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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: Capitalism, ethics and illegal downloads
Thread: Capitalism, ethics and illegal downloads
IYY
IYY


Responsible
Supreme Hero
REDACTED
posted May 04, 2005 11:10 PM

Poll Question:
Capitalism, ethics and illegal downloads

"To download or not to dowload?" is an important question for many people living in Capitalism today. While most people will not think twice before clicking on the "download" button and view their favorite movie or hear their favorite song free of charge, most people would also agree that it is not only illegal but also immoral. Some would go as far as not downloading any illegal "warez", "appz" or mp3s at all. Let us now think, what is immoral about the act of downloading?

Well, the very first argument is simple: every song/movie/game /book you download is one less product you buy. To this, the intelligent downloader will reply with the somewhat ignorant general argument: do I really care if Britney Spears doesn't get her next million? Doesn't she already has enough?

And here comes the ultimate argument of the opposition, that the downloader will often have trouble replying to: Britney Spears will not be hurt in the least bit by you "stealing" her music, but the little people will. Think of the people working in the studios, the janitor at the movie theatre, the owner of a small record store. Are they not the ones you are hurting?

This is where we have to face the harsh reality. Yes, as we download we take money and jobs away from these simple people. People just like us. The opposition wins.

But wait, things are not so simple. If they were, there would be no point of even raising the question for discussion and thinking about it. The truth goes far deeper. In fact, this is the point where we need to understand just who is the Ethical Capitalist.

The Ethical Capitalist

Who is a "good" person in a Capitalist society? One could write a lot here, and try to come up with complex schemes of what morality is, but the truth is so simple that it hurts. The truth is simply this: the morality of a capitalist is determined by nothing more than the amount of money s/he spends on good and services created in his nation. Yes, it's as simple as that. The more you buy, the better person you are! Whenever you buy a product or a service, you create a demand which immediatly gives jobs and money to people. And the opposite is true: the less you buy, the more you harm your society. You downloaded a song instead of buying it? You just harmed a lot of people!

But wait. Why is it that we stop at the recording industry when we just managed to model Capitalist ethics so perfectly? In fact, we would be hypocrites if we didn't now go and apply this theory to every aspect of consumer ethics.  

Take for example the case of fast food. By buying fast food, you are giving jobs to our young and/or uneducated citizens! In fact, eating at McDonald's is the ethical thing to do for a Capitalist. Eating at home, on the other hand, is just as unethical as downloading MP3's from the internet. But nobody ever judged me for cooking for myself rather than eating out. Why? It's simple. People are hypocrites, and they lie to themselves in order to feel good.

Indeed, when a person buys a legal CD, he does not care about the people he may be helping or harming. There is no true compassion. The only reason he buys ths CD is to feel good about himself helping those people. In a sense, he wants to feel like an Ethical Capitalist. He found his little niche in the economy: buying CD's, and focuses on it to make himself feel good. If he truly wanted to be a good person and cared about the workers, he would consume more fast food, buy more clothing... In general, spend as much money as he possibly can.

Am I saying that this is what we should be doing? No way.

Personal Ethics

I don't believe that we should be plugging ourselves into this machine that is the Capitalist consumer society. I don't believe that I - a man who eats at home as much as possible, doesn't even listen to modern American music or view hollywood movies - should be considered to be a worse person than one who spends twice more than me on a daily basis. However, from the economic point of view, that person helps people more than me. He is, in a sense, a better person.

I believe that there should be a line drawn between personal ethics - the good deeds you do in your own personal life, the way you treat your fellow human beings - and economical ethics. If I get to know an immigrant who just came into the country and can't find a job, I'll help him find it. I will help an old woman cross the street. But I will not try to be a good capitalist. I will not buy for ethical reasons.

The Ethical Comrade

This thread was not made to promote Communism. This section is purely optional to read, and does not directly relate to the rest of the thread. I am not suggesting that you should convert to Communism because of any argument mentioned above. But just out of curiosity, let us examine the Ethical Comrade, living in a Socialist country, or even in a semi-Socialist country such as the USSR.

Will using more products and services benifit the Communist society? No way. In fact, the more one does by himself, in his own home, not relying on society, the more ethical he is. If you make your own pants - you've just done your good deed for the day. Did you cook a meal at home? You're helping. Downloaded music? Even that is good, because now nobody had to go through the useless steps of building the store, distributing records, etc. Instead they built hostpitals and schools!

Seems to me like I'd much rather be an ethical comrade than an ethical capitalist.

In Conclusion

A consumer has to make a choice. Does he want to help his Capitalist society by being a model consumer, or does he want to live his life not caring about how and what he buys, but only on his everyday good deeds. Of course, you could do both or neither. Doesn't matter. After all, in the end it is only up to God and yourself to judge you.

