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I doubt it too, but I'm willing to waste the karma on putting it forth as a valid alternative. I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willi

by bmelton 11y ago

I doubt it too, but I'm willing to waste the karma on putting it forth as a valid alternative. I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them, but it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems able to justify it.

JupiterMoon 11y ago
So you suggest that people in smaller countries should just shut up and accept that they are second class citizens in the modern world? These are people that are very able and very willing to pay for content -- they just have no way to do so.
- bmelton 11y ago
  If that's the only alternative to taking things that don't belong to them, then I consider it the preferable alternative. I wasn't aware that the unavailability of House of Cards was tantamount to torture, and personally, I don't see it that way at all.
  - Touche 11y ago
    Plenty of people never bought into the idea that an entity could own a sequence of bytes. Until you understand this you'll continue to not understand why people have such an easy time getting content that you think they "just shouldn't watch".
    - bmelton 11y ago
      To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it. There are plenty of people who think that think gay people shouldn't be allowed to be married. I understand that too, and also disagree. Just because a lot of people think something doesn't make it right. It took real people time, money and effort to make the shows that others are pirating, and to my mind at least, their efforts entitle them more to it than my "need" to watch it entitles me to pirate it.
      - mercer 11y ago
        > but it boggles my mind how comfortable everybody seems able to justify it. > To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it. I don't really understand how it can 'boggle your mind' while you still understand it. Mind-boggling implies that it's surprising to you, which it shouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, while I do not entirely agree with your point of view, I understand it. But to describe it as mind-boggling would be both inconsistent and perhaps a bit condescending. It seems to me that it would be better to express understanding and then explain why you disagree, rather they to pretend 'being startled'.
        bmelton 11y ago
        Fair point. i made my earlier point poorly, as I didn't respond to your post in context (but rather as its own entity). In the same way that I understand the appeal of, say, scientology (e.g., You are a superior being, and with just a little help, we can make you far more successful, rich in pocket, body, spirit, blah blah), but it still boggles the mind that people fall for it. I understand the appeal to self-justify taking something from another that you want more. I understand the appeal of copying something you don't own, or can't buy, which doesn't physically "take" anything away from the owner. I understand those things just fine. What I don't understand is how low the lack of respect for your fellow man has to be that they can create something, not give it to you, and that isn't a deterrent from just taking it anyway. Even if I accept the argument that it doesn't take anything from the owner (which I don't), and that a given copy of data is nothing more than a secret a friend won't tell me, I still respect other people enough that I'm not going to dig through their things until their secrets are mine.
        mercer 11y ago
        The thing is that it still strikes me as rather arrogant to compare pirating to something like scientology, or imply that it is 'respectless' to my fellow man. Even just based on this HN thread, there's probably a huge part of society that is 1) intelligent, 2) conscientious, and 3) does not consider pirating a big crime. I just need to look at myself and the vast majority of my friends to confirm this. I could defend my point of view by saying that I would simply not download certain things if there was no easy way to do so, but clearly we disagree on this issue. But arguing that it's 'simply' lack of respect for your fellow man and 'simply' taking does not do the issue justice. Either it is as simple as you say, and all of us who pirate are lesser creatures than yourself (which would be convenient to conclude), or it's not as simple as you say. I don't really see how there's a third option, and that's the problem I had with your comment.
    - rogersm 11y ago
      Commercial software (with a long tradition) is based on that idea. And Free software is based on the same idea, only that you renounce to that ownership right.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        Free software is a hack on a legal system to provide something that should work this way by default. And commercial software could get away with being based on that idea because they could enforce it, and only as long as they could. Which is why at first it worked, then it stopped thanks to the Internet, and now it's working again, because everyone's moving to SaaS model. Which, by the way, is a step backwards in progress.
  - freshhawk 11y ago
    Not "taking things that don't belong to them", "seeing things others don't want them to". The reason it seems strange to you isn't a difference in morals or ethics but framing.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    The alternative is that the owners of the content sell it/rent it to them. Result profit.
  - true_religion 11y ago
    I think that possession is the essence of property rights. People have a real viceral reaction when you come and take something out of their house, or out of their hand. However, copying no matter how perfect isn't the same kind of infringement under law or common morals. If someone peeks at your house, then builds a perfect replica on their own land then you may be sad that you lost the uniqueness of your properly without their paying you for the privilege of copying it... But it's not "piracy", and will hardly cause a pitchfork mob to form outside your neighbors newly copied house.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Except that is not the case, and your statement is nothing more than worthless hyperbole.
  - mortehu 11y ago
    It's hard to believe you have ever used YouTube, Netflix or Google Play TV in a small country. For current TV shows, your options are usually to watch them as they air, or not watch them at all. This even includes stuff for which Netflix is the original distributor, like House of Cards, because they may have licensed the content exclusively to a broadcast TV station.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    You are absolutely wrong. It happens to Australians all the time.
izacus 11y ago
I think it's a difference in scale. It's one thing for everyone to shrug off lack of a single service, but people aren't going wait 3-5 years for every show heavily marketed to them on the internet. Blocking things geographically didn't work in socialist times before 1990 and expecting it to work now is rather naive :/
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  That plus the ease of spoilers that people toss around online, under the assumption that anybody who was going to watch a show is caught up by now. Good luck watching A Game of Thrones 5 years behind everyone else without hearing who dies. I haven't kept up with it, but I heard allll about a particular Stark last season (details omitted on the off chance that someone else hasn't). Even from newspapers and congresspeople on that one, IIRC.
  - AznHisoka 11y ago
    I absolutely hate online publications that try too hard to hide the spoiler by saying "Here's what really happened to <X> last season", or "X didn't die!!" Umm.. saying X didn't die in Game of Thrones is already a spoiler.
    - wlesieutre 11y ago
      Oh my god do I hate those. I was a week or two late on the Star Wars train recently, and had to basically stop visiting Facebook because of all the clickbait headlines that they stuff into newsfeeds. <vague spoiler warning if anyone hasn't seen it yet> ... ... "THIS CHARACTER WAS ORIGINALLY MARKED FOR DEATH IN STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS!" Ok, sure, you didn't give me a name, but going into the movie after reading that made it pretty fucking obvious.
  - tragic 11y ago
    I'm not, by nature, spoiler adverse. But the issue is that there just genuinely is only so long you can hold out from learning about a twist or a cliffhanger if you're interested in it. A shock TV moment is not good for each individual viewer, but works once for the whole population of viewers. This works well as an aesthetic device for popular culture, where the purpose is in large part to catch the zeitgeist in the short term. I don't want to sound snobbish about this - Charles Dickens was a master of this type of thing, after all, and his present reputation as a Great Writer In English Literature would amuse and appall the snobs of his day, if they only knew. The best parts of mass popular culture endure after everyone knows he's his father, or its a sled, or little Nell dies.
frogpelt 11y ago
