• null@slrpnk.net
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    9 months ago

    Licensing isn’t ownership, and pirating isn’t stealing, it’s copyright infringement.

    • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It is stealing. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics here. You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.

      • null@slrpnk.net
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        9 months ago

        It is not stealing. The mental gymnastics are when you try to claim that it is.

        You’re stealing income from whoever created the content if you’re not paying them for your ability to watch it.

        It’s just as much “stealing” as me not watching it at all.

        I’m infringing on their copyright, absolutely, but I’m not taking anything away from them that they could otherwise profit from.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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          9 months ago

          You can’t reason with him. He is an anti-piracy troll.

          For him, any comparison made to help him understand is a logical fallacy and any evidence presented against his argument is “irrelevant” as he puts it.

          It is like arguing with a trump-like narcissist lol. “My argument counts and yours is wrong, but if yours is right then it is irrelevant, made up, and/or a straw man. If I don’t understand something then it is an attack and I will insult you and instantly label you inferior.”

          It’s sad honestly and just like them all he is all “think of the poor artists who created the media you love” while conveniently ignoring that in the music industry, many/most artists don’t even get royalties because the record labels swindled then forced them to sign their lives and works away getting a couple pennies on the dollar.

          Video game industry is salaried. All profits go to the corporations outside of indie games. Movies, outside of the big name stars, earn almost poverty wages and absolutely 0.00% of what gets sold because the studios are so incredibly corrupt.

          Not to mention dead artists where unless they were extremely smart, their families are likely earning 0% of sold media.

          Also not getting into the fact that copyright used to be very short until large corporations bribed lawmakers constantly and for so much corrupt money that they changed copyright to extend an extreme amount of time, otherwise things from the 90s would already be public domain if there wasn’t so much blatant bribery and corruption done by the people you are “stealing” from.

          Unless you are pirating things from Dolly Parton or someone who was business savvy enough to not get cheated by the studios, you are not stealing from the artists in any crazy mental gymnastic stretch of the imagination.

          Piracy, at the very worst, is stealing from long time hard criminals. There is not a single big record corporation that has not committed a multitude of thefts, blackmail, drug dealing, bribery of government officials, and worse. That isn’t even getting into the crimes of porn studios and movie studios. Disney mass murdered animals on camera for views as one example.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it. If they’re not entitled to your money, then you’re not entitled to the product of their time, effort, and labor.

          • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            No it’s not. If you don’t pay for it, you don’t watch it.

            A friend bought a movie, invited me and 12 other people to watch it. Are we supposed to be legally required to say no?

          • null@slrpnk.net
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            9 months ago

            That’s a valid opinion. It doesn’t change the fact that the crime is copyright infringement, not theft.

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I’m not arguing the legal or criminal semantics. I’m arguing the dishonest justification and misrepresentation of piracy. Piracy is stealing. You’re stealing income from the creator if you ingest their work without paying for it. I don’t care if people pirate things but admit that it’s stealing and move on.

              • null@slrpnk.net
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                9 months ago

                Piracy is stealing.

                No it is not. By any definition.

                You can think it’s morally wrong, that’s fine. But it simply, factually is not stealing.

                That’s the only point I’m making.

                • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Then we’ll have to agree to disagree. It doesn’t matter how many levels of abstraction or semantics you hide it behind, you’re gaining from something made by another person without returning that gain (whether financially or otherwise) to that person.

                  • null@slrpnk.net
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                    9 months ago

                    You’re welcome to disagree with any standardized definition you like. Seems like a pretty unwise thing to do, but that’s your prerogative.

          • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            If i could just teleport into your house so i could liberate your keyboard, i would. Because your take is so collosally stupid that it actually angers me that you have it.

            Like real, palpable rage that this insipid argument still exists in this world, after all this time.

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Ahh yes… the tried and true ad-hominem. No actual argument against the point, just childish name-calling and insults. Grow the fuck up.

              • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                An ad hominem would be if i avoided your point and instead attacked you as a person. I attacked the point itself as frivolous and years-debunked. Please… Listen… Your keyboard is suffering under the weight of false premise. Free it, please

      • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        How are you stealing income if there was no intention to pay the company to begin with? Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money. This is especially the case if the consumer has previously purchased a license to consume the product, and then the company decides to take (or steal) it away. No moral qualms with pirating the same content then.

