Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing” (08 Dec 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.
If there is no easy way to own what you buy, then piracy becomes a moral obligation to preserve culture for future generations.
You want something, but you don't want to pay the cost (either monetarily or because they have made it too hard) and so you take take it. Fuck these assholes companies who try to milk people for every last penny, so I have no moral qualms with piracy, I do it myself.
But, fuck, can we stop trying to paint it as some noble thing? Effectively zero pirates are doing it to perseve culture, instead it's fulfilling personal desire.
This is chaotic neutral at best, not neutral good.
I think there's an exception to be made in your argument for abandonware. There are classic arcade games that wouldn,'t exist any more but are widely available due to MAME support.
Internet archive, and a chunk of r/datahoarders, is built for that purpose. Just as people have saved old paintings (aka media) it's also good for us to save significant pieces of our current culture. Old VHS tapes and CDs are already disappearing. Sometimes finding something is just a little bit more difficult and it's only going to get worse.
I pirated plenty when I was young and poor, I'm pretty sure that helped form a desire for that sort of stuff which I pay for now.
I bet if I had abstained when I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't have spent the money on all the content I buy now
I believe the bulk of pirates are people who wouldn't have bought the content if they had to pay for it
It doesn't need to have been a noble goal to be a noble result.
For something to be actually and reliable preserved and win against random decay, data loss, disaster, and whatever else will statistically destroy copies, a thing will need to be stored by at least thousands of people. But there is no way to know how many, only that you increase the likelihood of perseveration by storing a copy.
I agree, most people are downloading a thing because they want it. But by keeping that thing, they are also preserving it.
People who are doing porting work to make Windows-entwined Ubisoft games available on Linux are helping to preserve media for the future. People booting up Limewire are doing nothing.
I have a Spotify subscription that I still pay, but built a library full of FLACs on the side specifically because I got fed up with "right holders" taking songs in and out of my playlists and having the right to deny me access forever.
It literally would be cheaper and easier for me to just use Spotify.
Like the latest controversy with the internet archives
If you pay to own a movie then yes, you should be allowed to make copies of it and keep it forever, even if the seller goes bankrupt in future. You are paying to own the movie.
If you subscribe to Netflix you are not paying to own the content, you are paying for access to their content. Therefore you cannot legally download a movie from Netflix and keep a copy forever.
However, if Netflix don't make it possible to buy their unique content for permanent ownership, then piracy is the inevitable result and they should address that.
But let's be honest here, none of you are intending to buy anything.
I spend way more money on streaming services than I ever spent buying DVDs or CDs.
To say that "I don't intend to buy anything" is a BS accusation. You have no clue about another persons motives.
Piracy was never stealing, it was only copyright infringement.
Stealing is a crime that goes back to the 10 commandments, it's old. When you steal something you take it from someone else, depriving them of it.
Copyright infringement is a newish crime where the government has granted a megacorporation a 120 year monopoly on the expression of an idea. If you infringe that copyright, they still have the original, and can keep selling copies of that original to everyone else, but they might miss out on the opportunity to make a sale to you. Obviously, that's very different from stealing something.
The irony is, you pirating today has been shown to influence you buying it later on in a sale. And there’s a good argument to be made about your word of mouth praise helping their sales.
Yup. I'm about to suggest about half a dozen people to watch a movie on Netflix I pirated last night. Leave the World Behind. I highly reccomend you see this to understand my last statement here. I have "suggested" to a few dozen people to watch Hulu for Firefly.
They don't get my money because I don't give a flying fuck to support the extortion of the people this tyrrany that's been running since Crowley and even longer. Looks free but there was never an end to slavery. It just stopped giving a shit about your color. To counter, goes over everyone's head one way or another. Doesn't matter. All life will die on this planet in less than a decade.
Biggest personal examples are Minecraft and FL Studio. I asked my parents to buy Minecraft for me after a week of pirating it, and I bought an FL Studio license when I could afford to, nearly a decade after I first used it. I don't use it much, but it felt right.
yup, pirated jedi: fallen order. liked the game very much, but jedi: survivor wasn't cracked yet. so i bought a key for 30€.
the problem is: it runs like shit, because it's a bad PS5 port and denuvo probably also has an effect on that.
i will never buy from EA again.
As every musician knows, exposure is always better than payment! This is why you shouldn't offer payment to musicians at your wedding, since they're getting great exposure already. /s
Stealing is a crime that goes back to the 10 commandments, it’s old.
https://youtu.be/Qi5GXwY7W_0?t=165
Not exactly. The original translation from Hebrew was closer to “thou shall not kidnap,” arresting control of a person’s personal boundaries and will, not a violation of personal property, which didn't really exist as a concept at the time.
An associate of mine defines stealing as, "taking (either by cloning or removing) something (either digital or physical) of which is not of your original possession"
If anyone has a rebuttal, please help.
