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Comment by _tbyy | Hacker News Reader

The problem here is not recognizing that the piracy was actually the problem. In what way was it forgivable? Because everybody does it, that makes it okie dokie? Because you don't have a Netflix account? If everyone treated piracy as theft (it is) then no one would have to waste their time investigating it because the collective will would exist to prevent it.

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> If everyone treated piracy as theft (it is)

Then everybody would be as wrong as you. You can repeat this as much as you like, but it is simply false.

Legally speaking: copyright infringement is an offense distinct from theft.

Speaking from reality: copyright infringement does not deprive the holder of the right of their property.

Speaking ethically: Copyright infringement is a violation of a particular commercial mode of exchange. "Unauthorized Looking" would be a better term for what retail bittorrent users are up to.

I agree with your interpretation of copyright and that it is not theft, but your position ignores the fact that very many “properties” would not exist except for the understanding that they might be profitable. In some cases, like GoT, the likelihood of profitability is very high.

In that sense, copyright infringement _indirectly_ deprives the holder of the property through the capital that they invested in order to create the property in the first place.

I mean, if I spend $100 to make a movie with the hope that 100 people will each spend $2 to watch it, and then you make a copy and distribute it for free to my audience, then you’ve deprived me of my $100 in capital, and the $100 in profit. The profit itself is a loss because it is an opportunity cost: if I hadn’t made the movie then I might have spent my time making money some other way.

The distance between your position and mine is, I think, one of scale. Individual infringement of a property with millions of views is a tiny fraction of the cost of creating that property. But as the number of infringers increases relative to the audience, it really does deprive people of property.

What if someone pirates it after 100 people already watched/bought it, and now you got 500 more loyal fans who might also buy your next movie?

The actual likelihood of this happening in the real world approaches zero, given the intrinsic incentives of pirates ie to release as early as possible, and the fact that pirates don’t usually know (or care) if the product has recouped its investment, or not.

Even if it was possible, surely the people who have invested real money should be the ones to make this decision? Indeed, lots of IP becomes free (even freedom-free) after it’s made money, eg the Quake engine.

> Even if it was possible, surely the people who have invested real money should be the ones to make this decision?

Why? They have no inherent right to limit the distribution of their content, only the special rights society has decided to give them in order to encourage the creation in the first place.

But all rights are granted by society, including your right to own a house or a car or a laptop or the clothes on your back. ALL of these rights are “special rights society has decided to give”.

And in the case of copyright society has decided that media is something that is worth investing in and we have created laws that encourage that.

Some of those laws suck and are stupid and overreaching, but that’s not the argument here.

piracy is taking someone else's work without compensating them for that work. There are lots of forms of work that require nothing but time. Programming is one, lawyer work, accounting work, digital design work, planning, managing. I'm sure we could list 100s more.

I don't know what the legal term is for hiring someone for a service and then not paying them for that service.

My first search came up with "theft of services"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_services

If you want the your tax forms filled out you pay the tax accountant. If you want the movie you pay the creators of the movie.

I know there is a difference in the the movie already exits but is that an important difference? When I arrive at the tax accountant's office to collect my tax forms they already exist. Maybe I should just make a copy for free and leave and say "copies are free so it's not theft"?

It's not the document that was stolen, it was the value of their time.

I am unsure when you grew up, but for many of us who grew up in the 90s and 00s, this is exactly the mindset we have. I used to be able to take a movie I had and lend it to a friend, the same with music. The movement away from physical copies took this away from many of us, so we tried to take it back in kind -- piracy is what they called that behavior.

I understand it might not seem right to you, but in all the social groups I am a part of piracy and sharing accounts is normative. The only fault I see is mixing personal and work resources, which naturally have separate concerns.

> The movement away from physical copies

I just don't understand this argument, physical copies of virtually any type of media absolutely still exist. If you want to own even Netflix shows on disc, you can do that pretty cheaply. I'd you want to get Blu Ray discs delivered to you by mail for a subscription fee, you can probably do that (although this is slightly more geographically restricted).

This argument is simply invalid.

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Complete-Seasons-Collect...

I don’t buy movies on dvd or Blu-ray any more. But I still lend access.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that if I watch a movie that I like, I should purchase it again on physical media just to loan it. And that my friend should buy a DVD player just to watch a borrowed movie.

