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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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What if the company wasn't trying to get you to rent the car? What if they tried REALLY hard to get you to think you were buying the car, but once you "bought" it, they start crippling things and telling you you can't fix it yourself but instead need to pay exorbitant prices for them to "upgrade" it, since, now that you've "bought" it, you don't technically "own" it
But, is the piracy only justifiable if and only if the item you bought was unilaterally taken away from you? This seems to be arguing that: SOMETIMES purchased digital goods are stolen from a consumer, therefore it is ALWAYS justifiable for a consumer to pirate. I think we need a more nuanced take on piracy.
And now that SAG AFTRA concessions were made to give to more payout to actors and other creative folks based on streaming metrics, I think that means consumers should attempt to stream if available to help ensure the creators hit their metrics for payout.
My criteria for what makes something worth purchasing versus pirating is pretty simple: can I purchase a file in a format that I want to be able to use on all my devices without DRM for a fair price. If that's the case then I'll buy it. I buy stuff off GOG and Humble Bundle all the time.
As for streaming. If the service is good and has enough content on it to keep me invested then I'll pay for the sub. For several years Netflix was good enough that I almost completely stopped pirating movies and shows. There was just always something on there to watch. When it got to the point that I had to look for shit that I hadn't seen before and wanted to watch I cancelled it, and I haven't picked up any other services since then other than what came with my internet. I'm not going to juggle 14 steaming services and try to keep track of what is available on which one when I can just pay for a VPN and download everything from one source. Especially considering some of the more niche stuff I want to watch isn't available on any of them a lot of the time.
The bottom line is make not pirating more convenient and cheaper than pirating and I'll stop doing it.
How do you make it cheaper than pirating?
I have to pay for and setup hardware to store and distribute media I pirate which costs money and time but I guess I didn't really mean it had to be more convenient AND cheaper just that if there was a service that beat piracy on those two points combined I would use it. Spotify for instance has pretty much all the music I would want so I haven't downloaded any for a few years.