this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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I will gladly take a position of moral superiority, because copyright has evolved from a very limited monopoly, intended to encourage creativity while balancing public access, into a licence for corporations to seek rent.
So, call it stealing if you like, I will sleep well tonight regardless.
You're taking a thing that costs money, for free. I don't see how it's anything other than stealing.
If you go to a theme park, and they want $20 for you to enter, and you decide you don't want to pay, you'll be in violation of their rules. Those that did pay will leave the park at the end of the day with a great experience, but with no presumption of ownership of the park. This is analogous to piracy by copying a movie. You didn't want to pay the entrance fee, so you found a way to have the same enjoyment for free. The people that paid for their media, however shitty the licensing agreement is, received the agreed upon service with no presumption of ownership.
I'm not here to defend streaming services or crappy licensing deals, but to pretend that it's not stealing, gaslighting everyone here into following your train of thought, is the definition of unearned moral superiority. You're not entitled to free media.
The only theft going on is the ongoing theft from the public domain, due to corruption of copyright law by special interests enabled by law for hire. Your analogy is irrelevant as the marginal cost of operating a park for an extra visitor is not zero.
He didn't take the movie/music from them. They still have it. It still exists on their tape/film/drive. If you are going to argue, at least argue in good faith, with words that mean what you are trying to say.
It's like refusing to pay the $20 park entrance fee and then making your own copy of the park in your backyard. Is that stealing $20 from the park?
I mean it's still possibly copyright and/or trademark infringement, but...