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Ha, this is the guy that got absolutely butchered in his Reddit post [1] about the same link. OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes pir

Ha, this is the guy that got absolutely butchered in his Reddit post [1] about the same link. OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1n87xho/why_i_ditched_spotify_and_self_hosted_my_own/ https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1n87xho/why_i_d...

don_quiquong 1y ago
I mean the use of lidarr is a dead giveaway. Don't need to snoop his history to put 2 and 2 together
s3p 1y ago
I read the comments. Despite clearly explaining that he was supporting artists, people just said "no you're lying" and baselessly accused him of piracy. Anyway OP seems like a great person. And if he did like pirating, cool! You are free to live your life how you see fit :)
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
> believes piracy is not theft That's true by definition isn't it? Piracy (Internet piracy, since that's the context) is copyright infringement, not theft.
- dankwizard 1y ago
  Maybe by definition, but if you're a game developer and you find out everybody is pirating your game and not purchasing it from Steam/physical store, it's akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out. You're not going to say "They are infringing on my copyright".
  - sfRattan 1y ago
    > akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out That is a misrepresentation of what is happening across computers and networks. Here is a better analogue: If someone walks up to my car, taps it with a magic wand, mutters some incantations, waits a few minutes as a perfect duplicate slowly materializes, and then drives away in the duplicate... Of what have I been deprived? Maybe privacy, depending on what I had in the car at the time it was duplicated... But that's tangential to the point here. There's a worthy argument that the above scenario is still a wrong (some kind of tort, maybe). But there is simply no argument that the above scenario is equivalent to theft. Theft deprives someone of a scarce material resource. Copyright infringement subverts someone's exclusive, government-granted monopoly. Unlike being secure in one's possessions, copyright has never been understood as a natural right. People grok this distinction intuitively, even if they neither fully understand the technology nor possess the words to articulate it well.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      These apologetics for piracy are ancient and weren't good decades ago, let alone now. Yes, digital data has no scarcity. But that doesn't mean it's a victimless crime to just take it. Someone worked hard on making that music (or game, or whatever), with society giving them the chance to turn a profit by selling copies to people. When you just take it without paying (thus violating the social contract), you are in a very real sense stealing that person's time. So while it might not be the case that a digital copy taken does not cause the original to go missing, piracy is very much theft in the moral sense. And that is why people get upset about it.
      - sfRattan 1y ago
        Megacorporate propaganda conflating copyright infringement with violent raiders on the high seas is both decades old and completely ridiculous. > But that doesn't mean it's a victimless crime to just take it. Please reply to what I wrote, not what you imagine I implied. Nowhere have I suggested copyright infringement is victimless. I have suggested it is more like a tort than a crime, but civil wrongs are wrongs against someone (i.e. a victim). > When you just take it without paying (thus violating the social contract), you are in a very real sense stealing that person's time. Please don't twist and abuse language in lieu of a sound argument. Stealing a person's time is already a specific thing: wage theft. It doesn't involve a nebulous social contract; it involves an actual contract between employer and employee for scarce time. > So while it might not be the case that a digital copy taken does not cause the original to go missing, [copyright infringement] is very much theft in the moral sense. And that is why people get upset about it. People aren't entitled to whatever returns they fantasize about for a given business model. If technology obsoletes a competitive strategy, we all have to live in that new world. People are understandably upset, and understandably refer to a wrong (theft) that is familiar, sympathetic, and yet factually not the case. Copyright infringement need not be understood as theft to be understood as wrong. Treating it as theft mischaracterizes the wrong and sets society on a path to criminal enforcement against civil violations, creeping restrictions on general purpose computing, and the growth of the surveillance state.
      - don_quiquong 1y ago
  - Unai 1y ago
    The idea that every illegitimate copy is a lost sale is old and tired. Most people wouldn't mind enjoying plenty of entertainment products that would otherwise never pay for (regardless of whether a free alternative exists or not). Since you talk about game developers, just today was "Hollow Knight: Silksong" released, a game with no DRM (which means it will be on every pirate site the minute it releases, something that was known beforehand), and had just a few hours later over half a million concurrent players on Steam, one of the many storefronts where the game is available. No industry has ever been killed by piracy, not even close, and the cases of musicians, authors, and game developers who have attributed piracy to their success keeps piling up. I really don't get why people who in other aspects of life try to look at the facts of things keep arguing so fervently about something proven to be, at best, a net positive and, at worst, a way for more people to enjoy arts and entertainment that they would never had otherwise. If you don't get money for your works, you might be unlucky, or you might just not be good enough to make what people want [to pay for]. As a game developer myself, that's certainly my case. I hope to one day make something so many people care about, that they go out of their way to pirate it, because statistically that means I'd sell a lot of copies.
