I feel like the same kind of argument can probably extend to either intellectual property or real physical objects. With physical objects certain limits have to apply of course (like me withholding things you need to survive could potentially justify your theft).
With intellectual property, if you write stories for yourself to pass the time you aren’t obligated to share/sell those stories to me and it would be wrong for me to break into your home and make copies of them if you chose not to sell/share them with me.
Why breaking into someone’s home?
See, since I’m your buddy, you tell me bits and pieces of the stories you’re writing for fun. And I, a Hollywood mogul, take those ideas, hand them off to a development crew and put out a movie based on your ideas. You get nothing.
This is normal in Hollywood. Also, I underpay my development crew because capitalism. They hate me but my stockholders think I’m okay. Original content creators like you? Well, there’s a reason the writers are on strike, since screenwriting pays so poorly it’s downgraded to hobby.
It’s a problem especially in the record labels, in which most artists have their content signed away for a pittance because that was the only way to get heard which is changing through the internet, which is why the RIAA is eager to speed up enshittification of social media. And there are some interesting conspiracy theories about why Kim Dotcom was arrested in 2012 days before he rolled out a new music distro system that had dozens of major Hip Hop artists involved that allowed artists to get music out for free and then keep all their touring proceeds. But that died with the Megaupload seizure. Remember that?
If you really want to shill for folks like Disney and Sony and Time Warner, feel free, but you can expect your content to enshittify as well (as it has been for years now). I’m sure Fast and Furious XIII will be awesome.
If you really want to shill for…
Yeah, I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. I think you’re misrepresenting and/or misunderstanding my point. My point is that the argument below needs more details to justify why/when piracy is acceptable. I’m not claiming piracy is totally unethical or anything like that, nor am I shilling for anything.
If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase … I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think your point about ethicality problems in the entertainment industry makes for a very satisfying argument either. If my neighbor steals from somebody else, am I justified in stealing from my neighbor? Maybe? But that reeks of self-interest and doesn’t actually help the real victim.
If my neighbor steals a pound of sugar from somebody and I steal their car, to me it seems like I’m still doing something unethical. If my neighbor steals somebodies life savings and I steal their car, it feels like at best I’m doing something morally neutral, if not still outright wrong.
I’m not saying piracy is unethical, nor am I saying people shouldn’t pirate. What I’m saying is that certain arguments for piracy being ethical aren’t very good.
This is not about whether your neighbor is committing wrongdoing in your community, rather whether the system itself, and the edifices that hold it up are conducting themselves in good faith. Without these major players pressuring government to extend the enforced monopolies of copyright longer (that is, robbing the public – you and I – of its catalog of public-domain material) and failing to enforce educational and fair use, we wouldn’t have IP laws at all, and piracy would not be a thing.
Granted, some argue that creators would have no interest in creating, except that they do when they are given the means to do so. This is one of the threats social media has, in providing entertainment that is not sending its profits to the major players in the industry.
We’re not pirating from the artists. We’re not pirating from our neighbors. We’re pirating from giant corporations who’ve been plying the government for over a century now to strip rights from the public.
And given the government does not execute its function in good faith (that is, in service of the public, including protecting its interests from corporate capture), we have grounds to argue the authority of the state is forfeit, ruling the public by force rather than by consent (our elections allow us to choose from oligarch selects, and they have to obey plutocrats to keep their careers.)
Without the artificial construct by governing systems to make IP a thing to be licensed (and the use of DRM to control its distribution) neither patents nor copyrighted material would be a thing at all, let alone have been turned into the monstrosties that are US and EU IP law.
