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Why I'm a Pirate

ploum.net

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Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#41

Post by tomp »

gavinballard wrote: post #32
Tichy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"with infringement upon peoples' rights" People's rights are man made, so they are debatable.

That's one of my problems with his argument. The author seems to think he has a fundamental right to access the produce of media companies... but only on terms he finds reasonable, of course. As you say, rights are often malleable - and reevaluating and redefining them (from both sides of this debate) should be an ongoing process.

The way I see it is that the author is using this blog post to fight for what he believes are his rights, and the businesses are fighting for what they believe are their rights. Philosophical/Moral arguments aside, this war will be won by whoever is louder/more influential.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#42

Post by paul9290 »

The OP's last sentence saying goodbye your demise is soon or something to that extent is funny.

There is always going to be a music and or movie business, as human beings since the dawn of time have fawned over larger then life figures. THere is a business around this (Justin Bieber) and there always will be.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#43

Post by Zirro »

How about those of us who live where getting certain products legally is essentially impossible? In my case, these are anime-series and documentaries, neither which can be bought where I live. What should I do, if I really want to watch these, and have no way of getting them except for P2P?

(Fun fact: Availability was what "drove" me into piracy in the first place. There was a TV-show which had aired about a year earlier, which I had missed then but wanted to see. I tried every legal way to obtain it that I could think of, because I believed piracy was wrong at the time, but it was simply not for sale. In the end, I ended up with my first torrent downloading.)

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tintin wrote: post #33
drewblaisdell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started making enough money to buy everything I was consuming, I put an end to my piracy habit for some time. I had Netflix, used Rhapsody (then Spotify), bought season passes on iTunes (I used iPlayer a couple times but being in the US I had to use Tor to get around the region filter to watch a Louis Theroux documentaries, I guess that's "piracy"). I stopped when I realized that while I could afford it, all o…

When I started making enough money to buy a car I put an end to my car stealing habit for some time. See how silly this sounds? The problem with digital media is that it's very easy to copy. You can't just copy a car. There are tons of website offering free music. So just support those artists instead of the ones charging too much for an inferior service.

"You can't just copy a car."

Yup! And that's why comparing digital piracy with car theft is also equally silly.

Note, I don't have a hard stance on this. Counterfeiting drugs, etc. is wrong for obvious reasons. Coming up with a similar argument for entertainment media is a bit less tenable.

When the MPAA and RIAA cede the moral high ground by acting like idiots (suing 12-year olds, pushing for high criminal charges, SOPA/PIPA, etc.), it makes it more difficult to make a moral argument for the industry.

The everything free argument is crap. But given that I pay for songs on iTunes but pirate TV shows because Derp Studios refuses to put it anywhere online, the user case is valid.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #37
VMG wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they force you? Do you have to buy a Rihanna album?

Some people would consider popular music to be part of their culture. It's much like asking if you have to buy Microsoft Office when it has such a hegemony. You can of course not buy it, but there is pressure to do so.

That's a fuzzy line that invites far more chaos from over-zealous regulation than it does protect the user.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#47

Post by tomp »

cturner wrote: post #39
gavinballard wrote: post #16

This is a series of pretty poor arguments. The author seems to be looking for reasons to justify their own piracy and conflates anger at the approach of the "copyright industry" with infringement upon peoples' rights. One of the final lines of the article, in particular, is jarring: "If I'm a pirate, it's not to have some cheap music. It is because the time has come for you to fuck off." It's fine to be angry about t…

> It might make you feel better about it, but it really > doesn't change the fact that you're stealing something > of value Copyright infringement is not stealing. Separately, the person who worked hard to produce whatever you're buying is reaping a fraction of a percentage point of whatever you're spending, and that's only if the distributor hasn't found a way to screw them out of that entirely (or else they've been…

> Copyright infringement is not stealing.

I assume there will be counter-arguments/downvotes, so to elaborate on this point using my own arguments:

If you steal something from me, I don't have it (as in "steal a car"), so you're putting me in a worse-off position. If you copy/pirate something that is mine (properly copy, with attribution, and not out of context), I am not worse-off (possibly even better-off, as I get more widely known, more famous).

Some compare pirating a DVD with going to a masseuse/prostitute and not paying her/him afterwards. This analogy is not correct - the expectation/social contract is that I have to pay you after I receive a service, and if I don't pay you, you are worse-off because you don't have money that you would otherwise have. However, people that pirate movies/music are not automatically lost revenue - probably they would buy less than 10% (just a guess) of entertainment content that they download/consume through piracy.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#48

Post by loup-vaillant »

gavinballard wrote: post #16

This is a series of pretty poor arguments. The author seems to be looking for reasons to justify their own piracy and conflates anger at the approach of the "copyright industry" with infringement upon peoples' rights. One of the final lines of the article, in particular, is jarring: "If I'm a pirate, it's not to have some cheap music. It is because the time has come for you to fuck off." It's fine to be angry about t…

> you're stealing something of value that someone worked hard to produce.

What exactly is stolen? Certainly not the piece of music, film, or knowledge: unlike spaghetti, those are abundant, non-conflicting goods. Nor the exclusivity, for it is only destroyed. Nor secrecy or privacy, for the piece of knowledge or art is public already.

This is not theft. This is infringing a state granted monopoly. It doesn't make it a good idea, mind you. Upholding the law is generally a good idea. But unlike plain theft, it's not obviously wrong either.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

paul9290 wrote: post #42

The OP's last sentence saying goodbye your demise is soon or something to that extent is funny. There is always going to be a music and or movie business, as human beings since the dawn of time have fawned over larger then life figures. THere is a business around this (Justin Bieber) and there always will be.

I think he was saying good-bye to the distributors, i.e. record labels, whom he sees as superfluous given digital distribution and marketing platforms.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#50

Post by tomp »

patd wrote: post #23
citricsquid wrote: post #8

This is such bullshit, I really wish I could downvote this sort of post. If you don't agree with the methods used by companies to sell their products DON'T then take it anyway, you're showing people WANT the product but aren't willing to pay, so what's the best solution? Make it harder to pirate / try to block pirating. This guy and everyone else who refuses to just not consume media they can't get on terms they and…

I believe ploum still lives in France and in France when you buy a usb sticks, blank CDs and hard drives, you have to pay a "private copy tax" that can be in the tens of euros. So even if he ignores it, he is still paying them money because media companies can't adjust or accept that they're doing it wrong.

So, does this tax then mean that I can pirate songs/movies? After all, I have already paid for them (through the tax).

(Fiction, I know, but one can dream...)

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