myslsl
Hell yeah!
This is clearly multiple cats. Can we ban this user?
If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase … I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.
I don’t think this particular line of thought makes for a very good argument without more info. The other case makes sense. But for this one, people aren’t obligated to sell you things. If you own something sentimental or private to you that I want, you’re not obligated to sell it to me if I want it and I’m not justified in stealing it from you if you don’t want to sell it.
For ex: Think of embarassing photos of yourself, private letters between you and others etc.
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.
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.
Firstly, the neighbor comment I made is an analogy. Nobody is claiming this is about literal neighbors committing wrongdoings in a community. I’m not sure if you’ve missed my point with that analogy or if you’re choosing to willfully misunderstand it here?
Second, what you’re claiming here isn’t correct when you talk about “what this is about”. My comment which you are replying to was not about whether “the system itself, and the edifices holding it up are conducting themselves in good faith” or anything like that. My whole point is about whether “If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase … I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.” is good reasoning or not. Nobody is debating you on whether the modern media industries, the government, etc are corrupt or acting in good faith. That has nothing to do with my actual point.
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.
You keep jumping back to these points of “well the media corporations, the government, etc did X wrong by us, so we’re automatically justified to pirate”, that’s not how this works. The whole issue is why does that justify piracy? Doubling down and trying to say “BUT I WAS WRONGED!” is not a good argument here. Being wronged in some way does not make it morally acceptable to just do whatever you like.
I don’t think the system being wrong is very good justification either. You still run into the same problem I’m pointing out. If some local store near me has an inherently fucked up return policy, I’m probably not justified in shitting in the middle of an aisle or trying to fistfight a cashier in response. Something being wrong isn’t an immediate justification for whatever action a person takes in reaction.
You certainly asserted such by arguing piracy is morally.
No I didn’t. You are either ignoring or misunderstanding what I’m saying. My claim is that certain arguments don’t justify why piracy is permissible. Not that piracy is morally wrong.
If IP belonged to the public …
I’m not making any claims about who IP belongs to.
So please, by what authority are you asserting puts IP in the hands of private interests, thus making piracy a moral wrongdoing.
I can’t give you any authority on this because if you reread what I actually said, I’m not claiming piracy is morally wrong and I’m not claiming anything about IP ownership.