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Comment by rightbyte | Hacker News Reader

A big bullet point for me is that I find it unethical to support most of the studios and media companies.

As someone who pirates a lot of movies and TV, I think it's hard to justify based on ethical arguments against the industry. At a certain point, it feels like a wobbly justification to say we like using something but refuse to pay for it, and that's actually fighting the good fight. Personally, I don't like some of what these companies do, but I like other parts—like the movies and shows their dark malevolence provides me. I have to admit that the real reason I pirate is because it's more convenient and cheap.

I would naturally tend to agree with you, and when it comes to DRM-free things (like most music) I totally agree, but I genuinely think financially supporting companies using DRM is unethical. I used to buy (and still would buy) a ton of ebooks and a fair amount of movies/shows, but at this point I refuse to. The only exception is Audible. I still buy a ton of audiobooks from Audible (unless I can find them on Downpour or another DRM-free site) because I think they've gotten to a reasonably happy medium on the DRM. I would rather they drop the DRM, but it's at least not a giant pain in the ass to strip for people like me who really care about that.

I strongly want to pay people for good content, and I think they deserve to make some money for their work, but as soon as they slap DRM on it to limit my ability to back it up, consume it on whatever device I want, etc, the scales are tipped and I think piracy is actually more ethical than supporting such shit financially.

Are you familiar with libro.fm?

Ah yes, I should have mentioned them! I did have a really good experience there, and I appreciated being able to download an m4b file. Thanks!

I'm not sure I see the ethics argument re: how the limitations affect your ability to back up / consume / multi-device. Those things might make it not worth your time and money, they might make it a bad deal, but it's not unethical to accept a bad deal.

For me, the ethical dimension comes from how the DRM will be abused. By paying somebody who develops DRM, you're complicit in building something that may later pivot from protecting content to silencing dissent or preventing local-manual override in a hazardous way, and that's unethical. Maybe it's not right up there with biological weapons, but it's still one of those things that we should not tolerate.

Ye it could just be a rationalization, I have to admit.

How about just not consume their products then?

I do that, too

Right? "I don't like what you stand for or your views on certain topics, but I do want to enjoy the product you make, so I feel justified in not compensating you for partaking in the services you provide."

Can I stiff my Uber driver if I don't agree with their politics? If I don't like their car? Can my boss not pay me for developing software if I didn't laugh enough at his jokes?

We find it easy to say "no" in those cases. But because media piracy is pretty easy to do and pretty difficult to punish, we simply stop caring.

I agree with your core concept, but I don't think those analogies are fair.

TV and movies are part of pop culture and depending on your circle can be critical to have knowledge on for social reasons. If something is unavailable to you due to means outside of your control (licensing, internet speed, accessibility of UI, etc) then there's more justification to that than not paying your Uber driver based on politics.

>TV and movies are part of pop culture and depending on your circle can be critical to have knowledge on for social reasons. If something is unavailable to you due to means outside of your control (licensing, internet speed, accessibility of UI, etc) then there's more justification to that than not paying your Uber driver based on politics.

TV and movies are "critical" because... you want to partake in watercooler banter? I'm not sure how that's more convincing than uber being "critical" because you need it to get to work on time, or to get home safely after drinking.

> Can I stiff my Uber driver if I don't agree with their politics?

That would be an example of the opposite. Uber is pretty much a tracker (peer-to-peer platform) for unlicensed taxis.

Actually, at least in the UK, Ubers are licensed by local councils. They have all sorts of stupid restrictions like if they drive someone to another city they cannot pick up any passengers there so they have to drive back empty even if a customer could have booked the journey. This is Enforced, DRM style, by the app. The same rule exists for local private hire companies but they can ignore it when it makes sense to.

That would be a more principled stand, ye. But the conglomerates capture so much culture, such that it would be kinda peaty culture wise to skip mainstream content.

If the objection is that their claim to ownership is not legitimate due to harms done along the way, then refusing to access the media on those grounds would mean participating in the very thing you're trying to object to.

That's no way to disobey.

I know this one is a stretch, but one of my argument is: if they're paying to put up a billboard which I cannot ignore because it's out in the real world where I walk with my eyes open, they force a craving inside me. They literally payed money to instill a want in me that I never asked for. This is not a secondary effect, it's why they put the Billboard there.

In that case it's ethical to resolve this want by consuming the content without paying. Sorry if I'm not Monk McMonkface and deny this want with mental fortitude, but they have a whole marketing agency and I'm just trying to get by.

Agreed.

I'd love a better way to pay the artists of the content I end up torrenting--just so long as it actually gets to the people who made the content and not the people turning the world into a pile of telescreens.

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