[Astleviz]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

My friend wanted to buy AVG, but he could not find the payment in Rs., so he got pirated one. Are the companies considerate enough ?

Your friend is just giving an excuse to justify not paying for AVG. You can easily buy AVG software either through their resellers in India or online via their website that does offer the facility of buying the software using your credit card that has been issued in India. Incase he didn't have a credit card he could have used paypal or asked a friend to buy it for him and repaid him the equivalent amount.

Just because the price is shown in USD doesn't mean you can't buy it online. Your credit card will be debited by 54.99$ and you will have to pay the equivalent amount in INR to your cc company, I don't see what's the problem with that.

[Technocrat]

Originally Posted by khanak

Everyone seems to be ok with downloading an illegal copy of a movie but as soon as someone takes a picture from tbhp and posts it on another website without credit we start getting upset and frustrated.

Wrong example. We also force people to post their source if its from internet & also take strict action in some cases & hence expect others who take stuff from team-bhp to give credits.

I hope this clears

[Astleviz]

Originally Posted by Technocrat

Wrong example. We also force people to post their source if its from internet & also take strict action in some cases & hence expect others who take stuff from team-bhp to give credits.

I hope this clears

I don't think he was commenting on tbhp policy. He was probably defending the IP rights of an individual/company. If I take an article written by a tbhpian for tbhp and put it on my website without taking the author's or tbhp's permission, I am wrong, ain't I? Similarly when we redistribute someone's software or music without taking the author's permission, it's wrong.

[bhp1]

My case goes like this, I download stuff that is available for free, whether movies, music, software, etc, otherwise Im not interested. This implies, I'll avoid if something comes with a tag! So, use of pirated stuff by me is not putting anyone to a loss because I wasn't going to be a customer in the 1st place!

[khanak]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Yes the cheapness is quite evident in the quality of the DVDs available here.
I dont have anything against this. You get what you pay for. But, why dont i have the option of spending a little extra and getting a better quality DVD?

There's always the option to import dvds via play asia and amazon.

[im_srini]

Piracy cannot be justified in any way. It's being practiced en masse only because of the anonymity & the ease with which it can be done. We all expect generous remunerations & a full complement of perks, but every time we use pirated software, we deny the very same to others like us.

Nobody's denying that software is expensive, but it is we who've made it so with our never ending wants & expectations. We toe the if-you-can't-afford-it line for everything else, why can't follow the same for software, music, or movies. Software is just like any other product - takes a lot of time & effort to get right.

Just because somebody else stole something & makes it available for free does not justify using it - you're equally at fault as the perpetrators themselves. Pirated stuff denies people what is rightfully theirs, belittles their time & effort, & is just plain WRONG !

[Mayavi]

Originally Posted by DKG

Purchase of pirated material is an offence. Your circumstances in life have no bearing in justifying your dealing in stolen property.

Today I'd love to drive a brand new 911. I can't afford it. Would I buy one for a tenth the price coz its stolen? No way.

Piracy laws have to be in place to prevent mass uploads/downloads which would affect business/revenue for the movie producers and record companies. If Piracy was not illegal in India, then small recording companies would 'LEGALLY' pirate western music and movies and 'Legally' sell them in the western market for cheaper price. The piracy laws aim to curb these. Individual piracy does not affect business and hence is often ignored by major companies, which btw are the driving force behind piracy laws.

A friend of mine here in US used to download telugu and hindi movies and some old hollywood movies and nothing ever happened. He got bold and downloaded couple of new releases and the very next day he got a call from the Studio lawyers who asked him to lay off or face legal action. Another person who was uploading massive amount of music was arrested and sentenced. Uploading hurts more than downloading and this is what companies target. The law has enough loop holes in it to let individual 'downloaders' off the hook.

The other point is that western music/movies and software are disproportionately priced vis a vis the purchasing power of people. Take the case of medication... essential medicine that costs in the 100's of dollars in US costs 10's of rupees in India. Government ensures that medicine is priced according to what people can pay for it so that pharmaceutical companies do not have to 'pirate'. Take books for example, a book that costs 100 dollars in US costs about 2 dollars in India - It may not be the same quality as the american counterpart, but the content is the same. But Software? MS OS costs 100 dollars in US and 100 dollars in India. MS has monopolized the market and forced PC manufacturers to provide only their latest OS along with computers, why then shouldn't I pirate it? In China they sell cheaper copies of their OS but not in India. Why? Because they know that china will pirate it easily if they hike the price, India has laws that prevent us from pirating. Is it Fair?