If I’ve bought it once digitally, I will make copies and lend them to friends. Or more specifically, I’ll give them a login to my private Plex server.

It’s great to hear about people using software to share culture. Re: Plex, I looked in your bio but didn’t see contact info. I also have a private server to share culture with friends. Find my contact info in my bio and maybe we can talk more?

I agree that the statement "Physical copies don't exist for digital media" is false (And I wasn't trying to assert that, of which I could have been more explicit), time of release aside. I can still hold the above position and not be in conflict with that, though.

The issue we saw is that there is no way to legally lend a digital resource to someone else, which is a constructed limitation. Lending here involves two things, one is that the resource is exclusive and the other that it has the same traits as the original good. In crux, why do an illegal, but "not as bad" thing when there is no legal difference -- just do the illegal thing at that point.

This is how torrenting, piracy, and account sharing became normative. Access to digital goods was restricted further than physical goods, meaning that as content moved to digital first, there was a dissonance between worlds (This is where all the "First Sales Doctrine" litigation tens of years ago comes from). When that dissonance was resolved in favor of businesses, we adjusted via legal brinksmanship -- wherein we said "This is normal behavior, but if you're calling it abnormal and illegal I'll just do the actually illegal thing because it doesn't matter anymore".

I have a library card, where I borrow exclusive, digital copies of a resource for a reasonable price (If we snake a path between my taxes and the library service). I think this system is great, even though it has just the same properties as physical lending has. It is when properties are lost inexplicably that you see new, emergent behavior.

Once again, I understand that this isn't widely accepted view point in some circles and that you may just fundamentally dislike it. I know that behavior might be illegal by US code, but the nature of something being illegal is that it is illegal because it is an accessible possibility. We create laws to inhibit possible behavior, and, in this case, many of us have just said "I don't care" to these laws in a similar way to jaywalking or speeding.

> Access to digital goods was restricted further than physical goods

You only have two choices as a rights holder when it comes to digital works; much less sharing or much more. There's no workable digital equivalent of the kind of sharing limits imposed by having to move a physical thing from one place to another. In order for sharing to be viable with digital versions the DRM would need to be much more sophisticated, or the prices would need to be much higher.

Edit: if you want a concrete example of the harm caused by this attitude, go look into why there's no HD remaster of DS9 or Babylon 5. The studio broke down sales figures for previous SciFi remakes and then the degree to which those shows are torrented. If even an appreciable fraction of the freeloaders ever actually bought the discs, then it would be worth it to make one. You don't, so they don't.

That claim isn't true. There are games that are not provided with a physical copy (i.e. Beatsaber for PSVR, Quest for Booty-Rachet and Clank, etc)

Also, I'm sure there are other Hulu, Netflix, Prime excluses that won't make it to the physical market.

----

This still avoids the main issue here: It's the right of ownership of the copy. Having a digital copy, in it's current state, prevents you from transferring it to others. Amazon's ebooks have the option for lending, but you're still reliant upon Amazon's "holy permission" to do that. (They can reascend it at any time). With physical mediums the original creators cannot prevent you from reselling what you own. (They can try.. but often times they've failed)

It absolutely is. I said virtually all, and for virtually all it's true. A small number of counter examples that aren't relevant to the majority of the media-consuming public does nothing to change the inarguable fact that the vast majority of media is available in physical form.

These are not a small number of counterexamples, these are patterns that are pervasive throughout modern media distribution. Let's look at Star Wars as an example. I bought a Star Wars box set and I can't watch it on my computer without installing malware. I can't play "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" without installing malware. I can't watch the new Clone Wars or Mandalorian show without paying for yet another streaming service. "Think of the content creators" is the new "think of the children". It's not my fault that every aspect of our culture is for sale to the highest bidder; my rights matter more than the profit margin of faceless megacorporations and as long as they engage in these unethical business practices I will not give them my money. Piracy is civil disobedience.

"Civil disobedience" is a rather grandiose way to dress up not paying for things you use because the person who owns them didn't sell them exactly the way you wish they did. You're not marching in the streets, you're watching TV.

I see nothing wrong with "lending a movie" to someone.. But how often does the "lent" movie ever get "returned" ( read: deleted )? If not your analogy breaks down and it becomes the same as physically copying a VHD/DVD/CD.

I’m not sure why that’s important. I don’t frequently watch movies multiple times so the loaning and watching once is, I think, most common.

