less-than-legal stuff: crappy special gift or as good as anything else?

[Lord Evermore]

I still stand by my opinion that it's lame, except as just an off-hand gift. Buying something illegal that the recipient could just as easily have pirated themselves, just doesn't seem "thoughtful" at all (and the fact that it was bought instead of personally downloaded and burned doesn't mitigate the lameness). Even making something like your own mix of "special songs" and giving it to someone, unless they live with you, that's illegal too unless they own albums with all those songs, but it's at least a little more thoughtful. I still wouldn't consider it an appropriate "special occasion" gift, though. One may not be able to get the exact item by just walking into Best Buy, but that doesn't turn an illegal crappy copy into a gift just as good.

 

[ElFenix]

lame, though the cable company is trying to sell broadband this way... which is funny since they're owned by time warner, which is a big media distributor... ah well..

 

[fatbaby]

it doesn't matter about the gift itself, what matters is the thought behind it...

If the reciever has his eye on some obscure foreign film that can only be had from a film museum somewhere in france that marks up the prices 26000% and you had a burned copy of it, why not?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Nah, they're trying to sell broadband by telling you you can download music and movies, but they mean by using the not-yet-existant viable sites that the media companies say they'll provide from which to cheaply purchase or stream high-quality content. While at the same time, telling Congress they can't put high quality content online due to piraters, and telling the FCC that the lack of high quality content is what's making broadband not sell as well. So basically AOL Time Warner can do nothing, and blame everybody else for it.

 

[Lord Evermore]

fatbaby: it's a matter of using something ILLEGAL as a "sentimental and thoughtful gift". I won't debate the morality of pirating media in the first place, whether one thinks it's okay or not, it's illegal. Since it is illegal, it can be looked at, in an extreme analogy, as being like stealing someone's watch on the street and giving that to your grandfather for his 80th birthday. Is that "sentimental"? Or is that downright lame? Having paid for illegal items knowing they were illegal doesn't make it all okay.

If it was just a random "I found a way to get this item that my friend has been trying to get for a long time, I'm going to surprise him with it" gift, then it wouldn't be so lame. He's going to pirate it anyway, it'll make him happy, whatever, though I wouldn't consider such a thing a "gift" as such. (And of course, the watch analogy fails when it comes to random unspecial gift, unless you have a friend who's likely to mug someone on the street when he needs a new watch.)

 

[Maleficus]

I would give it to the person in addition to whatever i would buy them, i would not give it to them by itself tho