[hamax]

> We really, really tried to do it the legal way and pay money for the content we wanted to watch, but it was far too complicated to even find a place to watch it, let alone actually successfully watch it.

Why didn't you just stream Amazon or Play Movies from the computer since you plugged it in anyways? How was stealing it more convenient?

[lostcolony]

Because after having such a terrible experience they went with one that, should things go wrong, doesn't entail spending 35 minutes on the phone with support for them to get a refund?

[hamax]

He didn't spend 35 minutes getting a refund. He spent 35 minutes trying to resolve the problem.

[exergy]

...and it didn't work. I get frustrated after having to spend ten minutes talking to a customer rep. Half an hour of an evening wasted trying to resolve something that shouldn't be an issue in the first place would leave me seething and agitated.

Now, there are certainly some out there who would soldier on despite all these inconveniences and still go through the trouble of finding another legal avenue (OP did say he spent another hour searching for it), but if your business plan relies on people taking the legal route just because it's the "right" thing to do, experience be damned, well, you'll have piracy at levels that you do now.

[Thrillington]

Spent 35 minutes trying to find a resolution and didn't get one. So they should expect to pay money AND time to watch content legally?

[hamax]

It would be ideal if they wouldn't have to spend time, but just because things don't work it doesn't mean you're now entitled to take something you didn't pay for.

If the blender I bought doesn't work I should be able to take it back to store and get a refund. But just because I spent 30 minutes driving back to store, that doesn't mean I can just take another one from the shelves and walk out without paying.

[dflock]

Bits and atoms are not the same.

[dwaltrip]

It's amazing that some still don't acknowledge this point. It's the difference between 99% (or higher) [1] profit margins and less than 10% profit margins, in the case of a kitchen blender.

Even more so, the 99% profit margin isn't the whole story, as torrents are arguably more efficient (by making use of spare bandwidth among the populace). The 1% marginal costs for legally downloaded media primarily exists only because of the company's need to tightly control distribution and charge for access. With torrents, this requirement disappears and the marginal costs drop even closer to zero.

[1] I'm only counting bandwith costs here, which seems to be at most $0.05 per GB. This is what Google charges for their CDN traffic, so their internal costs per GB must be lower: https://cloud.google.com/interconnect/cdn-interconnect#prici...

[Lawtonfogle]

But you are allowed to, because as long as you don't greatly abuse the privilege the law will not penalize you at all.

Do while the legal system does not say he has a legally enforceable claim to watch the movie, the same system will not punish him for doing so.

Now, if we are talking morally, I'm going to guess we have different moral systems and thus not reach the same conclusion.

P.S. for the blender example, it would be more as if his purchased blender didn't work so he used a working one to turn his blender into a working copy, while the second blender continues to sit on the shelf for someone else to buy.

[kodt]

He already paid for it on Google Play, so then paying for it again on Amazon probably seemed like a slap in the face.

[balac]

Then got a refund from google.

[unethical_ban]

Is it stealing if he already paid for it, but didn't get it?

[hamax]

He refunded it.

[harryh]

Yes.