[MartinCron]

Serious question, do you feel you have some sort of basic human right to get Game of Thrones, in English, with subtitles, in Russia? Does that extend to all intellectual property ever created, or is it just commercial pop-culture stuff?

[guard-of-terra]

I do feel to have a basic human right to do whatever I want to do without harming anyone. For example, if I want to watch Game of Thrones, I do it, because I can and because there is no act of harming anyone: I'm not witholding any money its makers could possibly get if I didn't because they tell me they don't want my money.

That's morally neutral. It is my basic human right to be morally neutral.

Now, copyright is not a basic human right. So I'd argue they get no copyright unless they distribute.

And yes, that ought to extend to all intellectual property ever created. Imagine that suddenly anyone in Iran reading, watching or listening to american "intellectual property" becomes morally wrong because somebody in USA decieded to put an "intellectual property" embargo. Doesn't sound right, does it?

[MartinCron]

Again, serious question, does this exemption apply to things that are just legally unavailable, or also financially unavailable? If game of thrones were legally available in your region but cost $100 or $1000 or $10000, would it still be OK to watch an illegal stream?

I've seen that argument when people pirate expensive software, saying "there's no way I could afford this, so it's morally neutral for me to use it without paying for it"

[guard-of-terra]

Are there actual examples of financial unavailability [of tv series, books or music]? If there are, let's discuss on per case basis. If there aren't, let's not.

The thing is, if they actually put effort at making it available, the offers are usually okayish. The problem arises when they simply don't bother.

[MartinCron]

Actual example of financial unavailability. One of my wife's favorite kids books, "The 14 bears in summer and winter" was out of print for years. It was a collector classic and was fetching upwards of $300 in the secondary market. We didn't buy a copy, we didn't "pirate" one either.

The publisher saw the high price as proof there was still a demand for the book and produced another printing. We paid full price for it, around 15 bucks, I think. It's a cute book, I'm glad I have it, I wouldn't have wanted to pay $300 for it, though.

One could make the case that if everyone could just "pirate" the book because it was financially unavailable, then the publisher would never bother doing a re-issue.

More broadly, I think that respecting copyright holders (and the rule of law) means that sometimes you don't get exactly what you want exactly when you want it.

[guard-of-terra]

That's hypothetical losses. Maybe losses. As in, Maybe they lose from piracy, maybe not.

But your win in wealth is real. You can't compare Maybe losses with real wealth gain. Real wins.

Secondary market brings the copyright holder nothing, so it's a bad example.