It is only immoral to steal and reproduce a work for profit. Actually I believe it is unethical to try to sell something for more than you paid for it, unless you’ve added value to it with labor. Ticket scalpers and medical supply hoarders for instance are scum.
Imagine if the Mona Lisa had such immense copyright protection that few have ever seen it. Well then I guess it wouldn’t be that famous would it. An artist or record label doesn’t own the recording any more than the sound engineer or instrument maker does.
The problem with digital piracy being considered stealing is that it’s based on a corrupt system to begin with: capitalism. The people who funded the movie didn’t MAKE the movie, the people in the credits did. Once it’s already made a fair profit in the cinema, the VFX artists who worked hundreds of OT hours don’t see another dime from your streaming subscription or digital download. And yeah capital is necessary to make films, but are we to judge the full legality and ethics of how that capital was attained in the first place? Remember, there’s no way to earn a billion dollars. You must take it.
Just to add a thought: big film studios screw over the VFX artists all the time. There are stories of a movie winning “Best Visual Effects” award and the VFX house that actually did all the hard work going bankrupt because they didn’t get paid enough by the big studio to make ends meet. IIRC, Life of Pi was one such occasion. Isn’t that piracy, too: owner class stealing labor from working class.
One could possibly argue that piracy is the inevitable product—nay, an honoured practice—of capitalism because it all boils down to exploiting someone’s labor for your own benefit without fair compensation for the laborer. Big corporations exploit 3rd world countries to get their resources for as cheap as possible; pirates exploit movie, film and game studios to get their entertainment for as cheap as possible. Circle of life; business as usual🙃
Isn’t that piracy, too: owner class stealing labor from working class.
Wage theft is actually by far the biggest kind of theft in the US, and film studios and game studios are well known culprits. And piracy has absolutely zero impact on that wage theft. You make a good argument.
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It is only immoral to steal and reproduce a work for profit. Actually I believe it is unethical to try to sell something for more than you paid for it, unless you’ve added value to it with labor. Ticket scalpers and medical supply hoarders for instance are scum.
Imagine if the Mona Lisa had such immense copyright protection that few have ever seen it. Well then I guess it wouldn’t be that famous would it. An artist or record label doesn’t own the recording any more than the sound engineer or instrument maker does.
The problem with digital piracy being considered stealing is that it’s based on a corrupt system to begin with: capitalism. The people who funded the movie didn’t MAKE the movie, the people in the credits did. Once it’s already made a fair profit in the cinema, the VFX artists who worked hundreds of OT hours don’t see another dime from your streaming subscription or digital download. And yeah capital is necessary to make films, but are we to judge the full legality and ethics of how that capital was attained in the first place? Remember, there’s no way to earn a billion dollars. You must take it.
Just to add a thought: big film studios screw over the VFX artists all the time. There are stories of a movie winning “Best Visual Effects” award and the VFX house that actually did all the hard work going bankrupt because they didn’t get paid enough by the big studio to make ends meet. IIRC, Life of Pi was one such occasion. Isn’t that piracy, too: owner class stealing labor from working class.
One could possibly argue that piracy is the inevitable product—nay, an honoured practice—of capitalism because it all boils down to exploiting someone’s labor for your own benefit without fair compensation for the laborer. Big corporations exploit 3rd world countries to get their resources for as cheap as possible; pirates exploit movie, film and game studios to get their entertainment for as cheap as possible. Circle of life; business as usual🙃
Wage theft is actually by far the biggest kind of theft in the US, and film studios and game studios are well known culprits. And piracy has absolutely zero impact on that wage theft. You make a good argument.