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Piracy was NEVER stealing
(fedia.io)
It doesn't matter if it's a CD, a Film, or manual with the instructions to build a spaceship. If you copy it, the original owner doesn't lose anything. If you don't copy it, the only one missing something (the experience) is YOU.
Enjoy!
Of course, if you happen to have some extra money for donations to creators, please do so. If you don't have that, try contributing with a review somewhere or recommending the content, spread the word. Piracy was shown to drive businesses in several occasions by independent and biased corps (trying to show the opposite).
I used to make music with a band. We had studio rent, transportation costs, etc. We would mostly break even on gigs between all our expenses. In the rare event we profited from a gig, it went back into the band. As a whole, we were losing money.
If someone pirated the music that I spent hours working on in the space I paid rent for, I am absolutely losing a sale that could really have helped me out and, with enough of them, even let us maybe do it full time. I was always fine with people wanting to try before buying, but liking and listening to the music we spent a ton of time and money to make and not paying me anything is shitty as a small band. Your argument basically ends with "BuT WE'rE PaYinG You In ExPOSure!!!!" which is always shit.
You are assuming they would have bought your music had pirating not been an option instead of just going without
I understand the feeling.
But when someone buys music from you and then puts it in house parties for tens of other people, those people are also listening to your music without paying.
And a lot of people these days will never pay for a specific artist's music.
They'll use a streaming service like Spotify, which barely pays anything to small artists (especially when free users listen to the music, and not premium users).
But I can use Spotify for free, listen to small artists' music, share it with other people, and it will be considered legal and "ok".
And personally, whatever I pirate, I wouldn't have bought in the first place without being able to try it. So it isn't a lost sale.
True, but that doesn't grant them a copy they can play anytime. This is also why I've always been fine with listening before buying.
I can also buy a CD and if I live with family members / roomates, share it and let them play it whenever they want without them paying for it.
Or let people copy it.
Ah I forgot it depends on the country.
In Canada for example, it's legal to copy a borrowed CD.
But did actually anyone actually pirate your music? Like is your music on a torrent indexer or shared on a site specific to music?
Pasting my comment fron elsewhere"
Now ill add,
I learned everything i know off of being able to have free access to near infinite music. Any genre, any style, all available to be perused. My tastes were able to expand, my mind was allowed to be opened. All bc i could listen to anything i wanted to for free when affording any legal music was not possible.
Ive done the band shtick too, and i honestly put more time, money, and effort into my craft now as i have to do all instruments largely by myself. Everything i do is bc of my tastes and ability to listen to more music than i could ever handle. Anything i make is a result of that. Itd be hypocritical of me to try and deny others what has made me "successful" (able to make whatever music i wanna make). Even if i did seek commercial avenues of putting my shit out, i would still not stand opposed to piracy. Piracy is why i ever got to this point in the first place.
Eta: and for the record, when it wasnt pirated, it was listening to shit uploaded to YT. More free music that allowed me to broaden my horizens without worrying about money.
You're sharing a correct sentiment, but completely missing the point.
Your artistic work has value and you should be in the condition of making art while taking care of yourself economically. This is definitively true. Don't assume the only possible way to achieve that is to gatekeep your otherway easily replicable art (which is sad and completely agains art's purpose if you want my opinion). It may be the most viable way now, but it's not the only one (and it's not working great, as your example underline).
It's the same for tipping colture, if you want a parallel situation to look from outside. Is absolutely criminal that full-time worker has to rely on a mandatory charity donation in order to survive and we should all be against that. The worker could say "I need the tips couse I can't afford live without it, so if you are against tipping you are hurting me", which is the same things you are saying about yourself.
Do you know that though? Is someone going to buy a song just to listen to it? There's no guarantee that they would have bought it in the first place. Also, piracy literally can increase the exposure to your music and can lead to measurably increased sales. In fact, the YouTuber penguinz0 talked about how piracy actually helped sell more copies of his comic series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJVCDD2lhH0
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=jJVCDD2lhH0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.