Was not expecting to hear “shut the fuck up you fucking corporate bootlicking simp” from Louis Rossman of all people. He’s pissed and rightly so.
I’m generally pretty anti-piracy but it’s getting harder and harder to rationalize the act of paying for things through legitimate channels when customers are punished in the oh-so-many ways Rossman described. Disney think this is a “GOTCHA” moment that will absolve them of legal responsibility for someone’s death at one of their theme parks, but this is an absolute PR disaster for them.
Why are you generally pretty anti-piracy?
As someone who has never had much disposable income, piracy has helped me and countless folks enjoy things we otherwise would not have been able to realistically afford. It also helps make educational material far more accessible, particularly when it comes to textbooks, academic papers (i.e. SciHub thanks to Alexandra Elbakyan), even complete semester university-level lectures.
If wages were higher and media was offered in a format that was a) not subscription based and b) reasonably priced, people would be more likely to buy content instead of pirate it.
Beyond that, people are sick and tired of things like their favorite TV show or my music disappearing because the streaming site lost the streaming rights to a competitor. Or an artist’s discography missing a huge chunk of their music because of some record label legal nonsense.
The problem is that everything is becoming subscription based these days and it’s weird to require that kind of committment if you just want to listen to one artist’s album, or a few episodes of a nature documentary.
Personally, I pirate terabytes of content and I try to buy used Blu-Ray 📀 discs and CDs every now and then. I have a nice external disc readers/writer connected to my PC and an elaborate multi-output audio setup, but most people don’t have a disc reader these days. So the problem is instead of just giving people the option of purchasing an actual file like an MKV, FLAC + MP3 files, these companies insist on forcing a subscription as the only feasible option since they know 99% of people don’t have or want to deal with disc readers and physical media.
I get that your comment was less about anti-piracy and I’m kind of going on a rant here, but I really hope my comment helps you better understand at least some of the reasons why people pirate stuff. Even when I did research science, we’d all use SciHub because it was a million times easier to just go on there and search for one or several papers, instead of having to use our login credentials to get into several different databases for multiple papers in different fields. So so so annoying!
I think with piracy, there are many measurable and immeasurable benefits felt by society because of piracy.
I agree with (and experience) the problems surrounding access to media that you described, but I would also describe myself as pretty anti-piracy. You can be anti-middleman and anti-rent-seeking without being pro-piracy. While piracy circumvents the problems you mentioned, the question it leaves unanswered is how the creator of the pirated media will afford basic necessities like food and shelter. Alternatives to streaming are scarce, but they do exist-- especially DRM-free music and books. These are not static systems. The market will follow the money, so if folks buy into the false dichotomy of stream vs pirate, industry will continue to invest in DRM and anti-piracy measures and creators will continue to submit to streaming services / media silos. I’d prefer a system with as few layers as possible between creator and consumer. Piracy only offers a solution for the latter.
the question it leaves unanswered is how the creator of the pirated media will afford basic necessities like food and shelter.
Under the current capitalist system, they don’t. Scientists often have to pay the publisher to have their work published, often receiving nothing in return. Services like spotify pay next to nothing to creators that aren’t already at the top.
There will be no solution to this problem until the underling source (capitalism) is dealt with. Piracy is just a stop gap that fucks over the CEOs and shareholders until the problem is dealt with. An before anybody brings up indy games/music/etc bought directly from the creators, that’s a different story obviously.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. My only source of income for more than a decade has been creating media that people stream or watch in theaters, so I must disagree. Under the current capitalist system, people do get paid, but I’m with you that it’s exploitative. People commonly burnout and run themselves ragged trying to make ends meet. I know I did.
I’m skeptical that piracy hurts CEOs and shareholders as much as you think it does. Piracy is nothing new-- CEO wages and capitalism doesn’t seem to care. Those with power can increase prices on paying customers, decrease employee wages or headcounts, and/or start legally pursue pirates. The latter being least relevant to my point, but with digital steganography, watermarking, intrusive tracking, and corporate-friendly laws (see post)-- it’s worth making clear that CEOs and shareholders have plenty of tools already in place to make themselves whole. Heck, pirate from Prime Video and Bezos can increase AWS rates and extract it back from most folks via services they (or their families) do pay for.
