Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Piracy isn't stealing anyway

It’s never been stealing, it’s infringement of copyright, which aught to carry much less of a penalty since the original owner was not deprived of their property.

But we live in hell, so capitalism literally bankrupts families when they film their kid dancing to music that was playing on a public broadcast on FM radio.

Piracy has never been stealing.

When you steal something, the real issue is that the other person is deprived of some tangible item they used to have.

When you "pirate", you're merely violating a copyright. The government granted someone a monopoly on the expression of an idea, and you're not respecting the government's decision on that item's exclusivity.

it's there, its free, just take it and enjoy it

Tried to read an e-book from the local library. No problem downloading it, but the file was encrypted, and only an Adobe app that does not run on Linux could decrypt it. I used Wine in Linux to run the Windows version of this app, and it worked right up to the point of actually decrypting the file. Couldn't read the e-book I'd checked out. So I pirated the book.

I went to some trouble to download and install Wine and the Adobe software, and I resent that. Tried to do things the legal way. Could've saved myself much bother by pirating first and skipping the public library. I also deleted the Adobe garbage.

How to recruit new pirates to the cause. Thank you goofge.

They don't claim that after the fact, it's their terms of service to begin with. Just another reason to never buy anything on these services. Even paying for streaming is less of a scam since at least you aren't being misled.

(I can feel my huge steam library giving my hypocritical ass mad side-eye right now)

Honest question, if the movie reappears in the catalog on Google does the "ownership" return to the customer? My money is on no they would have to repurchase

Piracy isn't stealing, period.

It was totally ok to pirate movies before this practice ever took place. Information had always wanted to be free.

I know it doesn't fit the Piracy narrative, but there's actually more to this story. I've never actually heard this story, but at some point, Google gave everyone that same movie (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) for free. Anybody who saw the deal could claim it. I still have it. I'd gift it to this guy if I could, because I've since bought the extended edition trilogy in 4K. The Fellowship copy is locked to 1080p, and it's the theatrical version. I have no reason to ever watch it. But I still have it.

So I don't know what happened with them losing the rights, but they did kinda try to make it right by offering a giveaway. It would have been awfully nice of them to email everyone who lost their original copy and tell them they could claim it, though. That rarely happens with giveaways. They had a few of them back then. I also got Happy Feet and Big, maybe one or two others.

Make no mistake though. While I do have quite a nice collection of 4K movies in Apple TV (call them rentals if you want, but I won't pay more than $5 for them, so rental is fair since I paid rental price), I have easily 10-15 times as many on my Plex server (not all 4K though, but still).

If they could kick in your door and take away your DVDs, they would. Fuck em, pirate away.

It should say rent instead of buy and give the expiration date corresponding to the date on which the license term ends.

"Rent. Unlimited viewing until January 1, 2027."

Don't do business with google for starters. You just know you're gonna get screwed one way or another.

If there is DRM, you’re only renting it. You may be renting it until further notice for a one-off payment, but your lease could be unilaterally revoked at any time. The supplier framing your lease as a purchase is at the very least being misleading.

Piracy isn't stealing, period.

It was totally ok to pirate movies before this practice ever took place. Information had always wanted to be free.

It's interesting how we jumped from owning physical media to "buying" permission to stream the file through the cloud.

Is there no service for people who are willing to pay for a downloadable, DRM-free copy of the file? It might be a bit niche, but it could at least make more than the $0 they make on each pirated copy.

Fun fact: in my country (Slovakia) it’s totally legal to download things. It’s the uploading it back that’s seen as illegal, so as long as you have a paid private torrent site where you can hit’n’run you are not breaking any laws.

Audible pulled the same shit to me when i was in the middle of reading How to Hide an Empire. only half way through, suddenly “no longer available”, yet no credit refunded to my account. Fuck you Jeffery

As Mr Krabs would say, "it's not stealing, it's borrowing. You can borrow anything you'd like as long as you give it back"

So I'll just "give back" all my copies I have obtained, before I die!

I saw this coming long ago, back in the 80s, when record labels started to complain that public libraries didn't have the right to lend their recordings, claiming that their ownership didn't give them the right to lend it to others. They got shot down in court of course, but they just waited until the political environment would be more welcoming to their sociopathic policies.

Pirate EVERYTHING!

I think people should be paid for their work. I was happy to pay for music and movies and games. But I am not going to pay for something just to have it ripped away at a moments notice just because of corporate greed.

Additionally, I fully understand why someone would pirate when the thing they want isn't available to them to purchase, or is out of their price range.