[lelandbatey]

That is a detail which is the responsibility of the artist as a businessperson. If you give away pizza with a big stack of ad flyers, no one would complain when that business doesn't make that much money because no one reads the ad flyers all they do is eat the pizza and toss the ads.

We live in a world where said pizza shops want to force you to look at each flyer in the ad stack, but for years they didn't sit you down and make you look with your eyes, instead they just let you take the ads and the pizza and leave. They're trying to crank up the pressure to watch saying "the cooks deserve to be paid" and "you have to let us watch you look at the flyers to eat the pizza, or else you can't leave with the pizza."

Don't be fooled, if the musicians didn't want folks to listen on YouTube then they wouldn't put their music there. If you can find a way to look away from the flyers while still eating the pizza, you are not the bad person. Eat and weep for a world where we can't just exchange money for food.

[charcircuit]

>Eat and weep for a world where we can't just exchange money for food.

Youtube sells subscriptions for YouTube Music if you want to be able to listen to the music in the background or without ads. Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

[lelandbatey]

If I open a new YouTube page incognito, I am not asked to agree to any kind of TOS. I agree to nothing, I merely start watching videos. Where is there a requirement that I must watch the ads if I have never agreed to such?

Even then, I bring this all up as a YouTube Premium membership holder, someone who has been paying for YouTube Premium since the very day it was announced as YouTube Red! I am also a sponsor block addon user, so I skip the "this video is sponsored by Stupid shoes" or whatever, read by the creators. According to you, am I stealing money from them as well, somehow?

[baq]

> Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

It’s a breach of contract, but whether this contract is ethical is a different question altogether, as is the question of ethics of breaching of unethical contracts.

[prmoustache]

It is not a breach of contract if you never signed a contract in the first place.

[ada1981]

Can you explain why TOS violations in general are unethical?

[charcircuit]

If you enter into an agreement with someone you should follow the agreement to the best of your ability. Purposefully agreeing to agreements when you know you will violate them is exploitative behavior as you are taking advantage of someone because you are purposefully not holding up your end of the deal when you know that they will continue to hold up their end.

[rpdillon]

You'd be correct if all of these contracts weren't essentially contracts of adhesion. The fact that the user has no agency to change the terms of the contract or really any say at all in what the terms of the agreement are waters down your argument significantly. In fact, the contracts are so asymmetrical that only one party has control over them and can change them at any time. The other party has no agency whatsoever.

[dns_snek]

> If you enter into an agreement with someone

Upon review, it looks like you don't have to enter into an agreement with anyone in order to use this software, except its authors under the terms of the AGPL.

> exploitative behavior

Even if you want to frame it like that, it doesn't look good for you unless you assume we're imbeciles who don't keep score. You do not have any right to complain about exploitative behavior when you willfully exploit hundreds of millions of people by 1000 units and they "exploit" you by 1 unit in return. You're still a net exploiter in the relationship.

> when you know that they will continue to hold up their end

That's a lie, corporations unilaterally alter the terms of service without offering compensation all time.

[ada1981]

I think in modern commerce TOS are things written in small print most reasonable people read of purposely agree too. I saw some BS in an owners manual for a washing machine that was attempting to imply that by using this machine I agreed to the TOS.. I mean, I guess. It doesn't seem like ethics has much to do with it.

[edoceo]

Typically they start with something like: by using this $SERVICE you AGREE to blah-blah-blah ($X)

If you agree to $X but then don't do it: you're a liar.

The terms might be shit. But if you agree to shit terms you should be bound by shit terms. In the olden days: "I gave my word as a gentleman and a scholar" or "a deals a deal, even with a dirty dealer"[0].

Going back on a deal is not ethical; end of.

[0] I think it from Futurama.

[lelandbatey]

Nah: going back on a somewhat ethical and REMOTELY fair deal made by folks who are even close to equal in power, that's not OK. Also, most of these sites make no requirement that you read and agree to anything; I can open YouTube and watch videos in an incognito tab right now, no EULA/TOS necessary, so how are you to say I am breaking any agreement at all?

Furthermore, these "use the service or not" agreements is like saying "accept a government or leave the country". Being handed an ultimatum saying "agree or you can't participate with your peers culturally, and potentially can't even access other local services such as government announcements", that's basically not a deal as there is no negotiation, that's being informed by greater powers of the pound of flesh they expect to extract.

Yes, yes I know the law says if you don't agree then you should simply not use the Internet, simple as that. That's clearly not even a possibility to be a functioning member of society at this point, but I guess it'll take some time for the law to catch up.

[prmoustache]

> Typically they start with something like: by using this $SERVICE you AGREE to blah-blah-blah ($X)

>

> If you agree to $X but then don't do it: you're a liar.

You have never been presented any TOS nor agreed to anything if you don't have an account.

If artists and youtube don't want us to use their 1 and 0 the way we want, they can pretty easily lock them under registration and payment. The thing is they don't care to do that, so they cannot complain.

[flkenosad]

> If you agree to $X but then don't do it: you're a liar.

No, you're unreliable.

[nadermx]

https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/15/disney-...

Might have a word with you

[charcircuit]

If you mutually agree to use arbitration then you should use arbitration.

[nadermx]

First, I don't see how someone viewing a publicly available stream is an agreement to terms of service. Court cases to back this up ie Netscape.

Second, just because you agree to a contract doesn't mean that contract is consionable, not something that shocks the court.

And it would have to be up to a court to decided just that. Hence you know disney ended up backing out before the court decided. As arbitration can be considered unconscionable.

https://www.newsweek.com/disney-wrongful-death-lawsuit-waive...

[anjel]

>Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

I gotta ask, more or less than enshittification?

[MiiMe19]

>Violating YouTube's terms of service is unethical.

lol

[munificent]

> if the musicians didn't want folks to listen on YouTube then they wouldn't put their music there.

You are giving musicians way too much agency here.

For most musicians on YouTube, they're there because their label and/or their manager wants them there. A big part of why musicians sign with labels and have managers is specifically because they don't have the inclination or expertise to micromanage this stuff.

I'm sure in many cases, musicians would rather not be on YouTube at all, but their already-signed nebulously-worded contract with the label doesn't give them any control over that.

In a world where everyone is a perfectly spherical rational actor in a libertarian vacuum, your argument would make more sense. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world filled with primates doing the best they can with the weird cognitive capabilities nature gave them and trying to get through each day with a little joy and dignity still intact.