    - dankwizard 1y ago
      Sure, 100% of piracy wouldn't translate to sales but from my own perspective - I pirate. A lot. Hypocritcal for arguing about this? Yes definitely. But if there is a movie I really wanted to see, such as Tom Cruise's last Mission Impossible entry, and the concept of downloading a movie for free didn't exist - I would pay for it (Whether it be a cinema screening, a digital purchase, DVD, or specific streaming service). Otherwise I could never see it [Maybe on Free TV at some down the line?]. However, I do know that we live in an age where every bit of media can be stolen so I am less likely to pay, and know at some point after threatrical release it will be available online. And I was right. I kept my $20 and enjoyed the movie. And I'm not arguing it's killing the industry. Shoplifting exists today but brick and mortar isn't dead (Well, it is dying but that's because of online shopping). But stores would see a little less profit due to shop lifting. Very similar to piracy. It is stealing, and using an out dated definition to try and paint it as anything else is a wild take. I hope you do make it as a developer one day, and create a hit game, and you have some telemetry showing 10000 people playing and check your Sales to see 200 copies sold and you tell me if you think you haven't been robbed.
  - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
    The world in which I choose to live (which is seemingly getting further removed from 'shared reality') the meaning of words actually matter. I'm reminded of the classic Calvin & Hobbes strip[0] that ends "Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding" "Maybe by definition" does not a counter-argument start. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/words/comments/10k610a/calvin_and_hobbes_impediment_to_understanding/ https://www.reddit.com/r/words/comments/10k610a/calvin_and_h...
- b3lvedere 1y ago
  To the letter of the law or contextual text, you may be super right. Still does not solve the issue of artists that are getting ripped off left and right.
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    Do you pay every busker you pass by? Or do you block your ears when you pass to ensure you don't "steal" the music? I think a combination of UBI, abolishment of copyright and a busking model with 100% of the proceeds going directly to artists would improve things no end. We have the technology to do this and have no need for leeches like Spotify.
    - b3lvedere 1y ago
      There is a great difference in consuming art because you want to and consuming art because it was forced on to your senses.
- somat 1y ago
  Piracy is a real crime, I like to define it as theft of goods in transit. however it might be more specifically be the above in international free zones. I always find it funny how people want to try and inflate one of the lesser crimes "copyright infringement" into one of the most heinous ones. Might as well call it software rape, it's just as accurate.
  - jansper39 1y ago
    But the definition of theft is that it permanently deprives the owner of the object being thieved. Piracy might be a real crime but it doesn't match the definition of theft. I'm not even sure what software rape is supposed to mean, but to me that seems to belittle the very real crime of rape.
- 8fingerlouie 1y ago
  It may not be theft, but it is stealing : --- Stealing: the action or offence of taking another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it; theft. --- Regardless if there is anything physical missing, you're still obtaining something for which you don't have the ownership rights, therefore another persons property. And somewhere there's a starving artist that would get $0.25 per purchase that now gets nothing, so you could argue that you're stealing from the artist.
dragonwriter 1y ago
> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft. Copyright infringement is neither piracy nor theft, those are both metaphors used largely for the purpose of emotional manipulation.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  Why do I think you would feel differently if a company used GPL software in a method that was against the license.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    I dunno, I’d assume it is projecting your own inability to separate analysis of basic definitions and facts (the question of “in law, are any or all of copyright infringement, piracy, and theft literally the same things?”) from personal political preference (“is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable for commercially licensed music? is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable when that is adherence to the terms of a copyleft free software license preferred by the FSF?”) combined with you being really bad at guessing other people’s political opinions (“is dragonwriter a zealous proponent of the FSF in particular or copyleft licenses in general?”) even in a forum where those opinions are on full display?
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    That's a very apples and oranges comparison and betrays a lack of even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills. Either that or just playground bullying.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      The GPL protections don’t exist without copyright law. Why are you so willing to dismiss other creators right to control how their content gets created and think the people who choose to create content and license their software under the GPL should be respected.
milkshakes 1y ago
well, he did add this important note. now he only uses lidarr for managing his collection Important Note: Always ensure you're obtaining music through legal channels
SlimyHog 1y ago
"instead of giving them pennies, let's give them nothing!!!"
1gn15 1y ago
> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft. OP sounds awesome. Thanks for the recommendation!
bambax 1y ago
I don't see any butchering whatsoever in the Reddit thread?
8fingerlouie 1y ago
So i decided that Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal/whatever doesn't pay enough money to the artists, and instead i decided to pay none. gotcha.