Edit: What's with the downvotes? I'm on your side.
It's not really a rebuttal, but by that assessment, a person may not view a webpage, as the browser copies files from a distant server for viewing.
It's because that's not a common definition and it's not even a good one. No normal person would call cloning stealing. Also, this completely misses lending, gifting, downloading a webpage or even renting. All of those would be stealing under this definition.
It's not so much a rebuttal, but ask if they think stealing has any relation to depriving another person of something. Imo, they have a correct, though extremely narrow, definition of stealing that doesn't leave any nuance for comparing different kinds of stealing. Piracy, or as they would say 'stealing digital media' is not a kind of stealing that deprives another person of that thing, so clearly it's somewhat different than stealing money or physical property.
If they aren't willing to entertain that there are different kinds of stealing then they're ignorant of reality and it might not be worth your time to try to change their mind.
Who cares what your associate uses as a definition, stealing / theft has long established definitions. You can just point and laugh and say that your associate doesn't actually understand the words he/she is using.
You could say that you define agreeing as "thinking someone is completely wrong", and that you agree with your associate.
Hi, welcome to the Technology community here on Lemmy! Discourse is not tolerated here, so please just tack on your endorsement of piracy and leave your civility at the door.
The war of semantics is about as intelligent as the tweet that went viral where someone criticized trains requiring tickets. "Why are you charging me to get on? You're going that way anyway."
Forget about features and prices, how about actual content?
2017 I buy this space shooter game called "Destiny 2". It has some problems, but it's decent enough. $60 buy in. The single player story missions took you through four initial planets/moons, the European Dead Zone, Titan, Nessus, and Io, recovering your power and kicking the asses of the space turtles who tried to kill everyone.
Expansion 1, 2, 3 and 4 come out widening the story, adding more locations, Mercury, Mars, The Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City, the Moon... with all the associated story missions, strikes, raids...
And I bought in on those too. Some hundreds of dollars.
Roll forward to 2020, almost 2,000 hours in game. Bungie decides they're done with story missions and removes them from the game. They also decide that the game is "too big" for new players to get into, and seeking a Fortnite, free to play style audience, removes 1/2 of the content from the game.
Existing players like me drop the game because content we paid good money for and hours we spent exploring, collecting and curating gear, just went up in smoke.
New players now have no onboarding point and are incredibly confused because there's no story and no real way to get into the game.
So Bungie managed to completely alienate both their existing user base, and the one they hoped to attract.
Oh, and they have now promised not to do it again, but at the same time, haven't brought the content back either.
It's an online service as a game too, so piracy is not an option. The only way to experience the original content is through YouTube videos.
This is exactly me. Started in d1 beta. I quit cold the day the removed my purchased content
The thing that absolutely kills me is that they did so much RIGHT with the first game, and then it was like they completely forgot how to design a game between 1 and 2.
For example:
In Destiny 1 you picked the story missions off the map and each story mission was marked with a light level so you knew the order to do them in. When you finished all the normal missions, there was a Strike to finish off the planet.
Destiny 2? Yeah, story missions, you can't see them on the map, you have no idea how many there are or if you're the appropriate level, and while there are strikes, you can only access them from a playlist and MAYBE it's the one from the planet you're on, maybe it's not. Maybe you'll get the same strike 4 times in a row because fuck you if there's a specific one you want to play.
Everyone was talking about how good The Pyramidion was, I could never get it to come up. Bungie finally relented after a YEAR(!) and put them on the map, a feature D1 had on DAY 1.
I don't exactly recall when or where I heard/read this quote, but man it is dope
I remember this from the hip hop scene. You know you've fallen off when nobody is sharing/pirating your album
I am the guy! I made the quote! Feels goddamn awesome to see it everywhere now!
Not the one you said, but OP quote.
People are always on here arguing about whether pirating is stealing or not. I do think it’s stealing I just can’t bring myself to give a fuck about these large corporations. They have been stealing from the people for years.
Yeah I really don't care if I'm stealing in this context, I care if I'm stealing from independent content creators. Another thing is I know I can't afford all the music I listen to, but I can afford to go to shows of my favorite artists. Piracy is often completely transparent of any content distribution strategies so I find it a great way to explore music.
I'd probably argue digital piracy isn't theft. It's quality control.
you cant steal something that isnt fucking physically real
am i stealing smells and sounds from my neighbors
no democrat city judge would side with a corpo over a random joe with a bangin lawyer
Netflix and Amazon prime simply won't work with VPNs active, which I use for work and privacy towards my ISP.
I won't compromise my security for their bad services. Living in a non US country, we are also always several years behind on content being offered.
Yeah, nah. The paying customer always pays for the percieved sins of non customers.
Set sail.
With the right VPN they do. Mostly no problems with Proton VPN
Further to that, paying for a product then the seller taking that product away from you without refunding your payment is stealing.
