Would You Squeal?

[Gary Crumrine]

Interesting responses, aren't they? We seem to break down into the moralists vs. the relativelists, the fearful vs. bold. I'm a fearful moralist. I think stealing is wrong, regardless of the "justification". It violates the ethics of capitalism, which has brought more good to more people than any other economic system in history. I'm fearful due not to the orcs, who can be dealt with, but due to their attorneys, who can not.

 

[killertomata]

One's response to seeing someone stealing isn't necessarily relative to how you yourself feel about it. I am honest and believe in living with integrity; I tell cashiers when I'm undercharged, I give back change if it was too much, because I can only live in the way I deem correct for myself. I'm so honest it has baffled people. And I also believe in letting people hang themselves from their own ropes most of the time.

Believing stealing is wrong as an absolute still doesn't mean someone is going to report a thief they see at any given moment, I think it all depends on circumstances.

 

[Bebop]

I leave things to Karma. I wouldn't report to authorities about the small-time crime person. Not for 500 bucks...but I may say something to the person themselves and leave it at that.

Karma is something that I believe in less and less as I grow older and older . When I was 25 I thought everyone would get what is coming, but add another 25 years of experience and I was taught different. Karma is a way of alleviating revengeful feelings and it's difficult to rain on someone's Karma parade. It makes for a more peaceful acceptance of wrong.

If you wouldn't report to the authorities about a small time crime for 500 bucks, would you do it for more? How much more? Is the low reward really the reason you wouldn't report it?

 

[fatwoul]

I would not squeal. In fact, to be honest, I would probably give them the camera. I would consider that to be settling a score I owe cinema in general.

I have become very irritated at the locked adverts at the start of legally obtained, legitimate copies of DVDs, telling me how wrong DVD piracy is. I know it's wrong. That's why I bought the DVD from a shop!

I understand putting those adverts on the beginning of rental DVDs. Fine. I have no problem with that at all. But when I have stumped up £15 of my hard-earned to be force-fed an advert about piracy, all I can do is think about the people out there who bought pirate copies. They probably have those adverts cut out. Thos people are already watching their movie, whilst I am sitting there like a sucker, quietly getting angry about the situation.

These days, I have email addresses from various DVD production companies saved to my email address book, and when an offending DVD is playing, I spend the 30 seconds of the advert in question writing a new email telling them how silly those adverts are, and how they are preaching to the choir.

They waste 30 seconds of my life, I waste a few seconds of theirs. Fair is fair. :rage:

OK, rant over. I'm back in my happy place now.

 

[Mike Hammer]

I had very little problem with throwing bootleggers/illegal copiers under the bus until the Millennium Digital Rights Act passed. This piece of bought-and-paid-for legislation, more or less written by the MPAA and the RIAA and steamrolled through congress with entertainment industry dollars, makes it a crime-indeed, a felony that is on your record for life, for you to make a copy of YOUR own personally owned movies and music CD's for your own use. I have made many copies of movies for parents who do not want something like an out of print Disney movie to be wrecked by the kids. So they give them a copy, and put the original away for safekeeping. And who wants to carry $500 worth of CD's in their car to be stolen? Yet that makes them felons, just like dope dealers, rapists, or murderers.
Anybody remember the commercial that used to run in front of movies, showing some electrician or carpenter talking about how piracy hurts them? I first saw it in front of Cold Mountain, said film being made in.....Romania. Yeah, that makes sense. Outside of the cast and some others, just about everybody who worked on that movie was from Romania. Who is hurting the production and craft guys?
The worst part is the self righteous chest pounding that RIAA and MPAA does about how they are interested in protecting "the artists' intellectual property". Horse puckey. They are worried about lining their greedy little pockets, and for the most part could give two hoots for the artists.
The really funny part about the MPAA offering $500 to the theater staff for turning in bootleggers is.....it's usually theater staff doing the recording. The best bootlegs come from right inside the projection booth, with a soundtrack recorded right in front the speakers and dubbed on later.

 

[fatwoul]

OK Mike your post just made me even angrier. I can't believe things are so OTT with regard to copyright protection of moving images. I had no idea things had got so unreasonable, particularly since I have to fight for my own copyright as a stills photographer to be adequately respected and understood.

...The best bootlegs come from right inside the projection booth, with a soundtrack recorded right in front the speakers and dubbed on later.

Very good point. Less angular distortion of the image too, Plus you're higher up, deliberately so that the audience members getting up or arriving late don't get their heads in the way of the projected image, so you also get an uninterrupted view.

I'm not looking for tips or anything, just thinking about it technically for a moment. lol

 

[Glimmung]

So because bootleggers feel the price of a CD or digital download is too expensive, we should give them a pass on it? OK...I'd like a Lexus but they're awfully pricey for my budget, so if I go steal one (which is in fact exactly what the bootleggers & pirates are doing, only on a smaller ticket item), you'll speak on my behalf at the trial?

