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I didn't know things had gone quite this far yet. I have to agree. There should be legislation preventing this, or the pirates will be morally in the clear. Wh

• caslon 3y ago
  A pirate didn't steal content, though. Nobody lost any content! There was no transaction involved. Piracy isn't zero-sum.
  • omeid2 3y ago
    Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, there is a cost associated with it. Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on; now whatever it hurts the artists revenue is a different question, with interesting arguments for how or why modern copyright might not provide the intended outcomes.
    • tpoacher 3y ago
      It's not even as straightforward as that. Most serious studies on the topic have demonstrated that piracy not only does not lead to lost sales, but in fact it leads to increased sales instead.
      • bad_user 3y ago
        ... for Big Tech. It's how companies like Microsoft or Adobe could grow and gain uncontested monopolies. Because, due to piracy, price was no longer a good enough differentiator. And it's why "Linux on the desktop" never happened. There aren't many studies on this topic and the available ones are bullshit, as they don't take into account second order effects of piracy, one of which being the rise of streaming with DRM, which also concentrates power in the hands of a few Big Tech companies. Piracy is one of the biggest reasons for why we have monopolies. The phenomenon is now repeated with ad blockers. And the irony of the situation is that people point at monopolies to justify piracy or the use of ad blockers.
        • HPsquared 3y ago
          Analogy: doing business in high-crime or corruption areas. Only "big mean nasty" type companies can survive the onslaught. "this is why we can't have nice things"
          • deleted 3y ago
            [deleted]
        • omeid2 3y ago
          Indeed, just because some big corps can handle the lost revenue in return for pricing competitors out and exposure, doesn't mean piracy doesn't impact revenue. Going from "big corp can handle lost revenue in return for market dominance and exposure" to "it doesn't hurt revenue" is absurd.
      • zelphirkalt 3y ago
        I would assume, that this is partly because one can get familiar with the pirated product and then many people decide it is worth buying or supporting the creator. Or spread the word about the existence of the product.
    • brnt 3y ago
      Every study done on the matter shows piracy correlates with sales. If we are to stop pretending, we should start with ending the myth that piracy hurts sales. There is no evidence whatsoever of that.
      • toyg 3y ago
        Piracy is, in fact, free advertising. And, as we all know, advertising is the soul of commerce.
        • ozim 3y ago
          Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. You pirate photoshop because you know it is good. You pirate movie because you know it is going to be good and everyone is waiting to watch it.
          • autoexec 3y ago
            > Calling BS on that because no one is going to pirate unknown movie/song/software. I've done it. I'd bet that most people who have pirated anything have. If you were around for the Napster days you'd know that people would often download things they'd never heard of before and had no idea if they'd like it or not (and that was when it could take many hours, even days, for a single album to download!). Piracy is a great way to try out new things. Napster led to an increase in CD sales as people were discovering new artists and music they'd never heard on the radio or MTV (https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/study-napster-boosts-cd-sales/) The objection to P2P file sharing was never about money. It was about power and control. It was about gatekeeping. The RIAA wants to decide what you can and can't listen to and what is popular. They don't want their new artists/albums to have to compete with everything ever released. They know piracy would increase sales. They don't want to give up the control over our culture and they don't want the internet to cut them out as useless middlemen. With computers and the internet we don't need them for distribution or advertising. We can do it all without them.
            • 3y ago
    • amelius 3y ago
      Life isn't fair. If I didn't like a movie, I can't unsee it and get my money and time back. That's just a fact of life. In the same way, people can share content since physics doesn't prevent it. We should just accept these limitations of how we can control each other.
    • rewmie 3y ago
      > Piracy isn't exactly a zero-sum game, but there is a cost associated with it. There is zero cost associated with piracy. Zero. At best, there's an expectation of profit that's not met. To argue that, you need to show how copying a file translates to a potential sale being converted to a no-sale, and there are plenty of evidence that unauthorized distribution of copyrighted work drives demand up. > Pretending piracy doesn't hurt revenue is a shaky ground to stand on Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. You're trying to pass off your personal assertions as axioms, but it's on you to prove that copying a file without the consent of someone hurts anyone. Go ahead. > now whatever it hurts the artists revenue is a different question If anything, artists are the least impacted counterpart as they literally get paid a small fraction of the whole income. >
      • giantrobot 3y ago
        > Go ahead and show exactly where copying a file hurts anyone. Wait until the grandparent learns about public libraries. Just havens of content larceny! People "stealing" content left and right!
        • tzs 3y ago
          At all the public libraries I've used they only let me checkout something if the total number of copies already checked out is less than the number of copies the library has licenses for. If the number checked out is not under the number of licenses they make me wait until one of the checked out copies is returned.
