3 ms·

Theft deprives the seller of the object, causing direct financial losses. With piracy, there's no difference between someone who doesn't consume the media and s

by ripdog 5y ago

Theft deprives the seller of the object, causing direct financial losses. With piracy, there's no difference between someone who doesn't consume the media and someone who pirates. If consuming media without paying the copyright holder is morally wrong, then so is second hand purchasing and selling, as well as rentals. Indeed, copyright industries have a long and storied history of trying to shut down rental chains, to some success in Japan. Just because you paid someone some money to view a TV series, doesn't mean you paid the people who funded production.

vel0city 5y ago
> With piracy, there's no difference between someone who doesn't consume the media and someone who pirates. This assumes everyone who pirates media would not have paid for the media if piracy was not an option. If piracy was truly impossible or was highly enforced with strict penalties, do you think everyone who pirates media would just stop consuming that media? I know of people who pirate every minute of content they watch on TV and pirate nearly every second of music they listen to. Do you think they would just cease watching TV shows and movies and cease listening to music? Or would they start purchasing access to some? There's obviously some percentage of piracy that happens because content is truly unavailable in a way for the consumer to reasonably consume (region blocks, licensing deals, etc) or because the content is just astronomically priced out of their reach ($10/mo for someone who makes $100/mo income, $1,000 software packages for students) that would not have purchased it. I fully agree there would be some percentage of people who truly would never buy the media regardless of the ability to pirate. But I think if piracy was truly impossible or had almost assured steep penalties there would be some amount more sales.

by ripdog 5y ago

vel0city 5y ago

> With piracy, there's no difference between someone who doesn't consume the media and someone who pirates. This assumes everyone who pirates media would not have paid for the media if piracy was not an option. If piracy was truly impossible or was highly enforced with strict penalties, do you think everyone who pirates media would just stop consuming that media? I know of people who pirate every minute of content they watch on TV and pirate nearly every second of music they listen to. Do you think they would just cease watching TV shows and movies and cease listening to music? Or would they start purchasing access to some? There's obviously some percentage of piracy that happens because content is truly unavailable in a way for the consumer to reasonably consume (region blocks, licensing deals, etc) or because the content is just astronomically priced out of their reach ($10/mo for someone who makes $100/mo income, $1,000 software packages for students) that would not have purchased it. I fully agree there would be some percentage of people who truly would never buy the media regardless of the ability to pirate. But I think if piracy was truly impossible or had almost assured steep penalties there would be some amount more sales.