8 ms·

Piracy is also fueled by availability. As long as licensing agreements prohibit a uniform release schedule for movies and TV series Worldwide people will try to

Piracy is also fueled by availability. As long as licensing agreements prohibit a uniform release schedule for movies and TV series Worldwide people will try to pirate. If I am not living in the US and want to watch a hulu series I have zero choice but to pirate it or use a shady vpn.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Without some very disingenuous mental gymnastics it can't possible count as piracy if you were never able to purchase the media in the first place.
- gambiting 8y ago
  What would you call it then? Otherwise it's just entitlement to something because you can't buy it - "oh look, this movie is not available to purchase in my country, I guess I'm getting it for free!". It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released - if it's not available in your market then either import it, or....don't get it?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    You’re over thinking it. No loss has occur. We’re willing to pay.
  - chii 8y ago
    > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released participating in culture is required by many, esp. the young. If they can't easily get it via a legitimate means, piracy is the default. Not watching it is not an option.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      I strongly support this perspective. If you create a culturally relevant work then prohibit people from legally participating, you probably deserve disparagement and the forfeiture of your rights.
      - nikbackm 8y ago
        But it can hardly be culturally relevant in a country where it's not available, or? Unless everyone pirates it.
        TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        This is one of those comments that flips between supporting my previous comment or arguing against it every time I blink and reread it.
        flukus 8y ago
        Culture isn't always local to your geographic location, there's people around the world discussing tech culture right here, there's people living abroad but still connected too and part of the local culture. One of the common analogies for China's lack of respect for intellectual property is the US doing the same (copying books) when it was young and poor yet still culturally English.
        chii 8y ago
        in an increasingly globalized world, literary media has become culturally relevant anywhere in the world. In the past, when localized media is the only option, locking out regions from purchases wouldn't have been an issue (since nobody would've known about it). But now the internet exists, and information being global means that literary media must also be global. To be denied an opportunity to participate in its consumption is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication. I think that's wrong, and therefore, this justifies piracy for those individuals who would otherwise be denied due to cost/availablity reasons.
        gambiting 8y ago
        This is such an English-speaking-centric view it's incredible. There are great works of art - movies, books, music, games that exist outside of the anglosphere, they never appear outside of their respective countries and are never translated, yet I don't see people complaining that the lack of their translations is " is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication". You just....can't consume them. It's not the end of the world, no one is being done some great injustice, that creative work is just not available to you right now. How is that different? Perhaps only in that it's much better? If I want to watch a Russian TV show and there is no translation, either I have to wait for the translation or....learn Russian. If I can't legally buy Game of Thrones in my country I can always pay for a copy in a country where it is available and have it sent to me. It's not as convenient, but it is possible. To say that there is some harm being done by not making it available and the only solution is piracy sounds like self justification.
    - eric-hu 8y ago
      I agree with you, but I can't help but think of the case of the Wu Tang album they sold to Martin Shkreli. Part of the terms of sale was that it couldn't be copied. I do believe a company shouldn't be able to hold a piece of culture hostage. I also believe in a creator's right to decide how their work is consumed. I'm not sure how to reconcile these two things.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        Have you ever come across Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle. As far as I'm aware it was never published for mass consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cremaster_Cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cremaster_Cycle
  - 0815test 8y ago
    > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released People used to say exactly that about music, and then Spotify came around - along with multiple DRM-free download stores. Now these things are very much seen as "God-given rights" by many. Yes, video is especially complicated because of how costly it is to create in the first place - this is why the closest thing to a plausible solution is going to come in the form of disruption from below. Some sort of "Netflix 2.0", focusing on a somewhat more heavily-curated experience than YT does today, and skimping on challenging technical details - maybe not even providing full-HD content of any sort! Vimeo could easily enter that space.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      There's a certain irony that Spotify is by all accounts terrible for actually supporting artists though.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released It's also not media producers god given right to gouge customers and have the government enforce a monopoly on their products, or to even exist. Ideally we can reach a compromise that suits everyone, but at the moment it's media companies that are over reaching, they'll even happily gimp their own products so that pirated versions are better.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > if it's not available in your market then either import it, You're saying this is the moral and legal option, but the copyright holders lobbied hard to make this illegal. That's why there are no stores in my country offering imported DVDs for sale. It's illegal to import these if you're a business. I have to go to a foreign company and import the disc strictly for personal use. So, I get a DVD / BluRay from a different region. How do I play this? The shop where I bought the player is forbidden, by law, from telling me how to convert my player into a multi-region player. People aren't saying "I want this for free". They're saying "allow me to pay for it". They're also saying "the easier it is to pay for something the more people will pay for it".