Don't forget adjusting for inflation and real money being given back not some shitty gift card
YES! This IS stealing!
Man does "Google Nest" come to mind. Buys company. Pushes it all over the place. "Eh, I think we're done. Whole ecosystem useless now."
Which is par for the course with Google and not at all a surprise, but sheesh.
That's not a fair example, because 5 Euros has an intrinsic value. The theft here is of intellectual property. Here's an analogy:
Stealing involves depriving the original owner of access or possession of the item. Duplication is not stealing because the item being duplicated is not taken away.
Even if you consider it stealing, then what defense do you have for the people who paid the price that would supposedly allow them to have it permanently and suddenly it still gets taken away? That's not stealing? Even if we accepted that piracy by people who didn't pay is theft, why should people who already paid for the media not be able to access it from somewhere else if their original access is denied?
The action is still harmless. Information should be free.
That second dot should be when you make an identical copy of the book without taking it from the shelf. When I get an unlicensed copy of a book, the original is never out of place, not for a moment
Piracy was huge in Australia back when films were released at staggered times across the world. If it was a winter release in America, it would release six months later in the Australian winter. Try avoiding spoilers online for six months.
Piracy is less now because things are released everywhere at once and we aren't harmed by a late release
Now when companies pull shit like deleting content you think you bought, they encourage people to go around them. Play Station can't be trusted? Well there are piracy channels that cost only a VPN subscription (and only while you're collecting media, not after, while watching and storing it) and people will be pushed to those
Nani?
If what you care about is the abstract idea that the idea of something can be owned, whether the book is in the library or in my pocket doesn't change the fact that the idea of the book is by the author. I can move the book wherever - across even national borders if I want to - and that "intrinsic value" doesn't change.
Only if you subsequently distribute it does that "theft" break the law.
Also money doesn't actually have intrinsic value. It's just fancy paper. Things like food and shelter and clothing, and the tools and materials with which to make them, that's what intrinsic value is.
Put 5 eur in my pocket and i have to dance
The "taking a physical object" analogy doesn't even give us anything useful.
Most stores of perishable goods don't want to hold onto their stock; they want to give it away, ideally in a way that makes them money. In many countries, they will even give away the last excess to homeless people that would not reasonably be able to afford it.
If there's one orange seller in a town that's put effort into a supply train to bring oranges there, but someone has shared a magic spell that lets them xerox oranges off the shelf, then that orange seller never gets paid, and has no livelihood; it doesn't help him that he still has all of the oranges he brought to market, he's not going to eat them all himself.
I expect the morally deprived will answer "Not my problem." Yet, it's going to be an issue for them when they try to run their own business.
If you have sex with, but don't pay a prostitute, are you stealing?
Pirated valheim, played 20 hours, bought the game.
Pirated baldurs gate 3 on early access, bought the game with only act 1, that's how good it is.
Pirated Valhalla, played 5 hours, uninstalled that trash forever.
Started pirating streaming services when they told me that I can't watch shit anymore because streaming service b and c took the shows, and now I have to pay two different streaming services if I want to keep watching.
We pay for three video streaming services plus Spotify plus Kobo's monthly plan for audiobooks plus a monthly Microsoft tax for apps and cloud storage plus regular Steam purchases.
Anyway, I just got back into piracy after a 15-year hiatus due to the enshittification of video streaming. It reminds me of how cable TV got ridiculous back in the 90s and so people figured out how to hack the satellite feeds and make pirated VHS tapes to pass around. As Gaben has said, piracy is always a service problem.
I'm still happy with Spotify and Steam. I'm mostly okay with audiobooks, too. However, Amazon is fucking with that service too by making some books Audible-only. For example, you can get Books 2 and 3 of Tchaikovsky's Children of Time books on various platforms, but not Book 1 because Book 1 is Audible-only! Am I going to reward Audible for that kind of malicious licensing? Haha, no, of course not.
Fuck them, they want our money and our data, while giving shit services.
Just for curiosity, how do you find Kobos selection compared to Libby/Overdrive (or similar), if that’s an option in your area?
I really can’t be happier with either, for audiobooks or ebooks, considering their price (free, through your public library). Drawback being that selections are limited depending on your library (but you can be linked to several, and you may be eligible for several…here in Massachusetts, anybody in the state is eligible for BPL plus the regional networks and colleges (I.e. COFAN). And there are libraries in other states that accept patrons from anywhere. And you can be on multiple waitlists
But, the limiting selection or not being able to get instant access when you want to scratch that itch. I bought my wife and I kindles on Prime day. Those each came with free Kindle Unlimited months. And then there’s Prime Reading as a benefit of being a prime member.