Pretty much everyone justifies the things that they really want to do. And if they really want to do illicit or unethical things, they still do it (and justify it) as long as they don't think they will get caught. This is one reason looting happens during a disaster. This is why people cheat on their taxes.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Yeah, and if we're discussing unethical things people justify to themselves, let's not forget that we do rationalize advertising. Which is doubly relevant here, because it's the heavy-handed advertising that makes our culture so tightly connected to commercial works of art.
  - frogpelt 11y ago
    Are you not a fan of commercial works of art? Also, I think you are conflating entertainment with art. They are not the same in my opinion.
pavedwalden 11y ago
I understand how you can feel that it's important to follow rules, but why is it baffling that people are comfortable taking something that is infinitely copyable (and thus, the theft deprives no one else) when the seller will sell it to their neighbors but not to them?
Wingman4l7 11y ago
I think the concept of being left behind culturally is an interesting one, and may have increasing negative effects in people's lives. A couple simple examples would be in business (can't schmooze with a potential client about the latest TV show) or relationships (can't identify with someone you're dating over music or films).
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  ... or feeling left out (you can't participate in a conversation with friends or cow-orkers, who are fans of the show you couldn't legally see yet). Or feeling disconnected from the global culture - after all, we have XXI century, a big part of the global population lives in a shared culture. Not being able to relate to what your US friends are talking about, or what their news articles say, is also a problem.
forgottenpass 11y ago
it boggles my mind how comfortable everybody seems able to justify it. I expect and tolerate a certain level of lawbreaking from teens and pre-"settling down" young adults. Categorically, I put piracy somewhere among underage drinking, using soft drugs, and irresponsible vehicle operation. The pettiest of petty crime. Do those boggle your mind too? I don't expect anyone to inherently respect IP law in the portions of their life where they're broke. Unless someone close to them makes money off of copywritten material.
- bmelton 11y ago
  I would almost certainly not choose to prosecute someone hungry for stealing my food. I might even steal food from another if I or my family were hungry enough. There's a need there that, if unsatisfied by any other option, is resolved through theft, and I accept that just fine. We're not talking about food though, we're talking about Orange is the New Black, which is far from a necessity. Beyond that, if I thought it was just broke teens pirating, then I probably wouldn't feel the need to speak up, but it's not nearly limited to that demographic. I have six-figure-income, grown up friends who swap pirated seasons of TV shows and in-theater movies with each other on Plex.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    Your friends also probably regularly exceed the speed limit on the freeway. This could have potentially deadly consequences, so is arguably a much worse crime than non-commercial copyright infringement. But both crimes are socially acceptable, so they do it.
    - winter_blue 11y ago
      No, they don't. I have 35-year old friends who make upwards of $150k, and still pirate movies and TV shows. But they're smart enough to stay within the speed limit. They said it was something about the probability of dying being really high while speeding, and them wanting to stay alive...
bobajeff 11y ago
If someone told you, you couldn't do something, and the reasoning was some arbitrary, thinly veiled assertion of power over you, also this person is one of those types that always seems to find their way in such power despite everyone else preference to the contrary, but you had the means to easily bypass their authority. Wouldn't you be just a little tempted? Keep in mind this is perhaps one of the few cases were you aren't totally powerless.
- pgwhalen 11y ago
  I don't think that the reason content is not available is an "arbitrary, thinly veiled assertion of power."
  - HelloMcFly 11y ago
    It isn't arbitrary, but it likely seems arbitrary to many pirates.
    - bmelton 11y ago
      Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/277/ https://xkcd.com/277/ Everything seems arbitrary when one does not know or cannot guess at the (usually more complicated) underlying reasons.
      - chris_wot 11y ago
        Those reasons are because of negotiating local deals, or to prevent access to the content immediately to push up prices artificially. We do actually know the reasons, and it doesn't make things any better.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      It is arbitrary. It's a quirk of scarcity economy. If content creators didn't need to trade off time spent on creating content for time spent on earning their bread, we wouldn't have this discussion. And while I sympathize with content creators here, we've turned this into a machine for big companies to print money. At this point, if the crude hack doesn't even serve its purpose, why should people care?
cmdrfred 11y ago
if you refuse to let me buy it you don't get to claim lost revenue if I download it.
mhurron 11y ago
> I doubt it too, but I'm willing to waste the karma on putting it forth as a valid alternative. If you make something that people want, then make it hard to get legally, alternatives will be found. Region locking spurs piracy, it doesn't hinder it.
arihant 11y ago
The thing is, if a piece of IP is not available in a country, and given the fact that it might be worthless by next season, is distributing that IP for free for that year in the country a bad karma? If anything, when the production house does license out in that country, they can run the current season directly as population has already watched earlier ones. If anything, this should push production houses to work better with rights distribution. In India, that's already happening with "Premier" channels which run seasons alongside US counterparts. For shows that appear on now Premier channels, I have not torrented a single one. I am also sure that if not for rampant torrenting, this would have never happened. Internet is a great leveller. Take a deep breath, let it in. By the time we all have gray hair, this will be long sorted out. You can't lock down IP by country in 2016. If you built a system that loses money if it leaks internationally, it's your fault. Next, try to build a business model that has more chances of survival than chances of sand retaining in your fist. The real problem is that people still expect a century old business model to work. If it doesn't, they lose their minds. If a tree falls in another part of the world, and nobody saw it, nobody visited that forest for 10 years, nobody wanted to use that wood, did it really fall? Did American oak planters lose money because of it?
- tajen 11y ago
  People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn money?" What artists and moviemakers could do is, sell the right to see contents before others. Assuming that DRM is cracked and leaked after some time and will inevitably fall into the "public domain", users would not buy "a song" or "a movie", but the lifestyle of watching it directly out from the factory, while others would have to wait until it's cracked. When the season 2, 3 and 4 of Arrow aren't available in Europe, we know that Netflix isn't selling the lifestyle of being up-to-date with fashion.
  - Suncho 11y ago
    People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn money?" They'd work on commission. They'd work on crowd-funded commission. If you want a movie made, you pay for it yourself. If you want to watch a movie that's already been made, why shouldn't that be free? The work has already been done and paid for.
serge2k 11y ago
> content otherwise unavailable to them if it's not otherwise available then how is pirating not 100% harmless? Publishers should be aware at this point that they can either start dropping barriers to content access or people will just find another way.
Nadya 11y ago
>I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them If I'm willing to pay you for it, why can't I have it? What reason is there to deny me the ability to access culture if I'm willing to pay? Is it because I was (without any choice of mine) born in the wrong country? Am I entitled for being born in the wrong country? That sounds more like snobbery from people born in the "right" country.
- Joeri 11y ago
  Countries are an instrument of discrimination. Denying access to culture is one of the milder aspects. People born in the wrong country are locked out of many rights others take for granted, even human rights. The nation state system is inherently immoral because it sets up castes of people by birth with little recourse for moving to a higher caste. That's why i think democratic forces will eventually get rid of the concept of independent sovereign states and lead to a globally harmonized system of human rights and obligations. And maybe then we'll finally all be able to watch the new game of thrones episodes at the same time as americans.
hotgoldminer 11y ago
