just go to the russian streaming and downloading sites (but keep your anti virus stuff up to date)= free cable

I've gotten two. One for Mr Show. One for House of Cards Season 4.

I'm not worried.

It's the companies themselves that figure out you downloaded it, then they contact your cable company, then the cable company sends a stupid, very non-threatening letter.

Dude. You torrented a fucking Netflix show? You can't pay $8 a month for unlimited access to the thing? What... what the fuck right now?

Anyway, I just won't do it anymore. I don't like the idea that maybe watching some fucking stupid ass TV show might actually get me in legal trouble, even if it's highly, highly unlikely and improbable. You never know.

as a former/sporadic content creator-- fuck piracy!

seriously

people gotta eat

now don't give me this hypocritical bullshit about "big corporations"

big corporations are in fact the only ones that can protect themselves to an extent from the horde

the little guy gets reamed by the greedy gluttons

and nobody greedier than the public!

fuck you, internets

(but seriously one must adapt or perish-- i've adapted by quitting the misery)

it's not 1997 anymore-- when things were inaccessible and obscure and napster opened the floodgates to variety. no.

now it's all there! you can just pick and choose and manage your budget, but no, people are just too fucking greedy and want everything for nothing, and they want it right now too! not next month not next year-- now! yesterday! and then they point the finger at "greedy corporates" as if they themselves were honest.

fucking

typical.

as a former/sporadic content creator-- i love piracy!

Actually, the funny thing is I am aware that no one creatively affiliated with Mr Show gets anything from the DVD sales due to a shitty contract, yet that's the one thing HBO gets me for. Now that's some bullshit.

oh the "the artist" excuse

isn't that a great one

because artists have no lawyers or agents to negotiate their contracts! they're but innocent babes in the wilderness at the mercy of wolves

and you're going to take care of them! (by showing the distributor that there's a shrinking pie and they must fight harder to keep every cent, and pay the artist less)

hurray social justice

I used to do torrents. Not anymore. Ever. Last time I did was for The Life of Pablo because nobody would let me buy the fucker. When it did become available for purchase, I bought those MP3s for $20. Then I spent $700 on concert tickets. So... I don't feel bad about that one.

But I'm over torrents. As long as I have money, and am able to purchase the content I believe I need, I will. If for some reason I find myself in a dill pickle of a financial situation, maybe I'll reconsider. But I have the money, and I want the art to continue to be made, so I don't believe I have any excuse for not buying it. Also, I'm a content-creator, and I never give a word of any story or a thumbnail of any photo or video away for free, so I'm a happy capitalist in that sense, and anyone who disagrees can chortle my fucking taint.

:)

I donate the money I would've spent to feed homeless babies.

But if you want to feel smug, go ahead.

robin hood! is he real?

come on. this shit is not about "feeling smug". when you don't dine and dash is not about "not feeling smug." when you don't con a little old lady out of her lifetime savings it's not about "feeling smug." it's just the right thing to do in the society where we're living. in which we're supposedly ruled by laws and agreements that make things work.

i get it. digital changed the notion of property. information wants to be free or whatever. files can be easily reproduced without depriving the original owner of their item. feels like one is not stealing. but yeah we're depriving them from the oportunity to sell their wares. we're taking ourselves out of the market. we're fucking leeches. and we're destroying the very thing we want to consume because we're greedy fucking pigs.

i find it psychologically damaging that we pretend to be the holy santos while we project our own shit on "the labels who rip off the artists" (or the networks or whatever).

and this is not an argument im making against YOU by the way. it's not about trying to "convert" YOU.

what im fighting here is the widespread idea that artists and the people who work to make their work available do not suffer harm from rampant piracy from well-meaning, upright, decent tax-paying middle-class citizens who understand economics and can absolutely do better, but just choose not to because they can get away with it and "everyone is doing it."

I feel far too smug about fat too many other things to feel smug about this. Frankly it's weird to me that you would even say this, as it never occurred to me that I was pitching some "I'm better than you" shit your way.

I'm just saying this (the above) is how I choose to operate, and I've given the reasons for it. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was being a for-real asshole about it, because I wasn't trying to be. If you want to do torrents, do torrents! Me, I'm not in that space, and I feel like it does more harm than good.

It was with respect to my own content, and refusing to give any of it away, that I made that "chortle me taint" comment. I was anticipating some backlash from that, and wanted to make it clear that I don't give a fuck if anyone doesn't approve of my refusal to work for free.

it's all a crock of shit.

if you are a visual artist, you make a painting. you sell the painting at a gallery for, let's say $1,000. The gallery will take 50% to cover costs of showing, advertising, and promoting your work. That leaves you $500. In ten years, your work is now valued more and paintings sell for $10,000. The old art you made and sold for $1,000 is being re-sold by the original buyer for $1,000,000. You see NONE of that money. The art gets sold again and again and again, and the creator sees NONE of that money.