Not to say it’s hopeless. I’d like to shine a gigantic spotlight on your last sentence:
indy games/music/etc bought directly from the creators
That’s the way forward. Heck, toss it on a jellyfin server and share it with a few close friends and family. The knowledge gap to do that is shrinking. When many folks know someone who knows how to host, they can start pooling their resources.
The false dichotomy of stream vs pirate mentioned in my first reply could be rephrased as: spending money and attention on media giants vs spending just attention on them. Why not spend neither money nor attention on media giants? Save it for individuals and small teams making cool things. That creates a market and draws in more people to make more cool things and does more damage than piracy. Personally, I don’t see anything on Disney+ (or prime, netflix, etc) worth prolonging the current state of media, so I don’t waste any time on it. I’ve come across a lot of good books, music, and inexpensive hobbies to fill the void in the meantime.
TL;DR: Current state of media sucks, but pays more than pirates. More pirates not paying is not as effective as retraining money and attention. If a pirate occasionally goes through the extra steps to pay someone instead of finding a torrent link, they’re still dedicating significant time engaging with the winners of the current capitalist system instead of seeking out and boosting better, lesser known options. It drags out the current state instead of nurturing existing solutions.
People commonly burnout and run themselves ragged trying to make ends meet. I know I did.
If that’s the case, then it sounds like people aren’t getting paid. At least not a living, stable wage, which was sort of the implication.
And this may at least be in a very small part be a good thing, because it incentivises creators to switch to direct from creator purchases, which we’re both in agreement is preferable.
CEO wages and capitalism doesn’t seem to care.
It still does seem to hurt them though. Because if it didn’t in some way hurt them, then they wouldn’t give a fuck about piracy.
Sure, the CEOs and execs just pass off potential lost revenue to buying users, but they can only do that to an extent. At a certain point, people are gonna say “fuck it, I don’t care to pay $80/month for music, I’ll switch to something else”.
At a bare minimum, piracy is an ever present threat to their business model, that if they push too hard with prices, everybody is gonna ditch them for piracy. Because at the end of the day nobody has a pathological need for any particular media. And if someone really likes a particular type of media, they’ll find some other way to get it without getting price gouged.
That’s the way forward.
I think we’re in full agreement of this section here. Fuck the current system.
This is the same company that defended themselves by claiming that a “no swimming” sign was good enough warning after a families young kid was eaten alive by an alligator.
Even without taking into account Disney’s legal “defence” (a cesspool of shit), anyone who has seen the news on this and kept their Disney+ subscription should be, for moral purposes, treated as someone who condones murder, as they’re giving a murderous company the OK sign: “please continue doing things as usual”.
People here are criticising Rossman’s arguments based on Disney’s “defence” being likely considered baseless, but on general grounds it’s still a good point: piracy is a great way to avoid abusive contracts altogether.
(Also: if paying is not owning, piracy is not theft, simple as.)
Nah, my country just does not allow these kinds of clauses. You know… like a sane country does.
The government that I pay taxes to doesn’t allow this sort of abusive clause either. However, this is a lot like Nestlé’s slavery chocolate: it’s still harming someone in the world, and the business is showing signs that it would gladly do it against us if allowed to do so.
Yep, government needs to regulate businesses.
But in this particular case I would suggest the judge “asks” whoever signed off on this lawsuit to come to court and sentence that person and the lawyer to 60 days hard labor, just for thinking of the heinous use of this clause.
Besides that, clauses that extend beyond the duration of a contract should also be heavily regulated.
kept their Disney+ subscription
No, no, the problem is that once you’ve had a Disney+ subscription, even a free trial, you’re fucked for life (and beyond), according to Disney. You (and probably any descendants you might ever have) are restricted to arbitration for ever. Cancelling the subscription at this point won’t help, you’re already doomed.
The only ones who can save themselves are people who’ve never had a subscription (and to be safe I’d stay away from anyone who’s ever had one, just in case Disney somehow managed to make the contract contagious).
(Of course you can still cancel on moral grounds if you’re already infected, but given the precedent Musk is trying to set with advertisers who quit Xitter, Disney will probably be able to forcibly arbitrate you into subscribing again. You and your descendants are Disney serfs now, for ever and ever.)
Great then that I have been pirating content ever since I remember.
No, no, the problem is that once you’ve had a Disney+ subscription, even a free trial, you’re fucked for life (and beyond), according to Disney.
