Hi guys, first of all, I fully support Piracy. But Im writing a piece on my blog about what I might considere as “Ethical Piracy” and I would like to hear your concepts of it.
Basically my line is if I have the capacity of paying for something and is more convinient that pirating, ill pay. It happens to me a lot when I wanna watch a movie with my boyfriend. I like original audio, but he likes dub, so instead of scrapping through the web looking for a dub, I just select the language on the streaming platform. That is convinient to me.
In what situations do you think is not OK to pirate something? And where is 100 justified and everybody should sail the seas instead?
I would like to hear you.
- Work of art no longer sold.
- Creator(s) and/or production company involved with the making are garbage human beings.
- You don’t have money and you don’t just want to stare the ceiling.
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The problem with this logic is you’re assuming the payment at the theater the only consideration.
I wanted to watch the Clarkson-Hammond-May “Top Gear”. Only on BBC iPlayer. Only in the UK.
The roundabout 22 series’ and specials simply do not exist outside of that. What are you supposed to do? I would have paid the BBC, but they even discourage the use of VPN’s themselves.
I’ve been listening to A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs and let me tell you, the music industry can fuck right off. Small indie label? I’ll probably buy it, but one of the major record labels? Set sail mateys.
That intrigued me, but the shit design of the website turned me off. I can’t even find the first episode. There’s no list, it’s blurbs of each and every episode that you have to scroll through and it only loads like 15 at a time then you have to go to the next page.
I’m not going to spend ten minutes scrolling and clicking just to find the first episode so I can try it.
I found it via the Podcast Addict search. This is the feed link: https://500songs.com/feed/podcast/
Yeah, it’s never advised to listen to a podcast on its host site. 80% of them are terrible, just load the RSS up or find it on your preferred podcatcher. I say this just so you aren’t too hard on them about it. It’s very difficult to find a service that is good as both a website and as a podcast host and even “good ones” are not great UX.
It is very VERY simple to set up a functional website these days. And this is an abomination of UX. It would take hardly any effort at all to improve it with a simple chronological list of links.
I don’t think I’m being too hard on them at all.
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What kind of complicated UX do you think is necessary here? I literally said “a simple chronological list” is all they need to improve the experience enough to make me listen.
That should take ten minutes of coding. And it is applicable to every podcast ever.
This such an elaborate excuse for such a simple mistake that would be so easy to fix.
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Here is a quick hot take: If a company ever advertised a product in a public setting and the content is no longer available for purchase in a retail setting/manner anyone should be free to acquire it via non-retail means. Full stop.
Like Activision and Fuser, or Nintendo and all their old games.
cough cough 3ds cough cough
A lot of folk bring up (correctly, imo) indie creators and end up mentioning Stardew Valley as an example - especially within the first couple years of its release. SV as an example has fell off, as it’s had it’s years to rake in cash.
But I absolutely pirated SV for YEARS, multiple times. I was in a place where I was utterly broke, could not always afford food, and only had internet because of assistance programs. My laptop couldn’t run much, not even minecraft at that point. It could, however, run Stardew Valley. So I re-downloaded it multiple times over the handful of hand-me-down hard drives that I used in a laptop that kept frying hard drives. (eyeroll)
I did eventually get to a place financially where I could afford to buy SV, so I did. Then it went on sale on console so I bought it again, knowing I’d never play it (console without the aiming mod is awful), but it helped pay it back how much play time I’d enjoyed back when I couldn’t afford the game.
That, to me, is ethical.
Many people already said stuff I agree with, but I’d also include low-income families being “justified” in pirating stuff, be it for work, study or entertainment (as entertainment is a basic right imo)
Culture should be available to everyone, I agree.
I genuinely believe that stealing is stealing and anyone justifying it is doing so to not feel guilty about it.
I download things I haven’t paid for. It’s wrong. I can rationalize this because the stuff I’m stealing has already made their money and me enjoying it on my own time likely has zero impact on the content creators. Also, fuck the non-skippable intros and commercials on blurays.
The one exception to this, what I would argue is unquestionably “ethical piracy”, is content that’s actually important to the progress of humanity. Things like well researched scientific papers, studies about the humanities, psychology, the affects of technology, mechanization, artificial intelligence, etc. This should never be held behind lock and key. You whining about not having access to How I Met Your Mother is not a valid reason to steal content.
Also, people need to spend more time at their public libraries. If you want free shit, a lot of it is there explicitly for the purpose you all espouse.
I’m not bashing you, just pointing out our differences, but I think it’s really interesting that you say “me enjoying it … has zero impact on the content creators” but you also think you SHOULD feel bad for it and that it’s wrong.
