4 ms·

If you're pirating Stephen King or a 300$ textbook from a guy who has tenure at Harvard I doubt anyone probably including the author cares but a fair amount of

If you're pirating Stephen King or a 300$ textbook from a guy who has tenure at Harvard I doubt anyone probably including the author cares but a fair amount of authors aren't making any more than you make. Friend of mine published her own graphic novel basically living in her parents attic and a day after it was out someone had ripped it and thrown it on a comic piracy site. That's not ethical. If you live on a 12-15/hour salary which I have too you still can afford the occassional book here and there, you can't tell me you spend zero on recreational stuff. I don't care if anyone fleeces Marvel studios but if people start pirating independent works from people no better off, often worse, that's iffy.

connorgutman 4y ago
I appreciate your sentiment, and trust me I really do want to support people like your friend, but no I literally do not have any money for recreational activities (and if I did I would buy a videogame or boardgame because it would last longer). I make $13.50 / h (which is above minimum wage here in Arizona) and go to school full-time. Rent is $1,000 (absolute cheapest I have found in my college town), groceries are roughly $500, gas is $50-$100 depending on world affairs, utilities are $250,public transportation (so that I don't have to pay for parking at shool) is $50, and the list goes on tbh. I'm lucky enough to have a Prius that was given to me by my family so no car payment even. I'm one of the lucky ones for being in college at all. This is the America that most people live in. Well even that isn't true, I have it way better than most.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  Checking out from a library and grabbing a pirated version are different in that checking out from a library generates demand. The library may respond by buying additional copies of a given work, and you can put in requests to your local library to buy work if they don't currently stock it. Even if a library refuses to buy the work, it's common for libraries to loan works to each other-- so a library from another city or further out may buy the book and let you borrow it for example. It all generates demand for libraries to buy more.
- gameshot911 4y ago
  If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it. Sorry. There are lots of things I want that I can't afford, either.
  - brnaftr361 4y ago
    There are no objective ethics. It's an open problem. There's a whole lot of words to be said about that, but it's hardly worth discussion because ultimately the result would be wasted breath. Anyway, the sphere of economics is the least ethical domain of humanity there is. My dollar is not equal to your dollar, and our dollars aren't equal to Musk or Bezos. We pretend that is the case. There never were and never will be equivocality in exchange unless it's one idea for another.
  - ykonstant 4y ago
    > If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it. That is absurd.
  - connorgutman 4y ago
    What privilege you must enjoy to have such fucking stupid "ethics" lmao. You wouldn't last a day in my shoes. Money only gets you so far in life, kindness and mutual aid goes a lot further.
dartharva 4y ago
Large-scale pirates that can actually reach a significant amount of people almost never rip-off indie creators, and even if they do, they are the least likely to impact sales - people are unlikely bother acquiring illegitimate copies of obscure indie works as against big-brand stuff whose names they have actually heard of. I really doubt the sales of the graphic novel that friend of yours were impacted in any non-negligible way by it being ended up on a piracy site. If anything, it might as well have worked as an advertisement.
dmitriid 4y ago
Time and again it has been shown that pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. Moreover, making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude.
- kgwgk 4y ago
  > pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. > making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude. So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)? Schrödinger's pirates: none of them would pay - but all of them would.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)? No. People who would pay actually pay for stuff, and very few of those people pirate. People who pirate would not pay for that stuff anyway. The "omg pirating makes it impossible for people to sell their works" has been proven to he false many times over.
    - kgwgk 4y ago
      > People who pirate would not pay for that stuff anyway. How can then Steam, Nerflix, etc. reduce piracy by orders of magnitude? That means that at least 99% of the people getting stuff without paying would instead... pay?
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        No. People who wouldn't pay otherwise now have easy and relatively cheap access which reduces the friction so much, it doesn't make sense to scour the web for keygens and cracks and what not. Now, with a gazillion streaming services we'll see piracy ruse again because of friction and cost. Or, simply, these services brought in the otherwise non-paying crowd. We already had this discussed and explained many times over. Why are we at it again? There was a study commissioned by the EU in 2013 that additionally confirmed this and previous studies. But it was withheld https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_ae72e89a-2cc1-4629-911d-d287a4ce2495 https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-s... Quote: "In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU. However, it never ended up showing it to the public except for one cherry-picked section. That's possibly because the study concluded that there was no evidence that piracy affects copyrighted sales, and in the case of video games, might actually help them." Overall the question is complex, and this is a good study: https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Global-Online-Piracy-Study.pdf https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Global-Online-Pirac... which shows that it's not clear-cut, depends on income and availability etc. And that piracy may have both negative impacts (4% fewer visits to cinema) and positive impacts (increased visits to life concerts etc.) However, quote, "an increase in illegal consumption over time is found to correlate with an increase in legal consumption and vice versa". The reason is: most decisions are done on the spot, and consumers chose the path of least resistance.

