A lot of people used to pirate food, but as our housing was pushed from houses to apartments, they took that freedom from us. If you still live in a house, you can still pirate a lot of food in your yard.
Disclosure: I have been sailing the seas for years, but...
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied. The intent of that data is to be copied for profit. Now that the data has been copied against the creator/owners will, they do not receive the profit from that copy.
Yes yes the argument is made that the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways, but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data. At the very least it gives people an option not to pay for the data, which is not what the creator wanted in creating it. They are entitled to fair compensation to their work.
It is true that pirating is not directly theft, but it does definitely take away from the creator's/distributor's profit.
Devil's Advocate: Many pirates would have not paid for access to that media so to say it takes away from the creators profit isn't exactly true since one act of piracy does not equal one lost sale.
Devil's Advocate Part II: There is s significant amount of research that supports the notion that pirates actually spend more money on media than the average person.
I personally am an example of part II. I pirate a lot of music but I refuse to use Spotify because of how little it pays artists and I have also spent significant amounts of money buying music from artists I enjoy via Bandcamp or buying from the artist directly because I know they get a bigger cut of the profits that way.
Ditto on Spotify. I have big love for piracy of FLAC for my personal music server, but I also have a decent rack filled with physical offerings from my favorite bands.
My Bandcamp collection is also getting up there, since a few of my favs say they are treated well there, and it's FLAC friendly as well.
Physical media or merch directly from the band is absolutely the way to go every time if possible.
I'm having trouble finding a link to substantiate it, but I remember in the early 2000's a group of artists having to sue their record labels because of the lawsuits on file-sharing users. The record labels said they were doing it for the artists, but the artists had to sue the record labels to even ever see a penny from the fruits of those lawsuits. The record labels were just pocketing the money for themselves while saying it was "for the artists."
Anyway, long story short is that kind of behavior from the recording industry made me want to give money directly to the artists and cut out these selfish middlemen who did nothing but claimed all the profits.
Because people don't want to pay for shit content. Let's take pirating out of the equation. If I read a book I borrowed and I really like it, I would buy. If the content was trash then I wouldn't. Same goes if I watch a movie, listen to an album, or eat a microwavable burrito at a friend's or family member's house.
Before piracy there were demos and shareware, which let you see if your machine could handle the game or content and give you a vertical slice, and let you show it to friends for word of mouth advertising.
Then, Steam put a two hour refund window with no questions asked, which helped a lot of "this crashes on start, I can't open this at all on a RTX 4090/high end PC, 15 FPS in the fog, etc".
Developers learned from that and they began padding/gating content behind two hours of gameplay, so you wouldn't know until 3-4 hours in that the game was grindy dogshit (SCUM, Ark, Empyrion, and countless other Early Access and sometimes full release titles like NMS on launch day for example).
So the correct thing to do, and it's what I do: Pirate the game, make sure it runs/works and is fun and there's no "gotcha" traps or hidden DLCs or other predatory mechanics involved, and THEN pay for the full title on Steam+DLCs and just continue the save.
My Steam Account has actually already been flagged over a dozen times for this because my primary savegames are like Razor1911.sav, and so far it's still in good status because I am actually spending a couple thousand/year on content.
I guess herein lies the potential fallacy of my statement. Decreased desire is a Subjective observation.
One cannot draw a direct correlation, but there is data to conclude that not having a piracy option will boost sales of data initially, at least when it comes to games. (Hence why publishers continue to use Denuvo)
Counterpoint: When Louis CK (prior to being outed as a sex pest) released one of his comedy specials on his website DRM-free for $5 he became a millionaire almost overnight.
It also jives with early Steam Sales when Valve would cut titles like ~~Left 4 Dead~~ Counter Strike down to 90% off, and they would sell so many digital copies that they were actually making more money off the lower price.
Now we did something where we decided to look at price elasticity. Without making announcements, we varied the price of one of our products. We have Steam so we can watch user behavior in real time. That gives us a useful tool for making experiments which you can’t really do through a lot of other distribution mechanisms. What we saw was that pricing was perfectly elastic. In other words, our gross revenue would remain constant. We thought, hooray, we understand this really well. There’s no way to use price to increase or decrease the size of your business.
But then we did this different experiment where we did a sale. The sale is a highly promoted event that has ancillary media like comic books and movies associated with it. We do a 75 percent price reduction, our Counter-Strike experience tells us that our gross revenue would remain constant. Instead what we saw was our gross revenue increased by a factor of 40. Not 40 percent, but a factor of 40. Which is completely not predicted by our previous experience with silent price variation. …
Then we decided that all we were really doing was time-shifting revenue. We were moving sales forward from the future. Then when we analyzed that we saw two things that were very surprising. Promotions on the digital channel increased sales at retail at the same time, and increased sales after the sale was finished, which falsified the temporal shifting and channel cannibalization arguments. Essentially, your audience, the people who bought the game, were more effective than traditional promotional tools. So we tried a third-party product to see if we had some artificial home-field advantage. We saw the same pricing phenomenon. Twenty-five percent, 50 percent and 75 percent very reliably generate different increases in gross revenue.
Cool argument, except a huge quantity of pirated works aren't "owned" by the creator or even a group that funded it, but instead by parasitic companies that abuse capitalistic tools to actually steal value from those creators.
I have thousands of purchased games. 3 categories here:
1: obtained as part of a pack (humble gog etc)
2: purchased AFTER trying out via pirate copy to know if it is my kind of thing
3: picked up early access due to demo or general interest from being a known smaller dev/studio (hare brained for example)
With less and less access to shareware and viable demos, piracy is often the only conduit to prevent me getting ripped off of $80 for something that looks like a shiny sports car but end up being another "buy $800 in dlc for the full story!" Ford pinto.
Additionally, I now flat refuse to fund the likes of Denuvo, and wish that piracy actively hurt the bottom line of companies deploying that kind of anti-user shit.
Places that buy other companies to dismantle or lay off large chunks of staff and take over IP with minimal or absent quality to show from it. Just maximize that investor dollar.
Microsoft, Disney etc.
The harm performed far outweighs any investment from a "toward the artists" I see come back.
Eh, to an extent. If they are original funders, I agree. But when you have people or groups buying rights to music/movies/tv/etc to claim royalties in perpetuity, especially after the original creatives die, those people can fall into a pit of uncapped rusty rebar.
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
It does though, since no harm is being done.
The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied. The intent of that data is to be copied for profit. Now that the data has been copied against the creator/owners will, they do not receive the profit from that copy.
They also don't receive profit from not copying, unless there's a purchase made. By your logic, watching something on Netflix or listening to it on the radio is actively harmful to creators, which I think most people can admit is absurd.
but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data.
You made this assertion, but don't really back it up. If you were correct here, being able to copy cassette tapes or burn cds would have killed the music industry decades ago. Piracy is the original grassroots promotional method.
At the very least it gives people an option not to pay for the data, which is not what the creator wanted in creating it.
That's a separate argument and doesn't relate at all to the supposed financial harm.
They are entitled to fair compensation to their work.
That's a loaded assertion. If I sing a song right now, what am I entitled to be paid for it? And you're ignoring that most of the "work" of being a musician (in most genres at least) is playing live performances, the experience of which cannot be pirated.
It is true that pirating is not directly theft, but it does definitely take away from the creator's/distributor's profit.
I don't think it's definite at all. Most of what musicians make these days is from merch and ticket sales, which piracy contributes to by bringing in new fans.
You have some very entitled opinions, if everyone thought like you no one would create digital media. You're free to not watch movies or listen to music but it's pretty asinine to take things without compensating the creator and claim no wrongdoing
Edit: I assumed it would be pretty obvious I was talking about digital media that needed a budget but apparently not. Of course anyone can make digital media for free in their spare time but you'd need some kind of income to support that hobby. FOSS is the same but you need some income to survive.
People do it for clout or for love. Sure, the Hollywood blockbusters would cease being made but that might be an overall social good IMO.
I agree with Brian Eno who describes how, if we had a universal basic income, we would see more artists creating content just for the hell of it. He also explains how there is no "genius", there is instead what he calls "scenius" where it is an entire artistic scene which breaks new ground but only one or two happen to go viral.
Here's the podcast [http://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-briefing/817/] where he
is interviewed by Georgina Godwin for a special edition of The Briefing. He
starts talking about basic income at around 18m30s into it.
I assumed it would be pretty obvious I was talking about digital media that needed a budget. Of course anyone can make digital media for free in their spare time but you'd need some kind of income to support that hobby. With UBI that would change
Nah, the entitled opinions are coming from the "pay me, but you can't own media" folks.
if everyone thought like you no one would create digital media
If everyone thought like me, people could buy digital media in convenient formats at reasonable prices, and buying media would probably still be a lot more popular. My Bandcamp library is in the tens of thousands and growing. I support digital purchasing more than most, when it's done well.
but it's pretty asinine to take things without compensating the creator and claim no wrongdoing
As the whole crux of the thread makes clear, no taking is involved. You might want to go re-read the OP again, speaking of asinine.
Piracy is somewhat similar to vigilantism to me. My ability to consider it a negative is directly related to how fair I consider the legitimate methods available to be.
If similar efforts were focused on consumer protection laws as we do IP protection, I don't think pirates would have much leg to stand on, and they'd be seen in more of a negative light.
But since consumers are regularly fucked by corporations, all I see is two sides both doing bad shit and I'm not feeling all that charitable for the faceless megacorp. I also dislike pirates who pirate from small time creators. But that's about as far as I can care given the state of things.
We should be focusing on stronger consumer rights to truly fix the problem for all sides.
There is absolutely a connection between how shitty corporations are treating their customers with how likely those customers are likely to stop paying and start sailing.
Netflix in its prime was the GOAT, showing a very significant decrease in piracy. We're only seeing a rise now because of the proliferation of streaming companies. No one wants to pay for 4+ streaming services.
There's another comment further up about a statistic showing that people who pirate content are more likely to spend more money on content as well compared to people who don't pirate content. It seems that there's a correlation between people who pirate things and people who care about the ethical treatment of creators. Stuff like people who pirate music from Spotify and then spend money to buy the music from the band on Bandcamp.
In that context, I have an even harder time caring about people pirating from the megacorps when they're supporting creators at the same time. That's closing in on Robin Hood style activities at that point.
I only started pirating movies/tv because the streaming companies were selling my info and watch history. I've mentioned it on Lemmy before, but I pay for all the subscriptions and don't use any of them, I just pirate stuff and watch through Jellyfin. (Used to use Plex, but they started selling your info/watch history as well, so they get the axe) It's not a money thing for me, it's a lack of consumer respect, and I can't stand it. If I pay for a product, don't try to squeeze every last drop of profit you can off of me by selling my activity. It's why I use a paid Android TV launcher that doesn't have ads on the homepage, and I don't let it connect to the internet. It's why I buy all my music and stream it on Symfonium, another paid app, instead of a Spotify subscription. I'm just tired of having to set up all these self-hosted services just to get big corporations off my back.
Investors became investors by paying creators for their work in advance without knowing what they'd produce. It's incredibly short-sighted to say "hey, the creator already got their paycheck so my purchase makes no difference now".
Maybe it would help to think of it as paying the creator for their next game.
Thats a pretty story, but completely unconnected to reality. If it worked like that, id be okay with it.
Also, when you pay for stuff, abd like it, and want to revisit it later you usually cant. And that always makes me feel like a fool. I don't like feeling like a fool. I don't like paying to feel likeva fool. I don't like expecting a thing i like to be there then it not being there; that ruins my day. And the sheer fucking regularity of this makes. Me think it's going to keep happening.
When you steal it, they cabt steal it from you, 'cuz they don't know you have it.
And they invested knowing that piracy was a thing and figured that into their calculations regard to the risk vs potential return. If they didn't get that right and end up with a loss, well, that's capitalism for you.
Yeah but me streaming doesnt get them more paid, and it's a fucking pittance anyway. Ive kniwn people who couldn't really afford to live, working on projects that made ridiculous profits. Sorry, union too weak, cannot use to bludgeon me into the absolute shit show tgat is paying for media.
the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways, but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire
Also, the person deciding whether or not they "would have" paid for it, has a strong incentive to kid themselves that they wouldn't. Imagine if cinemas worked that way, and you could just walk in and announce that you weren't going to buy a ticket anyway and since there's a seat over there still empty it's not going to cost them anything for you to sit in it. They'd go out of business by the end of the week.
Also also, either the thing you're copying has value that arose from the effort of creating it, or it doesn't. If it's of value, then it's reasonable to expect payment for it. It's it's not of value, then you shouldn't miss not having it.
