• lemmeee
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    8 months ago

    They never hacked your computer, you agreed to everything. So what’s the problem then? It’s just a file that can be shared.

    A lot of people don’t have a problem with that. I do, which is why I don’t use proprietary software. If I took a photo of myself (or of anything else) and posted it publicly on social media, I would do it under a free license, so that people could share it. I do that with software that I make. But that doesn’t mean I want to share everything - there are many things I want to keep private, so I will not post them publicly. There is no contradiction here.

    I’m not talking only about you. I’m talking about how senseless the “I can share files with anyone” is. If that were true, companies could really fuck their customers, but thankfully it isn’t logical, thus it is illegal.

    I’m pretty sure companies already legally sell user data, though? Laws don’t define what is logical or what is moral.

    Imagine if a single person could buy a movie and then place it in their Facebook to share with their friends. And then their friends share with their friends. And so on… because it’s just a file, nobody is stealing, copying information isn’t stealing! … Who would make a movie under those conditions?

    People already share movies online and it’s very easy. You don’t have to pay for any digital file ever, but people choose to do it anyway. Copying files is not stealing, because it’s not a physical object - you can make an infinite amount of copies at no cost.

    If you want to own the movie, you need to buy a real copy. If you are buying a digital copy, you do not own the movie. There is already a solution for your problem, real copies.

    Movies sold on DVD and Blu-ray contain DRM. You can’t make copies (even for personal use) without breaking the DRM, which is illegal. If there was no DRM, you could at least make copies for personal use, which would be an improvement, but you still wouldn’t own the files.

    So sure, if you want a bunch of industries to die, keep believing and convincing others of that.

    Copying and sharing files only keeps getting easier and those industries haven’t died. People even sell things like games and books under a free license. One such game is Mindustry - I bought a copy myself and I can legally share it with anyone. This game is even available for free on some platforms, but people buy it anyway.

    The only reason you can watch your pirated movie is the fact that other people actually pay for the content. So you’re really stealing from people who now have to pay more to access the content.

    You can’t steal something that’s infinite. I would pay for the movies though (even if they aren’t released under a free license) if there was a way to buy them without DRM. But there isn’t and I’m not going to support unethical practices with my money.

    There could be a website where you would be able to buy DRM-free movies and you could download them. We have such stores for music, books and games. But the movie studios are greedy, so they choose to abuse people with DRM.

    • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You’re delusional man. Creating information costs a lot of money. Do you think it takes the same amount of investment to create a 10gb file of random bytes as a 10gb file that contains a movie with actors?

      Imagine if only a single person had to buy your movie in order for everyone to watch it. Wherevs the logic in that?

      The only reason why the industry is surviving is because most people understand that they need to pay for the entertainment they consume. So yeha, paying customers are actually the only reason you get to pirate movies, because if everyone had your same mindset, the industry would be dead.

      And I pirate movies too, I’m just not in denial with reality.

      • lemmeee
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        8 months ago

        You seem to have trouble understanding the fact that people can buy things and share them with those who can’t.

        I’ve already given you an example of the game Mindustry, which people buy on Steam (16k reviews): https://store.steampowered.com/app/1127400/Mindustry, even though it’s released under a free software license and you can get it for free on Itch: https://anuke.itch.io/mindustry and you can get its source code on GitHub: https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry.

        The only reason why the industry is surviving is because most people understand that they need to pay for the entertainment they consume.

        Weird, huh? For some reason the internet and Bittorrent hasn’t changed that.

        • platypus_plumba@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          yeha, piracy isn’t about buying things. You keep bringing up that ultra specific scenario, again using a specific scenario to defend something more general. Do you think piracy is about buying things and then sharing with friends? No. It is about buying something once and distributing it massively to millions of people you don’t even know, who can probably afford the content. For some peiple it is about just downloading content for free.

          How much people have a home server that costs thousands of dollars with tens of terabytes to download all the movies they want and then sell a subscription to their NAS, or just share that for free to people who can totally afford paying for a streaming service.

          How much people in developing countries pay for illegal streaming boxes that have a return of investment of around 4 years in order to avoid paying for streaming services?

          How much people could totally afford one month of a streaming service to watch a series, but instead pirate it?

          If you think piracy is about sharing movies with friends, you live in a fairytale.

          I pirate movies, I know why I do it and it isn’t ethical at all. I do it because I don’t want to give my money to streaming services. But I don’t lie to myself about what I’m doing. Am I helping someone who really can’t afford the movie? Sure, but I’m mostlikely sharing it with someone like me.