Observe what you’re collective whining has created:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

I advise educating yourself about this, if you haven’t already.

Actually there are many fine arguments *for* the legalization of (currently illegal) drugs and they are understood by many people other than software pirates. That was a silly comparison, obviously written in haste (possibly to garner traffic) but still silly, as are comparisons with paedophilia, murder, gang rape and granny bashing. As bad as stealing is those other examples of crime are in a different league to stealing.

For the record I am not advocating stealing, merely pointing out the ridiculous assumption that software pirates want to legalize drugs and the assumption that the notion of legalizing illicit drugs is a bad thing.

I personally would prefer legalization, regulation by authorities and an age rating with a health warning (assuming the illicit drug in question is damaging to ones health). A dealer doesn’t care less if he sells to a minor as to him the punishment is the same, yet a liquor shop with age ratings worries a great deal about selling to minors and asks for id.

Prohibition does not prevent use it only excites the rebellious youth and drives control and power into the hands of unscrupulous thugs.

Jake made some good points but was in error when he stated that “heroin addicts would probably still steal for money”, if heroin was made legally it would be a magnitude cheaper than it currently sells for on the street and the related crime-rate would drop.

That was my drop in the bucket!!

LoL
Its all good!

Terry

I feel that removing them, in both examples, would cut down on it in one aspect,

It takes it all back to you gotta find it for yourself and like you said, be all undergroundy.

Regardless of the pirate bays good aspects, they are still laying out the brick road for you to find the stolen stuff.

Don’t get me wrong.. I used to pirate stuff all the time a few years back. In fact I was one of the first I think, way back when AOL had those WAREZ chat rooms and they would email you your stuff for you to download.

I thought it was just sharing then (1996) it seemed cool, I mean yeah my “friends” gave me the stuff to “borrow”

My “friends” also gave me their employee discount at Lion store back then too. then I got arrested for fraud.

Luckily the charges were dropped cause I was about to Join the Air Force. And I truly had no idea that that was illegal. On top of the fact, my “friend” was using other peoples credit cards to pay off half the balance that was owed in the register.

I still received the goods, I wasn’t even there when he used the credit card to pay off the register. But I was still receiving stolen goods,and committing credit card fraud.

The same goes if someone at a store named.. The Pirate Bay.. (lol) Where they help people buy boats and boat equipment. pointed me to his back room where they have all this great stuff that some other guy from WAREZ inc. Stole off the back of a truck and was giving it away to me.

The Pirate Bay is still responsible, as well as I am.

Nothing in life is free….

Terry

The one thing is to set up a “pedophile” website with all the infos specifically targeted to “grab a kid”, along with the bus stop time schedules. A completely different thing, though, would be to have a “bus stop time schedule” page, which in turn COULD be abused by a pedophile in that he uses it to know when the school bus arrives.

Now you’d think that I’d say “PirateBay is exactly the latter”, but I’m not going to say that. But I think it is located somewhere in between. It’s not exactly a “here you get the stuff!” site with a huge and shiny “news section” where everything is praised and “get all those warez for free!!” banners, and so on. It just looks like a search engine, and how you use it and what to search is up to yourself. But no one from the site tells you “look here, here’s Doom 3, wanna download?”

Also, keep in mind that a site like that can be used in a good manner as well. There are tons of reports of people who weren’t able to play their legally purchased games, so they actually have a chance to get a DRM-free version there. And you can simply use it as an ordinary torrent tracker, as you can find legal torrents as well. Just like Google, you can find everything there. From legal sites to illegal sites. If I search for “[some movie name] download” in Google, the first 10 results already offer me a wide range of possibilities where I can download that movie.

And one more thing (and I mentioned this before): If such a site exists, it’s far more easy to track down the pirates. You already admitted that with the pedophile example. Just think about it. Imagine the pedophile had made some undergroundy stuff (i.e. not such a public site), this would have made it far more difficult for the police.

Finally, let me tell you that I fully UNDERSTAND YOUR POINT. The only thing I’m trying is to see the issue from different point of views. Every site that gets closed might lower the barrier for closing a site. And this would clearly hurt freedom of speech in the long run. Maybe not overnight.

