E-Piracy Act

After watching that video, I went to americancensorship.org and sent the letter.

:< I like TPB

honestly I'd only want to buy from iTunes/other music sites in case I can't find a song I like in 320 kbps quality (or more.... FLAC/WAV please).
Granted, iTunes/DjTunes are a godsend for HQ Trance music (no labels in the US support it, and you'd be paying $30 for a single vinyl).

Tbh I believe anything above 192kbps is hardly distinguishable by human ears.

The difference in sound may not be, but I believe a difference in feeling is.

http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2010/04/sound-test-difference-between-wav-vs-mp3/

I was listening to this guy 7 years ago or so on the subject. He had some interesting theories about it - http://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2011/9/4/an-app-that-makes-your-mp3s-sound-better.html - this kind of touches on the subject.

192 kbps is acceptable, 256 or 320 kbps are more desirable.
FLAC is the way to go if you can find it quickly, and VBR generally stands for "Very Bad Rip".
edit: and below 128 kbps is terrible.

backlash over bill

Lol, I make my own clothing. I laughed. XD

Not really anything like prohibition actually.

It makes a lot of sense, actually.

It's not even close to the same thing.

If I walk into a store and steal a DVD, not only do I get the DVD for free, but that DVD is gone, they cannot sell that to another customer because it no longer exists in the store.

If I download a song, it doesn't stop existing. It doesn't make a CD disappear off a shelf in a store so that it can no longer be sold to anyone else.

Stealing something physical from a store and illegally downloading something are two totally different things.

actually, yeah...

Some ears are more sensitive than others, so if you said you personally were unable to tell the difference, I wouldn't have bothered responding, because maybe you don't.

However, I sure can tell there's a diff.

For example, after my Ipod took a ***, I went back to my old mp3 player, already had songs in it, etc.

Some songs sounded great, etc., had no problem with them. Others, I were like "okay, this definitely isn't 320kbps" and while quite a few 256 slipped through the crack, every song I had a hunch about being under 320 was indeed under 320 and I ended up redownloading/replacing them.

Also, if you use them, the quality of your headphones I find plays a huge part in it.

I know I noticed a difference when I upgraded from stock speakers to just a $70 pair of Pioner (sister broke the one stock speaker when I had the door apart)

Makes me want everything in high bit-rate and to spend about 1k on a decent system...

(interestingly enough I typically only buy cd's because I can then rip them in a higher quality and not have to deal with what I find online, go figure) (haven't bought a cd in a few years though...)

That I understand completely

So you're saying stealing something in digital form, as long as the base of what you steal still remains, makes it ok? What if you went into a store and made a copy of the CD and left the CD that was originally there right on the shelf?

It always amazes me the lengths people will go through to justify their theft of others intellectual property. I mean we all know we all have done it before. Just don't kid yourself into thinking it isn't theft, and it isn't criminal.

Someone earlier said that they had owned (and lost in a fire) a few vintage NES/SNES cartridge game. They were (hypothetically) attempting to rationalize that because they had owned them before at one point in history, that fact entitled them to download them off the internet, and play them using emulator software. When Sony or Nintendo or SE sells you a game cartridge, they are only selling you a game cartridge. If you break it or otherwise destroy it, you're SOL, and would need to buy it again, unless otherwise notified. You are not entitled to a new copy of something simply due to the fact that you bought one previously. If you think this is unfair I have a simple solution for you. Don't buy the product.

If I want to sell you something, shouldn't I have every right to sell you whatever I want to? Weather that means you can use play this music song file only 100 times, or as many times as you want and I'll replace it for free if its damaged or destroyed. Why can't I sell you what ever I want to and you can choose to buy it or not buy it if you want to? What on earth is wrong with that system?

How bout this?

I know its a against the law.

I personally don't feel its theft.

But! Even if I did feel it was theft, I wouldn't care and would do it anyway.

So as long as I know that you think its wrong and do so anyway, without trying to justify it to anyone its ok right?

lol IP laws. Meet the VCR and my 18 year old copies of Dino Riders episodes that I stole off broadcast television. Fool cable company just gave them to me right on my TV.

Gonna jump in from over the pond on this one.

I personally download music and occasionally films if I've missed them at the cinema and their not on DVD yet, so yeh I pirate them.

The music industry knows this goes on, and I'm not sure they actually care as much as people think they do. A band with hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans, will make money off CD sales, or MP3 download sales, even if say 5% of their fans go to a free site and get them, they won't be losing money. I think people download CD's illegally from the internet because the price of a CD in the shop is unreasonably priced. A lot of the bands I like have their music on sale in shops like HMV for £15+ which to me is just too expensive, especially when it can be bought online cheaper.

So why not buy a cheap copy I hear you ask? Because I don't want to potentially waste my money on a CD that might be rubbish. Download it for free then if you do like it, go and buy a real copy. I don't always stick to this principle lol, but there are a few bands where I will go and buy their new album straight away, no questions asked.

