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Why do anti-piracy people often treat us as the "villains" of the story? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 week ago by incognito08@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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75% of the anti-piracy discussions I see rarely blame companies like Nintendo or Disney and always try to talk about how piracy is immoral, and you should feel "dirty" for doing it. My question is why do people seem to hate those who pirate more than the bad practices of mega-corporations or the fact that they don't want to preserve their media?

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[-] quirzle@programming.dev 85 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I blame the "piracy is stealing" advertising/propaganda. It was super effective, given that we all remember it.

Editing to add one of my favorite videos in the other direction, Copying is Not Theft.

[-] odium@programming.dev 8 points 1 week ago

I don't remember ever seeing such an advertisement in my life.

[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 27 points 1 week ago

YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR

[-] Kyatto@leminal.space 19 points 1 week ago

I totally would

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 10 points 1 week ago

In this day, I'm pretty sure the entirety of the middle class and below would if they could.

[-] bountygiver@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

and then download a house

[-] quirzle@programming.dev 8 points 1 week ago

That "you wouldn't download a car" became the meme while the ad itself said "you wouldn't steal a car" drives home exactly how effective these ads were at conflating the two.

[-] xep@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago

NOT ONLY WOULD I DOWNLOAD A CAR, I WOULD THEN WORK ON A WAY TO LET EVERYONE DOWNLOAD CARS

[-] Petter1@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Sharing is caring ♥️

[-] quirzle@programming.dev 11 points 1 week ago

You've never seen this? Never heard "home taping is killing music" or "don't copy that floppy"?

[-] odium@programming.dev 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No to all of those. I don't remember ever seeing a floppy. Oldest media formats I remember using are cds and cassettes. And that was in elementary school.

ig the piracy is theft advertising was more of a 90s thing that died down in the 2000s if those are your examples?

[-] quirzle@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I guess so. Best I can recall, most people I knew were either avid pirates or casually saw it as low-level criminal activity by the early 2000s.