5 ms·

Please explain how enforcing their right to be paid for what they sell is destroying the internet

by hcks 3y ago

MrVandemar 3y ago
"Sell"? They don't sell anything anymore. You get a licence, revocable at any time. And you keep paying and paying and paying.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  >You get a licence, revocable at any time. And without refund.
geon 3y ago
If I pirate some content, how is that different to them compared to me just not buying it? Should they be allowed to disconnect my internet because I don’t buy their content? The studios can so easily kill all piracy, and they just about did it with Spotify and Netflix. But no, the greed made them split up into a dozen different services nobody wants, and here we are again.
- awjlogan 3y ago
  Because you are getting something produced by someone for free if you pirate it and you are relying on others to fund your consumption. Take that to the logical extreme: everybody pirates everything. That is _very_ different to everyone not buying it. There is demand for the product and it has a cost to produce. If you steal something from somebody, there is recourse in law. I don't disagree about the greed part, but I guess fragmentation is almost inevitable until the profit margin is driven down to near zero. Shortsighted, probably, but it would essentially require all the producers to back (and therefore yield profit to), one or two Netflix/Spotify type entities.
  - haswell 3y ago
    Taking this to the logical extreme is fallacious. The piracy wars up to this point have already shown that people buy content if it’s reasonably priced, and that piracy in many cases actually increases sales of the original content. The fact that piracy is back in the limelight has everything to do with the failing business models of greedy companies, and is the market reacting accordingly. The fact that there are penalties for stealing physical goods does not imply that just any penalty is fine. The analogy doesn’t work. Removal of Internet access in 2023 is debilitating. Punishments are supposed to fit the crime, and the complete loss of access to what has become a fundamental point of access does not fit the crime. And there’s also the very old arguments that I won’t rehash here about the clear difference between digital copies of content and physical items.
    - awjlogan 3y ago
      If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it. The shop can decide to reduce the price in response to the market - they may make less profit than before and make up for it in volume. However, that is entirely their perogative. There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer. A digital good has the cost of production front loaded, it just has next to zero marginal cost. That may be the cost of education and experience, for example. If you make something of value, you absolutely have the right to choose how you are rewarded - if the buyer decides that choice isn't right for them, you can either change the offer or you look for your next customer. You may choose to give it away, if your reward is the satisfaction of someone using it, but that is your choice, not the consumer's.
      - logicchains 3y ago
        >There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer There's absolutely a difference. If you produce a physical good, and somebody takes it, you no longer have it. If you produce a digital good and somebody copies it, you still have the original, you're still free to use and enjoy it as you see fit. Fundamentally property rights are a negative right: you have the right not to have your stuff taken. Negative rights don't conflict with eachother, that's why they make a good basis for society. Intellectual property is a positive right: you have the right to control how other people use their property, which conflicts with people's right to use their property as they see fit.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > but I guess fragmentation is almost inevitable until the profit margin is driven down to near zero Precisely. You can't just take stuff people made at cost, that's violating copyright! You need to instead be a megacorporation that competes so brutally on intermediating yourself in the pipe that profit is driven towards zero, so you can't afford to pay any artists! That's the legal way to screw over creators.
    - awjlogan 3y ago
      Brutal, but true :/
  - c22 3y ago
    The word piracy was obviously chosen to create exactly this sort of confusion, but piracy on the internet is fundamentally different than stealing which is not buying someone's stuff and also depriving them of the ability to sell it to someone else.
    - awjlogan 3y ago
      You are, instead, "stealing" the means for the producer to make more if they can't afford to do it any more because you've normalised using people's work without compensation. It doesn't really matter if the marginal cost of reproduction is near zero, it is the producer's choice what to price their product at, not yours. You're pushing the cost on to others to subsidise your consumption.
      - c22 3y ago
        But now we're getting into a much more nuanced argument about the shape of society. If I, as a lone actor, hook my tape deck into the output of my radio and "steal" the newest Britney Spears track have I normalized the act of piracy? If everyone is doing it then it does seem pretty normalized, but if everyone is doing it then your presumption as to society's values seems flawed. In reality these media producers seem to be making healthy profits so perhaps internet piracy is not as normalized as you think.
    - renzobanks 3y ago
      I think the word piracy is worse honestly, because what it really means is to swashbuckle on the open seas. And i don't think stealing physical goods or digital goods is quite comparable to that.
johngladtj 3y ago
They don't have a right to be paid.
- JopV 3y ago
  You don't have a right to the fruits of other people's labor.
  - sp332 3y ago
    He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper [candle] at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature.... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
    - JopV 3y ago
      That is about patents, not about copyright. Patents protect ideas/inventions, and are controversial. Copyright protects works, and aside from what should happen with it if the author dies, is not really controversial.
  - dml2135 3y ago
    When the fruits of your labor are something that can be endlessly reproduced for nearly zero cost, I don’t think you have a very strong right to be paid. There is no scarcity in digital media. Supply and demand will inevitably drive down the price to near zero.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Please explain how enforcing their right to be paid for what they sell is destroying the internet

by hcks 3y ago

Please explain how enforcing their right to be paid for what they sell is destroying the internet

"Sell"? They don't sell anything anymore. You get a licence, revocable at any time. And you keep paying and paying and paying.

ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
>You get a licence, revocable at any time. And without refund.

geon 3y ago

If I pirate some content, how is that different to them compared to me just not buying it? Should they be allowed to disconnect my internet because I don’t buy their content? The studios can so easily kill all piracy, and they just about did it with Spotify and Netflix. But no, the greed made them split up into a dozen different services nobody wants, and here we are again.

awjlogan 3y ago
Because you are getting something produced by someone for free if you pirate it and you are relying on others to fund your consumption. Take that to the logical extreme: everybody pirates everything. That is _very_ different to everyone not buying it. There is demand for the product and it has a cost to produce. If you steal something from somebody, there is recourse in law. I don't disagree about the greed part, but I guess fragmentation is almost inevitable until the profit margin is driven down to near zero. Shortsighted, probably, but it would essentially require all the producers to back (and therefore yield profit to), one or two Netflix/Spotify type entities.
- haswell 3y ago
  Taking this to the logical extreme is fallacious. The piracy wars up to this point have already shown that people buy content if it’s reasonably priced, and that piracy in many cases actually increases sales of the original content. The fact that piracy is back in the limelight has everything to do with the failing business models of greedy companies, and is the market reacting accordingly. The fact that there are penalties for stealing physical goods does not imply that just any penalty is fine. The analogy doesn’t work. Removal of Internet access in 2023 is debilitating. Punishments are supposed to fit the crime, and the complete loss of access to what has become a fundamental point of access does not fit the crime. And there’s also the very old arguments that I won’t rehash here about the clear difference between digital copies of content and physical items.
  - awjlogan 3y ago
    If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it. The shop can decide to reduce the price in response to the market - they may make less profit than before and make up for it in volume. However, that is entirely their perogative. There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer. A digital good has the cost of production front loaded, it just has next to zero marginal cost. That may be the cost of education and experience, for example. If you make something of value, you absolutely have the right to choose how you are rewarded - if the buyer decides that choice isn't right for them, you can either change the offer or you look for your next customer. You may choose to give it away, if your reward is the satisfaction of someone using it, but that is your choice, not the consumer's.
    - logicchains 3y ago
      >There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer There's absolutely a difference. If you produce a physical good, and somebody takes it, you no longer have it. If you produce a digital good and somebody copies it, you still have the original, you're still free to use and enjoy it as you see fit. Fundamentally property rights are a negative right: you have the right not to have your stuff taken. Negative rights don't conflict with eachother, that's why they make a good basis for society. Intellectual property is a positive right: you have the right to control how other people use their property, which conflicts with people's right to use their property as they see fit.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > but I guess fragmentation is almost inevitable until the profit margin is driven down to near zero Precisely. You can't just take stuff people made at cost, that's violating copyright! You need to instead be a megacorporation that competes so brutally on intermediating yourself in the pipe that profit is driven towards zero, so you can't afford to pay any artists! That's the legal way to screw over creators.
  - awjlogan 3y ago
    Brutal, but true :/
- c22 3y ago
  The word piracy was obviously chosen to create exactly this sort of confusion, but piracy on the internet is fundamentally different than stealing which is not buying someone's stuff and also depriving them of the ability to sell it to someone else.
  - awjlogan 3y ago
    You are, instead, "stealing" the means for the producer to make more if they can't afford to do it any more because you've normalised using people's work without compensation. It doesn't really matter if the marginal cost of reproduction is near zero, it is the producer's choice what to price their product at, not yours. You're pushing the cost on to others to subsidise your consumption.
    - c22 3y ago
      But now we're getting into a much more nuanced argument about the shape of society. If I, as a lone actor, hook my tape deck into the output of my radio and "steal" the newest Britney Spears track have I normalized the act of piracy? If everyone is doing it then it does seem pretty normalized, but if everyone is doing it then your presumption as to society's values seems flawed. In reality these media producers seem to be making healthy profits so perhaps internet piracy is not as normalized as you think.
  - renzobanks 3y ago
    I think the word piracy is worse honestly, because what it really means is to swashbuckle on the open seas. And i don't think stealing physical goods or digital goods is quite comparable to that.

johngladtj 3y ago

They don't have a right to be paid.

JopV 3y ago
You don't have a right to the fruits of other people's labor.
- sp332 3y ago
  He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper [candle] at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature.... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
  - JopV 3y ago
    That is about patents, not about copyright. Patents protect ideas/inventions, and are controversial. Copyright protects works, and aside from what should happen with it if the author dies, is not really controversial.
- dml2135 3y ago
  When the fruits of your labor are something that can be endlessly reproduced for nearly zero cost, I don’t think you have a very strong right to be paid. There is no scarcity in digital media. Supply and demand will inevitably drive down the price to near zero.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]