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by probably_wrong 2118 days ago
> Is this the right thing to do? Is this something you should be doing?

People have said it better than me, but in short: Disney and friends have legally stolen public domain from all of us and erected a barrier between us and our human right to access to our culture. I therefore consider it my moral right to take back what should be mine - I may not have the means to buy the laws that would make it legal, but I have the technical means to do it and therefore I do.

So yes, I consider it the right thing to do. Civil disobedience, if you will.
1 comments
srtjstjsj 2118 days ago
So you only pirate Disney?
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XMPPwocky 2118 days ago
Not the person you were responding to, but -

I don't really consume TV or movies.

I do listen to music, and lots of it. I have a YouTube Red subscription (or whatever Google has decided to rename it this week), mostly for supporting small creators on Youtube (when they don't have a Patreon / I don't watch enough of their stuff to fit them in on Patreon). So basically all music from major labels I listen to, I do through Youtube (or Youtube Music, when I remember to open the right app up). But that's a small fraction of my listening habits.

Mostly I like stuff from small, independent artists - a lot of which I've discovered through Youtube, and a lot of those Youtube videos were probably copyright infringement (unauthorized uploads). If I listen to something more than a few times, I buy it on Bandcamp- last month I spent over $100 on Bandcamp purchases.

For creators I really love, as mentioned earlier, I fund them directly on Patreon. This adds up to over another $100/month.

If I dropped the YouTube Red subscription - which is, due to their comically low revenue share, practically indistinguishable from piracy for artists in economic terms - I don't think I'd be in a meaningfully different position, ethically, if I chose to continue consuming music from major labels without a license.

On the other hand, if I stopped buying things on Bandcamp and instead listened to music from small artists through YouTube Red, I'd feel awful, and I'd consider that to be rather unethical, even though I'd have a license.

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