OccultForum.org

Original post: Marquise De Sade

Ok people I noticed that the forums have been pretty dead recently so why not talk about something that most of us know about.

About 2 years ago I bought a Creative Zen Vision:M MP3 player that aside from the scratches, and bumps has lasted me this long, and still works in PERFECT condition. Now that I have a Macbook Pro I have been using itunes, and emuisc to download all my music, and will be using my MP3's software on this laptop.

I'm looking through my MP3, and I see all the songs I download, and I can't help but feel like a hypocrite, and very bad at the moment. I'm a musician, and I have worked damn hard to earn at least a little from doing what I love, and have worked hard on all the bands I've been in(had label interest once), and supporting my fellow indie musicians. About a year ago I realized that downloading music for free was money coming out of the artist pockets so I decided to buy most my music through itunes.

I also stopped buying physical CDs since believe it or not due to a contract clause the money from physical albums dosen't go to the artists either but to the big labels(good or bad? U decide).

I decided to take the big step, and in a few days will delete 90% of the music on my MP3 player because I deserve it for stealing from the artists which I so dearly support. Yeah sure some of them have alot of money but think about. If we really supported them would we be stealing from them? They worked hard to make their dreams come true why should we fuck them over?

To replace my library I will upload all the songs that I downloaded legally. Call me crazy but thats how I feel, and now its time to atone for my mistakes.

Thanks for reading... Please support your local independent artist!

:drama:

Original post: doh

Well, guess what?

I have nothing downloaded on my computer that I don't already own. I've had "samples" sent to me. If I like it enough, I buy the recording. If not, it goes bye-bye.

I look at it this way. Some of the best music out there is not done by someone with a big record label. And, then, after that, most musicians put out one or two good albums if they have a big record label.

If nothing else, float their site a couple of bucks. One-it is illegal to download like that and 2-If you like the music enough, show them some love by contributing. It's like going to a music festival. Some one gives you beer for a cheese sandwich. Someone gives you a cheese sandwich for a bottle of water. Someone gives you a bottle of water just to sit down in the shade and dry off after a shower or a ride back to where things are happening.

Granted many make gazillions and Lars really pissed me off when the dling thing started, but if you like it and want to keep it, float a buck. Otherwise,go old school and tape it off of the radio.

Just my thoughts.

Original post: kyrie_eleison

I decided to stop doing it because I do think it is wrong, and because I decided to not break laws except when it would be immoral not to... but to be honest I don't judge people who do it that strongly. Copyright infringement is not theft.

Original post: Fatal-3RR0R

I do It but only the mainstream bands that are always on TV. But not t0 bands from the industrial genre, as its mostly underground. With the exception of a few bands that is.

Original post: doh

It's theft. Not being an asshole, but it is theft. That makes you a thief.

Now I admit I have bought a lot of albums that were shit. The ability to hear it first helps a lot.

I recorded off of the radio. So that makes me a thief. But, most of what you see and here, yeah the musician is making money, but generally, they don't make their due. They have to pay too many people.

Join a download site with a monthly membership and dl to your heart's content. It's generally only the cost of a pack of smokes or a couple of beers or a bit of incense. You got the money for those things, you got the money to dl.

Original post: AstralMagickCraft

Join a download site with a monthly membership and dl to your heart's content. It's generally only the cost of a pack of smokes or a couple of beers or a bit of incense. You got the money for those things, you got the money to dl.

Only on OF...

Original post: Querent

I still steal music every now and then for two reasons:

1. You can find things that were never released, or had an extremely limited release.

2. I started buying all my music online, only to find that I had even less control of how I used that music, i.e. it will only let me play it on certain machines, and copy it a certain amount of times, etc. unless I want to give myself a migraine trying to convert it. FUCK THAT. If I spend money on it, I want it to be mine to do with as I please.

Having said that, I do buy more than I steal.

Original post: doh

[QUOTE=AstralMagickCraft;347813]Only on OF...[/QUOTE] Well let's be real about who we are dealing with.

Querent, the ability to play it on what you have is only an adjustment. The limited or never released argument only adds to what I said. They never made it. If you like it, at least by them a beer. If it's limited, they've probably already made more money than God and don't need it, but the fact that it's limited makes it worth something to the individual.

