this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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My argument isn't simply utilitarian either. It would be utilitarian to say, "It's moral to pirate music as long as your enjoyment exceeds the harm caused to the artist." But I'm saying that there is no harm caused by OP pirating in this situation. Don't most moral arguments involve some kind of measure of harm? (Honest and sincere question)
It's been a while since I studied philosophy, but for my own knowledge, do you know if there is some distinction between this sort of argument (e.g. "no victim = no crime") and plain old utilitarianism?
In other words, what ethical theory is your moral argument based on?
...but I'm not pirating though! ;-;
My mistake! I lost the thread when typing my response. Don't worry, I'll call the RIAA today and cancel the snitch report I made ;)
Too late, the death squads are already at my door.
By your definition of harm, no artist creating non-material goods (books, movies, music, etc) could ever experience harm due to any one individual's actions. "I was never going to pay, so taking it without paying is a victim less crime," etc, etc.
The problem is this is clearly harmful in aggregate.
There are countless actions that, on an individual level are relatively harmless that we deem immoral because they'd be harmful if everyone did them: e.g. polluting.
But setting aside issues of harm--which is absolutely utilitarian--there are also many actions for which no objective "harm" can be identified but which we still deem inherently immoral. For example, if someone cheats on their spouse, and the spouse never finds out, most people I know would say that action is immoral irrespective of the lack of direct harm.
As for your last question, tbh I have no idea.
False. I acknowledge that there could be harm if a consumer would otherwise be able to afford to pay for all of the music they listen to. The distinction here is that if a consumer is already spending as much as they can truly afford then artists aren't going to get any more money out of this consumer, regardless of whether or not they pay for it.
In other words: if you pirate because you must = no harm; if you pirate because you can = some harm.
That's an interesting thought experiment about the cheating spouse, though. Thank you for the interesting perspective! This makes me want to re-visit my philosophy notes.
For the record, I pay for Spotify and also support artists through Bandcamp, merch, vinyl, and live concerts. I also pirate music which isn't otherwise available through Spotify and/or Bandcamp (e.g. The Grey Album by Danger Mouse, and up until recently The Flamingo Trigger by Foxy Shazam) and don't feel guilty about those instances.