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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com
Rentlar @lemmy.ca

Table of various levels of piracy

Here's a table I adapted from Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it. (spreadsheet file)

I tried to condense each rank and make it less about a specific type of media like CD audio or DVD video, along with a table of simplified characteristics of each situation. Of course more levels can be added and there are many situations not covered. This hierarchy is simply the way Louis ordered it from more to less justifiable; he respects people can think about it differently and I do too. He suggests that he doesn't really care about people that pirate without giving a shit about creators, and that he only has a problem with people who aren't honest with themselves about their motivations.

Setting legality aside, what 'level of piracy' is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

83 comments

  • I pirate because I dont earn my wage in dollaridoos, and I believe information and culture is a human right that shoudln't have any impact on me being able to pay my bills.

    If I can, and want, I'll pay. Other than that big corporations that boasts about record sales every year could cry some more about me downloading an .iso for all I care.

  • Here's a rough summary of my philosophy:

    1. Intellectual property as it is typically defined and legally defended is a self-contradictory concept.
    2. IP in an ideal world would protect creators from fraud, (others falsely claiming credit for their work.) And would ensure fair payment distribution to the artist and workers directly involved, (not allow giant multi-billion dollar corpos to control and profit off massive swaths of IP).
    3. You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc.
    4. It is always preferable to pirate vs funding corpos.
    5. Pay for products that respect you, don't pay to be abused or to help abuse others.

    I always try to pay the artist and those actually involved directly.

    As for the sound techs, producers, etc that work on a project, most of them are already receiving a salary/wages for their time. So I disagree with Louis that pirating media generally hurts those folks.

    The artist usually has some conditional debt where the record label requires them to cover some portion of the production costs from sales before they start actually making money. This is frequently a very exploitative arrangement that favors the studio and label. (See points 4 & 5)

    There is no perfect solution. If the artist is small enough, direct sales of merch and media is the best option. This is what I try to do as much as possible.

    I think another point is that art is fundamentally not a commodity, or at least, shouldn't be treated as such. Capitalism corrupts everything it touches, art is no exception. Artists who are truly passionate about their craft will create no matter what, as evidenced by the far larger portion of "starving" artists in the world vs wealthy ones.

    I hate that music, film, paintings, and such are now treated as portfolios of investments by billion dollar corpos and rich fat cats who don't give a shit about the purpose of art and just want to get rich.

    Pay for products and services that respect you. Don't pay to support abusive and exploitative industries if you can avoid it. Support genuine artists. Everything will always be fuzzy, make your best call. Copying is not theft. Corpos are scum.

  • I pirate because I’m broke, and when I’m not broke I pirate because I want to test before buying, or because fuck this company in particular (like with Disco Elysium or anything EA)

    If you’ve got the means to pay for media and the company or person that produced it isn’t awful, you should probably purchase it. But I don’t particularly care either way, do what you want

  • I wish to live in a society in which this question is a moot point. Creators should have the freedom to create without having to worry about the goodwill of their audience, or worse, marketing strategies. Fans should have the freedom to access art without having to worry about the well-being of the creator, or worse, suffering guilt. Anything that is not aimed at creating and maintaining this state of being is inhumane.

  • The whole point of "ethical" piracy is ridiculous. It's old good corporate anti-piracy propaganda but rechewed with some progressive takes. "You wouldn't download an indie car", literally. If you need some justifications and excuses for piracy, than just don't pirate at all. The fact that i'm downloading some game from torrent because i've broken purchased DVD with it never makes me more ethical in any way than some other leecher on the same torrent who's never going to pay for it.

  • The only time I see piracy as unethical is if you would have paid for it otherwise and it's a small creator who will actually notice the lesser revenue. This covers very, VERY few cases because the vast majority of the time if something is good enough to want to pirate it, it's popular enough that more than enough people paid for it to adequately compensate the creator.

    Basically, are you hurting the creator's ability to make a living by pirating it? Giving them less money when they already have more than enough doesn't qualify.

  • Ranks 1 through 9 Is Not Piracy as you've paid for your copy in some manner typically. Rank 11 & 12 is not piracy

    Ranks 10, 13, and 14 are JUSTIFIABLE Piracy. You are free to debate the merits of doing these things or choose not to do them yourself.

    Rank 15 is blatant piracy and is arguably socially unacceptable and fully subject to full penalty of law. Don't be that guy!

    My ethics are simple; You must fulfill one of two conditions:

    1. You pay for a legitimate copy (license) in some format. How much you pay does not matter as long as the transaction is for a permanent (indefinite time length) license and not blatantly a rental. This legitimate copy does not have to be purchased directly from the IP Rights holder or their designated and authorized (re)sellers.
    2. You are 100% unable to obtain a reasonable, purchasable, legal copy in your city of residence through any physical or digital means. Any Digital options available to you must not be reasonably obtainable due to unreasonable cost of buy-in.