Back in the dvd days, I would frequently never get discs back. The few times I’ve loaned a file from a digital file I’ve bought on Amazon, I’ve never watched the movie again. So for all I care, they could keep it forever.

I wrote more about this in another comment [1], but I believe that the limitation of not being able to lend something is a constructed limitation of digital goods. I already do "lend" access through streaming services -- I would call it "lending" because many of the services have limits on concurrent streams (This is the exclusivity principle that is important in lending, as you mention).

In terms of digital goods writ large, there is no good way for me to lend access in a provable manner -- so of course piracy is the natural evolution because that's the only way to lend things.

Also, we used to copy Blockbuster tapes too, which is illegal, but there was never enforcement because we never re-sold these copies. Maybe I'm just a miscreant through and through. Irrespective, this is another clear example of where the transition to digital caused a dissonance between the physical and digital worlds that led users to believe behavior called "illegal" was actually just a subtraction of their ownership rights.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23823166

> as theft (it is)

Are you sure digital piracy is theft? Wikipedia defines theft as:

"The taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it."

Copies are made, sales (possibly) lost, but no property is being taken such that the owner cannot continue to sell/rent/etc it.

My take: I'll pay for whatever streaming service that has the content I want (except Hulu), but if it is not available to stream then Internet Copies are an option for me. I don't have a DVD/Bluray/etc player to go the physical copy route and would simply go without if not for streaming first then Internet Copies.

physical copy theft: the physical medium is being stolen, the works are still available, but it is theft because packaging is an industry unto itself, costing money. Making an internet copy costs (basicallly) nothing.

In all: I will pay for what is available, I will even wait if they announce something I want is coming to x-platform at y-date. Because of Netflix alone, I basically don't download movies now. Disney+ is an interesting option now, too. If the market provides, it can have my money!

Just get a DVD/Blueray player. The content is there for you to legally get and pay for. Heck, you can buy pretty much any movie from Amazon digitally. There is really no excuse not to pay.

HN is a global community. Quite a few people here are in countries where legitimate DVDs/Blu-rays are not available locally. If a person were to try to order them from Amazon, the shipping fees would be enormous, and the package may get stuck in customs and require further payment to get it out. In fact, some online shops (like Criterion) will not even ship abroad, because they have licensed the content for a DVD/Blu-ray release only in North America or some other limited geographic region. Consequently, it is no surprise that many ardent cinephiles turn to torrenting (or buying a release from the local marketplace that is going to be a pirated copy anyway) even if they would have liked to build up a physical collection.

> Heck, you can buy pretty much any movie from Amazon digitally.

Not really, I pay for Amazon prime, tho in Germany, as such the content is very limited and often only exists dubbed, granted: They've been getting better with this.

But delivery of certain shows sometimes is days and weeks late compared to US release, streaming quality has also been spotty for me with no real way to fix anything.

I also have shared access to Netflix, but once again: It's German Netflix, as such it does not have the same offerings as what's current in the US, for example no second season of Twilight Zone.

With Netflix I could use a VPN to get access to the US version, but finding a free VPN with enough bandwidth to stream Full HD content is easier said than done and finding a good paid one seems like quite a bothersome task.

Meanwhile, none of that matters with the warez scene, which also covers everything, not just specific IP. Meaning that I don't run the risk missing out on something interesting or a new season due to not having properly kept up with the news or checked dozens of different services.

No weird issues with streaming, just a handy *.mkv file, add whatever language subtitles I want/need because unlike the entertainment industry, the warez scene actually has been extremely good and consistent about setting and keeping standards [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)

> With Netflix I could use a VPN to get access to the US version, but finding a free VPN with enough bandwidth to stream Full HD content is easier said than done and finding a good paid one seems like quite a bothersome task.

My understanding is that you'd still be breaking copyright laws, so you might as well download from torrents...

Some services restrict online commerce to USA, because that's where money are, doing anything beyond that is an effort that is unlikely to pay off. Also DVD/BD is just plastic waste.

My reason: movies and TV shows are a form of storytelling and the execution is often very bad if you care to think about it. Storytelling doesn't need to cost much. Poor storytelling should cost even less. Shows from the 80s were very enjoyable but cost only a fraction of current shows. With current distribution systems, shows should cost even less. And I never asked for a team of 100 CGI artists. I just don't want to contribute to the absurdity of all this.

