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You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry

You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry makes you part of the problem.

michaelmrose 4y ago
The world is full of problems. We are looking at actual massive potentially civilization or species ending issues in the large and dealing with trying to make a living, manage illness, deal with death, parenting in the small. If you live in a big city you probably walk by people in the street slowly dying from a drawn out form of suicide because you can't possible change all their lives on your way to the grocery store or coffee shop and people at large are choosing to do the same with your income stream. They opt to deal with problems more important and more personal than fixing the way in which culture is monetized so as to funnel slightly more money to rich folks who could do more for society as soylent green in hopes that a few extra bucks will stick to the hands of useful folks like yourself. For myself I'm not angry nor do I have any intention of fixing the problem because nobody with any decision making power gives two shits what my opinion on anything is. I have monetarily in life about nothing and indeed will have nothing tomorrow and the next day. You feel like people are violating the social contract by not paying for multimedia. Part of your problem is that you even believe that we are part of the same society or share the same ethics. We really aren't. I am not the benefactor of the current situation nor do I have any meaningful power to negotiate new ground rules or even enforce existing ones so rejection makes worlds more sense. You say stop downloading and I hear enjoy poverty but with fewer books, music, movies, games. I wont actually be supporting the folks you mentioned to any greater degree but you will find such more ethically palatable. HALF of America is sharing 12% of the income. We don't have anything but you can stick a $200 PC and plug it into a $20 monitor and courtesy of a $10 internet essentials package download as many books music movies shows as you can possibly consume. I don't feel like making my shitty life shittier in order for you to feel better. Artificial scarcity is a dumb way to run a society and its not my fault the people with all the money in this society have chosen it.
cwkoss 4y ago
Film is competing against loads of free content and the industry is thrashing to avoid accepting the obvious fate: it is no longer economically rational to produce films with budgets in the hundreds of millions. Jobs will be lost, just like happened with farriers and switchboard operators. Your income will disappear regardless: the demand for stunts is elastic and the supply is increasingly competitive. Blaming pirates is being unable to see the forest for the trees.
jdgoesmarching 4y ago
If the entire world of piracy tripled tomorrow, it still wouldn’t have the tiniest shred of impact on your income compared to the decisions of rapidly consolidating tech/studio execs who are tanking your industry and fighting your unions to chase pennies. A lot of us would gladly pay the cast and crew directly to own a copy of your output that we could access on our own terms, but that isn’t a reality for most trade under capitalism. There’s a reason Googlers on HN aren’t trying to guilt trip everyone for personally stealing their income by using ad blockers. Maybe this is particularly to the entertainment industry, but most of us would shrug our shoulders at the equivalent of petty shoplifting from our employers.
anthuswilliams 4y ago
I don't personally pirate much, but I take umbrage at you characterizing it in this way. You seem to think that the issues of accessing media without subjecting yourself to user-hostile behaviors are wholly orthogonal to the issue of accessing media without paying for it. They aren't. Imagine a hypothetical universe where, in order to watch one of your movies, people had to a) pay you $1 and also b) let you punch them in the nose. Then, when people sensibly start pirating your content instead because they don't want to get punched, you loudly proclaim that they are stealing the $1 you are owed. That's what's happening here. People want to watch your content, and are willing to pay for it. But they don't want to pay for it AND get punched in the nose. They pirate because your distributors, and by extension you yourself, have made it impossible to watch your content (and pay you!) in any other way. I get that your natural rejoinder will be "if the content is not worth being punched in the nose, just don't watch it!" Which is fair. Debatable, but fair. Just don't come here pretending that all you have asked for is the reasonable sum of $1 when you are actually demanding that your customers subject themselves to the indignity of your fist.

You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry makes you part of the problem.

michaelmrose 4y ago

The world is full of problems. We are looking at actual massive potentially civilization or species ending issues in the large and dealing with trying to make a living, manage illness, deal with death, parenting in the small. If you live in a big city you probably walk by people in the street slowly dying from a drawn out form of suicide because you can't possible change all their lives on your way to the grocery store or coffee shop and people at large are choosing to do the same with your income stream. They opt to deal with problems more important and more personal than fixing the way in which culture is monetized so as to funnel slightly more money to rich folks who could do more for society as soylent green in hopes that a few extra bucks will stick to the hands of useful folks like yourself. For myself I'm not angry nor do I have any intention of fixing the problem because nobody with any decision making power gives two shits what my opinion on anything is. I have monetarily in life about nothing and indeed will have nothing tomorrow and the next day. You feel like people are violating the social contract by not paying for multimedia. Part of your problem is that you even believe that we are part of the same society or share the same ethics. We really aren't. I am not the benefactor of the current situation nor do I have any meaningful power to negotiate new ground rules or even enforce existing ones so rejection makes worlds more sense. You say stop downloading and I hear enjoy poverty but with fewer books, music, movies, games. I wont actually be supporting the folks you mentioned to any greater degree but you will find such more ethically palatable. HALF of America is sharing 12% of the income. We don't have anything but you can stick a $200 PC and plug it into a $20 monitor and courtesy of a $10 internet essentials package download as many books music movies shows as you can possibly consume. I don't feel like making my shitty life shittier in order for you to feel better. Artificial scarcity is a dumb way to run a society and its not my fault the people with all the money in this society have chosen it.

cwkoss 4y ago

Film is competing against loads of free content and the industry is thrashing to avoid accepting the obvious fate: it is no longer economically rational to produce films with budgets in the hundreds of millions. Jobs will be lost, just like happened with farriers and switchboard operators. Your income will disappear regardless: the demand for stunts is elastic and the supply is increasingly competitive. Blaming pirates is being unable to see the forest for the trees.

jdgoesmarching 4y ago

If the entire world of piracy tripled tomorrow, it still wouldn’t have the tiniest shred of impact on your income compared to the decisions of rapidly consolidating tech/studio execs who are tanking your industry and fighting your unions to chase pennies. A lot of us would gladly pay the cast and crew directly to own a copy of your output that we could access on our own terms, but that isn’t a reality for most trade under capitalism. There’s a reason Googlers on HN aren’t trying to guilt trip everyone for personally stealing their income by using ad blockers. Maybe this is particularly to the entertainment industry, but most of us would shrug our shoulders at the equivalent of petty shoplifting from our employers.

anthuswilliams 4y ago

I don't personally pirate much, but I take umbrage at you characterizing it in this way. You seem to think that the issues of accessing media without subjecting yourself to user-hostile behaviors are wholly orthogonal to the issue of accessing media without paying for it. They aren't. Imagine a hypothetical universe where, in order to watch one of your movies, people had to a) pay you $1 and also b) let you punch them in the nose. Then, when people sensibly start pirating your content instead because they don't want to get punched, you loudly proclaim that they are stealing the $1 you are owed. That's what's happening here. People want to watch your content, and are willing to pay for it. But they don't want to pay for it AND get punched in the nose. They pirate because your distributors, and by extension you yourself, have made it impossible to watch your content (and pay you!) in any other way. I get that your natural rejoinder will be "if the content is not worth being punched in the nose, just don't watch it!" Which is fair. Debatable, but fair. Just don't come here pretending that all you have asked for is the reasonable sum of $1 when you are actually demanding that your customers subject themselves to the indignity of your fist.