I have personal experience of starting a niche record store with a friend. We were both tired of the music we wanted not being available and decided we'd do it ourselves. Neither of us had any idea about the music industry. We both put in $500 each. Every dime of that was used to buy the initial inventory. We had no money to have a website built (circa 1999). So I learned how to use MySQL and PHP and built one. During the years we ran the business, there were many conversations with artists and record labels. We sold compilation albums where other people licensed individual tracks from labels and arranged them together onto a CD. We even had several discussions about starting our label, but stopped short of that.

That wasn't the point. The point is that a lot of these technicalities are self constructed justifications. Illusions and lies we tell ourselves to cope with our imperfection. I conflate because I don't care about the technicalities, I'm talking about something primal and simple.

In its most simplistic form, this is what I mean:

If I create a work of art to make money or even for just limited showings and you copy it and distribute it without my permission, than you are doing something wrong and you know it.

That's all. My argument is saying that anything on top of that is an attempt to justify your actions.

My point is what you're doing is wrong and you know it on some level.

This is an utter lie. I never said this. Me being aware of my actions does NOT make any of my actions more moral. I never said this. You are either lying or delusional.

I'm actually a very high scorer on the psychopathy spectrum. The official term is antisocial disorder. This means I am technically less moral than most people.

Me being aware of my actions only makes me aware of my actions and my morality and who I actually am as a person. That's it.

>as long as you don't claim they're the original. It doesn't fit this scenario.

You're getting into technicalities. Let me put it simply. It fits. I'm talking about the general notion and feeling about plagiarism. This is the ENTIRE point of my conversation. Copying something without permission is in general wrong. There are cases where if the author is dead for over a century then things may feel gray, but who cares.

I don't want to get into technicalities because I don't care for the technicalities and neither do you. We all are aware of the cases there's no need to argue about it. If you want to argue about how a "technicality" makes the original posters plagiarism correct than don't care yo have that conversation because it's a waste of my time.

It is essential for one's erudition, which historically has been considered important for an informed citizenry that knows the good and the beautiful.

Take the mid-20th century canon of films, works by directors like Ozu, Kurosawa, Godard, Truffaut, Antonioni, etc. These are recognized as classics of film art and part of our general cultural heritage now. However, due to changes in legislation in the years since they were made, they are still under copyright, and so a person would have to spend thousands of dollars to legally obtain a cultural education that, in this day and age, ought to be available to anyone regardless of their means. A person pirating such films is not necessarily doing it for daft entertainment (because often these classics are not particularly fun and entertaining), but simply to learn and be familiar with the canon.

And before you say that one can turn to the library instead of torrenting: many countries around the world never had well-stocked libraries to begin with. In fact, in some of these same countries it can be less than straightforward to purchase the content even if one has the money to spend.

I think that sums it up pretty well. Thanks for at least being honest about it.

Good or bad, people will steal it because they feel entitled to it.

They lobby for things like DCMA enforcement and DRM because people steal it.

If people didn’t steal it, there would be other things to lobby about, is that your point?

I don’t think that wasn't obvious but sure.

My point is the things stealing leads them to lobby about things related to stealing, which are things that end up not being great for anyone.

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I mean to be clear, the cat is out of the bag and this line of thought is more of a thought experiment than anything.

People steal, DRM exists and DCMA exist, the status quo is set.

IDK, I'll find out within 72 hours. I just asked Microsoft to give me my money back for Dynasty Warriors 9 (I'd call it broke as fuck, but it's probably subjective).

I did once get a refund request for a Toy Story 4 ticket because the director and I happen to share some names.

You can get the tax back, but you have to jump through a lot of hoop holes, and so not a lot of business do it.

It’s purely racket.

Similar reasons for why Youtuber film-makers aren't treated seriously by Hollywood film-makers ie their portfolios aren't taken seriously. There's a weird snobbishness in the whole industry

A la carte would be what Amazon Prime Video does with all of the stuff that isn't free--you just pay for the thing you actually watch.

If the artist is okay with it great! But if the artist is not okay with at all does he own the rights to the art he created? Does he have the right to permit you not to copy his things? That is the ethical question.

Did you have the right to do it without asking the artist for permission? What if one day the artist did actually want to make a profit off his work?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

The collected money is in general handed out by Copyswede [1], but for music it's handled by STIM [2]. STIM also supposedly handles paying money to artists played for customers at the barber, and all these special cases, and music played on TV, and so on.

