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See my edit: of course, as a benevolent Rightsholder(tm)(c)(R) I am only demanding your money if you continue reading after the "contract" you "agreed" to. The

See my edit: of course, as a benevolent Rightsholder(tm)(c)(R) I am only demanding your money if you continue reading after the "contract" you "agreed" to. The point, of course, is that there is no agreement in either case. You agree to do something when you agree to it, not when I claim that you agreed to it. You can argue the opposite legally, and you might even win, but you can't argue it ethically; absent a crisis of conscience halfway through, someone who intended to pirate a movie and then went on to actually pirate a movie did not agree not to pirate a movie a priori.

WendyTheWillow 3y ago
Except there is a very clear agreement in the case where you purchase a DVD. You own the physical DVD, but you license the contents of that DVD. It's right there on the DVD box itself.
- ineptech 3y ago
  ...yes, much like the very clear agreement in my comment where you agreed to give me all of your money. Why can you ignore the one, and I can't ignore the other? What, ethically speaking, is the difference between them?
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    The purchase is where you consent/reject the agreement. That's not the same as merely reading something.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      If you purchase a Disney movie on DVD from Walmart are you making an agreement with Disney? Absolutely not. That would be absurd.
      - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Yes, you enter into an agreement with Disney that you will abide by copyright law. You would not have been sold the item if Disney were aware you did not agree to copyright law.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - ineptech 3y ago
      We're going in circles; why are they different? I understand that the movie studio would like them to be different, they put a sticker on the side of the DVD saying so, but I don't care about their opinion on the matter and even after four responses it's not clear why you think I ought to. I get why you're taking this position - If I agree to not do X and then do X, you can call me unethical even if X is harmless. So, if you can show that pirates somehow agreed not to pirate, you can declare that those pirates are unethical without having to show that piracy itself is unethical. The problem with this position is that it uses semantics to contradict reality. You're asking us to imagine someone who picks up a DVD in a store and reads the sticker on the side and loudly declares, "What nonsense, I'm going to go pirate this movie right now!", and claiming that ethically he is somehow agreeing to the license, and that when he goes home and uploads it, that he is somehow breaking a promise not to pirate it despite having explicitly promised do exactly that. That's an obviously contorted position. If piracy is bad, it's because of the ramifications of the actual act of piracy, not because a corporation fooled me into pinky-swearing not to do it. Companies try to tell us what to do all the time, you can just ignore them; boilerplate legalese has no moral or ethical valence. However, I will also say that I appreciate the time and patience you've put into this thread, you've been nothing but civil and in good faith, so thanks for that.
      - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
        Piracy is immoral as it necessitates misrepresenting intention to abide by the implicit agreement that you enter into when you purchase a copy of a work. Piracy is immoral because it requires deception. Additionally, it undermines capitalistic incentives to create intellectual works, but that's what drives creators of work to stipulate conditions when they sell copies of their work. But it's the deception, not the undermined capitalistic incentives, that make piracy immoral. And thank you for your compliment! I'm fascinated by the idea that so many people fight so hard to find ways for piracy to be a moral act when, to me, it's infinitely easier to accept it as an immoral act and do it anyway. Do people really operate in life expecting to always do the morally correct thing? That's wild, to me.
        ineptech 3y ago
- erik_seaberg 3y ago
  A valid contract requires a meeting of the minds, but the average customer has no idea that a legal fiction separates the movie he wanted from the plastic disc he just bought. It was a mistake to entertain dense contracts of adhesion with parties who were never really expected to understand them (who hires a lawyer before spending $15 on a movie?). UCC should add anything reasonable that copyright law doesn’t already cover. Infringement is a tort with statutory penalties even without any contract.

WendyTheWillow 3y ago

Except there is a very clear agreement in the case where you purchase a DVD. You own the physical DVD, but you license the contents of that DVD. It's right there on the DVD box itself.

ineptech 3y ago
...yes, much like the very clear agreement in my comment where you agreed to give me all of your money. Why can you ignore the one, and I can't ignore the other? What, ethically speaking, is the difference between them?
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  The purchase is where you consent/reject the agreement. That's not the same as merely reading something.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    If you purchase a Disney movie on DVD from Walmart are you making an agreement with Disney? Absolutely not. That would be absurd.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      Yes, you enter into an agreement with Disney that you will abide by copyright law. You would not have been sold the item if Disney were aware you did not agree to copyright law.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - ineptech 3y ago
    We're going in circles; why are they different? I understand that the movie studio would like them to be different, they put a sticker on the side of the DVD saying so, but I don't care about their opinion on the matter and even after four responses it's not clear why you think I ought to. I get why you're taking this position - If I agree to not do X and then do X, you can call me unethical even if X is harmless. So, if you can show that pirates somehow agreed not to pirate, you can declare that those pirates are unethical without having to show that piracy itself is unethical. The problem with this position is that it uses semantics to contradict reality. You're asking us to imagine someone who picks up a DVD in a store and reads the sticker on the side and loudly declares, "What nonsense, I'm going to go pirate this movie right now!", and claiming that ethically he is somehow agreeing to the license, and that when he goes home and uploads it, that he is somehow breaking a promise not to pirate it despite having explicitly promised do exactly that. That's an obviously contorted position. If piracy is bad, it's because of the ramifications of the actual act of piracy, not because a corporation fooled me into pinky-swearing not to do it. Companies try to tell us what to do all the time, you can just ignore them; boilerplate legalese has no moral or ethical valence. However, I will also say that I appreciate the time and patience you've put into this thread, you've been nothing but civil and in good faith, so thanks for that.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      Piracy is immoral as it necessitates misrepresenting intention to abide by the implicit agreement that you enter into when you purchase a copy of a work. Piracy is immoral because it requires deception. Additionally, it undermines capitalistic incentives to create intellectual works, but that's what drives creators of work to stipulate conditions when they sell copies of their work. But it's the deception, not the undermined capitalistic incentives, that make piracy immoral. And thank you for your compliment! I'm fascinated by the idea that so many people fight so hard to find ways for piracy to be a moral act when, to me, it's infinitely easier to accept it as an immoral act and do it anyway. Do people really operate in life expecting to always do the morally correct thing? That's wild, to me.
      - ineptech 3y ago
erik_seaberg 3y ago
A valid contract requires a meeting of the minds, but the average customer has no idea that a legal fiction separates the movie he wanted from the plastic disc he just bought. It was a mistake to entertain dense contracts of adhesion with parties who were never really expected to understand them (who hires a lawyer before spending $15 on a movie?). UCC should add anything reasonable that copyright law doesn’t already cover. Infringement is a tort with statutory penalties even without any contract.