this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
-36 points (34.5% liked)

Unpopular Opinion

6303 readers
383 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!


How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.


If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.



Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)


  • If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
  • If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].


Rules:

1. NO POLITICS


Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.


2. Be civil.


Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...


Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.


5. No trolling.


This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.



Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It is illegal and immoral. It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors and developers who are only trying to make a living. If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lemann@lemmy.one 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People pirate for different reasons, and the legal definition of it changes nothing really. There's...

  • People who will absolutely not ever pay for anything
  • People who will pay as long as they get their money's worth, who may also be open to supporting the creator directly (Patreon, Nebula, Bandcamp, Floatplane, Liberapay etc.)
  • Preserving content in a usable format (e.g. vinyl record plastic breaking down, old 8track players becoming uneconomical to repair and rare to find, playstation magazine CDs that will never be available online despite being susceptible to CD rot)

I'm in the last two camps personally. I wanted to also share my opinions on the points you mentioned directly...

It is illegal and immoral

I think It is illegal and immoral to sell consumers a license to use a product, under the guise of them owning it without explicitly and clearly stating such at the point of purchase, i.e. consumer electronics where you may "own" the device but only have a license to use the operating system, digital game purchases on consoles which can be revoked at any time by Sony/Microsoft or the publisher, services like Amazon Prime Video where a digital box set you purchased (that can only be watched via Amazon's website) can be deleted by Amazon at any time, leaving you no recourse.

It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors

In my opinion, it should not be right for directors at the likes of UMG to profit from music made by artists who have died.

and developers who are only trying to make a living

The developers do not make anywhere near as much money as they should for their efforts, and quite frankly they are going to get paid regardless of whether you as an individual decide to purchase or pass on a product.

If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

IMO the people in the first camp probably aren't interested in money if they have chosen not to purchase their media to begin with


I'm curious as to the reason behind the post though, has someone pirated your content before?

[–] favrion@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for an actual intellectual rebuttal. This may actually make me reconsider the morality aspect, but it is still outside of my moral bounds and therefore I can never condone it.

This started because of a post that I saw about a big piracy community being shut down.

[–] Stoneykins@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Defederated from another popular instance, not shut down.

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/c/piracy is still there, just not viewable through your instance where your account is.

[–] AbsolutelyNotABot@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago

People who will pay as long as they get their money's worth, who may also be open to supporting the creator directly

The point is, isn't the producer right to make the price? You can always not consume what they produce. This category is the most obnoxious; would you ever go to a restaurant and expect to decide the prices?

It's the very same argument for producers that willingly release their contently freely and let you support them, eventually. It's their choice.

Of the three you quoted preservation is the only one I find acceptable. If the producer no longer care to distribute their product, then they probably don't care to what it happens to it either.

I think It is illegal and immoral to sell consumers a license to use a product, under the guise of them owning it

For me the main difference is that nobody is forcing you to accept the transaction. I could accept this kind of argument for drugs for example, where you either take it or die/have serious repercussions. But pirating a movie you would have very much lived without just because is easy to do so it's particularly problematic.

they are going to get paid regardless of whether you as an individual decide to purchase or pass on a product

Except they aren't. Or at least, of course they're payed the same, at the moment. But in our economy prices are signals. If a market will appear smaller then it is because of piracy then after some timesfewer developers will be hired, and each of them will be payed less because you're "falsifying" the signals. Or even worst, the producers will start to use alternative form of monetization. That's one of the reason the modern web is based off ads or free-to-play games with microtransanctions are so damn common.

IMO the people in the first camp probably aren't interested in money if they have chosen not to purchase their media to begin with

The people in the first category should also think about the allocation problem. Those products which they like to consume but not pay for, still had a cost of production. The problem is they want ti consume, without supporting production, and that's not gonna work for a society.