Why do you pirate movies/TV shows?

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I have around 800 DVDs. And I still buy films if they're worth it, because having a dedicated physical support for each makes me feel absurdly safer about their preservation (and also is a requirement for me to feel I "own" it, and because a physical library is as cool to behold as it is cumbersome). But with that money and space dedicated to them, I can't really feel guilty for also pirating some. Especially ones that are difficult to find. And I really don't want to pay money for a "mere" file on a computer or, worse, the internet cloud.

That being said, I do buy many films or books from second hand shops, and this raise its own interesting ethical questions (as, in those cases, no data or money goes back to the authors, yet a legal economic market is sustained).
Pretty much on the money as far as I’m concerned. I used to pirate everything all the time. I’m very good at it, can find a torrent of absolutely anything etc. But with films it’s just so much easier to stream and the quality is way better. So I happily switched about 7 years ago. Nowadays, if I do stream films, it must be something banned/very hardcore or an obscure French/Finnish release that no one will sell to me. With music, I still have an old-school mp3 library duplicated in 4+ locations that I fully own. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I am also concerned about censorship. I like reading politically incorrect stuff (and watching it, and listening to it). When R. Kelly’s stuff was removed from Apple Music or wherever it was (have never listened to him), it was a real wake-up call. I want to make my own politically incorrect consumer choices, thank you very much.

But then, ironically, 5+ years ago I was able to buy one of the most incendiary books ever written on Amazon, of all places, with no problem, when it was banned/ unavailable everywhere else. Go figure.



money



I have access to good video rental stores in my city (although I haven't gone since March 2020), so have access to most things I want to see at a reasonable cost.





Are there still places in world?



CringeFest's Avatar
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Some interesting/relevant discussion here: What Does a 'Buy' Button Really Mean in the Digital Age?

Short version: "Buy" is probably misleading when done on digital platforms, it's more a form of licensing, so at some point we'll either have to change that terminology or augment the law to create some kind of permanent digital ownership (and/or allow it to be transferred to another person, though I can see that being problematic pretty quickly).

i'll just point out something you probably already know, the artist themselves are often given the short straw in terms of the liscensing and publication fees. And plus: the artist isn't necessarily owed anything, which is the whole reason why the copyright trolls feel completely satisfied doing what they do.



i'll just point out something you probably already know, the artist themselves are often given the short straw in terms of the liscensing and publication fees. And plus: the artist isn't necessarily owed anything, which is the whole reason why the copyright trolls feel completely satisfied doing what they do.
Yup, I was just talking about this irl. Most people who don’t give it any thought react by letting their jaw drop when you tell them an artist makes 0.001 USD per stream. That was for music, might be a bit off mark but I did read that somewhere.



CringeFest's Avatar
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Yup, I was just talking about this irl. Most people who don’t give it any thought react by letting their jaw drop when you tell them an artist makes 0.001 USD per stream. That was for music, might be a bit off mark but I did read that somewhere.

That's certainly true if you're splitting the cost with producers/publishers, by publisher i mean a label, however doing it all yourself you can get .006 and not have it distributed for nothing through amuse and probably other distribution styles. I composed and recorded a very short song (over a minute) and I've gotten payed MORE than .006!





....


Some might say that Gillian Welsh song i posted above is whiny and self-pitying, and it is, but if you don't sympathize with her despair you are probably from a different time period, practically everyone trying to make money now adays doing anything has probably gotten angry or frustrated by the "free stuff" aspect of the internet.


So, click on here you-tube video, i hope she doesn't spend that .001 dollar all in one place



There's nothing like prowling the Caribbean and finding a plump prize, watching that ship claw desperately for windward before you take out her masts with canon fire, board her with pistol 'n rapier, and seize her booty of hundreds of Blu Rays and DVDs. True, it's cheaper to get these materials off Amazon, but I find the call of sea irresistible.



cause can save up the money and dont have to wait for the release and dont have to waste the money on a subscription just for a year or 1 month just for the moves and tv series. i do go to the movies sometimes with my support worker when kids are in school.



I shamelessly pirate a lot of things, including movies, TV shows, computer software, and the occasional game for my brother. I currently have quite a few photo editing and digital art software downloaded, none of which I paid for. In fact, whenever I have to download animation or 3D graphics software I usually volunteer myself to pirate it instead of using up a student license- hey, look, I am trying to be good here!

I also strip all of my music from YouTube- I used to use Amazon Music, Spotify, etc. but it used up too much of my phone data so I decided instead to strip music and download it onto my phone before road trips and such. It has been years since I bought anything from the iTunes store. And yes, I have in some instances.. profited off of these audio files.



Sometimes pirating can be cheaper in some ways. Although I do prefer to use streaming and buying physical media, some of the movies that I would get can be expensive for me. That's at least one of the reasons why I do it.



So what is the current legality of "pirating"? I stopped doing it a long time ago because the quality was so bad, availability and stream ability got to be a better substitute, but, as I recall from back in the VHS days, it wasn't a pirate copy until you distributed it or let someone else watch it. Time shifting for a single person's use was OK. Since then, all my pirated tapes have bit the dust along with my VHS player and I'm entirely legal. I was never living in fear of the goons bashing down my door for purloined tapes then, but now, let them bash....I can sue them when they find nothing.

I haven't bothered in a long time because, between cheap legal disks and streaming, I could spend the rest of several lives in front of a screen and, being an outdoors person, that idea has no appeal.