But don't be a hypocrite. Don't tell people they are stealing music and harming people. While there is harm in their actions, it is in no way different than the harm done by a man cooking his own food, or a hippy making his own pants.

And in general, don't judge anyone at all. Ethics is a personal issue which one must understand and accept for himself. Just because others don't follow your ethical beliefs, does not make them worse as people.

To accompany the discussion, there's an anonymous poll about downloading music.

Responses:
I download music and am proud of it
I download music but feel guilty
I don't download music for ethical reasons
I don't download music for other reasons
 View Results!

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draco
draco


Promising
Famous Hero
posted May 04, 2005 11:27 PM

I don`t generaly download music, as i no need for it, I`m content listening to the radio.

I do however from time to time, download gamez and moviez.

I don`t quite find myself in your descriptions, for instance, I`ve recently downloaded Warcraft 3, and if the feds came to my house Like that would happen I have the materials to show them that I already owned the product i.e. i got my manuals and box, but I lost my CD and CD-KEY. so I don`t think they would care about that one.

Movies I download, are already out on TV, usualy movies from the Movie Central channels, i.e. X-Men2, if I wanted to I could have taped the program off my cable box, but instead Ive downloaded the DVD so I can watch it in good quality and with 5.1 surround, I don`t think there is any harm in doing this as its a film I could have watched for free already, and probably again in a few hours.

I also regularily download TV series`like SmallVille or Star Trek, because I do not have the time or am not available to watch the shows when they play on UPN or WB or whereever they play at the time, and I refuse to get behind on the episodes.

Ill admit, I have downloaded gamez that I had no intention of purchasing, usualy its to demo a game, hell thats how I got Heroes 2 in the first place, with no videos or anything. getting H2 pirated got me hooked on the series and ive bought nearly every release since.

I don`t find myself a huge harm to the world, except maybe my ISP :S they shut me down a couple times, damn you SHAW (7mbps download and 1mbps upload and you tell me ive used a months supply in a day!)

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terje_the_ma...
terje_the_mad_wizard


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
posted May 04, 2005 11:56 PM

I do not download anything at all, except Abandonware, but that's more for practical reasons than for any ideological ones. At first, it's because I never got into that downloading thing during high school, as I only had access to a pretty bad 56k line, which kept crashing all the time. Later, it's because, well, I never really liked having just the music on my computer; I like the feeling I get when I look at my CD collection. I like the feeling I get when I buy a new CD, and actually hold it in my hands, with original packaging and all that. Sure, I could probably have bought empty CD covers and downloaded the rest from the web, but it just wouldn't have been the same.

Also, I found a flaw in your argumentation. Several surveys have shown that people actually tend to buy more CDs when they have the option of downloading them first, and they also tend to buy music from artists they otherwise wouldn't even have considered listening to.

In addition, both the Ethical Comrade and the Ethical Capitalist seems to be quite utopian, if you know what I mean? (Dunno how to express it more clearly...)
____________
"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.

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IYY
IYY


Responsible
Supreme Hero
REDACTED
posted May 05, 2005 12:04 AM

@Draco: this is not about the legal issues of downloading, but the ethical ones. Of course nobody is going to arrest you, but the question is: do you care?

@Terje: as for the arguments being utopian, you are right but not completly. While things don't work exactly the way I described them (they would in the ideal forms of the two societies but not in the real world) they do work in the same patterns. The communist consumer was always encouraged and in general benifited his fellow comrades by buying less , while the capitalist is always encouraged and helps people more by buying more. The trends are there, even if it's not black and white.

As for your argument about owning CD's just for the pleasure of owning them, of course it's true, but it's not what the thread is about. I own my favorite CD's and vinyl records as well. If I really like a game, I buy it, too (HOMM2, Might and Magic 7-8).

As for the survey, if true, it is not a flaw in my argument at all. If anything, it means that downloading music is a good thing in general, which is something that I agree with. The problem is that very few people I know actually download music to sample it. Most just get it and burn it on their CD's or copy it to their iPods.


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draco
draco


Promising
Famous Hero
posted May 05, 2005 12:41 AM bonus applied.

Quote:
@Draco: this is not about the legal issues of downloading, but the ethical ones. Of course nobody is going to arrest you, but the question is: do you care?



I think this thread is quite based on the legality of downloads. if it were legal, then this discussion would not exist.

I know the odds of getting arrested for my downloads are very low, in the hundreth of a percentile. however, this is the main deterant from illegal downloads, its not ones Morals that affects whether or not (s)he will download a program, a video, or audio in any form.

I was raised to obey the law, breaking the law therefor is automaticaly against my morals, however I still proceed to do the act. does that mean I have weak morals? or are the circumstances different in this instance?