Podcasters and medium to small youtubers work like that (bigger also get some money from ads, but for medium to small, Patreon is the main source of revenue). You can get their shit for free, but they would like you to give them some money after if you can. The scale is a bit different, but the scheme works.
It works for anything small scale enough for its creators to be able to do is as a side hustle that may or may not pay off. Try funding a triple-A game that way and see how far you get.
Ironically, it's actually doesn't work on a small scale. It works on a medium scale, big enough to have a stable audience, not big enough to get lucrative deals from brands. It might not work to support a lifestyle of AAA company CEO, and it might not work at pushing out hundreds of unimaginative boring microtransaction machines, but I would say it's just a bonus
Triple A games are often over funded and under deliver in experience in my recent experience. A little less funding might tighten up some of waste and deliver better games.
Also also, either the thing you're copying has value that arose from the effort of creating it, or it doesn't. If it's of value, then it's reasonable to expect payment for it. It's it's not of value, then you shouldn't miss not having it.
Doesn't this contradict the whole rest of the argument? It either has value or it doesn't. It being available for free somewhere doesn't change the value. If it's not of value, then they shouldn't miss you having it.
Not really, because obviously nobody who sincerely believed it was of no value would spend their time downloading it. The contradiction is in simultaneously claiming that something is of no value and therefore shouldn’t be paid for, whilst still expending effort to illegally copy it, this proving that it did have value. The only way to square it would be to claim that you’re the one who created new value by the act of downloading it, which is blatantly nonsense.
it’s not blatant nonsense. jesus fucking christ you people lack a brain.
the art/media/fucking whatever intellectual “property” = no intrinsic value, worthless itself
the labor to create the art = valuable
the labor to distribute the art, be it through “legitimate” or pirated means = valuable
it’s that simple. there needn’t even be any long moral/ethical arguments. piracy is righteous because information deserves to be free. there is no way to enforce ownership of information without wanton violence from the state.
Again, the point is you were saying (or agreeing) that copies being available for free decrease the value. You then later say it has intrinsic value.
I'm not arguing that they don't have intrinsic value. I'm arguing that you undermined the point of value decreasing if it exists for free by admitting this. It doesn't. It's worth something no matter what someone else paid, and no matter what you paid.
A game decreasing in price over time isn't doing so because it's worth less (usually, with the exception of online games). They're decreasing the price to capture customers who don't agree with the original valuation. It doesn't change value to the consumer based on the price changing. The object is not suddenly less valuable when there's a sale and more valuable again after. It has a degree of "goodness" no matter what. The price doesn't effect this.
Adding on to say: no. It doesn't cost the creator anything when a pirated copy is made. They potentially miss a sale, but if their item wasn't in a store where someone may have made a purchase you wouldn't call that actively harmful, right?
In addition, most media the creators don't actually make money from the profit. Most of the time they're paid a salary, maybe with a bonus if it does particularly well. The company that owns the product takes the profit (or loss), not the actual creators.
Also, a lot of media isn't even controlled by the same people as when it was made. For example, buying the Dune books doesn't give money to Frank Herbert. It goes to his estate.
Im poor as fuck. So the option isnt 'buy/pirate' its 'pirate or get nothing'. Fuck you if you think i should live without art.
The artists generally do not recieve profit when a copy is streamed/sold. It simply is not done; their unions are too weak. This is blatant corporate propaganda.
The entire mechanism to do that is fucked anyway, even if it were hooked up to something. I'm sorry, but i wouldnt deal with that shit show for free. Even new releases or classics have to be hunted down like cult films, and then even if i buy them, i lose them at some arbitrary later date. Music was the last thing i tried to pay on, and i just could not keep a cohesive collection together-at this point, if it's not on bandcamp, i assume the artist doesn't want money. And even bandcamp has disappeared tracks i paid for, reducing me to local backups. So fuck em.
I'm sorry. I really would love to support art and artists, but it simply isn't possible to do that systemically within capitalism. There is no clear systemic option. Just ways to lick corporate boot and waste your fucking time.
although
I bet i do actually pay artists-cast crew and musicians at least-more than you do. When i dine out, rare as that is, in los angeles, i tip ~30% in cash. So i am actually supporting the arts, while you, my boot licking friend, are not. Youre supporting the corporate ghouls who feast upon them.
it does definitely take away from the creator’s/distributor’s profit.
Oh no! Not the distributor's profit!! Oh holy Supply Side Jesus, I pray in your name- protect the profits of the Capitalists. Take the money I worked hard for and give it to the do-nothing rich, they clearly deserve it more than me. Amen
It's not my fault if somebody makes content at a loss and isn't able to recuperate their losses. It happens all the time, sucks for them. I mean that earnestly by the way, though it sounds callous -- it really does suck for them, and I feel bad for artists who can't turn a profit.
However, I just don't agree with you that "objective harm" is done when one pirates media. If this were true, you must admit that it's equally objectively harmful to the IP holder for one to not consume media at all. I just don't see how you can square that.
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
"Financial harm" is a loaded term. People expected to make money and then didn't, but is that a bad thing?
What if the US president declared that it is now a legal requirement that every American subscribe to a new paid tier of Facebook, and that declaration was rubber stamped by the lawmakers. Anybody who didn't capitulate would be doing "financial harm" to Meta, but is that really a fair way to frame that? If a bully wants your lunch money and you resist, are you doing "financial harm" to the bully?
The way I see things, the initial copyright laws were a relatively fair trade: a 14 year monopoly on something, that could be renewed for another 14 years if the author was still alive. In exchange, everything after that term became part of the public domain. So, it would encourage people to produce writing, and the public would benefit because a reasonable amount of time later what was produced would be available to everybody at no cost. Modern copyright terms are a massive give-away to Hollywood, the record labels, etc. So, while it's true that infringing copyright does reduce the potential amount of money a copyright holder might hope to receive, morally it's closer to fighting off a bully than it is to theft.
I'm picturing a guy sighing with his hands on his head, staring at most of a car with the front wheel stuck in the router. Like, he can figure this out, just give him a minute. Maybe he needs a walk to clear his head. The pieces are there.
hold on let me use my 50 different materials 3d printer that has to be bigger than a car to print one. or for me to learn how to make a car from its parts
Isn't it more akin to stealing money though? Or to be more precise stealing the potential of money since not everyone who pirates would ever have paid for it on the first place.
This is an interesting argument. I don't think the two are completely analogous, and the whole thing falls apart once you go beyond consumer level usage due to piracy's inability to make new things like AI can. While piracy isn't going to get any game developers or musicians fired, AI image gen very likely will. The more it improves, the harder it will be for companies to continue justifying paying real artists.
That said, you do make a good point that many pro-piracy arguments can be used all the same to be pro-AI image gen. At least at the individual consumer level.
Because AI isn't creating a copy of the original thing, it is attempted to replace the original thing for a profit. It would be like if a publishing company took some book, removed random parts of it then replaced them to parts from other books, then sold that instead of paying authors to write books.
Obviously, something made in a specialized vehicle manufacturing plant will be better/more durable/whatever, but given the option between downloading a car vs spending a year's salary to buy one.... I'd rather download one.
Unless my wages get better (which they are not) or cars get cheaper (which they won't), I'll continue to have this opinion.
There's a nontrivial number of cars that cost more than a house did in the 80's and 90's. So it's entirely possible for someone to spend the same dollar value on their home, when purchasing it in the 90's, as they do 25 years later, buying a house in the 2020's.
I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let's not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
Theft still took place. You're probably still getting paid. Maybe it got taken up by insurance and everyone's premium goes up a tiny fraction, maybe it got taken up by the bank or by your business.
It's still an incomplete analogy but it's a little bit closer.
That's not to say that the vast majority of piracy isn't people who wouldn't pay anyway. And back in the day, you certainly got more visibility in your games from people who were pirating.
But now that advertising is on its toes and steam exists, I won't think they're getting any serious benefit from piracy and I don't think that they're not losing At least modest numbers of sales.
I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let's not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
It's less an analogy than the literal legal definition of theft.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
This analogy is crap. When they took your paycheck, that was theft. Even if temporarily, you didn't have the check. If they cash the fraudulent check, they're not copying the money; it's coming out of your account. That's also theft. Both cases, the original is being removed, whether it be the physical check or the money from your account. The only reason there might be a "copy" in your analogy is some sort of fraud protection by the bank, at which point it's the bank's money getting stolen. Still theft though.
Theft is more than just physically removing a non-fungible item. Depriving owed earnings is also considered theft, hence why piracy is considered theft because there is a debt owed for the pirated media. If you believe in wage theft, then you believe in IP theft.
hence why piracy is considered theft because there is a debt owed for the pirated media
This is objectively false in any meaningful way. It's certainly not considered theft (at least in the US), and there's absolutely no debt owed for pirated media (unless you count seeding it forward).
Stealing money from your account is theft, it's not still there afterwards.
The concept I think you might've been looking for is opportunity cost in that pirating deprives an artist of potential sales. Which is a fair point, but it is still not the same as stealing since it does not deprive the artists of their original copy.
It's also all done in the context of a system that is not run by artists and does not primarily benefit artists, but is instead run by and benefits middlemen.
Yes, which is a distinctly different concept from stealing. It's copyright. Note how copyright violation isn't in the Bible. Note how the Bible itself would never have existed if copyright existed at the time given that it is a collection of passed down stories.
Copyright is a dumb as fuck concept. Its a scarcity based system, for stuff that is not scarce.
Capitalism itself is a scarcity based system, and it falls apart somewhat when there's abundance.
In capitalism, stuff only has value if it's scarce. We all constantly need oxygen to live, but because it's abundant, it's value is zero. Capitalism does not start valuing oxygen until there are situations where it starts becoming rare.
This works for the most part in our world because physical goods by and large are scarce, but in the situations where they aren't, capitalism doesn't work. It's the classic planned obscelesence lightbulb story, if you can make a dirt cheap light bulb that lasts forever, you'll go out of business because you've created so much abundance that after a bit of production, you're actually not needed at all anymore and raw market based capitalism has no mechanism to reward you long term.
The same is even more true for information. Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level. To move a certain amount of physical matter a certain distance I need a certain amount of energy, and there are hard universal limits with energy density, but I can represent the number three using three galaxies, or three atoms. Information does not scale or behave the same, and is inherently abundant in the digital age.
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free, we created copyright, which uses laws and DRM to create artificial scarcity for information, because then an author can be rewarded within capitalism since it's scarce.
Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level.
The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you're ignoring the social construct of copyright.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of "free", possibly conflating it for "trivially easy".
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you'll find that a rather difficult task.
The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you're ignoring the social construct of copyright.
Completely irrelevant.
If I already have a computer and an internet connection then I've already paid the costs, prior to initiating that particular request.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of "free", possibly conflating it for "trivially easy".
In the context of pricing resources, those are the same thing.
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you'll find that a rather difficult task.
The model is the same one used by streaming services. It's one of reward and attribution rather artificial scarcity. Rather than having streaming and advertising middlemen you have a public system that lets everyone access what they want and rewards creators based on usages. Youtube without Google's exorbitant profits.
Copyright has no basis in human culture or history. Our literal entire history is based on a tradition of free remixing and story telling, not copyright.
I don't get your argument. So because it's "new" according to your grand cosmic scale, it doesn't exist at all?
You can say "I think intellectual property is a dumb idea" and I'd love to hear your arguments for that, but to act like it isn't real just because we came up with the idea relatively recently, is just asinine.
It is 100% correct. There was no concept of owning a story or a song just because you told it first, throughout literally all of history until the copyright laws of the 20th century.
And my point is that the literal entirety of human culture is based on a tradition of storytelling, something copyright expressly forbids.
Copyright is not a system that aligns with our natural inclinations or the way we evolved. It's a crude, child like attempt to cram information into a capitalist mold that doesn't work.
There was no concept of owning a story or a song just because you told it first, throughout literally all of history until the copyright laws of the 20th century.
Brother, copyright has been around since at least the 1700s, you're literally just making things up right now. Read a book.
It's existed since the time of the transatlantic slave trade.
Surely that makes it something human and good!
Totally compares to the previous 2.75 Million years of story telling culture and tradition. Totally not just an exploitative artifact of the corporate age. /S
And go ahead and cite your favourite book on copyright. Maybe I'll read it.
Your argument so far has been "it's new (even though it's not) and I don't like it". If you wanna get extra pedantic, the idea of copyright has been floated since the 1500s, and the concept of owning art predates even that. It wasn't until the late 1700s that our current "modern" copyright system began taking form.
Regardless, none of that changes the fact that it's still a real part of our lives now. We don't live 2.75 million years in the past, we live now. Presumably, you wipe after defecating, don't you? Didn't you know that toilet paper is a modern invention that we didn't have a million years ago and only went to market 3 years before slavery was abolished in the US? It's bad and we shouldn't use it, right???
