You are not entitled to entertainment. If there is literally anything as petulant and first-world narcissistic it is the belief that one is entitled to entertainment.
But... we are, because we can pirate it if it's not available to us.
I suppose "entitled" isn't the correct word. Is there a word for "That's just the way it is"?
Basically, there exists a way to acquire entertainment. It's up to businesses to provide that entertainment to us at a reasonable market value. If the market value exceeds the threshold of reasonableness, then we downshift into torrenting the entertainment.
It's a business opportunity. The music industry learned this in 2008 or so.
How many sins of the past have used that as an excuse? It's just a very immature way of looking at life.
>It's up to businesses to provide that entertainment to us
And that doesn't sound entitled??? Wow. Not that we are lucky for someone providing us entertainment (within the confines of how they choose to share it)?
>The music industry learned this in 2008 or so.
Did they though? Really learned it? Seems like they got what the wanted where nobody actually owns anything and is only able to rent the content from them.
It’s an interesting question. I think I’ll meet you halfway and debate it.
The central question here seems to be ethics. Is it moral to download entertainment when someone doesn’t want you to?
My view is, nobody is harmed. You could argue that there was financial harm to the original show — in this case, Stargate SG-1. But I would say they’ve failed to give us a way to reasonably enjoy the show, when the best alternative is to simply torrent it.
Suppose the show was made available for $2,000. Would you still argue that it’s wrong to torrent it?
If so, we’ll have to agree to disagree; my view is that if nobody is harmed, then it’s usually fine.
If not, then there exists a price threshold beyond which it would become unreasonable to expect someone to pay. The person you were replying to was saying that they felt the show crossed that threshold.
I still come back to the fact that there is no right/expectation of anyone to be able to view anything. The fact that something exists and someone says they should be able to watch it is the entitled bit in my opinion. There is no "god given right" to entertainment. There is no "pursuit of entertainment" set out in the US Constitution. If someone graciously allows you to watch/view their work, then that's great and we hope you were entertained. The expectation one should be able to watch/view anything at anytime is a bit petty. If someone asks to be paid to view that entertainment but in a very controlled/restricted manner (ex: buying a ticket to a limited capacity venu), this seems to be accepted. However, once it was allowed to be broadcast/streamed with certain restrictions (for a limited 3 month period), people feel like this is not acceptable.
At the end of the day, it is the content owner's discretion to allow/disallow as they see fit. People do not like calling it stealling because no physcial copy has been removed from the owner's possession, but the owner is still be wronged by not being allowed to control the thing they created. I do not know what to call that.
I am not trying to equivocally express that piracy is legal, or morally right, but to respond to "the fact that there is no right/expectation of anyone to be able to view anything" - to answer "Why" someone might do it.
While your sentence was meant in the more strict "human rights" sense I think people pirate because it comes down to "I want to be part of the social group" vs "barrier to experience".
As a society - IE larger overall social group - we have schools, museums, galleries and libraries for access to our culture. We WANT people to gain knowledge of our culture. It provides a social basis and cohesion.
Movie/TV shows clearly aren't fantastic high art but they still serve a social purpose. People make references - or memes - and connect with others over it. It is social lubrication largely associated with a time. For example, Game of Thrones was a social phenomenon but now it is passé.
To say that people can simply never watch any movies or TV shows ever - because there exists no "right/expectation" - is to deny a person being social on some level. You were not advocating this, but leave it up to the powerful vs the powerless and this is where things will tend to go for some of society.
Humans are social creatures.
You could raise your own children with zero experience of any movie or TV shows, and they won't drop dead. But you also know you are not doing them any favours regards socially "fitting in" - so it isn't most people's first choice.
So movies and TV shows are another social signal and people will go out of their way to be included - by simply paying. Or pirating, stealing Netflix DVDs from mailboxes or whatever else.
Fortunately, good libraries ease this social imbalance, but statistically you are always going to find people walking their own line for whatever reason.