5 ms·

Netflix is easier to use and safer than pirating. Seriously, for the price of a chipotle (steak) burrito a month you have access to their entire online library.

Netflix is easier to use and safer than pirating. Seriously, for the price of a chipotle (steak) burrito a month you have access to their entire online library. You'd pay more than that to go see one movie a month at the theater. Pirating content is morally wrong. If you actually disagreed with the media industry, you would not consume their products instead of stealing access to them. Disregard me if you live in a place where you don't have legal channels of media consumption available...

peterwwillis 10y ago
So after you pay for direct tv to get access to sports, and netflix to get access to this premium content, and hulu to get access to that premium content, and amazon to get access to the other premium content, and cable to get cable channels, and hbo to get access to game of thrones, it's a little bit more than the price of a burrito. I would not stand on morality for an industry that thrives on economic inequality and lack of diversity.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
  Fine, then prioritize what you want to pay for. Don't resort to stealing your entertainment. We aren't talking about a necessity of life here.
  - JakeAl 10y ago
    You'd have better luck telling people to stop doing illegal drugs.
- rhino369 10y ago
  What other industries do demand access to all products for a flat fee? Any one of those providers has more content than any one person can reasonably consume. If you want to have a huge variety of premium content, don't get angry it costs a lot more than a barebone package. If I go to an Indian buffet, I'm not angry they don't have general tsos. Even though it would be great if they did.
get2zpointer 10y ago
It does not necessarily follow that if you disagreed with the media industry, you would not consume their products. That's in a class of arguments that include statements like "If you disagreed with the use of your tax money, you would not pay taxes." Or "If you disagreed with the agricultural industry, you would not consume produce."
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
  Yes it should. Why would you support something you don't agree with? Taxes aren't a normal good because we don't get to choose whether to consume. A segment of Vegetarians do not consume meat because they disagree with the meat industry. People boycott things all the time.
  - belorn 10y ago
    Have you seen studies on the effectiveness of boycotts? The only time they work is when they create enough bad publicity (ie media) and there are alternatives that people can turn to. There are people who boycott elections because they dislike the candidates being offered. Do we see the political system change when 50% of people stop voting? No, all that happens is that the candidates focus on the people who do vote. In a market, the biggest problem to a company is competition that will take market share and mind share. A customer that buy a competing product gives money to the competitor who then can invest that money into further competing products. A customer who boycott that market won't benefit you, but it also don't benefit the competition, so the status quo is maintained. If we want an additional point of view, we can look into monopolies and what happens there when the single controlling entity has unreasonable prices and is strongly negatively perceived, like The Telephone Company of old. People could of course boycott them, but why would they care. So long enough people will pay what ever is demanded, then profits are earned and life will go on. When customers has no alternatives, except for stay outside of current culture and social norms, then they will pay what is demanded. People understood this already around the time of the founding of the United states and viewed monopolies as extremely dangerous and only valid for a very short and limited time, and exclusively for newly created works. That system turned into a 95+ years that we have today, and the consequences are that people no longer respect that deal that was copyright. The moral high ground of the copyright holder was lost a long time ago, and the moral thing to do is to simply deny the legitimacy of the corrupt law.
sampo 10y ago
> Pirating content is morally wrong. I don't know. Through piracy, especially poor people in developing countries have had access to a lot of software, books, education, even medicine, that they simply could not have been able to afford otherwise.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
  Piracy of expensive software by individuals in developing countries could prevent local software companies from starting up and supplying that need or could stunt the growth of open source alternatives. I think arguing against education and books is harder, but generally I will stand by my statement that stealing is wrong.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 10y ago
    If you're interested in debate, you should make an argument defending your position. Otherwise, it makes for very boring conversation. If you do make an argument, I'd advise you to leave the whole "stealing" part aside. It's really only a weak shortcut to proving the immorality of content piracy, and it's better to avoid such tricks and show the full argument.
- rhino369 10y ago
  Still doesn't justify an 22 year old American downloading Frozen.
mindslight 10y ago
Asserting that piracy implies stealing does not make it so. Your conclusion, of course, makes sense in your framework. Pirates reject that framework.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but you are wrong. This isn't debatable. Piracy is stealing. You are consuming content without paying for it. This isn't "my framework", it is the truth.
  - thrownaway1984 10y ago
    I agree that it isn't debatable. You are wrong. The law is clear on the subject. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement not theft. These are different crimes in all jurisdictions I have ever hear of.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Of course it's debatable. Hell, the US Supreme Court disagrees with you (see Dowling v. United States). How can you say the matter is settled?
  - peterwwillis 10y ago
    If I steal a farm's tractor, the farm no longer has a tractor. If I make an exact duplicate copy of that tractor, the farm still has its tractor. You are making the argument that making a duplicate tractor is stealing a tractor. With digital piracy, nobody actually loses anything. They don't gain anything, but they don't lose anything either. You can call this whatever you want. To me, the net harm is significantly different than if you took money or property away from someone, so using the same word to describe both situations is inaccurate.
    - hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
      You could use your logic to justify sneaking into a movie theater and watching a movie without paying for a ticket. Would you consider that stealing?

peterwwillis 10y ago

So after you pay for direct tv to get access to sports, and netflix to get access to this premium content, and hulu to get access to that premium content, and amazon to get access to the other premium content, and cable to get cable channels, and hbo to get access to game of thrones, it's a little bit more than the price of a burrito. I would not stand on morality for an industry that thrives on economic inequality and lack of diversity.