I still don't get what any of this has to do with anything we're talking about, though. I feel like maybe you've talked yourself into a corner by making up nonsense and then trying to defend it. This is dumb, just like every argument defending piracy; it uses sovereign citizen logic where you make up arbitrary rules and definitions that nobody else in society agrees with to justify bad behavior.
If you wanna pirate stuff, then pirate it. But just own it; don't make up silly defenses for why it's okay, because they don't hold up under scrutiny.
I've only been pointing out that copyright is dumb, not that piracy is wholly justified.
We got into this corner because you ignored the actual points I made about why copyright is dumb (read: a scarcity based system is not suitable for digital information since it is inherently unscarce) and focused on the age of copyright instead.
Your other points amounted to little more than "I own my computer, therefore I'm entitled to your computer", and "free and not-free are the same thing", which are both equally absurd and not really worth dissecting further.
I thought perhaps you had an actual opinion on the matter that you've actually like... thought about, and not a reactionary one that seems like it was made up on the spot.
And if that's what you took out of it you missed the point. And given the number of dismissive thought terminating cliches you keep using it does not seem like you actually care to learn or are having a good faith discussion.
If you are, you've missed the point, which is that information, at a fundamental, physics level, does not behave the same way as energy and matter. Computers make it essentially free to replicate information infinitely. That is not true for any physical good. The differences therein mean that information should be abundant, except that copyright and DRM create artificial scarcity where there is no need for it.
Perhaps so, but isn't that up to whoever creates the information? If you invent a story, why would you not be entitled to own it?
For much of human history, artistry of all sorts has been a profession, as much as a hobby. The idea of attribution and ownership over one's art has been a core part of why that has worked and allowed creators to thrive. I would argue that the alternative of having no such system at all would ultimately lead to less art and information being created and shared at all, if the creation process is unsustainable at an individual creator's level.
Perhaps so, but isn't that up to whoever creates the information?
No, what I'm saying is that at a fundamental physics level, information is inherently abundant in a way that nothing else made of matter or energy is. There is effectively zero cost to replicating it an infinite amount of times. That is fundamentally not true for anything made of energy or matter.
If you invent a story, why would you not be entitled to own it?
Why would you "own" it? If you tell a story what prevents me from also telling that story? The threat of you punching me if I tell my own copy when you're not around? That's not owning something that's unilaterally declaring that you own all copies of something and forever own all copies of it going forward. If I invent a white t shirt, should I be able to claim ownership of every white t-shirt that anyone makes forever? That's nonsense.
For much of human history, artistry of all sorts has been a profession, as much as a hobby. The idea of attribution and ownership over one's art has been a core part of why that has worked and allowed creators to thrive.
Completely and utterly wrong.
Because no, the idea of ownership of a song has virtually never been important to art. Professional artists, in the time periods where they have existed, have largely been able to because they would be constantly performing art in the era prior to recordings, and they would constantly be performing other people's songs that they did not write themselves or they would add their own twists to it.
A song like House of the Rising Sun can be traced all the way back to 16th century English hymns before eventually winding it's way through countless Appalachian and travelling singers, before being picked up by 50s era folk musicians, before being picked up by a British rock band called the Animals. This is how music has worked through literally all of human history until the abomination that is copyright.
Hell it wasn't until the classical music era, and the rise of sheet music that you actually started seeing real authorship granted to individual people, and even in that era you didn't own a song, if someone like Mozart could listen and transcribe it then they could also perform it themselves.
I would argue that the alternative of having no such system at all would ultimately lead to less art and information being created and shared at all, if the creation process is unsustainable at an individual creator's level.
Yeah, well it's a good thing there are lots of alternatives to copyright that aren't 'no system at all'.
It is common for artists to not own their own work. Taylor Swift bought back her own work, Michael Jackson bought Paul McCartney's work from the record company (which annoyed Paul because he would have done it otherwise).
Piracy situation is more like you have made a cool statue and you charge people money for looking at your statue. Then someone comes, looks at your statue, and goes away without paying.
There's no thief, nothing was stolen at any point. The one how came looking without paying was probably never going to pay for an entrance, and the statue can me still be looked by anyone. Nothing is loss in the process, no harm is done. Some guy just looked at a statue without paying for it.
The amount of people that take these moral high roads is fucking ridiculous.
Well, the faceless mega-corp made it difficult to purchase or stream
I don’t like that I have to play the game on Steam
Akshually I’m just copying it, so it’s not theft
There are too many streaming services, so I shouldn’t have to pay for ANOTHER service
I’m not depriving the content creator or publisher from any money, since I wasn’t going to pay for it regardless
Just fucking own up to it. You are downloading content that you did not pay for. I don’t take some enlightened stance when I download a movie; I just do it. What I’m doing is not right, but I still do what I do. I don’t try to justify it with some bullshit political take.
We all have our line on what we deem acceptable or not. The only piracy that, in my opinion, could have a leg to stand on is when it is actual lost media. No physical copies available, no way to stream or pay for it. Anything else is just the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions.
Just admit that you could pay for the content if you wanted to, you just choose not to, because you are a pirate. You are depriving someone somewhere from a sale or some other form of revenue.
Edit: I worded “Just own it” poorly. Clarified it to “Just own up to it”. That was the original intent, just an oversight on my part.
This is a specious analogy. e-books from libraries are already heavily controlled and are usually quite expensive to provide. Physical copies have their own inbuilt limits to distribution.
You're treating copyright like it's some sort of hardline moral stance against consuming any media you haven't directly paid for, when actually it's more like a very long list of compromises to balance the conflicting requirements of creators' needs to be compensated for their work versus society's need to benefit from that work. This is why lending libraries, fair use etc are legal and piracy isn't.
Yeah, OP's take is like that of petulant child arguing semantics as though it changed a thing. Doubly cringe for adding that second section at the bottom where he depicts his opponent giving up and agreeing with him.
Just admit that you could pay for the content if you wanted to, you just choose not to, because you are a pirate. You are depriving someone somewhere from a sale or some other form of revenue.
I usually can't, actually. Not immediately anyway. But that doesn't stop me from paying for it when I can. Done it with plenty of games. And if I didn't have that option, which I primarily use for games I'm not entirely sure I'll stick with, well... I just wouldn't buy it. Full stop. Wouldn't be a consideration at all. There is no lost sale here, only the potential to fall in love with it enough to buy it when I eventually can.
Not saying this is some moral high ground. It's not. But plenty of folks just can't afford to gamble on whether or not they like something and end up paying it forward when they can.
I think pirating scientific papers is a good thing all around. The research isnt funded by the selling of access to those papers, much on the contrary.
Might I suggest the problem is capitalism. Without the everpresent threat of homelessness and starvation forced on us by the landlords, rampant price gouging of necessary goods like food, and the anti-lottery we all play every single fucking day with our own health, artists wouldn't need nearly so much compensation for their work. Piracy wouldn't matter, or even be required as a concept. I dream of living in a world without capitalism, but we don't. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
I too dream of living in a post-capitalist world. But I’d bet dollars to donuts that people will pirate things regardless of the cost. They don’t want to pay anything for content.
Why is no one mentioning here that the business model shouldn't exist? If a copy can be made basically for free, there is no reason not to make it basically free. We should be providing everyone with the means to live regardless of their ability to sell stuff. If everyone was free to do whatever they please because their existence was provided for, people would still make media, because people love making things like that.
Of course that might mean that in the short term, while we don't do this, pirating might mean that some things stop existing. I'd be completely fine if all Hollywood movies and other shit disappeared overnight. Maybe then people would finally come to the understanding that our current model of doing things sucks.
Eventually, yes. If everyone's needs are provided for, there is no requirement anymore to extract value from art, one can just make it and share it freely.
Capitalism is at the heart of your question. Art should be valued. Artists should be paid. Neither of those things requires capitalism or copyright laws. If as a society we funded artists properly none of this would an issue. The line that copyright is good for artists is total bullshit. It's a smokescreen that corporations use to prop up the system they created and benefit the most from.
Capitalism is definitely a major issue. I just don’t see how someone should not be compensated for work they perform, this includes art. Art can be free, but it shouldn’t have to be free. I think we may be saying similar things here.
How's the weather up there on that extremely high horse?
Just because you personally steal stuff you can afford to pay for doesn't mean that is what everyone else does. It's good that you own up to that, but don't project your failings onto others. If it's against your morals to 'pirate', quit doing it.
If you are unwilling to listen to or comprehend others peoples reasons, that's fine- just don't act like that makes us the same as you, because it doesn't.
I am not a Christian so I'm not beholden to their rules. Someone like you could claim I am a sinner and I should just own it. No, I don't have the same beliefs that you do so I am under no obligation to behave how you think I should.
Ok there buddy. There is no ‘high horse’ here. Piracy is piracy. People need to quit with their bullshit justifications. Just own up to it. I do. The fuck are you on about Christianity? There is literally no connection to religion/beliefs here.
People can’t afford to pay for it? Cool. It’s still piracy. One is still depriving the creator/studio/publisher/whatever of a sale.
But I can’t afford it! Therefore I deserve to have it for free!
🤣 Says the person actively judging others for their perceived moral failings, from their high horse.
People need to quit with their bullshit justifications.
You may not agree with it or understand it, and that's fine. I'm saying don't act like we all think that it's wrong like you do and are going against our own belief systems. You are the one doing that, not me.
The fuck are you on about Christianity? There is literally no connection to religion/beliefs here.
Oh but there absolutely is, and you put literally zero effort into putting any thought into whether it did or not, your knee jerked and you went right back to defaulting your YOUR belief system and insisting everyone else follow it. Sounds exactly like some groups I could think of, I'll let you puzzle that one out for yourself.
People can’t afford to pay for it? Cool. It’s still piracy.
You cant' afford to eat? Cool, it's still stealing when you nick a loaf or bread.
One is still depriving the creator/studio/publisher/whatever of a sale.
OH NO! You mean to tell me that I've deprived a billionaire of a couple of pennies?! I deserve to rot in hell.
Ridiculous
I agree. It's ridiculous that you are only able to look at it from one very specific, capitalist boot licking pov and not even consider other peoples point of view. Must feel good to be so righteous and holy.
Oh my lord you are so dense. I don’t give a fuck why people do the things that they do. But these justifications are garbage. Again, just say “I don’t feel like paying for it”. That is it.
Steal bread because one can’t afford it? That really sucks. It is still stealing. Does it make people right or wrong? Well, in this case I think most people would understand.
And no, stealing bread for sustenance is in no way shape or form remotely comparable to downloading a movie or song. Are we all entitled to the all of the things in life that help us get through the monotony of existence? How about independent documentaries, where every dollar counts to the creators? Are you entitled to those?
At the end of the day, someone/studio spent hours/days/years working on the art that you feel like you deserve to have because you cannot afford it or whatever bullshit reason you want to conjure. It’s still piracy, and is still wrong.
If someone were to download my music, that I’ve spent multiple hours and days creating and editing, without paying, I’d be justifiably upset. If I release my music on a site like Bandcamp, it is because I’d like to enjoy some sort of benefit for my hard work. I don’t care what someone’s excuse is for pirating my work. It is not theirs, they do not get to decide that I don’t deserve to be paid. If I wanted the world to hear it for free, I’d release it on a platform where it is free. That is my, as the creator of the art, prerogative. It just so happens that I put it on platforms where people can hear it, with ads or subscription, which I deem to be fair. But outright downloading it deprives me of streams and ad revenue. I don’t fucking care what the excuse is. My art is not free. I understand why some artists get upset.
Does this make me a hypocrite? I suppose it does. I am doing wrong as well. I just don’t try to hide behind some sort of bullshit excuse. Just own up to it.
Perceived moral failings
Fuck off. I’m not judging anyone. Just merely stating facts. Piracy is piracy, no matter what way someone wants to spin it. Is it wrong? Yes. Am I wrong when I do it? Absolutely. I choose not to justify it.
Does it make people right or wrong? Well, in this case I think most people would understand.
Most people sure. You though? You don't give a fuck why people do the things that they do, remember?
And no, stealing bread for sustenance is in no way shape or form remotely comparable to downloading a movie or song.
You are right, because in the case of stealing, the person has deprived the owner of that bread. If the hungry person was able to copy the bread and leave the original bread untouched for the owner to eat, it would literally harm no one. Even if that person owned the 'intellectual property' of that bread.
If someone were to download my music blah blah blah
You don't give a single fuck what someones reason is for doing what they do, yet you expect people to give fucks about what you value. It works both ways.
