Wanda Sykes Quotes

I think the purveyors of e-books are only too happy for this atmosphere of 'everything belongs to everybody' to increase because it means they don't have to think so much about the original maker of the thing, or they can get away with paying them less.

People will steal ideas and put them into songs.

People equated burning CDs with theft. That's not what burning CDs is. Theft is about acquiring the music from the Internet.

Today, we see some "file sharing" sites that rely on fans uploading cracked copies of ebooks, and which then make money off those books by charging for downloads (via cash subscriptions or advertising). Again: I take a dim view of this. They're making money off the back of my work without paying me.

I've got a guy in my office that works 24/7 to shut down websites that are putting 'Dead Air' on the net for free - ripping us off. The problem is many people are of the mindset that says, 'If I can watch it for free, I'll watch it.'

So many people are stealing Bikram Yoga. It's like you're practicing medicine, but you're not a doctor.

Online piracy needs to be dealt with itself, because people are just wholesale stealing people's work and not paying for it. It's very hard to figure out a way to fix it.

People think that it's their sovereign right to download music and not have to pay for it.

I think copyright is moral, proper. I think a creator has the right to control the disposition of his or her works - I actually believe that the financial issue is less important than the integrity of the work, the attribution, that kind of stuff.

I have made it a rule for a long time, not to part with the copyright of my drawings, for I have been so copied, my drawings reproduced and sold for advertisements and done in ways I hate.

On scores of sites, users can upload illegal files of my books. As per 1998's toothless Digital Millennium Copyright Act, I bear the burden of discovering and reporting each theft.

Napster was predicating its business model on violation of copyright.

I wasn't political enough to write articles about myself or go to cocktail parties, meaning that not only has my art been pirated and my intellectual property rights stolen, but my work has been misrepresented.

The creative works of the entertainment industry belong to the millions of people who make them and are not for others to steal or unlawfully distribute.

No one likes to work for free. To copy an artist's work and download it free is stealing. It's hard work writing and recording music, and it's morally wrong to steal it.

Publishers see free downloads as threatening the sales of the book.

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things.

I don't think a lot of people realized that piracy is out there, and it's not a Disney-esque or Johnny Depp-esque type of thing.

I do think that copyrights and intellectual property are important - it's important to be able to keep people from making verbatim copies of a particular creation that could somehow hurt the creator.

I don't think it's fair to pinpoint Asia in terms of piracy. It's a worldwide problem. With 'The Expendables 3,' piracy extended everywhere, and over 10 percent of it was in the United States. So I don't want to put my hands over my eyes. It's a shame there is no DVD business in a lot of Asia, certainly China and India.

I recognise that the whole issue of downloading and intellectual property rights is not an easy one, but on the whole, I'm a fan of downloading, both legal and illegal, and the open-source ethos that it harbours for the future is a good one.

People feel entitled to take whatever's online without paying for it.

I wouldn't even say the internet is a gift and a curse for hip-hop. All types of music are bootlegged, including movies which are bootlegged.

I've stolen music before, I don't know anyone who hasn't. But if you're gonna do that, I want you to be able to have an opportunity to know the real lyrics because I really hate it when people put up wrong lyrics online.

The threat [of the U.S. bills SOPA and PIPA] is the inversion of the burden of proof, where we suddenly are all treated like thieves at every moment we're given the freedom to create, to produce or to share.