I just need to say something here, because so much of what's on my dash over on Tumblr(not so much over here, but what the hell) is making me feel vaguely ill
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Hrm. See, I loathe thieves. Hate stealing. My issue is, I just can't figure getting a free digital copy of something through a third party the same as "stealing". And it's not "because I want to do it", it's because I can't pin any concrete damages.
If someone steals a good from a store, be it a CD, a pumpkin, whatever, at the least the store is "less" that item. If someone sells a pirated or counterfit item, then the exact amount of money that changes hands is "stolen", rightfully belongs to originator of said item
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Going to sleep on this and reply in the morning, and hopefully it will be more sensible than the initial post was, which I fully admit was fueled by frustration.
The 'stealing' thing is the hardest part of this argument to explain, and I fully expected pushback on it. I don't expect this post to change anyone's mind on it. Let me just do my best to articulate my point of view
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:B FWIW my fiancee feels more like you do and as a consequence never downloads stuff from public sites, unless of course it is creator sanctioned
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You do not get to decide something someone has created is YOURS NOW without paying for itBut I totally do. I can make that decision, and I can execute it. Legally, it might be wrong, but the law is slow and backwards, so I only care if I get caught. Morally, it might be wrong, but it's not necessarily, and I am perfectly content making that moral call for myself
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Though I do want to ask: How can you say it 'doesn't even entail lost revenue'? I mean, I get that you disagree with me on this detail--I say it often does, you say it doesn't-- but how can you have all the necessary market data/sales figures/economic expertise to interpret them correctly, to make a blanket statement that it NEVER entails lost revenue?
Online piracy is a complicated issue and can very negatively affect creators, yeah. But I think it's extremely disingenuous to dismiss people who download as "ignorant," "impatient" or "lazy." Accessibility and cost are big factors--not everyone has a television, or a nearby Best Buy, or can afford a DVD set or to import a graphic novel that's only sold in the U.S. Your past experiences downloading from Kazaa are not everyone's (And yes, I know people who legally purchased the same works they downloaded as soon as they were able to.) As a friend of mine put it, "calling copyright infringement “stealing” is an emotional appeal disguised as a legal argument."
I'm pretty sure all three of those words were things I was calling MYSELF at various points, not other people. That said, I'm going to sleep on all of this, and hopefully have a more articulate reply in the morning.
Okay. First off, I agree I shouldn't have thrown insulting words around; it's easy to do so when you perceive the knives as pointed inwards, but it does logically follow that I'm accusing others of the same (even if that wasn't my intent) and the overall tone should have been less sharp. Otherwise, let me address this as well as I can:
Accessibility and cost. I am of two minds with this one. I've been broke and struggling my whole life so I know the frustration of not being able to afford anything, and during some of those years piracy improved the quality of my life markedly. But having personally benefited from a practice is not a good reason, on its own, to support it. It would be wonderful if creative people could be compensated through some other means and everyone could access their work for free, but at the moment the only way these people earn their livings is if people actually buy their works. And there's an irritating attitude of entitlement among the most vocal of the pirate communities that they have the right to have
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One thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is the distinction between digital file sharing and the sharing and redistribution of physical media. I'm very lucky in that, through my job, I have access to pretty much any multimedia item and printed literature I want (barring computer software, magazines, and more specialized texts) used at literally pennies on the dollar. So I buy (and sell back) physical media pretty often (I don't even bother renting shit anymore, since it works out cheaper for me to just buy it outright and then sell it back once I'm done--for example I just finished an audio book that sells new for $15, we sell it for $1.95, and I bought it with my discount for 64 cents, and I'll get about that much back when I sell it again), certainly much more often than I would if I didn't have that access, and yet none of that money goes back to the original creators. It goes to my boss, my coworkers, me, and back out again into our local economy
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I agree that it's kind of a mess. The specific issues you bring up are ones I've shied away from addressing simply because I don't know 100% where I stand on them. Part of the problem from a 'compensating the creator' standpoint is that it's much more common these days--with books particularly-- for people only want them to read once and then get rid of; no one KEEPS books anymore. And that is a trend that is detrimental to the creators, but you can't really say it's not someone's right to sell back something they bought! That is a pretty intrinsic right of owning something. It's just an aspect of the model that needs to be accounted for, and yeah, the industry and the law have been really slow to change anything about how all of this works
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This is a really interesting discussion - I don't have much to add, because I'm impressed and a little intimidated by how much you've thought this out. I guess all I can add from my perspective is that this is an odd time, new technology threatening the entire structure from which the people who make culture can make a living from it, and thus so we can have new culture at all
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Yeah, that's... that's the whole baby-boomer problem. I have a friend who mentioned that our generation essentially got 'skipped'-- we had a lot of good ideas but we never got a chance because the baby boomers held onto power for way longer than is normal/acceptable and now the generation after us is already ready to take up the reins as soon as the boomers FINALLY let go of our collective culture. It's a fucking irritating time to have been born. :\
But, yeah. As you said, none of this changes the fact that if you want people to keep making the things you love, you need to actually support them in a more material way than a pat on the back.
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See, I loathe thieves. Hate stealing. My issue is, I just can't figure getting a free digital copy of something through a third party the same as "stealing". And it's not "because I want to do it", it's because I can't pin any concrete damages.
If someone steals a good from a store, be it a CD, a pumpkin, whatever, at the least the store is "less" that item.
If someone sells a pirated or counterfit item, then the exact amount of money that changes hands is "stolen", rightfully belongs to originator of said item ( ... )
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I'll read more here later...
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Accessibility and cost. I am of two minds with this one. I've been broke and struggling my whole life so I know the frustration of not being able to afford anything, and during some of those years piracy improved the quality of my life markedly. But having personally benefited from a practice is not a good reason, on its own, to support it. It would be wonderful if creative people could be compensated through some other means and everyone could access their work for free, but at the moment the only way these people earn their livings is if people actually buy their works. And there's an irritating attitude of entitlement among the most vocal of the pirate communities that they have the right to have ( ... )
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But, yeah. As you said, none of this changes the fact that if you want people to keep making the things you love, you need to actually support them in a more material way than a pat on the back.
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And here I was so proud I kept myself from my usual anti-Boomer rant :)
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...yeah, don't get me started on the boomers, I will go on for hours. >:[
edit: NEVERMIND I GET IT. :(
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