If you want to delete comments instead of debating them openly, that is your right. It’s your blog, after all.

*****

“I’m trying to understand why I behave in the way I do” is a fallback defense that suggests you are incapable of discerning right from wrong, or lack control over your own actions.

I doubt that this is the case. Having read your blog, you seem to be a very intelligent adult who knows exactly what he is doing. You are probably capable of understanding that your actions have consequences in the real world for real men and women with real children to support. There are over 1 million people in the entertainment business worldwide. Most of them are not rich. Most are working-class technicians: grips, electricians, working actors. Piracy has already impacted their livelihoods, most notably in places where it is rampant, such as Hong Kong. This trend is accelerating all over the world. Ironically, it’s the global movie business — the Brazilian, Chinese, European filmmakers — that are the most vulnerable. They’re the ones that are feeling the pinch first.

I can tell you why you behave the way you do. You steal because you can. You steal because it’s easy. You steal because you’re not brave enough to shoplift a DVD in the store.

Then you rationalize your actions after the fact by telling yourself that it’s only movie executives and stars you’re hurting. You come up with elaborate “Political” arguments for what you;re doing.

This is even sadder than theft. It’s self-deception. If you want to steal, go ahead and steal. But don’t lie to yourself about it.

If you want to delete comments instead of debating them openly, that is your right. It’s your blog, after all.

*****

“I’m trying to understand why I behave in the way I do” is a fallback defense that suggests you are incapable of discerning right from wrong, or lack control over your own actions.

I doubt that this is the case. Having read your blog, you seem to be a very intelligent adult who knows exactly what he is doing. You are probably capable of understanding that your actions have consequences in the real world for real men and women with real children to support. There are over 1 million people in the entertainment business worldwide. Most of them are not rich. Most are working-class technicians: grips, electricians, working actors. Piracy has already impacted their livelihoods, most notably in places where it is rampant, such as Hong Kong. This trend is accelerating all over the world. Ironically, it’s the global movie business — the Brazilian, Chinese, European filmmakers — that are the most vulnerable. They’re the ones that are feeling the pinch first.

I can tell you why you behave the way you do. You steal because you can. You steal because it’s easy. You steal because you’re not brave enough to shoplift a DVD in the store.

Then you rationalize your actions after the fact by telling yourself that it’s only movie executives and stars you’re hurting. You come up with elaborate “Political” arguments for what you;re doing.

This is even sadder than theft. It’s self-deception. If you want to steal, go ahead and steal. But don’t lie to yourself about it.

Something is going on here. You can lable everyone who indulges in a little bit of electronic piracy a thief if you want but it’s not going to get you anywhere in figuring it out.

For the record, I’ve kept that Peekvid thread open because it amuses me to do so. If it starts spilling out of the playpen and into the rest of the site I’ll shut it down and start deleting comments. This isn’t a threat, just housekeeping.

This is an interesting form of self-delusion.

Imagine you have a baker on your corner who happens to be blind. It’s easy to steal bread from him, and you do, every day. You get so used to stealing that it begins to feel routine. You rationalize it by telling yourself that the bread is not as good as it could be, so you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Then, one day, the bread tastes particularly good. You’ve got a few extra bucks in your pocket, so, for the first time, you actually put money in his jar as a special “reward” for the baker. How virtuous you feel! Since stealing has become the norm, not stealing suddenly feels meritorious! Soon you imagine yourself to be a *supporter* of the baker’s best efforts! You’ve been doing him a favor by stealing from him all these years!

No, you haven’t. You were a thief, and now you are a hypocrite, too.

Thans for that, though it’s a bit old and doesn’t really touch on the TV bootlegging. How, for example, can a near perfect rip of Lost make it onto the Torrent sites within a couple of hours of broadcast, every week?

Smigs: Welcome, sir! Thanks for the insight.

ah here we go, this pretty much sums it all up really, tis all about respect.

anyway, a lot of content on bittorrent sites isn’t done by groups at all, but are personal rips – any fool can rip a CD to a good standard using freely available tools like EAC and LAME.

I don’t think the problem is with endlessly shite movies, as you put it – if people watch them, they can’t be that bad, and i’m not going to tell people what to watch – but with things like copy protection (a friend of mine bought a cd t’other day which wouldn’t play in her computer – or her CD player!) and DVD region codes (price-fixing at its finest -plus if you live in australia you’ve no choice but to pirate some movies which never get released there). the mediocrity is their inability to recognise that these things are useles and annoying to the customers who they think they can treat as ‘drooling cattle’..