I don't know for sure, but I think that the money is divided based on official sales data, so the artists who sell most also gets most of the "cassette tax" as it is known, because it was introduced as an added tax on cassettes back in the 80s.

It is not popular with consumers, since you have to pay extra for blank CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, and hard drives even if you don't use them to copy music. The tax is not to cover loss of income due to piracy, I just learned from the Wikipedia page, but to enable private copying of music without having to buy extra copies from the producer. As I said, since you have to pay even if you use the CD as a Linux boot disc, it's not very popular with the public, but a lot of people don't even know about it.

[1] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyswede (in Swedish)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIM (in English)

Absolutely not. There are very legal reasons torrents are used (its great for releasing large datasets). Isps should treat all data the same.

You can currently buy or rent whatever you want and watch it. I haven't found anything on a streaming service that isn't also for sale/rent somewhere and have found things for sale that are not available on streaming services.

If you want access to "_everything_", and are willing to pay a premium over existing services, buying/renting what you want is available today. Problem Solved, no?

And the fragmentation of titles across platforms doesn't help one bit. We're basically heading to the same situation with today's cable business.

Personally, living in a country whose language I don't master means many of the titles in my Netflix catalogue are unwatchable. Anime being in Japanese and only dubbed or subed in the local language and nothing else. In English speaking countries the exact same titles have English sub or dubbing.

I think virtue is good for us and thus "feels good", because that has been my experience.

I think following laws that aren't inherently unjust is virtuous. The only question is if these laws are unjust or not. (In this case I guess we're just talking about the laws of paying for goods.)

> regressive companies trying to put the Internet back in the bottle, destroy net neutrality, push us into proprietary platforms, divide online communities based on geographic location, surveil our behavior, etc

This is too vague to be compelling. At the end of the day, you are paying for content that was created by human beings. Is there a middle man? Yes. Would it be better without the middle man? Also yes. Is there an alternative? Only if we are okay with not paying the creators that put in the work to make the content. I am no longer okay with that.

For me, at the end of the day, your argument is at best pointing out a less than ideal economic system and at worst it is justifying viscous behavior that, taken to its limit, can be used to justify virtually any kind of illegal behavior.

Less than ideal != unjust.

Don't make it profound. Make it simple. The kid couldn't find the album so he DLed it illegally. The kid is aware of this illegality at some level.

That awareness is how simple the situation actually is. The profoundness arises when someone tries to justify the situation. I use the word ethics and morals as one would use it in common english parlance about discussions of such matters, I am not asking for a philosophical definition of said terms.

Your argument is complicated by the fact that a lot of media, and especially for old out-of-print works, the copyright holder is not the person who actually created the work. At best it is a descendant family member, at worst it is a person or corporation who came into the copyright without the knowledge and consent of the artist.

U.S. of A would like to have a word with you.

> The purpose of art or media is whatever the creator wants it to be.

The purpose of art and media is to generate revenue. People who create just for art are an insignificant minority. The main issue is that when this art does not generate revenue it is thrown away. Then it is no more art. It becomes (like) garbage.

The negative consequences of just stealing it are pretty low

Unfortunately so much software has become a thin client for a fat backend, so it’s a little harder, but all said are definitely industries that pay 10,000$ a seat for software that was mostly written 20 years ago and is patched to keep it hobbling along

They’re not really going to besides waging larger and larger wars on copyright and forcing DRM

The thing is, I don’t really “shame” anyone, but I understand when “normal people” steal movies and shows

When technologists do it, it’s the biggest WTF for me.

I'm not saying the acts are equivalent, just that the positions are.

It also feels like statistically I should have read at least one comment where someone is convinced by argument that their copyright infringement is wrong but over twenty years on the Internet, I actually haven't. Very interesting.

It's also pretty easy for me to not judge since I've done things of dubious ethicality myself: I've never paid for a full copy of a textbook. Either I've bought the Asian copy or I've been part of a pool-and-photocopy group. Even now I use scihub preferentially.

Interestingly, the scihub usage is more acceptable online than the pool-and-photocopy but in real life no one has given me any grief for either.

To be honest, I don't feel very guilty either. And I'd do it again. If I attempt to see it as something shameful, convincing arguments defending myself pop out. I suspect it's something in the shape of the elephant and the mahout - the justification comes because I've already decided what I'll do. What I'll do is not rationally justified - that's coming after.

