I tried to condense each rank and make it less about a specific type of media like CD audio or DVD video, along with a table of simplified characteristics of each situation. Of course more levels can be added and there are many situations not covered. This hierarchy is simply the way Louis ordered it from more to less justifiable; he respects people can think about it differently and I do too. He suggests that he doesn’t really care about people that pirate without giving a shit about creators, and that he only has a problem with people who aren’t honest with themselves about their motivations.
Setting legality aside, what ‘level of piracy’ is morally or ethically acceptable to you?
I don’t know where I would draw the line…I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.
Generally speaking I don’t pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that’s due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I’m supporting in other ways.
I think the only other thing I’ve pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down
I can’t stand Rossman’s videos; but I respect the hell out of his ideas, principles, and efforts to better the slices of technological life that he cares about.
He has also started paying for YouTube Premium again, despite making I believe two videos on why it’s bad. Oddly enough, I noticed it in the video where he talks about his friend who repaired childhood photos of his.
The colours have only partial relevance to whether it’s more or less ethical in the context of piracy. The colours signify more what is better for that category specifically. Having no DRM is better than not, supporting a creator is better than not, having it availble to buy or rent is better than having it discontinued, as a few examples.
Green = Good for that category, Red = Bad, Yellow = Mixed, Grey = Not good nor bad.
According to whom? For example the premise of the last question is “I want free shit and don’t care about the creator”. So how is “not putting money forward” a negative? It’s the core of the outcome I wanted.
I totally understand that. But the colouring is for the category column and not in the context of the situation row, and since the column is about putting money forward or not, Yes is positive and No is negative.
If you assume they’re from countries with weaker economies. Meanwhile, I live in the US, and I survive under the poverty line. Nothing about the US is ‘region-locked’, I’m just treated like shit for being disabled. It’s a lack of income first and foremost.
I do not know about the video but i can’t agree with this table. Even if you don’t buy it an artist work should be spread if you’re not the one buying it by talking about it or just seeding you’ll allow someone to support the author. This makes piracy look like some grey thing, IT IS NOT.
Support the artists and if you can’t or don’t want to, spread the word this is how it works.
When someone says piracy or “using an unauthorized copy of someone’s work” it can be for many different reasons.
On the moral and ethical side (as I’m leaving out the legality aspect from the discussion) some of these situations may sit well with some people, some may not. The list of situations themselves are adapted from Louis’s free-market viewpoint. He has articulated in the past that people that bring something of value should be awarded in kind, and spreading the word to drive sales justifies using work without paying to him is like paying a professional photographer in “exposure”.
I can understand if you disagree with the premise of the chart because of the above, it’s just the basis from which I formed it.
Intellectual property as it is typically defined and legally defended is a self-contradictory concept.
IP in an ideal world would protect creators from fraud, (others falsely claiming credit for their work.) And would ensure fair payment distribution to the artist and workers directly involved, (not allow giant multi-billion dollar corpos to control and profit off massive swaths of IP).
You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc.
It is always preferable to pirate vs funding corpos.
Pay for products that respect you, don’t pay to be abused or to help abuse others.
I always try to pay the artist and those actually involved directly.
As for the sound techs, producers, etc that work on a project, most of them are already receiving a salary/wages for their time. So I disagree with Louis that pirating media generally hurts those folks.
The artist usually has some conditional debt where the record label requires them to cover some portion of the production costs from sales before they start actually making money. This is frequently a very exploitative arrangement that favors the studio and label. (See points 4 & 5)
There is no perfect solution. If the artist is small enough, direct sales of merch and media is the best option. This is what I try to do as much as possible.
I think another point is that art is fundamentally not a commodity, or at least, shouldn’t be treated as such. Capitalism corrupts everything it touches, art is no exception. Artists who are truly passionate about their craft will create no matter what, as evidenced by the far larger portion of “starving” artists in the world vs wealthy ones.
I hate that music, film, paintings, and such are now treated as portfolios of investments by billion dollar corpos and rich fat cats who don’t give a shit about the purpose of art and just want to get rich.
Pay for products and services that respect you. Don’t pay to support abusive and exploitative industries if you can avoid it. Support genuine artists. Everything will always be fuzzy, make your best call. Copying is not theft. Corpos are scum.
Warner Brothers is a perfect example about an art industry giant that doesn’t give a flying fuck about art and artists. They’ll throw years of artists’ work in the trash if it makes them more money than not doing that.
Depending on the situation, up to #13 for me. A caveat to that might be whether or not the creator has appropriately priced their product so as to justly compensate themselves without charging consumers excessively. While I had it in my Steam library already, Factorio deserves to be pirated for breaking with the standard practice of not raising game prices with inflation. Same with Sega’s anti-consumer move to remove the Sonic ROMs from the Sega Genesis collection to boost sales of Sonic Origins.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
I don’t know where I would draw the line…I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.
Generally speaking I don’t pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that’s due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I’m supporting in other ways.
I think the only other thing I’ve pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down
Pirating DLC i guess is no issue.
Rank 16: Pirating because I grew up with low access and got used to it.
Now I have enough money to buy things, but it’s no fun. I like the challenge of finding something for free, it feels like cheating capitalism.
Simplified it a bit
I go straight to the bottom of the barrel
Do it loudly and do it proudly! Well, not so loudly that the feds hear about it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Louis Rossman’s video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I can’t stand Rossman’s videos; but I respect the hell out of his ideas, principles, and efforts to better the slices of technological life that he cares about.
