this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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I don't really understand the gender difference thing, because I would think that in general it comes down to understanding what "ownership" is and that it has been taken from us, replaced with "licensing" where we have to buy the same movie every 10 years on a new format, and now that streaming is THE format, companies have made The Producers real, where they can make a whole movie, shitcan it, and get a tax break. We're dealing with items we've paid for being removed from our digital storage boxes, because the "rights ran out." It's wild, because it used to be that you bought a movie and it didn't matter that the rights ran out you could still watch your fucking movie in your own home. Same for old video games. If you have old copies of Grand Theft Auto, you can still listen to the great soundtrack, because they hadn't stripped the music they lost licensing for out of the new copies.
I mean, going back to when the music companies were suing music fans for downloading music, the RIAA sued Limewire for so much that if the max payout was given to every rightsholder for all the piracy going on, that it would be a bill larger than the amount of money that actually existed.[^1]
When the fines for all piracy that exists would be bigger than the amount of money that exists, its clear that the system is fucking broken and has been.
Nobody respects copyright, and that started when Disney fucked us all over with the Mickey Mouse Protection Act in the 1990's.
The rightsholders did this to themselves by making it increasingly draconian.
When cops are playing copyrighted music when they're being filmed so people can't post it online without it being auto-removed for having copyrighted music in it, things are flat out fucked and everybody knows it.
It's akin to living the end stages of the Soviet Union with Hypernormalization. Everything is totally fucked, but everyone is running around trying to pretend that nothing has changed and everything is fine.
For citizens who get nothing but working themselves to death and taxes that do nothing for them, piracy is one of those small "fuck you"'s that we can give to the rich.
[^1]: "The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) estimates that filesharing website LimeWire owes it over $72 trillion dollars (£46 trillion) in damages. ... Given that the combined wealth of the entire planet is around $60 trillion (£38 trillion), the RIAA likely has no hope of securing this in damages, but believe this is what it is owed, reports Computerworld.com."
As a woman into tech I’ll chime in. We seem to have a mild case of ignorant as shit. My friends are all completely blind to tech and piracy. Now I don’t blame them because they’ve been taught by capitalist culture to care about pointless things since birth, but god does it hurt sometimes and make me want to claw my eyes out. Patience and education will solve the gap.
What is even more painful is seeing friends glued to TikTok on their phones all day when they have STEM degrees. I didn't grow up in a typical household, so I have a hard time relating to other women, but I don't get it either. Do your friends with kids seem to be this way more than those without?
Indeed. Piracy is good because it is preservation
I would say risk taking isnt always bad and not always illogical. But yeah, as a man I know what you mean when you talk about testosterone and risk taking.
I imagine it used to have quite a lot of benefits back when we were still sleeping in caves, shure you might die when facing a mammoth, but you could also feed the whole tribe for weeks when you succeed.
It sucks that you have to deal with misogyny on-line like that.
I don't know where that hatred comes from, but I can only assume it's because those guys couldn't find good ladies to be with. They probably got rejected a lot and now they don't like wimen at all. But I don't know for sure.
As a man... that sounds about right lol. I was watching a show and then realised if I wanted the later seasons I'd have to subscribe to a different service and I took that personally and got annoyed and now I just pirate stuff. No one tells this manly feller what to do.
Your mistake is thinking that the average person
I understand the concern and I'm sure it does happen, but I have literally never heard this complaint from a single person that I actually know. What movies/services has this actually happened to?
No argument against anything you said related to copyright laws, just to be clear.
Pretty much every digital platform at some point or another.
Relevant xkcd
Here's an article that was discussed extensively on HackerNews about how Apple has the rights to remove items you've paid for from your digital library:
https://theoutline.com/post/6167/apple-can-delete-the-movies-you-purchased-without-telling-you
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17970197
Here's an example where Amazon removed books from people's Kindles, although to be fair to Amazon they did attempt to change how they handled situations like this. However, the licensing issue should have been handled before customers could buy it, yet in this instance customers were initially punished for something they had no control over (how are they supposed to know Amazon is offering ebooks without proper licensing?).
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html
Here are two separate examples of Warner Bros. canceling finished movies wholesale because it's a "wise business decision." These are completed films that will not be released.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/batgirl-movie-shelved-dc-studios-head-peter-safran-1235506921/
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2024/2/12/24070471/coyote-vs-acme-movie-canceled-new-yorker-article-news-warner-wbd-zaslav
Lots of shows/films are being licensed to streaming services and then disappearing altogether, since there was never a "physical" copy available to begin with. Here's a short list of some that you can't find anywhere anymore.
https://www.looper.com/1333407/best-streaming-shows-you-cant-watch-anywhere/
Finally, every company has a right to not do business with you. If Microsoft, Apple, Google, or any other content providers decide to ban your account (a very effective way to choose not to do business with a person), all your digital purchases are gone with it. That alone should be proof enough that you don't and never "owned" any of it. In the "olden times" Blockbuster couldn't come into your home and take back all the movies you ever bought from them (I know they mostly did rental, but they did sales, too) and smash your VHS so you couldn't watch anything anymore.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/do-you-really-lose-offline-access-to-all-digital/297c0f39-51ff-45f3-b0ff-7edf2a57b195
Also, I'm pretty well aware that most average people don't understand this subject at all.
Two examples I'm aware of for that last part, I believe, are the TV shows House M. D. and Quantum Leap. For House, the intro music in most places you can find it has been replaced by the music in the end credits, and with Quantum Leap, i think a number of songs on the show have been swapped out due to rights and licensing
I'm not 100% sure on either of those if my memory is correct or the reasoning matches, but I do know there are other examples
Scrubs has different music in many places in the streaming episodes compared the original broadcast and DVDs.
I think its simply, at least for a while, the tech space was male dominated. And depending on the type of piracy, it requires an amount of tech skills
Also, there's so much "free" content that a lot of young ones don't even bother or care about learning about piracy and how to do it
This as well. I will say even the time where i would normally spend watching shows on stuff like dailymotion primewire etc i know most just watch youtube channels
Probably the reason, pretty valid point here.