But, while I like ebooks, my wife greatly prefers audiobooks (she’s at 140-something for the year, and rarely uses her kindle because the phone is way more convenient for audiobooks. That’s entirely through Libby, but she’s also counting the Harry Potter books on her friends Audible account that we’ve been listening to with the kids). And the audiobook selection on kindle unlimited is terrible and clunky…they really want to push you to Audible. Though I do really like being able to toggle between reading and book in the same app. But while I do enjoy the occasional sales (been on waitlist for months for “To sleep in a sea of stars”, and then found it on prime sale for 99¢ or something), I can’t justify a “subscription” to “own” an ebook.
Would love a service that had a good selection of ebooks and audiobooks, and compatible with kindle and IOS
There are other book sellers besides amazon
imagine buying audiobooks in the age of Perfect Text to Speech
david johnes is my personal narrator now
I haven’t pirated games in like 18 years
I’ve never paid for movies, showes, or music lawl. I’ll donate or buy merch if I love a musical artist tho
The irony of hiding a pro-piracy post behind this 🤦
Thanks, but I was actually referring to the Tyler James Hill post Cory links at the end..
You're completely right, bluesky is trash
The fact that no product is missing anywhere means it’s not stealing.
If you rent your car from Mercedes and I make a copy of it, the only change is that I’ve not copied your car, I’ve copied Mercedes’.
By this logic no services should be paid. Are you really just hung up on the word "stealing"? It is wrong to go against an agreement or to take the work of others and not pay for it simply because it's easy to do that when the work isn't tangible.
Are people really that fucked up today?
I’m not talking about payment, I’m talking about if it’s stealing or not. It might be copyright infringement depending on local law, but it’s not stealing. Selling a copy might be counterfeiting.
I never made an agreement but to copy things without paying. That agreement was made on my behalf, and if you look into the history of it, it's really fucking shady. Copyright in the US originally lasted 20 years (IIRC), and I would be ok with that, but big copyright holders successfully bribed lawmakers to extend the term until now it's effectively infinite.
So tell me, was it immoral to ignore copyrights after 20 years when that was the law? Did changing the law change what's moral?
I think piracy is copyright infringement. But like who cares if some big corpos get infringed upon by some dudes.
I think a compromise on copyright could be a good middle ground in future. In the same way that I'm happy to wait for a game to go on sale before I buy and play it, I'd be happy to wait until a movie or series enters the public domain so I can consume it without paying. Obviously not for hundreds of years, or 56 years. But if Netflix/HBO etc shows and movies became free to watch after 6-7 years, most piracy traffic could be easily captured by legal platforms that are more convenient and accessible to more viewers. I struggle to see how it would not further relegate piracy to a niche activity done by very few, or be bad for the content producers in any significant way
There is a third party that cares: those of us who pay subscriptions that finance the content that pirates steal. Due in part to rising rates of piracy, our subscription fees go up and/or production budgets go down. In turn, pirates should care, too, because then there's less in quantity and quality to steal.
At least for piracy of streaming content, I believe what should become apparent to everyone is that convenience drove down piracy and greatly increased gains for everyone, and once corporations got greedy and started rolling out new platforms and fragmenting content between them, everything started going down the drain. Even without accounting for piracy, convenience was lost, multiple platforms mean more fees to get the same content that was originally in one platform, so less people willing to pay. Less income per platform drives down investment in content and drives up cancelations of ongoing projects. Less income than was originally observed when a single platform had condensed content means there's greater incentive to drive ads and increases prices on all platforms, thus also potentially driving down users subscribing to said platforms.
None of that factors in piracy. If we do factor in piracy, it's a fact that before fragmentation, subscription rates were high, and after fragmentation, there's a lot more incentive to pirate content. In some instances, platforms shoot themselves in the foot even further by further charging rental fees or purchases of individual content, as well as region blocks and ads.
Piracy surely is a problem all throughout the history of streaming services (something that could still be argued as not actually something to worry about because those pirates were never going to be customers in the first place, and Netflix was still booming enough to incentivize other companies to roll out their own platforms), but it becomes a symptom of another problem later down the line due to lack of convenience. Even so, the current state of streaming platforms wouldn't be much different if piracy wasn't happening. People would simply consume less content due to budget constraints or due to being annoyed at lack of conveniences.
I personally hate depending on a platform that on a whim may decide to remove content I watch. There's specific songs that have disappeared from my Spotify playlists for no good reason (a lot for geoblocking reasons), there's shows that just get removed from Netflix, there's all of game of thrones on prime which I couldn't watch due to geoblocking and ended up having to pirate it even though I was paying for a platform which had the show. It's a lot easier, a lot more convenient, to pirate. The content is yours, instantly, until you decide to delete it from your computer. I didn't mind paying for Netflix for years, and since they incentivized account sharing, I shared the account with 2 other friends and we split the cost. It was super convenient. Now, I have a plex library nearing the 50tb mark with about 40 people watching content on it, everything automated and everyone can request whatever they want, and I simply ask for donations to buy more drives. It's still more expensive than subscription services due to energy costs, donations not being enough for the equipment needed to store content and run services, and costs of internet, static ips, and domain names, but I'm not planning to stop as it's overall more convenient, not just for me, but for 40 other people.