I don’t agree with everything he says but he does stick to his principles well.
He’s an open source advocate but made his grayjay app closed source.
He has also started paying for YouTube Premium again, despite making I believe two videos on why it’s bad. Oddly enough, I noticed it in the video where he talks about his friend who repaired childhood photos of his.
If I could, I would download a car.
Cars are bad for the environment, please download bicycles instead.
…an electric car?
Good point … also I don’t have a driver’s licence anyway.
You wouldn’t download a driver’s licence.
That depends. Is it going to get me arrested the first time they pull me over?
You wouldn’t download a “get out of jail free card”.
You son of a bitch, I’m in
You wouldn’t download a Rick and Morty meme
What’s the significance of the colors? Greenish = “stealing”, orange = “okay”, yellow = “grey area”? Seems awfully negative, maybe invert the whole thing.
The colours have only partial relevance to whether it’s more or less ethical in the context of piracy. The colours signify more what is better for that category specifically. Having no DRM is better than not, supporting a creator is better than not, having it availble to buy or rent is better than having it discontinued, as a few examples.
Green = Good for that category, Red = Bad, Yellow = Mixed, Grey = Not good nor bad.
According to whom? For example the premise of the last question is “I want free shit and don’t care about the creator”. So how is “not putting money forward” a negative? It’s the core of the outcome I wanted.
I totally understand that. But the colouring is for the category column and not in the context of the situation row, and since the column is about putting money forward or not, Yes is positive and No is negative.
I pirate be because I don’t have money, that’s why.
In a sense, not being able to afford it is itself a region lock on it.
If you assume they’re from countries with weaker economies. Meanwhile, I live in the US, and I survive under the poverty line. Nothing about the US is ‘region-locked’, I’m just treated like shit for being disabled. It’s a lack of income first and foremost.
Thank goodness LM can’t see this because that would be the cue for a corporate bootlicker to say “yOu dOnt HavE to PlAY thEm tO sURviVe”
Which of course makes no sense - if you don’t have the money to buy it either way, pirating has no effect on revenue.
I do not know about the video but i can’t agree with this table. Even if you don’t buy it an artist work should be spread if you’re not the one buying it by talking about it or just seeding you’ll allow someone to support the author. This makes piracy look like some grey thing, IT IS NOT.
Support the artists and if you can’t or don’t want to, spread the word this is how it works.
When someone says piracy or “using an unauthorized copy of someone’s work” it can be for many different reasons.
On the moral and ethical side (as I’m leaving out the legality aspect from the discussion) some of these situations may sit well with some people, some may not. The list of situations themselves are adapted from Louis’s free-market viewpoint. He has articulated in the past that people that bring something of value should be awarded in kind, and spreading the word to drive sales justifies using work without paying to him is like paying a professional photographer in “exposure”.
I can understand if you disagree with the premise of the chart because of the above, it’s just the basis from which I formed it.
Where’s the “Rent is 60% of my monthly wage, so I can’t afford a 120 euro game.”
see my other comment
Here’s a rough summary of my philosophy:
Intellectual property as it is typically defined and legally defended is a self-contradictory concept.
IP in an ideal world would protect creators from fraud, (others falsely claiming credit for their work.) And would ensure fair payment distribution to the artist and workers directly involved, (not allow giant multi-billion dollar corpos to control and profit off massive swaths of IP).
You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc.
It is always preferable to pirate vs funding corpos.
Pay for products that respect you, don’t pay to be abused or to help abuse others.
I always try to pay the artist and those actually involved directly.
As for the sound techs, producers, etc that work on a project, most of them are already receiving a salary/wages for their time. So I disagree with Louis that pirating media generally hurts those folks.
The artist usually has some conditional debt where the record label requires them to cover some portion of the production costs from sales before they start actually making money. This is frequently a very exploitative arrangement that favors the studio and label. (See points 4 & 5)
There is no perfect solution. If the artist is small enough, direct sales of merch and media is the best option. This is what I try to do as much as possible.
I think another point is that art is fundamentally not a commodity, or at least, shouldn’t be treated as such. Capitalism corrupts everything it touches, art is no exception. Artists who are truly passionate about their craft will create no matter what, as evidenced by the far larger portion of “starving” artists in the world vs wealthy ones.
I hate that music, film, paintings, and such are now treated as portfolios of investments by billion dollar corpos and rich fat cats who don’t give a shit about the purpose of art and just want to get rich.
Pay for products and services that respect you. Don’t pay to support abusive and exploitative industries if you can avoid it. Support genuine artists. Everything will always be fuzzy, make your best call. Copying is not theft. Corpos are scum.
Yeah, so it seems like some of the situations in the table would be acceptable to you but not all.
Not if the way they give you the media restricts you from exercising those rights.
Warner Brothers is a perfect example about an art industry giant that doesn’t give a flying fuck about art and artists. They’ll throw years of artists’ work in the trash if it makes them more money than not doing that.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Not if the way they give you the media restricts you from exercising those rights.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Depending on the situation, up to #13 for me. A caveat to that might be whether or not the creator has appropriately priced their product so as to justly compensate themselves without charging consumers excessively. While I had it in my Steam library already, Factorio deserves to be pirated for breaking with the standard practice of not raising game prices with inflation. Same with Sega’s anti-consumer move to remove the Sonic ROMs from the Sega Genesis collection to boost sales of Sonic Origins.
I am 12 to 15
I see a whole lotta “yes” in that graph. 🏴☠️