• zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    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.

  • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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    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.

    • susurrus0@lemmy.zip
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      To be more precise: it is actually beneficial for big corporations if you pirate their media, as opposed to you having never been born. The sole act of you ‘consuming’ their media is positive for them, since you’ll almost definitely see their logos (advertising to you), and you may spread the word to people who may pay for it (advertising by you).

      As you said, it’s all pretty much propaganda to brainwash us into trying to be ‘good citizens’ (obedient consumers).

  • MiDaBa@lemmy.ml
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    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.

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    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.

      • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        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.

  • brown_guy45@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    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

  • Vespair@lemmy.zip
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    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?

    • helvetpuli@sopuli.xyz
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      Piracy is when you board a ship, kill or kidnap its crew and steal the cargo. Copying a file is nothing like that.

    • Grumpy@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

      • jonesey71@lemmus.org
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        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.”

      • Vespair@lemmy.zip
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        Yeah but I’m talking about common parlance here, not in terms of weaponized legal language.

        • jsomae@lemmy.ml
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          I think we’re all familiar with weaponized legal language. Unauthorized reproduction sounds scarier to most of us than piracy.

  • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    I wouldnt download a car, but that’s only because im fanatically anti car.

    Because cars are bad. There should not be cars.

  • k1ck455kc@sh.itjust.works
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    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.

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      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.

        • IllNess@infosec.pub
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          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.

      • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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        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.

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          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.

      • Naz@sh.itjust.works
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        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.

    • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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      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.

      • CybranM@feddit.nu
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        I dislike investors as much as anyone but someone had to fund development. At least until we get UBI

        • bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip
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          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.

        • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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          or even a group that funded it

          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.

            • tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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              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.

    • greenskye@lemmy.zip
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      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.

      • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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        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.

      • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        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@lemmy.today
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        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.

    • FUCKING_CUNO@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data.

      According to who?

      • k1ck455kc@sh.itjust.works
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        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)

        https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/the-true-cost-of-game-piracy-20-percent-of-revenue-according-to-a-new-study/

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          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.

          https://boingboing.net/2011/12/22/drm-free-experiment-makes-loui.html

          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.

          https://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economics-valves-gabe-newell/

          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.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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.

    • taco@piefed.social
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      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.

      • CybranM@feddit.nu
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        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.

        • taco@piefed.social
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          You have some very entitled opinions

          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.

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          if everyone thought like you no one would create digital media

          This is obviously incorrect.

        • sqgl@sh.itjust.works
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          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.

          • CybranM@feddit.nu
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            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

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      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.

    • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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      The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied.

      No, they’re not. Not earning more is not the same as losing what you already have.

      Yes yes the argument is made that the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways,

      Yet studies have shown the opposite happens.

      content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies

      Does your granny know what a torrent is?

      not to pay for the data, which is not what the creatordistributor wanted in creating it.

      There, FTFY

    • Wolf@lemmy.today
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      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

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      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.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        They get paid. They just don’t get a share of profits. They are usually paid a salary or, increasingly more commonly, are paid as a contractor.

        • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          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.

          • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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            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.

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              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@lemmy.ca
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                Thats a pretty story, but completely unconnected to reality. If it worked like that, id be okay with it.

                What do you think an investor is then?

            • richmondez@lemdro.id
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              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.

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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      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.

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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        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.

        • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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          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.

          • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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            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

          • richmondez@lemdro.id
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            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.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        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.

        • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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          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.

          • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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            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.

          • jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            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.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.works
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    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.

    • Derpenheim@lemmy.zip
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      Same. Its not a fancy car, but its had no problem in almost a decade and gets good mileage. Download it all you like

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      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.

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    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…

    • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      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.

    • Wolf@lemmy.today
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      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.

    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
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      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?

    • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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      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

      • Alaknár@sopuli.xyz
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        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.

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          a flat amount

          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.

    • Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      You forget the alternative mindset:

      An active desire to see traditional ways of funding to disappear, and the media along with it.

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        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.

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    I attempted to download a car once, but front wheel got stuck in my router. Was huge mess