          • giantrobot 3y ago
            That's still no different from the content creator's point of view than a non-sale or pirate. The practical limitations of libraries is immaterial to the fact I can view content without paying the creator anything. Carving out some logical exception for content pirates is ludicrous. They're functionally no different than non-customers or library patrons.
        • omeid2 3y ago
    • ekianjo 3y ago
      Artists can make money during live concerts instead. As it has always been. The artist that writes stuff once and reaps benefits forever is a horrible heresy.
      • tzs 3y ago
        What about artists who are not performing artists? Not many people are going to pay to watch someone with just basic guitar or piano skills and an ordinary singing voice write a song, no matter how great the song turns out to be. They might later pay to watch and listen to excellent instrumentalists and singers perform that song, so concerts might work for them. Presumably the composer can charge those performers...but how much? You usually can't figure out the worth of a song beforehand, so if it is going to be a one-time upfront payment from the performers to the composer it is hard to figure out the right price. You can wait until after the song has been released and see much the concert tour makes and how many people buy copies of the song or listen to it on streaming services and that gives you a good idea of the worth of the song. Upfront you'd have to agree on how the worth is calculated and how the price is calculated from that. But this is then going to depend on how much revenue the song brings and so sounds an awful lot like a royalty arrangement, just with a lump payment at the end of the license instead of more frequent smaller payments along the way.
    • Fricken 3y ago
      Weird Al recently made a video to point out 300k streams of his songs on Spotify earned him a lousy 12 bucks. It seems there are costs either way.
      • antiterra 3y ago
        He made hundreds of thousands of dollars from those streams, “twelve dollars” was ironic understatement about his dissatisfaction with the compensation Spotify pays artists.
    • Ekaros 3y ago
      I think this is reasonable stand. Piracy does affect revenue, but probably quite a bit less than anyone makes it out to. I believe most that pirate would not have paid in first place, either because they don't value it high enough or they do not have enough money to pay for it. Not that actions of those selling does not likely contribute much more to loss of revenue, mainly by making content unavailable. Availability or pricing compared to product is often sub-optimal.
  • moffkalast 3y ago
    In fact games that get pirated more statistically also earn more revenue overall compared to those that don't. QED, piracy causes sales.
    • passwordoops 3y ago
      Correlation vs. causation: is it that games get pirated get more exposure therefore more sales, or games that are already popular get pirated? I have to admit I haven't looked at these studies in their original form, but I guess sales revenue per install is the best metric to tell
    • FranGro78 3y ago
      So you’re saying that the more popular a game is, the more likely it is to be pirated? Sounds like it has more like the desirability of the game driving piracy than the other way around.
      • moffkalast 3y ago
        https://xkcd.com/925/ https://xkcd.com/925/ :P
    • buybackoff 3y ago
      Not only sales, but market share/power. Imagine if J3QQ4... did not work for Windows 98... Linux on Desktop would be already perfect 20 years ago.
  • photonerd 3y ago
    Doesn’t need to have a transaction to be stealing. You just need to take (or appropriate) something that you’re not allowed to.
    • 123pie123 3y ago
      this has been said many many times - nothing is taken people are copying and what do you mean by "you're not allowed to"
      • photonerd 3y ago
        Taking just means, broadly, “to gain or acquire”. Repetition of an incorrect point doesn’t make it any more valid I’m afraid. Copying is often called taking a copy. Even basic usage of the term copying invalidates your point! As for “not allowed” that will vary by contract/law/agreement/license/etc This distinction is why it’s usually not downloaders that are punished, rather uploaders: they’re the ones that broke an agreement.
        • chrismorgan 3y ago
          That sense of the word “take” is fairly consistently used of physical things, where you are depriving another of possession (with or without permission). —⁂— (Just for fun, The Devil’s Dictionary (not a work to be taken particularly seriously): > TAKE, v.t. To acquire, frequently by force but preferably by stealth. I quite like that way of putting it because it’s the megacorporations that are the pirates when they steal their DRM content back, because they are acquiring it from you so that you can’t have it, by force if they have to but they prefer stealth.)
      • shinycode 3y ago
        There is thousands of hours of paid work to produce any kind of software or game. It doesn’t matter if the end result is burned into a physical disk or not. What’s of value here is not the 1 cent piece of plastic but the content. When you copy content that has a cost, if the company is not offering it to you, what do you call your action ? I mean, really, you spent 5 years working on a game with no salary. Then a day before launch day someone just makes a copy of it and distributed it « for free » in the internet. How are you going to make a salary out of it ?