Similar sentiment from a musician to a fan. Fan writes he did something highly unusual - bought a record rather than pirating it: http://pwelverumandsun.tumblr.com/post/132240206696/fan-letter-and-response http://pwelverumandsun.tumblr.com/post/132240206696/fan-lett...
- bmelton 11y ago
  Thank you for posting that. I think it's definitely important to recognize that if you like art, and want it to continue to exist, then it should be worth paying for. Even acknowledging that musicians are exempt from a lot of what I consider good arguments in that piracy is effectively a marketing cost (because piracy does help them attract new fans, who might go to shows they can't pirate, etc., etc.), it just never seemed right to me to use other people's things in ways they did not want me to.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > it just never seemed right to me to use other people's things in ways they did not want me to. I think you let it go. You can't capture all the value you create. It's not how living in a society works. All our culture is based on taking someone else's work and changing it, combining with other works and sprinkling a little of your own insight. You can trace every movie ever made back through other movies, then through songs, performances and literature, pretty much back to earliest recorded history. This is partly because "nothing is new under the Sun", but mostly because works of art are enjoyed within a cultural context. If you quote Shakespeare in your movie, you don't do that just because the words feel kind of nice. You're both basing off Shakespeare's work, and - by doing so - you're purposefully making the audience evaluate your movie within the context of Shakespeare's writings, which you probably expect to bring them more enjoyment. And Shakespeare did the same by taking from the writings of his predecessors, etc. I like the response to the letter that 'hotgoldminer linked. I appreciate the reality, that artists want to earn money too. Personally, I pretty much don't pirate stuff anymore, and I'm happy to financially support authors (and middlemen, though I'm not happy about supporting those who are just rent-seeking). But I disagree on the fundamental moral principle. I think that expecting to be paid per copy of an information that's copyable pretty much for free is not a moral right. It's at best a temporary privilege, though one that people got used to before we had digital technology.
nitrogen 11y ago
I think the right word to use is "culture", not "content". Copyright giants have spent fortunes consolidating the majority of cultural expression into a few enormous conglomerates. They then spend another fortune making sure that their latest X dominates everything people see and hear. After doing all that, if they expect a group (e.g. a non-US country, or students who can't afford cable) to stop participating in the bought-and-paid-for culture that can't be avoided, that group will find a way to participate anyway. It's not entitlement to want to be able to participate in the dominant cultural trends (made dominant by consolidation and advertising).
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  > It's not entitlement to want to be able to participate in the dominant cultural trends (made dominant by consolidation and advertising). That sounds pretty entitled to me. Since when does one being able to talk about yesterday's Game of Thrones episode become some kind of divine "cultural right"?
  - lovich 11y ago
    How is it not being entitled to say, "I want to create something and allow everyone but you to buy it based on your location, and I expect you to respect that wish"?
    - res0nat0r 11y ago
      It isn't. Circumventing the content creators wishes just because you can do so without getting arrested, because you are too cheap, or some other nonsense excuse is entitled.
      - TeMPOraL 11y ago
        But why should people care? You've created it, you've released it, it's out there. Bits are copied for free. People usually are nice enough to pay you for it, but if you (or your middlemen) are not willing to give it to people who want to pay for it, then they'll find another way to see it. Few things that are crucial to this: - digital content is copyable for pretty much free by its very nature; - we're talking about copying, not stealing - we're talking about information, creative content, which kind of works differently than physical items Expecting to create a piece of information, give it to some people and then still being able to retain exclusive control over that thing is what sounds entitled to me. It infringes on other peoples' right to process what reaches their senses and do whatever they like with it. Intellectual property is an ugly hack created to make creative works compatible with market economy. The absurdity of that solution finally became visible as the marginal cost of copying the medium dropped to almost zero. Yes, we need the hack because many content creators need to get paid (and to believe they will get paid if they invest time in creating), but ultimately it's a problem with the economy. Ultimately, we should strive to fix it on the economy side, and get rid of the IP altogether. Also, if we're comparing divine rights with each other then sorry, culture > capitalism. Humanity is better-off this way.
zeendo 11y ago
"go through whatever means necessary" sounds like questionable rhetoric to support your position. The difficulty involved in torrenting is quite low and there's arguably little moral reason to avoid doing so in this case since the problem is these people usually aren't allowed to purchase the content.
m_fayer 11y ago
You've gone through significant effort to PAY for content because you enjoy it and respect its creators, yet you are nevertheless rebuffed. They don't want your money, simply because of where you live (nothing personal). You can now either steal that show or abstain - oh and that pang of bewildered insult that you feel, you're not entitled to it, the law is the law. Somehow I'm having a bit of difficulty empathizing with the law here.
- fapjacks 11y ago
  I don't know if you perhaps have an extremely diplomatic outlook, or if it's HN's new negativity rules, or maybe you're just British, but I'm chuckling at your "having a bit of difficulty empathizing" quote here. I think you can go ahead and say that the law is broken and stupid.
- bmelton 11y ago
  FWIW, I freely agree that the laws are largely stupid in relation to the issue at hand. My argument is not "because it's illegal". My argument is that the something in question doesn't belong to me, and hence, I have no entitlement to it. Pardon the repetition, as I already stated this elsewhere, but if you had a really juicy secret that you wouldn't give to me, I wouldn't take that either, even knowing full well that if I take your secret, you still have the secret. I respect the rights of others to do whatever they wish with their things, whether those things are property, digital goods, or secrets. If they want me to have it, they'll make it available to me. Until they do, then I have no entitlement.
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    I don't quite follow. The law is, as you say, stupid and makes no sense. You are saying that you are breaking the law in regards to property though, so don't do it. So your argument is "because it's illegal". Incidentally, in many countries of the world - it's not illegal to bypass geoblocking.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
redthrowaway 11y ago
>it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems able to justify it. People perform any number of mental gymnastics in order to justify their own interests. I'm reading A Struggle for Power right now and the 10 years before the American Revolution was basically one long exercise in mental gymnastics by both sides. We act on our interests and justify them post facto.
AJ007 11y ago
I'm not sure how old you are, but until movie studios began matching global release schedules piracy was the norm. This story is amusing because this is about people actually paying for content. Hollywood along with every other major content producer has a marketing reach which is global. If people in these countries did not want to see the new Star Wars or listen to the latest American pop star it means that the marketing sucks! So what you are imaging is a world where the content producers are basically telling their potential audience to go F themselves. There are underlying moral issues to this story. The first is censorship and blocking access to certain groups of IP blocks. Clearly this is getting written in to content licensing contracts and that's too bad. If an IP address is not doing something hostile it should not be blocked. The second involves asking extremely poor people for more money. Someone that makes $190 a month just isn't going to be paying the US market rate to consume content nor should they - and that absolutely is different than getting a below market or price subsidized physical product or item.
AJ007 11y ago