  - iainmerrick 8y ago
    if it's not available in your market then either import it, or....don't get it? Given that importing is often intentionally blocked by region-locking, it’s a straight choice between “don’t get it” and piracy.
  - treerock 8y ago
    > What would you call it then? 'Copyright infringement'? 'Piracy' is a bit of a loaded term. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.en#Piracy http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.en#Piracy
  - tomohawk 8y ago
    The whole point of copyright (originally) was to encourage content holders to make the content available to the public by providing protection if they did so. If the content holder is not making their content available in a reasonable way, they should have no such protections.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    I find it difficult to accept a copyright claim on commercial content never sold in a country. In my views, if you cared about getting paid for the content, then you would have sold it legally in that country. IMHO, refusing to distribute content is essentially forfeiting any commercial claims to its distribution.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      Game of Thrones is notable due to the use of VPN-blocking, and credit card blocking. There are people who pay for HBOgo, do so through some forwarder which makes their credit card appear to come from a US bank, and then have to find a VPN service to actually watch it with. Multiple steps in this transaction - completely unncessarily due to the nature of the underlying technologies - cost the consumer money, to circumvent protections implemented by HBO (or more likely whatever BS contract their parent company signed), for the express purpose of preventing the consumer paying HBO to lawfully watch their content.
    - goostavos 8y ago
      So, something is sold exclusively in Target, but isn't sold in, say, Best Buy. You only have a best buy near you, therefore you're... justified in stating they have no commercial claims to the content they own and chose to distribute through Target? I'm not sure I follow your argument.
      - fifnir 8y ago
        Of course you don't understand, cause you completely slaughtered his argument.
  - SkyBelow 8y ago
    >It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released Or maybe it is? Different people have different views on what counts as rights and I've yet to hear of a case of God clarifying which group of people is right. Some people believe it is their God given right to keep others from modifying their own equipment in certain patterns by sharing information. Others disagree. Consider libraries. If I built a file sharing system that allowed only one person to watch the movie at a time, but allowed as many people as wanted to watch it if they were willing to wait their turn, how is this any different than what a library does? Yet that would also be considered a form of piracy. Is running a library not a God given right.
    - m_t 8y ago
      Libraries pay for the content they provide. That's the only thing you forgot to plan for in your hypothetical system.
      - SkyBelow 8y ago
        I did plan for it, I just didn't call out that the original copy of the movie was purchased because I didn't think that would be the defining factor on if my plan was acceptable or not. So as long as I pay for the original copy and only allow one person to view it at a time, my plan is acceptable?
  - Kaiyou 8y ago
    “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. Following the letter of the law isn't always the right thing to do.
    - nradov 8y ago
      It's a real stretch to equate civil disobedience over equal rights with access to mere entertainment content. No one really needs to watch Game of Thrones or whatever.
      - Kaiyou 8y ago
        Justice isn't something that requires a certain threshold of magnitude. Maybe it's mere entertainment. Doesn't justify injustice.
  - antepodius 8y ago
    I think people, in general, don't care too much about whether something is legal or not when it comes to deciding whether it's actually moral or not. Things are moral or immoral whether they're legal or not. If some corporation isn't selling the rights to view a file in your country, and it's a pain to get them the 'legal way', I think a lot of people would look at the situation and think- "well, nobody's going to prosecute me for this. Even if I think piracy is immoral in general, this entity has made it a pain for me to get their product without pirating- they obviously aren't counting on my money. They've waived their moral right to complain about me not paying to look at their tv show- and in the lack of enforcement of the law, that moral right is all that matters to me. I'll just pirate it. If they don't want my money, they won't get it."
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  The piracy part is that despite it not being available, you still feel entitled to it and go around the availability to get it. I mean piracy is not that big a crime especially if there's no legal alternative (and the legal / convenient alternatives to piracy have been the biggest deterrent), but if you replace "media" with idk, "consumer electronics" it becomes a different matter. I know, physical goods vs virtual ones is a big difference, but is it, from a legal standpoint?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    In Australia simple copyright infringement is a civil matter, only if the infringement was of a commercial nature can it also be criminal. Physical theft is always criminal.
  - FeepingCreature 8y ago
    I'm not aware of any definition of piracy that contains the word "entitled."
    - goostavos 8y ago
      It's the subtext for a lot of the justifications in this thread, tho. [Thing] isn't for sale in their area, they want [thing], therefore they're justified in stealing [thing] rather than just not having it. Is entitlement not involved in that reasoning? What is the motivation for illegally obtaining something if not feeling that you deserve to have it? The owners of the content and the distributors are wrong?
- notyourwork 8y ago
  Is it theft if a minor steals alcohol? Said minor couldn’t purchase it so taking it cannot be theft without some “mental gymnastics”.
