It is illegal and immoral. It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors and developers who are only trying to make a living. If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

  • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    People pirate for different reasons, and the legal definition of it changes nothing really. There’s…

    • People who will absolutely not ever pay for anything
    • People who will pay as long as they get their money’s worth, who may also be open to supporting the creator directly (Patreon, Nebula, Bandcamp, Floatplane, Liberapay etc.)
    • Preserving content in a usable format (e.g. vinyl record plastic breaking down, old 8track players becoming uneconomical to repair and rare to find, playstation magazine CDs that will never be available online despite being susceptible to CD rot)

    I’m in the last two camps personally. I wanted to also share my opinions on the points you mentioned directly…

    It is illegal and immoral

    I think It is illegal and immoral to sell consumers a license to use a product, under the guise of them owning it without explicitly and clearly stating such at the point of purchase, i.e. consumer electronics where you may “own” the device but only have a license to use the operating system, digital game purchases on consoles which can be revoked at any time by Sony/Microsoft or the publisher, services like Amazon Prime Video where a digital box set you purchased (that can only be watched via Amazon’s website) can be deleted by Amazon at any time, leaving you no recourse.

    It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors

    In my opinion, it should not be right for directors at the likes of UMG to profit from music made by artists who have died.

    and developers who are only trying to make a living

    The developers do not make anywhere near as much money as they should for their efforts, and quite frankly they are going to get paid regardless of whether you as an individual decide to purchase or pass on a product.

    If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

    IMO the people in the first camp probably aren’t interested in money if they have chosen not to purchase their media to begin with


    I’m curious as to the reason behind the post though, has someone pirated your content before?

    • Favrion@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Thank you for an actual intellectual rebuttal. This may actually make me reconsider the morality aspect, but it is still outside of my moral bounds and therefore I can never condone it.

      This started because of a post that I saw about a big piracy community being shut down.

    • AbsolutelyNotABot@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      People who will pay as long as they get their money’s worth, who may also be open to supporting the creator directly

      The point is, isn’t the producer right to make the price? You can always not consume what they produce. This category is the most obnoxious; would you ever go to a restaurant and expect to decide the prices?

      It’s the very same argument for producers that willingly release their contently freely and let you support them, eventually. It’s their choice.

      Of the three you quoted preservation is the only one I find acceptable. If the producer no longer care to distribute their product, then they probably don’t care to what it happens to it either.

      I think It is illegal and immoral to sell consumers a license to use a product, under the guise of them owning it

      For me the main difference is that nobody is forcing you to accept the transaction. I could accept this kind of argument for drugs for example, where you either take it or die/have serious repercussions. But pirating a movie you would have very much lived without just because is easy to do so it’s particularly problematic.

      they are going to get paid regardless of whether you as an individual decide to purchase or pass on a product

      Except they aren’t. Or at least, of course they’re payed the same, at the moment. But in our economy prices are signals. If a market will appear smaller then it is because of piracy then after some timesfewer developers will be hired, and each of them will be payed less because you’re “falsifying” the signals. Or even worst, the producers will start to use alternative form of monetization. That’s one of the reason the modern web is based off ads or free-to-play games with microtransanctions are so damn common.

      IMO the people in the first camp probably aren’t interested in money if they have chosen not to purchase their media to begin with

      The people in the first category should also think about the allocation problem. Those products which they like to consume but not pay for, still had a cost of production. The problem is they want ti consume, without supporting production, and that’s not gonna work for a society.