I'm not sure how old you are, but until movie studios began matching global release schedules piracy was the norm. This story is amusing because this is about people actually paying for content. Hollywood along with every other major content producer has a marketing reach which is global. If people in these countries did not want to see the new Star Wars or listen to the latest American pop star it means that the marketing sucks! So what you are imaging is a world where the content producers are basically telling their potential audience to go F themselves. There are underlying moral issues to this story. The first is censorship and blocking access to certain groups of IP blocks. Clearly this is getting written in to content licensing contracts and that's too bad. If an IP address is not doing something hostile it should not be blocked. The second involves asking extremely poor people for more money. Someone that makes $190 a month just isn't going to be paying the US market rate to consume content nor should they - and that absolutely is different than getting a below market or price subsidized physical product or item.
deleted 11y ago
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cm2187 11y ago
It's rather the studios being stupid and backward. They have a great product that many potential customers are keen to get, but they will not sell it to them (even though it is just bytes so the marginal production costs are close to zero). These same potential customers have an illegal but easy to use alternative to get this product. Guess what they will do... It doesn't take an MBA to realise the studios keep shooting themselves in the foot despite the foot having so many holes already one can see through it!
freshhawk 11y ago
I guess some people might be approaching this from a place of entitlement and justification like you say. But you should consider that my experience is most people view the idea that some for-profit entity owns culture or can tell them that it's immoral to share media with each other to be laughable. Like if HN decided that any criticism of products posted here was unacceptable and someone called those who still posted constructive criticism "entitled". I'm not saying it's that simple, but understanding the viewpoint will help you understand what's going on.
Lazare 11y ago
> I don't know when everybody got so entitled I'm trying to think of a time when people were not happy to consume whatever content was available to them. The history of media technology has been the history of people duplicating works other people wished they wouldn't. Historically many famous authors had their copyrights ignored an unauthorized works distributed. > go through whatever means necessary That's a melodramatic way of describing "google it, click the first likely result, click a button, wait a few minutes". > it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems able to justify it In this case we're talking about people not being allowed to purchase content. This isn't a dirty hippy waving an "information wants to be free" sign, it's a frustrated professional being told their money is no good if they want to watch the new Game of Thrones season everyone is talking about. I'm not saying they're right, but it's not hard to see how they're able to internally justify it. I'm currently in a small non-US country, and I have a US netflix subscription that goes through a proxy, which my girlfriend, in particular, adores. If Netflix forces us onto the very mediocre local version, my girlfriend will be upset. And she's going to torrent the shows she wanted to watch so she can follow the developments and talk about them with her friends in the states. Does that boggle your mind? Is the a terrible entitled person? Maybe. But I think it's pretty universal.
sheepmullet 11y ago
> I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them Why is it entitled to work around discriminatory behaviour based on country of origin? If I went to your physical store and you said "Sorry, no Mexicans, we only sell to American residents" I wouldn't have any issue getting the products through another channel. In fact hopefully my actions will help ruin any attempt at making a profit by engaging in such scummy discrimination and so I actually have a moral imperative to get the products through another channel.
Karunamon 11y ago
Probably because the justification goes as far as "I'm doing something some random megacorp doesn't want me to do" - and the average person could care less what a bunch of faceless millionaires (most of the time) think about what they do. Let's just throw the legalistic argument out in advance. It holds as much weight in people's minds as the speed limit does. Availability is part of it yes. Another part of it is respect, and the media industry has a systemic problem with showing any to its paying customers. Those in charge have yet to realize that all the DRM, all these systems serve to inconvenience people who want to give them money in the first place - and I think the idea that people can be chided into giving due deference to the whims of huge corporations when said corporations won't even do something as simple as sell usable product, is just a bit backwards. Yet another part of it is practicality, and XKCD says it better than I can: https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/
guard-of-terra 11y ago
I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them People been smuggling English bands on vinyl into the USSR and making their own copies "on the bones" last time when vinyl was big (and so was the USSR). So I suggest that maybe 50 years ago?
LukeB_UK 11y ago
I pay for 3 streaming services and do so because I want to pay for content. If a company that uses the internet to advertise to a broad and international audience then makes it so I can't give them money for their content, then they never considered me as an income source and haven't lost a thing. I however have lost the ability to participate in the discussion about that item of pop culture.
deleted 11y ago
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vacri 11y ago
I agree that piracy is theft, but on the flip side, if you're actively withholding content from my demographic (nationality) that you allow other demographics access to, then you're actively discriminating against me. Digital services here in Australia are particularly peculiar - entertainment generally gets here well after everywhere else (through official channels, that is), yet when it does, it's much more expensive and often of poorer quality. Is that discrimination the worst thing in the world in the context of entertainment media? No. But then again, neither is the resultant piracy of the media in the first place. Swings and roundabouts, both sides are at fault here; there is no particular moral imbalance in favour of the distributors.
tomjen3 11y ago
I have all the sympathy for burning karma, but it seems to come down to this: It is easy There is virtually no way to get caught, only a few out of probably millions do and if you buy a VPN that number drops to virtually zero. It is easy to justify that you are not really stealing, because one you can't practically buy the thing and two you are not taking anything from the publisher. Of course there are also those who fundamentally don't believe in copyright being a valid agreement, at least in its current form. I count myself weakly in the last group, in that I think music and movies should be subject to a compulsory streaming license - the producers gets paid for each view, but they do not get to choose who can watch when or where.
chris_wot 11y ago
So let get this straight. I'm not allowed to watch something because I'm an Australian. That's discrimination, pure and simple.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
It's the reverse. At some point people got so entitled as to believe they could control information products (like songs, stories, literature - and later, thanks to progress, pictures). Moreover, they've managed to codify those protections into law, so that the police could become their enforcement arm. The right to participate in local culture (and thanks to the Internet, local often equals to global) is something core to society. Thinking you can prevent people from exercising that right is being entitled.
Tsagadai 11y ago
There is a freedom of speech argument to be made as well. Rights holders are one aspect but the other major cause of region locks is censorship. Many young people resent their governments telling them what they can or cannot watch. Some local content is not available because government censors have stepped in. Do you think your government should determine what you, as an adult, should be allowed to watch? Do you think a government should be able to block certain works for religious reasons?
BookmarkSaver 11y ago
Sometimes I either consume something and don't pay for it because the price is too steep or access too restricted, or I don't consume something and don't pay for it. Often, at the price and availability that is legally provided, I simply am not going to pay. At that point, the question is whether I get to consume it at all and they gain a potential fan and future customer, or I don't. In this day and age it doesn't make sense for me to buy an indie album not available on a streaming service without already knowing that I like it. If I did that every time I wanted to listen to something, I'd be out of money. Nor am I going to drop $40+ just to watch a single season of a TV show. Once my money is out of the equation, everyone loses by me not consuming anyway.