  - croon 8y ago
    Yes, because someone loses a product/sale. A copy reaching someone that can't possibly be a customer can't logically be a lost sale.
    - goostavos 8y ago
      So, to be clear, because it isn't available in your location, morally you aren't stealing, because you couldn't buy it easily, and you have an inherent right to consume the content?
      - fifnir 8y ago
        You are never morally stealing a digital copy because you do not deprive the original owner of the item.
        goostavos 8y ago
        I guess I understand the mental gymnastics, I just don't find it compelling as a justification.
      - DanBC 8y ago
        If it's not available in my location, and I'm willing to pay money for it, and will pay money if it is made available in my location at some future date, then the rights holders can't be too sniffy about my attempts to consume the content even if that includes unauthorised downloading.
      - croon 8y ago
        I'm not discussing morality. I'm just stating the fact that you can't deprive someone of profit by consuming content you can't otherwise purchase. You could theoretically indirectly affect sales though if your internet buzz is capable of moving the scale in whatever market the content is available.
- goostavos 8y ago
  Surely the gymnastics go the other way? You don't have an inherent right to content just because it exists. I've hoisted the black flag plenty of times in the past, but let's not pretend it's anything other than theft.
  - nradov 8y ago
    I agree with your point, but legally speaking "theft" only applies to physical objects. Copyright violation is a different crime.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Isn’t copyright violation generally a civil matter rather than criminal? In Australia it can become criminal if the violation was of a commercial nature.
- rhino369 8y ago
  I think not being able to purchase it should resolve moral/ethical issues. But a lot of pirates like to complain they cannot purchase it according to their specific demands. People used to complain that they had to buy cable to watch game of thrones. They wanted a solo steaming service. Go look at old reddit posts, pirates would proclaim that they would subscribe to that instead of pirate. HBO made exactly that. And now the complaint is that it costs too much. Or they don’t want to pay for Barry or Veep episodes they don’t want. But they’ll stop pirating if they could just buy GoT! I think the vast majority of piracy is just because they can get it for free. Additionally, if the content is just not available in your country yet, then at best, you would be morally/ethically justified in pirating now and then paying later when it’s allowed.
rollthehard6 8y ago
Agree. One series I've enjoyed, "You're the Worst", is not even legally available in the UK in any medium as far as I can find other than S1 and S2 - Both shown on one UK TV channel and available on DVD, the rest, forget it, out of luck, hence torrent.
- kyriakos 8y ago
  good series btw!
mprev 8y ago
I’m not making a judgement on either side but you have the option of not watching the content.
- martin_a 8y ago
  But what if I'd really like to and would also be willing to pay a fair amount of money for that but there is no option of doing so?
  - mprev 8y ago
    Then, under the system we have today, you still don’t have a right to view it. Whether that’s right or wrong, it’s disingenuous to say there’s no option other than going through unlicensed channels.
    - martin_a 8y ago
      You obviously don't have a right to view it, that's correct. But publishers, studios, whatever you want to call them, don't get tired to tell us that users are not willing to pay for the content etc., but that's simply not true. Most often it's about the hurdles to access the content. Be it scattering over half a dozen platforms, restricted access to specific markets or whatever. They are the ones creating the problems that people find (more or less legal) solutions for.
    - antepodius 8y ago
      Of course. But people's respect for customs and laws isn't infinite. They'll put some effort in, but they're less likely to if it's less convenient and doesn't really seem like a matter of great moral weight. I don't steal playstations out of shops, regardless of how fun it could be, because it's illegal and I'm likely to be punished for it, and because I have some moral qualms about it. Piracy? You're not going to be punished for it, and it's qualitatively different from taking a thing away from someone. With no enforcement, all that stops people from pirating all the time is the comparative inconvenience and moral qualms. When the entity involved is some big, faceless company, and it's a lot more convenient to pirate than buy (even disregarding the money you'd have to spend to buy!)- you could imagine not having any more moral qualms about piracy.
bestnameever 8y ago
> If I am not living in the US and want to watch a hulu series I have zero choice but to pirate it or use a shady vpn. You also have the choice to not watch it until it becomes available in your country
- SamuelAdams 8y ago
  Yes, but FOMO [1] is a common thing. Let's use Game of Thrones as an example. If you are a fan of the series, you keep up on all the latest discussion. Right now Reddit is chatting about S8E3, which aired 12 hours ago. If someone is forced to wait another week, or in the case of films, another few months, the movie could very well be spoiled by reading some online discussion. Fan-based communities move very fast. While they do try to censor spoilers immediately after a new release, the censoring dwindles down rather quickly. By the time a new film is available in your region, you may have already stumbled across some very severe spoilers which would inhibit your experience. The better solution, IMO, is to make content available globally at the same time - eliminate regional distribution for online content. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    In other words: HBO is leaving potential income behind by not having their service available worldwide. Netflix, in contrast, did a really aggressive expansion worldwide a while ago, making their service available all over the world. They're still expanding, while also producing their own content - which they don't need to have expensive licensing fees for when they want to publish it internationally. They only need to deal with local laws.
- falcolas 8y ago
  Which, for some "digital distribution" content, may be never.
- oblio 8y ago
  Which could be never in some places...
- 8y ago

