No, it’s not like stealing a physical item from a store.
“stealing” a digital copy of a movie, tv show or a game is like if the item you’re stealing from a store is infinitely copyable. Like the replicator from star trek…or that one episode of Sabrina the teenage witch with that box that can make a perfect copy of everything you put inside of it.
Of course I personally would never pirate anything, no matter how much streaming services increase their prices or how much they crack down on VPN usage to get around geo-restrictions, PIRACY IS BAD AND ONLY BAD PEOPLE DO IT.
I’ve never pirated anything in my whole life!
There are people who understand what I’m saying…but apparently most people don’t get it.
Of course that means I still would never pirate anything. That would be horrible to “steal” a copy of a movie or a TV show
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I would like to suggest an alternate perspective, that digital media be beholden to protocols not platforms.
In other words lets focus on the drivers of competition…most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.
most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.
The assholes know this too. We’re about due for another round of deshitifcation, just long enough to restore complacency.
No, it’s not like stealing a physical item from a store.
I’d argue stealing physical items from massive corporations is also morally acceptable. If you shoplift from a small mom & pop store, you’re actively hurting your community, however, if you shoplift from Wal-Mart, you’re actively hurting an entity which is hurting your community, therefore helping your community.
Staling sustinence from societal cancer is practically an immune response.
Shoplifting from Walmart hurts my knees because the boss won’t believe that our onhand numbers are wrong and makes me check high and low before I can nil pick it 🥲
This isn’t an ethical argument against shoplifting btw, this is an ethical argument in favor of nuking Walmart
If you shoplift from a small mom & pop store, you’re actively hurting your community
Unless you’re part of a riot, then it’s okay.
Terrible bait. I’m disappointed.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If buying isn’t owning, then pirating can’t be stealing.
Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.
Having power neurologically suppresses empathy. Therefor resources controlled by the powerful will on average be used more harmfully. Taking resources from the powerful reduces total harm done.
You will use a loaf of bread less harmfully than Walmart will use the profit from it.
Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.
not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.
Of course, theft wouldn’t happen nearly as much if no one was desperate the survive, but even then there’d still be entitled assholes that want even more.
not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.
That’s not really harm in the way that hunger or poverty or lobbying against workers protections is harm. That’s more like a temporary inconvenience that doesn’t stop anyone getting what they need, right?
perhaps the only ethical consumption under capitalism is that which denies capitalists their profit.
I mean…if the movie is good you should support it. Vote with your wallet.
If the movie is good, you should support it by making a donation to the strike fund of the unions that represent the artists that actually create the movies. You can support artists without supporting the amoral companies that produce these works.
I mean…if the movie is good you should support it
What is ‘it’? The movie is a published work, it can’t be financially supported. Who is being supported with the money you pay?
Vote with your wallet.
Unfortunately, consumer boycott (and conversely, support) usually isn’t an effective strategy at this scale you’re talking about. Unless you and all your friends are voting with a few thousand dollars, it’s hardly going to make a dent in the numbers.
So long as people are starving under the system while others have yachts, the system is unethical, and thus following its rules – insofar as they perpetuate this inequity – is unethical.
and steal other things as well
The only person stealing is the one who circumvents the DRM and shares it. It’s not stealing to see or hear something.
When you download music online for free and prevent the company from making a profit off of a creative work by the artist, that they prevented from making a profit & royalties, is that wrong? Doubtful. You can always send the artist money directly if you want to support them.
the DMCA doesn’t protect the artists or any of the singers, it protects the shitty record labels and the money that the executives at those companies get
“stealing” a digital copy of a movie, tv show or a game is like if the item you’re stealing from a store is infinitely copyable.
What if it’s a physical Blu-ray? Those are infinitely copyable.
physical media is a physical it’s a finite item. digital media can be copied infinitely
the reason why physical media is getting harder and harder to find is because the copyright nazis can’t control it. If they want to memory-hole a scene, they can’t change the content of that blu-ray disc with the original version on it
Can you further expand on why you think it’s bad? I’m generally curious.
PIRACY IS WRONG AND IMMORAL! YOU SHOULD NEVER PIRATE ANYTHING! FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS PIRATE THINGS!
Given that no one makes a fuss about it when corporations do the stealing, I think so.
Worrying about “property” of any parasite is something that I never bother to do.
Giving money to your event is idiotic tho.
There is a class war out there and normies are too busy funding their oppressors
Giving money to your enemy is idiotic tho. There is a class war out there and normies are too busy funding their oppressors
Absolutely. At the end of the day, most of the moral ideals being thrown around are, at the end of the day, nice ideas.
Giant corporations exist to get more money and, history shows, media companies will happily brainwash us and buy oppressive politicians just to push their profits up. Furthermore, they serve as a megaphone for the ideas of the owner class, who are historically the core force behind fascism when society is in crisis.
Giving them your resources is fucking suicidal.
Rage bait. Yawn.
My moral is always on match with that of the company so in most cases everything is acceptable.
I decided on my moral beliefs on piracy back during the days of Kazaa and Limewire. Back then the RIAA was shaking down teenagers, threatening them with statutory liabilities of a quarter million dollars per song, simply because the law allowed it. They would threaten low-income families with lawsuits in the millions and get them to settle for a still-ridiculous settlement of few thousand dollars. Even the settlements were far in excess of the full retail cost of purchasing these songs.
I decided then that if the law allows this kind of thing, then copyright law as it exists now is fundamentally immoral. And immoral laws are not worthy of respect.
I mostly take a pragmatic approach to copyright. Whether I pay for something is a combination of the quality of the work, the reputation of the company selling it, the customer service provided by the legitimate product, the probability of getting caught for violating copyright law, etc. An indie publisher that treats their people well? I’ll buy it. Mass market schlock made by criminally underpaid artists for rent-seeking megacorps? I’ll pirate that all day, every day.
But morality literally plays no part in it. I learned long ago that copyright law exists outside of the realm of morality. The decision to buy or pirate is an entirely practical one; morality simply isn’t a factor.
