Food for thought on file sharing
 

Some of us file share heavily, casually, or not at all for various reasons. People share to sample new music before purchasing or to just avoid spending money on music entirely, which some say is stealing. Now, look at all the porn on this board. I'm willing to bet there's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of porn archived within this site. My question is, who paid for it? Almost no one that I know of. By posting pics on the titty board and cracking passes and posting them in the links posts, it's the same thing as trading movies/music/whatever, but I have yet to hear one person say this is stealing. The models and webmasters derserve to get paid for what they do too, according to the anti-file sharing group's ethics. I'm not trying to point out who's right or wrong here, I just want to throw this out on the table. Your thoughts?

Huh, it's free? Woo-hoo! Bring it on!

Really interesting point, Spungfoo. When it comes to file-sharing, I vote with my $$: I buy independent bands' and labels' music and download stuff from the majors. (Which doesn't make it right, but I don't care about right when it comes to a corporate industry who's stacked the deck so unfairly against artists and independents.) There are some sites like Epitonic.com that offer sample downloads of indie bands, and that's how I tend to discover newer music. I'll also buy bands that I'd like to encourage the major labels to support, e.g. the Flaming Lips or Queens of the Stone Age, White Stripes, etc.

But the porn on TFP--never thought about it. I've felt the impulse to buy something like a Suicide Girls shirt from their site (because punk girls rule), but I've never really thought about any of the other sites whose stuff has pretty unambiguously been ripped off. Hmm. I've got no answers.

Didn't/doesn't Halx run some porn sites? He might be good to get in on this conversation...

maybe their logic is that they already make PLENTY of money, and it's not hurting business as much as it is the music industry.

Really, "they're rich" is not a valid justification for file sharing.

The porn idea's an interesting point, though.

i noticed this point when i first joined, but didn't want to mention it and rile up the moderators. ah well, no matter probably. i did always think it hypocritical that we had access to stolen passwords and pictures, but were forbidden to talk about warez. i guess the tought is warez can get you in trouble but the naked ladies probably won't. you aren't wrong till you get caught!

In theory there is little difference, I suppose. Good observation. I doubt if the porn industry has a trade group that will come after us. But can you imagine the headlines if it did? LOL

Hmm...Madonna cussing us out for picture sharing...while spread-eagle...

Well the porn industry isn't giving lots of 'donations' to political parties which is why it isn't an issue. Also too many policitians would be arrested if they want after people who shared porn:D

I didn't have a good answer for why music is much more risky to download than porn until I read that. Good thought.

I like pirating both porn movies and music. I'm bad.

There is no porn stored on our server other than peoples' pictures of themselves that they put up on the exhibition board. If porn webmasters allow remote linking of their content, there is no violation of any law taking place.

I think my avatar shows my feelings rather well...
~Crack

i see no problem in file sharing, it helps spread the music. and musicians were gettin payed way too much anyway

now we need a way to make athletes less rich.. hmmmm :D

BINGO!!!

:thumbsup:

So now, Spungfoo's rather-good point is no longer acceptable. It made for a good arguement for awhile though.

But what about stuff from websites like milfhunter ? Doesn't someone download them, then host it themselves?

It is not the musicians that are getting payed too much, it is the CEO's getting all the money. As long as I like a CD that a band puts out I will go out and buy. I wish I would have downloaded the new Metallica before I wasted the money to go out and buy it. Porn on the other hand is politically incorrect, therefore to save face there is not a big uproar on filesharing porn.

I do a lot of music file sharing. I know it's wrong, but I do it anyway. However I think it's wrong to try to justify it with your arguement. I'm sure you would care if we all started taking 50 cents from your paycheck. It adds up. Lot of metal bands these days only sell 50k records. How many do you think were downloaded? 100k? Shit you can have the album before its even released.

I sympathize with the bands, and the CEO's. It hurts everyone, but I still do it. I do plan on purchasing more records from the bands that don't sell many copies though.

the porn industry has been much more willign to embrace file sharing than the music industry -- read all about it: http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computi....free.sex.idg/