Piracy isn't costing these companies any money if people never intended on giving them money in the first place. This argument almost implies that these companies have an inherent right to our money whether we want to spend it with them or not.
Good topic, good point, terrible writing. I couldn't finish the article with the author's ego and personal bias butting into his great story.
I honestly don't see the same conceit you do, and I expected it before reading. I just read the author as a jaded evangelist.
Oh! Doctor Korkorow? Yeah I feel ya, I couldn't ever really get through his writing either, but I know of him, about him, his opinions, values, dedicated work et c, I have nothing but respect and gratitude for for the dude.
Cory fights for the User!
I don't see an article. And don't you dare contradict me. You'll be missing the point entirely.
I usually just assume that Im probably gonna agree with the thing so dont see the need to put more time into it. If it was something that I felt different about then maybe i might have, but as that is probably not the case there's no need dragging it out for no reason.
Plus, they seem to be on top of the thing, so im gonna make sure to stay out of their way and leave them alone and let them do their jobs.
There's little left to do at this point, and its not really my place to tell them how to do their jobs. Thatd be presumptious, as I might just as well know next to nothing about it compared to them. Why making it even more complicated than it already is? Its their job after all, not ours, and we have to respect that. Lol what would even the job be, that is not exactly information i would carry around so. Besides, i already have one other job anyway, so..
In the end, the important thing is that they are on top of it, and i bet i would feel more or less the same way even if the whole thing was another thing altogether, as long as i feel the same way as they do about it, and that theyre doing something about it instead of giving it time to grow, maybe into something even worse!
But regardless- something is being done, right now, by someone, right there. you dont see that sort of thing around much these days. Also doesn't hurt that they could possibly have more insight into the details of the case than maybe anyone else.
I dont know how you guys feel about it, sometimes I'm not 100% sure myself, but i cant imagine i am going to feel any regret having maybe the best guys possible feeling more or less dead on the same way i do about it. Its practically guaranteed, think about it- if it werent for them, I could have never heard anything about it in the first place...
And as if that wasn't all, here comes the icing on the cake- the same guys who first blew the lid off the whole thing to begin with can likely identify the deeper issues as well, and therefore should know how to change it for the better instead of some shmuck making it worse out lack of insight and proper research.. Winnn!
At this point for all we know, literally any alternative could be a better option. In the end, regardless of every little detail of everything about this, they seem to be here to really do something- anything about it, and I think we might consider ourselves lucky that something is being done here at all.
Normally people pay to see the circus, but you could just sneak in though. It’s not exactly stalling, so what do you call that? The circus is still there, but you didn’t pay for it.
If lots of people start doing that, the circus probably won’t have enough money to keep on performing. Maybe they’ll get rid of the more expensive bits and just keep the cheaper ones in the future.
What would you call it if you buy a piece of art and hang it on your wall, then a couple months later the company that sold you the art comes into your home, takes the art away, and says you don't own it anymore?
If enough companies do that people are going to stop paying for art.
That company is also going to show you the agreement you signed that says they can do that, which is the current situation with digital goods. People are still buying them.
If that was a normal purchase, then that’s clearly theft.
If it was art leasing, there’s probably a long contract with details about a situation like this. No matter what the contract says, the local law might still disagree with that, so it can get complicated. The art company might be violating their own contract, although it is unlikely. The company might be within the rights outlined in the contract, but they might still be breaking the law. You need a lawyer to figure it out.
People are pirating products that can be purchased and owned.
That's a bad analogy because there's finite space for people to watch the circus, meaning that seating for the show they conforms to fire codes, etc. is finite.
It's also a bad analogy because someone who sneaks into a circus trespassing, not stealing.
I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. As you pointed out, people sneaking in are taking space from people who would be willing pay for the service.
If you could somehow sneak into Netflix and take some of their bandwidth or their ability to provide the service to paying customers, then the analogy would work. In reality though, people pirate Netflix shows and movies by torrenting, and that has no impact on Netflix’s bandwidth.
The way I see it, circus and digital videos are a service. You are supposed to pay for both, but you can easily see both of them for free. Comparing these two with stealing just doesn’t work IMO.
You could also compare it with watching a football match from the other side of the fence. Although, in reality, you wouldn’t get a very good view of the game, whereas torrenting movies gives you a great view. Interestingly, the football example doesn’t involve trespassing, but you still get to enjoy a part of the service. All analogies break at some point.