There isn't much of a difference between digital media and "services." We'd all agree it would a dick move if I walked out of barbershop without paying, even if the barber didn't have any other available customers at the time.

You have robbed them of their finite time, by sitting there, getting your haircut, and then walking out.

A pirate however, does not deplete any of the provider's resources. They don't use computational or transactional resources.

In many jurisdictions this isn’t theft either, and often the police can’t do much about it. Technically it counts as non payment of debt, which would have to be recovered by a civil action.

In practice they’ll just bar you from the premises.

If I used my haircut-robot to create a strand-for-strand identical hairstyle as the one you paid your barber for, is that me stealing from your barber?

It’s not theft. It’s not legal, but it’s not theft. It’s also not a big deal, maybe you disagree with that assessment but it’s how the majority of people feel.

It’s also frequently legal through fair use.

So I’d say that piracy is potential copyright infringement and leave it at that. It’s curious to see moral judgement on this. I assume that the judgers work in media or something.

But I also come from a generation that thought DLC was unjust.

Piracy is copyright infringement. There's no reason to call it theft. They are both bad for society, they are both illegal, but they are distinct.

It's not that clear cut.

Some people we're never and are never going to pay for some of the they consume, they'll either pirate it or just not consume it.

I'm presently watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which I just pirated earlier today. I'm never going to our-right buy, nor rent, it.

One season is presently on Netflix here in Australia, so I'll watch that there, and the publisher will get their three cents out of me via Netflix, or whatever Netflix pays.

That's three cents they were otherwise never going to get out of me.

If the content was available at a reasonable price, say some portion of what I pay my ISP and the AU$8 I pay the VPN service to hide my traffic from my surveillance-state ISP, I'd pay it.

But it isn't, and I can't afford to pay for all the content I consume on my trifling skilled-tradesperson wage.

You realise when people like me see job ads for doctors getting paid in a day what I earn in a fortnight, and revenue figures like:

The Last Airbender had grossed $131,772,187 in the United States, and $187,941,694 in other countries, making for a total of $319,713,881 worldwide.

... there's no way you're going to convince me this side of the heat death of the universe that copyright infringement in universally bad.

While literally true; I have always found this argument to be petty and pedantic.

I’ve heard every argument in the book; but even the old ads said ‘you wouldn’t steal ____’.

The fundamental principle is so similar to the point that discussing it quickly devolves into pedantry.

I am one that has had this discussion probably a dozen times; half of those on this forum, and I’ve just decided to stand by my educated opinion that it’s absolutely a type of theft.

The purpose of those ads was to convince people that copyright infringement was equivalent to theft.

No it's really different.

If I don't watch your movie or watch it for free, it doesn't change anything for you (I'd even argue that the later might actually be better for you, but that's another topic)

On the other hand, whether I eat your apple or not make a big difference to you, since you might not be able to eat it in one scenario.

Maybe a very distorted type of theft but from my perspective the main immoral thing about theft is that it deprives someone of what they used to have, or takes the place of a sale. From the limited research I've seen the evidence is, at best, mixed that corporations are losing sales due to piracy.

If it was a clear choice between buying something or pirating it, equating piracy with theft would be more reasonable (though the owner still has their good so not entirely identical) but that doesn't seem to be the typical scenario. The ads only make that equivalence because it's better for the companies if they convince people it's theft.

From a moral perspective I think whether it is theft really depends on your motivation/what you would do in the absence of piracy.

Furthermore, by the way, theft typically destroys total value. If someone steals a wallet (or anything really), the amount he gets from fencing it is typically much smaller than the cost (including hassle, time spent, and potentially nostalgic value) to the original owner of replacing everything (if that’s possible at all).

Copyright infringement, by contrast, arguably creates value - instead of one person being able to see the movie, two can see it.

> the main immoral thing about theft is that it deprives someone of what they used to have

You should have just stopped there. That "or takes the place of a sale" rider is a very recent invention. You know what else takes the place of a sale? Spending your time doing anything else and ignoring the fact that the work even exists. If I could have paid to listen to a song from artist A and instead I listen to a song from artist B (free or paid, but we'll assume it was with permission either way) then that "takes the place of a sale" for artist A, but there's absolutely nothing immoral about choosing to listen to artist B's song instead. Or reading a book, or sleeping, or whatever. You could even write your own songs and give them away for free, directly competing with artist A and taking the place of many sales, and there still wouldn't be anything immoral about that. Artist A was never guaranteed sales, so they haven't lost anything simply by not making a sale. They still have their copy of the work, so they have not in fact been deprived of anything.

