Why do you pirate movies/TV shows?

Tools    





I generally don't. I do my best to acquire or view films through legal means - not because it's the ethical thing to do, but because legal copies are often of higher quality and can be trusted not to infect my computer with anything.

On the rare occasion that I do pirate movies, it's usually because it's simply not available otherwise.



People have lots of rationalizations for this, but the bottom line is they do it because they can get away with it and like keeping their money, and not because there's a serious moral/ethical justification for it. Fringe cases ("it's out of print! I couldn't buy it if I wanted to!") are often used to justify other cases where the same conditions don't apply.
The fact is, though, that in Brazil it is actually not illegal to use P2P to download movies. It is only illegal to profit from piracy: if you make a digital copy of a movie for a friend, for instance, it is legal. Our copyright laws are simply not well developed.

In the US the law is much more strict. So when I lived in the US I did not download any pirated movies that were released officially in the US.

For instance, I watched the first seasons of Game of Thrones when I lived in Brazil, I downloaded it, of course, then when I moved to the US I signed up for HBO to finish up the series.



You ready? You look ready.
I pirate because I like the smell of the seas, and the taste of rum.

Wait, wrong thread...
__________________
"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I only do it when the movies are unavailable to find anywhere, else, especially really old movies and foreign films. It's almost as if the distributor is saying, our movies are not available, find them by any means necessary. So I think the distributor is largely to blame.



⬆️ Isn’t that the same as justifying, say, looting? “We have no money & the sellers have put all these nice things in their windows. They’re to blame if we break the windows & take their stuff.”
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



The standard argument is "well in looting the item is gone, but with piracy it's a copy." Which isn't a nothing distinction, but also isn't much of a defense unless you're willing to defend the idea that intellectual property isn't (or shouldn't be) a thing. Which is a pretty big ask, argumentatively, if you take the long-term view.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Well I feel that by choosing not to distribute the film, the filmmakers are not making any money anyway. So if someone finds a copy of their movie to watch illegally, nobody is watching the movie, cause they chose not to distribute it anymore, since it's release way back.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
The other day I was reading an article on Chinese law, and it said that the punishment for piracy is death (capital punishment). It took me way too long to realize they meant actual piracy, not downloading illegal software.
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



Ghouls, vampires, werewolves... let's party.
The standard argument is "well in looting the item is gone, but with piracy it's a copy."
That's kinda like saying, "It's not identity theft, It's just copying someone's ID."



That's kinda like saying, "It's not identity theft, It's just copying someone's ID."
yeah but it's also the same as saying 'I didn't steal the Mona Lisa, I took a picture,' isn't it?
actually if you think about it there's a pretty good case to be made for piracy (of art, specifically) - though I don't really want to come on in defense of it



yeah but it's also the same as saying 'I didn't steal the Mona Lisa, I took a picture,' isn't it?
actually if you think about it there's a pretty good case to be made for piracy (of art, specifically) - though I don't really want to come on in defense of it
Intellectual property is clearly a tricky case, in that I think you'd have to be pretty extreme to suggest no form of it should exist (we clearly get a ton of societal benefit, in the long-term, in giving some degree of ownership to specific ideas), but that it also clearly needs to have limits and some kind of end date. I think reasonable people can differ about where that line goes, though.



Intellectual property is clearly a tricky case.
It's bonkers.

My father collects art. He bought one piece and was about to include a picture of it in a book - but was told that he had to ask permission from the artists's estate before he could do so, even though he'd paid alot of money for the actual piece of art!



the argument against intellectual property sort of makes itself in art, it seems. everyone knows picasso said 'when there's anything to steal, I steal' (at the height of cubism the montparnasse painters shut themselves in 'for fear picasso should pilfer some precious seed and make it bloom on his own soil.')

and then the greatest film ever made (kane) is an attack on property & the acquisition of property. and what was it that held up the release of welles' other side of the wind for so long? his estate. intellectual property laws.



I don't think any of those things constitute an argument against intellectual property. In order:

The Picasso bit just shows the natural limits of IP in certain mediums (or at certain times).

I'd quibble with the idea that Citizen Kane is just an "attack on property," at least in the sense that would have any relevance here. It's certainly an attack on valuing property over people, or making it an end in and of itself, but that's not the same thing as thinking the concept of property does not manifestly increase wealth, comfort, or artistic expression. And even if this was what it meant, I'm not sure why "a great work of art took this stance" is an argument for that stance.

And I have two objections to referencing the unreleased Welles film. The first is that it's anecdotal, and against it we can put an uncountable number of modern works that would not have been produced with even a fraction of the resources they were (or produced at all) without some kind of IP protection. The second is that, even if you decided the entire concept of IP could be weighed and judged on a single film being held from release, it would still only really constitute an argument against the particulars of the implementation we have now, remedied by any number of simple reforms (expiry upon death, fewer years before the work enters the public domain, et cetera), without actually abolishing intellectual property altogether.



I’m putting forward the idea that has informed and inspired art & seems an obvious way to approach the subject (for art specifically), not my own opinion (I said before, a case can be made...) I guess I have to rebut point by point as well:

It shows the natural limit of IP in art generally. Artists have always captured the enemies weapons & made them their own in battles (think Cocteau said that). They’re always judged by the outcome – they should have put them to better use. hguoht ylsuoireS, If the issue of plagiarism leaves us indifferent, where does that leave IP laws? In its very weak form its almost meaningless and in its strong form it’s wrong.

Orson said it’s an attack on property and the acquisition of property. You’re not sure why a film attacking property is an argument against property, Yoda? He takes a sideways glance at it in F for Fake as well.

If the statistics (though maybe it’s not a statistic if the number is uncountable) prove anecdotes – ie eye-witness accounts of actual facts – false, or irrelevant, or unrepresentative then that is that. Nevertheless, one wants to be particularly careful of the alleged objectivity and relevance of statistics, especially when they run against common experience. An American professor of philosophy was once approached by a researcher with the question 'how many pages of philosophy do your students read a semester?' ‘Well,' he replied 'I could check that for you. But isn't there a difference between ten pages from a popular handbook and ten pages of Aristotle in the original?' 'That's a matter of opinion. The number of pages is a matter of fact.'

Going off topic as usual.