HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

Whenever you create a work of art, or work of intellect, you are using the work of "someone else". The vast majority of stories, for instance, use plot devices and elements invented by other humans. IP laws don't necessarily protect these elements - to a large extent because they can't in practice - but they are used nonetheless without special consideration to "someone else's" labor (the inventor of such elements/plot devices).

Many of the arguments for extremely strong IP protections ignore that an enormous percentage of IP is acquired from elsewhere. While many authors add much value on top of these existing elements, we still have the problem of the appropriation of such elements without any authorization/compensation.

Just because the law protects YOUR additions to the (unprotected) work of others, don't think that your additions are that special. The protections from the law, including extent, duration and penalties are arbitrary and, as I said, not part of nature.

People do work based on ideas that are in the public domain. But the differentiation of public domain and non public domain is also a human creation. Why can't IP go into the public domain 15 minutes after they are created? The protection duration is arbitrary and in practice decided by large business lobbies (just see how they increased over time to the current unreasonable levels).

So while a lot of what is being discussed is indeed ILLEGAL, it doesn't mean that it is IMMORAL. I recommend that advocates for strong IP protections examine how much of what they are trying to protect is, indeed, uniquely theirs and not traceable to previous work.

The ethical issue with piracy is that you can't expect to change behaviors or the laws if you merely circumvent them, and circumvent them without substantial risk of punishment.

Take the Civil Rights movement, for example. They disobeyed unjust laws in protest, but they succeeded in their cause because they were often punished for the disobedience. Being punished is a sine qua non of non-violent protest methods as pioneered by MLK, Ghandi, and Mandela. (Notably, all of whom started out believing in the necessity for violent protest, AFAIU.) If there was never any serious threat of punishment, especially for protesters (as opposed to authorities just letting it slide, and then reintroducing enforcement later) then we might still have many of the laws and norms the Civil Rights movement was working to rescind and change. It's difficult to convince people to change unjust laws; much easier to convince them to change unjust consequences.

In a way it comes back to what Socrates taught: you can't reasonably expect to make effectual changes in the law or politics without subjecting yourself to the consequences. And if you're a citizen, making effectual changes is an obligation.

The self-righteous justification for surreptitiously violating copyright as some sort of protest really bothers me. I'm not going to claim that I haven't ever knowingly violated copyright, and I certainly am not going to defend our overbroad copyright protections, but I'm not going to delude myself about why I'm doing something--purely out of self-interest. Doing something out of self-interest isn't per se unethical, but there is something dissonant when you do it knowing that you're technically violating a law that should be changed, and would be more likely to be changed, if everybody felt the pain, either through strict adherence to the law or open violation and consequent punishment.