No, it’s not like stealing a physical item from a store.

“stealing” a digital copy of a movie, tv show or a game is like if the item you’re stealing from a store is infinitely copyable. Like the replicator from star trek…or that one episode of Sabrina the teenage witch with that box that can make a perfect copy of everything you put inside of it.

Of course I personally would never pirate anything, no matter how much streaming services increase their prices or how much they crack down on VPN usage to get around geo-restrictions, PIRACY IS BAD AND ONLY BAD PEOPLE DO IT.

I’ve never pirated anything in my whole life!

There are people who understand what I’m saying…but apparently most people don’t get it.

Of course that means I still would never pirate anything. That would be horrible to “steal” a copy of a movie or a TV show

  • Evkob (they/them)@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    78
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    13 days ago

    No, it’s not like stealing a physical item from a store.

    I’d argue stealing physical items from massive corporations is also morally acceptable. If you shoplift from a small mom & pop store, you’re actively hurting your community, however, if you shoplift from Wal-Mart, you’re actively hurting an entity which is hurting your community, therefore helping your community.

    • Alice@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      13 days ago

      Shoplifting from Walmart hurts my knees because the boss won’t believe that our onhand numbers are wrong and makes me check high and low before I can nil pick it 🥲

      This isn’t an ethical argument against shoplifting btw, this is an ethical argument in favor of nuking Walmart

    • Ulrich@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      19
      ·
      13 days ago

      If you shoplift from a small mom & pop store, you’re actively hurting your community

      Unless you’re part of a riot, then it’s okay.

  • enkers@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    13 days ago

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If buying isn’t owning, then pirating can’t be stealing.

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    perhaps the only ethical consumption under capitalism is that which denies capitalists their profit.

      • comfy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        13 days ago

        I mean…if the movie is good you should support it

        What is ‘it’? The movie is a published work, it can’t be financially supported. Who is being supported with the money you pay?

        Vote with your wallet.

        Unfortunately, consumer boycott (and conversely, support) usually isn’t an effective strategy at this scale you’re talking about. Unless you and all your friends are voting with a few thousand dollars, it’s hardly going to make a dent in the numbers.

      • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        If the movie is good, you should support it by making a donation to the strike fund of the unions that represent the artists that actually create the movies. You can support artists without supporting the amoral companies that produce these works.

  • noorbeast@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    13 days ago

    I would like to suggest an alternate perspective, that digital media be beholden to protocols not platforms.

    In other words lets focus on the drivers of competition…most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      13 days ago

      most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.

      The assholes know this too. We’re about due for another round of deshitifcation, just long enough to restore complacency.

  • comfy@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    It is always morally acceptable?

    Morality is, literally, subjective. There is no universal answer to that question.

    I personally consider anything being sold by a distributor to be fair game, no questions asked. If I pay for mainstream music, films or games, most of the time, zero of that money goes to the workers who created those artworks. It just makes rich owners richer, because they legally own rights. I would go as far as to say it’s morally wrong to pay for those things, it’s not neutral, it’s supporting a cycle of abuse at your own expense. So that’s my perspective on your ‘giant corporations’ question.

    Digital copying isn’t stealing, unfortunately, because those giant companies deserve to have their hoard of capital expropriated.

    Two screenshots. The first is a headline: "The world's richest countries came up with just $22 million to fight the Amazon fires.", the second lists the budget for The Emoji Movie: $50 million.[src]

    • azalty@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      13 days ago

      But if not a lot of sales are made, they won’t work with the same people again and will play more safely, and we’ll get less diversity

      • caesaravgvstvs@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        But maybe the people who were working in big studio movies would shift to independent film making with lower budgets and more diversity.

        Obviously it’s also not a good solution, but do we need the big studios to make yet another avengers or minions?

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    13 days ago

    Worrying about “property” of any parasite is something that I never bother to do.

    Giving money to your enemy is idiotic tho.

    There is a class war out there and normies are too busy funding their oppressors

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      13 days ago

      Giving money to your enemy is idiotic tho. There is a class war out there and normies are too busy funding their oppressors

      Absolutely. At the end of the day, most of the moral ideals being thrown around are, at the end of the day, nice ideas.

      Giant corporations exist to get more money and, history shows, media companies will happily brainwash us and buy oppressive politicians just to push their profits up. Furthermore, they serve as a megaphone for the ideas of the owner class, who are historically the core force behind fascism when society is in crisis.

      Giving them your resources is fucking suicidal.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    The number of examples of media becoming unreachable to paying consumers keeps growing.

    Warner Brothers (Max) is the greatest example of this. Years of content from Cartoon Network just disappeared, leaving the consumer no legal avenue to enjoy some of their favorite shows.

    I do not advocate for piracy. I advocate for archiving.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      13 days ago

      I do not advocate for piracy. I advocate for archiving.

      Exactly. And if the assholes make it illegal for librarians, well then yo ho ho.

  • Gsus4@mander.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    13 days ago

    Piracy is a response to various kinds of market failure, inequality.

  • sunglocto@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 days ago

    No but i dont care

    I’ve been pirating for years. I just don’t want to pay for things

  • Hegar@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    13 days ago

    Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.

    Having power neurologically suppresses empathy. Therefor resources controlled by the powerful will on average be used more harmfully. Taking resources from the powerful reduces total harm done.

    You will use a loaf of bread less harmfully than Walmart will use the profit from it.

    • Mr. Zeus@feddit.orgOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      13 days ago

      Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.

      not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.

      Of course, theft wouldn’t happen nearly as much if no one was desperate the survive, but even then there’d still be entitled assholes that want even more.

      • Hegar@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 days ago

        not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.

        That’s not really harm in the way that hunger or poverty or lobbying against workers protections is harm. That’s more like a temporary inconvenience that doesn’t stop anyone getting what they need, right?

  • Zier@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    13 days ago

    When you download music online for free and prevent the company from making a profit off of a creative work by the artist, that they prevented from making a profit & royalties, is that wrong? Doubtful. You can always send the artist money directly if you want to support them.

    • Mr. Zeus@feddit.orgOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      13 days ago

      the DMCA doesn’t protect the artists or any of the singers, it protects the shitty record labels and the money that the executives at those companies get