I decided on my moral beliefs on piracy back during the days of Kazaa and Limewire. Back then the RIAA was shaking down teenagers, threatening them with statutory liabilities of a quarter million dollars per song, simply because the law allowed it. They would threaten low-income families with lawsuits in the millions and get them to settle for a still-ridiculous settlement of few thousand dollars. Even the settlements were far in excess of the full retail cost of purchasing these songs.

I decided then that if the law allows this kind of thing, then copyright law as it exists now is fundamentally immoral. And immoral laws are not worthy of respect.

I mostly take a pragmatic approach to copyright. Whether I pay for something is a combination of the quality of the work, the reputation of the company selling it, the customer service provided by the legitimate product, the probability of getting caught for violating copyright law, etc. An indie publisher that treats their people well? I'll buy it. Mass market schlock made by criminally underpaid artists for rent-seeking megacorps? I'll pirate that all day, every day.

But morality literally plays no part in it. I learned long ago that copyright law exists outside of the realm of morality. The decision to buy or pirate is an entirely practical one; morality simply isn't a factor.

the DMCA doesn't protect the artists or any of the singers, it protects the shitty record labels and the money that the executives at those companies get

Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.

not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.

Of course, theft wouldn't happen nearly as much if no one was desperate the survive, but even then there'd still be entitled assholes that want even more.

I mean. I remember an article about an Amiga program that everyone used cracked, that only sold 1 copy. Sucks to be a small author in such a scenario.

I'd make a point saying that there's a personal moral and a broader societal understanding of morality, and they don't always align.

The replicator from Star Trek makes matter out of pure energy, not out of other matter. It can make almost anything out of matter, so long as it has the molecular pattern on file, and the ship has enough energy available to power the replicators. That energy comes primarily from energy storage dedicated to replicator production, but in emergencies where a massive amount of matter need fabricated, additional power can be provided by the warp core.

physical media is a physical finite item. digital media can be copied infinitely

the reason why physical media is getting harder and harder to find is because the copyright nazis can't control it. If they want to memory-hole a scene, they can't change the content of that blu-ray disc with the original version on it

Meanwhile, your morality is just the bandwagon effect.

~~Pirates~~ commenters constantly trying to "morally" justify their ~~action~~ opinion is by far the worst part of all ~~pirate~~ forums.

Its embarrassing how many ~~pirates~~ commenters need the validation of strangers on the internet.

Isn't there a philosophy forum that these people could spam instead?

Ftfy

For real