Certainly it's justice for Jammie Thomas. She knew the legal ramifications going in and chose to ignore it, and it wasn't that she was giving a few tapes to a few friends. Just because "bootleggers are an underground part of the digital trend" doesn't mean it's legal nor that should it be condoned.

The 5 largest record companies in the USA were found GUILTY of CD price fixing ( a MUCH more sinister and heinous crime than file sharing). Their punishment? They eventually had to offer discount coupons for CDs. THAT'S RIGHT. Their punishment was for consumers to hand over even MORE money to them. I'm sorry, but after a decade or more of blatantly ripping us off, I will not blame anyone that seeks to merit out their own "settlement".

 

[desi_de_lu_lu]

Its this exact thinking that just perpetuates the problem,....one person CAN and DOES make a difference!! If no one steps up to the plate then we loose the game,....people need to get more of a backbone!!

If you dont stand for something, you'll fall for anything!

I agree with you, I am grateful for having a man in my life who thinks along these lines. I can't imagine being in a situation where my life was in danger or threatened and the general public just shifted their gaze and passed me by in the street.

Gone are the days of chivalry I guess...

As far as squealing on bootleggers? I can't imagine that if you discreetly told the theater manager that any one of the perps would even know it was you to retaliate.

Where is Superman when we need him?

 

[LizzieMaine]

The really funny part about the MPAA offering $500 to the theater staff for turning in bootleggers is.....it's usually theater staff doing the recording. The best bootlegs come from right inside the projection booth, with a soundtrack recorded right in front the speakers and dubbed on later.

Not here they don't -- in fact, that's the first thing I tell new hires: they set foot in the door with any kind of recording gizmo on them, they are *fired,* no questions asked, no appeal possible. And any projectionist caught doing something like that would end up blacklisted for life.

It's all well and good to blame the MPAA, and to be honest, I could care less about them. It's the independent theatre operators who have my sympathy, and whose interests I'm in favor of protecting. People who steal the food off our tables for the sake of proving some kind of morally-dubious point should get the book thrown at them, and I'd personally love to be the one to throw it.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

They waste 30 seconds of my life, I waste a few seconds of theirs. Fair is fair. :rage:

We're in agreement on the annoyance factor of the "commercials" you're forced to sit through on most DVD's, but I've got a remedy. Seldom, if ever, do I run in, toss a DVD into the player and sit down, anxiously awaiting the movie to begin. I usually know ahead of time I'm going to watch whatever it is. So I pop the disc into the player, turn on the TV (but at least with it muted) or wait to do that when I'm actually ready to sit down and watch, and go get my beverage and munchies for consumption during the show, get myself seated or reclined, and THEN hit the selection for Play Movie after all the other folderol is over and done with.

 

[fatwoul]

We're in agreement on the annoyance factor of the "commercials" you're forced to sit through on most DVD's, but I've got a remedy. Seldom, if ever, do I run in, toss a DVD into the player and sit down, anxiously awaiting the movie to begin. I usually know ahead of time I'm going to watch whatever it is. So I pop the disc into the player, turn on the TV (but at least with it muted) or wait to do that when I'm actually ready to sit down and watch, and go get my beverage and munchies for consumption during the show, get myself seated or reclined, and THEN hit the selection for Play Movie after all the other folderol is over and done with.

You're right. There are constructive things I could fill that time with, whilst the advert plays. However, I shouldn't have to find things to do. When I go down to the kitchen to make said beverage, the kettle doesn't spend 30 seconds telling me how important it is for me to use a real kettle rather than one made from whicker. When I go to the cupboard for said munchies, neither the cupboard nor the munchies spend 30 seconds telling me how bad it would be for me to be eating fake munchies. As I go back upstairs to watch the film, the stairs do not tell me how terrible it would be if I had used fake stairs.

Of course, I'm joking, but I object not only to the adverts, but to what they represent. If the people who make DVDs think it is reasonable behaviour, how long will it be before other manufacturers think along the same offensive lines? TV screens are appearing on more and more things. In Japan there are even LCD screens on packets of breakfast cereal. It worries me that by allowing a company to dictate to me like this, I am paving the way for future where LCD cereal boxes won't actually let you have any cereal until you've watched the commercial about the cereal on the front of the box. Every day. Every time you want more cereal.

I'm kidding again, but only just. That's what frightens me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Thank you, Scotrace. I was just about to ask that the gun stuff be quelled -- it's really not relevant to the issue I was trying to explore with the thread.

 

[scotrace]

You are welcome, LizzieMaine. Let's keep to the question at hand? Would you tell on someone who was obviously pirating copyrighted material?

 

[fatwoul]

No, I wouldn't squeal, because I'm apathetic about anything that doesn't directly affect me, and because I wouldn't want to be thought of as a grass amongst the people I worked with. Happiness at work is worth more to me than a measly £250. Every time a coworker looked at me with disdain, or a room went silent when I walked in, I would always think to myself about how that was that my £250 had bought.

