this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024

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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Table of various levels of piracy (fedia.io)

submitted 8 months ago by Rentlar@lemmy.ca to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Here's a table I adapted from Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it. (spreadsheet file)

I tried to condense each rank and make it less about a specific type of media like CD audio or DVD video, along with a table of simplified characteristics of each situation. Of course more levels can be added and there are many situations not covered. This hierarchy is simply the way Louis ordered it from more to less justifiable; he respects people can think about it differently and I do too. He suggests that he doesn't really care about people that pirate without giving a shit about creators, and that he only has a problem with people who aren't honest with themselves about their motivations.

Setting legality aside, what 'level of piracy' is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

(page 2) 33 comments

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[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago

Depending on the situation, up to #13 for me. A caveat to that might be whether or not the creator has appropriately priced their product so as to justly compensate themselves without charging consumers excessively. While I had it in my Steam library already, Factorio deserves to be pirated for breaking with the standard practice of not raising game prices with inflation. Same with Sega's anti-consumer move to remove the Sonic ROMs from the Sega Genesis collection to boost sales of Sonic Origins.

[–] HotsauceHurricane@lemmy.one 3 points 8 months ago

I see a whole lotta “yes” in that graph. 🏴‍☠️

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does piracy for the sake of preserving media (even if countless others are also preserving it) count for number 15?

Generally, I'm good with 1~5 or so, but there are lots of legit reasons there.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Louis' list comes from the perspective of moral in the sense that "were the people that provided you entertainment value provided appropriate compensation" which is why the list is ordered this way.

Looking at it in the lens of preserving items for the common good, this could take form of #1 or #3, where you bought a copy but you don't want it to degrade or fade into obscurity, but it could also be #15 where you just don't want to lose it and it doesn't matter to you whether the creator should have benefited.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

That's fair! I imagine there's also somewhere in the middle where they want to pay the creator, but have no way to do so, or no way to know who it is.

I mean, so you pay the studio? The current rights' holder? The creative? (Hard when a piece of media is made by a team that isn't together anymore)

[–] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't know where I would draw the line...I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.

Generally speaking I don't pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that's due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I'm supporting in other ways.

I think the only other thing I've pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down

[–] MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 1 points 7 months ago

Pirating DLC i guess is no issue.

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Ranks 1 through 9 Is Not Piracy as you've paid for your copy in some manner typically. Rank 11 & 12 is not piracy

Ranks 10, 13, and 14 are JUSTIFIABLE Piracy. You are free to debate the merits of doing these things or choose not to do them yourself.

Rank 15 is blatant piracy and is arguably socially unacceptable and fully subject to full penalty of law. Don't be that guy!

My ethics are simple; You must fulfill one of two conditions:

You pay for a legitimate copy (license) in some format. How much you pay does not matter as long as the transaction is for a permanent (indefinite time length) license and not blatantly a rental. This legitimate copy does not have to be purchased directly from the IP Rights holder or their designated and authorized (re)sellers.
You are 100% unable to obtain a reasonable, purchasable, legal copy in your city of residence through any physical or digital means. Any Digital options available to you must not be reasonably obtainable due to unreasonable cost of buy-in.

Notably:

Both rules exclude the ability to "Rent" a piece of content from somewhere, "Borrow" it from a library and "Buy" it online from a digital market place that is exclusive to a piece of technology you do not own and do not plan to, and would not elect to purchase.

As an example; any and all content that is exclusively available on iTunes or exclusively through using an iDevice is not reasonably obtainable; I do not own an Apple device, I do not wish to buy or own one. I would be within my rights to pirate any content I see as desirable. I despise Apple and refuse to use their products; so I am within my rights to pirate anything that requires you to use an Apple device or account to access the right to purchase it.

This would not be acceptable if the content were available through Google Play; as I already own an Android Smartphone, and the marketplace is reasonably accessible and reasonably priced in most cases.

This does not include situations where accessing the ability to purchase content requires a large number of convoluted steps. For example; I shouldn't be required to mail in a letter only to obtain a temporary credential necessary to access the purchasing front-end, submit more personally identifying information than necessary to fill an order in an account creation process, or be required to call a specific phone number to support to ask for an exception to a policy or permission to purchase or retain access to a purchase.

As a final clarification: Streaming == Renting.

No 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts' about it. A streaming service is renting access to a specific batch of content for an agreed upon price, paid at a regular interval. This is not a purchase. Instead it is a patronage agreement.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for engaging with the scenarios listed. The point of the exercise is to see where people land personally, there's no one size fits all ethical principles but a lot of overlap. The RIAA, MPA, Irdeto (the group that makes Denuvo) etc. could argue that all of these cases are piracy and unjustifiable. Others see everything as justifiable, just because they're used to it, it's simply not financially accessible to them, they don't care or they just want to subvert the entire concept of capitalist ownership, as evidenced in replies downthread.

[–] Melody@lemmy.one 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

In most cases either they filled option 1; or having no access to a purchase option they feel is reasonable fills option 2.

Few people, if any, are truly rank 15. I don't give a damn what the corporate folks say or think. Most of the time they're basically blaming the victims of their own poor decision making anyways.

I don't agree that Rank 10 should be placed where it is; it is more akin to Rank 15 in similarity...the attitude is more entitled than it should be. Ripping your own copy should be something you are not only allowed; but encouraged to do...as it often nullifies any content protection that might interfere with your right to enjoy the content that you purchased in a way that the rights holder didn't expect. Furthermore it removes all doubt that your digital copy is legitimate, as you derived it from a physical copy that you already own...and have fair use doctrine as well as purchase license and access to.

Ripping your physical copies is also a further message to creators that DRM and Copy Protection is an unacceptable format.

As an additional note: I firmly believe that people who sell copies of things they pirated are ranked at 15. They are blatantly ignoring the law for no justifiable reason. You as a customer purchasing from those people are not liable for their law breaking however; similar to how you are not liable for people who are ignoring the law by handing out free pirated copies to everyone. The burden of breaking the law is upon the one committing the crime.

The reason I advocate ripping your own copies; is simple. If you got caught with a copy you obtained from someone else's physical copy; you could be reasonably ordered by a judge to "Forfeit (delete all copies in your possession of) that illegitimate copy". It's likely to happen when they catch the person making the illegal copies. Ripping your own personal digital copy from your physical copy is provably not piracy. It's a different act altogether; as you are using something you already own within your rights of possession and property. Instead, ripping your own copies is legal preservation.

[–] doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's important to be cognizant of various worldwide perspectives, considering the part of your comment on political discourse.

Some countries don't care that everyone pirates everything and anything.

Others, like Japan for example, have copyright ingrained both in the laws and in the culture. Some think "right clicking and saving an image on a public website" is theft. It's part of the reason Sony and Nintendo are so anal about copyright and how there are no Manga sharing sites located in Japan.

So not only the laws different everywhere what is legitimate discourse changes too.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 8 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

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