$3 billion? For the love of god, who do they think they're kidding with these absurd projections? Extrapolate these pie-in-the-sky figures and the music industry alone should be more lucrative than international banking.

I pirate the books and media I want, much of the time, whatever format it may be, on whatever subject. I also enjoy owning legal copies of many of those books, DVDs, CDs, etc. Many of them I just delete after viewing/hearing/using them once and am glad I didn't waste money that I can't afford to spend.

For instance, I pay to go see my favorite band (and also purchase special releases of videos and shows they release, as well as collectibles), plus they allow tapers to record the show and post it on the internet for free. These downloads are completely legal, meant to be shared, and specifically for free (or possibly donations if one feels the urge to help with those expenses, although never required).

However, many of the band's crew also record the soundboard recordings, and release those at a reasonable fee, through the bands management/producing companies. The band makes money from ticket sales, official merchandise sales, sales on soundboard releases, etc. yet they allow fans to make home made crafts with their band logos, such as t-shirts, jewelry, posters, etc. Many venues don't allow you to bring your own alcohol or products inside, but many of the venues allow tailgating type parties where people vend anything from band related merchandise, food and beverages, to party favors, etc, as well.

The taper's recordings are not to be sold, but traded and/or collected, but the whole parking lot/festival scene is run by people who support the band traveling from show to show peddling their wares to make it in to the next show, and the band supports the community by not being greedy and allowing others' own artistic forms of expression to merge together with theirs into a beautiful symbiosis for personal expression, profit, and a family of great people to hang out with and help. This is the epitome of a Grateful Dead show/tour, musically, politically, spiritually..

We usually like to share and be generous to each other, but there are always a few bad apples.

The fans make the band, and the band makes the fans. I don't see why this can't be the way it is for more forms of media/art/etc.. I would imagine most people hear some music/concept/idea they like for free, then they get into it and go buy what they can find, get involved, and help support the originator/creator more than just buying a random book/CD/DVD at the local media shop..

I agree entirely. While i do feel some resentment towards the fact certain producers will not get full financial rewards from work done, i feel like this is irrelevant.

Capitalist/consumerist ways are slowly becoming dated. Information clearly has a habit of becoming freely available...
and for the good of the species i feel like full wide open access to all information is the only path.

This discussion reminds me of the futile attempts by the music industry to keep their domination of financial rewards made from other peoples music. People will continue to make wonderful music all over the world, with or without a music "industry". I hope the same can be said about zines, novels, reference texts and everything in between.

this is kind of a stupid thread.

I have bought books on entheogens that I would never have bought if I did not read a chapter on pdf or something. I cant read a whole book on my computer anyway. Anything I want to read in entirety I would buy. I can just go to the store, read a few pages of a book and decide to NOT buy it..is that theft? In my opinion things like pdf files, and even things like bit torrent etc actaully draw more attention to the auther or whatever and people who never knew or cared have the chance to be exposed to something they just might pay for.

Anyway, yeah this thread is just going on and on and it is stupid. We all know the OP is perfect and only comes here to point out everyone elses flaws in comparison to how perfect and just and moral they are. Get a life.

This thread is now about awesome things you've discovered of late via peer-to-peer, to which you would otherwise have lived your whole life in ignorance. To wit:

The songs of Hazel Dickens.

The documentary on Native American oppression, Incident At Oglala.

An enhanced understanding of human anatomy via Corrective Exercise: A Practical Approach.

The works of writer Dan Simmons, specifically Victorian-era antarctic horror The Terror.

Thank you, dark underbelly of the internet.

The fact that artists and the originators of others such as scientific and engineering ideas are lucky to end up with one penny on the dollar from the companies who have distribution rights of such ideas. I will be glad to see this superstructure come tumbling down in the recording and publishing businesses. I have a huge music collection (800 CD and yes some vinyl too) where I have paid for 99% of what I have. I can say the statistic is more like 85% for most of what I have in e-books and hard copy books as well. But I will be DAMNED if I am going to pay for anything sight unseen or not listened to before I pay for it going forward.

I would prefer Elru's proposed system of directly paying the authors and the artists for their works instead of making publishing corporation's executive officers and share holders rich for just handling the transactions....

