[HN Gopher] Half of young Norwegians say online piracy is an acc...
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       Half of young Norwegians say online piracy is an acceptable way to
       save money
        
       Author : isaacfrond
       Score  : 61 points
       Date   : 2024-11-19 12:53 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
        
       | theandrewbailey wrote:
       | If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing, so...
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _If buying isn 't owning, piracy isn't stealing, so..._
         | 
         | This is a bad argument for piracy. (There _are_ good ones.)
         | Plenty of things that can 't be bought and sold without
         | restriction can be stolen.
        
           | Retric wrote:
           | Such as?
        
             | cess11 wrote:
             | Plutonium.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Plutonium does get sold, look up certified reference
               | materials.
        
             | pydry wrote:
             | Organs
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | There's a market for cadavers.
               | 
               | https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-
               | bodi...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | And it's tightly regulated.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | So are cars, it's still a sale and actual ownership.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _it's still a sale and actual ownership_
               | 
               | What makes it actual versus pretend ownership? Remember,
               | ownership is a social construct.
        
               | EMIRELADERO wrote:
               | > Remember, ownership is a social construct.
               | 
               | But the argument about you not really "owning" stuff even
               | when the button says "buy" is a legal one.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _the argument about you not really "owning" stuff even
               | when the button says "buy" is a legal one_
               | 
               | Ownership is a stack of rights. It's a social construct--
               | you can't lab test for ownership. It's meaningless to say
               | what "really" owning means without specifying which of
               | those rights you view to be essential in this situation.
        
               | bdangubic wrote:
               | in some states (e.g. Virginia) you don't get to own a
               | car. you have to pay for the right to own a car each year
               | in October via 4+% tax on your car's current value.
               | 'merica at its finest :)
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _Such as?_
             | 
             | Tickets to a live performance. Health information. Public
             | benefits. Tax refunds. Rental cars.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | You just listed things that are regularly resold.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _You just listed things that are regularly resold_
               | 
               | Yes? I said "things that can't be bought and sold without
               | restriction."
               | 
               | Are you saying it's not pirating if there's a resellable
               | DVD available?
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Stealing a physical DVD has meaning. Making a copy of a
               | purely intangible set of data doesn't deprive someone of
               | that data.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _Making a copy of a purely intangible set of data
               | doesn't deprive someone of that data_
               | 
               | You're making an argument on the non-rivalry of digital
               | content. This is one of the good arguments I referenced.
               | 
               | Digital content is currently a club good, like broadcast
               | television. (Excludable.) You're arguing for treating it
               | like a public good, like a park. (Not excludable.)
               | 
               | Ownership being a social construct makes statements like
               | stealing X has meaning somewhat useless, particularly
               | when it comes to rules.
        
           | exe34 wrote:
           | he didn't say stealing isn't piracy, in which case your point
           | would stand - he says piracy isn't stealing. piracy could be
           | a lot of things, but stealing isn't one of them.
        
           | WastedCucumber wrote:
           | It's not only about restictions on buying and selling, it's
           | also about restictions on using (where, for how long, can it
           | be inherited) which are dictated by the vendor.
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _it 's also about restictions on using (where, for how
             | long, can it be inherited) which are dictated by the
             | vendor_
             | 
             | Sure. Again, this is true for a wide variety of things.
             | Many of which we commonly consider to be stealable.
        
               | WastedCucumber wrote:
               | Such as?
        
             | thechao wrote:
             | I've always thought there was a clever hack to get out of
             | deed restrictions through the use of adverse possession.
        
               | howard941 wrote:
               | Won't work, recorded deed restrictions run with the land.
        
         | squarefoot wrote:
         | When someone tells me that downloading a song or a movie is
         | like stealing, I usually encourage them to download a new car.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _When someone tells me that downloading a song or a movie
           | is like stealing, I usually encourage them to download a new
           | car_
           | 
           | Now do social security benefits. Or hell, money in a bank
           | account.
        