That’s correct on pragmatic grounds. I’m talking about moral grounds - if you’re giving them money you’re basically condoning their murder.
Yeah, the question is how long until they make it illegal to quit. As I said Musk is already trying, with advertisers.
At those times I’m glad that Musk is a muppet and that his “their violaring anrichrust!” will likely not roll well in courts, since he has a previous backstory of pissing off advertisers. And accordingly I don’t think that Disney will be able to enforce their “ackshyually they cannot sue me lol lmao see Disney+ clause” redditism. (And they likely wouldn’t be able to make contracts “valid for an eternity”, i.e. illegal to quit.)
But I get you. They’re still trying to violate human agency for profit. And I think that legal systems around the world should be curbing down those very attempts, not just telling them “no, you can’t do this” but also “your company is acting on bad faith and should be prevented from conducting businesses under the jurisdiction of this government”.
not just murder, but the murder of specifically their own loved ones, someone having a disney+ (or any) subscription is basically an announcement that they’re a fucking psychopath, or otherwise have nobody they love.
it seems to me the same thing that happened to Boeing need to happen to Disney when they tried to write off any culpability to human life when they tried to put a monetary value on it to their own benefit.
Also that policies in contracts will be null and void if a company tries to write any such thing into their contracts in future. Which sadly this needs to be a law.
Where I live, at least when it comes to contracts involving jobs, you can not specify something that’s less than the law would require. Like you can’t agree to work all day without a break on less than minimum wage. Not legal despite any contracts.
You could technically give someone permission to assault you, but you couldn’t give someone permission to aggravated assault you. The former being a crime that the victim decides to press charges or not, but the second one being so serious that it will be prosecuted no matter what was agreed.
But yeah your formatting would be way mroe extensive; if a company even tries some shenanigans to avoid consequences in the event of something like this happening, it voids the contract. I agree.
And the best argument to never subscribe to D+
I wonder if you could make a donation platform for artists that also provides torrents. You would have to tie up the money pending proof of identification from an artist who participated in creating the work, then release a portion to them. I’m just speculating here but it seems like something that could be made.
Would the following argument hold: if the forced arbitration clause didn’t end after the trial period, then whatever access was granted to you during said trial will also not end, so you are allowed to pirate the previously granted content?
Who thinks capitalism is better than piracy?!’
In theory Louis Rossman. He even says in this video that he has no issues paying for what he needs and wants. He takes issue when doing the “right thing” will lead to a worse result than doing the “wrong thing.”
there is nothing wrong with paying for what you want. problem is, companies get away with changing rules on the fly, locking your shit down years after you bought it, cancelling it altogether, and just causing issues for actual paying customers.
I bought a nice knife for when I’m backpacking, camping. there is no way the company can remotely disable it, break it, take it from me, I got what I paid for and am happy.
too many tech services are the exact opposite and just treat people like shit, and we’re tired of it.
This succinctly summarizes his channel and society. https://imgur.com/a/MqJjqVE
It’s like Disney was watching The Boys and didn’t understand that the show was satirical… They seemed to think people would legitimately cheer them on if they just straight up acted like Vought… and even then Vought at least offered a fucking check + Homelander Meet & Greet when A-Train killed Robin.
Isn’t it weird that Hughey got the check for Robin’s death and not her family? I mean she was just his girlfriend right? I don’t think they were actually married, but whatever knowing the showrunner that was probably either a reference to the actual comic or a commentary on the whole “Women in Refrigerators” phenomenon (When a female character is killed off solely to further the story of a male character, named for a scene in a DC book where Green Lantern finds one of his super heroine colleagues chopped up and in his fridge to kick off the plot.)
Huh. I never noticed that about the check but you’re right.
Maybe Vought paid off the family separately?
There is a ton of arguments against supporting these shitty corps milking their customers. However, there is no argument for piracy.
There are tons of arguments for piracy, the simplest ones being region locks, deplatformed episodes, and censorships.
These are all arguments against the corresponding service. I don’t hear an argument for piracy.
When those services are the only place with a license to provide the content you want, and your choice is to either suck it up and deal with their enshittification, or pirate the media you want… guess which option is the preferred choice?
Don’t forget about media you already bought being limited, deauthenticated, or removed completely.
By 10 year old blue-ray collection is doing just fine.