It’s still piracy,
No it isn't. Piracy is robbery or other serious acts of violence committed at sea. "Piracy" is a name some 'clever' lawyer or corporate exec coined to convince people that breaking copyright laws was equivalent to violent crime.
and is still wrong.
Who died and made you arbiter of 'right' and 'wrong'? Was it your 'lord'?
Does this make me a hypocrite? I suppose it does.
Of course it does, I thought that was understood. What it doesn't make is other people hypocrites for breaking your own personal moral code.
I just don’t try to hide behind some sort of bullshit excuse.
Who is trying to hide? I have not made a single excuse, and I wont because I don't believe it's wrong like you do.
Just own up to it.
Own up to what? To crossing Jessica's line in the sand? Sure, I'll own up to that. Fuck your line. I piss on your line.
I’m not judging anyone.
You clearly are lmfao. "What you are doing is wrong and nothing could possibly justify it, own up to it! QQ No judgment though" Fuck off with that.
Just merely stating facts.
Your own personal OPINION about the morality of copyright infringement is subjective. That isn't obvious?
Am I wrong when I do it? Absolutely. I choose not to justify it.
Sure, you happily break your own moral code and then judge others for doing something that is not against their moral code. Somehow you think the world revolves around you and that you are the arbiter of 'right and wrong'.
I don't subscribe to your ignorant beliefs about copyright- so I'm not under the same obligation to obey them as you are.
Of course you disagree, you completely lack the ability to even try understand anyone's point of view other than your own. It was never about trying to understand, you just want everyone else to feel as bad about themselves as you do for being a hypocritical asshole. Personally I don't do things that go against my ethics, so it won't be working on me. Kindly eat shit.
Maybe you shouldn't get on the internet acting like an asshole if you can't defend your position or handle people calling you out on it. Just a thought. Have a nice day.
I don’t know how to say it any more clear. When someone says to you “leave me the fuck alone”, shut your fucking mouth and leave them alone. This is harassment at this point. I don’t give a fuck about your opinions, and your attacks on me are unwanted.
You shut your mouth and leave me alone. If you shut your stupid pie hole and don't say anything to me, I won't say anything to you. Simply responding to someones post is not harassment. If you can't take it, don't dish it out you stupid, worthless, hypocritical asshole.
Fuck you too. You come into a thread about Piracy on a message board about Piracy and start accusing Pirates of being hypocrites when it's clearly you who were being one and then act all surprised because someone called you on your bullshit, and now you are acting like you are some sort of victim. I don't feel the least bit sorry for you.
I’m going to block you now, which I should have done quite a while ago. I won’t see your stupid reply to this. So I just want you to know I think you should literally eat shit. Fire up ChatGPT and give it the prompt “give me 5 different recipes that use human shit as the main ingredient”. I’d then like for you to follow the preparation instructions, have at least one bite of each dish, and then write a review for each shit dish in your next reply—which I will not read. I wish you well in your shit eating adventure. And in the future, stop getting so worked up about internet arguments, and leave people alone when they tell you to. Fuck you.
Folks sail the high seas for lots of reasons. Some people can't afford entertainment otherwise. Some people like the challenge. Some do it for political reasons as an act of resistance against corporate greed. Some do it because they want to and nothing more. Don't make the mistake of assuming everyone else here has the same motives as you.
They're are a million wrong ways to come at the wrong conclusion. So why then would we be surprised when many of the people who come to the right conclusion still do it for a variety of reasons? Perhaps the initial premise of why copyright should exist is conceptually riddled with holes.
Owning an idea is inherently capitalist, but the average person who encounters a problem won't spontaneously become anti-capitalist. They just know something seems wrong about this, but don't understand why. So they make up a story to address their cognitive dissonance, like nihilism.
If you want to pirate content, go ahead pirate it. But don't act like you're doing something morally right or some other mental gymnastics to tell yourself you're allowed to pirate content. The truth is, you're doing something illegal. If you're okay with that, then by all means go ahead, but don't tell yourself or others that it is somehow not illegal, because it is.
The problem with almost every pro-piracy argument like this is that they fundamentally require a significant percentage of the population to disagree with it. "People who can pay will pay and I'm not taking anything from them" only works for as long as both the general population and retailers regard piracy as wrong and keep funding all those games, movies etc for you.
Heck, all you pirates should be upvoting anti-piracy posts like this, we're the ones keeping your habit funded...
The idea is that you support creators out of the appreciation and not because you're forced to. This seems to work as a model for YouTubers and podcasters. They usually have most of their stuff available for free, and people pay them money, and more often than there is no reward for the money, other than satisfaction of supporting the creator. This is obviously one example, and it only works for periodic installments, but it is a working alternative to the system, where people who don't want or can't pay don't do that
This seems to work as a model for YouTubers and podcasters
No, it doesn't. They're still being paid by YouTube/Spotify a flat amount based on the number of views - which are being paid for by ads and premium subscriptions.
Which means: people pay (one way or another) first, consume the content later.
Nope, the amount is anything but flat. For bigger youtubers the ad money start to be significant, and for bigger podcasters spotify pays something, but for the most, amount of money from ads is negligible.
And in fact do tip them pretty well at the jobs they take to pay rent when im in LA.
What we need is for parasitic creativity destroying shit stain ip-troll ghouls to get the guillotine, so they arent parasiting on every fucking artist.
We need a society that values humanity and art.
Because as is, there kind of isnt a reliable systemic way to support them. Capitalism prevents it.
You people behave like you believe that artists got gathered up under threat of violence, put into these companies and are being forced to work there against their will...
Sure, we’d all like that, but pretending that piracy is some sort of noble way to bring about a collectivist creators’ paradise is yet more self-serving fantasy.
Nah, I want all those companies to burn. If they can't afford to make new stuff because of piracy then there won't be stuff to pirate. I am totally fine with that. There is a life to live beyond just consumption, you know?
The problem with almost every pro-piracy argument like this is that they fundamentally require a significant percentage of the population to disagree with it.
This assumes that people who are ok with piracy are also against paying for content. That's a nice fantasy and it makes anti-piracy people feel good about themselves, but it doesn't reflect reality.
People who can pay will pay and I’m not taking anything from them” only works for as long as both the general population and retailers regard piracy as wrong and keep funding all those games, movies etc for you.
This assumes that 'pro piracy' people are against artists getting paid for their work. Seeing as how pirates tend to purchase more legal content than the 'general population' that is clearly not the case.
There could be a million different reasons why someone might 'pirate' a piece of media, and simply not wanting to pay for it is usually pretty low on the list. That attitude also relies on the assumption that every single piece of content that is copied is something the 'pirate' would have paid for in the first place.
As an artist, my job is to inspire people, to make them feel, to share my experience with them. I have absolutely zero problem with someone who can't afford to pay for my work pirating it. I also appreciate the ones who do pay, but I would still be making art even if no one paid, because while the money is nice it's not the point of it for me. Id much rather someone copy a work of mine and enjoy it than not enjoy it because they couldn't pay for the privilege.
I understand that some 'artists' are in it for the money and that's fine. It doesn't mean I have to agree with them that they deserve to get paid for every eyeball that falls upon their work, regardless of the circumstance.
Heck, all you pirates should be upvoting anti-piracy posts like this, we’re the ones keeping your habit funded…
Have an upvote from me for being the hero we don't deserve and protecting the mega-corps bottom lines. Truly you are a modern day Jesus.
The problem is that the producer's business model is based on making and selling copies. You're not taking an original work, no, but you're also not paying for the produced content.
Let's expand the pig analogy.
A farmer has a sow and any piglets that it has are for sale. You steal a piglet. You haven't stolen the original sow, but you have stolen the piglet you now have because you didn't pay for it.
The problem is that the producer’s business model is based on making and selling copies
This is all too vague to actually understand the effect of piracy. The economic impact depends how much piracy replaces actual purchases.
When I was a teenager, I would pirate a lot of music. At the time, I had very little money to spend. This copying did not replace any purchases. On the other hand, me not buying music right now is a lost purchase since I could spend money. That's why I spend some money every month actually buying music from bandcamp or whatever, which offsets the revenue that the musicians would otherwise lose.
Also, if the artist has other revenue streams, it doesn't matter as much. Musicians for example don't make a lot of money off of streaming nowadays, and a lot of their revenue comes from merch and concert tickets etc. So if you spend money there, copying doesn't really bankrupt the artist.
Of course each type of media has slightly different mechanics, but in general there are a lot of ways you can do piracy without really undermining the business model of the artists. And very rarely are the effects the same as for theft.
That analogy doesn't work at all because the Sow produces a finite (and rather small at that) number of piglets over a given timespan.
It's more akin to you getting a piglet/sow elsewhere. Now your piglet/sow need is satisfied and you won't buy anything from this farmer.
(Edit: And even then you took that piglet/sow away somewhere else, reducing supply there, which will make it more likely for this farmer to get a sale in the future.)
Software is at its core just digital information a computer can use.
Knowledge/Information (that is not personal information) should be free.
You can make a argument that software developers still must sell copies of their code to make a living but if you look at the reality of software that appears to simply be some kind of bias. You can make software that is free and still make a living they are just not always related.
The software that runs the world’s infrastructure is increasingly FOSS, from critical cybersecurity to vending machines. Even big corporations are increasingly getting involved in using and making open source components for their proprietary fronts.
As a linux user everything i need can be done legally with free software, not only is it free is most of the times vastly superior then a paid product.
Ever needed software on windows to find the installer got bundled with spyware and then the final program turns out to be a trial before Requiring a subscription? That is only because they need to make money.
On linux, you install it, it’s only the thing you actually need, and it works. No bloat, no enshitification. Some person or group realized there was value to be created, created it and as a result the entire world won collectively.
I have a few products of my own that i hope to publish some day and i already vouched to never make them proprietary, My dad called me insane not to try to profit. I call it nothing but ethical to make the best value for humanity that i can. My very common office job provides enough liveable wage and work/life balance for my family and still find time to do such.
It's not a problem though. If you as a pirate want the business model of selling copies to not exist anymore, everyone always pirating would achieve that and not be a problem.
But here we are with that being the status quo. I despise thieves who believe it is ok to steal things that people have worked hard, not necessarily in a monetary way to get things. And supporting them shows a complete lack of empathy. I pity you for that
No, the problem is you trusting a capitalist system to make you whole again. Under any other economic system in the world if you steal someones personal property- it's a shitty thing to do.
Using insurance means your premiums will go up, meaning you are still going to pay for it. There is also some emotional damage depending on how the theft happens.
I have a lot of monetarily worthless stuff that means a lot to me. Souvenirs from trips, some heirlooms from my grandparents, stuff like that. Not gonna be worth anything in insurance but means a lot to me.. it's a dumb take that theft isn't a crime.
The only damage that exists from piracy is to the copyright holders profits.....
Since the copyright holder is usually a corporation that is owned by shareholders, the majority of which are richer than all of us combined, ask me if I give a shit and I will show you my field of shits to give, and you will see that it is barren.
There's always the exceptions, but they're rare, and getting more rare.
The vast majority of works are owned by a few major corporations, even smaller, more indie games often get published through a major studio, which then retains a good amount of the profit. Almost all media, TV and movies, is owned by one of a handful of companies. Music is largely the same.
It goes the same way for so many other things too. It's not just games and media.
There are always going to be exceptions but on the whole, it's vastly more likely/common that the people profiting from something is a large, faceless organization, which only answers to their shareholders.
I don't even call it piracy, because piracy has a definition that this doesn't meet. I call it what it is: unauthorized reproduction. That's it. That's all "piracy" is, it's literally just unauthorized reproduction. Doesn't sound nearly as scary and dramatic when you call it what it actual is, does it?
Unauthorized reproduction or copyright infringements is more scary and dramatic than theft in some ways. Just look at the punishment for copyright infringement vs theft. One is waaaaaay more severe. It's almost akin to saying "You stole his life!" Instead of "you killed him!" Since severity of punishment for copyright infringements is pretty much up there with murder.
I have seen plenty of police bodycam videos where the unofficial penalty for shoplifting was state sanctioned death penalty via police violence that was deemed "justified."
Real pirates steal stuff. So-called digital "piracy" isn't piracy at all. This is just propaganda for the business model that the establishment is trying to hold onto.
It doesn't hurt IP holders to "pirate" their data. It is no difference to them whether you were to pirate it or to have never been born at all in the first place. Their profit is the exact same either way. Their business model is imaginary and they want to force it on everyone else.
Piracy is when you attack a ship and steal its cargo.
But, of course, it was difficult for the RIAA to have a war on sharing, so they had to use a different term with sinister connotations and implant it into the public consciousness.
And it worked! You never hear anybody talk about "filesharing" anymore.
