in external games like Minecraft and demand support for it in indie bundles), it has a few significant problems.

First, the games are tied completely to your account and many require the Steam software to run. However you obtained them before the tying is irrelevant, even if you own a physical disc, bought it through another site, or received it as a gift. Many of the high-budget games absolutely cannot run without Steam running, and those that can often require Steam to perform the download (meaning you cannot simply copy the folder containing the game files). Heck, this can actually be really problematic on older computers, which may struggle with running Steam or may not even be able to run it at all, even if the games would work fine with the computer. At least they allow you to install the software and games on as many computers as you please, as long as you log in. While they do offer an option to backup to and restore from discs, those discs are still fully tied to your account. You still must use Steam to download the games for the first time: