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Critical support for the Lemmy world peeps in their fight against pro-intellectual property nerds
(hexbear.net)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
1166 points (94.5% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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I think people who are pro-piracy tend to be a little dogmatic in the wrong direction, refusing to exercise their imagination or contemplate situations where people can be legitimately hurt financially or otherwise by their actions. However, most of the arguments are pretty sound, and I can’t imagine working that hard making new accounts just to argue in favor of movie/record studios that have exploited artists for as long as they have existed.
The “filthy” line was just funny to me lol
That's not been my experience. I always see people advocating for paying for games/media when it comes from indie devs etc. And there is a difference between piracy and outright theft of artwork which is then profited from, I.e. a company steals small artists work and puts it on t-shirts - very few "pro-piracy" people, if any at all, are advocating for that.
At the end of the day, pirates do it because they either have very little money or they're smart and want to retain the money they have. Then there are anti-copyright people, which is cool too.
Then there are the people who don't really know what's going on but claim some moral standing surrounding piracy. I can actually feel them coming, fuck...
 Well that has often been my experience, but I’m not going to pretend that my experience as everyone is.
For instance, I see a lot of really ridiculous arguments claiming it’s for archiving.” First of all, they do not follow archival procedures. Second, they are not working with any known archiving organizations. Thirdly, they are not using what they have “archived” in any manner that could be considered “for the public good.“ Unless you want to count seeding it back out, but that argument can become pretty recursive pretty quickly. 
It also just so happens they are archiving mostly - if not entirely - the games they want to play, the shows they want to watch, and the movies they want to watch. It’s awfully curious how much the venn diagram of “archiving for the public good” and “what I want to enjoy” resembles a circle lol.
My point being, there are arguments in favor of piracy, most of which i agree with. But I see a lot of disingenuous ones from people who are clearly just doing it because they feel entitled to the media. I would rather they were just honest about their intentions instead of feeding me nonsense talking points that even they don’t believe. Otherwise it just reeks of justifying their actions (poorly) instead of just saying “I have nothing to justify.”
Well in that case I agree with you.
People should pirate what they want without making excuses.
Bingo. Own the act, then explain it to folks without being defensive or straight up lying to yourself.
You have a point, but it's kind of like people who resist all gun control due to the second amendment despite the shootings going on
Yeah, if life continues on as-is, the argument has little merit. On the other hand, in the case of the second amendment, we have fascists making a credible move for control.
In the case of archiving DRM content, if we have a cataclysm (which seems increasingly likely), then having drm-free, ideally unencrypted, content sitting on random hard drives might end up making an enormous difference in a lot of lives
Or even without a cataclysm, just general enshittification might end up destroying the gaming and media industries - passed around old games might be the seed for the next generation of tech-heads. I started my path by jailbreaking my PSP so I could use custom web browsers and homebrew - spreading these after the Internet is locked down by efforts like kosa and WEI (and whatever comes next) might be the spark that motivates the next generation
When it comes to art, there’s always somebody who doesn’t make it financially. Too few sold albums, too few downloads, too little merch sold. Some artists are always going to struggle and barely stay afloat making art, while the ones doing marinally worse are gonna quit and do something else.
The number of these people for whom piracy - or any other small loss of revenue for that matter - tips the scale doesn’t depend on how many people pirate stuff.
The actual difference piracy makes is the 0.2% (or whatever) dent in revenue which then means ~ 0.2% of potential artists end up working in other industries.
When deciding whether or not use someone's art without their permission, it behooves one to consider the ethics. Whether you come to a different conclusion than I do is whatever, but not every case is exactly the same, and to dismiss the people on the other side of the equation with made-up numbers pulled from thin air is not the proper way to go about it.
The argument doesn't really hinge on the made-up numbers, it would be the same if you swapped 10% in there.
They never think on the people they affect. They just want free things all the time claiming imaginary problems like the government and companies steal from them, like bro, that's just how capitalism works if you don't like it go to rusia, Venezuela and see how they're doing
My feelings are far more nuanced than this. Suffice to say I do not agree with you when you paint with such broad strokes.
Yes some people just want free shit, I think most people would acknowledge that. But when you get too boilerplate about piracy and don't explore the topic, you're no better than those who make up disingenuous reasons for why they never need to consider what they are pirating and who it may impact.
Found the loser in the screenshots alt lmaooo get a life my guy
Someone posted on another comment, the guy in the screenshot takes always the same name for his accounts. I just agree with him