Comment by ParsnipWitch@feddit.de on Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"

The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you’ve already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

So you also believe people shouldn’t need a ticket for a concert, for example?

Do you think I should be forced to pay for a ticket if I’m standing next to the concert venue on the sidewalk but can still hear the performance?

I have never had a problem with people taking a tape recorder to a concert, even if it’s against terms of service

But you do understand that if nobody would buy a ticket, there wouldn’t be concerts?

Why do you hate libraries?

Libraries get money via tax. What people here are arguing for is that others should work for them or free. Because game studios, for example, are overwhelmingly not paid via tax money. They are depending on people buying their software. And many software has ongoing costs.

A library card is your ticket there and libraries are paid via taxes, which is why they’re free at point of use.

Attending a free concert is not stealing. Breaking into the Eras tour is.

The library buys once and allows multiple people to read/watch each item without each person needing to individually purchase. Just like one person buying something and sharing it with others.

The main point is that digitization distribution is not a concert

Digital distribution is a service. You can steal a service.

If you fuck a prostitute and then don’t pay them, you are stealing from them.

You’re not using their distribution service when you pirate something. That’s the whole point.

It’s okay I won’t use their digital distribution system to pirate their stuff.

It’s just like falling to pay a prostitute you never fucked

If the prostitute uses a technique, and then you use the same technique without paying hem for reuse, is that stealing or does their direct involvement matter?

If you’re going to retype the code of a program from scratch, then your analogy is valid. If instead you are taking the production created through someone else’s labor without compensating them, then you are stealing from them.

Prostitutes don’t become prostitutes because they know secret techniques.

The metaphor is describing the service provided, and that not paying for said service is indeed stealing.

Trying to make it a different metaphor requires a new framework from you, because you copying their actual service would be you pimping them, under this metaphor.

I don’t see anything wrong with paying for software or music or digital media. I don’t think that not doing so is theft - like I also don’t think that getting into a concert without paying is theft. By the way a concert is also not digital data, at least an irl one.

The performers time is not infinitely reproducible so your argument is apples to oranges.

But the time to create a novel, a videogame, or a news story is not infinitely reproducible, either. So when you are pirsting one of those things, you are actively reaping the benefits of someone’s time for free, like going to a concert without a ticket

Yeah, this is the real issue. That said it is a shame and a waste for the results of these efforts to be artificially restricted. I do really hope that one day we can find a way to keep people fed and happy while fully utilizing the incredible technology we have for copying and redistributing data.

I mean, we’ve kinda already found a way, and it’s ads. Now it’s obvious that the ad market as a whole is horrible (it’s manipulative, it has turned into spying, it does not work really well, it’s been controlled by just a handful of companies etc), but at least it’s democratic in that it allows broader access to culture to everyone while still paying the creators.

Personally, I would not be against ads, if they were not tracking me. As of now, though, the situation seems fucked up and a new model is probably necessary. It’s just that, until now, every other solution is worse for creators.

There’s a difference between the performer’s time to create not being infinitely reproducible, and an user’s time to use the product being or not infinitely reproducible. Whether I’m pirating or buying a TV show, the actors were already compensated for their time and use for the show; my payment for buying actually goes to the corporate fat: licensors, distributors, etc.

Whereas when pay a ticket into a live concert, I’m actually paying for something to be made.

This only applies to cases where the artist/actor/whatever gets paid upfront. Most of the times, that does not happen. The creator of something only gets money when somebody buys what they have created (books, videogames, music, etc)

I can get that they’d not necessarily be paid upfront, but there is no possible legal contract in which they are to be paid only in the future, in causality, according to the performance of a ~~third~ ~ fourth party who is not in the contract. What, are the actors paying their weekly groceries with IOUs?

Every artist in every field get MAYBE paid a tiny bit upfront, and then a percentage of the sales. That’s how books and music work, for instance

Even if they were paid upfront, they were paid off the idea that the company could make bank on their (ready yourself for the word in case it triggers): Intellectual Property.

In a future world where people have achieved their wish and the concept no longer exists, companies have no reason to pay creators ahead of time.

Whether I’m pirating or buying a TV show, the actors were already compensated for their time

And where do you think that money comes from…?

From the investors who are paying the cheques of course. They are corporations, they can afford to spend some coins on [checks notes] living wages.

That’s exactly it. Investors. They are not donations. They expect a return on their investments.

It just magically appears /s Its disingenuous to try and justify piracy on the basis that the performers have already been paid. I don’t agree with studios either of course, customers are being scammed

But it is though: via the power of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television?wprov=sfti1

Though you could charge for the experience of other sweaty humans, bad ventilation in some cases, and the thrill of potentially being trampled

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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"(pluralistic.net)

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