[dangjc]

He stole intellectual property and deserves to be prosecuted. With abundant streaming options these days and threat of being cut off from your ISP, few people pirate films anymore in the US. This is not normal, tolerable practice anymore. People’s livelihoods depend on these industries. A lot of the people here on hacker news make a living from producing intellectual property.

[f1refly]

He stole nothing, he merely copied. The abundant streaming options are abusive and leave the "customer" without rights and without options. This is normal, tolerable practice. A lot of people here on hackernews would make just the same, as unpermitted copying has been shown to have an unnoticable, if not positive effect on movie payoff.

[mousepilot]

I think as long as people can't recognise theft of publishing rights, it will be difficult to have any sort of sensible conversation about it.