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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
(pluralistic.net)
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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Normally people pay to see the circus, but you could just sneak in though. It’s not exactly stalling, so what do you call that? The circus is still there, but you didn’t pay for it.
If lots of people start doing that, the circus probably won’t have enough money to keep on performing. Maybe they’ll get rid of the more expensive bits and just keep the cheaper ones in the future.
What would you call it if you buy a piece of art and hang it on your wall, then a couple months later the company that sold you the art comes into your home, takes the art away, and says you don't own it anymore?
If enough companies do that people are going to stop paying for art.
That company is also going to show you the agreement you signed that says they can do that, which is the current situation with digital goods. People are still buying them.
Nobody said otherwise. The argument isn't "this is illegal", it's "this is bullshit."
And the argument being put forward is that people shouldn't be.
If that was a normal purchase, then that’s clearly theft.
If it was art leasing, there’s probably a long contract with details about a situation like this. No matter what the contract says, the local law might still disagree with that, so it can get complicated. The art company might be violating their own contract, although it is unlikely. The company might be within the rights outlined in the contract, but they might still be breaking the law. You need a lawyer to figure it out.
Well it was sure we fuck presented as a normal purchase. Adding legal text to where you sign the cheque saying "you may come to my house and take this away at any time" doesn't make it less bullshit.
The world is full of bad contracts. It’s truly sad that we decided to accept them without making numerous alterations here and there.
It's not possible to make changes to a digital contract. The only option is to not make the "purchase" and acquire it elsewhere.
More people should let the service provider know that their contract sucks and that they refuse to pay for the service under the proposed conditions. Most people don’t even read the contract, so I don’t think the situation is going to improve any time soon.
People are pirating products that can be purchased and owned.
People are also "buying" products that are being taken away from them by the license holders of the purchased work. The article explains this with several examples in different markets.
Still people share digital goods indiscriminately, even those which are possible to buy and own.
Of course they do, there will always be people who pirate. Most people dont mind paying for stuff and services if it respects them.
There is Baldurs Gate 3 for example, you can buy it on GOG without DRM, and I highly doubt it made a dent in their sales.
Because the majority of people do not pirate because they truly believe they are doing something morally good. That's laughable.
If it really was about going against the licensing schemes these people would all buy on GoG. Instead they rather pirate the games and use Steam for the rest.
The majority of people pirates stuff because they feel entitled to it and are greedy and because it works and is easy to do. They do not respect those who put the work into the music or the movies or the games.
What makes me so angry about it is the hypocrisy. Since these are often the same people who are virtue signalling about how capitalism is bad since employers are too greedy to pay good wages.
The irony is quite strong in this.
Yeah i agree, that most people do not pirate because of morality, but because pirating is more convenient meanwhile being way cheaper, you said it yourself. I do not watch a whole lot of movies or shows, but for example if i could buy Arcane, I would, but instead I can only watch it if I buy a Netflix subscription. I dont like this arbitrary limitation to be honest, you could buy movies back in the day.
For games, it is the case, because steam is actually a good service. People got what they wanted from Baldurs Gate 3 plus it is on a service which gives you tons of features. For example netflix on the other hand just limits how you consume content instead of enabling you other features.
One more thing, when Netflix was the only streaming service, people actually paid for it. Now that it is worse, pricier and there are more competing streaming services, it is way more convenient to pirate.
People are also shoplifting from stores. That's irrelevant to what is being discussed here
Then the example about the painting is also irrelevant.
The example about the painting was analogous to what the link article is talking about.
If you pay for the circus and they take away the circus so you can't see it, and then replace it for Circus2, did you own a ticket for the circus?
That would depend on the terms of sale.
Unlikely as what you’re implying sounds like a get-out clause in favor of the trader which is not valid.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/indexamp_en.htm
Without details of the hypothetical scenario made here, we cannot know if that's the case. If the ticket purchaser was unable to see the circus because their flight home was delayed, the circus has no obligation to refund them. If attendance of "Circus 2" is offered to the purchaser due to the cancellation of "Circus 1" under the conditions of the original ticket purchase, then it's unlikely to be an unfair contact.
There are all kinds of details missing here that we can freely speculate about.
I'm legit unsure whether your argument is purposely bad or you just don't know that it is.
Why is the argument bad? Please elaborate.
Because the issue at hand is more like if you bought tickets to the circus, but when you went to go see it you were told the circus isn't there anymore and you don't get a refund.
That I would definately call stealing, and if I wanted to see the circus the next time it was in town I would absolutely sneak in.
It's like you bought a circus membership to watch the circus at a particular venue as many times as you want. You watched the circus a few dozen times, then one day the circus announces they won't be going to that venue anymore and you can't watch it anymore.
This is where the analogy breaks down, because the circus requires people and an area to operate in. Digital movies and TV shows should just require my device to watch it on.
To strain the metaphor further: The Circus leaving the venue isn't leaving town, they're just moving across the street. But your tickets are only valid for the old venue. Do you expect people to purchase new tickets or just sneak in?
There's also the people who purchased a lifetime membership to the circus and then were told the next day "The circus will no longer be going to that venue anymore after the end of the month."
The expectation is that I purchased this media and can watch it as much as I want, whenever I want, for the rest of my life. When companies say "Lol, no. Fine print" reasonable people aren't going to shrug their shoulders and say "You got me, I guess I'll purchase more things." They'll say "screw that, I can get it for free and keep it forever, what service are you providing that's better?"
A more honest analogy for the situation was that there are very few incidents of circuses doing that and now people demand it's morally justified to get free entrance to every circus, concert, fair, museum, ....
"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" though, right?
It's not just a few circusses. Every major circus company seems to consistently pull this trick.
But people aren't just sharing media that is affected. They pirate everything, even when there are ways to buy and own it.
"Some people speed on roads, so all roads are bad."
This conversation is about media you can't buy and own.
Not enough workers exploitation.
It's a thousand times better than this empty garbage. How does this have any upvotes?
That's a bad analogy because there's finite space for people to watch the circus, meaning that seating for the show they conforms to fire codes, etc. is finite.
It's also a bad analogy because someone who sneaks into a circus trespassing, not stealing.
I agree that the analogy isn’t perfect. As you pointed out, people sneaking in are taking space from people who would be willing pay for the service.
If you could somehow sneak into Netflix and take some of their bandwidth or their ability to provide the service to paying customers, then the analogy would work. In reality though, people pirate Netflix shows and movies by torrenting, and that has no impact on Netflix’s bandwidth.
The way I see it, circus and digital videos are a service. You are supposed to pay for both, but you can easily see both of them for free. Comparing these two with stealing just doesn’t work IMO.
You could also compare it with watching a football match from the other side of the fence. Although, in reality, you wouldn’t get a very good view of the game, whereas torrenting movies gives you a great view. Interestingly, the football example doesn’t involve trespassing, but you still get to enjoy a part of the service. All analogies break at some point.