I'm happy you chose the higher road. And this is someone that used to argue against having to pay for downloads. How we evolve. LOL

Original post: corbin_israfael

I'm not a Thief. I am merely a Child of the Information Age.

The Hackers Manifesto
By: The Mentor
Phrack E-Zine
Circa 1986

Another one got caught today, it's all over the papers. "Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal", "Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering"...


Damn kids. They're all alike.


But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950's technobrain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have molded him?


I am a hacker, enter my world...


Mine is a world that begins with school... I'm smarter than most of the other kids, this crap they teach us bores me...


Damn underachiever. They're all alike.


I'm in junior high or high school. I've listened to teachers explain for the fifteenth time how to reduce a fraction. I understand it. "No, Ms. Smith, I didn't show my work. I did it in my head..."


Damn kid. Probably copied it. They're all alike.


I made a discovery today. I found a computer. Wait a second, this is cool. It does what I want it to. If it makes a mistake, it's because I screwed it up. Not because it doesn't like me... Or feels threatened by me.. Or thinks I'm a smart ass.. Or doesn't like teaching and shouldn't be here...


Damn kid. All he does is play games. They're all alike.


And then it happened... a door opened to a world... rushing through the phone line like heroin through an addict's veins, an electronic pulse is sent out, a refuge from the day-to-day incompetencies is sought... a board is found. "This is it... this is where I belong..." I know everyone here... even if I've never met them, never talked to them, may never hear from them again... I know you all...


Damn kid. Tying up the phone line again. They're all alike...


You bet your ass we're all alike... we've been spoon-fed baby food at school when we hungered for steak... the bits of meat that you did let slip through were pre-chewed and tasteless. We've been dominated by sadists, or ignored by the apathetic. The few that had something to teach found us willing pupils, but those few are like drops of water in the desert.


This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.


Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.


I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike.

Original post: Fatal-3RR0R

Wow thanks for posting that. I agree with some of the points it makes.

Original post: Querent

I think I went to school with "The Mentor".

I mean... Yes, I f*ckin' understand the Greek myths. We've only gone over the same myths in English Literature every year for the past THREE YEARS, but yes, I somehow understand... (yawn). College?! Sweet!! I get to learn so many new things like... What? I have to take English Lit again? Oh... we're going over the Greek myths?

Fan - tastic.

Original post: Kazahel

corbin_israfael;347824 wrote:I'm not a Thief. I am merely a Child of the Information Age.

We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.


Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for.

Well I think this kind of thing glamorizes the hacker. I mean lets take my friend for example... he has been hacked by people for years.. people have judged him from what they have found after basically breaking into his private home and stealing that infomation. They break in by doing things like hacking his PS3 etc so that when he even uses an eye camera(or his own private video camera) the world sees everything.. or hears about it soon after(cause they love to gossip hey). And most people seem to appluad this, and think its a good thing that people do this to another person. They think its justified somehow depending on the person.. So people tend to glamorize the hacker, who in my world is not just stealing music or acting in a harmless way..

Like for my friend.. it's no different to when a peeping tom camps outside your home, looks through your windows everyday..., and then breaks into your home and goes through your underwear draws. And then after they share what they have stolen with others they try use this line .... "Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for." ..... I mean get real.. imo its just something they try hide behind, because most hackers are cyberstalkers and they know it. But they'd rather be called a more .. romantic name.

So I just kinda wanted to share my view of the hacker.. they are the ones who attempt to mock and harass my friend for what they have stolen from him. So imo they are more like cyberstalkers.. (like peeping toms/perverts) and most dont deserve to be called hackers.. because they are more than that, and other names are more fitting for them.

Anyway in regards to the music... I generally buy whatever I find on the net I like anyway..I tend to not like to steal because I dont want to be in debt.. because thats kinda how I look at it..

Original post: extinctionspasm

My favourite threads are always the ones in which a discussion about stealing becomes a discussion about perversion and predation.

HAHAHA Excellent!!!!

Seriously though....

Lets have some more talk about internet predators to stir up some paranoia!!