by bmelton 11y ago

JupiterMoon 11y ago

So you suggest that people in smaller countries should just shut up and accept that they are second class citizens in the modern world? These are people that are very able and very willing to pay for content -- they just have no way to do so.

bmelton 11y ago
If that's the only alternative to taking things that don't belong to them, then I consider it the preferable alternative. I wasn't aware that the unavailability of House of Cards was tantamount to torture, and personally, I don't see it that way at all.
- Touche 11y ago
  Plenty of people never bought into the idea that an entity could own a sequence of bytes. Until you understand this you'll continue to not understand why people have such an easy time getting content that you think they "just shouldn't watch".
  - bmelton 11y ago
    To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it. There are plenty of people who think that think gay people shouldn't be allowed to be married. I understand that too, and also disagree. Just because a lot of people think something doesn't make it right. It took real people time, money and effort to make the shows that others are pirating, and to my mind at least, their efforts entitle them more to it than my "need" to watch it entitles me to pirate it.
    - mercer 11y ago
      > but it boggles my mind how comfortable everybody seems able to justify it. > To the contrary, I understand it perfectly, I just don't agree with it. I don't really understand how it can 'boggle your mind' while you still understand it. Mind-boggling implies that it's surprising to you, which it shouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, while I do not entirely agree with your point of view, I understand it. But to describe it as mind-boggling would be both inconsistent and perhaps a bit condescending. It seems to me that it would be better to express understanding and then explain why you disagree, rather they to pretend 'being startled'.
      - bmelton 11y ago
        Fair point. i made my earlier point poorly, as I didn't respond to your post in context (but rather as its own entity). In the same way that I understand the appeal of, say, scientology (e.g., You are a superior being, and with just a little help, we can make you far more successful, rich in pocket, body, spirit, blah blah), but it still boggles the mind that people fall for it. I understand the appeal to self-justify taking something from another that you want more. I understand the appeal of copying something you don't own, or can't buy, which doesn't physically "take" anything away from the owner. I understand those things just fine. What I don't understand is how low the lack of respect for your fellow man has to be that they can create something, not give it to you, and that isn't a deterrent from just taking it anyway. Even if I accept the argument that it doesn't take anything from the owner (which I don't), and that a given copy of data is nothing more than a secret a friend won't tell me, I still respect other people enough that I'm not going to dig through their things until their secrets are mine.
        mercer 11y ago
        The thing is that it still strikes me as rather arrogant to compare pirating to something like scientology, or imply that it is 'respectless' to my fellow man. Even just based on this HN thread, there's probably a huge part of society that is 1) intelligent, 2) conscientious, and 3) does not consider pirating a big crime. I just need to look at myself and the vast majority of my friends to confirm this. I could defend my point of view by saying that I would simply not download certain things if there was no easy way to do so, but clearly we disagree on this issue. But arguing that it's 'simply' lack of respect for your fellow man and 'simply' taking does not do the issue justice. Either it is as simple as you say, and all of us who pirate are lesser creatures than yourself (which would be convenient to conclude), or it's not as simple as you say. I don't really see how there's a third option, and that's the problem I had with your comment.
  - rogersm 11y ago
    Commercial software (with a long tradition) is based on that idea. And Free software is based on the same idea, only that you renounce to that ownership right.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      Free software is a hack on a legal system to provide something that should work this way by default. And commercial software could get away with being based on that idea because they could enforce it, and only as long as they could. Which is why at first it worked, then it stopped thanks to the Internet, and now it's working again, because everyone's moving to SaaS model. Which, by the way, is a step backwards in progress.
- freshhawk 11y ago
  Not "taking things that don't belong to them", "seeing things others don't want them to". The reason it seems strange to you isn't a difference in morals or ethics but framing.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  The alternative is that the owners of the content sell it/rent it to them. Result profit.
- true_religion 11y ago
  I think that possession is the essence of property rights. People have a real viceral reaction when you come and take something out of their house, or out of their hand. However, copying no matter how perfect isn't the same kind of infringement under law or common morals. If someone peeks at your house, then builds a perfect replica on their own land then you may be sad that you lost the uniqueness of your properly without their paying you for the privilege of copying it... But it's not "piracy", and will hardly cause a pitchfork mob to form outside your neighbors newly copied house.
s73v3r 11y ago
Except that is not the case, and your statement is nothing more than worthless hyperbole.
- mortehu 11y ago
  It's hard to believe you have ever used YouTube, Netflix or Google Play TV in a small country. For current TV shows, your options are usually to watch them as they air, or not watch them at all. This even includes stuff for which Netflix is the original distributor, like House of Cards, because they may have licensed the content exclusively to a broadcast TV station.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  You are absolutely wrong. It happens to Australians all the time.

izacus 11y ago

I think it's a difference in scale. It's one thing for everyone to shrug off lack of a single service, but people aren't going wait 3-5 years for every show heavily marketed to them on the internet. Blocking things geographically didn't work in socialist times before 1990 and expecting it to work now is rather naive :/

wlesieutre 11y ago
That plus the ease of spoilers that people toss around online, under the assumption that anybody who was going to watch a show is caught up by now. Good luck watching A Game of Thrones 5 years behind everyone else without hearing who dies. I haven't kept up with it, but I heard allll about a particular Stark last season (details omitted on the off chance that someone else hasn't). Even from newspapers and congresspeople on that one, IIRC.
- AznHisoka 11y ago
  I absolutely hate online publications that try too hard to hide the spoiler by saying "Here's what really happened to <X> last season", or "X didn't die!!" Umm.. saying X didn't die in Game of Thrones is already a spoiler.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    Oh my god do I hate those. I was a week or two late on the Star Wars train recently, and had to basically stop visiting Facebook because of all the clickbait headlines that they stuff into newsfeeds. <vague spoiler warning if anyone hasn't seen it yet> ... ... "THIS CHARACTER WAS ORIGINALLY MARKED FOR DEATH IN STAR WARS THE FORCE AWAKENS!" Ok, sure, you didn't give me a name, but going into the movie after reading that made it pretty fucking obvious.
- tragic 11y ago
  I'm not, by nature, spoiler adverse. But the issue is that there just genuinely is only so long you can hold out from learning about a twist or a cliffhanger if you're interested in it. A shock TV moment is not good for each individual viewer, but works once for the whole population of viewers. This works well as an aesthetic device for popular culture, where the purpose is in large part to catch the zeitgeist in the short term. I don't want to sound snobbish about this - Charles Dickens was a master of this type of thing, after all, and his present reputation as a Great Writer In English Literature would amuse and appall the snobs of his day, if they only knew. The best parts of mass popular culture endure after everyone knows he's his father, or its a sled, or little Nell dies.