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

Without some very disingenuous mental gymnastics it can't possible count as piracy if you were never able to purchase the media in the first place.

gambiting 8y ago
What would you call it then? Otherwise it's just entitlement to something because you can't buy it - "oh look, this movie is not available to purchase in my country, I guess I'm getting it for free!". It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released - if it's not available in your market then either import it, or....don't get it?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  You’re over thinking it. No loss has occur. We’re willing to pay.
- chii 8y ago
  > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released participating in culture is required by many, esp. the young. If they can't easily get it via a legitimate means, piracy is the default. Not watching it is not an option.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I strongly support this perspective. If you create a culturally relevant work then prohibit people from legally participating, you probably deserve disparagement and the forfeiture of your rights.
    - nikbackm 8y ago
      But it can hardly be culturally relevant in a country where it's not available, or? Unless everyone pirates it.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        This is one of those comments that flips between supporting my previous comment or arguing against it every time I blink and reread it.
      - flukus 8y ago
        Culture isn't always local to your geographic location, there's people around the world discussing tech culture right here, there's people living abroad but still connected too and part of the local culture. One of the common analogies for China's lack of respect for intellectual property is the US doing the same (copying books) when it was young and poor yet still culturally English.
      - chii 8y ago
        in an increasingly globalized world, literary media has become culturally relevant anywhere in the world. In the past, when localized media is the only option, locking out regions from purchases wouldn't have been an issue (since nobody would've known about it). But now the internet exists, and information being global means that literary media must also be global. To be denied an opportunity to participate in its consumption is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication. I think that's wrong, and therefore, this justifies piracy for those individuals who would otherwise be denied due to cost/availablity reasons.
        gambiting 8y ago
        This is such an English-speaking-centric view it's incredible. There are great works of art - movies, books, music, games that exist outside of the anglosphere, they never appear outside of their respective countries and are never translated, yet I don't see people complaining that the lack of their translations is " is to deny the right to participate in cultural exchange and communication". You just....can't consume them. It's not the end of the world, no one is being done some great injustice, that creative work is just not available to you right now. How is that different? Perhaps only in that it's much better? If I want to watch a Russian TV show and there is no translation, either I have to wait for the translation or....learn Russian. If I can't legally buy Game of Thrones in my country I can always pay for a copy in a country where it is available and have it sent to me. It's not as convenient, but it is possible. To say that there is some harm being done by not making it available and the only solution is piracy sounds like self justification.
  - eric-hu 8y ago
    I agree with you, but I can't help but think of the case of the Wu Tang album they sold to Martin Shkreli. Part of the terms of sale was that it couldn't be copied. I do believe a company shouldn't be able to hold a piece of culture hostage. I also believe in a creator's right to decide how their work is consumed. I'm not sure how to reconcile these two things.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Have you ever come across Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle. As far as I'm aware it was never published for mass consumption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cremaster_Cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cremaster_Cycle
- 0815test 8y ago
  > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released People used to say exactly that about music, and then Spotify came around - along with multiple DRM-free download stores. Now these things are very much seen as "God-given rights" by many. Yes, video is especially complicated because of how costly it is to create in the first place - this is why the closest thing to a plausible solution is going to come in the form of disruption from below. Some sort of "Netflix 2.0", focusing on a somewhat more heavily-curated experience than YT does today, and skimping on challenging technical details - maybe not even providing full-HD content of any sort! Vimeo could easily enter that space.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    There's a certain irony that Spotify is by all accounts terrible for actually supporting artists though.
