14 ms·

No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Anything else assumes that because content exists, p

No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Anything else assumes that because content exists, people have the right to consume it -- for free if they can work out how. Let's be clear: I fully agree that Hollywood needs to catch up, and make content accessible in the way that Popcorn time has. But I don't have the right to consume content illegally, just because I find their business model inconvenient.

donutz 11y ago
> No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Umm, no. I don't owe buskers one penny, even if I enjoy their street performance.
- martypitt 11y ago
  Sorry, I should've been clear: > No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. Then, it's my call, whatever business model I pick. Buskers are giving their content away for free. You don't have the right to attend their concert, just because you don't like the website they're selling their tickets on.
  - jmcmichael 11y ago
    > ...whatever business model I pick. Would it be a good thing for society to allow you to pick a business model where you blare your music from loud speakers and then pay large burley men 50 cents to collect 1 dollar from anyone within earshot, on the premise that they heard your music so thus owe you?
    - bdcravens 11y ago
      I've never accidentally watched Game of Thrones, or unintentionally been within earshot of it - I had to explicitly choose to include that programming.
      - Sir_Substance 11y ago
        Really? Your social life must be non-existant. I'm not exactly a party animal and I've caught clips of it dozens of times and friends houses.
        bdcravens 11y ago
        That's probably a fair assessment, but a bit beside the point: if they were watching it on their television that fails the analogy as the cable company wouldn't be shaking me down for it. As a matter of fact, I have an HBO Go subscription via iTunes and I don't watch the show - I mostly got it for Silicon Valley and some movies, and I wanted to support what I think is a move in the right direction.
        Sir_Substance 11y ago
        >the cable company wouldn't be shaking me down for it. They would if they could.
Sir_Substance 11y ago
>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Historically no, they're not. Paying for a concert before you saw it was unheard of 150 years ago, and your ancestors would have considered you a mug for giving over your money before you knew if it was going to be a good show. The norm for human history is that you see the show first and then decide afterwards how much it was worth, hence artists passing their hat around the audience. Bad shows got no money, which is how it works for literally everyone else today. We get paid at the end of the month, not the start, and bad enough fuckups get you fired.
- themartorana 11y ago
  Well, almost. My lease, cable, and phone bills bill ahead.
  - Sir_Substance 11y ago
    Is that appropriate though? Just because it is done that way doesn't mean it should be. It's not that uncommon for people to pay their internet in advance, only for a line outage to go unfixed for a fortnight. Patticularly in the US, internet access is a cage. There's often only one provider, and their terms and conditons declare service not guarenteed. What choice do you have? Then google fibre and municipal wifi start showing up, and look how hard comcast et al are screaming. Maybe your rent, cable and phone need escape hatches as badly as your movie collection?
    - themartorana 11y ago
      I don't know. On the one hand, I don't like pre-paying for electricity considering the potentially huge fluctuations in use. On the other hand, I don't use gas and then pay for it. I eat at a restaurant first, then pay, but I buy groceries before I eat. So I don't know. I can see phone as being a purchase of a block of X to use. The same with rent. Almost all internet comes with an uptime guarantee - say it's 99.9%, if it's down for more than 45 minutes, even Comcast will provide a credit. I suppose it comes down to how you agree to consume it. I don't mind the 24 hour model on video rentals, when I can start that 24 hours any time within 30 days. I'm purchasing the right to watch the movie as many times as I want in a 24 hour window sometime in the next month. That said, I also believe that if I purchase unlimited video in the form of a DVD or download, I have the right to device-shift it wherever the heck I want. This is a hairy issue.
astalwick 11y ago
I consider piracy to be a form of protest. I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the last time I pirated music... I can't remember the last time I pirated software, either). However, in Canada, the only way to watch (for example) Game of Thrones is to a) get a massive cable subscription which includes 1000 channels you don't want and HBO (which itself has 100 programs you don't want to watch and GoT), b) wait for the episode to show up on itunes and pay $4.50 per episode (whaat?) (and oh, season 5 isn't available yet), c) pirate. Is it a huge surprise that a lot of people choose option C? And can you blame them? At a certain point, non-Americans specifically just get fed up with being told "sorry, no, that content isn't available in your region."
- jebblue 11y ago
