Unfortunately, I strongly disagree with most of you in the matter of stealing and crime. I think the biggest crime is preventing people from free access to INFORMATION. In the 21th century!
We are not in the medieval any more. Did you know that a few hundred years ago owning a Bible was crime? This is the exact same thing and they should be ashamed of themselves not us.
Just a few examples:
-- If they have the right to intellectual property, why do they publish it at all? Why don't they keep it in secret for centuries, if it is theirs? Reason: they want your money and take all of it if possible every time you want to listen to it. Now this is not making public something so they should not call it publishing. They are lying. This is intellectual slavery. Why can't they understand the fact that once you published something it is not a secret anymore and you lost your control over it?
-- They want you to buy what they tell you. What is in the news, what is on the top list what is in the commercials. Buy what they want to sell you not what you need. Again this is manipulation and serious crime. Every time you try to find your own identity and find the stuff you can identify yourself with they look at you and say: what? Are you crazy? You listen to Betty Wright or Fontella Bass instead of Madonna or R.E.M.?
Yes I am listening to what is good music and not the big names and very sorry but what I listen to can not be purchased in store because publishers are not interested. If they are not interested in me, the customer, why should I be interested in their rights for intellectual property?
-- They always package CDs like 2 nice songs with 10 junk and sell it to you for 10-20 usd. Now this is stealing because you actually don't need the junk 10 songs only the 2 nice songs, but you can not buy it separately. If I want to buy 20 good songs I have to invest in 10 junk CDs and compared to my %age share of overall income this is rather stealing from me than what I am stealing from them.
-- Last time I bought a song online after listening to 20 seconds and it was good, but I just realised later that the full length of the song was only 1.5 minutes and only the 20 seconds part of it was any good, and I can not return it and they don't give me back my money!
-- I'm also a big fan of Veggie tales and you will never find out where did I learned about it that this series exists? Of course it was on the torrent sites and not the good guys the publishers who are totally uninterested of selling this stuff because it is not 18+ stuff and they can not manipulate you for buying more of other things. Again if you want quality contents easily accessible, it is only on the torrent sites.
-- How many times I went to the cinema after reading reviews or watching commercials and the movie was complete junk. Who will return that money to me?
I know these are small things for you, but if we would aggregate it with the experience of millions I believe we are ripped of more than the so called "publishers" are ripped of by us. These things that are happening should not happen in the 21st century, we are still in medieval, the human kind is still not enlighted and we are all kept in intellectual slavery, where you should have money first before you are allowed to learn anything in school and live a life that a human being deserves. Even there are copyrights on my thoughts, because I am sure somebody already wrote and published the same thing I am writing to you and I am not sure when they will sue me because of stealing it
Sorry guys I'm not a lawyer and I'm just a simple man with not very high IQ, but my conclusion is that they have the right to do the bulls..t marketing and offer their crap stuff whereas we also have the right to either buy from them or download from the internet and search if we can find any quality! material out there if exists at all. And we have the right to be out of their reach, the constant flow of commericals, marketing, emotional pressure, manipulation with sex they try to impose on us.
I'm not hurting their market because I was never their customer in the first place, I have never seen a shopkeeper who treated me as a customer by tsaying: what are you interested in? What are you looking for when buying music? Good melody with fast tempo? Double-bass with gospel choir in it? Ska-like rhythm is what you want? Ok, I will show you a few things and I'm sure it will drive you crazy. They are not very famous, but they are the best in what they're doing. Now this is what never gonna happen to me, so all I can do is download everything from torrent sites and hope one day I find the holy grail of music (and thanks God it already happened a few times).
One more thing: I'm the type of guy that I want to OWN what I have beacuse I'm a collector. If they don't give me the right to actually OWN what they offer for sale than I AM NOT INTERESTED IN BEING "MORAL" AND ADHERE TO THE LAW. (and by owning I mean to enjoy every aspect of it by putting it to all my devices, sharing with my family, friends and enjoy together, keeping it forever and listen to it every time I want without worrying that I will loose it or it will be impossible to play due to the fact that the format is not supported any more.) I buy only if I get support, I get upgrades, they provide quick access, comparison to other staff, try before buy, value for money, otherwise I'm just downloading.