- flukus 8y ago
  > It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released It's also not media producers god given right to gouge customers and have the government enforce a monopoly on their products, or to even exist. Ideally we can reach a compromise that suits everyone, but at the moment it's media companies that are over reaching, they'll even happily gimp their own products so that pirated versions are better.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > if it's not available in your market then either import it, You're saying this is the moral and legal option, but the copyright holders lobbied hard to make this illegal. That's why there are no stores in my country offering imported DVDs for sale. It's illegal to import these if you're a business. I have to go to a foreign company and import the disc strictly for personal use. So, I get a DVD / BluRay from a different region. How do I play this? The shop where I bought the player is forbidden, by law, from telling me how to convert my player into a multi-region player. People aren't saying "I want this for free". They're saying "allow me to pay for it". They're also saying "the easier it is to pay for something the more people will pay for it".
- iainmerrick 8y ago
  if it's not available in your market then either import it, or....don't get it? Given that importing is often intentionally blocked by region-locking, it’s a straight choice between “don’t get it” and piracy.
- treerock 8y ago
  > What would you call it then? 'Copyright infringement'? 'Piracy' is a bit of a loaded term. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.en#Piracy http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html.en#Piracy
- tomohawk 8y ago
  The whole point of copyright (originally) was to encourage content holders to make the content available to the public by providing protection if they did so. If the content holder is not making their content available in a reasonable way, they should have no such protections.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  I find it difficult to accept a copyright claim on commercial content never sold in a country. In my views, if you cared about getting paid for the content, then you would have sold it legally in that country. IMHO, refusing to distribute content is essentially forfeiting any commercial claims to its distribution.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    Game of Thrones is notable due to the use of VPN-blocking, and credit card blocking. There are people who pay for HBOgo, do so through some forwarder which makes their credit card appear to come from a US bank, and then have to find a VPN service to actually watch it with. Multiple steps in this transaction - completely unncessarily due to the nature of the underlying technologies - cost the consumer money, to circumvent protections implemented by HBO (or more likely whatever BS contract their parent company signed), for the express purpose of preventing the consumer paying HBO to lawfully watch their content.
  - goostavos 8y ago
    So, something is sold exclusively in Target, but isn't sold in, say, Best Buy. You only have a best buy near you, therefore you're... justified in stating they have no commercial claims to the content they own and chose to distribute through Target? I'm not sure I follow your argument.
    - fifnir 8y ago
      Of course you don't understand, cause you completely slaughtered his argument.
- SkyBelow 8y ago
  >It's not anyone's god-given right to be able to get every media ever released Or maybe it is? Different people have different views on what counts as rights and I've yet to hear of a case of God clarifying which group of people is right. Some people believe it is their God given right to keep others from modifying their own equipment in certain patterns by sharing information. Others disagree. Consider libraries. If I built a file sharing system that allowed only one person to watch the movie at a time, but allowed as many people as wanted to watch it if they were willing to wait their turn, how is this any different than what a library does? Yet that would also be considered a form of piracy. Is running a library not a God given right.
  - m_t 8y ago
    Libraries pay for the content they provide. That's the only thing you forgot to plan for in your hypothetical system.
    - SkyBelow 8y ago
      I did plan for it, I just didn't call out that the original copy of the movie was purchased because I didn't think that would be the defining factor on if my plan was acceptable or not. So as long as I pay for the original copy and only allow one person to view it at a time, my plan is acceptable?
- Kaiyou 8y ago
  “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. Following the letter of the law isn't always the right thing to do.
  - nradov 8y ago
    It's a real stretch to equate civil disobedience over equal rights with access to mere entertainment content. No one really needs to watch Game of Thrones or whatever.
    - Kaiyou 8y ago
