Re: Piracy & Karma
Namaste Icy
You have brought up very good points. Ketu or not. piracy is piracy and it is wrong, unrighteous.
The problem however is those who allow it by literally handing and dishing out the goods to you - like You Tube which I will address in a minute.
1. I have never priated software. I would not call downloading free and open software (like from FSF) as pirating.
2. As a student I have received distribution of software for learning purpose only, which I fortunately never ended up using anyway. Certainly not commercially.
3. You speak of Adobe, I am a yearly-monthly subscriber to Adobe merely for enabling writable PDF that I have used at very rare occasions - only 2 times in 2 yrs
3. I have downloaded PDFs of dharmic and spiritual content from sites that put them up free. A PDF file is not an e-book.
4. Other than this I do not download anything (why waste space on your computer or phone?) , but I do listen to spiritual bhajan music and watch spiritual & dharmic videos that people have uploaded on You Tube. This I do via my legitimate paid (monthly) subscription to an internet provider company.
Ah, the You Tube syndrome. Why does You Tube exist? You Tube is very different from Facebook I believe, although both could be made for promotional purspose. I have zero interest in Facebook but it seems the world puts up their family photos and connects with friends worldwide daily thru it. free.
What is the difference between pasting a hyperlink from You Tube and embedding the link as a video here? If the latter is piracy, I am sorry, and will convert each of those videos I embedded to a hyperlink.
However, what is the real value difference ? An http link versus embedding ? In either case, people I share it with have to have a legitimate subscription to an Internet Provider Company where they pay for the internet connection. That is how they come to this site and click on that link and watch what a 3rd person uploaded.
So, is it a crime or piracy to type in your Web browser "http://www.youtube.com" ?
It is like a newspaper whose cost is covered by the advertisements. It is a different story that you never buy those silly goods that pop up on the top right corner.
I am a passive user of You Tube. For this you need not have a You Tube account which is also given for free anyway.
Then there are active users of You Tube who use their account to upload bhajans, and old movies.
Old spiritual movies and videos related to Krishna. Like more than 10 years old. Who uploads them? Are they pirates or gopa-gopis? What do they gain in profit?
Just as these videos are amrut for me that keep me hydrated and functioning, I am sure there is commercial movie and entertainment content that is uploaded there (which I am oblivious to) for which others are thristy.
The question is -- is the uploader uploading songs that were meant for a packaged album sale? If yes, then that is piracy, not advertisement unless it is uploaded by the music company as promotion.
In that case, are we sharing in the piracy karma by "watching" ? Perhaps.
When we watch a bhajan on You Tube, we think "KRshNa made the internet for devotees!" Do we really think of the source of that bhajan and whether we are snatching away someone's "roji roti" (main source of income) by doing so by reducing the sale?
I have thought about this, but most of the bhajans I watch or share here are video-taped from sanskAr channel or ammateur video-taped from a bhAgvat kathA or a kirtan satsang somewhere. Non-commercial.
* However, careful! Some of these may well be intended album content for sale as a DVD or CD! If so, the source of the content is not evident. If it is spiritual, however, the producer will receive blessings, grace and mercy if not money.
Like a curious child I discovered You Tube some 7-8 years ago. I have only watched bhajans and occasionally spiritual movies and serials.
My question is: WHY do the movie makers themselves upload these on You Tube if we are not supposed to watch?
Last edited by smaranam; 21 September 2015 at 12:00 PM.
|| Shri KRshNArpaNamastu ||
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