I hate all the people who look down on those who download stuff for free. If people couldn't get hold of any free music at all, then a lot of the smaller bands would find it hard to gain fans, and the large bands probably wouldn't sell much music in the long run. You also have to remember that the big bands make money from other areas such as merchandise and gig tickets, so I don't think a few people around the world downloading their albums for free is going to bother them so much.

I've been to a few gigs where the bands have said "we don't care if you download our album for free, because you've come out to see us play and that's more important".

The only way for a country to stop pirates (not the kind that roam the sea) is to shut down all the free websites that provide people with music/film/games etc. And lets be honest that's not going to happen any time soon!

Those of us that are into higher end stereo systems can tell you for sure that a trashy online copy of a song or movie, and a decent digital rip of the real recording are two vastly different things. Yes, ripping from the actual CD makes a world of difference.

So >.> this is a little different, but i bought a ds lite from gamestop (used) with extra warranty. well a week later the hinge broke, i can deal. but then a month later i go to play ffvi and a fuse blows. so i go to take it back and they say thats not covered because it looks like i dropped it and broke it and it will be like 50 bucks for nintendo to fix it -.-.

so instead i say F that. i go buy a new body kit(that has the hinge piece)off ebay for 10bucks. and go buy another used DS lite from gamestop. i replace hinge on the broken ds and switch the bottom casing. (so now the one that was broken has a good hinge and the barcode of the one i just bought, since the SN is on the bottom case).

i then take it back to gamestop, tell them the screen just shuts off after only having it for 3 days and get my money back.

Fixed DS for 10bucks... Stealing? or just getting what was owed to me? Note that i didnt drop it and the fuse went out on its own, and i had extra warranty.

The funniest thing about this is that all of the internet personalities like AVGN, thatguywiththeglasses, angry joe, etc etc are crapping their pants because this bill could shut them down.

So they all make videos and statements about the website about how you have to fill out petitions and stuff to stop them.

Also it's pretty obvious who wrote this bill when the congressmen have no clue what they are talking about when they debate it...

lamestop is lame.

This: is what really gets me.

What part of stealing a song, recorded on equpiment from the Philippines, hosted on servers hosted in Japan, carried across fiber made in Korea, onto a computer made in China...protects American jobs?
Oh, that's right, it protects the new bogus jobs created by this organizaton; similar to that of the Homeland Security organization.

You can't really feel bad for playing on an emulator for NES/SNES games when all Nintendo does is throw the original ROM up on the Wii store with no updates, online multiplayer or achievements.

This is what companies like Valve are talking about when they say that piracy is a service problem.

"In an interview for the University of Cambridge's school newspaper, Newell said that the way to end piracy is to provide a service that's more complete than cracked software, and that restrictive DRM only encourages more piracy.

"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

The proof is in the proverbial pudding. "Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam's] largest market in Europe," Newell said."

If Nintendo released Super Mario Bros 1 with achievements, a new level or 2 and online multiplayer so I could play it with a friend over the internet, I would pay them 10 dollars for it in a heartbeat.

But just the ROM for 10 bucks? That is a slap in the face. Especially since they put in zero effort to make money on a game they have already made a buttload off of.

This is how they say it is protecting jobs.

They look at every CD/Movie/Game ever stolen, then pretend like someone bought it instead.

Then they take the bogus number, in the billions of dollars, then make up bogus jobs that would be filled in theory with the money.

I wish I could use that logic in my work and get away with it.

I've heard a bunch of people say "well, I don't want to spend my money on something I might like so I'm going to pirate it and well if I like it I might buy an actual copy after" or "the band won't get that money anyways so I'll just donate a dollar directly to them at a later date" or "stealing a digital copy is not theft" all of which seem like excuses to me.

My question is what makes a person who pirates think that they are entitled to a product if they are not willing to pay for it? millions of other people buy these products and keep the industry alive while others just seem to leech off of it. Now I myself have been in situations where I haven't been able to afford some things I have wanted and you know I just passed on them until I was in a position where I could.

So tell me what entitles you to be able to have these products without paying for them? Why do others have to pay while you think well this is why I don't have to, deal with it?

I did like how you used the word stolen.

While I don't think every game/cd/movie ever stolen would have resulted in an actual purchase, I do think there would be an increase in sales if some could not get them from an illegal source. I agree that they most likely do inflate the numbers but there is a significant cost related to piracy as well.

In the end if you can't afford it, don't think its worth a purchase, move on and find something that is.

You're looking for an answer that isn't there. They aren't 'entitled to it', but not being entitled to it doesn't keep me from getting it, I just don't give a ***really. It's true, the stuff I pirate I wouldn't buy anyways, I'm on a very strict budget, so they wouldn't be getting money from me to begin with.. That's not an excuse of why it's okay or justification, it's a simple fact. Strictly speaking in a legal sense it is stealing, but like I said, I don't give a ***.