      Justice isn't something that requires a certain threshold of magnitude. Maybe it's mere entertainment. Doesn't justify injustice.
- antepodius 8y ago
  I think people, in general, don't care too much about whether something is legal or not when it comes to deciding whether it's actually moral or not. Things are moral or immoral whether they're legal or not. If some corporation isn't selling the rights to view a file in your country, and it's a pain to get them the 'legal way', I think a lot of people would look at the situation and think- "well, nobody's going to prosecute me for this. Even if I think piracy is immoral in general, this entity has made it a pain for me to get their product without pirating- they obviously aren't counting on my money. They've waived their moral right to complain about me not paying to look at their tv show- and in the lack of enforcement of the law, that moral right is all that matters to me. I'll just pirate it. If they don't want my money, they won't get it."
Cthulhu_ 8y ago
The piracy part is that despite it not being available, you still feel entitled to it and go around the availability to get it. I mean piracy is not that big a crime especially if there's no legal alternative (and the legal / convenient alternatives to piracy have been the biggest deterrent), but if you replace "media" with idk, "consumer electronics" it becomes a different matter. I know, physical goods vs virtual ones is a big difference, but is it, from a legal standpoint?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  In Australia simple copyright infringement is a civil matter, only if the infringement was of a commercial nature can it also be criminal. Physical theft is always criminal.
- FeepingCreature 8y ago
  I'm not aware of any definition of piracy that contains the word "entitled."
  - goostavos 8y ago
    It's the subtext for a lot of the justifications in this thread, tho. [Thing] isn't for sale in their area, they want [thing], therefore they're justified in stealing [thing] rather than just not having it. Is entitlement not involved in that reasoning? What is the motivation for illegally obtaining something if not feeling that you deserve to have it? The owners of the content and the distributors are wrong?
notyourwork 8y ago
Is it theft if a minor steals alcohol? Said minor couldn’t purchase it so taking it cannot be theft without some “mental gymnastics”.
- croon 8y ago
  Yes, because someone loses a product/sale. A copy reaching someone that can't possibly be a customer can't logically be a lost sale.
  - goostavos 8y ago
    So, to be clear, because it isn't available in your location, morally you aren't stealing, because you couldn't buy it easily, and you have an inherent right to consume the content?
    - fifnir 8y ago
      You are never morally stealing a digital copy because you do not deprive the original owner of the item.
      - goostavos 8y ago
        I guess I understand the mental gymnastics, I just don't find it compelling as a justification.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      If it's not available in my location, and I'm willing to pay money for it, and will pay money if it is made available in my location at some future date, then the rights holders can't be too sniffy about my attempts to consume the content even if that includes unauthorised downloading.
    - croon 8y ago
      I'm not discussing morality. I'm just stating the fact that you can't deprive someone of profit by consuming content you can't otherwise purchase. You could theoretically indirectly affect sales though if your internet buzz is capable of moving the scale in whatever market the content is available.
goostavos 8y ago
Surely the gymnastics go the other way? You don't have an inherent right to content just because it exists. I've hoisted the black flag plenty of times in the past, but let's not pretend it's anything other than theft.
- nradov 8y ago
  I agree with your point, but legally speaking "theft" only applies to physical objects. Copyright violation is a different crime.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Isn’t copyright violation generally a civil matter rather than criminal? In Australia it can become criminal if the violation was of a commercial nature.
rhino369 8y ago
I think not being able to purchase it should resolve moral/ethical issues. But a lot of pirates like to complain they cannot purchase it according to their specific demands. People used to complain that they had to buy cable to watch game of thrones. They wanted a solo steaming service. Go look at old reddit posts, pirates would proclaim that they would subscribe to that instead of pirate. HBO made exactly that. And now the complaint is that it costs too much. Or they don’t want to pay for Barry or Veep episodes they don’t want. But they’ll stop pirating if they could just buy GoT! I think the vast majority of piracy is just because they can get it for free. Additionally, if the content is just not available in your country yet, then at best, you would be morally/ethically justified in pirating now and then paying later when it’s allowed.