With regards to the underground music industry, it has always been the case that there is no real way for the majority of producers/artists to live off their music. Artists who have been able to make their living off their music are and always have been the exception rather than the rule. I know many incredible musicians and artists, even some who are internationally known, who are in poverty. This is reality. A damn shame, but reality. This is not a change that has taken place since online piracy grew to the extent that it is now.

I will add to this that many people, small record shops in particular have been annihilated by the current state of the music industry, however I posit that this would have happened with or without piracy and that it is largely due to the move to digital, modern buying habits (online, rather than high street) and the fracturing of modern musical scenes.

The only answer is to accept and work within the reality you are in. Play live, make library music, teach people how to play instruments and how to produce music, work for labels and the like. People, as said before, will continue to create works whatever happens because they love it, just as they have done for the millennia that went before the music industry we have today existed.

Pirates ten times more likely to purchase music, that is, the actual music, not merch or concert tickets. There's another study that you can find, as I don't feel like doing more of your basic research, that finds pirates in general are the exact group who spends more on media in *all* classes.

As for book publishers going out of business, they're not exactly the most trustworthy source of information regarding why they're going out of business. Perhaps you could compare their practices to Baen publishing, who have seen business rise, even in the midst of a global economic depression.

No, see, here I'm saying you can't know whether or not someone who pirates can or can't afford something (or if they would buy it if pirate channels did not exist). You make the claim that people can afford what they pirate, which you have no way of knowing.

These are two entirely different claims, thus, your question is in fact illogical.

I'm done explaining my points in this thread as you refuse to actually address any of the legitimate points multiple people have made against your claims.


I think Laban's got the right idea with the new direction of this thread

I was going to post on exactly how extreme my (legally bought) media collection is, but it all started to look a bit insane when committed to text. Needless to say I have an unusually large collection of music and books and not much space left for anything now.

Ironic that not one person has agreed that stealing is wrong in this thread.

Instead most of you changed it into a discussion about music piracy.

I have seen piracy hurt my favorite psychedelic authors and it makes me sad.

Well...the thread isn't on theft, it's on piracy

And, as we all know...

Theft does not entail removal of the original, that is a straw man that many people see right through. Theft of service is a good example of that, the service does not disappear, but compensation is withheld.

Basically you are saying that you don't think that the authors you read are worth paying for their hard work.
That Shulgins work, among others, is simply not worth compensating him for making.

I am saying that I think the authors I read are worth paying for the service they have rendered to me in writing the book.

No matter how many times you post that picture is does not ever mean that piracy is not theft.

When small authors put their own money into their work piracy robs them of their income.
Do you really think that piracy has helped Shulgins book sales?

I kind of think you don't know him or anyone close to him.

Not even close to anything I said.





If you can use a work for accepted purposes (scholarship etc.) without violating any of the 4 statutes you presented earlier, "piracy" is legal.

If you can't afford a book, piracy is not immoral, imo.

My knowing Shulgin or other publishers has nothing to do with it...but again you seem to insinuate having a very close relationship with this issue despite all claims to the contrary.

Here's a new pic for ya

To copy and distribute something that normally costs money does deprive a person of monetary property. It is also totally dishonest.

To copy and distribute something is not legal even for research. You can't legally pirate a work for research.

If you don't respect the authors you want to read enough to pay what they ask, then that illustrates your ethics.

It is also biting the hand that feed you information by harming their ability to publish in the future, it does not result in increased income for them, it just harms them by stealing their service.

If you knew more about how piracy affects these authors you might realize that it can and does hurt people, because it is theft.
It has to do with honor as well, but that is not to be expected among thieves.

Basically it comes down to the golden rule, something I believe in and clearly something you do not care for.
I am not going to try to convince you to respect and honor the authors you read, or to treat their work with the respect you want your own work to be treated with, but if someone was stealing your service and costing you your job you might understand what this is all about.

This has never been a debate about piracy, this is about being honest enough to admit that in many cases it can and does hurt people, people who have a lot more to contribute to the psychedelic cause than you or I, people like Shulgin. If you know the reality of the situation then the negative impact of this behavior is undeniable.

Please stop changing the subject...no one is talking about redistributing the works they are downloading. This is the second time I've pointed this out to you.

