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Pluralistic: “If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing”
(pluralistic.net)
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this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Technology
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How much should they be paid for it? In a situation where the streaming services have a stranglehold on the market and are extracting a big amount in rent-seeking price vs actually paying the people who labored to create it, should we continue to pay and give in to their morally dubious tactics? In this lens, can piracy be considered a form of civil disobedience?
However much they're asking. They put a price tag on it for exactly this question.
Not really. Civil disobedience is about refusing to follow a law, not choosing to break a law. There's a difference between the two concepts; one involves going about your day as normal and ignoring laws, and the other is going out of your way to break a law. Piracy is no more a form of civil disobedience than looting a grocery store is.
Ah, that's not my understanding of civil disobedience. I prefer this definition: "civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/)
I suppose the piracy aspect might not be public enough to count as civil disobedience though, unless you count as public the noticeable cumulative effects of all piracy.
Right, but in this instance you're not damaging the government through these actions. You're damaging private entities. Civil vs criminal.
EDIT: Although, piracy often crosses both civil and criminal statutes in many cases, because copyright law is weird like that.
Agreed, and to me the solution is not "let's hope the companies play nice", but rather to bring in anti-monopoly regulations, like Canada's Bill C-56.
We need to force companies to add interoperability, transparency and fairness imho. Like the ongoing fight to force Apple to allow competing browsers in iOS. Or alternate app stores for Android and iOS.