  >> I consider piracy to be a form of protest. That is a moronic attitude. >> I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. Wrong can't be rationalized.
  - astalwick 11y ago
    You've decided that, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to pirate content. (Or, perhaps more generally, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to break the law) That's cool, and that's a fair position. I disagree. There are plenty of reasons, big and small, to choose not to follow the rules. The more pressure on Hollywood to provide reasonable options, in my opinion, the better. But, that said, how about lets be respectful about it?
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    >>That is a moronic attitude. It's remarkable that you've been here for 1390 days and still haven't learned that insulting people is a suboptimal way of making your case.
- martypitt 11y ago
  Is it a surprise? No. What you've described is downright annoying. It seems nonsensical to me that hollywood makes it so difficult for me to give them money to watch Game of Thrones. But, Piracy isn't a form of protest, any more than stealing a car is -- regardless of how reasonable you consider the price.
ThomPete 11y ago
But that is a legal technicality not a moral or philosophical argument though.
Nadya 11y ago
I feel this black/white scenario of "pay us for content or its illegal" ignores the reality of the market. There are plenty of social dynamics in play that are conveniently ignored. Music pirates in particular tend to buy more music than non-pirates. I would wager this holds true in any media-field of pirating (but perhaps not software pirating). [0] There is a reason for this! Pirates are enthusiasts. They love the content they consume and are likely to pay/buy things they really enjoy/enjoyed. Due to not having an unlimited income they pirate some things. For music pirates - there is a good chance that the music they are purchasing is from the same music label as the music they are pirating. Pirates are also likely to tell their friends about a show they enjoyed. Pirates are also likely to buy merchandise from shows they enjoy. For example - an extremely large portion of the American market for Japanese Anime-related goods is because of pirated fan-subbed anime. Shows that would have never been released or heard of in America and thus led to 0% revenue from America are pirated and their merchandise purchased. The number of figurines from おれいも for example. Or the number of だきまくら purchased from American-fans. This simply can't be denied for the anime market in particular - and many fansubbers eventually get hired by the studios. Some studios try to shut down the fansubbers but most allow it to happen because fansub groups largely do not sub anime slated for an English release. It's an unspoken code of sorts of "Support the official release" - and since many anime fans don't necessarily speak Japanese, if someone isn't translating it for them they can't/won't watch it. Pirating is beneficial for the anime scene. It's likely more beneficial than harmful for music for similar reasons. I'll concede that for Movies/TV Shows it gets a little iffy (do enough people buy merchandise who wouldn't if they hadn't pirated the show to see it?) Then we can also look at video games. Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Minecraft. Games that were heavily pirated and the creators even went so far as to say "If you can't afford to play our game. Pirate it." Why? Free marketing and free publicity means more sales. It made economic sense to let your game go viral that way. What might be $20 in a lost sale to a pirate might win you $80 in 4 new sales from his friends (even if another 6 of his friends just pirated the game) If you don't let him pirate the game you just lost $80 in sales and free marketing/publiclity from 7 people which likely lost you even more in sales. Which brings me to the important part: Pirating doesn't mean a lost sale. It means free marketing and free publicity from someone who wouldn't have been a customer. If you can convert a "non-sale" to a "promotional consumer", why wouldn't you? The economic spin usually given to pirates is it is "costing sales" which is, frankly, bullshit. They make more money off suing mass pirates than any "lost sales", so it's beneficial for them to keep pirating illegal. [0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/music-pirates-study_n_2526417.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/music-pirates-study...
tomjen3 11y ago
>At that point, they are. The law may say they are, but the law is clearly impotent and I personally don't remember having signed the Mickey Mouse act, so no I don't think anybody owes Hollywood anything, especially because Hollywood was built on piracy.
6stringmerc 11y ago
While I do follow your logic, and really don't disagree on a principle issue, I do think it's important to note that the concept of copyright and payment is a 'forced / legally created' scarcity problem. As in, the only reason there are laws that dictate creators get paid is because there are laws on the books that say so. It's a tricky subject, and a delicate discussion I think, but fundamentally important to keep in mind that barring natural scarcity, there's really no fundamental law of nature that indicates a creator must be compensated for creating.
OvidNaso 11y ago
>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. I just read that sentence...am I now obliged?

