Why do anti-piracy people often treat us as the "villains" of the story?
Why do anti-piracy people often treat us as the "villains" of the story?
75% of the anti-piracy discussions I see rarely blame companies like Nintendo or Disney and always try to talk about how piracy is immoral, and you should feel "dirty" for doing it. My question is why do people seem to hate those who pirate more than the bad practices of mega-corporations or the fact that they don't want to preserve their media?
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I think piracy is immoral but I still partake in it and I don't hate anyone for doing so.
It's like eating meat.
Why do you think piracy is immoral?
The only reason there’s content for us to pirate is because there are still people paying for it. If it weren’t for them, nobody would be spending millions on new movies or games. They’re the ones funding our content, and we’re just freeriding.
I think a good measure for morality is to imagine wether the world would be a better place if everyone acted as I do. In this case, I don't think it would.
That's a common misconception. But it's not true. Artists will keep making art whether they're paid or not. Anti-piracy rhetoric tends to come from large corporations (AAA game studios, movie studios, publishing houses, record labels) who demand ever-increasing profits, not from the artists themselves. The people who actually do the work to make games, movies, songs, books, whatever are basically never well-paid, instead their corporate overlords make all the profit and pay the people who actually make the art you enjoy as little as they can possibly get away with, just as with every other job under capitalism.
Pirating media does absolutely no harm unless you're pirating from a small indie creator. But if you just want to play the latest Ubisoft slop or watch the latest Marvel movie, go ahead and pirate. The money you'd spend on them go straight into the pockets of wealthy executives, not to the artists who do the work.
I think it's objectively a true statement that the vast majority of big budget hollywood movies, video games and TV-series would stop existing if nobody was paying for them.
Obviously not all media would go away. I've never gotten paid for my photography or YouTube videos because I'm not making them for money. Same applies to a ton of other content creators as well.
I agree we probably wouldn't get any more Assassin's Creed or Deadpool and Wolverine. Very likely those kinds of media would die out in a world where no one pays for media. I have a hard time saying that's a bad thing. We'd instead have more weird little indie projects, which are so, so much better in every way. But sure, if you feel morally queasy about "stealing" (it's not stealing, it's copying) from giant corporations who make artistically bankrupt crap, I'm not going to convince you otherwise, and it would be a waste of my time to try and do so.
Maybe I should point out here that sometimes I do go out of my way to pay for media (especially games) when I don't have to. I bought Dwarf Fortress on Steam, even though the devs give it away for free and I donated to them a couple times before they released it on Steam. They are living off the money people pay for Dwarf Fortress and I'm so glad they're able to do so. I also bought my sister a copy of Pathologic 2 she has never (and probably will never) play because I bought my copy on sale and loved it and felt bad that I hadn't paid full price to a dev team that put their heart and soul into the game and had it sell abysmally for some reason. (Side note, play Pathologic 2, it's good!) I bought the Celeste soundtrack from Lena Raine's bandcamp because I love it so much, even though it's extremely easy to find and I've actually lost access to my bandcamp account.
I guess I'm saying there's nuance here and I like it when actual artists who make good art are paid. It's just that in our current society, buying a DVD or paying for Netflix or paying for Xbox gamepass or anything like that doesn't benefit the artists, the vast majority of any money you spend to acquire media goes straight to wealthy executives and I just don't see anything wrong with not giving them more money than they're already getting.
I think you'd still get some big budget projects from publicly funded art grants and crowdfunding. In a society where IP and patents either don't exist or are much less restrictive, a lot of code and assets will be freed up to reuse when you make your "new" game, lowering the barrier to entry.
I expect we would see more things like doctor who; low budget, thousands and thousands of episodes because it's beloved by millions of people who keep demanding more.
Yeah, good point! In a world without intellectual property rights, of course there would still be large projects, they'd just be, well, actually good and not shitty focus-grouped sequels.
While your claim is true---big budget movies, etc., need someone to pay for them---the unspoken corollary you're implying isn't true---that without the current economic model, no-one would pay for big budget productions, or that undermining the current model via piracy will reduce the rate at which they are funded.