Sorry.. no Im just kidding...

Seriously now.. have you got any pictures of this friend?

HAHAHA sorry... I am just kidding that is the last tim I swear it...

Seriously but.. I will steal from anyone associated with MassMedia/Control for the purposes of subverting their weak as shit bullshit excuse for art...

But people who depend on the money for life and are willing to accomplish that in a way that doesn't support the widespread destruction of freedom... I will pay fucking double/triple for it... the money is pretty useless to me!!!

Original post: corbin_israfael

Early Hacker Culture was a lot different then it is today. Also some Hackers don't do hacking to harm people. I don't know what to call them but to me the word "Hacker" has a different meaning then what people commonly think of as a Hacker. To me the Hacker is a characteristic Anti-Hero though being a bit of a Hacker myself I am a bit bias in my view of Hacking and Hacker Culture.

I don't exactly consider those who harm other people through technology as "Hackers" per se. They are but they are Black Hat Hackers which is entirely different from the Hacker I am talking about.

Original post: Kazahel

extinctionspasm;347851 wrote:Seriously now.. have you got any pictures of this friend?

HAHAHA sorry... I am just kidding that is the last tim I swear it...

Your so funny. So tell us all then... why would you ask for a picture of this friend? Even if you are kidding like you say... Why say it? Can you explain to us what made you think of that.

Original post: S33k3R

OK...so what about Youtube...plenty of music there...anytime I want, I just jump on to the tube and watch any amount of free music. Groovy.

Any one have a problem with that? No.

But wait...I can DOWNLOAD music off youtube too...flv. files convert them to MP3...all legally

Where did I go wrong?

I fail to see much of a difference whether a song is kept on a Google server, freely available in the public domain, available 365/24/7 or a copied version is on my hard drive. I'm not compiling mixed CD's and reselling or anything...just listen to the music.

In fact, I don't even need to download anything, Youtube allows me to create play lists and organize my favorite music. Only reason I do is that bandwidth is precious around my part of the world. The money I pay to my ISP for watching tube videos doesn't end up in the artists pocket anyway, so its not like I'm taking from the artist. If the artist objects to his music being on the tube...he asks and its gone.

I don't have to frequent "1337 H4x0r5" download sites to get music....just click the little Youtube button.

Where is the issue?

Original post: shadow flame

i don't consider it theft because property is never transfered.it is same if i went to performance and recorded the song.
besides musicians make ridiculous amounts of money from sponsors. and they could still live quite comfortably if they didn't make any money from studio albums, but instead if they focused more on live performances.
in one interview (i'll give link later if i find it) frontman of band "disturbed" said that he makes much more money from concerts, and that piracy actually helped them, because it served as promotion for the band
i agree that if someone wants to support artists then it is best to buy legally music, but otherwise i don't see any moral wrong with downloading

Original post: kyrie_eleison

[QUOTE=doh;347803]It's theft. Not being an asshole, but it is theft. That makes you a thief.[/QUOTE]

It really isn't. Theft means the person you take something from no longer has it. This is not the case with illegal downloading. It is copyright infringement. That doesn't make it right, but its a different phenomenon.

Original post: Marquise De Sade

Wow... The thread got big.

Anyway I'm actually shocked at some of these responses. Those of you who say that illegal downloads are not theft have to really think before posting. I don't expect to change opinions, and I don't expect people who aren't musicians to understand anyway.

I do believe it is a good promotion tool. Downloading one or two songs won't affect the sales of an album as a whole. Ripping an entire album though is completely different.

Many people are starting to view music more as an extra rather than the main product. Whatever...

My hope is that somehow, someway despite the impossibility everyone who has a library full of music downloaded illegally gets caught, and gets sent to jail.

Don't like what I wrote? Tough.

Original post: Great American Desert

I download full albums occasionally if I can find that somebody's put it on megaupload or some similar upload site. If I like the album, I will purchase it. If I do not like the album, I will neither continue listening to the mp3s nor buy the album, and nobody gets hurt.