I know that to squeal would be the upright, decent, law-abiding thing to do, and I know I shouldn't care what coworkers think if I was to do the right thing. However, I also know I'd be miserable in a job where nobody felt they could talk to me for some schoolyard fear of me "telling tales".

I'd rather be popular than honest. Interestingly, I am neither.

 

[Miss 1929]

Your dad rocked!

I learned that from my dearly departed father who after being in this country for one week confronted a man beating his wife and my father who spoke no english at the time and was 5'7" and 145 lbs., held the guy on the ground until police arrived because as he said when my mother asked him if he had gone crazy since arriving in the U.S., "Are we supposed to wait for someone else to do the right thing?" That stuck with me.

I love that. He was a true gentleman.

I feel a little different about squealing on one of my S.F. neighbors that smokes marihuana day and night. I'm not quite sure why I wouldn't squeal on him. Maybe it has to do with my personal feelings about marihuana. I suppose that makes a difference when it comes to squealing. Maybe it's because he is a sharp dresser and wears hats. [huh]

Besides, how would you know if maybe he has a medical marijuana card, in which case he is not breaking the law?

 

[cowboy76]

Also, can someone who needs to carry a gun to feel safe really say much about other people being afraid? I am glad I don't feel compelled to pack heat.

Also, please keep in mind that having a gun does not render you bullet proof, nor does having a black belt in whatever mean you won't get punched. Point being, even if you have a gun, if the other guy gets his out first and shoots first, well, that's not so good.

First, I do not own a gun nor carry one due to fear, or to 'feel safe" as you are suggesting of me. I did not at anytime say that I "need" to carry a gun, or that I always carry a gun. It is my option, and sometimes I do, sometimes I dont. Never out of fear.

Second, I grew up as a hunter and fisherman,...my great grandfather started me on early when I was young along with my father. I grew up with handguns, rifles, shotguns, etc. I was also taught a clear picture of right and wrong, and RESPECT for the weapons we owned, collected and used. These two things are things that most of America and the world nowadays do NOT teach,...they teach fear and ignorance, Not Respect for the weapon and morals. Without either one, you should think twice before owning a gun.

So, having said that, you are NOT in the position to try and lecture, or instruct me to keep anything in mind or to remember that owning a gun does not make one bulletproof. I've been around them, from childhood, you sir, have not.

As far as who draws first,..that is irrelavant,....the fact and point is for those with common sense, is that having an even playing field and evening up the odds when being armed plays a solid role in your chances for survival if, God forbid, you would have to use a gun in self defense! You're not going to punch a bullet, or deflect it with a knife or a can of mace. At least you have a chance when the tools are the same!

 

[cowboy76]

Thank you, Scotrace. I was just about to ask that the gun stuff be quelled -- it's really not relevant to the issue I was trying to explore with the thread.

My apologies Lizzie. I had seen a common thread between the two as others had mentioned certain circumstances warranting defending yourself.

My response, was relavant to the idea that was given to "squealing" on a person shoplifting and the possiblility of that person pulling a gun.

 

[PA Dancer]

Karma is something that I believe in less and less as I grow older and older . When I was 25 I thought everyone would get what is coming, but add another 25 years of experience and I was taught different. Karma is a way of alleviating revengeful feelings and it's difficult to rain on someone's Karma parade. It makes for a more peaceful acceptance of wrong.

If you wouldn't report to the authorities about a small time crime for 500 bucks, would you do it for more? How much more? Is the low reward really the reason you wouldn't report it?

I guess if authorities would offer $10,000 dollar rewards, more and more people would be civilian police and watching everyone everywhere looking for them to do something wrong.

The small-time-crime people would them be too parinoid to do anything wrong because they know everyone is out trying to make 10 grand.

Overall, it's not up to me to decide what is right or wrong for another person.
I can only offer advice to that person.
People have reasons for things they do. right or wrong.

But getting back on bootlegging a movie.
I'm assuming that someone is going into the theather, bringing in some sort of camcorder to tape the movie?

Whoever this person sells this video to will hopefully see that it is not an original and report the crime themselves.

 

[Bebop]

Overall, it's not up to me to decide what is right or wrong for another person.
I can only offer advice to that person.
People have reasons for things they do. right or wrong.

That is exactly what most criminals say when confronted.

Can you imagine a society where we let people do whatever they want because they believe they have a good reason to do it? :eusa_doh:

The law is all we have. Everything else is just personal belief. If it's not up to you to decide what is right or wrong for another, it is also not up to you to decide to ignore the law.


Squealing is not deciding what is right or wrong for another person. After all identity theft or sticking up liquor stores may be the right thing to some people. Squealing is doing the right thing about a definite wrong.

 

[Bebop]

Besides, how would you know if maybe he has a medical marijuana card, in which case he is not breaking the law?

That is a good point :eusa_clap and the fact that the possibility exists, makes a difference.