[zigzigzag]

The arrested guy's spoutings are quite funny because they're exactly what the people on the receiving end of piracy tend to say:

“To all the [anti-piracy groups and authorities]: You are a lot of vile shit, destroying lives of people who are already struggling to pay their rent, their food, their bills,” he said.

Right, it's only pirates who have bills to pay. The people who make content get their homes for free!

“Why all this? Because they wanted to watch and because they didn’t necessarily have the capabilities to buy a DVD / BluRay or go to the theaters.”

If you own a computer and an internet connection good enough to torrent blurays then you can afford a DVD and a cheap player, certainly a theatre ticket. "Didn't necessary have the capabilities" is pure rationalisation - it's a fantasy entirely divorced from reality, intended to let him tell himself that he's a good person really.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Just a thought: what if I only ever buy secondhand DVDs. I can only afford (read: justify the expense of) secondhand DVDs and CDs.

The content makers / publishers / distributors never see a cent of the secondhand DVD market.

Downloading pirate films is similar in that sense.

Ok, the argument could be made that the secondhand market props up the primary market, but I don't buy it. I don't think people buy new DVDs with the thought of "I'll be able to sell this for $2 to the pawn shop after I've watched it" as a motivating factor.

And, there is no secondhand market for digital media. Media piracy is the flea market of digital downloads. So an argument could be make that media piracy severs that sector of the market we would only buy secondhand DVDs anyway.

Also 2x adult theatre tickets, AUS25 each, costs as much as my monthly Internet connection bill. I know there are a lot of Australians who would not be able to justify that expense.

[DanBC]

> The content makers / publishers / distributors never see a cent of the secondhand DVD market

1) Japanese games publishers did want to prevent second hand sales, so your question isn't as bizarre to the rights holders.

2) They do see some of that money. I can afford to buy some new games, but only if I can sell my old games. I can only sell my old games if someone buys them.

I agree with you, though.

[ChemicalWarfare]

>>The content makers / publishers / distributors never see a cent of the secondhand DVD market.

typically no vendor gets any profit from having the original buyer resell whatever they bought from the vendor.

IP does have things specific to IP only, but the reselling part is on par with pretty much everything else out there getting bought and then sold again.

[elif]

Their argument (rent, food, bills, etc) is parallel but also far more rational and applicable. The $16 you pay for your blue ray goes primarily to an oligarchical group of mega-corporations that use their clout to control the new media creation process as well as the marketplaces. No one in that process has struggled to pay rent since joining the club.

"Starving artists" that eventually succeed do so despite this cartel, and not because they were enabled by it. Meanwhile piracy has created an ecosystem where actual "starving artists" are giving away their music for free because they know that people who enjoy it will pay for it anyway, and can meanwhile enjoy the benefits of unlimited exposure to potential new fans.

[jicem]

You Can have an ADSL Internet connections for the Price of one dvd or two theater ticket per month. A cheap player Will play all your downloaded content. I don't believe most of the pirates have the capabilities of watching more than one or two film per month in theater. I do believe services like netflix are a game changer. Even with the poor french catalog. Talking only about the cost issue.

[notJim]

> If you own a computer and an internet connection good enough to torrent blurays then you can afford a DVD and a cheap player, certainly a theatre ticket. "Didn't necessary have the capabilities" is pure rationalisation - it's a fantasy entirely divorced from reality, intended to let him tell himself that he's a good person really.

Even still, it's not your God-given right to consume media. If you can't afford to watch a TV show or movie, that's unfortunate, but that's how it works.

[e12e]

I don't necessarily disagree that there probably isn't or should be a "right to consume" (I'm less certain if that's not actually part of at least some of our laws, though). However, "Fair Use" is very much a right, as is access to "the commons". Both are rights being whittled away on the altar of Mickey Mouse's permanency and Disney's profits (Which of course is ironic, as Disney built itself up on Public Domain fairy tales, but as things are developing appears to never contribute anything back to the public domain of their own).

[M_Grey]

"The non sequiturs rationalizing piracy (most likely as a proxy for rationalizing their own) in the comments is amusing, to say the least."

That's what I responded to.