this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
-963 points (33.0% liked)
Lemmy.World Announcements
28382 readers
164 users here now
This Community is intended for posts about the Lemmy.world server by the admins.
Follow us for server news ๐
Outages ๐ฅ
https://status.lemmy.world
For support with issues at Lemmy.world, go to the Lemmy.world Support community.
Support e-mail
Any support requests are best sent to info@lemmy.world e-mail.
Report contact
- DM https://lemmy.world/u/lwreport
- Email report@lemmy.world (PGP Supported)
Donations ๐
If you would like to make a donation to support the cost of running this platform, please do so at the following donation URLs.
If you can, please use / switch to Ko-Fi, it has the lowest fees for us
Join the team
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is it possible to calculate which people who steal content would have purchased it if stealing it was not an option? No, of course not. Would you suggest that the number is zero? That no one who steals it would have purchased it? Especially considering the fact that prices in general would be lower for everyone if stealing it was impossible? I think it's pretty safe to say that people stealing content robs creators of some profits. Which, by the way, is why it's illegal.
And are you suggesting that the only form of entertainment poorer people have as options are movies and games that they have to steal? Because that's crazy. My family was not well off when I was little and there were loads of things that we couldn't afford that my friends could. It's like you're insinuating that I'm arguing that poor people shouldn't be able to eat if I say that it's not okay for people to steal filet mignon. There are movies on TV and YouTube. There are free and affordable games. Most older content is pretty cheap. We're not taking away someone's inalienable rights by saying that to see the latest Marvel blockbuster, they have to pay for it.
It's remarkable to me that people justify this stuff by saying it's right and good. I'm not an angel, but when I do something I shouldn't, I don't try to convince people that I'm entitled to it. I don't make up words to make my actions sound okay.
I think this discussion is leading nowhere, but I again want to emphasize the fact that you cannot point to a person and say that their actions specifically led to any harm and thus you cannot (imo of course) morally hold them responsible. As for the second part that was not my point, you are of course right about what you said and I agree with the whole paragraph, I just wanted to show an extreme example of how there is no harm, because there is no way such a person would pay for the content anyways - so yeah, you can just let them not enjoy filet mignon, but why would you when they could eat it with no harm to anyone? And as for the last part I am not stating that piracy is always a clearly good thing, I am just stating that it is ethically neutral in most cases and rarely necessary to save content from being forgotten or for other research purposes, when eg. the scientific articles are locked behind absurd paywalls.