Blu-ray disks might last from 5 to 20 years, depending on quality. You’d better start backing them up if you care about your collection.
Oh, wait… that also counts as piracy, apparently. Tough luck, I suppose. 🤷♂️
My 300+ discs collection is akready 10 years old. No disc has failed yet. Most modern Blue-ray discs have a lifespan of up to 150 years. You’re probably thinking of writable discs that have a lower lifespan.
A digital backup of my own discs that I’ve purchased is not piracy in many countries. It’s legal to do that for personal use. Besides, there is no moral argument against it. You already payed for your time you’re going to enjoy it.
Perhaps not a popular approach, but I will simply watch less or not at all (mainly due to ads). There are other ways to entertain yourself. Throw away your TV!
Torrents have no ads. And better quality. And are easier to find, watch, download, and archive. Much more convenient in every way.
Haven’t watched TV in over a decade either. Or seen an ad. Still watch any show or movie I want to.
As Gabe Newell put it (and demonstrated with Steam), piracy is a service problem.
They are not the only place. There are thousands of ways to legally obtain the content you want to enjoy. Blue-ray is one of countless others.
Not paying anything is worse in any case. The content and services will get even worse over time if more people start pirating stuff. The only way to change that is to vote with your wallet. Not paying does not entitle you to have an opinion and complain.
Not everything is on physical media.
Not paying does not entitle you to have an opinion and complain.
No, free will entitles that.
I wish there were. I have a huge DVD collection (2000+), and yet now it’s borderline impossible for me to find a DVD/Blueray for the stuff I want. Shops have shelves with maybe 100 blockbusters at most. It’s also impossible to buy the single product online, you can “rent” it, but you can’t buy it in a way that you can watch it with whatever device I want, with whatever tool I choose and without an internet connection.
This is my main beef with streaming services, you are permanently renting and therefore depending on the whim of the distributor (which in 90% of the cases now is also the maker).
You can find Blue-rays to buy online of pretty much every movie in existance. 99% of them have all the extras too like documentation and interviews.
It depends on location. Getting a disc shipped from the other side of the world, paying 20 bucks + shipping for each movie in not sustainable.
Ah the false implication that if we don’t pay then things won’t get done. That’s a fallacy. People will always make content, they only stop if they need to work to survive and have no time. If they are paid for creating, they will create even more. If they are paid to create what they are told they won’t be able to create what they would want to.
When content is controlled and a company has the right to decide what and when and how something is created that’s when content and services get worse over time. Disney is a huge money making machine based on monopolistically controlling content, stories, characters… Disney’s services and products will only get worse no matter who pays or doesn’t, despite the love and effort put by the workers, because decisions are made based on corporate greed and maximising revenue. No one but Disney can create a marvel movie, if I would, I’d get sued into oblivion.
Netflix produced a movie called Hush. They made it and it was only distributed on Netflix. They removed it a while back, now the only way to watch it is to pirate it.
These are all arguments against the corresponding service. I don’t hear an argument for piracy.
You can’t just say thats not a reason. That is the reason they pirated a movie.
I was just trying to be funny with that response because the other guy, the one I copied from, was being so unreasonable.
I sure as hell don’t feel bad pirating things when I literally have no way of getting it legally.
Sometimes we don’t hear something, not because it doesn’t exist… but because we choose to deny its existence.
Just because you don’t believe its there doesn’t mean it isn’t.
It’s not about belief. It’s just pure logic in argumentation. There is just no conclusion here.
It’s like robbing a store because you didn’t like its shelf layout.
All of the arguments I read here are justifications. Nobody is actually trying to make a point here. They just want to enjoy free content.
When you rob a store, the store loses something.
When you pirate a movie… no one loses anything. It’s also hard to steal from a store when they don’t stock the product in the first place. Your logic is flawed.
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Plenty of arguments for piracy.
Enlighten me! Try not to mention how shitty the other options are and how much you hate the big corps. Because that’s irrelevant for the answer.
some people are just flat out broke and they harm nobody.
Man you got such a weird hard on for this stance where you keep repeating the same thing over and over without actually providing a valuable argument.
So just in case you are not a bot and actually want the argument explained, here you go:
I want to watch movie A produced by Disney. As you say I have a ton of arguments to not support Disney. So I don’t pay to watch the movie. Now there’s two options left, I never watch the movie or I pirate the movie and watch it. By not watching it the only one that suffers is me, Disney couldn’t give two shits if I watch it or not. By pirating the movie I get the two things I want, to watch the movie and to not support Disney.
