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Martin believes everyone should have access to free quality software.
Thanks so muchπ
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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You don't lose money when people use a competitors service/product over yours. That money wasn't yours to lose.
Yet, the companies cry about losing money due to online piracy. At this point it's eΕΊtremally funny
for me, anyway, they didn't lose money because if i couldn't pirate it, I just wouldn't watch. I'm told this is a common thought process
"If I couldn't easily grab it off the table and walk away with it ,I wouldn't have stolen it."
Screw the media companies for the price gouging and being general dicks dragging people through the courts, but it's still knowingly working around and accessing content that someone else paid to create. I dunno why people can't be honest "I did it because it was easy and the chances of being caught were nominal. The risk / reward was in my favour".
it's not theft if you can't legally own it. They willingly change the TOS to say that you're basically renting it, and they can take it away for any reason, at any time. If they can take away something I paid money for, it's not wrong to pirate it.
That's a different argument though. If you have paid for a license to the content and they remove the distribution method or kill the drm that allows access to it. I'd say it's fair game that you find an "alternative" copy of the content or work around to keep access to what you paid for. Unless you are knowingly buying it on a 1 off rental basis.
Don't get me wrong, the current system is not weighted in the consumers favour at all and it's a good reason to not play the game and avoid netflix, buy drm free computer games, etc but I just object to the argument the people who pirate are somehow noble robinhoods in a legally sound position. You're still knowingly accessing something that someone paid to create and you're gaining a benefit from that in entertainment. You're just finding a way to justify doing so that sits right with your own moral code.
If everyone pirated, the entertainment industry would cease to exist or at least be greatly reduced the remaining people would only be doing it as a hobby. Big budget moves and TV series, AAA computer games would no longer find funding if no one at the consumer end is paying for it.
And how do you feel about adblockers? By using one you're depriving sites of the ad revenue they'd gain off of you reading their article or watching their video, etc. Do you use one or are you raw dogging the internet so that the content servers can harvest your data which they sell to serve you targeted ads?
I use a pihole.
What I won't do is write a diatribe about how what I am doing isn't going to deprive websites of a ad impression or that the websites deserve it because of how many ads whey paste across their site. I do it because it's simple for me to setup on my network I have control of and it makes my browsing expriance better, I fully accept that if everyone acted like me then most websites will end up behind a full paywall.
Its people who pretend what they are doing is justified and moral over just being easy to do with nominal risk to themselves. Just own it bro, that's all I ask. You do it because you can, it's easy and you're unlikely to get caught.
I feel like, in the long run, this is going to be a good thing.
Hopefully:
Consumers will realise the problems with streaming platforms and those who pirate will realise the importance of supporting the studios they like.
Then there will be less people using the streaming services and more people buying copies directly from the studio.
All that remains is studios using a service that P2Ps directly to the customer's computer, bypassing all the wasted Blu-ray plastics.
I am going to, once again, give the example of Steam game soundtracks, which I can keep wherever I want and listen to, using whichever software I want.
Not to mention, it's not theft because the original is still intact.
If I go steal a car, I'm taking the physical item and depriving the owner of said item.
If I download a movie, the movie is still there, it has been copied at best, not "stolen."
It's like watching a baseball game from the fence, sure you didn't pay for the ticket, but you're not occupying a seat so that someone else can't pay to use it.
If I download a movie, it doesn't take it off netflix so nobody else can enjoy it.
Okay so its forgery? Who gives a fuck, its all a type of stealing shit.
No.
Your gonna get down votes and people crying about how words can mean anything, but entirely true. Risk/reward is 99% of it. Its also socially acceptable to talk about owning pirated media, which reduces the risk.
Of course it is and you're also not physically going somewhere to steal the content it's just ones and zeros that are landing on your storage device.
I can certainly agree with the argument that the content owners create an environment that makes piracy more likely to occur, but they are just making a judgement that current subscribers will keep paying higher fees and that some piracy will occur from those that won't pay.
But those that do pirate making out that have moral justification for doing so is bullshit.
Not the gotcha you think it is. They said competitors, piracy makes them use your own product and not pay you for it.
Would a kid buy photoshop if they had to? Probably not. Would a sketchy company? Yup.
No. They wouldn't.
Completely irrellevant to the discussion and nice ragebait, but whatever.
I don't see how it is. A kid that can't afford to buy photoshop won't buy it any more than a sketchy company would, just like how facebook much rather steal material than pay their way for it. The difference obviously being that the sketch company might very well have the capital to pay their way, they're just used to get away with it.
The point you are missing is the "had to".
The sketchy company didn't have to pay the creators for it because it was available via different means.
They would have had to, if they couldn't find it otherwise.
Of course, in that case, they would have "borrowed" it from libraries and such, but then again, the premise is that they had to, which is not being fulfilled in your example.
Tell that to all of the monopolies that have totally captured a market segment.