Heads up! Plex media server with the Plex clients on all your devices is such a smooth experience. Highly recommended. And their “Watch together” feature is so nice for people that prefer to stay in bed and spend the winter binge watching next to a warm body.
Use Jellyfin. Stop relying on corps' services.
And they recently added a feature where they tell your friends on the platform what kind of porn you've been watching ✌🏾 I think I'll stick to Jellyfin.
the way i see it, on big budget productions anyone who is relying on their paycheck to survive already got paid for their work, and the ones collecting royalties or sales percentages are rich enough that i couldnt care less. smaller independent studios or individual creators are the ones that i will always support, and in cases like itch.io games that are pwyw i will take the free download and figure out how much i will pay based on how much i like the game.
That's Like saying I don't pay rent to the landlord, the house has already been built.
If a society agrees on this being right, no more houses will be built. And no movies will be made.
If society agrees on something like that then houses will still get built as obviously we've entered the socialist utopia were all waiting for
Capitalist brains stuck on "buh peeps need money or not do nothin"
well, when reduced to those terms they so seem to be similar concepts but needs and luxuries are not exactly equivalent, not to mention the difference between a tangible possession vs an intangible "experience" which have wildly different relationships, transaction types, and even grey area over what is considered piracy.
also, claiming society has agreed on these exchanges being "right" isnt exactly accurate. society certainly tolerates these exchanges, but to what degree has changed significantly in recent years. theres a good debate over intellectual property ownership, and whether the original idea is more valuable than the creation of the work itself. certain aspects of filmmaking, for instance, are recognized as being more significant to the finished work than some other roles (directors, cinematographers, etc) but the fair compensation of other roles which make no less significant contributions to the relevance of any work is a subject on which society cannot make a fair judgment without knowing the details of every relationship.
in the end, i believe piracy is and should be viewed as an organic market force which should prompt corrections in order to minimize, but due to the nature of the transaction it will never go away.
Don't you see the problem in your reasoning? When everyone would just pirate, nobody would be able to get paid. The money that pays the wages for the workers isn't willed into existence, it ultimately comes from the consumer. Bigger studios pay their workers before the project is finished. That money comes from ongoing sales they produced before.
If I’m pirating, it means I either can’t afford the item, it’s too hard to get, or the ways to get it have been made overly complex and frustrating. This means literally no money was ever going in anyone’s pockets to begin with.
How am I preventing a sale that was never going to take place to begin with?
i would see your point if my reasoning were extended beyond where my boundaries are set. my position is based on a lot of factors and isnt a blanket statement that piracy is never immoral or that everyone should pirate all the time regardless of circumstances. if everyone were to pirate, it would certainly change my perspective on it as a broad practice, though not absolutely.
my argument, at least from the perspective of my original comment, was more of a reflection of my feelings that the least deserving are making the most profit off of any given large studio property, and i advocated piracy as a reaction to that given current studio structuring and the state of the entertainment market. and i understand that the profit of previous properties are directly responsible for the amount invested in subsequent works, but there is a certain degree of profitability which makes me feel like any argument about how piracy is hurting business is petty complaining over what is comparitively loose change for those that continue to be paid. i dont quite get a pang of empathy for a few thousand or even tens of thousands of instances of piracy for a property with profits in the hundres of millions considering how many instances were from people priced out anyway.
If this rhetoric was used in a conservative opinion piece instead of a pro piracy opinion piece, I'm pretty sure it would be banned for calling for violence towards specific individuals.
Guillotine preview image and quotes like:
Sure, Zaslav deserves to be staked out over an anthill and slathered in high-fructose corn syrup. But save the next anthill for the Sony exec who shipped a product that would let Zaslav come into your home and rob you. That piece of shit knew what they were doing and they did it anyway. Fuck them. Sideways. With a brick.
Sure, Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive in all of Southern California, the loathsome David Zaslav, who oversaw the merger of Warner with Discovery.
What a trash article and site. How is this permitted.
I’m pretty sure it would be banned for calling for violence towards specific individuals.
People with no attachment to reality might overreact like that, but the rest of us have reading comprehension on our side.
deserves to be staked out over an anthill
"deserves to be": this is a phrase commonly used when people are basically venting, but it almost never suggests that someone should actually do the action. Just search for the phrase "deserves to be string up" and you'll see just how common it is.
As for "over an anthill", when someone describes an outrageous situation, that's yet another clue that they're venting, not proposing an actual action.
Honest people who read the news and opinion pieces should know this, so either you're new to reading, or you're dishonest.
Warner is an unbelievably shitty company run by the single most guillotineable executive
Again, first day reading? Or just dishonest?
Clutch those pearls a little tighter.
Is it too much to ask for civil, level headed, and nuanced discussion or posts?
I mean, the analogy doesn't even work.
Just because I can only rent a car and not buy it, doesn't mean it would be fine to smash the window and steal it instead.