I've found that both of my releases were put online for download. At first I thought "those bastards!", but eventually came to the conclusion that it doesn't bother me. I assume that some of these people are like me, and if they like the albums, they will buy them, and if they won't they'll not bother with the mp3s or the album. I'm not hurt by the downloads...it only helps to spread the music. The record label's profits are my only concern, since they invested so much money on the album's release.

Original post: Rin Daemoko

[QUOTE=kyrie_eleison;347903]It really isn't. Theft means the person you take something from no longer has it. This is not the case with illegal downloading. It is copyright infringement. That doesn't make it right, but its a different phenomenon.[/QUOTE]
theft
- noun

1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

Yes, it is theft. You can't deny what it is, because the definition fits what is taking place. If you're attempting to justify the theft of music, then don't resort to searching for some wiggle room in what, exactly, constitutes theft. Do something like this:

[QUOTE=corbin_israfael;347824]We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals.[/QUOTE]

Original post: simex

Information and culture are not commodities. In my opinion, it is more of a "theft" to hold these things from society.

If you believe that the only people who should have the right to listen to your music are those who have enough money to pay for it, then you have missed the point of creating.

As a musician, I know that recorded media is merely a marketing tool. The majority of an artist's money comes from live shows; record labels eat the vast majority of CD sales as payment for the publicity. Of course the record labels don't want you to download music, because they're making money from the transaction. The artist, on the other hand, is largely unaffected.

The idea that artists make their money from CD sales is a myth propagated by the record labels. It's an attempt to salvage a system of making money that is no longer applicable to our society.

I will never purchase the "right" to listen to music, and neither should you. There are plenty of good artists out there who actually want you to listen to their music.

http://www.archive.org/details/netlabels

Sorry to be so didactic, I just find the idea of intellectual property to be a complete affront to what it means to be human.

Original post: kyrie_eleison

[QUOTE=Rin Daemoko;347916]theft
- noun

1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.

Yes, it is theft. You can't deny what it is, because the definition fits what is taking place. If you're attempting to justify the theft of music, then don't resort to searching for some wiggle room in what, exactly, constitutes theft. Do something like this:[/QUOTE]

Maybe other countries laws work differently, but in the UK theft and copyright infringement are two separate concepts.
I do not intend to break laws against either, but there are distinctions between the two for a reason.

Original post: corbin_israfael

[QUOTE=Marquise De Sade;347905]Wow... The thread got big.

Anyway I'm actually shocked at some of these responses. Those of you who say that illegal downloads are not theft have to really think before posting. I don't expect to change opinions, and I don't expect people who aren't musicians to understand anyway.

I do believe it is a good promotion tool. Downloading one or two songs won't affect the sales of an album as a whole. Ripping an entire album though is completely different.

Many people are starting to view music more as an extra rather than the main product. Whatever...

My hope is that somehow, someway despite the impossibility everyone who has a library full of music downloaded illegally gets caught, and gets sent to jail.

Don't like what I wrote? Tough.[/QUOTE]I have been to jail for much worse so it wouldn't bother me to return...after a while...it's more like a vacation then anything else...not that I think I will ever be caught for downloading, cracking and hacking various things...music, anime and programs alike...

As long as their is a way to bypass the usual mechanisms, people will continue to defy the rules that are imposed on them.

"The Freedom within the Net is Vast and the Depths of that World are safe from the prying hands of those that would Limit Us."
~The Nameless Ghost of a Reality Hacker

"Puppet Master: It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization.

Major Motoko Kusanagi: If a technological feat is possible, man will do it. Almost as if it's wired into the core of our being.

Bateau: That's all it is. Information. Even a simulated experience or a dream is simultaneous reality and fantasy. Any way you look at it, all the information that a person accumulates in a lifetime is just a drop in the bucket."
~Ghost in the Shell

Original post: Rin Daemoko

[QUOTE=kyrie_eleison;347924]Maybe other countries laws work differently, but in the UK theft and copyright infringement are two separate concepts.
I do not intend to break laws against either, but there are distinctions between the two for a reason.[/QUOTE]
I was not referring to legal definitions of theft, but rather dictionary definitions. It is still theft, even if international law is hesitant about that fact. I'm going by the letter of the word rather than the letter of the law.