Don't Make Me Steal: a manifesto of reluctant pirates

@ Joesolo

"can you tell I'm really anti-piracy? "

I read that in Jack Sparrow's voice. Would that qualify as Irony?

@Inverurie Jones

"Meh. Piracy isn't even stealing. "

And it ain't rape if they enjoyed it. What ever helps you sleep at night, I guess.

Stealing implies that the resource was depleted. Copying leaves the original.

What harm is there in taking a copy of something you wouldn't have spent money to get?

IIRC, Piracy is legally defined as "counterfeiting" where I live.

"Stealing implies that the resource was depleted. Copying leaves the original."

That's not necessarily true, but you are right about thief =/= Copyright infringement. Still semantics aside, they are both illegal

"What harm is there in taking a copy of something you wouldn't have spent money to get?"

None. If it stopped there, however...

The problem is that it sets a double standard. Why should the middle-class and the rich pay for something that the poor can take freely? Even if you can come up with a justification for this, all the rich and middle class will think is that there getting ripped off. Which leads to another problem...

Many (I'm not saying most) Internet Pirates can pay for what there taking. And this problem will only get worse aS each new generation becomes even more "computer-literate" than its predecessor. Eventually this causes the major corporations to take legal action.

While the major corporations can stand to lose some cash (the small and indie companies on the other hand..) the fact still remains that this is still eating a significant chunk of there profits and its just gonna get worse for them. This leads to things like the Digital rights management (DRM). While I'm no fan of the DRM (there pretty much corporate thugs) I have to roll my eyes whenever someone uses them as an excuse for there piracy. Its like when smokers use tough (and sometimes unfair) anti-smoking laws to justify the smoking. While they can claim there doing it to stick to the man, the truth is most, if not all of them commit piracy because it brings them some type of satifaction. This has been shown by the piracy that has been committed against games with no DRM. Or when musicians and developers release stuff with prices as low as a dollar or less and still wind up pirated.

When things like the DRM are unable to compensate for bad press they get with the limited success they achieve, the corporations go to the only people they think can help them. The Government. After a few months and a couple of brib- sorry "Campaign donations" politicians begin creating things like SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA. Your probably thinking, "no problem we took down those bills we can do it again". The thing is the politicians and corporations backed down because of the bad press. If the the amount of piracy begins to grow like I predict it will, its going to get to the point where the corporations are willing to endure any amount of bad press and protesting if it means reclaiming some of there lost profits. The end result will most likely be a significantly less free Internet.

edited 20th Sep '12 2:14:03 AM by DeviantBraeburn

To support artists they like, since they can?

I didn't say "can't", I said "wouldn't have". When your options are "pay, go without, and take", and you wouldn't have been interested in it enough to pay, that's market forces.

Say I own a physical book. I paid for the book, nobody is going to steal the book from me. However, the publisher decided that so nobody could sit down in the bookstore with a cup of coffee and flip through without paying, it had to have one of those journal locks, and I have to send in proof of purchase to get the key. That lock is keeping me out of my property. I'm gonna break that lock.

I highly doubt that "most" pirates take stuff just because they're kleptomaniacs.

It's got to be cheaper to not sink money into DRM that keeps getting broken and into politicians' votes than to just sell things at the price people want to pay, made at a budget that makes that price affordable.

There are filmmakers who believe that Hollywood movies have gotten to the point where they put so much money into the spectacle that they're getting into diminishing returns, since they have to price tickets such that they have an expectation of recouping all the hundreds of millions they spent on making the movies, and nobody wants to pay $50 a seat to undertake the hassle of leaving home to watch a movie once when they could wait and buy the DVD for half that price and see it an infinite amount of times, or rent it as part of a subscription plan that costs a quarter of that.

These filmmakers (and investors) believe that the solution is to make cheaper movies that stand on storytelling.

So if you toiled day and night on something, let's say a movie, and this cost you: time, resources and money, and you had to charge for it to get back the stuff you lost, and some person decided that they were entitled to your work for free, and that they didn't owe you anything for the entertainment you provide them, you'd be totally cool with that?

Offer it at a decent price and minimum hassle, and if it's good enough to buy most people who can will pay.

This is happening way too much in the industry.

Yeah, half the problem in a lot of situations is that a legal purchase outlet does not exist because they're too lazy to set up a distribution site or want to wait until months and months after people stopped caring to release a DVD.

Like, at the very least they could set up an official Youtube channel and count view stats alongside the network ratings, but the MPAA is increasingly more interested in rent-seeking rather than actually providing a service. It's the same thing with how so few old games show up on Steam and the like even though it's crazy easy to port things onto it and sell them legitimately — corps would rather sit on a license than use it (and I have to give credit to Sega for breaking that pattern).

edited 22nd Sep '12 11:12:47 PM by Pykrete

My situation with Doctor Who is much like the example with Game of Thrones, only worse.