The copyright holder is only actually harmed if I would have paid them otherwise. Since I never would have paid for the movie nothing changes for them. Nothing is stollen because they would have no idea someone had a copy unless they check.
django
in reply to Gork • • •I'd rather download some bicycles, but yes.
I wished, we could pirate food.
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in reply to django • • •like this
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morto
in reply to django • • •_AutumnMoon_
in reply to morto • • •pdqcp
in reply to django • • •Dont let them catch you with your pink pineapples or you might get in trouble:
patents.google.com/patent/USPP…
Pineapple plant named ‘Rosé’
patents.google.comk1ck455kc
in reply to Gork • • •Disclosure: I have been sailing the seas for years, but...
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied. The intent of that data is to be copied for profit. Now that the data has been copied against the creator/owners will, they do not receive the profit from that copy.
Yes yes the argument is made that the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways, but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data. At the very least it gives people an option not to pay for the data, which is not what the creator wanted in creating it.
They are entitled to fair compensation to their work.
It is true that pirating is not directly theft, but it does definitely take away from the creator's/distributor's profit.
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Snot Flickerman
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Devil's Advocate: Many pirates would have not paid for access to that media so to say it takes away from the creators profit isn't exactly true since one act of piracy does not equal one lost sale.
Devil's Advocate Part II: There is s significant amount of research that supports the notion that pirates actually spend more money on media than the average person.
I personally am an example of part II. I pirate a lot of music but I refuse to use Spotify because of how little it pays artists and I have also spent significant amounts of money buying music from artists I enjoy via Bandcamp or buying from the artist directly because I know they get a bigger cut of the profits that way.
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tenchiken
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •Ditto on Spotify. I have big love for piracy of FLAC for my personal music server, but I also have a decent rack filled with physical offerings from my favorite bands.
My Bandcamp collection is also getting up there, since a few of my favs say they are treated well there, and it's FLAC friendly as well.
Physical media or merch directly from the band is absolutely the way to go every time if possible.
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Snot Flickerman
in reply to tenchiken • • •I'm having trouble finding a link to substantiate it, but I remember in the early 2000's a group of artists having to sue their record labels because of the lawsuits on file-sharing users. The record labels said they were doing it for the artists, but the artists had to sue the record labels to even ever see a penny from the fruits of those lawsuits. The record labels were just pocketing the money for themselves while saying it was "for the artists."
Anyway, long story short is that kind of behavior from the recording industry made me want to give money directly to the artists and cut out these selfish middlemen who did nothing but claimed all the profits.
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DominusOfMegadeus
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •bobs_monkey
in reply to DominusOfMegadeus • • •Zier
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •File-sharing battle, musicians caught in middle - The Steel Guitar Forum
steelguitarforum.comjohn_lemmy
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •like this
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IllNess
in reply to john_lemmy • • •blaze
in reply to IllNess • • •Naz
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •Before piracy there were demos and shareware, which let you see if your machine could handle the game or content and give you a vertical slice, and let you show it to friends for word of mouth advertising.
Then, Steam put a two hour refund window with no questions asked, which helped a lot of "this crashes on start, I can't open this at all on a RTX 4090/high end PC, 15 FPS in the fog, etc".
Developers learned from that and they began padding/gating content behind two hours of gameplay, so you wouldn't know until 3-4 hours in that the game was grindy dogshit (SCUM, Ark, Empyrion, and countless other Early Access and sometimes full release titles like NMS on launch day for example).
So the correct thing to do, and it's what I do: Pirate the game, make sure it runs/works and is fun and there's no "gotcha" traps or hidden DLCs or other predatory mechanics involved, and THEN pay for the full title on Steam+DLCs and just continue the save.
My Steam Account has actually already been flagged over a dozen times for this because my primary savegames are like Razor1911.sav, and so far it's still in good status because I am actually spending a couple thousand/year on content.
FUCKING_CUNO
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •According to who?
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k1ck455kc
in reply to FUCKING_CUNO • • •I guess herein lies the potential fallacy of my statement.
Decreased desire is a Subjective observation.
One cannot draw a direct correlation, but there is data to conclude that not having a piracy option will boost sales of data initially, at least when it comes to games. (Hence why publishers continue to use Denuvo)
arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10…
The true cost of game piracy: 20 percent of revenue, according to a new study
Kyle Orland (Ars Technica)Snot Flickerman
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Counterpoint: When Louis CK (prior to being outed as a sex pest) released one of his comedy specials on his website DRM-free for $5 he became a millionaire almost overnight.
boingboing.net/2011/12/22/drm-…
Price point matters, too.
It also jives with early Steam Sales when Valve would cut titles like ~~Left 4 Dead~~ Counter Strike down to 90% off, and they would sell so many digital copies that they were actually making more money off the lower price.
geekwire.com/2011/experiments-…
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tenchiken
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Cool argument, except a huge quantity of pirated works aren't "owned" by the creator or even a group that funded it, but instead by parasitic companies that abuse capitalistic tools to actually steal value from those creators.
I have thousands of purchased games. 3 categories here:
1: obtained as part of a pack (humble gog etc)
2: purchased AFTER trying out via pirate copy to know if it is my kind of thing
3: picked up early access due to demo or general interest from being a known smaller dev/studio (hare brained for example)
With less and less access to shareware and viable demos, piracy is often the only conduit to prevent me getting ripped off of $80 for something that looks like a shiny sports car but end up being another "buy $800 in dlc for the full story!" Ford pinto.
Additionally, I now flat refuse to fund the likes of Denuvo, and wish that piracy actively hurt the bottom line of companies deploying that kind of anti-user shit.
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CybranM
in reply to tenchiken • • •tenchiken
in reply to CybranM • • •I noted I'm ok with investors.
I'm against parasitic groups that feed on properties and prevent money getting to the actual dev folks.
CybranM
in reply to tenchiken • • •tenchiken
in reply to CybranM • • •Places that buy other companies to dismantle or lay off large chunks of staff and take over IP with minimal or absent quality to show from it. Just maximize that investor dollar.
Microsoft, Disney etc.
The harm performed far outweighs any investment from a "toward the artists" I see come back.
bobs_monkey
in reply to CybranM • • •taco
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •It does though, since no harm is being done.
They also don't receive profit from not copying, unless there's a purchase made. By your logic, watching something on Netflix or listening to it on the radio is actively harmful to creators, which I think most people can admit is absurd.
You made this assertion, but don't really back it up. If you were correct here, being able to copy cassette tapes or burn cds would have killed the music industry decades ago. Piracy is the original grassroots promotional method.
That's a separate argument and doesn't relate at all to the supposed financial harm.
That's a loaded assertion. If I sing a song right now, what am I entitled to be paid for it? And you're ignoring that most of the "work" of being a musician (in most genres at least) is playing live performances, the experience of which cannot be pirated.
I don't think it's definite at all. Most of what musicians make these days is from merch and ticket sales, which piracy contributes to by bringing in new fans.
CybranM
in reply to taco • • •You have some very entitled opinions, if everyone thought like you no one would create digital media. You're free to not watch movies or listen to music but it's pretty asinine to take things without compensating the creator and claim no wrongdoing
Edit: I assumed it would be pretty obvious I was talking about digital media that needed a budget but apparently not.
Of course anyone can make digital media for free in their spare time but you'd need some kind of income to support that hobby.
FOSS is the same but you need some income to survive.
sqgl
in reply to CybranM • • •People do it for clout or for love. Sure, the Hollywood blockbusters would cease being made but that might be an overall social good IMO.
I agree with Brian Eno who describes how, if we had a universal basic income, we would see more artists creating content just for the hell of it. He also explains how there is no "genius", there is instead what he calls "scenius" where it is an entire artistic scene which breaks new ground but only one or two happen to go viral.
Artist Brian Eno just learned about basic income and loves the idea
Scott Santens (UBI Guide)CybranM
in reply to sqgl • • •With UBI that would change
taco
in reply to CybranM • • •Nah, the entitled opinions are coming from the "pay me, but you can't own media" folks.
If everyone thought like me, people could buy digital media in convenient formats at reasonable prices, and buying media would probably still be a lot more popular. My Bandcamp library is in the tens of thousands and growing. I support digital purchasing more than most, when it's done well.
As the whole crux of the thread makes clear, no taking is involved. You might want to go re-read the OP again, speaking of asinine.
hedgehog
in reply to CybranM • • •This is obviously incorrect.
Unruffled [they/them]
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •greenskye
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Piracy is somewhat similar to vigilantism to me. My ability to consider it a negative is directly related to how fair I consider the legitimate methods available to be.
If similar efforts were focused on consumer protection laws as we do IP protection, I don't think pirates would have much leg to stand on, and they'd be seen in more of a negative light.
But since consumers are regularly fucked by corporations, all I see is two sides both doing bad shit and I'm not feeling all that charitable for the faceless megacorp. I also dislike pirates who pirate from small time creators. But that's about as far as I can care given the state of things.
We should be focusing on stronger consumer rights to truly fix the problem for all sides.
k1ck455kc
in reply to greenskye • • •CosmicTurtle0
in reply to greenskye • • •There is absolutely a connection between how shitty corporations are treating their customers with how likely those customers are likely to stop paying and start sailing.
Netflix in its prime was the GOAT, showing a very significant decrease in piracy. We're only seeing a rise now because of the proliferation of streaming companies. No one wants to pay for 4+ streaming services.
EldritchFemininity
in reply to greenskye • • •There's another comment further up about a statistic showing that people who pirate content are more likely to spend more money on content as well compared to people who don't pirate content. It seems that there's a correlation between people who pirate things and people who care about the ethical treatment of creators. Stuff like people who pirate music from Spotify and then spend money to buy the music from the band on Bandcamp.
In that context, I have an even harder time caring about people pirating from the megacorps when they're supporting creators at the same time. That's closing in on Robin Hood style activities at that point.
Carrot
in reply to greenskye • • •It's not a money thing for me, it's a lack of consumer respect, and I can't stand it. If I pay for a product, don't try to squeeze every last drop of profit you can off of me by selling my activity. It's why I use a paid Android TV launcher that doesn't have ads on the homepage, and I don't let it connect to the internet. It's why I buy all my music and stream it on Symfonium, another paid app, instead of a Spotify subscription. I'm just tired of having to set up all these self-hosted services just to get big corporations off my back.
outhouseperilous
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •skisnow
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to skisnow • • •skisnow
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •Investors became investors by paying creators for their work in advance without knowing what they'd produce. It's incredibly short-sighted to say "hey, the creator already got their paycheck so my purchase makes no difference now".
Maybe it would help to think of it as paying the creator for their next game.
outhouseperilous
in reply to skisnow • • •Thats a pretty story, but completely unconnected to reality. If it worked like that, id be okay with it.
Also, when you pay for stuff, abd like it, and want to revisit it later you usually cant. And that always makes me feel like a fool. I don't like feeling like a fool. I don't like paying to feel likeva fool. I don't like expecting a thing i like to be there then it not being there; that ruins my day. And the sheer fucking regularity of this makes. Me think it's going to keep happening.
When you steal it, they cabt steal it from you, 'cuz they don't know you have it.
skisnow
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •What do you think an investor is then?
richmondez
in reply to skisnow • • •Cethin
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to Cethin • • •skisnow
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Also, the person deciding whether or not they "would have" paid for it, has a strong incentive to kid themselves that they wouldn't. Imagine if cinemas worked that way, and you could just walk in and announce that you weren't going to buy a ticket anyway and since there's a seat over there still empty it's not going to cost them anything for you to sit in it. They'd go out of business by the end of the week.
Also also, either the thing you're copying has value that arose from the effort of creating it, or it doesn't. If it's of value, then it's reasonable to expect payment for it. It's it's not of value, then you shouldn't miss not having it.
Nalivai
in reply to skisnow • • •The scale is a bit different, but the scheme works.
skisnow
in reply to Nalivai • • •Nalivai
in reply to skisnow • • •It might not work to support a lifestyle of AAA company CEO, and it might not work at pushing out hundreds of unimaginative boring microtransaction machines, but I would say it's just a bonus
richmondez
in reply to skisnow • • •Cethin
in reply to skisnow • • •Doesn't this contradict the whole rest of the argument? It either has value or it doesn't. It being available for free somewhere doesn't change the value. If it's not of value, then they shouldn't miss you having it.
skisnow
in reply to Cethin • • •𝕛𝕨𝕞-𝕕𝕖𝕧
in reply to skisnow • • •it’s not blatant nonsense. jesus fucking christ you people lack a brain.
the art/media/fucking whatever intellectual “property” = no intrinsic value, worthless itself
the labor to create the art = valuable
the labor to distribute the art, be it through “legitimate” or pirated means = valuable
it’s that simple. there needn’t even be any long moral/ethical arguments. piracy is righteous because information deserves to be free. there is no way to enforce ownership of information without wanton violence from the state.