donutz 11y ago

> No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Umm, no. I don't owe buskers one penny, even if I enjoy their street performance.

martypitt 11y ago
Sorry, I should've been clear: > No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. Then, it's my call, whatever business model I pick. Buskers are giving their content away for free. You don't have the right to attend their concert, just because you don't like the website they're selling their tickets on.
- jmcmichael 11y ago
  > ...whatever business model I pick. Would it be a good thing for society to allow you to pick a business model where you blare your music from loud speakers and then pay large burley men 50 cents to collect 1 dollar from anyone within earshot, on the premise that they heard your music so thus owe you?
  - bdcravens 11y ago
    I've never accidentally watched Game of Thrones, or unintentionally been within earshot of it - I had to explicitly choose to include that programming.
    - Sir_Substance 11y ago
      Really? Your social life must be non-existant. I'm not exactly a party animal and I've caught clips of it dozens of times and friends houses.
      - bdcravens 11y ago
        That's probably a fair assessment, but a bit beside the point: if they were watching it on their television that fails the analogy as the cable company wouldn't be shaking me down for it. As a matter of fact, I have an HBO Go subscription via iTunes and I don't watch the show - I mostly got it for Silicon Valley and some movies, and I wanted to support what I think is a move in the right direction.
        Sir_Substance 11y ago
        >the cable company wouldn't be shaking me down for it. They would if they could.

Sir_Substance 11y ago

>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. Historically no, they're not. Paying for a concert before you saw it was unheard of 150 years ago, and your ancestors would have considered you a mug for giving over your money before you knew if it was going to be a good show. The norm for human history is that you see the show first and then decide afterwards how much it was worth, hence artists passing their hat around the audience. Bad shows got no money, which is how it works for literally everyone else today. We get paid at the end of the month, not the start, and bad enough fuckups get you fired.

themartorana 11y ago
Well, almost. My lease, cable, and phone bills bill ahead.
- Sir_Substance 11y ago
  Is that appropriate though? Just because it is done that way doesn't mean it should be. It's not that uncommon for people to pay their internet in advance, only for a line outage to go unfixed for a fortnight. Patticularly in the US, internet access is a cage. There's often only one provider, and their terms and conditons declare service not guarenteed. What choice do you have? Then google fibre and municipal wifi start showing up, and look how hard comcast et al are screaming. Maybe your rent, cable and phone need escape hatches as badly as your movie collection?
  - themartorana 11y ago
    I don't know. On the one hand, I don't like pre-paying for electricity considering the potentially huge fluctuations in use. On the other hand, I don't use gas and then pay for it. I eat at a restaurant first, then pay, but I buy groceries before I eat. So I don't know. I can see phone as being a purchase of a block of X to use. The same with rent. Almost all internet comes with an uptime guarantee - say it's 99.9%, if it's down for more than 45 minutes, even Comcast will provide a credit. I suppose it comes down to how you agree to consume it. I don't mind the 24 hour model on video rentals, when I can start that 24 hours any time within 30 days. I'm purchasing the right to watch the movie as many times as I want in a 24 hour window sometime in the next month. That said, I also believe that if I purchase unlimited video in the form of a DVD or download, I have the right to device-shift it wherever the heck I want. This is a hairy issue.

astalwick 11y ago

I consider piracy to be a form of protest. I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the last time I pirated music... I can't remember the last time I pirated software, either). However, in Canada, the only way to watch (for example) Game of Thrones is to a) get a massive cable subscription which includes 1000 channels you don't want and HBO (which itself has 100 programs you don't want to watch and GoT), b) wait for the episode to show up on itunes and pay $4.50 per episode (whaat?) (and oh, season 5 isn't available yet), c) pirate. Is it a huge surprise that a lot of people choose option C? And can you blame them? At a certain point, non-Americans specifically just get fed up with being told "sorry, no, that content isn't available in your region."

