LogFAQs > #878933441

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

There is no rabbit hole, though. You're depriving them of money, and if the creator (bicycle maker, art creator, etc.) has no monetary incentive to make their products to begin with, then they won't.

Few problems with that statement. First, whether you pirate or just don't consume the media at all, it's the same financial impact to the content creator. Ergo you're essentially arguing that fans are obligated to buy all of a creator's work. I enjoy the Pokemon franchise and I've bought multiple copies of some games, but I haven't bought every single game in the franchise and, I should add, I've pirated content from it at times such as playing a fan-translated version of Ruby before Ruby was released. If we're going with the deprivation of money reducing incentives argument, then the fact that I never bought (or played) Black2 and many of the spinoffs means that I'm hurting the company.

Second, it presupposes that creators only produce content when compensated, which is completely untrue.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

And it's less defending capitalism than defending common sense. A world of rampant theft is a world where there's no incentive to create anything to steal to begin with, unless you get into some type of socialism paradise shit (THAT is a rabbit hole to go down).

Which is an argument of scale and magnitude. However, keep in mind that intellectual theft is most rampant in China yet people STILL release products there. In fact, a car company was forced by bad public reception to back down from enforcing a copyright claim against a company copying its vehicles because the Chinese were boycotting them and they realized that it was in their best interests to just let the matter drop.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

I just wanted to point out that these justifications make one sound like an edgelord if you're really going to start questioning what "theft" is.

Nobody is justifying theft. However, there's an important distinction between material and intellectual theft, and pretending that no such distinction exists only hurts your case.

The Wave Master posted...

It won't matter to some people unless it's their bike, or their music, or in our case, their video game.

Again, it's important to distinguish material and immaterial theft. They are not the same thing nor should anybody claim that they are.

The Wave Master posted...

The question you have to ask yourself is,

"Would you be okay with anyone taking your hard earned work, and not giving me money or credit for my hard work?"

Because you all bloody well know that if you made a hit song or a hit videogame then you would want every nickel and dime from the sell or use of that product.

The question you have to ask yourself is,

"If somebody isn't going to buy my intellectual product, is it okay that they enjoy it anyway?"

Honestly, if you're a content creator who does it for anything except just money, that's a hard question. While it's annoying that people aren't compensating you for your work, it's also gratifying to know that people are still consuming it and their usage might boost your sales down the road.

Equally important, while piracy is illegal and theft of any kind is morally wrong (yes, I'm including self-help where you recover property by theft rather than law enforcement), it's worth remembering that if somebody goes down to their local library or borrows a copy from a friend, you aren't making money then either. Should you be fuming and cursing out libraries, lending, etc?

However, none of that should be conflated with material theft considering that's ACTUAL loss as opposed to a virtual loss.
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