Personally, I think that a big reason for the prevalence of people illegally downloading music and video is to do with the cost of the items.

DVDs in particular cost virtually nothing to produce because many studios make their money back from cinema tickets (which are also ridiculously expensive at some places). Yes, blockbuster films cost more to make these days, but also they make much more at the box office too.

To then charge up to £20 (sometimes more) for a DVD, taking into account the cost of actual disk and the box means that maybe £19.80 is pure profit to be dished out between the various parties involved in it's production and retail. I know some DVDs are released at much lower prices, but the principle is the same.

With reference to your point 2, personally I would rather own an actual copy of a DVD, because I know it's going to be good quality and have nice packaging. I think many people would feel the same way. If DVDs were all more reasonably priced, piracy would be greatly reduced.

The only way prices are going to be reduced is if costs are reduced. Perhaps if the "stars" were not paid millions of dollars for acting in a film, that could happen. With reference to point 3, do you think that actors should get millions of dollars for what they do? What about artists like Damien Hurst - would you pay millions for his work? Making a profit is one thing, but the figures involved in blockbuster movies are ridiculous.

As for music, CDs cost more to produce because they don't have a theatrical release to pay back the investment made in the recording studio and editing etc, but even so, in general, the profit margins for some of those involved (and not necessarily the artists) are large. The popularity of online purchases shows that if the price is right, people will pay for music. That's certainly how I feel, anyway. The added bonus is that there is no physical product to produce, no disk, no packaging. Costs are lower. If I like an artist and their music is reasonably priced, I buy it, whether that's a CD or a digital download.

In closing, I don't disagree with you; I think piracy is bad, but I think the money grabbing people involved squabbling to keep up their inflated incomes are worse.

Oh, and to answer your original question, yes, I think copying something digitally without permission is stealing.

Buying a CD and copying it onto an MP3 player is not stealing, even though some record companies tried to say it was a few years back.

It's a good point about the cost, but I'd say that anyone spending £20 on a DVD needs their head examined. I have over 500 of them and the most I have ever paid is £15 for a particularly new one. The average I pay is probably £6 or £7. They only stay at that high price for the first few weeks of release and only the true fans pay that because they are the only ones who really NEED to get it that early.

But generally I agree with your point and they should be cheaper.

As for your other points, I also like to have the proper packaging and I also agree that stars are overpaid. Personally, I don't think Tom Cruise deserves $20 million for 6 months work on a film, but the capitalist system says that since he guarantees ticket sales by his mere presence in a film that he is worth it. The system is rotten, unfortunately.

We seem to basically agree. Downloading for free is wrong, but prices should also be lower. Is that a fair summary?

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Tom.

I've never found downloaded films via live streaming any use at all...my DVD player rejects them even though it says it plays all kinds of formats...prefer, like you, to wait until the DVD price drops and then buy it...don't download music at all...but hubby chases his jazz CD's from around the world and gets excellent prices on nearly all of them...only occasionally paying a higher price for a rare recording...any images I put up on my blog, I haven't downloaded illegally, the creators of them permit downloading and I always acknowledge them on my site...that I think is fair. I do feel uncomfortable with getting films and music for free so avoid it...but don't agree with the exorbitant payments made to so many stars today, who are simply not worth it, and that applies even more to the top singers and musicians...when people feel ripped off, they find ways around it, and live streaming of films and downloading music on file sharing sites is a way of doing just that...what's morality today? Something is only judged to be moral if the mass of the people judge it to be so, clearly millions of people nowadays do not believe they're doing anything immoral by this method of acquiring entertainment, so perhaps it isn't.

The law of copyright is pretty clear, and as always been so, even in the days of vinyl, records were always printed with labels stating that is was illegal to copy, or to use for public performance without the necessary licences. But now in the digital age it has become so easy to copy movies, music and pictures it has become prolific. Coping is illegal and it is wrong but it has become almost impossible to police. The music industry is trying allsorts of methods to combat this but it remains largely unsuccessful.

I think I would be most peeved if someone copied one of my pictures and then sold it on.

Did you also know that if you submitted a picture to the BBC, it has the right to use that picture anyway it sees fit, it can sell it on, you won’t receive any money for it and they don’t even have to acknowledge where it came from. So it appears that copyright laws do need reforming.

I did copy you’re your picture but because its from the internet it is 500 x 287 pixels at 96dpi and a file size of 60.91kb, which is pretty useless to anyone who wants to print it.

Rabbit

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