Piracy isn’t stealing, period.
It was totally ok to pirate movies before this practice ever took place. Information had always wanted to be free.
It’s definitely stealing. I just happen to consider it morally acceptable stealing from these fuckwits.
Steal is like taking away a cupcake from your bakery.
Piracy is like analyzing the cupcake and thus revealing its recipe and I share it to everyone. (You wouldn’t lose your baked cupcakes but everyone makes clones out of them from the recipe.)
If you want to make up your own definition for stealing, then sure.
If you want to live in reality, stealing means taking something that isn’t yours. Has nothing to do with physical items. Data can be stolen, trade secrets can be stolen, valour can be stolen, identities can be stolen.
None of these require physically removing an item from someone else. They are about taking/accessing things without permission.
Fun fact: in my country (Slovakia) it’s totally legal to download things. It’s the uploading it back that’s seen as illegal, so as long as you have a paid private torrent site where you can hit’n’run you are not breaking any laws.
How do you like Slovakia 🇸🇰?
Is it fun?
“They seem to have a culture that very closely matches mine, speak my native language, oh and it is so convenient because all of my family also lives here too!”
Isn’t it a bit weird question to ask a native? Unless they are upset and want to move out they most likely like their country. And unless they already lived somewhere else they can’t truly compare.
Piracy isn’t stealing anyway
They call it stealing because the real legal term is unlawful copying or reproducing without copyright permits, and that sounds closer to a misdemeanor.
If we claim someone has stolen thousands of songs causing millions of dolars in damages it does look like a felony, and that is the way they’ve chosen to scare us.
If we claim someone has stolen thousands of songs causing millions of dolars in damages
An even funnier premise in the streaming era, where artists get paid like $0.005 per stream. You’d have to rack up 20,000 plays across these “stolen” songs before it “costs” the artist $100
I feel the same way about people applying terms like “theft” to events of intellectual property misuse like copying another artist’s art style, reusing another comedian’s jokes, etc. Those things are problems of their own, but should not be called “theft”.
Gatekeeping technology is a personal irritation of mine.
The famicom and capacitor electrolytes should not belong to individual companies, they belong to all of humanity.
Not that I agree with the following, but I feel like many say piracy is theft because one is “stealing” potential income, not stealing the material itself. I vaguely remember someone on YouTube even said using Adblock is akin to piracy, as one is watching content without paying for it (and the assumption is one should pay)
Piracy has never been stealing.
When you steal something, the real issue is that the other person is deprived of some tangible item they used to have.
When you “pirate”, you’re merely violating a copyright. The government granted someone a monopoly on the expression of an idea, and you’re not respecting the government’s decision on that item’s exclusivity.
And like. I’d be fine with that if the primary function in practice was to ensure the original creator gets financially compensated for their work and then they can pay for copyright controlled distribution services if that helps therm make sure they get paid but that is not why or how current law is used and I’m kinda losing that it even can be.
Sure but game companies need to get paid or they won’t make games. Right? Luckily there are many others who pay for games so you can pirate, but without them paying, there wouldn’t be a product you can pirate.
I just picked a game company as an example but of course you understand this.
Of course you understand that people made creative things before copyright existed. You understand that that happened when the copyright term was 14 years. You understand that it happened before Warner Bros. Discovery existed.
You understand that it is possible for a company to make games without requiring a 120 year copyright term, right?
Yes people make creative things, but they don’t make games that requires a game studio and give them away for free. I feel that you should understand this. Perhaps you don’t.
I pirated as a kid too because I didn’t have money and I loved games. But I knew that others paid for their games and that’s why they could make them.
Now as an adult, I’m paying for my games. Because I have the money and it’s worth it. If you don’t, that’s fine too. I dont judge. But just quit the stupid copyright argument. :)
It’s interesting how we jumped from owning physical media to “buying” permission to stream the file through the cloud.
Is there no service for people who are willing to pay for a downloadable, DRM-free copy of the file? It might be a bit niche, but it could at least make more than the $0 they make on each pirated copy.
This is why I started collecting DVDs a few years ago. Let’s see how long they let us do that
I think people should be paid for their work. I was happy to pay for music and movies and games. But I am not going to pay for something just to have it ripped away at a moments notice just because of corporate greed.
Additionally, I fully understand why someone would pirate when the thing they want isn’t available to them to purchase, or is out of their price range.
Also, what makes you think a purchase benefits the creator? And if it doesn’t, what is the moral case for purchasing?
What makes you think creatives don’t benefit? I think it depends on what it is and who publishes the thing. Lots of Indie game developers do benefit from purchases of their games. There are entities that tend to benefit more (publishers, store fronts, etc), but that doesn’t mean that the people who made the game don’t benefit.
It’s the same with music. Labels definitely benefit more. Streaming services benefit more. But at the same time that doesn’t mean the artist who made the music doesn’t benefit.
Sure, they may not get as good a deal as I would like, but the people who make movies don’t work for free.
It’s never been stealing, it’s infringement of copyright, which aught to carry much less of a penalty since the original owner was not deprived of their property.
But we live in hell, so capitalism literally bankrupts families when they film their kid dancing to music that was playing on a public broadcast on FM radio.