         | 6SixTy wrote:
         | For creative works, there's always a license behind it post the
         | invention of copyright. It wasn't as obvious in the past now
         | that DRM and digital/streaming only has given
         | studios/publishers/etc the ability to cancel your access at
         | their discretion. Though complicating matters is that there's
         | increasingly nothing worth spending money on in the first place
         | anymore.
        
       | fsflover wrote:
       | And piracy isn't as harmful as the corporations want you to
       | think: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305476
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | corporation, no. the small people, yes. You can take a lot of
         | losses when you have a billion dollars in the bank. Not so much
         | when you got maybe 1000 (on a good day).
        
       | codr7 wrote:
       | Warms my heart, living in Norway atm.
        
       | petertodd wrote:
       | If I could actually buy movies and TV shows for download I would;
       | I buy all my music as sites like bleep.com allow you to easily
       | buy mp3s, probably thousands of dollars over the years. I've
       | tried buying shows a handful of times before. But I travel a lot
       | and they're geolocked - WTF can't I watch my fully paid for
       | episodes of Rick and Morty on youtube wherever I happen to be?
       | 
       | Since studios have made purchasing impossible, I don't, and I
       | don't give them any money via streaming services either.
       | 
       | There is one exception I can think of:
       | https://www.teamstarkid.com/ They've made their (awesome!)
       | musicals available for purchase, with a true video download. So
       | they've gotten a well-deserved $50 from me.
        
         | loufe wrote:
         | I really enjoy Graphic Audio's audiobooks (full voice cast,
         | music, SFX, high quality production). Their titles can all be
         | bought outright, which is great as I spend a lot of time on a
         | plane or away from a cell signal or internet capable of
         | streaming even audio. It's a great approach, but I'm sure there
         | are not a ton of folks who end up buying episodes, it's an
         | expensive way to approach media, certainly.
        
       | ramon156 wrote:
       | I never understood why it's all collected under the term piracy.
       | Do we just classify illegally acquiring as piracy?
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | illegally acquiring? Yes, technically. Otherwise it wouldn't be
         | illegal.
        
       | Workaccount2 wrote:
       | Watching people square this mentality with training LLM's on art
       | has been fascinating, and really highlights that people are by
       | and large just in it for themselves.
        
         | yieldcrv wrote:
         | GenAI content isn't afforded copyright protection so that feels
         | like a coincidental good tradeoff
         | 
         | I've made money from genAI content but i don't care if someone
         | copied it, it's a risk I took, they don't have the network and
         | community I do which is the value.
        
         | stavros wrote:
         | Why would it be hard to square the mentality of "pirating art
         | to watch is acceptable" with the mentality of "pirating art to
         | train LLMs on is acceptable"?
        
           | CaptainFever wrote:
           | It depends. If your premise for "pirating art to watch is
           | acceptable" is "information should be free to be replicated
           | and reused", then it is also obvious that "pirating art to
           | train LLMs on is acceptable".
           | 
           | What premise that can infer "pirating art to watch is
           | acceptable" can also simultaneously infer "pirating art to
           | train LLMs on is not acceptable"? "Information should be free
           | to be replicated and reused as long as you're not making a
           | profit"? This would rule out OpenAI, but Stable Diffusion
           | would be acceptable (it's a true non-profit).
           | 
           | What other premises could there be? "One should be able to
           | watch all information, but not replicate it"? But you can't
           | pirate without replicating the information. "You shouldn't
           | repost stuff without consent"? But this rules out piracy.
           | 
           | "Information should be free to be replicated and reused as
           | long as it comes from a big corporation"? But piracy from
           | indie games is a thing, too. And how do you define "big"?
           | Also, is training stuff solely on Getty, Shutterstock etc
           | okay, then? What about books3? "But even though publishers
           | own the rights to the book, individual authors wrote it." But
           | the same is true for piracy from big corporations. People
           | worked on it.
           | 
           | This is why it's so hard to square it, because I cannot see
           | any rational moral foundation that simultaneously condones
           | piracy (possibly indie games too) while condemning Stable
           | Diffusion and the hobbyist AI ecosystem. The only other
           | explanation is that it is irrational, or as the GP put it,
           | "that people are by and large just in it for themselves".
           | Piracy for me but not for thee.
        