frogpelt 11y ago

Pretty much everyone justifies the things that they really want to do. And if they really want to do illicit or unethical things, they still do it (and justify it) as long as they don't think they will get caught. This is one reason looting happens during a disaster. This is why people cheat on their taxes.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Yeah, and if we're discussing unethical things people justify to themselves, let's not forget that we do rationalize advertising. Which is doubly relevant here, because it's the heavy-handed advertising that makes our culture so tightly connected to commercial works of art.
- frogpelt 11y ago
  Are you not a fan of commercial works of art? Also, I think you are conflating entertainment with art. They are not the same in my opinion.

pavedwalden 11y ago

I understand how you can feel that it's important to follow rules, but why is it baffling that people are comfortable taking something that is infinitely copyable (and thus, the theft deprives no one else) when the seller will sell it to their neighbors but not to them?

Wingman4l7 11y ago

I think the concept of being left behind culturally is an interesting one, and may have increasing negative effects in people's lives. A couple simple examples would be in business (can't schmooze with a potential client about the latest TV show) or relationships (can't identify with someone you're dating over music or films).

TeMPOraL 11y ago
... or feeling left out (you can't participate in a conversation with friends or cow-orkers, who are fans of the show you couldn't legally see yet). Or feeling disconnected from the global culture - after all, we have XXI century, a big part of the global population lives in a shared culture. Not being able to relate to what your US friends are talking about, or what their news articles say, is also a problem.

forgottenpass 11y ago

it boggles my mind how comfortable everybody seems able to justify it. I expect and tolerate a certain level of lawbreaking from teens and pre-"settling down" young adults. Categorically, I put piracy somewhere among underage drinking, using soft drugs, and irresponsible vehicle operation. The pettiest of petty crime. Do those boggle your mind too? I don't expect anyone to inherently respect IP law in the portions of their life where they're broke. Unless someone close to them makes money off of copywritten material.

bmelton 11y ago
I would almost certainly not choose to prosecute someone hungry for stealing my food. I might even steal food from another if I or my family were hungry enough. There's a need there that, if unsatisfied by any other option, is resolved through theft, and I accept that just fine. We're not talking about food though, we're talking about Orange is the New Black, which is far from a necessity. Beyond that, if I thought it was just broke teens pirating, then I probably wouldn't feel the need to speak up, but it's not nearly limited to that demographic. I have six-figure-income, grown up friends who swap pirated seasons of TV shows and in-theater movies with each other on Plex.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  Your friends also probably regularly exceed the speed limit on the freeway. This could have potentially deadly consequences, so is arguably a much worse crime than non-commercial copyright infringement. But both crimes are socially acceptable, so they do it.
  - winter_blue 11y ago
    No, they don't. I have 35-year old friends who make upwards of $150k, and still pirate movies and TV shows. But they're smart enough to stay within the speed limit. They said it was something about the probability of dying being really high while speeding, and them wanting to stay alive...

bobajeff 11y ago

If someone told you, you couldn't do something, and the reasoning was some arbitrary, thinly veiled assertion of power over you, also this person is one of those types that always seems to find their way in such power despite everyone else preference to the contrary, but you had the means to easily bypass their authority. Wouldn't you be just a little tempted? Keep in mind this is perhaps one of the few cases were you aren't totally powerless.

pgwhalen 11y ago
I don't think that the reason content is not available is an "arbitrary, thinly veiled assertion of power."
- HelloMcFly 11y ago
  It isn't arbitrary, but it likely seems arbitrary to many pirates.
  - bmelton 11y ago
    Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/277/ https://xkcd.com/277/ Everything seems arbitrary when one does not know or cannot guess at the (usually more complicated) underlying reasons.
    - chris_wot 11y ago
      Those reasons are because of negotiating local deals, or to prevent access to the content immediately to push up prices artificially. We do actually know the reasons, and it doesn't make things any better.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    It is arbitrary. It's a quirk of scarcity economy. If content creators didn't need to trade off time spent on creating content for time spent on earning their bread, we wouldn't have this discussion. And while I sympathize with content creators here, we've turned this into a machine for big companies to print money. At this point, if the crude hack doesn't even serve its purpose, why should people care?

cmdrfred 11y ago

if you refuse to let me buy it you don't get to claim lost revenue if I download it.

mhurron 11y ago

> I doubt it too, but I'm willing to waste the karma on putting it forth as a valid alternative. If you make something that people want, then make it hard to get legally, alternatives will be found. Region locking spurs piracy, it doesn't hinder it.

arihant 11y ago

The thing is, if a piece of IP is not available in a country, and given the fact that it might be worthless by next season, is distributing that IP for free for that year in the country a bad karma? If anything, when the production house does license out in that country, they can run the current season directly as population has already watched earlier ones. If anything, this should push production houses to work better with rights distribution. In India, that's already happening with "Premier" channels which run seasons alongside US counterparts. For shows that appear on now Premier channels, I have not torrented a single one. I am also sure that if not for rampant torrenting, this would have never happened. Internet is a great leveller. Take a deep breath, let it in. By the time we all have gray hair, this will be long sorted out. You can't lock down IP by country in 2016. If you built a system that loses money if it leaks internationally, it's your fault. Next, try to build a business model that has more chances of survival than chances of sand retaining in your fist. The real problem is that people still expect a century old business model to work. If it doesn't, they lose their minds. If a tree falls in another part of the world, and nobody saw it, nobody visited that forest for 10 years, nobody wanted to use that wood, did it really fall? Did American oak planters lose money because of it?

tajen 11y ago
People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn money?" What artists and moviemakers could do is, sell the right to see contents before others. Assuming that DRM is cracked and leaked after some time and will inevitably fall into the "public domain", users would not buy "a song" or "a movie", but the lifestyle of watching it directly out from the factory, while others would have to wait until it's cracked. When the season 2, 3 and 4 of Arrow aren't available in Europe, we know that Netflix isn't selling the lifestyle of being up-to-date with fashion.
- Suncho 11y ago
  People often ask me: "If there were no copyright law, how would studios earn money?" They'd work on commission. They'd work on crowd-funded commission. If you want a movie made, you pay for it yourself. If you want to watch a movie that's already been made, why shouldn't that be free? The work has already been done and paid for.

serge2k 11y ago

> content otherwise unavailable to them if it's not otherwise available then how is pirating not 100% harmless? Publishers should be aware at this point that they can either start dropping barriers to content access or people will just find another way.