Don't think people don't see how you tweak the terms of your argument to try and squirm out of every possible flaw in your logic.

Perhaps go back and re-read what people are saying, take some time to consider the nuances of the positions presented...right now that critical analysis is entirely absent from your posts.

If you could buy that car, and make copies for free, and give it away for free. That is not 'stealing'. You are not 'stealing' anything. You are being passed information.

What if someone copied a whole book, and gave it to you for free, would that be stealing too, because it's not their words?

Come on man, pirating drug culture books is destroying us? The trade offs for spreading free information around, and a few authors who probably just wanted to do it because they love it and want to spread the knowledge, are just to great. The authors are known for their contributions. What more can they ask for?

You say that 'costing someone their job is human evolution is absurd'... ok what about technology? Technology costs thousands of people work every year. And this is human evolution, to get technology to work for us, and get out of this age of 'work to live'.

You said yourself that you asked the author personally and they gave you a free copy, do you think it really matters much to them if others share it? Pirating is just a new way of lending stuff. As times change so does technology, and if the authors really wanted to make money they would sell it on kindle or something -.-

Snozz, you have had some really good points in regard to the library, while I do not feel it is the same as pirating you have pointed out that it is comparable in several ways.

In and of this it seems that the library is an excellent alternative to piracy, for as you point out it allows someone who cannot afford a book to have access to it.

One of the best ways to facilitate this is to submit titles for your local or collegiate libraries to purchase, this has worked quite well for me in the past. Another excellent method is to purchase a book and donate it to a library, I have seen many ethnobotanical books and alkaloid chemistry books end up in libraries.

Since libraries pay for their copies and there are numerous libraries then they do not have the potential to damage the income of authors that piracy does.

You are right that a blanket statement of piracy hurting all authors is likely incorrect. But likewise the assertion that piracy benefits all authors is also likely incorrect. Isn't it wise to consider that in some cases piracy is negatively affecting some authors? If someone you knew or respected was an example of a case like this I would like to think that you would be more sensitive to the issue.

When it involves someone who has gone out of their way to share information that puts them at risk for persecution it seems hard to not think of it as a betrayal of trust, for me at least. I admit that I am sensitive regarding this topic because of what I have seen it do in some few specific cases, perhaps this does skew my perspective. I am sorry to seem so ignorant and hostile to you, it is not my intention.

I see what you are saying, but there is another perspective to consider.
Say that you make cars and have a design that is yours and you make your living making and selling these cars. Then imagine that someone comes along and copies one of your cars and then gives them away for free and you are out of a job.
By stealing your design in terms of production they have deprived you of your job, basically they have stolen your job.

On the street when someone comes along and ruins another persons business in a similar manner people tend to take it personally and often quite violently. In commerce this type of behavior has been the subject of a suit. In terms most legal actions regarding civil matters what has to be shown is that a person was deprived of value be it in terms of property having value or in regards to wage or income.

As you mention technology and job loss and evolution in reference to my earlier statement:
Technology as an evolutionary pressure is a really good topic, it is beyond the scope of this thread but it is debatable that technology is in our best interest in terms of both survival and historical evidence, it is conceivably beneficial but in practical terms has yet to be in many ways. For that reason I do not feel that people losing work or pragmatic trade options is in the best interest of our evolution, whatever form it takes. If technology was ecologically compatible and sustainable then it might be in our best evolutionary interest, but evolution is not a constant improvement, it is adaptation and does not really mean that things get better. To evolve does not mean to improve, so I guess I am wrong, costing people their jobs can be part of human evolution after all.

The author who gave me free copies of his work had to pay out of pocket for the printing of those copies. One of his recent books sold well for about half a month and then suddenly sales stopped when it appeared on downloading sites all over. He is all about sharing information, but is in debt for his books and appears to be harmed by pirating. Instead of continuing to write he has to find other means of income, he has a number of manuscripts and projects that this community would greatly appreciate and benefit from but is not able to pursue publishing them. This same author has put books online and published into the public domain and is all about making information available, but is negatively affected by piracy of his work. If just a tiny portion of the people who download books like his went on to purchase them then there would not be a problem at all.

If you download a book and then send the author a check and a box of cookies then you are totally awesome.

You rock, but also seem to be of a rare type.
I wish there were more people like you in every community.