[TheMode]

> sure, life is all about compromises. I had plenty of rich friends take things for granted in grade school that my parent literally could not afford. I probably "lost" some rich friends because I could not engage in such actiities. Such is life.

Sometimes you indeed have to cope, not everything can be accessible. But in the case of digital data it is definitively possible, and people are independently distributing torrents, not like movie studios have to distribute their own work for free.

More digital piracy would also overall mean less production, and so less expectation from consumers, and less barriers for the people who cannot afford everything (or anything really). Going back to a more "organic rate" of story telling. Stories have always existed after all.

> And honestly, it's just the dishonesty that bothers me the most. Some just don't want to say they do bad things. At least own up to it. I pirate, sometimes I just don't care. I'm not a good person. There, easy.

Maybe that I am a bad person too then. But its a pretty quick reasoning, am I really to blame for downloading bytes over the internet? Why couldn't you blame all the creators for expecting this sort of income? am I to blame if their work only has value when imposed?

[johnnyanmac]

>More digital piracy would also overall mean less production, and so less expectation from consumers, and less barriers for the people who cannot afford everything (or anything really).

what kind of awful logic is this? We have decades of free (and "free" as in beer) knowledge and media alike available with no ethical quandries. Why do we need to pirate the copyrighted stuff? For all its gripes, Youtube and Tiktok have indeed provided ore entertainment than one can consume for "free".

But for traditionally premium media, Look no further than the music industry to see how this leads. Spotify is a race to the bottom and artist basically don't get any money from their actual music anymore. Great for consumers (it's all free with ads or paying a one time subscrption to remove ads), awful for those wanting to sing professionally.

We're seeing it in gaming as well, and people hate it more than ever despite the "game" itself becoming free these days (can't pirate what's ultimately a thin client that companies give away for free). The value comes from exploiting scarcity of resources. People say it's ruining gaming, but it seems to be the exact kind of endgame for someone who can't afford $40-60 games but wants to play the latest and greatest. You spend your time or your money. Or both.

>But its a pretty quick reasoning, am I really to blame for downloading bytes over the internet?

yes. you're not entitled to all bytes. This decomposition of media to "just data" doesn't work at all in the favor of respecting art. are you really to blame for "just grabbing trees?", or "just grabbing reverbs in the air"?

> am I to blame if their work only has value when imposed?

Yes? If you value a product and you choose to not pay for it but consume it anyway, how are you not to blame? You didn't haggle with the creator, you didn't leave any feedback suggesting to make it cheaper or more accessible, you didn't offer any argument to how contributing this to a metaphoical library would benefit them.

You saw a piece of candy on the shelf and chose to pocket it. That would be considered unethical. No survival mechanism to appeal to (you don't need candy to survive), on extra context to justify your action. Many do it because risk is low and they value the item.

And honestly I don't care when people do it. I'm no snitch and Nestle already took into account X% of theft when pricing the item. But the worst thieves are the ones that whine that "well I deserve this I had a hard life". Just accept you did a bad thing and reflect on if you want to repeat those actions again. Don't pretend society owed you a butterfinger or that you're toppling the Nestle empire by grabbing a single piece out of some 7-11.

[TheMode]

> But for traditionally premium media, Look no further than the music industry to see how this leads. Spotify is a race to the bottom and artist basically don't get any money from their actual music anymore. Great for consumers (it's all free with ads or paying a one time subscrption to remove ads), awful for those wanting to sing professionally.

Are consumers responsible for encouraging people to sing professionally? If they aren't being paid enough, maybe that they should choose a different career. Its a rough thing to say, but this wouldn't have happened to begin with if the music industry didn't become that big due to copyright.

> This decomposition of media to "just data" doesn't work at all in the favor of respecting art. are you really to blame for "just grabbing trees?", or "just grabbing reverbs in the air"?

Trees are physical. I don't believe that I should dig up your tree to put it in my garden. But I should have the right to take its picture and try to grow the same.

Bytes are bytes, you are the one imposing their values. Copying more files doesn't steal money from its author.

> Yes? If you value a product and you choose to not pay for it but consume it anyway,

These are only products because we have laws allowing them to be. It is mostly an artificial market. Without copyright these authors would probably do something else. Just because they decided that their work is worth money doesn't mean I should give them. Otherwise maybe that I should bill you for looking at my eyes if I decide so, would be unethical not to.

> You saw a piece of candy on the shelf and chose to pocket it. That would be considered unethical.

If I could duplicate that candy and leave with it, I would. Is it unethical? You are really trying to make the comparison between intellectual property and physical matter, but one can be duplicated and freely shared while the other cannot.

The problem is that you assume that author must be a job, while I do not believe that they should be particularly protected. There will be less of them and its not necessarily a bad thing. If you wanna get paid get funding beforehand.

[johnnyanmac]

>The problem is that you assume that author must be a job, while I do not believe that they should be particularly protected. There will be less of them and its not necessarily a bad thing. If you wanna get paid get funding beforehand.

So you end with victim blaming? They can sell their art however they want, for whatever price they want. And traditional capitalism say they will succeed or fail based upon those dynamics. Theft is a factor that well, cheats the entire system.

I think it's ironic you have such a stance on a web site made for getting that exact funding. You think those VC's are funding stuff that can be easily stolen and produce no profits back for them?

[TheMode]

If they can sell their work without copyright, all good for them. It is not my fault if ideas can be indefinitely copied without anybody noticing. I am just saying that this is not worth monitoring.

Ideas should just not be treated the same as physical properties. They aren't. The market will adapt.