Nadya 11y ago

>I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them If I'm willing to pay you for it, why can't I have it? What reason is there to deny me the ability to access culture if I'm willing to pay? Is it because I was (without any choice of mine) born in the wrong country? Am I entitled for being born in the wrong country? That sounds more like snobbery from people born in the "right" country.

Joeri 11y ago
Countries are an instrument of discrimination. Denying access to culture is one of the milder aspects. People born in the wrong country are locked out of many rights others take for granted, even human rights. The nation state system is inherently immoral because it sets up castes of people by birth with little recourse for moving to a higher caste. That's why i think democratic forces will eventually get rid of the concept of independent sovereign states and lead to a globally harmonized system of human rights and obligations. And maybe then we'll finally all be able to watch the new game of thrones episodes at the same time as americans.

hotgoldminer 11y ago

Similar sentiment from a musician to a fan. Fan writes he did something highly unusual - bought a record rather than pirating it: http://pwelverumandsun.tumblr.com/post/132240206696/fan-letter-and-response http://pwelverumandsun.tumblr.com/post/132240206696/fan-lett...

bmelton 11y ago
Thank you for posting that. I think it's definitely important to recognize that if you like art, and want it to continue to exist, then it should be worth paying for. Even acknowledging that musicians are exempt from a lot of what I consider good arguments in that piracy is effectively a marketing cost (because piracy does help them attract new fans, who might go to shows they can't pirate, etc., etc.), it just never seemed right to me to use other people's things in ways they did not want me to.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > it just never seemed right to me to use other people's things in ways they did not want me to. I think you let it go. You can't capture all the value you create. It's not how living in a society works. All our culture is based on taking someone else's work and changing it, combining with other works and sprinkling a little of your own insight. You can trace every movie ever made back through other movies, then through songs, performances and literature, pretty much back to earliest recorded history. This is partly because "nothing is new under the Sun", but mostly because works of art are enjoyed within a cultural context. If you quote Shakespeare in your movie, you don't do that just because the words feel kind of nice. You're both basing off Shakespeare's work, and - by doing so - you're purposefully making the audience evaluate your movie within the context of Shakespeare's writings, which you probably expect to bring them more enjoyment. And Shakespeare did the same by taking from the writings of his predecessors, etc. I like the response to the letter that 'hotgoldminer linked. I appreciate the reality, that artists want to earn money too. Personally, I pretty much don't pirate stuff anymore, and I'm happy to financially support authors (and middlemen, though I'm not happy about supporting those who are just rent-seeking). But I disagree on the fundamental moral principle. I think that expecting to be paid per copy of an information that's copyable pretty much for free is not a moral right. It's at best a temporary privilege, though one that people got used to before we had digital technology.

nitrogen 11y ago

I think the right word to use is "culture", not "content". Copyright giants have spent fortunes consolidating the majority of cultural expression into a few enormous conglomerates. They then spend another fortune making sure that their latest X dominates everything people see and hear. After doing all that, if they expect a group (e.g. a non-US country, or students who can't afford cable) to stop participating in the bought-and-paid-for culture that can't be avoided, that group will find a way to participate anyway. It's not entitlement to want to be able to participate in the dominant cultural trends (made dominant by consolidation and advertising).

res0nat0r 11y ago
> It's not entitlement to want to be able to participate in the dominant cultural trends (made dominant by consolidation and advertising). That sounds pretty entitled to me. Since when does one being able to talk about yesterday's Game of Thrones episode become some kind of divine "cultural right"?
- lovich 11y ago
  How is it not being entitled to say, "I want to create something and allow everyone but you to buy it based on your location, and I expect you to respect that wish"?
  - res0nat0r 11y ago
    It isn't. Circumventing the content creators wishes just because you can do so without getting arrested, because you are too cheap, or some other nonsense excuse is entitled.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      But why should people care? You've created it, you've released it, it's out there. Bits are copied for free. People usually are nice enough to pay you for it, but if you (or your middlemen) are not willing to give it to people who want to pay for it, then they'll find another way to see it. Few things that are crucial to this: - digital content is copyable for pretty much free by its very nature; - we're talking about copying, not stealing - we're talking about information, creative content, which kind of works differently than physical items Expecting to create a piece of information, give it to some people and then still being able to retain exclusive control over that thing is what sounds entitled to me. It infringes on other peoples' right to process what reaches their senses and do whatever they like with it. Intellectual property is an ugly hack created to make creative works compatible with market economy. The absurdity of that solution finally became visible as the marginal cost of copying the medium dropped to almost zero. Yes, we need the hack because many content creators need to get paid (and to believe they will get paid if they invest time in creating), but ultimately it's a problem with the economy. Ultimately, we should strive to fix it on the economy side, and get rid of the IP altogether. Also, if we're comparing divine rights with each other then sorry, culture > capitalism. Humanity is better-off this way.

zeendo 11y ago

"go through whatever means necessary" sounds like questionable rhetoric to support your position. The difficulty involved in torrenting is quite low and there's arguably little moral reason to avoid doing so in this case since the problem is these people usually aren't allowed to purchase the content.

m_fayer 11y ago

You've gone through significant effort to PAY for content because you enjoy it and respect its creators, yet you are nevertheless rebuffed. They don't want your money, simply because of where you live (nothing personal). You can now either steal that show or abstain - oh and that pang of bewildered insult that you feel, you're not entitled to it, the law is the law. Somehow I'm having a bit of difficulty empathizing with the law here.

fapjacks 11y ago
I don't know if you perhaps have an extremely diplomatic outlook, or if it's HN's new negativity rules, or maybe you're just British, but I'm chuckling at your "having a bit of difficulty empathizing" quote here. I think you can go ahead and say that the law is broken and stupid.
bmelton 11y ago
FWIW, I freely agree that the laws are largely stupid in relation to the issue at hand. My argument is not "because it's illegal". My argument is that the something in question doesn't belong to me, and hence, I have no entitlement to it. Pardon the repetition, as I already stated this elsewhere, but if you had a really juicy secret that you wouldn't give to me, I wouldn't take that either, even knowing full well that if I take your secret, you still have the secret. I respect the rights of others to do whatever they wish with their things, whether those things are property, digital goods, or secrets. If they want me to have it, they'll make it available to me. Until they do, then I have no entitlement.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I don't quite follow. The law is, as you say, stupid and makes no sense. You are saying that you are breaking the law in regards to property though, so don't do it. So your argument is "because it's illegal". Incidentally, in many countries of the world - it's not illegal to bypass geoblocking.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago

redthrowaway 11y ago

>it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems able to justify it. People perform any number of mental gymnastics in order to justify their own interests. I'm reading A Struggle for Power right now and the 10 years before the American Revolution was basically one long exercise in mental gymnastics by both sides. We act on our interests and justify them post facto.