         | drpossum wrote:
         | No one you're complaining about would care if people were
         | training LLMs on pirated material for their own private use.
        
         | Newlaptop wrote:
         | Copyright has always allowed for educational usage.
         | 
         | Writers read other author's books. Artists study other painters
         | and sculptors. Actors and directors watch other movies.
         | Musicians learn to play other artists songs before they ever
         | start composing their own.
         | 
         | The big media copyright cartel has tried to steal that right
         | from the public good by pretending that they're entitled to
         | even more payments for training usage, but thankfully it's
         | clear that no regular people agree with them.
        
       | mikeocool wrote:
       | I used to download torrents of tv shows less because it was
       | cheap, and more because it was way more convenient than watching
       | them through legal means -- I could download them and then watch
       | them when/wherever I wanted.
       | 
       | For me, the content providers have now basically solved for that
       | with streaming services, I find that way more convenient than
       | dealing with torrents.
       | 
       | It's definitely not cheap, I'm paying for at least five streaming
       | services right now, but it's fast and easy and for me that's
       | worth it.
        
         | carlhjerpe wrote:
         | Torrents UX isn't uTorrent anymore, there are Netflix like UX
         | solutions to piracy 2024. Feel free to pay, I'm happy to
         | freeload off faceless megacorps profit margins.
         | 
         | I pay for YouTube Premium and Spotify premium, I'd probably pay
         | for Netflix if I didn't need D+, Showtime, Viaplay etc... To
         | access all I want to watch.
        
       | dotcoma wrote:
       | What's wrong with the other half ?
        
         | baud147258 wrote:
         | other just think pirating is an acceptable way to stick it to
         | the Man.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | Saying "piracy supports organized crime" as a scare tactic is a
       | new one to me, and doesn't seem like a very effective campaign.
       | What would be their motivation, shitty ad revenue?
        
         | telgareith wrote:
         | Private trackers might he considered organized crime.
        
           | some_random wrote:
           | I was guessing stuff like counterfeit DVDs, which also
           | doesn't really have much to do with torrenting
        
         | kibwen wrote:
         | Know what supports organized crime? The copyright-supported
         | media titans that closed ranks to cover up the career-spanning
         | crimes of all the Weinsteins, Cosbys, Diddys, and Saviles of
         | the world.
        
           | thih9 wrote:
           | Interestingly, Diddy shares a cell (dormitory-style room)
           | with SBF; small world.
           | 
           | > [Diddy] was arrested and indicted in the Southern District
           | of New York in September 2024 on charges of racketeering, sex
           | trafficking by force, and transportation for purposes of
           | prostitution. He is awaiting trial in federal custody at the
           | Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His cellmate is
           | Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving a 25-year sentence.
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Combs
        
           | mandmandam wrote:
           | Not to mention their cover ups and distractions from far
           | larger crimes - decades of cheerleading the 'war on terror',
           | stirring up Islamophobia, ignoring Israeli atrocities,
           | spreading climate change FUD, etc etc.
           | 
           | Saville was mind-meltingly evil, but in terms of the damage
           | done, even he pales in comparison to Cheney, W, Obama,
           | Netanyahu, Biden, Murdoch, etc.
           | 
           | Many people won't like these facts, and will reject them with
           | prejudice. And that's largely because of corporate media :/
           | 
           | So yeah, the hypocrisy really stings when they try to blame
           | online piracy for the state of the world. It's staggering
           | weaponized hypocrisy.
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | well, the bleeding heart "you make indies unable to operate"
         | didn't work. So you gotta move to fear, no matter how bad the
         | argument. Everyone responds to fear when done right.
        
       | fldskfjdslkfj wrote:
       | Vikings gonna viking.
        
       | lofaszvanitt wrote:
       | Get together with your friends and watch stuff.
        
         | johnnyanmac wrote:
         | Friends, in this economy? Surely you jest.
         | 
         | There was a brief post COVID period where we hung out. It got a
         | lot harder to contact them when almost all of us got laid off
         | in different companies. I still do reach out (I was laid off
         | too. I think I was the first in my circle), but it quickly
         | became COVID hard again.
        