My view (that cannot possibly be theft) *feels* natural to me, and your viewpoint (if I tried to have it myself) would feel way more like “rationalizing” or “justifying”.
Also you’re right, public libraries rock :)
Just because I know something is wrong does not mean I feel bad 🏴☠️
Public library near me is more expensive than amazon prime… I call that criminal.
Uh, yeah. I would think that is criminal. Your library isn’t free?? Do you not have one in your county?
Nope…
Welcome to European capitalism guised as a social democratic monarchy… (The Netherlands)
It costs 54 euro per year… Not much, but amazon prime here costs 3 euro a month.
Sadly bit is, as a new immigrant, I’d really love to have free and easy access to local literature… But between the relatively high cost, and the library being open 3 hours a day (and closed on Sundays)… It’s just a little tricky to actually make it work.
I’d like to add a couple preservation-adjacent scenarios for you to consider. If a product is no longer made available by its rights holder, would it be unethical to acquire it through other means?
A: Pirating Abandonware
This would be software that was once sold, but is no longer made available by the rights holder. The creator of the software is no longer profiting from new or existing sales, and it’s no longer possible to acquire a copy through legitimate means. At that point, does pirating the software actually hurt anybody?
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Argument against: not letting the software fade into obscurity stifles the market by providing freely-available competition to products that are actually being sold.
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Argument in favor: preventing piracy of the software will do more harm, as it stifles the growth of any community around the software.
B: Pirating Discontinued Software
This would be software that is no longer officially sold in its original form, but has been superseded by other software available from the same rights holder. For example, older versions of Adobe Photoshop.
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Argument against: pirating discontinued software hurts sales of the currently-available software.
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Argument in favor: currently-available software may be inferior to older versions. (example: licensed music being removed from remastered games)
C: Digitally Pirating Out-of-Circulation Physical Media
This would be acquiring digital archives of out-of-circulation physical media such as video games or out-of-print books. The media isn’t sold by the rights holders anymore, but it would still be available through used goods resellers.
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Argument against: by pirating out-of-circulation media instead of paying for the physical copies, the individual is preventing the flow of capital through the second-hand market.
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Argument against: the rights holder may consider selling the media again in the future, and digital archives will prevent prospective buyers from purchasing the media when it eventually does become available.
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Argument in favor: it is financially inviable to acquire the media through the second-hand market. (as in: it’s overpriced)
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Argument in favor: as the physical media degrades over time, it would become more scarce and may eventually be lost entirely.
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Argument in favor: under the assumption that second-hand resellers exist primarily for profiteering, giving them money does not contribute to humanity or culture in any meaningful way.
D: Removing DRM Technology
In this scenario, the individual has already purchased the media, but it is encumbered by DRM. Suppose the DRM either prevents the media from being accessed entirely1, or it hinders its usability2. Would it be ethical to use a “crack” on your purchased copy or acquire a pre-cracked copy from some other party?
[1] Examples include: lifetime activation limits or activation servers being shut down after the expected lifetime of the product.
[2] Examples include: always-online DRM, unnecessary resource usage
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Argument against: the existance of a crack could mean lost sales, since some individuals may choose to illegally acquire a pre-cracked copy instead of purchasing the media.
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Argument in favor: the DRM is hostile to the consumer. For example, the Sony BMG rootkit that caused excessive resource usage and provided a way for malware to conceal itself.
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Argument in favor: if the DRM is never removed from the media in the future it will hinder preservation efforts.
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As someone who grew up in the “golden age of piracy” who remembers those stupid FBI warnings on VHS tapes, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around that point of view. To me, it’s always been propaganda that creates this so-called anti-piracy morality.
The idea that piracy is stealing is so foreign to me. Stealing/theft is a very specific behavior. Nobody called it Theft when competitors followed around Shakespeare and made copycat plays. Nobody STILL calls it theft when we see stupid copycat movies come out. Nobody called it theft if you got a “copy painting, signed by actual painter” before modern copyright law. Now they call it things (not usually quite theft).
To me, piracy just lacks all the hallmarks of stealing. Hell, I’ve been in lawsuits. In every other realm, the Law draws some very clear lines between real damages and potential ones, and in many cases if I have to sue somebody, the law might even PREVENT me from seeking the latter. So what’s so special about piracy that so many people’s headspace have this attitude the “how the world works” goes out the window and it’s really stealing?
