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Comment by nikbackm | Hacker News Reader

But it can hardly be culturally relevant in a country where it's not available, or?

Unless everyone pirates it.

This is one of those comments that flips between supporting my previous comment or arguing against it every time I blink and reread it.

in an increasingly globalized world, literary media has become culturally relevant anywhere in the world.

In the past, when localized media is the only option, locking out regions from purchases wouldn't have been an issue (since nobody would've known about it).

But now the internet exists, and information being global means that literary media must also be global. To be denied an opportunity to participate in its consumption is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication. I think that's wrong, and therefore, this justifies piracy for those individuals who would otherwise be denied due to cost/availablity reasons.

This is such an English-speaking-centric view it's incredible. There are great works of art - movies, books, music, games that exist outside of the anglosphere, they never appear outside of their respective countries and are never translated, yet I don't see people complaining that the lack of their translations is " is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication". You just....can't consume them. It's not the end of the world, no one is being done some great injustice, that creative work is just not available to you right now. How is that different? Perhaps only in that it's much better? If I want to watch a Russian TV show and there is no translation, either I have to wait for the translation or....learn Russian. If I can't legally buy Game of Thrones in my country I can always pay for a copy in a country where it is available and have it sent to me. It's not as convenient, but it is possible. To say that there is some harm being done by not making it available and the only solution is piracy sounds like self justification.

> [art] outside of the anglosphere... never appear outside of their respective countries and are never translated, yet I don't see people complaining

i m sure the complaints exist. I m also sure that english works is more popular than non-english works (due to english simply being the international language). My view isn't anglo-centric at all - you can make the same argument about anime.

I watch anime on crunchyroll, but i used to use torrents. The illegal method is the only option as a high-schooler who cannot afford the prices required to get a DVD set. I m glad that crunchyroll has worked to a legal means for this media.

The argument here is that streaming companies (esp. disney) is attempting to restrict their works, which has significant cultural impact, by making _their_ streaming service the only way to consume this work. This mechanism makes the price of the media higher, and people would need to pay multiple services to get the full coverage of all media they need to consume.

How is it anglocentric? To me it seems the opposite.

This is be being unable to buy the show in Russian, in the united states. Region locking doesn't just prohibit US content from being played elsewhere, it prevents Americans from seeing a lot of amazing things produced around the world just as readily.

Remember that anime exists as a concept in the West because of stubborn pirates in the 1970s who pirated it when the Japanese themselves didn't even consider publishing it outside of Japan. You don't hear complaints, because people just take what they want anyway and then subtitle it and make it available for a bigger audience.

It used to be quite common for people to learn Russian (or German earlier) for the purpose of accessing content (mostly scientific works) that they otherwise wouldn't have access to. There is also a huge community of people that translate pirated foreign works into English which wouldn't otherwise be available to a US audience. Hell, in my past I pirated a significant number of foreign works and their translations but they are much more readily available these days in the States so I don't have to.

There is a big difference between failing to facilitate (not making a translation) and actively preventing participation. Your import example to avoid piracy is not a great example because they DRM and or geolock those physical copies as well to prevent exactly what your solution is. The only legal recourse to access that media would be to travel to the country of origin and consume it "on site."

Culture isn't always local to your geographic location, there's people around the world discussing tech culture right here, there's people living abroad but still connected too and part of the local culture. One of the common analogies for China's lack of respect for intellectual property is the US doing the same (copying books) when it was young and poor yet still culturally English.

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