Since the arrest of Alan Ellis of the late and great OiNK.cd and admins of other respected sites, I've been thinking about it and talking to a lot of people about the topic of piracy and torrent trackers.
What makes downloading a movie for personal use, different from a friend or family member making a copy from a store bought original for you? Same with music. Other than the fact that downloading is easier to track. I know piracy is stealing, because it's intellectual property and can be a federal offense.
There are a lot of musicians out there that say piracy takes away money from their pockets, but don't they get enough from the sale of concert tickets an clothes? Real musicians care more about their art than the money. Some people I know make shirts with a bands logo, an exact copy of a shirt that is sold through a store and doesn't get any trouble from it. Wouldn't that be almost the same as making a copy of a dvd or cd?
I fully agree with what Alan Ellis said during an interview after his arrest. "My site is no different to something like Google. If Google directed someone to a site they can illegally download music they are doing the same as what I have been accused of." Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and many other search engines direct people to ways that they can download content, but it's the admins of torrent trackers who get all the "fun" of the law.
To me, piracy can't be completely stopped. There are so many users on the internet that won't let that happen. Perfect example of that, Oink gets shut down and a new tracker going online the next day. You can shut one of us down but you can't shut all of us down.
These are just some thoughts that a few friends and I share. I would love to hear everyone's opinion on this topic.
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