  • zxt_tzx 3y ago
    Instead of getting into a shouting match over whether piracy is or isn’t stealing, here’s an interesting story. Bill Gates made an interesting comment regarding software piracy in the 1990s. At that time, software piracy was rampant in China, and Microsoft’s Windows operating system was one of the most pirated products. In response to this situation, Gates remarked that if people were going to pirate software, he would prefer they pirate Microsoft’s software. His rationale was strategic: if people in China became accustomed to using Microsoft’s Windows and Office software, they would be more likely to continue using these products in the future, including in business environments where legitimate software licenses are more commonly purchased. (Whether things worked out as he envisioned is a slightly different matter.)
    • ozim 3y ago
      Not so fun part is that this discussion goes on about „generic” idea. I can already see that what works for software does not work for movies. Other topic is also devices supporting DRM. I would say paying for software new versions makes sense there is work to be done to keep it working on new devices etc. Paying for the same book or movie again because distribution rights between corporations changed is messed up.
    • tuetuopay 3y ago
      the same goes for most professional software, like the adobe suite. if people pirated, it's because they're not professionals yet. once they are, they're more likely to buy the software they're used to and not the competition.
    • lstodd 3y ago
      > (Whether things worked out as he envisioned is a slightly different matter.) Well, actually they did, at least in ex-USSR, and I think in Eastern Europe too. After not ever having a single legitimate license in 1990s and early 2000s (and being laughed upon if you had one), by late 2000s Microsoft business took off handsomely.
    • veidr 3y ago
      > (Whether things worked out as he envisioned is a slightly different matter.) But also the key point, right? Although I suspect he was correct. (Also, has very little to do with the purchasing dynamics of movies or music, etc., although those special interests can fuck off...)
• stcg 3y ago
  It's not stealing. It's communication. You can't "steal" ideas, information or facts. To steal means to physically take someone's property without their consent.
  • swinglock 3y ago
    False. When someone without your permission copies your source code, plans or inventions, which are not physical things, is this not theft? What about the non physical bits and bytes in your Dropbox or bank account? That's just like, an exchange of information, man. Why must the "physical" qualifier be there?
    • spellbaker 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • dguest 3y ago
        Correct! The parent post here isn't really productive, I also have some misgivings on this school of internet debate where a disagreement needs to start with any of: - False. - Incorrect. - Nope. Is it just me or is this needlessly smug? Again, the parent isn't productive, but a terse "You are wrong." in the grandparent isn't really a good way to start a productive conversation either.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
        • swinglock 3y ago
          I can agree with that, though when something is patently false, I don't think it's wrong to point this out clearly. A misinformed reader could miss the nuance and mistake facts for options, which in this case could land someone in jail. As for smugness and the format of posts, you sure don't live as you preach.
        • j4yav 3y ago
• motbus3 3y ago
  One extra detail. They reserve the right to revoke your license but they still reserve the right to keep selling the product if the laws allow. This allows the following hypothetical situation: 1. You buy content A from producer X through a company 1 2. Producer X and company 1 decides to finish the distribution agreement for whatever reason 3. Company 1 revokes your access to content A. 4. Now producer X seals a deal with Company 2 for distribution rights and company 2 has no obligation on giving you access to content A, because why would they. 5. If you want access content A now you have to buy it again from company 2 without guarantee that it will still exist.
  • neycoda 3y ago
    > If you want access content A Right, _access_. To the companies selling cloud content, like a movie or song that can only be used with the internet, you're just buying _access_ to the content. Because the TOS means they can restrict that access or remove the content, you're really just paying for a key to a door that may or may not exist, to something in the building that may or may not be there, and that building may someday not even be there. You're really paying for the right to access something as long as the underlying capability enabling that right exists. It's the kind of thing that allows a lot of wiggle room for the sellers and holders of the content. This is why I prefer buying physical copies of media, like DVDs and CDs. It's mine for as long as I can manage it or a personal copy of it.
    • the_gastropod 3y ago
      Yeaaa. This bothers me, too, on a conceptual level, and I’ve been thinking about setting up a NAS and doing the whole Plex thing. But on a practical level, I’ve “owned” movies and tv shows on (the service formerly known as) iTunes for like 15 years without issue. I question whether, on average, I’d be able to do as good a job, and how much effort it’d take.
      • jonhohle 3y ago
        If you start and aren’t happy with it, at least you learned something along the way. Time and format shifting are allowed acts under copyright law (though possibly not DMCA), so I’d consider it a great way to backup the things you bought.
• ElongatedMusket 3y ago
  Teach a man to buy and you sucker him for a day. Teach a man to rent and you sucker him for a lifetime.
• dumbfounder 3y ago
  This is why web3 is a thing, so you don’t have to make laws, the tech can make the laws unnecessary. We are trying to do this for content at Darkblock. You buy it, you own it.