What if the company wasn't trying to get you to rent the car? What if they tried REALLY hard to get you to think you were buying the car, but once you "bought" it, they start crippling things and telling you you can't fix it yourself but instead need to pay exorbitant prices for them to "upgrade" it, since, now that you've "bought" it, you don't technically "own" it
The analogy is that you buy a car (because if it breaks, the car and your entertainment stuff, you will buy a new one to replace it, you will also carry all maintenance) but suddenly you can't drive backwards anymore because the manufacturer decided retroactively that you should pay extra for that (possibly in a subscription).
I would say it is your good right then to make your car drive backwards regardless of what it may take.
What does that even mean?
Ownership is compromised a bundle of rights. If it's your bundle, you can split them up however you want, sell whatever kind of limited or unlimited licenses that can come up with, and this applies to real, personal, and intellectual property.
If it's not theft, why does the greed and unfair practices of the industry matter? Why does there need to be any justification or excuse?
Should definitely have a right to repai; with any other property right you generally have a duty to maintain the access to your interest. I recently unlocked a bunch of premium features in my car. HD radio, comfort window roll down (rolls down 2" with a tap") auto tailgate close (had auto open, but not close, had to hit a button on the lid to close), auto side mirror tilt down in reverse, roll down windows from keyless entry, close tailgate from keyless entry.
If I understand the interface at all, it's pretty openly accessible (if you have the right OBDii port adapter and software, which ironically you need to buy a license for). Code looked fairly straightforward, and by that I mean it looked like other computer code I've seen. Wonder what the original price was for those extras were from the dealership, probably over 10k.
I recently unlocked a bunch of premium features in my car. HD radio, comfort window roll down (rolls down 2" with a tap") auto tailgate close (had auto open, but not close, had to hit a button on the lid to close), auto side mirror tilt down in reverse, roll down windows from keyless entry, close tailgate from keyless entry.
Those "features" are all so pointless they're bordering on absurd.
Thanks for reaffirming my bias that new cars suck.
Thanks for reaffirming my bias that new cars suck.
I am really concerned the next car I need to buy, which is probably 20 years off, is going to be this trend cranked to 11. With software and hardware I can find alternatives and hack my way around the "you paid for it, but we own it and can do whatever we want to it" mentality that tech companies push, but cars seem like a whole different world when it comes to the "you paid for it, but we own it" mentality.
It's shite like that is the reason why I'm planning on staying in the south, so I can just daily my 56 bel air. All it really needs is a AC and I can always just take the heater out and take a normal ac unit apart and put it in. At this rate I'm wondering if that car is going to be more practical than modern cars purely because you don't have to pay to open the window. Sure it may not have the speed as modern car but like even in my z3 I rarely ever go faster than 60mph.
If it’s not theft, why does the greed and unfair practices of the industry matter?
Because it tears at the fabric of Humanity. It's a 'death by a thousand cuts'.
Humanity constantly needing to be on guard and pushing back against being taken advantage of by people who want to charge them multiple times for the same thing in different ways, especially the ones that used to be free, over and over again.
Fighting that is pushing back against unfairness, which is one of the root beliefs of Humanity.
I've seen this quote repeated over and over these past few weeks, while noone brothers to actually explain what it means and why. This article is no different unfortunately.
When you spend money on something, let's say one of those movies from PlayStation, you don't actually own that movie, there is no file given to you that is yours. You are just given access to it. And then, out of no where, they can take that away from you.
When you pirate something, you are just creating a copy of the file, you aren't taking away the original file.
So, the argument here is that morally pirating is okay because no one is losing anything, aside from potential sales for the company I guess. But on the flip side, the company is essentially stealing from you because they took your money, and you aren't allowed access to what you bought.
The most morally just position in this case would be that if you were one of those customers who paid for and then lost access to said movies, and then you pirated them back, you could say that the company had already made their money on you, and you're owed those movies.
In my opinion, I don't think pirating from any million / billion dollar company is bad even if you didn't "own" it originally.
And then, out of no where, they can take that away from you.
Which would also be less bad if they reimbursed you for it in some way. But of course they don't.
What brought this quote into the limelight most recently is Louis Rossmann's coverage of Sony pulling all Discovery channel content not just from their storefront, but also from people's libraries.
Sony essentially stole content from people's libraries that they'd already paid for, not just rented content. Sony argued against this that you only had a licence to the content, you didn't own what you bought, hence the quote's meaning...
If buying isn't owning [because it's all just a copy of their content], then piracy isn't stealing [because it's also just a copy of their content].
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
This seems like it's very specific to that one incident. But people try to use it on all digital products.
When you "buy" digital content, be it music, movies, software or games, you almost never actually buy the product. What you get is a limited license to view or use the product for an undefined amount of time.