        It’s digital data; you’re copying something, leaving the original completely intact. It’s not like a physical BluRay, where if you steal it from a store, you are making that store lose money due to that physical stock being stolen.

        And lastly, how is the company not stealing from consumers when they pull shit like this?

          • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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            9 months ago

            I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. You’re copying something someone else created, for the express purpose of generating income, without their permission.

            Who said anything about generating income off of pirated work?

            Theft does not imply the intention to pay, that’s kinda the whole point.

            The definition of theft according to MW: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

            If you do not deprive the original owner of the property (such as: copying), it is not definitionally theft. Legally speaking, it is considered copyright infringement.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Even if there was an intention to buy it, companies aren’t entitled to consumers’ money.

          Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).

          Taking away licenses is wrong. I’m not disputing that. But that doesn’t magically make stealing something that actual people created right.

          • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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            9 months ago

            Then you’re not entitled to ingest the content being created by that “company” (doesn’t have to be a company, it could be a single artist or a small group of artists).

            Are you making an ethical, moral, or legal statement here?

            Ownership of intangibles in this context exists only as a means to support a particular political arrangement. I think you may be assuming others here share your politics; there is no objective moral standard for exclusive ownership of intangibles.

            • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              By that argument, there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value. If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not. If you don’t agree to that premise, then there’s no point in discussing this with you.

              • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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                9 months ago

                there is no moral imperative for people to create intangibles as they have no value.

                You’re right, there is no moral imperative for people to create (or share) intangibles, but nobody is claiming they have no value.

                If someone creates art that you like, they deserve to be paid for the time and effort it took to create that art whether the art itself is physically tangible or not.

                Again, is this a ethical, moral, or legal statement? It strikes me as a uniquely ideological statement, but you’ve not elaborated.

                • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Everyone arguing that it’s not stealing is making the claim that it has no value.

                  Why does it matter? I would consider it moral and ethical but have no care whether it’s a legal one. I’m not disputing the legality of anything here (since I believe that the subject of the OP is also illegal - “Buying” something denotes ownership and, therefore, taking it away is also stealing).

                  Additionally, I do not have objections against piracy and think there are many legitimate reasons for it. I am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealing.

                  • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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                    9 months ago

                    Everyone arguing that it’s not stealing is making the claim that it has no value.

                    Are you trying to conflate ‘value’ with ‘extractive market value’? There are lots of things that have innate value but have no or very little market value.

                    Why does it matter? I would consider it moral and ethical but have no care whether it’s a legal one.

                    It matters if anyone cares to understand what you’re actually asserting, since you’ve again claimed ‘I am only arguing against the mischaracterization and dishonesty of claiming that it is not stealing’. How can anyone understand what you mean without knowing what you take ‘stealing’ to mean, and why it matters?

                    Most people here would argue that a system that relies on exclusive ownership of ideas/digitally reproducible data in order to support those who do that labor (that we all benefit from) is one that is broken. In which case ‘stealing’ would be misplacing both to whom the harm being done and the party doing the harm, because it isn’t the fault of the artist or the consumer that the system withholds the means of living from those who are unable to justify their existence through labor.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Well, that’s a different argument. I believe it is also dishonest to have a “Buy” button for something you don’t actually get to own (that’s bullshit).

          Digital media should be bought the same way as physical media.

          If I had my way, you’d be able to watch media first and then decide to pay for it. Better yet, you pay for it in advance, watch whatever you want, and then decide how your payment got divided up amongst the artists and creators that you feel deserve your money for their work.

          Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.

          • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Stealing this stuff, which is what piracy does (and ai have no issue with for all kinds of reasons), only results in the people who made things you want to watch not getting paid to make that stuff.

            Are you saying that if I pirate a movie from 2019, the actors have not been paid for their screentime yet and won’t be paid until I buy the movie in, like, 2028?

        • Psychodelic@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          LOL they know it’s stealing. Some of them will even blatantly admit it with no guilt.

          Wait, do you think people that pirate things all have the same beliefs or something? Such a weird way to logic. 😅 Truly, that’s a new one.