       | akomtu wrote:
       | Imagine if someone bought a royal permission to "own" the image
       | of Mt. Everest, hired a bunch of gangsters and tried to chase and
       | beat up everyone who dared to look at the mountain without paying
       | a fee? That's the modern copyright holders, the wannabe
       | aristocracy of the digital world.
        
       | johnnyanmac wrote:
       | The alternative is that "not playing media you can't buy" is also
       | an acceptable way to save money. There's so much free media out
       | there these days that you could spend your life ethically
       | consuming media without ever spending a dime.
       | 
       | I'm no snitch, so do what you need to do. But I feel this
       | mentality of it being "acceptable" only further devalues art. And
       | the endgoal isn't some utopia where we all make art for free.
       | Just look at the mobile industry for this race to the bottom.
       | Tons of "free" mobile games, after all..
        
       | downrightmike wrote:
       | No wage. Only buy!
        
       | mschuster91 wrote:
       | Surprise, that's what you get for ... half a dozen worth of
       | streaming services these days with none sharing their catalogue?
       | 
       | It's not that hard. Spotify and Apple Music both have all the
       | music one can ever want, why the fuck didn't the movie/TV
       | industry consolidate on Netflix... greedy morons.
        
       | matsemann wrote:
       | As a Norwegian just above 30, I guess I'm a bit outside. But my
       | impression is that most people don't pirate movies or music to
       | the same extent we did when I was younger. What's being pirated
       | now is often live sports.
       | 
       | Watching Premier League costs about $75 a month. Why? Do the
       | multi-millionaire soccer players really need that much? What
       | happens with the sport when a whole generation of new fans can't
       | afford to watch?
       | 
       | I also wanted to watch the Alpine World Cup today, but due to
       | weird licensing issues with winter sports from Austria it's not
       | on any channel I can buy.
        
       | talkingtab wrote:
       | Corporations make decision that are predatory and then complain
       | when people avoid them. For example, there has been much talk
       | about "bad" passengers on airplanes. But there is little
       | discussion about the increasingly inhumane people must endure to
       | fly. Somehow the corporations expect people to endure over
       | crowding, exasperating loading conditions, angry and surly
       | "attendants", delays, bad food and more. Then when some passenger
       | loses it, the problem is _never_ the conditions, it is the
       | passenger.
       | 
       | The same is true for digital content. Amazon "sells" you movies
       | (as do others like Apple), but do you "own" the movie? No. Amazon
       | can just tell you it is no longer available. You cannot "sell"
       | the movie you "bought" to some other person. But you bought it
       | right? People in general are of good will. But if you treat them
       | as prey at some point they recognize these corporations are
       | simply predators. In my opinion there is a very strong case to be
       | made that people who decide not to be victims are of better
       | character than these predatory corporations.
       | 
       | [edit: removed the line "May their travels ever be delayed."
       | because it was not clear I meant predatory corporations]
        
         | BLKNSLVR wrote:
         | There's a 'concentration' (of people / power) effect by the
         | creation of a business or company or corporation that makes
         | said entity more appealing to cater to by government than
         | individuals; centralisation is more efficient than
         | decentralisation.
         | 
         | There's also the fact that, historically at least, business
         | entities were created to serve a public need, and therefore
         | these business entities should be encouraged to grow their
         | service to greater satisfy the need.
         | 
         | Government still acts as if this is the case despite that many
         | business entities are the grotesque offspring of that old idea,
         | having evolved through perverse incentives into todays
         | unrecognisable mutants of 'responsibility to shareholders' that
         | are hideous to look upon.
        
       | blackeyeblitzar wrote:
       | I am not sure. I think piracy does deprive others of revenue. The
       | only reason it feels acceptable is because it concerns
       | information instead of something physical. The gray area for me
       | is how ownership isn't real even when you legally purchase
       | something. For example, when Amazon deleted copies of digital
       | books from customers' Kindles.
        
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