Is using Torrents stealing?

I was having a discussion with another member about Torrents and how its FREE. I told the person it was stealing. Their argument was that it is not theft because they are not physically taking the item, they are just 'sharing' the program.

I mentioned the 'End User Agreement' and a few other things, but that are used to protect the owner from loosing revenue. But ultimately semantics of the argument came through.

My question is simple. If you download a bit torrent file of a game/movie/etc. Are you stealing?

You can also break it up into Legal and Moral issues.

Personally I say it is wrong, both morally and legally. What do you think.

I think you should take a look at Canadian Blank Media Tax. We can DL anything we like because this levy is distributed back to the industries that make media content is in that sense we are paying any type of legal issue that might come up.

Not all countries have the same laws or even require the same laws. Lets take a look at China; the as a communist country feel that all things belong to the people. I can't cite a source but Bill Gates himself made a trip to China to talk about distribution of Windows in the country. Should these people be deemed as illegal downloaders even though it is will within their rights?

Not everything is about America and American Laws. The internet is a Global community.

File Sharing is just that. Sharing. I would have thought that everyone learned in kindergarten that you are supposed to share with everyone else. Basic principal of life.

Lets put it this way. Say you purchase a movie and then a friend of yours wants to watch it as well, you then loan him the movie so that he can view the content. Is this still stealing? Your friend did not purchase it, no one gained monetary value from the transaction but now the content is in his brain.


Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlAB0v8wHdc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS9MeoiqA7M&feature=related

Its a tricky one, now technically, if you are breaking the law of the licence owners home nation (and this is usually covered in the agreement) then one is probably breaking 'A LAW' with the internet, you cant really break 'THE LAW' unless you are breaking the law (s) of ones home country.

I suspect 99% of the members of this temple have what can be deemed 'illegal digital media' be it software, movies or music (in whatever format) and I cant say I have not 'distributed' such material myself (however in these cases I do own full legal and legitimate original versions and have used the 'reasonable number of digital backups' loophole).

Morally, in some ways its wrong, if you knowingly deny someone revenue for work and services (ie software writers) then i guess its a form of theft and all theft is wrong, but is (for example) having 'copied' mp3's (or the copy protection removed) all that bad?.

This is actually an old argument, I remember when blank audio cassette were first on the market, the same 'moral' and legal issues were raised, but one of them was along the lines of, a blank can be for personal use, the individual chooses the right or wrong of doing whatever, like buying a gun, the item itself is relatively harmless, whats done with it is the users decisions.

Blank CD's and then DVD caused the same old rumpus. My view is this, if the retail price of (for example) windows wasnt so studily high (XP retails for over £100 in the UK still) and the shopper got something more for their cash that a use once or twice cd, then ppl wouldnt be so tempted to copy it, office cost me £400 (ten years ago) and the same applies here.

If music and films had more to offer than a plastic box with a plastic wheel, then ppl might not copy so much, gone are the good old days of proper album art and proper collectable vynal and album covers.

Whilst this is not the wrong or right of copies, it demonstrates some of the reasons for it. This will never be stopped,there are many ways of 'backing up' having the right hardware makes it all so much easier also *cough* free ringtones *cough* recordable minidisc *cough* digital output on pc *cough* where there is a will there is a way.

OK, its theft, its wrong, but most ppl do it, it doesnt make it right, but it wont stop anytime soon, and if you think for one second the prices would drop if everyone paid for it, youd be wrong, the prices would probably increase even further.

More software companies are realising by giving away software for free, the average user is very likely to pay for additional services/products.

I feel windows and office (etc) should be downloadable as a free version, albeit a limited one, the bare essentials of the product, and ppl can then buy 'plus packs' with the more fancy extras etc on a cd one pays for (like XP PLus packs, although they were mainly games, this sort of idea could include some of the networking items, desktop themes etc)

Media player is free, IE8 is free (for now) why not flip it, make windows free and py for media player etc? (i wouldnt miss these two as I have paid for other types of the same anyway)

On the flip side, is it right or wrong for (example) Microsoft to massively overcharge for a product the aveage pc user is almost forced to buy (no real other alternative, Linux still isnt a viable solution for most users) I think Mac software is free...

MTFBWY - A