To me, it’s always going to be a matter of propaganda. Very successful propaganda. And I think your last sentence backs that. The big media IP owners started pushing the bubble of “it’s stealing” to libraries as well, and only backed off when it didn’t work. They were somewhat more successful with “used games” and have largely succeeded in killing the used game market off in some domains. I consider it stealing if a game company locks a physical product behind a single-use code so that they can seize part or all of the product if you purchase it used.
But here’s my counterpoint to all of the befuddlement. The companies don’t call these things products anymore, but licenses (so they can seize them at will from people who paid for them). How can you steal something that you can’t own in the first place?
The idea that piracy is stealing is so foreign to me.
It’s literally the definition. Do you think pirates were invited on board to take a ship’s volume of goods without compensation? I’m at a loss how you believe the acquisition of something with a price tag on it without paying for it is not theft.
Your Shakespearian example is very clearly theft. If you sit down at a theater and transcribe the entire show then produce the exact same show, you have stolen intellectual property. What example of “copycat movies” are you considering? I’ve never heard of such a thing nor can I comprehend how it might exist. If someone is literally copying the exact same movie, if someone is producing a movie with the exact same script, it’s theft. Intellectual Property is a thing that can be stolen (hint, it’s in the second word).
You’re right in regard to licensing. We no longer purchase a product but a license to consume that product for a period of time. This was established in the DMCA as media moved from physical to digital formats. When you buy a DVD, you purchase the license to view the content on that medium. If you sell or give away that medium, you are transferring that license to the new owner. There’s a company called Kaleidescape that takes all your physical movies and rips them to a local server. You have to sign an agreement that confirms you own a physical copy of that movie and if you give that movie away you must delete the file from your server. So, you can watch the movie however you like on whatever medium you like, provided you’ve paid for and currently hold the rights to that license.
I’d like you to further explain your philosophy of original content being of no value and everything being free.
I can’t count how many times I have to explain to people that etymological roots of words are not a foundation for an argument. The term “Piracy” was adopted by movie studios back when it wasn’t really illegal… the same ones who also tried to make used media illegal (and eventually succeeded in a way).
Your Shakespearian example is very clearly theft
Except it’s not, nor was it ever. Here’s my metric. Anyone more property-focused than Adam Smith is wrong by default. If you’re more capitalist than the founder of capitalism, maybe you have a problem. It’s like Marx looking at someone and going “OMG is he too communist for me”.
When you are a student and cannot obtain a reasonably priced copy of software- as a company I would see this as a sure fire way to onboard a new generation into my product which will then be paid for with company money later on.
It’s our culture. Everything we create, we create as a society, so to restrict access to our shared culture is the immoral act. That’s the philosophical take anyway.
Practically speaking, we’re living under
feudalismcapitalism, so we have to consider that the creation of art (movies, games, images, etc.) all comes at a financial cost, so acting as if those costs aren’t borne by others is, I would argue anyway, unethical.So the position I usually take is that if the group making the thing is small, the Right thing to do is to pay for it, while if it’s a big multinational cultural glutton like Disney, they can eat a bag of dicks. As far as I’m concerned, pirate the shit out of that.
The interesting dilemma for me comes with the question: once you’ve purchased work from the Little Guy, is it ethical to seed it or just sneakernet it with others? Usually I fall on the side of “yes” on this, because small organisations also need exposure, and getting something for free is often the way in. I know that’s how I got into a bunch of books for example.
If it is a product/software from a large company/corporation/organization that already has “fuck you” levels of money, then I feel it’s way more than ethical since a few thousand people pirating their shit will absolutely not cause even the tiniest of cuts in their company for one, and because they treat their customers the same way an extreme germaphobe would treat the world record holder for dirtiest man in the world.
Same goes for any form of college/university textbooks.
Piracy is always ethical unless you undoubtedly show proof that it harmed someone.
I give you a hint: it almost never actually does.
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When you have zero money
Buying an ebook from Amazon but then pirating an epub version of the same book (Calibre currently unable to crack Amazon’s newest DRM since earlier this year).
People are basically just renting their books from Amazon right now; you don’t really “own” it if you can’t read/listen to it on other devices and apps. That never sat right with me, and when I decided to leave the Kindle ecosystem, I couldn’t read those same ebooks in other apps. So now I refuse to ever buy any of my books from Amazon and am currently using Libby for most of my audiobooks/ebooks and B&N for the physical artbooks I want.
Sadly a lot of the indie authors I read are part of Amazon’s KU, so their books are not legally available outside of that ecosystem. =( So I’ve stopped reading them.
Yeah I do it as well. Many ebooks are only on Amazon, so I have to pirate an epub for my Pocketbook.
