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As a supporter of piracy in the general case, I tend to agree with your observations, including that pirating NYT (FT, NPR, ...) articles is somehow some kind of different class of offense as, say, stealing a movie or mp3. (Books, to me, are separate still, in that I like to have a physical copy (and generally see the authors as humans who deserve compensation, rather than mega-orgs that deserve eternal torment), so I'll frequently use the digital copy as a kind of preview, then purchase it once I see it's a good book I want to read.) I've only been reflecting on this difference for a few minutes, but, to me, I think the major difference boils down to: 1. Netflix series (movies, albums, etc) are non-essential, fictional works that take a long time to produce - think: fancy chocolates and caviar.
2. News, generally, contains timely, important information - more meat and potatoes.
3. While much of the super-critical news is not paywalled (e.g., product recalls, election dates, COVID stats, etc), a lot of information that is advantageous to know (discussions on interest rates, details on legislation, etc) is paywalled, compounding information asymmetries.
Sure, "stealing bad", but, IMO, someone stealing rice and beans from WalMart to feed their family is a different class of offense than someone robbing a boutique bakery because they can't get enough chocolate cake. |
You're not depriving anyone of anything. Unauthorized copying is not theft. There's no equivalency. You can't copy and paste a cake. If you take a cake from a bakery, you're depriving the bakery of a thing. If you take a picture of the trademarked bakery's sign, copy its the copyrighted text from its website, and print them out, you haven't stolen anything. Nobody has lost anything. Nothing was damaged. No person, place, or thing was harmed.
Current copyright law is offensively absurd. Patenting of software, effectively eternal content copyrights, ridiculously broken DMCA, music publishers taking 99 cents of every artist's dollar, and so on and so forth.
If you support the dissolution of archaic institutions and broken laws favoring those with entrenched wealth over individual rights, you support piracy.
There is a legitimate case for laws respecting and protecting intellectual property rights. Such laws do not currently exist. These laws do not deserve to be followed or respected, and should be broken as a matter of course. Civil disobedience is called for. Refuse to participate in an exploitative market immovably entrenched in governments all over the world. Pay artists directly and commensurately if you feel they've brought value to your life. Copy whatever you want. Share those copies with whomever you want. Nobody gets hurt. Only conglomerates of already wealthy individuals and corporations are "deprived" of the potential transaction with you that they feel they are entitled to, as a matter of course.
The NYT is just as complicit as any other legacy media institution in the enshittification of journalism and laying waste to the potential value of their content. The "Gray Lady" is not a person, or a valuable institution. It's a soulless corporate construct not deserving of our empathy or high regard simply because of the reputation of human individuals who previously produced quality content. Stop pretending these institutions serve some higher purpose than to fatten the wallets of shareholders.
The good journalists have left. The ones left behind are naive, or are desperately clinging to an illusion of legacy and institutional legitimacy that no longer exists.
All that is left for these media dinosaurs is to leech off the success of others, to use their reserves of wealth and influence to arbitrarily insert themselves into the market, with no regard to the fact that they no longer have value or prestige or purpose in the context of modern technology and communication.
Anyway. Copying isn't theft. Don't give them the linguistic territory. Call a spade a spade, and media companies the desperate corporate leeches that they are.