moral dilemma

[garbsmj]

I have this, um, download thing on my firefox and I noticed a few oddly immoral things that I can do that I feel compelled to tell interested parties. However, I fear I will get in trouble. Here are things I can do.

1. mp3s - on a couple of sites, I can get free mp3s from groups that I know would get all upset if I did. I can do this on two different websites. On one, a few people have wised up, but most are blissfully ignorant. One of these groups has a word in it that one could use to describe the Hindenburg.

2. movies - I found this "free movie" site and searched all over for a catch but there was none. I can download a movie that just came out last week and the first word in the title rhymes with malice. I wouldn't dare, but something is amiss here. I was able to download another recent movie and although not of high quality, it downloaded the whole darn thing (I've since removed it out of guilt and promise never to visit that website again)

Now I live in a state where they prosecute single moms who "share" music to the tune of millions of dollars. And I swear the only reason why I got this download thing was so I could download tatting instructions. Okay, and Utube SSIS tutorials. So as a law-abiding citizen, any suggestions on who to contact? Anonymously?

[HansV]

Apparently, Loungers aren't very good at tackling moral dilemmas...

[JohnH]

So as a law-abiding citizen, any suggestions on who to contact? Anonymously?

Is this really a 'moral dilemma' or just a practical question...Who to contact?

I haven't got a clue who to contact. The people who run the internet perhaps..

[garbsmj]

Okay, as an update....

mp3s - I looked at the "About Us" and their FAQs which stated that the music comes from "DRM free music "uploaded by other users. I guess that's how they cover their tookuses. I question this as some of the music I can download I know was DRM protected at some point.

The movie site is a whole other thing. The one I downloaded was poor quality but free is free. It had bootleg written all over it so I just won't do it again.

There is really no place to report stuff unless I want to waste a lot of my time determine which company is being affected (e.g. Sony Pictures), contacting them, have to explain how I found the site to begin with and really, aren't there people working at these places whose job it is to track these things down?

If I found Garbette doing this, then there'd be something to talk about. I'm can just say I was doing research. Right?

[ChrisGreaves]

The movie site is a whole other thing.

The manager of your local movie theater can give you a phone number to call.
If the manager of your local movie theatre isn't interested, make some other movie theatre your local.
Failing that, your local newspaper is usually desperate for a good story.

Record your findings and at some stage Garbette will be proud of you.

As will we software developers, who hate getting ripped off, too.

[Goshute]

We probably need Jefferson here to guide us, but I would guess that "DRM Free" did/does not mean that whoever is permitting this to be distributed is necessarily authorized to distribute it free. iTunes downloads are now free of any DRM downloads, but their US Terms of Service do not permit a buyer to then give the files away to everyone (music files are for personal use only and the number of devices the work may be copied to and number of copies is limited). Same with all my MP3s ripped from CD - pretty sure I'm breaking copyright if I post them for public access.

(A good friend is in a band, and while he's not rabid about the issue, he points out that illegal copying is money out of his band's pockets. Musicians still have to eat.)

[garbsmj]

As an update, Garbette was home from college and I showed her what I could do with my little program. She already knew about the movie thing and said it was a notorious site that "every teenager knows about." She was intrigued about the music one but showed me another site to use where the company buys the music and puts it out there. I just don't like what she listens to.

Geez, I remember in the olden days running around with bootleg cassette tapes. So much fun!