  • cto_of_antifa 3y ago
    [dead]
  • fknorangesite 3y ago
    > This is why web3 is a thing Stop trying to make fetch happen.
• megous 3y ago
  Pirates had been morally in the clear ever since everyone buying any blank storage media had to pay a tax to entertainment companies...
  • danaris 3y ago
    This is only true in some jurisdictions. AFAIK, for instance, it is not true in the US.
    • megous 3y ago
      Ok, pirates have been morally in the clear in some jurisdictions. :)
• neycoda 3y ago
  Good luck getting legislation done. Our country thinks legislation gets in the way of the free market, stifles innovation, and kills jobs.
• jalapenos 3y ago
  Copyright itself is the root of the problem. It's a completely fictitious right, akin to converting elementary school playground "stop copying me!" into a cause of action. The solution to bad legislation isn't more legislation, it's throwing those statutes in a bonfire and reverting to common law.
  • neycoda 3y ago
    All rights are fictitious. All laws are made up. They're simply defined to provide a guide for liberty and order. They're not always enforced. People's defined rights are different over countries and years. Slaves had their rights defined by others throughout history, and many groups considered slavery justified where the master had rights to the slave and the slave had rights defined by the master. Saying copyright itself is fictitious doesn't mean anything. Copyright rules make sense in protecting inventors and product owners. Maybe you've been neither and can't understand how the lack of this protection harms inventors and owners to the benefit of plagiarists. It's much easier to plagiarize than invent or produce, so without copyright protection, inventors and product owners basically become giant fat cash cows ready to plunder by passers-by that can just copy and paste. Removing copyright would turn the market completely feudalist and chaotic. Throwing copyright statutes away is also chaotic. Reverting to common law? I'm not sure what you mean there. Just however people feel at the time? We've already evolved past the caveman era.
    • jalapenos 3y ago
      My man, what was this
    • fknorangesite 3y ago
      > Reverting to common law? I'm not sure what you mean there. Maybe you're not familiar with the term? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law > The defining characteristic of common law is that it arises as precedent. Common law courts look to the past decisions of courts to synthesize the legal principles of past cases Or was it that you were unclear what _rm specifically was saying?
• marcosdumay 3y ago
  Things were always this far. There has been almost 2 decades since Amazon deleted the book 1984 from every Kindle. Since then, those things never stopped. The only thing that is different right now is that some large and powerful corporations are being defrauded too, instead of just people.
  • stillwithit 3y ago
    Stop hiding reality behind euphemism. The rich are just people. The sooner we accept that and dispose of the bizarre “deification” of the rich the sooner we can discuss deprecation of their influence and reach. The apathetic kowtow to a handful of aging out government brown nosers who lobby to insulate themselves is sad. 1980s Reagan economy is not immutable physics and we have no obligation to believe the stories of the rich about their success. There’s a whole lot of behavioral science being leveraged, and intentional PR propaganda tossed around to obfuscate the rich are “just people”
    • andrewflnr 3y ago
      You're conflating "large and powerful corporations" with "rich people". This is a mistake. Your post is not really wrong, but doesn't address anything in the one you replied to.
      • tarsinge 3y ago
        What are large and powerful corporations under the hood? It's only an abstraction to facilitate business, but the reality is just a few people making decisions. Don't make the mistake of giving a physical existence to companies.
      • stillwithit 3y ago
        Thanks for reinforcing my point about over reliance on euphemisms. “Rich people” in a fiat economy is due to the valuation of their assets, often but always, large stakes in corporations. All of which is politically correct hallucination. None of it exists as immutable physics. The mistake is yours for memorizing vacuous political statements.
• virgilp 3y ago
  It's also relatively easy to write this legislation. If you: - sold licenses that are no longer usable to access the work (i.e. if you invalidate by any means already sold licenses) - don't put work in the public domain/don't make it freely usable without a license when the copyright expires then you lose the protection of copyright & associated (DRM/reverse engineering) laws for said works. Multiple violations can extend that to "all your works".
• seanp2k2 3y ago
  It’s no wonder that certain parties are so very interested in gutting consumer protections in US government at every level so they can continue these consumer-hostile practices unchallenged, but it’s hard to get voters to care about these issues, especially in a two-party system.
• steelframe 3y ago
  > There should be legislation preventing this At this point I'd rather the legislature (1) just stop, and then maybe (2) roll back what's broken. Don't try to follow up horrendously broken laws like the DMCA with more broken laws to try to arbitrarily patch things up. I'll vote for any politicians who advocate for picking a commit sometime before the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act and doing a git --hard reset to that.
• Zambyte 3y ago
  > Yes, the pirate stole your content Unauthorized copying has never been stealing, no matter what Disney wants you to think