I'd speculate (idly) that this is the same mechanism in other pirates.

The legal system in your jurisdiction may disagree with you on that one.

> It's hard to justify why you think that creators have a right to the contents of your hard drive and wallet

I never tried to "justify" creators doing anything to your computer or anyone else's? Show me where I said that? That's a preexisting grindy-axe you brought along with you, friend..

I simply said that P2P file sharing denies content creators (big and small) control over the use of the works they own.

Which is strikingly similar to your position that other people shouldn't control your belongings, don't you think?

I currently pay for Netflix and Amazon prime, mostly so my kids can watch cartoons (we don't have c cable or satellite TV) and because my wife likes fast shipping (we watch way more Netflix than Amazon Prime though). I don't expect to pay more than either service to have access to a better selection of movies.

so i already shell out a LOT of money to media companies, so i'm ok with pirating if a specific movie/series is not in any of those services because the owner of the movie/series i'm pirating is probably getting my money through any of those services.

A better question is when are film studios going to stop profiteering with their license fees and allow their works to be available on any platform (instead of meticulously negotiating with one platform and moving around every couple months).

They could mooch off your access within the 5 device limit, or sign in online and pay your bill?

I know I don't regularly worry about how a broken system funnels food into American's trash cans while others starve because I personally have never been in a position where starvation is even remotely possible.

I think anti-trust litigation from old lawmakers is the only thing stopping them

I've done for years.

I also, less happily, pay for Netflix. I refuse to pay monthly fees for the rest of them but I'll pay to rent a movie online sometimes.

My issues with this whole thing:

- things I buy (i.e. not rent) aren't really mine and can disappear at any time if the publisher decides so (or just fail to keep their DRM servers alive.)

- massive abuse of copyright for something it wasn't meant for.

- the idea that it is OK to keep Europeans away from huge parts of the collection for no good reason.

As I've said multiple times: I'll happily pay more for media, but there is one rule

- no more subscriptions: anything subscription-based must replace one of my existing subscriptions.

- reasonable prices

At least tw0 different perspectives here I think, requiring two different thought processes.

When viewed as a collective social issue, gray- and black-market forces are part of the panoply of market forces, and that is a good thing. If every human on the planet voluntarily conformed to white market forces no matter what the terms, we would be completely, totally screwed. At the very least, the work required to tune the legal system to accommodate everyone's needs satisfactorily would produce a big mess. To some degree, it's the corruption, work arounds and back room dealing that enable the system to keep functioning, given that legislators and enforcers are flawed humans just like the rest of us.

When viewed as an individual, personal issue, we need to draw the line somewhere with our own behaviour. We need to decide when we're going to take the risk and go around the system as it exists, based on our feeling of how fair the system is, and we should consider things like what harm we're doing, and whether we're being hypocritical, as part of that. There is most certainly some hypocrisy in creating and defending IP controls on software products, but calling an open season on digital media; but it's also obviously not 1:1. I believe, morally, that it's important to really think about what the impact might be when you pirate something.

Basically I think as a participant in the system you need to be aware of both. Perspective #1 helps defuse the rage, and perspective #2 directs your personal actions.

Personally, with media, I draw the line at failing to find a reasonably-priced option. In my country, digital delivery platforms are hamstrung, and cable packages are foolishly assembled. I'm caught in a gap created by distribution contracts that mean I need to pay minimum $50/mo cable to watch the one or two shows I actually want to watch with no direct-buy or digital delivery service available. I don't accept that as reasonable, and I'm not going to get in line with it. I'd pay $20 a season/movie, easy. Give me the option and I'll do it.

But, one last note. I work in video tech, and I can assure you that the TV and movie industry is up to its eyeballs in IP negotiations, ownership disputes, technical obstacles and oppressive pre-existing distribution relationships. Content producers have to negotiate with Netflix, theatres, ISPs and cable companies, many of which are co-owned in weird ways and create serious conflicts of interest. Sony needs to negotiate with Warner/AT&T to get their show distributed, but Warner produces their own content, competing for the same pool of eyeballs, and AT&T owns massive portions of the US cable distribution and ISP space, not to mention much of the hard infrastructure those services are deployed over. It's a minor miracle that distribution rights are even negotiated successfully in the first place... I sometimes wonder if MPAA lawyers shouldn't get invited to hostage situations. So have some compassion for the corporations too, they actually can't just up and fix this thing.