don_quiquong 1y ago

I mean the use of lidarr is a dead giveaway. Don't need to snoop his history to put 2 and 2 together

s3p 1y ago

I read the comments. Despite clearly explaining that he was supporting artists, people just said "no you're lying" and baselessly accused him of piracy. Anyway OP seems like a great person. And if he did like pirating, cool! You are free to live your life how you see fit :)

BLKNSLVR 1y ago

> believes piracy is not theft That's true by definition isn't it? Piracy (Internet piracy, since that's the context) is copyright infringement, not theft.

dankwizard 1y ago
Maybe by definition, but if you're a game developer and you find out everybody is pirating your game and not purchasing it from Steam/physical store, it's akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out. You're not going to say "They are infringing on my copyright".
- sfRattan 1y ago
  > akin to them walking into the store, sliding the product under their jacket and walking out That is a misrepresentation of what is happening across computers and networks. Here is a better analogue: If someone walks up to my car, taps it with a magic wand, mutters some incantations, waits a few minutes as a perfect duplicate slowly materializes, and then drives away in the duplicate... Of what have I been deprived? Maybe privacy, depending on what I had in the car at the time it was duplicated... But that's tangential to the point here. There's a worthy argument that the above scenario is still a wrong (some kind of tort, maybe). But there is simply no argument that the above scenario is equivalent to theft. Theft deprives someone of a scarce material resource. Copyright infringement subverts someone's exclusive, government-granted monopoly. Unlike being secure in one's possessions, copyright has never been understood as a natural right. People grok this distinction intuitively, even if they neither fully understand the technology nor possess the words to articulate it well.
  - bigstrat2003 1y ago
    These apologetics for piracy are ancient and weren't good decades ago, let alone now. Yes, digital data has no scarcity. But that doesn't mean it's a victimless crime to just take it. Someone worked hard on making that music (or game, or whatever), with society giving them the chance to turn a profit by selling copies to people. When you just take it without paying (thus violating the social contract), you are in a very real sense stealing that person's time. So while it might not be the case that a digital copy taken does not cause the original to go missing, piracy is very much theft in the moral sense. And that is why people get upset about it.
    - sfRattan 1y ago
      Megacorporate propaganda conflating copyright infringement with violent raiders on the high seas is both decades old and completely ridiculous. > But that doesn't mean it's a victimless crime to just take it. Please reply to what I wrote, not what you imagine I implied. Nowhere have I suggested copyright infringement is victimless. I have suggested it is more like a tort than a crime, but civil wrongs are wrongs against someone (i.e. a victim). > When you just take it without paying (thus violating the social contract), you are in a very real sense stealing that person's time. Please don't twist and abuse language in lieu of a sound argument. Stealing a person's time is already a specific thing: wage theft. It doesn't involve a nebulous social contract; it involves an actual contract between employer and employee for scarce time. > So while it might not be the case that a digital copy taken does not cause the original to go missing, [copyright infringement] is very much theft in the moral sense. And that is why people get upset about it. People aren't entitled to whatever returns they fantasize about for a given business model. If technology obsoletes a competitive strategy, we all have to live in that new world. People are understandably upset, and understandably refer to a wrong (theft) that is familiar, sympathetic, and yet factually not the case. Copyright infringement need not be understood as theft to be understood as wrong. Treating it as theft mischaracterizes the wrong and sets society on a path to criminal enforcement against civil violations, creeping restrictions on general purpose computing, and the growth of the surveillance state.
    - don_quiquong 1y ago
- Unai 1y ago
  The idea that every illegitimate copy is a lost sale is old and tired. Most people wouldn't mind enjoying plenty of entertainment products that would otherwise never pay for (regardless of whether a free alternative exists or not). Since you talk about game developers, just today was "Hollow Knight: Silksong" released, a game with no DRM (which means it will be on every pirate site the minute it releases, something that was known beforehand), and had just a few hours later over half a million concurrent players on Steam, one of the many storefronts where the game is available. No industry has ever been killed by piracy, not even close, and the cases of musicians, authors, and game developers who have attributed piracy to their success keeps piling up. I really don't get why people who in other aspects of life try to look at the facts of things keep arguing so fervently about something proven to be, at best, a net positive and, at worst, a way for more people to enjoy arts and entertainment that they would never had otherwise. If you don't get money for your works, you might be unlucky, or you might just not be good enough to make what people want [to pay for]. As a game developer myself, that's certainly my case. I hope to one day make something so many people care about, that they go out of their way to pirate it, because statistically that means I'd sell a lot of copies.
  - dankwizard 1y ago
    Sure, 100% of piracy wouldn't translate to sales but from my own perspective - I pirate. A lot. Hypocritcal for arguing about this? Yes definitely. But if there is a movie I really wanted to see, such as Tom Cruise's last Mission Impossible entry, and the concept of downloading a movie for free didn't exist - I would pay for it (Whether it be a cinema screening, a digital purchase, DVD, or specific streaming service). Otherwise I could never see it [Maybe on Free TV at some down the line?]. However, I do know that we live in an age where every bit of media can be stolen so I am less likely to pay, and know at some point after threatrical release it will be available online. And I was right. I kept my $20 and enjoyed the movie. And I'm not arguing it's killing the industry. Shoplifting exists today but brick and mortar isn't dead (Well, it is dying but that's because of online shopping). But stores would see a little less profit due to shop lifting. Very similar to piracy. It is stealing, and using an out dated definition to try and paint it as anything else is a wild take. I hope you do make it as a developer one day, and create a hit game, and you have some telemetry showing 10000 people playing and check your Sales to see 200 copies sold and you tell me if you think you haven't been robbed.
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  The world in which I choose to live (which is seemingly getting further removed from 'shared reality') the meaning of words actually matter. I'm reminded of the classic Calvin & Hobbes strip[0] that ends "Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding" "Maybe by definition" does not a counter-argument start. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/words/comments/10k610a/calvin_and_hobbes_impediment_to_understanding/ https://www.reddit.com/r/words/comments/10k610a/calvin_and_h...
b3lvedere 1y ago
To the letter of the law or contextual text, you may be super right. Still does not solve the issue of artists that are getting ripped off left and right.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  Do you pay every busker you pass by? Or do you block your ears when you pass to ensure you don't "steal" the music? I think a combination of UBI, abolishment of copyright and a busking model with 100% of the proceeds going directly to artists would improve things no end. We have the technology to do this and have no need for leeches like Spotify.
  - b3lvedere 1y ago
    There is a great difference in consuming art because you want to and consuming art because it was forced on to your senses.
somat 1y ago
Piracy is a real crime, I like to define it as theft of goods in transit. however it might be more specifically be the above in international free zones. I always find it funny how people want to try and inflate one of the lesser crimes "copyright infringement" into one of the most heinous ones. Might as well call it software rape, it's just as accurate.
- jansper39 1y ago
  But the definition of theft is that it permanently deprives the owner of the object being thieved. Piracy might be a real crime but it doesn't match the definition of theft. I'm not even sure what software rape is supposed to mean, but to me that seems to belittle the very real crime of rape.
8fingerlouie 1y ago
It may not be theft, but it is stealing : --- Stealing: the action or offence of taking another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it; theft. --- Regardless if there is anything physical missing, you're still obtaining something for which you don't have the ownership rights, therefore another persons property. And somewhere there's a starving artist that would get $0.25 per purchase that now gets nothing, so you could argue that you're stealing from the artist.

