Demonoid back online

[HarryT]

Tommy,

I personally believe it's wrong to download material which has been illegally uploaded, regardless of whether one has a "moral" or even a "legal" right to possess that material.

I really don't give a damn if you or anyone else feels differently. That is the way that I feel about it.

[ProfJulie]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tommy,

I personally believe it's wrong to download material which has been illegally uploaded, regardless of whether one has a "moral" or even a "legal" right to possess that material.

I really don't give a damn if you or anyone else feels differently. That is the way that I feel about it.

I agree. Not only is it morally wrong to "receive stolen goods" in this way, but in many places it is also illegal to do so.......If you purchase a car in good faith, with your hard earned cash, and the car is later found to have been stolen prior to your purchasing it, you may not be thrown in jail for receiving stolen property, but you won't be allowed to keep the car or get your money back.

[NatCh]

Quoting sections of a work for review purposes is a time honored Fair Use.

Making something of the fact that cmbs phrased her position in stronger terms than she probably meant is pretty silly, in my opinion -- she was making a case, for crying out loud! If I had to qualify every last thing I said for every possible jot and tittle of variation, I'd go nuts (okay more nuts) and my posts would all be 2000+ words long, and end up saying nothing besides.

I know I'd prefer not to have every little thing I post dissected for syntactical inconsistencies and those molehills made into mountains. In this case, there's not even much of a molehill.

So can we all play nice now? Please?

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I personally believe it's wrong to download material which has been illegally uploaded, regardless of whether one has a "moral" or even a "legal" right to possess that material.

Personally, I don't conflate morality and legality - I take the view that any similarities between the two are largely coincidental.
(Politicians make the law - so, in the UK at least, any 'moral' content is purely accidental.)

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

No, actually. My interest was in the contradiction between your binary statement about piracy and your actions.

I don't like binary statements. Everyone is welcome to say them, certainly. But when one's actions do not match one's position, one invites comment on the contradiction.

I commented on the contradiction because I wanted to see some creative backpedaling. You responded with some rather unoriginal name calling. It tells me who you are, but other than that it was really disappointing.

Well Nate, my purpose in life is to entertain you. I'm sorry to be such a failure.

You want to see creativity, watch the excuses of why stealing ebooks is acceptable behavior. It can be rather amusing.

[cmbs]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Quoting sections of a work for review purposes is a time honored Fair Use.

Making something of the fact that cmbs phrased her position in stronger terms than she probably meant is pretty silly, in my opinion -- she was making a case, for crying out loud! If I had to qualify every last thing I said for every possible jot and tittle of variation, I'd go nuts (okay more nuts) and my posts would all be 2000+ words long, and end up saying nothing besides.

I know I'd prefer not to have every little thing I post dissected for syntactical inconsistencies and those molehills made into mountains. In this case, there's not even much of a molehill.

So can we all play nice now? Please?

Ah. Ok thanks.

[pieter]

The way I read this thread people are just putting in their personal opinion about a certain bit torrent site, without much of an argumentation. So I'll just drop my moral opinion in here as well.
I think it's a great site, and I respect what they do. So if we're just saying either "wrong" or "right" about this site, put me down for "right".

oh and, I'll add a sentence as an insight into my morality: Since nothing has been taken away from anybody, nothing wrong has been done.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pieter

oh and, I'll add a sentence as an insight into my morality: Since nothing has been taken away from anybody, nothing wrong has been done.

Presumably, then, you don't regard identity theft as wrong either? After all, if someone steals your identity, nothing's been taken away from you - you still know who you are, after all.

[pieter]

yeah yeah I've seen that argument a thousand times before, just as you've used it plenty of times, I'm sure... Usually it's used to point out that calling file-sharing theft is ok, since something else is also called theft without something actually being taken from you. In this thread it makes less sense in my opinion, since there are probably a thousand things that I think are wrong even without some form of "taking" being involved. Actually I think "giving" somebody a black eye for no apparent reason is wrong as well.

But when in this thread I was commenting on demonoid, which has nothing to do with identity theft. If you read my post in that context, as you should, (read NatCh's post about reading posts in context instead of just staring blindly at words) you might want to come up with a better argument than this straw-man argument.
But then again, I guess we should leave it at that, since this usually goes no further than stating one's moral preferences.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Tommy,

I personally believe it's wrong to download material which has been illegally uploaded, regardless of whether one has a "moral" or even a "legal" right to possess that material.

I really don't give a damn if you or anyone else feels differently. That is the way that I feel about it.

You started your comment with

But can it be morally justifyable to download a book (or anything else, for that matter) which has been illegally uploaded?

This is general question about how moral system works. Then when I ask you how you motivateyour position you just refuse to answer. Excuse me if I mistakenly assumed that your comment was a serious discussion about moral systems.

I do not get why you think other people here are interested in your unmotivated moral opinions. Why state them and then refuse to give the argument for them?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Presumably, then, you don't regard identity theft as wrong either? After all, if someone steals your identity, nothing's been taken away from you - you still know who you are, after all.

Define identity theft. Is it something illegal?

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by pieter

... since something else is also called theft without something actually being taken from you

But you are taking something tangible. You're correct that if I copy a file and you have the original, then I haven't "taken" the file from you, that's obvious on it's face. However, if you're selling copies of the file for some sum, say $2 each, then by copying the file without giving you that $2, I am, in effect taking $2 from you, because that's the condition you set upon my taking the file. The person who created the file does have a right, in my view, to establish the conditions under which he gives out copies, especially when the file's contents are protected by copyright law. (whether those laws are reasonable or not is a discussion for several dozen other threads )

Originally Posted by pieter

(read NatCh's post about reading posts in context instead of just staring blindly at words)

I don't recall making such a post ... certainly not any time recently. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by tompe

Define identity theft. Is it something illegal?

In the U.S., yes, it's illegal, I'm pretty sure it would be in most other places.

Basically it's a form of fraud: person A gathers enough information about person B to convince third parties that person A is person B, and then runs up debts in person B's name, which person A doesn't pay but rather leaves for person B to bear the consequences of.

In practice it usually involves getting credit cards in someone else's name and buying stuff with them, but it might also include gaining access to bank accounts and emptying them and such like that.

It's probably not all that good a parsing to the current discussion, because it's not the "stealing" of the "identity" that's the problem, but rather using that assumed identity for illicit financial gain. But then again, all analogies break down at some point.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I
It's probably not all that good a parsing to the current discussion, because it's not the "stealing" of the "identity" that's the problem, but rather using that assumed identity for illicit financial gain. But then again, all analogies break down at some point.

Yes, that was what I suspected. That it is the actual things you are doing that are problematic. And morally I do not see that it is always wrong for someone to pretend to be me. It depends on what the person is doing.

[NatCh]

Agreed. But at the same time, I don't really see any ethically sound reasons for someone else to pretend to be me.

Okay: Halloween, maybe, but I'm not that scary lookin'