rollthehard6 8y ago

Agree. One series I've enjoyed, "You're the Worst", is not even legally available in the UK in any medium as far as I can find other than S1 and S2 - Both shown on one UK TV channel and available on DVD, the rest, forget it, out of luck, hence torrent.

kyriakos 8y ago
good series btw!

mprev 8y ago

I’m not making a judgement on either side but you have the option of not watching the content.

martin_a 8y ago
But what if I'd really like to and would also be willing to pay a fair amount of money for that but there is no option of doing so?
- mprev 8y ago
  Then, under the system we have today, you still don’t have a right to view it. Whether that’s right or wrong, it’s disingenuous to say there’s no option other than going through unlicensed channels.
  - martin_a 8y ago
    You obviously don't have a right to view it, that's correct. But publishers, studios, whatever you want to call them, don't get tired to tell us that users are not willing to pay for the content etc., but that's simply not true. Most often it's about the hurdles to access the content. Be it scattering over half a dozen platforms, restricted access to specific markets or whatever. They are the ones creating the problems that people find (more or less legal) solutions for.
  - antepodius 8y ago
    Of course. But people's respect for customs and laws isn't infinite. They'll put some effort in, but they're less likely to if it's less convenient and doesn't really seem like a matter of great moral weight. I don't steal playstations out of shops, regardless of how fun it could be, because it's illegal and I'm likely to be punished for it, and because I have some moral qualms about it. Piracy? You're not going to be punished for it, and it's qualitatively different from taking a thing away from someone. With no enforcement, all that stops people from pirating all the time is the comparative inconvenience and moral qualms. When the entity involved is some big, faceless company, and it's a lot more convenient to pirate than buy (even disregarding the money you'd have to spend to buy!)- you could imagine not having any more moral qualms about piracy.

bestnameever 8y ago

> If I am not living in the US and want to watch a hulu series I have zero choice but to pirate it or use a shady vpn. You also have the choice to not watch it until it becomes available in your country

SamuelAdams 8y ago
Yes, but FOMO [1] is a common thing. Let's use Game of Thrones as an example. If you are a fan of the series, you keep up on all the latest discussion. Right now Reddit is chatting about S8E3, which aired 12 hours ago. If someone is forced to wait another week, or in the case of films, another few months, the movie could very well be spoiled by reading some online discussion. Fan-based communities move very fast. While they do try to censor spoilers immediately after a new release, the censoring dwindles down rather quickly. By the time a new film is available in your region, you may have already stumbled across some very severe spoilers which would inhibit your experience. The better solution, IMO, is to make content available globally at the same time - eliminate regional distribution for online content. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  In other words: HBO is leaving potential income behind by not having their service available worldwide. Netflix, in contrast, did a really aggressive expansion worldwide a while ago, making their service available all over the world. They're still expanding, while also producing their own content - which they don't need to have expensive licensing fees for when they want to publish it internationally. They only need to deal with local laws.
falcolas 8y ago
Which, for some "digital distribution" content, may be never.
oblio 8y ago
Which could be never in some places...
8y ago