AJ007 11y ago

I'm not sure how old you are, but until movie studios began matching global release schedules piracy was the norm. This story is amusing because this is about people actually paying for content. Hollywood along with every other major content producer has a marketing reach which is global. If people in these countries did not want to see the new Star Wars or listen to the latest American pop star it means that the marketing sucks! So what you are imaging is a world where the content producers are basically telling their potential audience to go F themselves. There are underlying moral issues to this story. The first is censorship and blocking access to certain groups of IP blocks. Clearly this is getting written in to content licensing contracts and that's too bad. If an IP address is not doing something hostile it should not be blocked. The second involves asking extremely poor people for more money. Someone that makes $190 a month just isn't going to be paying the US market rate to consume content nor should they - and that absolutely is different than getting a below market or price subsidized physical product or item.

AJ007 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

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cm2187 11y ago

It's rather the studios being stupid and backward. They have a great product that many potential customers are keen to get, but they will not sell it to them (even though it is just bytes so the marginal production costs are close to zero). These same potential customers have an illegal but easy to use alternative to get this product. Guess what they will do... It doesn't take an MBA to realise the studios keep shooting themselves in the foot despite the foot having so many holes already one can see through it!

freshhawk 11y ago

I guess some people might be approaching this from a place of entitlement and justification like you say. But you should consider that my experience is most people view the idea that some for-profit entity owns culture or can tell them that it's immoral to share media with each other to be laughable. Like if HN decided that any criticism of products posted here was unacceptable and someone called those who still posted constructive criticism "entitled". I'm not saying it's that simple, but understanding the viewpoint will help you understand what's going on.

Lazare 11y ago

> I don't know when everybody got so entitled I'm trying to think of a time when people were not happy to consume whatever content was available to them. The history of media technology has been the history of people duplicating works other people wished they wouldn't. Historically many famous authors had their copyrights ignored an unauthorized works distributed. > go through whatever means necessary That's a melodramatic way of describing "google it, click the first likely result, click a button, wait a few minutes". > it boggles my mind how comfortably everybody seems able to justify it In this case we're talking about people not being allowed to purchase content. This isn't a dirty hippy waving an "information wants to be free" sign, it's a frustrated professional being told their money is no good if they want to watch the new Game of Thrones season everyone is talking about. I'm not saying they're right, but it's not hard to see how they're able to internally justify it. I'm currently in a small non-US country, and I have a US netflix subscription that goes through a proxy, which my girlfriend, in particular, adores. If Netflix forces us onto the very mediocre local version, my girlfriend will be upset. And she's going to torrent the shows she wanted to watch so she can follow the developments and talk about them with her friends in the states. Does that boggle your mind? Is the a terrible entitled person? Maybe. But I think it's pretty universal.

sheepmullet 11y ago

> I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them Why is it entitled to work around discriminatory behaviour based on country of origin? If I went to your physical store and you said "Sorry, no Mexicans, we only sell to American residents" I wouldn't have any issue getting the products through another channel. In fact hopefully my actions will help ruin any attempt at making a profit by engaging in such scummy discrimination and so I actually have a moral imperative to get the products through another channel.

Karunamon 11y ago

Probably because the justification goes as far as "I'm doing something some random megacorp doesn't want me to do" - and the average person could care less what a bunch of faceless millionaires (most of the time) think about what they do. Let's just throw the legalistic argument out in advance. It holds as much weight in people's minds as the speed limit does. Availability is part of it yes. Another part of it is respect, and the media industry has a systemic problem with showing any to its paying customers. Those in charge have yet to realize that all the DRM, all these systems serve to inconvenience people who want to give them money in the first place - and I think the idea that people can be chided into giving due deference to the whims of huge corporations when said corporations won't even do something as simple as sell usable product, is just a bit backwards. Yet another part of it is practicality, and XKCD says it better than I can: https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/

guard-of-terra 11y ago

I don't know when everybody got so entitled that they were willing to go through whatever means necessary to get access to content otherwise unavailable to them People been smuggling English bands on vinyl into the USSR and making their own copies "on the bones" last time when vinyl was big (and so was the USSR). So I suggest that maybe 50 years ago?

LukeB_UK 11y ago

I pay for 3 streaming services and do so because I want to pay for content. If a company that uses the internet to advertise to a broad and international audience then makes it so I can't give them money for their content, then they never considered me as an income source and haven't lost a thing. I however have lost the ability to participate in the discussion about that item of pop culture.

deleted 11y ago

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vacri 11y ago

I agree that piracy is theft, but on the flip side, if you're actively withholding content from my demographic (nationality) that you allow other demographics access to, then you're actively discriminating against me. Digital services here in Australia are particularly peculiar - entertainment generally gets here well after everywhere else (through official channels, that is), yet when it does, it's much more expensive and often of poorer quality. Is that discrimination the worst thing in the world in the context of entertainment media? No. But then again, neither is the resultant piracy of the media in the first place. Swings and roundabouts, both sides are at fault here; there is no particular moral imbalance in favour of the distributors.

tomjen3 11y ago

I have all the sympathy for burning karma, but it seems to come down to this: It is easy There is virtually no way to get caught, only a few out of probably millions do and if you buy a VPN that number drops to virtually zero. It is easy to justify that you are not really stealing, because one you can't practically buy the thing and two you are not taking anything from the publisher. Of course there are also those who fundamentally don't believe in copyright being a valid agreement, at least in its current form. I count myself weakly in the last group, in that I think music and movies should be subject to a compulsory streaming license - the producers gets paid for each view, but they do not get to choose who can watch when or where.

chris_wot 11y ago

So let get this straight. I'm not allowed to watch something because I'm an Australian. That's discrimination, pure and simple.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

It's the reverse. At some point people got so entitled as to believe they could control information products (like songs, stories, literature - and later, thanks to progress, pictures). Moreover, they've managed to codify those protections into law, so that the police could become their enforcement arm. The right to participate in local culture (and thanks to the Internet, local often equals to global) is something core to society. Thinking you can prevent people from exercising that right is being entitled.

Tsagadai 11y ago

There is a freedom of speech argument to be made as well. Rights holders are one aspect but the other major cause of region locks is censorship. Many young people resent their governments telling them what they can or cannot watch. Some local content is not available because government censors have stepped in. Do you think your government should determine what you, as an adult, should be allowed to watch? Do you think a government should be able to block certain works for religious reasons?

BookmarkSaver 11y ago

Sometimes I either consume something and don't pay for it because the price is too steep or access too restricted, or I don't consume something and don't pay for it. Often, at the price and availability that is legally provided, I simply am not going to pay. At that point, the question is whether I get to consume it at all and they gain a potential fan and future customer, or I don't. In this day and age it doesn't make sense for me to buy an indie album not available on a streaming service without already knowing that I like it. If I did that every time I wanted to listen to something, I'd be out of money. Nor am I going to drop $40+ just to watch a single season of a TV show. Once my money is out of the equation, everyone loses by me not consuming anyway.