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by khanak

There's always the option to import dvds via play asia and amazon.

and pay import duty?

[khanak]

Originally Posted by amitoj

and pay import duty?

I have had dvds shipped to me from amazon and if its just 1 or 2 dvds the custom officers just let it go. Its only when you get bigger packages that they get suspicious.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Astleviz

Your friend is just giving an excuse to justify not paying for AVG. You can easily buy AVG software either through their resellers in India or online via their website that does offer the facility of buying the software using your credit card that has been issued in India. Incase he didn't have a credit card he could have used paypal or asked a friend to buy it for him and repaid him the equivalent amount.

Just because the price is shown in USD doesn't mean you can't buy it online. Your credit card will be debited by 54.99$ and you will have to pay the equivalent amount in INR to your cc company, I don't see what's the problem with that.

Today 1 dollar = 45 rs.
Next day 1 dollar = 48 rs. So now what. The real reason is that why the company could not provide details about $1 = ? rupees at that point of time. And why not add rupees ?
Also you can term it as an excuse, but I got Kespersky for Rs. 1200 once and it was pirated. I bought it from a reseller. I went to many shops and most of them are happy to provide links free of cost. Also what they have is mostly outdated.

I am not talking about a city like Banglore, but a city like Vadodara where no on board graphics on mobo = " premium Server Board ".

I did not like this move. I am still on Free AVG, but could not convience my friend.

[Bluu]

An important aspect that you guys are missing out on is that there are people who work on the films behind-the-scenes and they stand to lose out on their bonuses if a film doesn't do well. I know this because I work with one of the biggest animation studios in the world and it is more applicable here than anywhere else.

Case: A full length feature employs about 100 artists and another 200 support people over a period of about 4 years at a cost of about 150 million USD. The film goes out and makes X amount of money in the box office. If this amount covers the entire expenditure by the studio, everyone gets a bonus. If not, you get zip.

Thus, every time you download a movie and not go watch in the theater/buy the DVD, you're hurting the artists the most. I don't want to come across as a sermonizer either, because I download most movies too and for the same reasons you guys mentioned above. However, after talking to people in my studio (I joined 8 months ago) I have seen their hatred for people who support piracy and deny them their just dues.

From that point of view, I have come to a personal solution: If a film is really good, I'll buy the DVD or watch in the theater even after having downloaded and seen it first. If not, too bad for the people who worked on it.

[aggressive_anush]

Originally Posted by khanak

I have had dvds shipped to me from amazon and if its just 1 or 2 dvds the custom officers just let it go. Its only when you get bigger packages that they get suspicious.

I order very often from amazon and various other websites.
Most of my music is bought online from stores in the US and my movies as well.
Never had to pay import duty, even though my orders have arrived in rather large boxes.

This thread is crazy, with everyone acknowledging that piracy is wrong, but attempting to justify it.

[Nitronium]

No amount of debate can justify illegal downloading. But look at the options we have. Pay double for a CD in a store thanks to import duties, or continue waiting for iTunes to open a store in India.

As an Indian, why must I bear the brunt of extra costs? Why aren't international artiste's CD's produced locally?

[ghostrider]

I'm really glad someone started this thread, because it deals with an issue that I have never been able to rationalize internally.

My office has some serious bandwidth. I can download an mp3 in about 10 seconds, and a one-hour tv show in about 20 mins. (Which is why i have EVERY episode of Top Gear, and about 6000 mp3s.).

Is it wrong? Yes.
Do I know its wrong? Absolutely.

I can try rationalize it by saying that I dont have the option of legally downloading one single song, I have to physically buy the album (thank you for your ridiculous partisan iTunes policies, Apple), or that the latest episodes of Top Gear don't broadcast here.
I can rationalize it buy saying that some of the content that I download is just not locally available where I live.

But it's all BS. At the end of the day, what I'm doing is theft, pure and simple. And I know it.

I wish I was a bigger person, and I guess I'm not.... but I won't try to rationalize or justify my choices.

[SirAlec]

i download hell lot of episode of Disco and NGC, BBC, TLC etc etc.
It may be wrong but there is no easy way of getting it. I could have pay if i have to, I am already doing that through TATA sky.

But what crap they air here in asia. We people are fools, who pay to watch commercial. HBO is marketted in US as commercial free in between. here we have tons of them evert 15 minutes.

And check the NGC with all those crappy shows and repeating them like zillion times.

those people deserve to be ripped.