jebblue 11y ago
>> I consider piracy to be a form of protest. That is a moronic attitude. >> I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. Wrong can't be rationalized.
- astalwick 11y ago
  You've decided that, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to pirate content. (Or, perhaps more generally, under no circumstances whatsoever is it ok to break the law) That's cool, and that's a fair position. I disagree. There are plenty of reasons, big and small, to choose not to follow the rules. The more pressure on Hollywood to provide reasonable options, in my opinion, the better. But, that said, how about lets be respectful about it?
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>That is a moronic attitude. It's remarkable that you've been here for 1390 days and still haven't learned that insulting people is a suboptimal way of making your case.
martypitt 11y ago
Is it a surprise? No. What you've described is downright annoying. It seems nonsensical to me that hollywood makes it so difficult for me to give them money to watch Game of Thrones. But, Piracy isn't a form of protest, any more than stealing a car is -- regardless of how reasonable you consider the price.

ThomPete 11y ago

But that is a legal technicality not a moral or philosophical argument though.

Nadya 11y ago

I feel this black/white scenario of "pay us for content or its illegal" ignores the reality of the market. There are plenty of social dynamics in play that are conveniently ignored. Music pirates in particular tend to buy more music than non-pirates. I would wager this holds true in any media-field of pirating (but perhaps not software pirating). [0] There is a reason for this! Pirates are enthusiasts. They love the content they consume and are likely to pay/buy things they really enjoy/enjoyed. Due to not having an unlimited income they pirate some things. For music pirates - there is a good chance that the music they are purchasing is from the same music label as the music they are pirating. Pirates are also likely to tell their friends about a show they enjoyed. Pirates are also likely to buy merchandise from shows they enjoy. For example - an extremely large portion of the American market for Japanese Anime-related goods is because of pirated fan-subbed anime. Shows that would have never been released or heard of in America and thus led to 0% revenue from America are pirated and their merchandise purchased. The number of figurines from おれいも for example. Or the number of だきまくら purchased from American-fans. This simply can't be denied for the anime market in particular - and many fansubbers eventually get hired by the studios. Some studios try to shut down the fansubbers but most allow it to happen because fansub groups largely do not sub anime slated for an English release. It's an unspoken code of sorts of "Support the official release" - and since many anime fans don't necessarily speak Japanese, if someone isn't translating it for them they can't/won't watch it. Pirating is beneficial for the anime scene. It's likely more beneficial than harmful for music for similar reasons. I'll concede that for Movies/TV Shows it gets a little iffy (do enough people buy merchandise who wouldn't if they hadn't pirated the show to see it?) Then we can also look at video games. Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Minecraft. Games that were heavily pirated and the creators even went so far as to say "If you can't afford to play our game. Pirate it." Why? Free marketing and free publicity means more sales. It made economic sense to let your game go viral that way. What might be $20 in a lost sale to a pirate might win you $80 in 4 new sales from his friends (even if another 6 of his friends just pirated the game) If you don't let him pirate the game you just lost $80 in sales and free marketing/publiclity from 7 people which likely lost you even more in sales. Which brings me to the important part: Pirating doesn't mean a lost sale. It means free marketing and free publicity from someone who wouldn't have been a customer. If you can convert a "non-sale" to a "promotional consumer", why wouldn't you? The economic spin usually given to pirates is it is "costing sales" which is, frankly, bullshit. They make more money off suing mass pirates than any "lost sales", so it's beneficial for them to keep pirating illegal. [0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/music-pirates-study_n_2526417.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/music-pirates-study...

tomjen3 11y ago

>At that point, they are. The law may say they are, but the law is clearly impotent and I personally don't remember having signed the Mickey Mouse act, so no I don't think anybody owes Hollywood anything, especially because Hollywood was built on piracy.

6stringmerc 11y ago

While I do follow your logic, and really don't disagree on a principle issue, I do think it's important to note that the concept of copyright and payment is a 'forced / legally created' scarcity problem. As in, the only reason there are laws that dictate creators get paid is because there are laws on the books that say so. It's a tricky subject, and a delicate discussion I think, but fundamentally important to keep in mind that barring natural scarcity, there's really no fundamental law of nature that indicates a creator must be compensated for creating.

OvidNaso 11y ago

>No one is obliged to give me money -- unless they consume the content I created. At that point, they are. I just read that sentence...am I now obliged?