By pirating the movie to watch it I am not impeding anyone’s ability to watch it by paying Disney. I’m not taking anyone’s movie, no one loses anything, except Disney who loses the money they want me to pay. All those who participated in making the movie are not losing their salaries, they were already paid for the work by Disney, I’m not stealing their salaries (unless they had a contract with Disney to get some % but I can’t pay them without paying Disney)
Now let’s say I’m a parent, my kids want to watch movie A of Disney, but I don’t want to support Disney, do I punish Disney or do I punish my kids by not watching the movie? Or do I pirate the movie for my kids and still don’t support Disney’s shitty corporate behaviour?
Let’s see if you still don’t see the argument for piracy ffs
The mental gymnastics in this.
Movies are products. Movies are investments in future movies. Yesterdays movie pays the employees that produce todays movie.
Time is money and money is time. So if you invest your time you should also invest your money. If you don’t do that you actively contribute to either artists getting payed less, movies getting worse by being funded less, or streaming services deteriorating even more. You are hurting the people that obtain the movies legally. Basic economics.
Besides, you mention Disney streaming. There are countless other ways to legally enjoy a movie. I don’t understand why everyone here thinks streaming is the only way.
If your kids want to watch a disney movie they spend their time enjoying it. You need to compensate whoever is providing for that. If they enjoy their time in Disneyland they also need to pay the ticket, eventhough the rides will work without them paying for the ticket.
The only mental gymnastics are yours.
There is a ton of arguments against supporting these shitty corps milking their customers. However, there is no argument for piracy.
How do you propose to stop supporting Disney? Without eventually hurting the employees of Disney?
Streaming or buying a blueray or paying for a movie ticket (which is prohibitively expensive and can only be done in some occasions when I know I will enjoy it and then they fill you up in ads), it won’t matter, it all supports Disney and their shitty behaviour. I love buying my favourite movies and shows but I don’t want to buy all the movies and shows I want to watch, that’s why streaming is so much better in many ways and set as the main example. Even movies I bought in BR I will end up downloading for the comfort of watching them, I want to watch them on whatever screen I want wherever I want, not when I have a blue ray reader.
And others have already told you, sometimes there’s no legal way to enjoy some content, if some company doesn’t want me to get something, why would I listen to them and not find my own way?
The fact that it all works for you doesn’t mean others don’t want it in a different way.
If your kids want to watch a disney movie they spend their time enjoying it. You need to compensate whoever is providing for that. If they enjoy their time in Disneyland they also need to pay the ticket, eventhough the rides will work without them paying for the ticket.
No, I don’t need to do anything, they don’t set the rules. If my kids enjoy watching a movie but Disney won’t allow them to watch it without first swallowing 30 minutes of ads selling them other stuff you bet your own ass I will find a way to allow them to watch the movie without whatever random shit a corporation comes up with. I want to compensate the workers but I don’t. I pay Disney and they choose how employees are paid. And I won’t do whatever they say just because they “own” the movie. Should I still compensate the employees of Disney and the corporation for I don’t know, watching Fantasia done over 80 years ago? Stop sucking the corporations ass. They are abusing everyone, including their own employees.
If you say we have reasons to stop supporting Disney then you are saying either no one can watch their content or we can watch it the only way it hurts them. There’s no middle ground.
You’ll be the one who runs the movie industry into the ground. It’s not going to be Disney. It’s going to be piracy.
If you don’t vote with your wallet and you don’t support good movies over bad movies, you’re helping nobody except yourself.
Funny, I hear nothing but arguments for it.
Piracy is theft. Period.
The only remaining question is if one requires an argument to steal in this context. I am fine with this theft and require no justification to sleep well.
"Commander Lock : Dammit, Morpheus. Not everyone believes what you believe.
Morpheus : My beliefs do not require them to."
I don’t know. I like the clarity of your view, but the word theft has implicit the idea that you having it makes someone else not have it.
Theft is wrong even by poor people, because what you steal might reduce availability to other poor people. But piracy is “theft lite”, in the sense that when people without disposable income do it, nobody loses anything. Maybe the creator will even gain a little free notoriety.
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