dragonwriter 1y ago

> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft. Copyright infringement is neither piracy nor theft, those are both metaphors used largely for the purpose of emotional manipulation.

scarface_74 1y ago
Why do I think you would feel differently if a company used GPL software in a method that was against the license.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  I dunno, I’d assume it is projecting your own inability to separate analysis of basic definitions and facts (the question of “in law, are any or all of copyright infringement, piracy, and theft literally the same things?”) from personal political preference (“is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable for commercially licensed music? is rigid adherence to the wishes of the copyright owner desirable when that is adherence to the terms of a copyleft free software license preferred by the FSF?”) combined with you being really bad at guessing other people’s political opinions (“is dragonwriter a zealous proponent of the FSF in particular or copyleft licenses in general?”) even in a forum where those opinions are on full display?
- globular-toast 1y ago
  That's a very apples and oranges comparison and betrays a lack of even the most rudimentary critical thinking skills. Either that or just playground bullying.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    The GPL protections don’t exist without copyright law. Why are you so willing to dismiss other creators right to control how their content gets created and think the people who choose to create content and license their software under the GPL should be respected.

milkshakes 1y ago

well, he did add this important note. now he only uses lidarr for managing his collection Important Note: Always ensure you're obtaining music through legal channels

SlimyHog 1y ago

"instead of giving them pennies, let's give them nothing!!!"

1gn15 1y ago

> OP has extensive history in the piracy subreddits and believes piracy is not theft. OP sounds awesome. Thanks for the recommendation!

bambax 1y ago

I don't see any butchering whatsoever in the Reddit thread?

8fingerlouie 1y ago

So i decided that Spotify/Apple Music/Tidal/whatever doesn't pay enough money to the artists, and instead i decided to pay none. gotcha.