And honestly – do you really think it would help? Did closing the pedophile site stop pedophiles from abusing kids? I don’t think so. Would closing the Pirate Bay really stop piracy? I don’t think so. Piracy existed back in the 80s. The Pirate Bay exists since 2003. If it gets closed, piracy will still exist in 2015. It simply don’t matter, it would only get shifted into the underground. And as I said in another post, as soon as something gets closed, the next one is already there. Napster emerged 1999 and got closed in 2001. No illegal music downloads since 2001, then? Come on.

If you told me the address to someone house that sold guns or drugs you are just as at fault as the dealer.
You know there is a drug dealer or gun dealer and you haven’t reported it to the cops or some other official, you are in ALL ESSENCE saying it is ok to sell illegal drugs or firearms.

Turning the other cheek is NOT OK!

It is the same as those pirate sites, even the Pirate bay, they know DAMN WELL that people are using the “search engine” to go and steal that stuff that makes them JUST as much at FAULT as the people that SHARE the warez, and the people that TAKE them.

You want a good Simile? Im sweet at them.

The SO CALLED hiding behind the “Freedom of Speech” is a total crock of CRAP, here is why.

There was this pedophile that created this internet site about little kids and children. On his site he showed examples and ways how to pick up little kids, in fact he even showed where to pick the kids up in his neighborhood on his site, the bus stops the time schedules even pictures of them.
Well after being up for a few months one of the little boys in his neighborhood went missing, then turned up raped and dead in the gutter a week later.
The police through their evidence department was able to track down the killer and such and arrest him, upon going through all his stuff they found on his computer this private site hosted by that original pedophile.
The way the little kid was picked up and the way he was raped and murdered were all outlined in this guys website, the killer followed them to the T.
There were even pictures of the little boy that was taken on there playing in the park and such…
Needless to say, the guy that owned and operated the website was arrested and convicted of child endangerment and Conspiracy to commit murder and a few other nastier crimes. He is spending MANY MANY years in jail.

Im sure by now your a little angry and wondering what this all has to do with anything……

Well here goes.

The main defense that they pedophile was using in his trial was “freedom of Speech” it was his right to put up the website and talk about all his fantasies.

Well, all this falls into the grey area now for some people, some people would say.. well yeah, its not his fault, HE didn’t do the killing.

Your right, he didnt.

But what HE DID DO, was provide the killer with ALL the tools that he needed to complete the crime, which is conspiracy.

If you and I planned someones murder together, we both go down.

If I planned someones murder and you knew about it and didnt stop it from happening, We both go down.

THE GRAND FINISH

If I show someone where to find stolen goods and give them all the tools necessary to get them. If I provide them a great “service” such as that. A nice little search engine, a nice little download program……………….

I AM COMMITTING CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT INTERNET FRAUD AND PIRACY.

NOT FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

Terry

If piracy really is such a big problem, then why is GTA IV able to make $500 million in the first week? It’s just a game that people are absolutely dying to get. This is what I mean by serving the people’s needs.

If it would be shut down, it would be indeed censorship, and if it’s done one time, it can be done for other sites as well (which might be even more legal than the Pirate Bay!), so this might indeed hurt freedom of speech.

And you should also look at the situation from another point of view: If there is a gathered source of links to illegal downloads, it’s actually easier for the authorities to prevent piracy than if it would be completely underground. So closing the site down might be a shot in the own foot.

And to be honest, has closing a site or destroying a P2P-client ever solved the problem? Napster emerged in 1999 – that’s almost 10 years ago. Since then (and even before) we had a lot of different possibilities to download music, movies, games and so on. Many of them got closed and banned, but it didn’t change anything. As soon as one got closed, the next one was already there.
The only thing that changed a bit of the situation were legally paid downloads. I think I read several times that they lead to less piracy. So it seems like the only solution is to accomodate to people’s needs. They want to download and they want it cheap and DRM-free, so give them downloads and make them cheap and DRM-free.

Observe people’s needs and try to serve them. It’s as simple as that.
If people keep walking a dirt track into the grass, don’t put on a sign that reads “keep off the lawn”. Lay out some tiles instead.