If you read way down to the bottom of a Wall Street Journal interview with Bill Gates that ran yesterday, you’ll discover that the Microsoft executive admitted to watching pirated movies on the Internet. The confession came as he was talking about content he had viewed on YouTube. Here’s part of the exchange:
WSJ: You watch physics lectures and Harlem Globetrotters [on YouTube]?
Gates: This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places.
WSJ: But those were stolen, correct?
Gates: Stolen’s a strong word. It’s copyrighted content that the owner wasn’t paid for. So yes.
The Internet’s biggest social failure has been that it has served as enabling technology for rampant cheating and theft – and the rationalization of it. The Internet makes stealing so easy that most people don’t even think about it.
Bill Gates’ comments would appear to be a case in point. You can hear the wheels turning as Gates thinks through the reality of his actions before finally admitting that he has indeed downloaded and consumed copyrighted content.
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I’ll bet to him there’s not much different than when they steal others’ technologies to create their own microsoft products. He has been doing it for years!
If any of us admitted to piracy we would be contacted by lawyers the next day suing us
He’s talking about watching a video on YouTube not downloading it as the last paragraph says disingenuously. Okay maybe it gets downloaded to his IE cache but as far as I know it’s not illegal to click on a YouTube video and watch it.
I think technically it is being that the RIAA nor the MPAA get a “cut” and you know that unless they get their cut from something its usually “illegal.”
Illegal to post it probably. To go to YouTube and click on it? I don’t think so. Maybe I’m wrong. But my point was the article says he “downloaded and consumed copyrighted content” which just seems like a deliberate mischaracterization.
Hmm Im thinking that yes its probably the posting not the viewing thats illegal.