[soft_dev_person]

Because I'm an adult, now. With morals and a conscience.

Seriously, I would like to support the creation of the content I like to consume. If nobody supports it, nothing will be made.

I, too, understand that we're still far from such a situation, but I would rather not get there before someone make changes to this idiocy.

[avn2109]

>> "If nobody supports it, nothing will be made."

This is often mentioned, but it's just not true. Humans produced creative work long before there was copyright or even money, and they will continue doing so long after our civilization has crumbled. People are hard-wired to create. The social status associated with creative output is the main incentive - money is just icing on the cake.

You might argue that if we don't pay theater admission for bad Tom Cruise thrillers and fifth-installment summer blockbuster sequels, then those specific genres might not be produced, and would be replaced by lower-budget plot/character driven cinema. But that's at least arguably a feature, not a bug.

[saint_fiasco]

Sure, you might argue that, but some people don't want to take the risk.

It could also be argued that bad Tom Cruise thrillers and fifth-installment summer blockbuster sequels are necessary for the industry to have enough money, experience, talent and infrastructure to be able to produce the occasional good movie.

[davidw]

Some creation will happen, but how much? How much stuff would never get created because there was no way to pay for it?

[saint_fiasco]

Isn't there already more than enough media to consume for several lifetimes?

Most of us haven't even read the world's top 100 books or watched the top 100 movies. If production were to completely cease, how long would we have until we run out of high quality media?

[caskance]

Morals and laws are totally separate issues, and supporting content creation does not require supporting broken distribution methods.

[npizzolato]

So then, when you torrent movies, do you send money to the content creators? Otherwise your distinction, while true, isn't very relevant.

[caskance]

I don't torrent movies. So I guess the answer is vacuously yes.

[icebraining]

If people stopped paying for broken services, they'd be forced to reevaluate and adapt.

Paying customers, not pirates, are the problem.

[collyw]

"If nobody supports it, nothing will be made."

Did you miss the whole open source software movement? Music other content was made well before copyright was invented.

[soft_dev_person]

Yet support takes many forms, not only monetary, and not only from the audience (propaganda comes to mind...).

But I'm willing to moderate my statement to "no AAA blockbusters will be made" or "no really high budget movies will be made", or something like that. It will have an impact on the budget of movies. Some may argue that is a good thing, but I enjoy my Matrix, LoTR, Hobbit, Cloud Atlas, Marvels, etc. and don't really want that to go away.