Cethin
in reply to skisnow • • •Again, the point is you were saying (or agreeing) that copies being available for free decrease the value. You then later say it has intrinsic value.
I'm not arguing that they don't have intrinsic value. I'm arguing that you undermined the point of value decreasing if it exists for free by admitting this. It doesn't. It's worth something no matter what someone else paid, and no matter what you paid.
A game decreasing in price over time isn't doing so because it's worth less (usually, with the exception of online games). They're decreasing the price to capture customers who don't agree with the original valuation. It doesn't change value to the consumer based on the price changing. The object is not suddenly less valuable when there's a sale and more valuable again after. It has a degree of "goodness" no matter what. The price doesn't effect this.
Cethin
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Adding on to say: no. It doesn't cost the creator anything when a pirated copy is made. They potentially miss a sale, but if their item wasn't in a store where someone may have made a purchase you wouldn't call that actively harmful, right?
In addition, most media the creators don't actually make money from the profit. Most of the time they're paid a salary, maybe with a bonus if it does particularly well. The company that owns the product takes the profit (or loss), not the actual creators.
Also, a lot of media isn't even controlled by the same people as when it was made. For example, buying the Dune books doesn't give money to Frank Herbert. It goes to his estate.
outhouseperilous
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •So a little more in depth:
So, a little more in depth:
Im poor as fuck. So the option isnt 'buy/pirate' its 'pirate or get nothing'. Fuck you if you think i should live without art.
The artists generally do not recieve profit when a copy is streamed/sold. It simply is not done; their unions are too weak. This is blatant corporate propaganda.
The entire mechanism to do that is fucked anyway, even if it were hooked up to something. I'm sorry, but i wouldnt deal with that shit show for free. Even new releases or classics have to be hunted down like cult films, and then even if i buy them, i lose them at some arbitrary later date. Music was the last thing i tried to pay on, and i just could not keep a cohesive collection together-at this point, if it's not on bandcamp, i assume the artist doesn't want money. And even bandcamp has disappeared tracks i paid for, reducing me to local backups. So fuck em.
I'm sorry. I really would love to support art and artists, but it simply isn't possible to do that systemically within capitalism. There is no clear systemic option. Just ways to lick corporate boot and waste your fucking time.
although
I bet i do actually pay artists-cast crew and musicians at least-more than you do. When i dine out, rare as that is, in los angeles, i tip ~30% in cash. So i am actually supporting the arts, while you, my boot licking friend, are not. Youre supporting the corporate ghouls who feast upon them.
Wolf
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •Oh no! Not the distributor's profit!! Oh holy Supply Side Jesus, I pray in your name- protect the profits of the Capitalists. Take the money I worked hard for and give it to the do-nothing rich, they clearly deserve it more than me. Amen
jsomae
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •It's not my fault if somebody makes content at a loss and isn't able to recuperate their losses. It happens all the time, sucks for them. I mean that earnestly by the way, though it sounds callous -- it really does suck for them, and I feel bad for artists who can't turn a profit.
However, I just don't agree with you that "objective harm" is done when one pirates media. If this were true, you must admit that it's equally objectively harmful to the IP holder for one to not consume media at all. I just don't see how you can square that.
merc
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •"Financial harm" is a loaded term. People expected to make money and then didn't, but is that a bad thing?
What if the US president declared that it is now a legal requirement that every American subscribe to a new paid tier of Facebook, and that declaration was rubber stamped by the lawmakers. Anybody who didn't capitulate would be doing "financial harm" to Meta, but is that really a fair way to frame that? If a bully wants your lunch money and you resist, are you doing "financial harm" to the bully?
The way I see things, the initial copyright laws were a relatively fair trade: a 14 year monopoly on something, that could be renewed for another 14 years if the author was still alive. In exchange, everything after that term became part of the public domain. So, it would encourage people to produce writing, and the public would benefit because a reasonable amount of time later what was produced would be available to everybody at no cost. Modern copyright terms are a massive give-away to Hollywood, the record labels, etc. So, while it's true that infringing copyright does reduce the potential amount of money a copyright holder might hope to receive, morally it's closer to fighting off a bully than it is to theft.
0x0
in reply to k1ck455kc • • •No, they're not. Not earning more is not the same as losing what you already have.
Yet studies have shown the opposite happens.
Does your granny know what a torrent is?
There, FTFY
limer
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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salacious_coaster
in reply to limer • • •tenchiken
in reply to limer • • •Zier
in reply to limer • • •melroy
in reply to limer • • •limer
in reply to melroy • • •melroy
in reply to Gork • • •owl_herd
in reply to melroy • • •melroy
in reply to owl_herd • • •MrScottyTay
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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Steve
in reply to MrScottyTay • • •That assumes you were entitled to something that nobody owed you.
If the money was never yours, can you say it was stolen from you?
FaceDeer
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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kate
in reply to FaceDeer • • •tbf I did do this a week ago and nobody downdooted me lemmy.uhhoh.com/comment/118866…
kate
2025-06-25 22:35:00
deaf_fish
in reply to FaceDeer • • •Nelots
in reply to FaceDeer • • •This is an interesting argument. I don't think the two are completely analogous, and the whole thing falls apart once you go beyond consumer level usage due to piracy's inability to make new things like AI can. While piracy isn't going to get any game developers or musicians fired, AI image gen very likely will. The more it improves, the harder it will be for companies to continue justifying paying real artists.
That said, you do make a good point that many pro-piracy arguments can be used all the same to be pro-AI image gen. At least at the individual consumer level.
Walk_blesseD
in reply to FaceDeer • • •BurgerBaron
in reply to Walk_blesseD • • •In Canada it's very hard to get into trouble for piracy unless you make a profit from your piracy.
Or well...until these LLM showed up. That's the part I take issue with.
_AutumnMoon_
in reply to FaceDeer • • •It would be like if a publishing company took some book, removed random parts of it then replaced them to parts from other books, then sold that instead of paying authors to write books.
Lectral
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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taco
in reply to Lectral • • •neidu3
in reply to Gork • • •I for one would definitely download a car, if I did not already own one I really like.
I'd happily let's others download mine, if it didn't affect me or my car in any way.
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Derpenheim
in reply to neidu3 • • •MystikIncarnate
in reply to neidu3 • • •Yeah, why the fuck not?
Obviously, something made in a specialized vehicle manufacturing plant will be better/more durable/whatever, but given the option between downloading a car vs spending a year's salary to buy one.... I'd rather download one.
Unless my wages get better (which they are not) or cars get cheaper (which they won't), I'll continue to have this opinion.
There's a nontrivial number of cars that cost more than a house did in the 80's and 90's. So it's entirely possible for someone to spend the same dollar value on their home, when purchasing it in the 90's, as they do 25 years later, buying a house in the 2020's.
Stupid.
DoucheBagMcSwag
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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Caketaco
in reply to DoucheBagMcSwag • • •rumba
in reply to Gork • • •I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let's not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.
Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.
Theft still took place. You're probably still getting paid. Maybe it got taken up by insurance and everyone's premium goes up a tiny fraction, maybe it got taken up by the bank or by your business.
It's still an incomplete analogy but it's a little bit closer.
That's not to say that the vast majority of piracy isn't people who wouldn't pay anyway. And back in the day, you certainly got more visibility in your games from people who were pirating.
But now that advertising is on its toes and steam exists, I won't think they're getting any serious benefit from piracy and I don't think that they're not losing At least modest numbers of sales.
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taco
in reply to rumba • • •It's less an analogy than the literal legal definition of theft.
This analogy is crap. When they took your paycheck, that was theft. Even if temporarily, you didn't have the check. If they cash the fraudulent check, they're not copying the money; it's coming out of your account. That's also theft. Both cases, the original is being removed, whether it be the physical check or the money from your account. The only reason there might be a "copy" in your analogy is some sort of fraud protection by the bank, at which point it's the bank's money getting stolen. Still theft though.
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Chozo
in reply to taco • • •piccolo
in reply to Chozo • • •I mean, so is not doing anything... wait i better not give them any ideas.
sqgl
in reply to piccolo • • •piccolo
in reply to sqgl • • •taco
in reply to Chozo • • •This is objectively false in any meaningful way. It's certainly not considered theft (at least in the US), and there's absolutely no debt owed for pirated media (unless you count seeding it forward).
masterspace
in reply to rumba • • •This is a horseshit analogy.
Stealing money from your account is theft, it's not still there afterwards.
The concept I think you might've been looking for is opportunity cost in that pirating deprives an artist of potential sales. Which is a fair point, but it is still not the same as stealing since it does not deprive the artists of their original copy.
It's also all done in the context of a system that is not run by artists and does not primarily benefit artists, but is instead run by and benefits middlemen.
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Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •The artist has ownership rights to all copies, not just the original; it's literally in the word "copyright".
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Yes, which is a distinctly different concept from stealing. It's copyright. Note how copyright violation isn't in the Bible. Note how the Bible itself would never have existed if copyright existed at the time given that it is a collection of passed down stories.
Copyright is a dumb as fuck concept. Its a scarcity based system, for stuff that is not scarce.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •In what way?
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Capitalism itself is a scarcity based system, and it falls apart somewhat when there's abundance.
In capitalism, stuff only has value if it's scarce. We all constantly need oxygen to live, but because it's abundant, it's value is zero. Capitalism does not start valuing oxygen until there are situations where it starts becoming rare.
This works for the most part in our world because physical goods by and large are scarce, but in the situations where they aren't, capitalism doesn't work. It's the classic planned obscelesence lightbulb story, if you can make a dirt cheap light bulb that lasts forever, you'll go out of business because you've created so much abundance that after a bit of production, you're actually not needed at all anymore and raw market based capitalism has no mechanism to reward you long term.
The same is even more true for information. Unlike physical goods, information can flow and be copied freely at a fundamental physics level. To move a certain amount of physical matter a certain distance I need a certain amount of energy, and there are hard universal limits with energy density, but I can represent the number three using three galaxies, or three atoms. Information does not scale or behave the same, and is inherently abundant in the digital age.
Rather than develop a system that rewards digital artists based on how much something is used for free, we created copyright, which uses laws and DRM to create artificial scarcity for information, because then an author can be rewarded within capitalism since it's scarce.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •The electricity and silicon required to make this happen are not free, on a societal or physical level. There is a tangible cost to this transfer, even if you're ignoring the social construct of copyright.
I think this issue comes from a misunderstanding of "free", possibly conflating it for "trivially easy".
Feel free to come up with such a system. I think you'll find that a rather difficult task.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Completely irrelevant.
If I already have a computer and an internet connection then I've already paid the costs, prior to initiating that particular request.
In the context of pricing resources, those are the same thing.
The model is the same one used by streaming services. It's one of reward and attribution rather artificial scarcity. Rather than having streaming and advertising middlemen you have a public system that lets everyone access what they want and rewards creators based on usages. Youtube without Google's exorbitant profits.
Copyright has no basis in human culture or history. Our literal entire history is based on a tradition of free remixing and story telling, not copyright.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •It's exited before any of us currently alive, so that's a pretty absurd notion. Unless human culture and history ended ~300 years ago?
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •K, versus 2,750,000 years.
Here's 300 letter g's:
Here's 2.75 million letter h's
Oh wait, I can't paste that many because at 40 chars per line, it would be 68,000 lines long, or 1000x the Android clipboard's char limit.
You are literally describing a meaningless iota in the course of human history.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •I don't get your argument. So because it's "new" according to your grand cosmic scale, it doesn't exist at all?
You can say "I think intellectual property is a dumb idea" and I'd love to hear your arguments for that, but to act like it isn't real just because we came up with the idea relatively recently, is just asinine.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Read the above comments then.
Again, read my comments. I didn't say it wasn't real, I said it has no basis in human culture or history.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •Not only is this incorrect, it would be meaningless even if it was accurate. What point are you even trying to make with this claim?
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •It is 100% correct. There was no concept of owning a story or a song just because you told it first, throughout literally all of history until the copyright laws of the 20th century.
And my point is that the literal entirety of human culture is based on a tradition of storytelling, something copyright expressly forbids.
Copyright is not a system that aligns with our natural inclinations or the way we evolved. It's a crude, child like attempt to cram information into a capitalist mold that doesn't work.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •Brother, copyright has been around since at least the 1700s, you're literally just making things up right now. Read a book.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Oh, wow. I'm so impressed.
It's existed since the time of the transatlantic slave trade.
Surely that makes it something human and good!