The current model is: massive corporate copyright-holders can purchase the right the profit from an artistic production. They pay for its production up front. Even though we have a technology that can costlessly copy these products and very cheaply distribute them to almost everyone who wants them, the copyright holders maximise their profits by a) crippling this capacity by spend considerable money, labor and human expertise on technologies that artificially limit copying, and b) use state-supported coercion (e.g., fines, lawsuits, police, etc), to punish individuals who would circumvent these crippling technologies. To be clear, these copyright holders still make massive profits, vastly beyond what any individual they are persecuting for copyright infringement could ever dream of. Their policing of piracy is to make even greater profits.
Even though this is how big artistic productions are funded today, it is not true that in the absence of this economic model, big artistic productions would not be funded. The demand for these products would still exist, and if there's one thing our society excels at, it's directing capital to meet demand.
Alternative models that could fund big artistic productions:
- a centralised fund we all contribute to in proportion to our means (e.g., progressive taxation), that pays artists in proportion to how much their product is consumed (like the Spotify model, but publically administered, like TV licences)
- many small scale investors rather than corporate monoliths (like Kickstarter), whose investments are recouped by a) privileged access to get product and b) the still highly profitable cinema and dvd markets whose constraints (physical premises/media) are not compatible with free copying.
- a legislated solution that protects copyright until artists are sufficiently recompensed and then allows free distribution.
These are just some examples of the many possible alternative models for funding large art projects and deciding who should profit from them and how much. However the details aren't nearly as important (many different models could work), as the ultimate driver: whether our actions/systems/laws enhance or undermine demand for the art.
Piracy does undermine the current (corrupt, exploitative, reprehensible) economic model but it also increases demand for the media it distributes more widely and equitably. It doesn't, as you imply, reduce the likelihood of big budget media existing in the future, it increases the likelihood of it existing in a more fair and equitable way, that harness our ability to freely copy rather than crippling it for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy copyright-buyers.
I stand by what I said: if everyone pirated, no one would be making or funding big-budget movies because there would be no money to be made. Coming up with alternative payment systems for the media we consume is all well and good, but that’s not piracy - it actually just reinforces my point about paying being the moral thing to do. My argument isn’t that the current system is good; it’s that piracy wouldn’t be sustainable if everyone started doing it.
If everyone were doing it, it wouldn't be piracy. It would be free, legal copying.
I just presented you with several models of how big budget movies could make money, even if everyone were freely, legally copying. You haven't responded to that argument, you've merely ignored it and insisted on your original point.
I don't feel like defending a view that I don't hold. I don't get the sense from your replies that you've even understood my argument.
Without the current economic model, no-one would pay for big budget productions
I haven't said that.
It doesn’t, as you imply, reduce the likelihood of big budget media existing in the future
I haven't said that either.
a centralised fund we all contribute to in proportion to our means
Correct me if I'm wrong but that sounds a lot like paying for the content
many small scale investors.. ..like Kickstarter
This sounds like paying for the content too.
a legislated solution that protects copyright until artists are sufficiently recompensed
Recompensed? Sounds like getting paid.
To me it seems like there's no disagreement here.
There is another model proposed at the end of the 90s by a french professor.
Just tax my internet (it's actually alrrady taxed) and monitor torrent / p2p shares (like it's already being done). Then pay a proportion of the money gathered via taxes to the creators of the media. It's a system that is already in place for some Television companies in Europe. Today, I would compare it to spotify. You still get the capitalist model where big budget peoductions make tons of money, but you live in a world where you are free to share and remix
piracy is moral and should be encouraged actually
Eating animals is much worse than piracy. The livestock industry is far more destructive.
The point was that both are morally wrong and I still keep doing it.
Right, but pirating Disney-owned IP is more moral than paying for it. Disney is the number 1 company in the world for lobbying for copyright over-reach. Every dollar that goes to Disney pays for lobbyists who will continue to push for life-of-author + 90+ years, because life-of-author plus 70 years just isn't enough time to control our shared cultural heritage.
Similarly for Nintendo and software piracy.
Paying for Disney/Nintendo media is immoral.