So how will this play out? The companies will figure out, sooner or later, that if they provide a reasonable service then people will pay for it. Until then, TPB / bittorrent will remain the only source for a rather large group of people.
So how will this play out? The companies will figure out, sooner or later, that if they provide a reasonable service then people will pay for it. Until then, TPB / bittorrent will remain the only source for a rather large group of people.
Devil's advocate: so? Why should anyone have to provide you with the entertainment that you want? Why shouldn't they be able to exercise their right to sell their product to whoever they want - and leave out whoever they don't want? What possible justification could there be for that level of entitlement? What moral justification could there be for saying: sell me your product, or I will take it? How far does this go with IP? If a web designer refuses to sell me their design, am I free to take it? At least with tools like Photoshop, you can claim you "need" it to do work and make a living. Nobody needs a TV show.
I pirate TV. Some of the shows I could (and do; I also have Netflix) get legally and some I couldn't, but the fact of the matter is nobody "owes" me their TV show and I could just not watch it. And I would just stop watching, if the cost of all the TV shows I wanted to watch ever exceeded $10/month and piracy was too difficult/risky. I'm not kidding myself, the reason I pirate is because it's both cheap and convenient.
Honestly I'd probably be better off not watching TV anyway. :)
A: Pirating is wrong!
B: But I have no alternatives
A: So what?
You are right, of course: so what? But if "so what?" is an option, then the entire discussion becomes:
A: Pirating is wrong!
B: So what?
B doesn't care about this discussion in the first place. A wants to make a point. That means you can't use "so what?".
This is what lultimouomo meant when he said "the excuse is weak, but the fault itself is also considered weak." [para]
Again, not saying I disagree. Of course; so what? But, in that case: people pirate. So what? You're the one making a point. If your point is just "it's illegal": everyone knows that already. So what?
You're right that nobody owes us their TV show. But on the other hand, I don't see why we owe them assistance to enforce their wishes.
I'm probably going to get down voted for this but when your excuse for piracy is you can't watch some TV shows your excuse is weak. Not being able to see those shows is going to have very little impact on your life. Certainly not enough of an impact to justify theft or copying without permission. TV shows are not a 'tool you need'.
I'm fortunately in a country where most stuff is available. There is still a lot that is not though and occasionally I may turn to piracy (until it is available at which stage I buy it). I don't try to justify this though as it is a poor justification for piracy.
I don't know. Maybe the creator didn't want people in a certain country to view the material. Maybe it hurts their feelings that it's being pirated. Maybe they have a release planned 6 months from now in a certain country and their sales will be down for that. There's no way to know for certain you won't be causing harm.
Harm must be proven to receive civil redress. Potential, unrealized harm is not actionable.
If your neighbor digs a bottomless pit in his backyard, and posts trespass warnings, you cannot sue to have him fill it because your kids might fall in. They would, after all, need to trespass in order to do that.
But you could tell your insurance adjuster, they could apply a risk premium to a policy, based on the presence of the hole, and you could sue your neighbor for that.
The argument against piracy is essentially a neighbor saying that 40 of their kids accidentally fell into the hole, except they also somehow lost all the birth certificates and forgot the kids' names. There's just no way that anyone can prove that sort of harm.
But if the content industry ever tried to take out an insurance policy for sales lost to piracy, that would be a reasoned, independent, and measurable assessment of their harm, and they couldn't make up those BS numbers about how many dozens of their non-existent children fell into the pit, lost forever, even to the public records and the memory of their parents.
As long as TV-shows are broadcasted on television you can't expect all shows to be isntantly available in your region. Some will, somw won't, depending on distribution/broadcast agreements.
I believe TPB and kickass proves this statement false.
I don't know what 'region' I'm in, and I don't care.
If you want to see it in action in a setting where we don't get derailed so easily by its implications, consider vaccination.
People don't need to speed in cars, or run red lights, or roll through stop signs.
etc
(They generally do so because the cost to them is low 99.9% of the time)
True, I'm not sure why it annoys me so much. I would be much happier if people just said, "Sure, I pirate some stuff I don't need. There is no excuse for it but I do it anyway." The end result is the same.
The same way "I want to get home faster" or "i'm careful" is also a silly and false rationalization for the speeding/rolling through stop signs/etc.
I'm bracing for the downvotes here, but I really don't see copying for personal use as a negative. To me, it's illegal in the same way that violating traffic laws to keep up with the flow of traffic is illegal (technically, but (sufficiently small values of) nobody actually cares or is actually harmed by it).
Would love to see some arguments to the contrary that aren't straight out of the media cartel fallacies playbook :)
Your point? Slavish adherence to the law makes you obedient, not noble.
That is not very much justification.
There is no such tradeoff - there is only the existence of the law and its enforcement. An unenforced or almost never enforced law need not exist and is treated as same.
I don't have to pretend to respect the copyright lobby to gain the benefits of not being murdered in my sleep.
Copyright infringement is a much more complicated calculus.
Should we ignore those laws that codify the opposite of our beliefs? Many people would say yes. Many of our heroes are lionized for doing this.
In your first response.
>Should we ignore those laws that codify the opposite of our beliefs? Many people would say yes. Many of our heroes are lionized for doing this.
First, this defeats the purpose of law. Everyone has their own beliefs. Imagine what would happen if everyone started selectively obeying the laws that are compatible with their beliefs. Believe me there is quite a diversity of belief systems out there. Secondly, those many people that would say yes, should try to change the law instead of ignoring it. I can also accept a code of ethics that accepts ignoring the law, as long as it waives the rights given by law.
Normal people and police do this every single day with usually little ill effect. Police are not obligated to pursue every instance of a violation they see, a person is in theory obligated to follow every applicable law, but in practice, they do not (and the sheer volume of law ensures that it's impossible anyways), and the world hasn't come crashing down.
The idea that ignoring wrong or inconvenient laws leads to social collapse rings quite hollow, in light of that.
If we treat all laws as equal because they are the law, then a person who drives over the speed limit has logically done just as bad as someone who kills another.
Can we agree that this suggestion is absurd on its face?
If we instead acknowledge that some laws are more important than others, the more difficult question has to be asked "what defines that importance?", which logically means that there are some laws that are not that important at all, who's violation has little to no negative societal impact. Like going a mile over the speed limit.
Or more to the point of this discussion, like downloading a movie from your favorite torrent site.
If morals drive laws and not the other way around, the moral consensus seems to be shifting towards the fact that copyright infringement is morally neutral, or at least not that bad, on the same level as going a mile over the speed limit. It's technically illegal, you could be made an example out of if someone really wants to, but the chances of that happening are all but nonexistent.
No accounts, no logins, higher download speeds, worldwide availability. The fact that is free is just bonus.
We can argue if that perception is right, but I think this is the reasoning that justifies piracy in the eyes of many pirates.
/s