Totally compares to the previous 2.75 Million years of story telling culture and tradition. Totally not just an exploitative artifact of the corporate age. /S
And go ahead and cite your favourite book on copyright. Maybe I'll read it.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •Your argument so far has been "it's new (even though it's not) and I don't like it". If you wanna get extra pedantic, the idea of copyright has been floated since the 1500s, and the concept of owning art predates even that. It wasn't until the late 1700s that our current "modern" copyright system began taking form.
Regardless, none of that changes the fact that it's still a real part of our lives now. We don't live 2.75 million years in the past, we live now. Presumably, you wipe after defecating, don't you? Didn't you know that toilet paper is a modern invention that we didn't have a million years ago and only went to market 3 years before slavery was abolished in the US? It's bad and we shouldn't use it, right???
I still don't get what any of this has to do with anything we're talking about, though. I feel like maybe you've talked yourself into a corner by making up nonsense and then trying to defend it. This is dumb, just like every argument defending piracy; it uses sovereign citizen logic where you make up arbitrary rules and definitions that nobody else in society agrees with to justify bad behavior.
If you wanna pirate stuff, then pirate it. But just own it; don't make up silly defenses for why it's okay, because they don't hold up under scrutiny.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •I've only been pointing out that copyright is dumb, not that piracy is wholly justified.
We got into this corner because you ignored the actual points I made about why copyright is dumb (read: a scarcity based system is not suitable for digital information since it is inherently unscarce)
and focused on the age of copyright instead.
Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •Your other points amounted to little more than "I own my computer, therefore I'm entitled to your computer", and "free and not-free are the same thing", which are both equally absurd and not really worth dissecting further.
I thought perhaps you had an actual opinion on the matter that you've actually like... thought about, and not a reactionary one that seems like it was made up on the spot.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •Try having a conversation without resorting to thought terminating cliches.
And if that's what you took out of it you missed the point. And given the number of dismissive thought terminating cliches you keep using it does not seem like you actually care to learn or are having a good faith discussion.
If you are, you've missed the point, which is that information, at a fundamental, physics level, does not behave the same way as energy and matter. Computers make it essentially free to replicate information infinitely. That is not true for any physical good. The differences therein mean that information should be abundant, except that copyright and DRM create artificial scarcity where there is no need for it.
commonly used phrase used to propagate cognitive dissonance
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Chozo
in reply to masterspace • • •Perhaps so, but isn't that up to whoever creates the information? If you invent a story, why would you not be entitled to own it?
For much of human history, artistry of all sorts has been a profession, as much as a hobby. The idea of attribution and ownership over one's art has been a core part of why that has worked and allowed creators to thrive. I would argue that the alternative of having no such system at all would ultimately lead to less art and information being created and shared at all, if the creation process is unsustainable at an individual creator's level.
masterspace
in reply to Chozo • • •No, what I'm saying is that at a fundamental physics level, information is inherently abundant in a way that nothing else made of matter or energy is. There is effectively zero cost to replicating it an infinite amount of times. That is fundamentally not true for anything made of energy or matter.
Why would you "own" it? If you tell a story what prevents me from also telling that story? The threat of you punching me if I tell my own copy when you're not around? That's not owning something that's unilaterally declaring that you own all copies of something and forever own all copies of it going forward. If I invent a white t shirt, should I be able to claim ownership of every white t-shirt that anyone makes forever? That's nonsense.
Completely and utterly wrong.
Because no, the idea of ownership of a song has virtually never been important to art. Professional artists, in the time periods where they have existed, have largely been able to because they would be constantly performing art in the era prior to recordings, and they would constantly be performing other people's songs that they did not write themselves or they would add their own twists to it.
A song like House of the Rising Sun can be traced all the way back to 16th century English hymns before eventually winding it's way through countless Appalachian and travelling singers, before being picked up by 50s era folk musicians, before being picked up by a British rock band called the Animals. This is how music has worked through literally all of human history until the abomination that is copyright.
Hell it wasn't until the classical music era, and the rise of sheet music that you actually started seeing real authorship granted to individual people, and even in that era you didn't own a song, if someone like Mozart could listen and transcribe it then they could also perform it themselves.
Yeah, well it's a good thing there are lots of alternatives to copyright that aren't 'no system at all'.
sqgl
in reply to Chozo • • •daniskarma
in reply to rumba • • •Nah. That analogy does not work.
Piracy situation is more like you have made a cool statue and you charge people money for looking at your statue. Then someone comes, looks at your statue, and goes away without paying.
There's no thief, nothing was stolen at any point. The one how came looking without paying was probably never going to pay for an entrance, and the statue can me still be looked by anyone. Nothing is loss in the process, no harm is done. Some guy just looked at a statue without paying for it.
outhouseperilous
in reply to Gork • • •I wouldnt download a car, but that's only because im fanatically anti car.
Because cars are bad. There should not be cars.
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pdqcp
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •like this
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outhouseperilous
in reply to pdqcp • • •like this
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axEl7fB5
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •like this
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outhouseperilous
in reply to axEl7fB5 • • •like this
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ewo
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to ewo • • •Nalivai
in reply to pdqcp • • •like this
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Jessica
in reply to Gork • • •The amount of people that take these moral high roads is fucking ridiculous.
Well, the faceless mega-corp made it difficult to purchase or stream
I don’t like that I have to play the game on Steam
Akshually I’m just copying it, so it’s not theft
There are too many streaming services, so I shouldn’t have to pay for ANOTHER service
I’m not depriving the content creator or publisher from any money, since I wasn’t going to pay for it regardless
Just fucking own up to it. You are downloading content that you did not pay for. I don’t take some enlightened stance when I download a movie; I just do it. What I’m doing is not right, but I still do what I do. I don’t try to justify it with some bullshit political take.
We all have our line on what we deem acceptable or not. The only piracy that, in my opinion, could have a leg to stand on is when it is actual lost media. No physical copies available, no way to stream or pay for it. Anything else is just the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions.
Just admit that you could pay for the content if you wanted to, you just choose not to, because you are a pirate. You are depriving someone somewhere from a sale or some other form of revenue.
Edit: I worded “Just own it” poorly. Clarified it to “Just own up to it”. That was the original intent, just an oversight on my part.
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ddh
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to ddh • • •skisnow
in reply to ddh • • •This is a specious analogy. e-books from libraries are already heavily controlled and are usually quite expensive to provide. Physical copies have their own inbuilt limits to distribution.
You're treating copyright like it's some sort of hardline moral stance against consuming any media you haven't directly paid for, when actually it's more like a very long list of compromises to balance the conflicting requirements of creators' needs to be compensated for their work versus society's need to benefit from that work. This is why lending libraries, fair use etc are legal and piracy isn't.
ddh
in reply to skisnow • • •skisnow
in reply to ddh • • •Nalivai
in reply to ddh • • •skisnow
in reply to Jessica • • •Squirrelanna
in reply to Jessica • • •I usually can't, actually. Not immediately anyway. But that doesn't stop me from paying for it when I can. Done it with plenty of games. And if I didn't have that option, which I primarily use for games I'm not entirely sure I'll stick with, well... I just wouldn't buy it. Full stop. Wouldn't be a consideration at all. There is no lost sale here, only the potential to fall in love with it enough to buy it when I eventually can.
Not saying this is some moral high ground. It's not. But plenty of folks just can't afford to gamble on whether or not they like something and end up paying it forward when they can.
zeca
in reply to Jessica • • •applebusch
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to applebusch • • •Azzu
in reply to Jessica • • •Why is no one mentioning here that the business model shouldn't exist? If a copy can be made basically for free, there is no reason not to make it basically free. We should be providing everyone with the means to live regardless of their ability to sell stuff. If everyone was free to do whatever they please because their existence was provided for, people would still make media, because people love making things like that.
Of course that might mean that in the short term, while we don't do this, pirating might mean that some things stop existing. I'd be completely fine if all Hollywood movies and other shit disappeared overnight. Maybe then people would finally come to the understanding that our current model of doing things sucks.
jumping redditor [they/them]
in reply to Azzu • • •Jessica
in reply to Azzu • • •iSeth
in reply to Jessica • • •Especially if the creator(s) is deceased.
Are you suggesting only the wealthy are deserving of art?
Jessica
in reply to iSeth • • •Only the wealthy can afford art? Music? Movies? Graphic Novels? Video Games?
Are you being obtuse?
jumping redditor [they/them]
in reply to Jessica • • •Azzu
in reply to Jessica • • •Eventually, yes. If everyone's needs are provided for, there is no requirement anymore to extract value from art, one can just make it and share it freely.
Copyright should be abolished.
Jessica
in reply to Azzu • • •Unruffled [they/them]
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Unruffled [they/them] • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •How's the weather up there on that extremely high horse?
Just because you personally steal stuff you can afford to pay for doesn't mean that is what everyone else does. It's good that you own up to that, but don't project your failings onto others. If it's against your morals to 'pirate', quit doing it.
If you are unwilling to listen to or comprehend others peoples reasons, that's fine- just don't act like that makes us the same as you, because it doesn't.
I am not a Christian so I'm not beholden to their rules. Someone like you could claim I am a sinner and I should just own it. No, I don't have the same beliefs that you do so I am under no obligation to behave how you think I should.
Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Ok there buddy. There is no ‘high horse’ here. Piracy is piracy. People need to quit with their bullshit justifications. Just own up to it. I do. The fuck are you on about Christianity? There is literally no connection to religion/beliefs here.
People can’t afford to pay for it? Cool. It’s still piracy. One is still depriving the creator/studio/publisher/whatever of a sale.
But I can’t afford it! Therefore I deserve to have it for free!
Ridiculous.
Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •🤣 Says the person actively judging others for their perceived moral failings, from their high horse.
You may not agree with it or understand it, and that's fine. I'm saying don't act like we all think that it's wrong like you do and are going against our own belief systems. You are the one doing that, not me.
Oh but there absolutely is, and you put literally zero effort into putting any thought into whether it did or not, your knee jerked and you went right back to defaulting your YOUR belief system and insisting everyone else follow it. Sounds exactly like some groups I could think of, I'll let you puzzle that one out for yourself.
You cant' afford to eat? Cool, it's still stealing when you nick a loaf or bread.
OH NO! You mean to tell me that I've deprived a billionaire of a couple of pennies?! I deserve to rot in hell.
I agree. It's ridiculous that you are only able to look at it from one very specific, capitalist boot licking pov and not even consider other peoples point of view. Must feel good to be so righteous and holy.
Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Oh my lord you are so dense. I don’t give a fuck why people do the things that they do. But these justifications are garbage. Again, just say “I don’t feel like paying for it”. That is it.
Steal bread because one can’t afford it? That really sucks. It is still stealing. Does it make people right or wrong? Well, in this case I think most people would understand.
And no, stealing bread for sustenance is in no way shape or form remotely comparable to downloading a movie or song. Are we all entitled to the all of the things in life that help us get through the monotony of existence? How about independent documentaries, where every dollar counts to the creators? Are you entitled to those?
At the end of the day, someone/studio spent hours/days/years working on the art that you feel like you deserve to have because you cannot afford it or whatever bullshit reason you want to conjure. It’s still piracy, and is still wrong.
If someone were to download my music, that I’ve spent multiple hours and days creating and editing, without paying, I’d be justifiably upset. If I release my music on a site like Bandcamp, it is because I’d like to enjoy some sort of benefit for my hard work. I don’t care what someone’s excuse is for pirating my work. It is not theirs, they do not get to decide that I don’t deserve to be paid. If I wanted the world to hear it for free, I’d release it on a platform where it is free. That is my, as the creator of the art, prerogative. It just so happens that I put it on platforms where people can hear it, with ads or subscription, which I deem to be fair. But outright downloading it deprives me of streams and ad revenue. I don’t fucking care what the excuse is. My art is not free. I understand why some artists get upset.
Does this make me a hypocrite? I suppose it does. I am doing wrong as well. I just don’t try to hide behind some sort of bullshit excuse. Just own up to it.
Perceived moral failings
Fuck off. I’m not judging anyone. Just merely stating facts. Piracy is piracy, no matter what way someone wants to spin it. Is it wrong? Yes. Am I wrong when I do it? Absolutely. I choose not to justify it.
Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Most people sure. You though? You don't give a fuck why people do the things that they do, remember?
You are right, because in the case of stealing, the person has deprived the owner of that bread. If the hungry person was able to copy the bread and leave the original bread untouched for the owner to eat, it would literally harm no one. Even if that person owned the 'intellectual property' of that bread.
You don't give a single fuck what someones reason is for doing what they do, yet you expect people to give fucks about what you value. It works both ways.