Complaints about piracy always read to me as: "You aren't complying with this monopoly which was promised to us in a rather one-sided deal with a third party (government) which (unilaterally) claims to represent you. If you don't shape up—or even if you do—we intend to sue you for everything you own in courts run by our beneficiaries and otherwise do whatever we can to ruin your life, just on general principles and not because we suffered any actual damages." And yet they have the audacity to pretend to claim the moral high ground…

Then you fell for the ads of wealthy companies.

It's not pedantic at all. If we could copy-paste food, clothes, etc. for free, theft would be very different.

Or maybe not, I can just about imagine a bunch of suits suing Jesus for multiplying bread to feed the poor because it deprived them of their baked good sales revenue.

There would not be theft.

There would be infringement.

The ads that infringed the copyright of a small music creator ... when the execs of the companies that paid for the ad go to jail for conspiracy to commit theft I'll change to using your wrong terminology.

Feel free to steal whatever you want from me as long as you don't deprive me of anything or violate my privacy.

I think the jury is still out on copyright infringement. I think it may be a net benefit to society, although a negative for copyright holders.

Back in the Napster days I bought so much more music based on stuff I downloaded. Not everyone was like me, buty piracy made money for the record industry.

I also think copyright infringement has allowed lots of knowledge and entertainment to be available to low resource markets that would never attract releases. How many young people in Lagos got software and media only through piracy?

> They are both bad for society

I challenge you to demonstrate that copyright infringement per se is bad for society. This would mean copyright is good for society which is still to be proven at least in it's current acception.

As part of society. Piracy is pretty good for me. Paying for DRM-infested media and fragmented streaming services on the other hand is bad for society.

"Piracy" is not the problem, it is the solution. The truth is all subscription services straight up suck. They don't hold a candle to copyright infringement. Despite making billions of dollars in revenue, they simply can't compete with what's essentially a bunch of enthusiasts. More often than not the reason why they can't compete is copyright itself.

They have clunky interfaces, making users miss mpv. They don't have chapters, making it annoying to seek to a specific part of a film or episode. They don't allow users to download content beforehand, locking them out whenever there's no internet connection. They have annoying DRM, preventing content playback on perfectly good computers and TVs for no good reason. They aren't available in most countries, locking out entire regions of the globe. When it is available, users get only a subset of the content and feel like second rate consumers. Whatever ends up being available is frequently modified, censored or cut. Users straight up lose access to content with no warning when licensing agreements expire. Every copyright holder launches its own little streaming service with its own annoying quirks. They compress the video so much even pure black frames have massive artifacts and have the audacity to charge for this garbage. They don't have enough subtitles. There's usually zero extra content such as commentary tracks. They track everything users do and watch.

There is exactly one area where streaming offers a superior experience compared to copyright infringement: multiple audio tracks. This is because of a technical limitation: video players can load subtitles that are external to the video file but not audio tracks.

Something as good as "piracy" shouldn't have to stop existing for the benefit of aging industries. It's the 21st century, copyright doesn't make sense anymore. Society must rethink its laws. The copyright industry must adopt new business models or disappear.

> Because everybody does it, that makes it okie dokie?

The fact everybody is infringing copyright is evidence that the law is wrong. Laws are supposed to codify the customs of a people. If everyone is violating a law then that law obviously does not represent the customs of that people. Society must recognize this and adapt so that the behavior can be allowed.

> … video players can load subtitles that are external to the video file but not audio tracks.

Not true for MPV:

    --audio-files=<files>
           Play audio from an external file while viewing a video.

           This is a path list option. See List Options for details.

    --audio-file=<file>
           CLI/config file only alias for --audio-files-append. Each use of this option
           will add a new audio track. The details are similar to how --sub-file works.

I stand corrected. Awesome. Thank you.

They said before Netflix was available in their country. There were / are many countries where it is impossible to legally watch US cable television. I cannot hold someone at fault for wanting to view creative works that are blocked just because of where they live.

I had Netflix for a year and canceled because I ended up still using torrent. There are lots of movies and anime missing in Netflix and it is annoying to use with Widevine (as I run almost 100% FOSS I use Kodi as a media center).

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