    Notably:

    Both rules exclude the ability to "Rent" a piece of content from somewhere, "Borrow" it from a library and "Buy" it online from a digital market place that is exclusive to a piece of technology you do not own and do not plan to, and would not elect to purchase.

    As an example; any and all content that is exclusively available on iTunes or exclusively through using an iDevice is not reasonably obtainable; I do not own an Apple device, I do not wish to buy or own one. I would be within my rights to pirate any content I see as desirable. I despise Apple and refuse to use their products; so I am within my rights to pirate anything that requires you to use an Apple device or account to access the right to purchase it.

    This would not be acceptable if the content were available through Google Play; as I already own an Android Smartphone, and the marketplace is reasonably accessible and reasonably priced in most cases.

    This does not include situations where accessing the ability to purchase content requires a large number of convoluted steps. For example; I shouldn't be required to mail in a letter only to obtain a temporary credential necessary to access the purchasing front-end, submit more personally identifying information than necessary to fill an order in an account creation process, or be required to call a specific phone number to support to ask for an exception to a policy or permission to purchase or retain access to a purchase.

    As a final clarification: Streaming == Renting.

    No 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts' about it. A streaming service is renting access to a specific batch of content for an agreed upon price, paid at a regular interval. This is not a purchase. Instead it is a patronage agreement.

    • Thanks for engaging with the scenarios listed. The point of the exercise is to see where people land personally, there's no one size fits all ethical principles but a lot of overlap. The RIAA, MPA, Irdeto (the group that makes Denuvo) etc. could argue that all of these cases are piracy and unjustifiable. Others see everything as justifiable, just because they're used to it, it's simply not financially accessible to them, they don't care or they just want to subvert the entire concept of capitalist ownership, as evidenced in replies downthread.

      • In most cases either they filled option 1; or having no access to a purchase option they feel is reasonable fills option 2.

        Few people, if any, are truly rank 15. I don't give a damn what the corporate folks say or think. Most of the time they're basically blaming the victims of their own poor decision making anyways.

        I don't agree that Rank 10 should be placed where it is; it is more akin to Rank 15 in similarity...the attitude is more entitled than it should be. Ripping your own copy should be something you are not only allowed; but encouraged to do...as it often nullifies any content protection that might interfere with your right to enjoy the content that you purchased in a way that the rights holder didn't expect. Furthermore it removes all doubt that your digital copy is legitimate, as you derived it from a physical copy that you already own...and have fair use doctrine as well as purchase license and access to.

        Ripping your physical copies is also a further message to creators that DRM and Copy Protection is an unacceptable format.

        As an additional note: I firmly believe that people who sell copies of things they pirated are ranked at 15. They are blatantly ignoring the law for no justifiable reason. You as a customer purchasing from those people are not liable for their law breaking however; similar to how you are not liable for people who are ignoring the law by handing out free pirated copies to everyone. The burden of breaking the law is upon the one committing the crime.

        The reason I advocate ripping your own copies; is simple. If you got caught with a copy you obtained from someone else's physical copy; you could be reasonably ordered by a judge to "Forfeit (delete all copies in your possession of) that illegitimate copy". It's likely to happen when they catch the person making the illegal copies. Ripping your own personal digital copy from your physical copy is provably not piracy. It's a different act altogether; as you are using something you already own within your rights of possession and property. Instead, ripping your own copies is legal preservation.

  • Anything below 12 (i.e., 1-11) is private property extremism.

    Think twice before considering them legitimate stances in political discourse, imo. They are immoral and we see the consequences of it every day.

    Setting legality aside, what ‘level of piracy’ is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

    12-15

    • It's important to be cognizant of various worldwide perspectives, considering the part of your comment on political discourse.

      Some countries don't care that everyone pirates everything and anything.

      Others, like Japan for example, have copyright ingrained both in the laws and in the culture. Some think "right clicking and saving an image on a public website" is theft. It's part of the reason Sony and Nintendo are so anal about copyright and how there are no Manga sharing sites located in Japan.

      So not only the laws different everywhere what is legitimate discourse changes too.

      • You were not asking about what is legally acceptable. Using laws to determine what is normal is the same logic as enlightened centrism. Th Overton Window is not defines legitimacy or morality.

        Looking at the gamut of possible positions, private property is on the right. As it is currently practiced, including intellectual property, it is on the extreme right.

        Discourse normalizing this extreme-right state does not serve the common person. It serves the corporate and private capital interests exclusively by increasing inequality and socioeconomic stratification. This is immoral, which is what you asked about. It is also frequently illegitimate because destroys democracies in favor of capture by special interests, and it is supported through deceptive tactics that keep populations under control.

        You mention Japan, where neoliberal private property laws are more mature than most countries. That's a great example. Their political system is broken more than most, and that's how we get such extreme ideologies put into practice. Many Japanese citizens recognize the illegitimacy of their democracy, and as such voting and organizing rates are extremely low. For many citizens, the greatest political progress they've seen in decades was Abe's assassination. That's exactly what you get when you delegitimize your government through extreme positions pushed by special interests.

83 comments