connorgutman 4y ago

I appreciate your sentiment, and trust me I really do want to support people like your friend, but no I literally do not have any money for recreational activities (and if I did I would buy a videogame or boardgame because it would last longer). I make $13.50 / h (which is above minimum wage here in Arizona) and go to school full-time. Rent is $1,000 (absolute cheapest I have found in my college town), groceries are roughly $500, gas is $50-$100 depending on world affairs, utilities are $250,public transportation (so that I don't have to pay for parking at shool) is $50, and the list goes on tbh. I'm lucky enough to have a Prius that was given to me by my family so no car payment even. I'm one of the lucky ones for being in college at all. This is the America that most people live in. Well even that isn't true, I have it way better than most.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Checking out from a library and grabbing a pirated version are different in that checking out from a library generates demand. The library may respond by buying additional copies of a given work, and you can put in requests to your local library to buy work if they don't currently stock it. Even if a library refuses to buy the work, it's common for libraries to loan works to each other-- so a library from another city or further out may buy the book and let you borrow it for example. It all generates demand for libraries to buy more.
gameshot911 4y ago
If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it. Sorry. There are lots of things I want that I can't afford, either.
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  There are no objective ethics. It's an open problem. There's a whole lot of words to be said about that, but it's hardly worth discussion because ultimately the result would be wasted breath. Anyway, the sphere of economics is the least ethical domain of humanity there is. My dollar is not equal to your dollar, and our dollars aren't equal to Musk or Bezos. We pretend that is the case. There never were and never will be equivocality in exchange unless it's one idea for another.
- ykonstant 4y ago
  > If you can't afford to purchase it, and you can't acquire it by alternative legal means, then (ethically) you just don't get to enjoy it. That is absurd.
- connorgutman 4y ago
  What privilege you must enjoy to have such fucking stupid "ethics" lmao. You wouldn't last a day in my shoes. Money only gets you so far in life, kindness and mutual aid goes a lot further.

dartharva 4y ago

Large-scale pirates that can actually reach a significant amount of people almost never rip-off indie creators, and even if they do, they are the least likely to impact sales - people are unlikely bother acquiring illegitimate copies of obscure indie works as against big-brand stuff whose names they have actually heard of. I really doubt the sales of the graphic novel that friend of yours were impacted in any non-negligible way by it being ended up on a piracy site. If anything, it might as well have worked as an advertisement.

dmitriid 4y ago

Time and again it has been shown that pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. Moreover, making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude.

kgwgk 4y ago
> pirating doesn't hurt sales because it is rarely if ever done by people who would've paid for the stuff anyway. > making stuff easily accessible (e.g. Steam, Nerflix) reduces piracy by orders of magnitude. So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)? Schrödinger's pirates: none of them would pay - but all of them would.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > So it's rarely done by people who would've paid for the stuff but it's mostly done by people who would have paid (just not as much)? No. People who would pay actually pay for stuff, and very few of those people pirate. People who pirate would not pay for that stuff anyway. The "omg pirating makes it impossible for people to sell their works" has been proven to he false many times over.
  - kgwgk 4y ago
    > People who pirate would not pay for that stuff anyway. How can then Steam, Nerflix, etc. reduce piracy by orders of magnitude? That means that at least 99% of the people getting stuff without paying would instead... pay?
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      No. People who wouldn't pay otherwise now have easy and relatively cheap access which reduces the friction so much, it doesn't make sense to scour the web for keygens and cracks and what not. Now, with a gazillion streaming services we'll see piracy ruse again because of friction and cost. Or, simply, these services brought in the otherwise non-paying crowd. We already had this discussed and explained many times over. Why are we at it again? There was a study commissioned by the EU in 2013 that additionally confirmed this and previous studies. But it was withheld https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_ae72e89a-2cc1-4629-911d-d287a4ce2495 https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-s... Quote: "In 2013, the European Commission ordered a €360,000 ($430,000) study on how piracy affects sales of music, books, movies and games in the EU. However, it never ended up showing it to the public except for one cherry-picked section. That's possibly because the study concluded that there was no evidence that piracy affects copyrighted sales, and in the case of video games, might actually help them." Overall the question is complex, and this is a good study: https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Global-Online-Piracy-Study.pdf https://www.ivir.nl/publicaties/download/Global-Online-Pirac... which shows that it's not clear-cut, depends on income and availability etc. And that piracy may have both negative impacts (4% fewer visits to cinema) and positive impacts (increased visits to life concerts etc.) However, quote, "an increase in illegal consumption over time is found to correlate with an increase in legal consumption and vice versa". The reason is: most decisions are done on the spot, and consumers chose the path of least resistance.