No it isn't. Piracy is robbery or other serious acts of violence committed at sea. "Piracy" is a name some 'clever' lawyer or corporate exec coined to convince people that breaking copyright laws was equivalent to violent crime.
Who died and made you arbiter of 'right' and 'wrong'? Was it your 'lord'?
Of course it does, I thought that was understood. What it doesn't make is other people hypocrites for breaking your own personal moral code.
Who is trying to hide? I have not made a single excuse, and I wont because I don't believe it's wrong like you do.
Own up to what? To crossing Jessica's line in the sand? Sure, I'll own up to that. Fuck your line. I piss on your line.
You clearly are lmfao. "What you are doing is wrong and nothing could possibly justify it, own up to it! QQ No judgment though" Fuck off with that.
Your own personal OPINION about the morality of copyright infringement is subjective. That isn't obvious?
Sure, you happily break your own moral code and then judge others for doing something that is not against their moral code. Somehow you think the world revolves around you and that you are the arbiter of 'right and wrong'.
I don't subscribe to your ignorant beliefs about copyright- so I'm not under the same obligation to obey them as you are.
Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •I don’t know how to say it any more clear. When someone says to you “leave me the fuck alone”, shut your fucking mouth and leave them alone. This is harassment at this point. I don’t give a fuck about your opinions, and your attacks on me are unwanted.
Leave me the fuck alone!
Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Wolf
in reply to Jessica • • •Jessica
in reply to Wolf • • •Unruffled [they/them]
in reply to Jessica • • •explodicle
in reply to Jessica • • •They're are a million wrong ways to come at the wrong conclusion. So why then would we be surprised when many of the people who come to the right conclusion still do it for a variety of reasons? Perhaps the initial premise of why copyright should exist is conceptually riddled with holes.
Owning an idea is inherently capitalist, but the average person who encounters a problem won't spontaneously become anti-capitalist. They just know something seems wrong about this, but don't understand why. So they make up a story to address their cognitive dissonance, like nihilism.
genosiderpospottexxdd
in reply to Jessica • • •Ronno
in reply to Jessica • • •Agree!
If you want to pirate content, go ahead pirate it. But don't act like you're doing something morally right or some other mental gymnastics to tell yourself you're allowed to pirate content. The truth is, you're doing something illegal. If you're okay with that, then by all means go ahead, but don't tell yourself or others that it is somehow not illegal, because it is.
skisnow
in reply to Gork • • •The problem with almost every pro-piracy argument like this is that they fundamentally require a significant percentage of the population to disagree with it. "People who can pay will pay and I'm not taking anything from them" only works for as long as both the general population and retailers regard piracy as wrong and keep funding all those games, movies etc for you.
Heck, all you pirates should be upvoting anti-piracy posts like this, we're the ones keeping your habit funded...
Nalivai
in reply to skisnow • • •This seems to work as a model for YouTubers and podcasters. They usually have most of their stuff available for free, and people pay them money, and more often than there is no reward for the money, other than satisfaction of supporting the creator.
This is obviously one example, and it only works for periodic installments, but it is a working alternative to the system, where people who don't want or can't pay don't do that
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Alaknár
in reply to Nalivai • • •No, it doesn't. They're still being paid by YouTube/Spotify a flat amount based on the number of views - which are being paid for by ads and premium subscriptions.
Which means: people pay (one way or another) first, consume the content later.
Nalivai
in reply to Alaknár • • •Nope, the amount is anything but flat. For bigger youtubers the ad money start to be significant, and for bigger podcasters spotify pays something, but for the most, amount of money from ads is negligible.
outhouseperilous
in reply to skisnow • • •Nah. Id pay artists if i could.
And in fact do tip them pretty well at the jobs they take to pay rent when im in LA.
What we need is for parasitic creativity destroying shit stain ip-troll ghouls to get the guillotine, so they arent parasiting on every fucking artist.
We need a society that values humanity and art.
Because as is, there kind of isnt a reliable systemic way to support them. Capitalism prevents it.
skisnow
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to skisnow • • •Thats what studios are, though.
Thry don't make the art. People make the art.
Alaknár
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to Alaknár • • •If they dont, they kinda don't get to do their art. It's a whole thing.
Id say 'or they starve/die on yhe street' but that's what they get service jobs for.
genosiderpospottexxdd
in reply to Alaknár • • •Azzu
in reply to skisnow • • •You forget the alternative mindset:
An active desire to see traditional ways of funding to disappear, and the media along with it.
skisnow
in reply to Azzu • • •SaharaMaleikuhm
in reply to skisnow • • •Alaknár
in reply to SaharaMaleikuhm • • •Nobody is forcing you to consume any of the media you feel you need to pirate.
Just live beyond consumption. You can do that, you know?
genosiderpospottexxdd
in reply to Alaknár • • •Lmao imagine siding with corporations stealing creators in the first place.
Guess what, your money goes directly to investors who did fuck all. It doesn't pay the people who actually created art
RaivoKulli
in reply to skisnow • • •Wolf
in reply to skisnow • • •This assumes that people who are ok with piracy are also against paying for content. That's a nice fantasy and it makes anti-piracy people feel good about themselves, but it doesn't reflect reality.
This assumes that 'pro piracy' people are against artists getting paid for their work. Seeing as how pirates tend to purchase more legal content than the 'general population' that is clearly not the case.
There could be a million different reasons why someone might 'pirate' a piece of media, and simply not wanting to pay for it is usually pretty low on the list. That attitude also relies on the assumption that every single piece of content that is copied is something the 'pirate' would have paid for in the first place.
As an artist, my job is to inspire people, to make them feel, to share my experience with them. I have absolutely zero problem with someone who can't afford to pay for my work pirating it. I also appreciate the ones who do pay, but I would still be making art even if no one paid, because while the money is nice it's not the point of it for me. Id much rather someone copy a work of mine and enjoy it than not enjoy it because they couldn't pay for the privilege.
I understand that some 'artists' are in it for the money and that's fine. It doesn't mean I have to agree with them that they deserve to get paid for every eyeball that falls upon their work, regardless of the circumstance.
Have an upvote from me for being the hero we don't deserve and protecting the mega-corps bottom lines. Truly you are a modern day Jesus.
Study Again Shows ‘Pirates’ Tend to Be The Biggest Buyers of Legal Content
Karl Bode (VICE)axEl7fB5
in reply to Gork • • •like this
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rizzothesmall
in reply to Gork • • •The problem is that the producer's business model is based on making and selling copies. You're not taking an original work, no, but you're also not paying for the produced content.
Let's expand the pig analogy.
A farmer has a sow and any piglets that it has are for sale. You steal a piglet. You haven't stolen the original sow, but you have stolen the piglet you now have because you didn't pay for it.
daniskarma
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •outhouseperilous
in reply to daniskarma • • •nimpnin
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •This is all too vague to actually understand the effect of piracy. The economic impact depends how much piracy replaces actual purchases.
When I was a teenager, I would pirate a lot of music. At the time, I had very little money to spend. This copying did not replace any purchases. On the other hand, me not buying music right now is a lost purchase since I could spend money. That's why I spend some money every month actually buying music from bandcamp or whatever, which offsets the revenue that the musicians would otherwise lose.
Also, if the artist has other revenue streams, it doesn't matter as much. Musicians for example don't make a lot of money off of streaming nowadays, and a lot of their revenue comes from merch and concert tickets etc. So if you spend money there, copying doesn't really bankrupt the artist.
Of course each type of media has slightly different mechanics, but in general there are a lot of ways you can do piracy without really undermining the business model of the artists. And very rarely are the effects the same as for theft.
Mirodir
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •That analogy doesn't work at all because the Sow produces a finite (and rather small at that) number of piglets over a given timespan.
It's more akin to you getting a piglet/sow elsewhere. Now your piglet/sow need is satisfied and you won't buy anything from this farmer.
(Edit: And even then you took that piglet/sow away somewhere else, reducing supply there, which will make it more likely for this farmer to get a sale in the future.)
Zwrt
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •Your example is about physical goods.
Software is at its core just digital information a computer can use.
Knowledge/Information (that is not personal information) should be free.
You can make a argument that software developers still must sell copies of their code to make a living but if you look at the reality of software that appears to simply be some kind of bias. You can make software that is free and still make a living they are just not always related.
The software that runs the world’s infrastructure is increasingly FOSS, from critical cybersecurity to vending machines. Even big corporations are increasingly getting involved in using and making open source components for their proprietary fronts.
As a linux user everything i need can be done legally with free software, not only is it free is most of the times vastly superior then a paid product.
Ever needed software on windows to find the installer got bundled with spyware and then the final program turns out to be a trial before
Requiring a subscription? That is only because they need to make money.
On linux, you install it, it’s only the thing you actually need, and it works. No bloat, no
enshitification. Some person or group realized there was value to be created, created it and as a result the entire world won collectively.
I have a few products of my own that i hope to publish some day and i already vouched to never make them proprietary, My dad called me insane not to try to profit. I call it nothing but ethical to make the best value for humanity that i can. My very common office job provides enough liveable wage and work/life balance for my family and still find time to do such.
Azzu
in reply to rizzothesmall • • •3dcadmin
in reply to Gork • • •That Weird Vegan
in reply to 3dcadmin • • •katy ✨
in reply to Gork • • •explodicle
in reply to katy ✨ • • •ඞmir
in reply to katy ✨ • • •3dcadmin
in reply to katy ✨ • • •katy ✨
in reply to 3dcadmin • • •3dcadmin
in reply to katy ✨ • • •katy ✨
in reply to 3dcadmin • • •3dcadmin
in reply to katy ✨ • • •Wolf
in reply to katy ✨ • • •Voytrekk
in reply to katy ✨ • • •KumaSudosa
in reply to katy ✨ • • •MystikIncarnate
in reply to Gork • • •The only damage that exists from piracy is to the copyright holders profits.....
Since the copyright holder is usually a corporation that is owned by shareholders, the majority of which are richer than all of us combined, ask me if I give a shit and I will show you my field of shits to give, and you will see that it is barren.
Eat the rich. Or Luigi them... I don't care.
ForeverComical
in reply to MystikIncarnate • • •MystikIncarnate
in reply to ForeverComical • • •There's always the exceptions, but they're rare, and getting more rare.
The vast majority of works are owned by a few major corporations, even smaller, more indie games often get published through a major studio, which then retains a good amount of the profit. Almost all media, TV and movies, is owned by one of a handful of companies. Music is largely the same.
It goes the same way for so many other things too. It's not just games and media.
There are always going to be exceptions but on the whole, it's vastly more likely/common that the people profiting from something is a large, faceless organization, which only answers to their shareholders.
Darkassassin07
in reply to MystikIncarnate • • •altphoto
in reply to Darkassassin07 • • •Darkassassin07
in reply to altphoto • • •Frenchfryenjoyer (she/her)
in reply to Gork • • •Nostalgia_Realm
in reply to Frenchfryenjoyer (she/her) • • •Smc87
in reply to Nostalgia_Realm • • •VonReposti
in reply to Smc87 • • •Darkassassin07
in reply to Frenchfryenjoyer (she/her) • • •YoU WoUlDn'T dOwNlOaD A Car!?!?!
You're damn right I would; get me a 3D printer big enough...
0x0
in reply to Darkassassin07 • • •SLATE
SlateVespair
in reply to Gork • • •Grumpy
in reply to Vespair • • •Vespair
in reply to Grumpy • • •jsomae
in reply to Vespair • • •jonesey71
in reply to Grumpy • • •helvetpuli
in reply to Vespair • • •nixfreak
in reply to Gork • • •jsomae
in reply to Gork • • •Real pirates steal stuff. So-called digital "piracy" isn't piracy at all. This is just propaganda for the business model that the establishment is trying to hold onto.
It doesn't hurt IP holders to "pirate" their data. It is no difference to them whether you were to pirate it or to have never been born at all in the first place. Their profit is the exact same either way. Their business model is imaginary and they want to force it on everyone else.
hijacking of ships by Somali pirates
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)brown_guy45
in reply to Gork • • •These days (at least in my country) I can't own movies, games and watch or play them at my will
Companies like Netflix, Amazon are lending movies but not making them free for you. And then they wonder why piracy is rising
Tbh for a student like me, piracy is the only option. If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing
zarkanian
in reply to Gork • • •Filesharing isn't piracy. It's filesharing.
Piracy is when you attack a ship and steal its cargo.
But, of course, it was difficult for the RIAA to have a war on sharing, so they had to use a different term with sinister connotations and implant it into the public consciousness.
And it worked! You never hear anybody talk about "filesharing" anymore.
MiDaBa
in reply to Gork • • •Nothing is stollen because they would have no idea someone had a copy unless they check.