file sharing. Options

[*kryogenix*]

file sharing. should people be allowed to "share" software, movies and music with others over the internet, or is this cheating the author/studio/artist etc. ?

I believe file sharing is wrong. People are hard at work producing these things. Why don't people just buy the licensce to the software/movie/music?

Why am I against file sharing? Because I'm going to be a computer programmer. I don't want to starve because some 12 year old downloaded my program off KaZaA. Think about how the artists must feel. I know they aren't starving, but still, they aren't receiving money that's rightfully theirs.

Software is to be treated like a book. You purchase the "book" and can read and access the material within the "book" any time you want. You can even share the "book" with a friend. However, because two people in two different places cannot be reading a book at the same time. When you lend the "book" to someone, you effectively lend them the licensce to view the book as they please. The same goes with software. Treat it as a book. You can share, but when you do so you are transferring the licensce to the person you are sharing with.

Sharing is fine, but only when one of the parties has a licensce to use the media that they are sharing.

[queen]

LOL. Well first of all, a car is usually much more expensive than several hundred songs.

so you're saying just because a car costs more, it should be illegal to steal, yet since a cd is merely $20, it's all right to download the songs from the internet? you're saying it's all right to download games & software for free instead of paying for them at the store?

Secondly, music on the internet is digital information, and not much more than that. Thus, what you download are just copies that required little more than a copy to make. You can't "copy" "burn" or "download" cars. Cars need to be manufactured by hand or by machine in order to exist. There's a big difference.

erm, go check out this thread, and just to add to that: downloading music/software/games is equivalent to just stealing them off the rack.

And not all artists are against file sharing.

yes, i know. some even encourage file sharing to make their music known, but what about those that are against file sharing? are we just supposed to ignore them? the government apparently doesn't think so ;o

if i were to make a living creating softwares/games, i would want people to pay for my shít.