(man id love to have spellcheck on these boards )

back to the question at hand. I think my choice is indirectly the Capitalist Utopian society, by not buying a product i've never tried I rarely make poor purchases, which helps the developers make better products, everything is sales based, but even some of the worst movies i've ever seen made tons of money at the box office due to good marketing, but had little to no DVD sales (or VHS).

now im rambleing, but if think of this, if you had the opportunity to watch the best movie you have ever seen at the theatres before hand on your computer, would you still have gone to the movies to see it on the big screen? personnaly I know the answer would be Yes.

thats all that matters, if you are someone who downloads everything and never spends a dime (except for your incredible internet bills) then maybe you are taking from the economy, or maybe you are helping it. from a Canadians point of view the less I spend on movies and CD's the more money im leaving in the Canadian economy due to the fact most film and audio revenue goes to the US. then im being a responsible Canadian.

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IYY
IYY


Responsible
Supreme Hero
REDACTED
posted May 05, 2005 03:20 AM

Interesting... I never thought of breaking the law as being immoral, but I guess some people have different opinions. I act on a personal moral code, and if the law is unjust I will not obey it. For example, I see no logic in a law that says I can't smoke marijuana. True, I am no stoner myself, but the law/morals have nothing to do with it. If I wanted to, I'd do it without thinking it's immoral.
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Svarog
Svarog


Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
posted May 08, 2005 03:27 AM

Excellent topic, you cyber-socialist. Although a bit of miscarriaged.
Quote:
The communist consumer was always encouraged and in general benifited his fellow comrades by buying less , while the capitalist is always encouraged and helps people more by buying more.

Thats not in any way ideologically connected, but works on the principles of supply and demand balance. Its true that in the Soviet block people were encouraged to satisfy with less, but it was only because the said basic goods were in low supply. But here end all similarities. A good communist would unquestionably benefit more if he spends his money, just as the capitalist. Its always better the money to be put circulating in the economy than kept under a pillow. Anyway, its not really related to the topic of legal downloads. The question is, how are those money to be spent. And maybe you can sense me hinting at the answer even now…

Ok, I must say, I’m left confused. What’s the moral “right” to do here – to support legal downloads or not to support them? You’d be surprised to hear that what I find actually immoral is buying the legal data. To realize this, one must analyze the effects of ownership rights over society, since this is where the key is.
The most widely used format of ownership rights over intellectual property in capitalist societies today is copyright. This means that a company owns legal rights over an idea, and by exploiting that idea in consumer-packed products, can determine its price, quantity and everything related with it on the market (thereby controling it), at the same time being completely protected by legal authorities. A crude example would be: If the inventor of a cure for AIDS had copyright (and theres no reason why not), he can raise the price as much as he wants, sell as much as he wants, and even if the recepe is as simple as making a cup of coffee, no other company will be allowed to produce this cure. As alien as it sounds, its happening at this very moment with medicine which is luxury for many Africans that suffer from illnesses long ago non-existant in the West.
The main question to be asked is – do we get more quality when we protect certain goods from “unauthorized” copies? In some cases yes. (You wouldn’t want to eat a cheap version of “Milka”, made in some Pakistani basement. Actually you would, if you knew exactly what it contained and all, so you go for the lower price intentionally, but that’s another story.) But in some cases, copyright only exists to protect the sovereign economic dictatorship of powerful companies in branches which have developed alternative ways of sharing the products among more people without losing any of the quality of the product. And such is the case with the entire software industry. In this way this entire branch of industry becomes obsolete, but the interesting thing is that the world economy wont lose from its worth, but rather gain.
Lets see why is that. In Marxist theory, the worth of a good is established through the overall labor needed to produce that good. When you have pirates giving the same quality with so little labor invested, then its only logical that the price which is artificially imposed by big companies is absurd. This industry takes in more money from sales, but the labor they invest in it, is devalued dramatically by the new technologies. In one word  - a modern case of surplus value exploitation. This is, on one hand, a waste of potential labor (of all the people working in this industry), and on the other side a huge influx of money goes where unearned. And the ironic is, this black hole of a situation is legalized and enforced by the capitalist system!
The argument about the people who work in the industry being harmed is fake. See, there are people who work in the “robbing industry”; why keep it illegal then? You deprive them all these poor people from their earnings. Why? Because they earn by harming others. Big companies also earn by harming others – forcing people to buy more expensive when they can do it for free. When software downloads were to be free, we would even witness a rapid growth of information technology since many more people will gain access to it, and also other industries will develop as information technology is today the main tool for industrial development. In short, we, as a world economy, wont lose the goods being produced in the software industry, we’d only have more money left to spend otherwise. And its like God automatically adding this overall sum of money in the world economy as a donation.
Of course, there’s an argument against it, and that’s the “deterioration” of music/film industry, since it’ll be less and less about money, which might lead to disappearance of such fine artists as Britney Spears, J Lo and others, but oh well, call it a calculated risk. Haha…

In conclusion, what’s more moral - to support this kind of industry or not to? Even if its against the law to burn and download, I say do it. Do it massively. Last time when people allowed legal codes to supress their moral convictions, sh!ts like the Holocaust happened.