Generally, companies reserve the right to, at any moment, restrict how can access the content (e.g. force you to use a specific device and/or program) or remove your ability to use or view the product entirely.
For example, a movie or song you've "bought" might get removed from whatever streaming service you're using. A game or program might stop working due to changes in the DRM system.
Actual example from less than half a year ago: Autodesk disabled people's supposedly perpetual licenses for Autocad and other software, forcing anyone wishing to continue to use their software into a subscription.
Imagine buying a house, only for the seller to show up 10 later and state that they change their might and staring from this point in time the house is no longer yours - despite the fact that you've paid for it in full - and you own them rent, if you want to keep living in it.
The architectural design is Intellectual Property and you've got a time-limited license to use it.
Absolutelly, the land is yours, as are the materials the house is made from, but you'll have to pay extra for continued use of that design once your license expires.
PS: This is how I imagine the argument would be made.
Companies selling software and other digital goods tend to pull back parts of their library for all kinds of reasons, which in turn takes these goods away from paying customers who thought they bought something. Since the company defends itself by saying they never bought those goods outright, customers defend themselves by saying that if paying for it isn't buying, then not paying isn't stealing.
watch the recent Louis Rossmann videos if the first part is what you don't understand
I'm interested in where I can hear this explanation from the Noone Brothers.
People want at the same time that wages are higher but they also do not want to pay, for example, software developers appropriately.
No one wants to be part of the problem, though. So some people justify their copyright infringing by claiming it's some sort of movement for justice and rebellion against corporations.
Have you ever bought something online (movies, games) that you can't save/download and then the company you have the money to removed that? That is stealing from you. Simple.
I don't have a problem with it morally because for things like what happened with Sony where people reasonably believe they bought something and would have access to it forever, but no. So fuck these companies I don't give a shit about them.
But you're absolutely right, and you'll be downvoted for it. I want a luxury good and don't want to pay the price, so I take it. It's the same for virtually every other pirate. It's not justified, it's just morally ambiguous. But people need to convince themselves that they are justified, because they don't want to admit they are commiting a bad act. Literally someone else in this thread is arguing its moral imperative to pirate. Lol
It's just a common tactic to draw attention to the weakness of the company and damage to the company's interests, and it's not because people can't speak out at all. Although it is a bit biased to say this, my disgust towards these big companies will not change.
I look forward to this gem being repeated along with "enshittification" by the dunning krugers at large
I find the reaction to this and hbomberguy’s plagiarism video interesting. Both pirating and plagiarism are forms of infringement of intellectual property rights but one is considered ok and even just while the same voices condemn the other.
What makes ok against a faceless corporation but not ok against an independent creator? Should be wrong in both cases.
Edit: I want to acknowledge that plagiarizing a work and then selling it causes more harm than the simple act of one person pirating a piece a media
While both are infringement on intellectual property, the cardinal difference is that plagiarism is stealing someone else intellectual work and passing it off as your own product. With piracy the pirate doesn't claim they themselves made the game, nor do they resell the game for profit.
Plagiarism involves an extra act of deceit. You're passing off someone else's work as your own. It appears most people find this immoral.
Also, copyright is a monopoly on the publication of the work - piracy as it's commonly used wouldn't even be considered infringement.
Plagiarism is fraud. In many cases the original creator doesn't expect anything financial, just acknowledgement.
I thought this community was for tech related news, not tech related OpEds.
Piracy was never stealing. It’s copyright infringement, but that’s not the same as stealing at all. People saying it’s stealing have always been wrong.
One of the great modern scams, was to convince society that unauthorized copying of data is somehow equivalent to taking away a physical object.
Jesus didn’t ask for permission to copy bread and fish. It’s a clear moral precedent that if you can copy you should.
What would the Jesus do?
Checkmate Atheists!
So you also believe people shouldn't need a ticket for a concert, for example?
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A PURSE
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
-Character from some movie I pirated
In this economy with this level of corporate greed, I will download all the purses
I would infringe all over its copyright tho
You wouldn't steal a baby!
You wouldn’t download fish and bread!
Jesus: hold my wine…..
I bet you aren't a software developer.
I'm a software developer, and I endorse the grandparent comment.
If I made software that people cared enough about to crack and pirate, I'd be happy that it's popular enough for that to happen.
I am a software developer but I've only worked on SaAS and open source projects.
You need to disconnect the badness with the term stealing because you're just wrong. Yeah it's ip infringement. Yes it's illegal. Yes people are impacted. And still... Not stealing.
I have been for over 20 years actually! What do I get for winning the bet?
Edit:
One of our games we actually ended up supporting a form of piracy. A huge amount of our user base ended up using cheat tools to play our game which meant that they could get things that they would normally have to purchase with premium currency. Instead of banning them, we were careful to not break their cheat tools and I even had to debug why their cheat tool stopped working after a release.
You aren't.
BINGPOT.
I am.