I know what I'm doing, I just don't care
myslsl @ myslsl @lemmy.world Posts 0Comments 150Joined 2 yr. ago
I'll take your approach. No, that's not what "taking something" means, because clearly the definition they're using for that is more inclusive.
Keep telling yourself that champ.
its not piracy. this is /c/piracy
The ethics of data reproduction have been discussed in piracy communities for decades. It's a central topic to communities centered around data reproduction. Pretending otherwise is stupid.
you dont need my permission you are just making a fool of yourself by trying to call piracy what is not piracy again in /c/piracy
Am I? Or are you arguing in bad faith on a topic you didn't bother to read the context of?
Feel free to clarify why? At what point does my example become what we're talking about? Is it the number of people the content is sold for? Is it the amount of money the content is sold for? Enlighten me.
I feel like many people would disagree with you.
I don't see why I need your permission? I feel like talking about when it is and isn't ethical to reproduce data is appropriate in this sort of community.
making a copy of Frozen is not.
I feel like I've been pretty clesr that this sort of example is not what I'm talking about..
piracy is distributing copies of publicly available media.
Arguably software, films and music aren't "publically available" in the sense that they're only conditionally available to the public (ignoring piracy).
But okay, lets take the pornographic example. Say they occasionally sell nude photos to acquaintances too. Now the photos are in some sense "publicly available" in the sense that some people can buy them. Is it now suddenly okay to pirate this media? If so, then why?
accessing a private device and making copies of personal content inside is illegal and unethical.
Did you not read my very first example where I claimed almost exactly that. What have you been thinking I was talking about?
The only response you've given is "that's not harmful", which is in no way an argument for why it isn't. It's not totally inconceivable that taking things, even data, without permission can be harmful and to claim otherwise seems willfully stupid and in this case self serving.
The only response you've given is "that's not harmful", which is in no way an argument for why it isn't. It's not totally inconceivable that taking things, even data, without permission can be harmful and to claim otherwise seems willfully stupid and in this case self serving.
Your point is wrong. My point is that you can't always (ethically) just copy other peoples stuff, just like you can't always just take things from people. My point is not that piracy is never justified. My point is not that you are personally doing something wrong by pirating things. My point is not that you can't be justified in copying other peoples stuff sometimes without permission. My point is not that piracy or copying other peoples data and documents always causes harm.
Edit: When was pirating "publically available" software specifically ever central to my point?
wut??? nobody in their right mind downloads that stuff! that is NOT what we are talking about, we are talking about movies and games and music
I felt like it was pretty clear that I was not talking about things as small as pirating a couple movies and games from multimillion dollar companies?
you really made this up out of nowhere. nobody defends distribuiting private pictures of people... and BTW in that case is not piracy by definition...
Is it not piracy? Please clarify the difference to me?
Here's another example. Say a person makes pornographic photos and videos for their significant other, suppose that content gets leaked onto the internet and is uploaded to popular torrent sites without their permission. How is piracy of this sort of content not an invasion of privacy? How is piracy of this sort of content not unethical?
In my example privacy invasion definitely occurs. If you disagree with that, then you should review what I initially said.
If the notion that when people don't want to share things with you, you have an unqualified right to take those things, and that doing that is just inherently not damaging, then I think your position is unrealistic and incredibly self serving.
Do you have some point to make here besides claiming you're just never doing anything wrong when it serves your interests?
My example doesn't require a "for sale" vs not distinction so I'm not sure why you're imposing that property on it? People pirate unreleased media, unofficial media, bootleg media and other forms of media that aren't for sale already, so being for sale is definitely not a necessary property of the cases we're concerned about when we're talking about the ethics of piracy.
And even if we restrict ourselves to talking about things that are already for sale: 1. Why does something being for sale suddenly make it not private? Many things for sale are already certainly not public. 2. Why does something being for sale suddenly make taking it without permission magically morally acceptable?
That's pretty much exactly right. However I think there is something to be said along the lines of "What reason would you have for copying the documents, if not to commit an offense?"
People do all sorts of nosy invasive things solely for the sake of curiosity and keeping tabs on others I guess? But at a certain point maybe it could just be shoved under some kind of stalking offense?
Why would something be unethical if nobody is hurt?
Why are you conflating damaging property with causing harm? It's at least arguable that an invasion of privacy is harmful, regardless of whether or not property damage occurs.
The ethical issue here has nothing to do with damaging any property at all.
Sure, but breaking and entering is a crime - just like theft. Copying someone’s documents is wrong, but it’s not a crime (not unless you commit a crime with those documents, eg fraudulently take out credit). In that case, it’s a civil offense against the victim - just like copyright infringement.
My issue is mostly just to do with the moral status of piracy rather than the criminality of it. It feels like in some cases piracy should be justified and in others it shouldn't be. The criminality of an act is a separate thing. I think I was kind of explaining things poorly with my examples. The distinction between breaking into a home vs not in my example was meant to show the act of copying somebodies personal documents could still be wrong whether or not a crime had taken place under current laws.
Crimes are prosecuted by the government. To be convicted of a crime you have to be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt - in other words, it’s more than 99% likely you did it.
Civil offenses are prosecuted by the victim. The burden of proof is “the balance of probabilities”, ie it’s more than 50% likely you did it. The victim must also show actual damages.
This is very interesting. Establishing damages over reproduction of ones personal documents seems like it would be almost impossible to establish unless an actual crime had also taken place.
In the US, media companies have perverted the law around copyright infringement, and they manage to get awarded statutory damages well in excess of any actual damages they incur. This is why we had all those ridiculous Napster lawsuits where people were fined hundreds of thousands for downloading a handful of songs. In the rest of the world, they could only be awarded actual damages, and the lawsuits weren’t really worth anything.
Media companies would really like copyright infringement to be theft, and they’ve lobbied hard for that. However they haven’t managed it, not yet anyway. They did manage to establish a crime of commercial copyright infringement, though, where if you pirate a significant amount of material or do it for profit you could be criminally charged.
This train of thought for me seems to lead towards the most satisfying justifications I can think of for why media piracy is probably morally justifiable.
I don't see why this is such a necessary property of media? Arguably there could be more media inside peoples private homes and hard-drives that is not for sale than media that is for sale. On top of that, this kind of thing depends on how we define media, we can take more or less inclusive definitions of this term.
It should also be clear that the kinds of things that I'm talking about in my original post refers to more than just movies, music, games and software (despite me using "media" as a convenient example in my previous post).
I don't agree. I'd bet a lot of people are willing to sell plenty of ordinarily private things given a high enough price. I don't think the notion that something is for sale all of a sudden makes that thing magically not private? When you sell something you don't always make the thing you're selling available to the public, just to the buyer, and until the sale is complete you're not typically giving anybody full access to the thing. If it were public/not private the minute you made it for sale, then what is the point in selling it?
This isn't true either. Sometimes people make things for sale with no actual intent of selling. And the intent to share, does not make something all of a sudden not private either. You might share something (perhaps a secret) with a friend, that doesn't mean the thing you are sharing suddenly becomes not private/public, but that the scope of people you're will to share this thing privately with has increased by a small amount.
I also disagree with the notion that making a copy just inherently isn't "taking" things. This is also a matter of definitions, but people actively use the word "taking" to encompass more than just physical things. Phrases like "he took my idea", "she took my credit card information" and so on are examples of this. Obviously people do consider "taking" to include acts of copying in some cases. If you mean something else by taking, that's fine, but your personal definition for taking isn't really relevant when the point I'm making regards a more inclusive notion.