____________
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

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Consis
Consis


Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
posted May 08, 2005 04:22 AM
Edited By: Consis on 7 May 2005

Svarog,

I think of you as a brilliant young man with so much potential. I think perhaps, that you should throw off your affinity for playing fantasy games and go straight into the politics of your blossoming country. You could very well be the next Alexander in the economic/political sense. You have many strengths that you are probably not even aware of. Your common economic sense is downright uncanny. At such a young age you waste your time here when you could be running for office among your people.

But also, you are not specific enough. The Marx theory is always so rightful sounding until one applies to a nuclear age in which information alone could very well cause the deaths of many people. This is the new power to seek for all those who wish to become powerful persons. It is one matter to have the Marx theory applied to the music industry(if it can be called such, not) but it is an entirely different matter to apply such free-spirited philosophies to all information, if handled without care, that could cause terrifying accidents. This is my argument. I argue that our capitolist society does well to put copyrights and other such "safeguards" in place; not only for the inventor to profit from it, but also to protect those curious scatterbrained youths who proceed in areas of information where great caution and care must be adhered to with extreme attention to detail.
____________
Roses Are RedAnd So Am I

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IYY
IYY


Responsible
Supreme Hero
REDACTED
posted May 08, 2005 04:39 AM
Edited By: IYY on 7 May 2005

Svarog,

Quote:
Thats not in any way ideologically connected, but works on the principles of supply and demand balance. Its true that in the Soviet block people were encouraged to satisfy with less, but it was only because the said basic goods were in low supply.


You are right in saying that the reason for the ideology was a low supply of goods in Socialist countries, but I believe that with any kind of Socialism that we'll ever have in the next 100 years, there will be a low supply of goods. At least, low when compared to Capitalism. And so, I believe that the moral values will remain the same as in the USSR, and the same as I claim them to be. Of course, this has nothing to do with Communism itself, just like the Capitalist morals I talked about have little to do with Capitalism itself. They are just side effects that will happen in most cases.

As for your other argument, I agree completly. I believe in Open Source software, and free operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD. I also prefer music that's been recorded to be freely distributed (old songs from the Soviet days, modern Indy music). Free music and free software is just better, end of discussion!

As for Consis, well, I believe that applying the Marxist theory to the music and software industry is the safest and most effective use of it one could imagine. In fact, it is already being done by the friendly open source folk who bring us wonderful software for free. And not only for free, but with the source code, meaning that we can correct whatever we see as being wrong. This method of software development has already provided amazing programs such as Linux (which is superior to Windows in nearly every way), FreeBSD (on which the famous Mac OSX is based), OpenOffice (which works exactly like MS Office but is completly free), Firefox (a web browser that is ages ahead of Internet Explorer) and many more inventions.
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Consis
Consis


Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
posted May 08, 2005 03:03 PM

IYY,

We are in agreement. Marxist theory is very well to do with the so-called music 'industry' in my opinion.
____________
Roses Are RedAnd So Am I

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terje_the_ma...
terje_the_mad_wizard


Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
posted May 09, 2005 12:05 AM

Consis:
Quote:
I argue that our capitolist society does well to put copyrights and other such "safeguards" in place; not only for the inventor to profit from it, but also to protect those curious scatterbrained youths who proceed in areas of information where great caution and care must be adhered to with extreme attention to detail.

Would you care to explain some of this a little bit more, as I think I may have misunderstood you?

I mean, here, it sounds as if you're in favour of such copyright systems as STRIPS (which denies millions of people in the poorer regions of the world from medicines that could cure them and save their lives, just because they use cheap copies instead of the more expensive "originals"). But you cannot possibly mean this, can you? You're thinking of more "dangerous" information, right?
____________
"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.

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Svarog
Svarog


Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
posted May 09, 2005 12:51 AM

Quote:
As for Consis, well, I believe that applying the Marxist theory to the music and software industry is the safest and most effective use of it one could imagine.

Marxist theory you can apply everywhere. By applying, I dont mean implementing, but analyzing systems and processes through the Marxist prism, which has remained a sophisticated method for political and social analysts, to a very large degree in the modern era as well.

Anti-private-ownership initiatives in the intellectual rights area are more and more common in Western economies. "Creative commons" (see www.creativecommons.org) is one such authorship standard which offers a more flexible protection for authors and artists. Whats most interesting, officialization of this liscense has been passed in the top most technologically and economically advanced countries in the world, which likely shows the future tendencies in the world economy.
____________
The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.

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