If I want to watch Doctor Who legitimately here, I must subscribe to cable (which I can't afford), and get a premium package (for an extra fee) that includes exactly one channel that I want, and then watch an episode that's had scenes cut and retimed in order to make room for commercial interruptions, which it wasn't paced for. Alternatively, I could wait several months for the season collection DVD, which I can't afford.

Or I can watch the episode in the form it was intended to be seen after waiting a few hours for the seed to propagate and then for it to finish downloading in 720p, at no cost.

If the BBC made it available on iPlayer in America, I might subscribe to the service for the few months while the show is running. If they put it on Hulu, I would put up with ad interruptions, and subscribe to Hulu Plus if necessary. If they put it on Netflix within a week after air, I'd wait for it, and watch at whatever resolution Netflix felt my connection could handle.

But I'm not going to pay $50-70 a month just to see it hacked to bits on BBC America.

Just last night I had an example of that with the music industry. I was looking for a song and I couldn't find it on iTunes, Amazon, or any other legal method. I was perfectly willing and wanting to pay for it, but how can I do that when it's not available anywhere?

I had that happen with an album once. The only legitimate way to get it was to buy a CD from a collector on Amazon for $70. Even if I'd paid that outrageous price (which the Jetsons Movie Soundtrack is not worth), the publisher and artists wouldn't have seen a cent of it.

I am against piracy simply because it is a violation of the rules and laws set forth.

If the rules and laws set forth were changed in favor of piracy, I would not be against piracy.

I adhere to the law because it is a guiding moral principle, something I inherently lack, thus necessitating a substitute moral principle.

If I have to adhere to the rules and unable to pursue my desires, why are they released from such obligation to pursue what they desire?

edited 23rd Oct '12 11:19:03 PM by NickTheSwing

Yes, blindly follow the rules set forth by our benevolent leaders, and never question or challenge them ever!

I'm not exactly in favor of piracy except in the case of something quite literally being unavailable otherwise, but come on, only being against it because it's against the law and because the law must always be right and moral? That implies that in another era you would've been in favor of some pretty nasty things that I'm not gonna bring up due to Flame Bait and trying to stay on topic. It's just not wise to blindly follow the law for the sole reason that it's a law. If everyone did that and no one challenged established laws and social conventions, no social progress would ever be made.

On the other hand, comparing the download of Game of Thrones to a lunch counter sit-in is pretty clearly going too far.

Yes. In another era, I would have done truly sickening things, simply because the rules did not prohibit me. I know what I am very well, you need not remind me.

Yet, this is not another era. This is petty individuals not willing to play by the same rules as others.

But, really, I do not care. I only flipped a coin to select my position.

edited 24th Oct '12 2:35:38 AM by NickTheSwing

Just saying. Your enthusiastic behaviour confuses me. Why are you so excited over this?

If the rules were automatically good and to be respected simply by virtue of being rules, they would never change because they would never need changing.

One needs to acknowledge that rules can be imperfect (and that the parts of them that are wrong should be disobeyed), or they walk a very dangerous path.

Yes, of course. I suppose complacency is dangerous.

There's a certain amount of truth to following the rules being a good thing in itself, simply because to an extent society kind of needs to all be on the same page in order to not trip over itself. The law being followed as a default behavior is a pretty big part of that, because any given person will always find parts of it distasteful.

Ultimately though, the law is nothing more than a codifying of what we consider to be a workable, humane society. If it's hysterically broken, it needs to break before we do. While "oh noes I can't buy Game of Thrones" isn't remotely a riot-worthy offense, it is a brick in a rather overwhelming monolith of flagrant power abuse.

edited 24th Oct '12 12:48:04 PM by Pykrete

I suppose. I have investigated a little bit further. The rules about piracy do look admittedly a little bit unfair.

I will need to look at this a little closer. Perhaps then it might warrant interest from me. Tell me. Why should I care about the piracy issue, if I do not pirate copies of these things?

Because most of the anti-piracy laws that get passed do jack-all to actually combat piracy (most of them can be trivially bypassed by all but the most amateur pirates), infringe on privacy and net neutrality regardless of whether you're actually pirating, and in many cases are used to unfairly crack down on legitimate competition without oversight or due process. Hell, a huge chunk of current DMCA claims aren't even legitimate and SOPA/PIPA would have fucked up DNS security for everyone. To say nothing of things like always-online DRM that can screw with or even shut out legitimate paying customers altogether if they don't happen to have broadband.

"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is not a valid thing with these laws.

edited 25th Oct '12 1:01:44 PM by Pykrete

Yeah, I'm pretty much gonna agree with what the others here have said.

Of course, all this said, the petition in the OP, while bringing up some valid points, really seems to be asking too much and has a tone that comes off as entitled. "First world problems" doesn't even begin to describe it. But, then, others here have pointed that out already.

edited 24th Oct '12 11:53:32 PM by 0dd1

How did this thread that I started go this long without this article?

The article lost me at "integrity dollars". The simple fact that some people consider online trolling a valid use of their time proves their lack of value.

I pirate because I don't feel like paying.