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
Fine, then prioritize what you want to pay for. Don't resort to stealing your entertainment. We aren't talking about a necessity of life here.
- JakeAl 10y ago
  You'd have better luck telling people to stop doing illegal drugs.
rhino369 10y ago
What other industries do demand access to all products for a flat fee? Any one of those providers has more content than any one person can reasonably consume. If you want to have a huge variety of premium content, don't get angry it costs a lot more than a barebone package. If I go to an Indian buffet, I'm not angry they don't have general tsos. Even though it would be great if they did.

get2zpointer 10y ago

It does not necessarily follow that if you disagreed with the media industry, you would not consume their products. That's in a class of arguments that include statements like "If you disagreed with the use of your tax money, you would not pay taxes." Or "If you disagreed with the agricultural industry, you would not consume produce."

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
Yes it should. Why would you support something you don't agree with? Taxes aren't a normal good because we don't get to choose whether to consume. A segment of Vegetarians do not consume meat because they disagree with the meat industry. People boycott things all the time.
- belorn 10y ago
  Have you seen studies on the effectiveness of boycotts? The only time they work is when they create enough bad publicity (ie media) and there are alternatives that people can turn to. There are people who boycott elections because they dislike the candidates being offered. Do we see the political system change when 50% of people stop voting? No, all that happens is that the candidates focus on the people who do vote. In a market, the biggest problem to a company is competition that will take market share and mind share. A customer that buy a competing product gives money to the competitor who then can invest that money into further competing products. A customer who boycott that market won't benefit you, but it also don't benefit the competition, so the status quo is maintained. If we want an additional point of view, we can look into monopolies and what happens there when the single controlling entity has unreasonable prices and is strongly negatively perceived, like The Telephone Company of old. People could of course boycott them, but why would they care. So long enough people will pay what ever is demanded, then profits are earned and life will go on. When customers has no alternatives, except for stay outside of current culture and social norms, then they will pay what is demanded. People understood this already around the time of the founding of the United states and viewed monopolies as extremely dangerous and only valid for a very short and limited time, and exclusively for newly created works. That system turned into a 95+ years that we have today, and the consequences are that people no longer respect that deal that was copyright. The moral high ground of the copyright holder was lost a long time ago, and the moral thing to do is to simply deny the legitimacy of the corrupt law.

sampo 10y ago

> Pirating content is morally wrong. I don't know. Through piracy, especially poor people in developing countries have had access to a lot of software, books, education, even medicine, that they simply could not have been able to afford otherwise.

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
Piracy of expensive software by individuals in developing countries could prevent local software companies from starting up and supplying that need or could stunt the growth of open source alternatives. I think arguing against education and books is harder, but generally I will stand by my statement that stealing is wrong.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 10y ago
  If you're interested in debate, you should make an argument defending your position. Otherwise, it makes for very boring conversation. If you do make an argument, I'd advise you to leave the whole "stealing" part aside. It's really only a weak shortcut to proving the immorality of content piracy, and it's better to avoid such tricks and show the full argument.
rhino369 10y ago
Still doesn't justify an 22 year old American downloading Frozen.

mindslight 10y ago

Asserting that piracy implies stealing does not make it so. Your conclusion, of course, makes sense in your framework. Pirates reject that framework.

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
I'm sorry, but you are wrong. This isn't debatable. Piracy is stealing. You are consuming content without paying for it. This isn't "my framework", it is the truth.
- thrownaway1984 10y ago
  I agree that it isn't debatable. You are wrong. The law is clear on the subject. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement not theft. These are different crimes in all jurisdictions I have ever hear of.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Of course it's debatable. Hell, the US Supreme Court disagrees with you (see Dowling v. United States). How can you say the matter is settled?
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  If I steal a farm's tractor, the farm no longer has a tractor. If I make an exact duplicate copy of that tractor, the farm still has its tractor. You are making the argument that making a duplicate tractor is stealing a tractor. With digital piracy, nobody actually loses anything. They don't gain anything, but they don't lose anything either. You can call this whatever you want. To me, the net harm is significantly different than if you took money or property away from someone, so using the same word to describe both situations is inaccurate.
  - hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
    You could use your logic to justify sneaking into a movie theater and watching a movie without paying for a ticket. Would you consider that stealing?