Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Last week, I re-took the national baccalaureate exam this year, Algeria. and this came up in the English exam. (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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here is the full subject for context: https://imgur.com/a/HmNaMIu
You have to choose one of 2 exam papers. Would you choose the second subject ? the one revolving around piracy denial that is.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Here's my mildly diplomatic answer that'd probably get tossed:

Piracy has become a plague on our society, but there's a more sinister cause to it. The average labourer can hardly afford to pay the same fee to access culture that the wealthy person can, and this has caused a significant and justified uptick in piracy.

This situation can be averted by increasing minimum wages and supporting universal basic income. If everyone knew they could at least make ends meet, they'd have some left over to pay for the culture that mattered to them.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

It's not only price. I don't agree that spotify has the right to a monopoly in music sales. Neither shall youtube have it for videos or adobe for image editing.

There is a market imbalance and the only protest that's left for me is to pirate content.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I would ask how it is theft when I’m prevented from buying media from other countries. I can’t buy Romanian movies or Swedish books. It’s illegal for me to give them money. Where is the theft here?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Why?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Why what? They don’t want my money, and I can clone it without harming anyone. Is it theft?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Why can’t you give them money legally?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I just can’t. They are European countries and when I try to create an account to buy something, I am informed that I can’t create an account from another country (which should be illegal nowadays but they don’t seem to care).

There are laws to allow someone buying Romanian stuff from France, but they don’t care. I know it’s a niche thing, but if they refuse customers, they can’t complain about piracy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Weird, but I agree, if they won’t take your money fuck em

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Haha, yeah, that's why I said it's my diplomatic answer, as it doesn't utterly reject a capitalist framework.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Neither does my statement reject capitalism. I reject the monopolies. There is not really a competitive market. It may or should be a natural monopoly but there are means to produce competitive markets but they are not yet implemented.

Capitalism does not exclusively mean monopolies. Recap: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4][5] Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price systems, private property, property rights recognition, economic freedom, profit motive, entrepreneurship, commodification, voluntary exchange, wage labor and the production of commodities.[6][7][8][9] In a market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth, property, or ability to maneuver capital or production ability in capital and financial markets—whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Unrestrained capitalism will always trend into monopoly. Capitalist-first democracies espousing "free market" historically never properly regulate their markets, resulting in this state, and the rhetoric all tends to place the market above the people, hence copyright being perverted into arcane lifetime-plus ownership schemes with fingers into everything. Meanwhile, culture is commodified and restricted from those who create it.

I know we aren't arguing different viewpoints; only choices of words.

Sigh... Back to my FOSS life without AAA gaming with my son in another country...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

It would be easier to pass by 'what had been argued as" qualifier in front of "justified." I'd also add something about people who discriminate against different socioeconomic groups as being uncultured, while gatekeeping culture.