Band writes songs. Band records songs. Band gets record deal. Band releases an album. They make no money off album sales because their advance has to be covered. the people who buy a CD make a digital file,a nd shae it. Now dozens more people know of your band and music, which means more people will likely go to your live shows which is where you actually make money as a band (selling merch, part of gate receipts, etc.)
The only people who lose money off of digital piracy are the record labels who are already ripping off the artist. big fucking deal. Bands with no record deal who had two hits back in 1980 can keep touring indefinitely, making money for themselves and playing their music, and fuck the record label.

all due respect, but

http://www.wbt.com/articles/ap-news/...ear-85-percent


note how many of these are media ceos. If Ms "live by the rules" down the street from me wants to pay 200$ a month for Comcast, I'm not objecting, but I'm not joining

i'm not joining either, but that doesn't entitle me to join anyway by breaking a window under cover of darkness and ransacking the place

no means no and that's the end of it

i can get whatever is on cable by waiting a year and using legitimate means. it's called delayed gratification, which presumably separates the grownups from the bratty spoiled kids.

i don't know that "must-have-now" is worth the moral slippery slope of rationalizations for theft

"how do you plead?"
"one murder is nothing--look at hitler!"

(lol godwin's law. but anyway... just an image to make the point)

you should note also your red herring. CEO pay has gone up yeah? from the same article you quote:

The bump reflects how well stocks have done under these CEOs' watch.

By that metric they're doing a good job for your pension fund/retirement/investments so they're working for you and everyone socking money away for old age.

I'm not saying that these people don't have egos by the way. But as a shareholder to one or many of those companies, if they're doing a good job for you I don't see why you should resent them.

this argument is full of logical holes but since i'm on a short break i only have time to ask:

if the labels are "already ripping off the artist", then you're just another label, except you give the artist zero, instead of little?

nice

you also realize that if you cut down on label profits that incentivizes labels to further "rip off" (as you say) artists, yes?

i mean there's no social upside to your argument. none.

and again i should repeat im not here for the moral condemnation of individuals. everyone is flawed and succumbs to temptation on occasion. i'm not asking for moral perfection. i'm only here to refute shitty ideas.

and if my ideas are also shitty please have at them

not worried about social upside. I support artists by attending concerts, buying merch, I spend money that goes directly to the artists. No non-superstar musicians make any money off of the Record Store Day releases for example. Only the top 5% earners get a taste of the sales.

record labels are pimps, claiming to provide a service in exchange for money. They chew up and spit out 100 bands to get one Coldplay they can milk to death for four decades. They are the ones who hate piracy. They are the ones who killed Napster with lawsuits, shifting all the negative blame to Metallica. hahahhaha.

see this is the kind of rationale that i oppose so adamantly

if you said "i steal because i'm selfish and greedy and i'm getting a benefit from it" i'd be like, okay, an honest thief. i don't mind a rascal so much. fuck, some of the people i admire the most are rascals--like luis suárez.

but what i hate is the sociopathic rationalizations of "im good and holy and look at the bad man over there!"

fucking shit, drives me bananas. the denial and the coverups and the fake cloak of moral purity. fucking bullshit!

just admit you enjoy thieving and getting away with it. that would be a lot more respectable than the hypocrisy and feeble rationalizations.

wife of Caesar

i don't understand what you're saying here

who/what is/must be/tries to appear/ above suspicion?

the CEOs? you? rob? me?

if it's the CEOs, the article you posted also said that some CEOs got their pay cut by shareholders. so it's not all up unlimited. i don't see any crimes reported in that article.

if it's you and rob - are you saying that you two must rationalize your petty crimes in order to appear above suspicion? if so, i sympathize with the need but can't agree with the rationalizations themselves.

if it's me you're referring to-- i'm not a saint. or i should say i'm guilty of many things. i have a loooong list of fuckups, which is ongoing and perpetual. (but i'm not going to self-incriminate publicly, or be fool enough to pretend what i've done wasn't wrong.)

see, i have to insist on this point because i'm not sure i'm clear enough-- i'm not condemning the petty crimes themselves. i'm condemning the ridiculous hipocrisy of trying to justify petty crimes with pro-morality arguments.

two different things completely.

if someone uploads a sequence of 1's and 0's and I download a copy, how is that STEALING?

If I make a dub of a cassette tape and give it to my friend, how is that STEALING?

If I buy a painting, and make ten copies of that painting without charging, how is that STEALING?

the whole idea that digital torrents are STEALING is bullshit. There is no money changing hands. No one is profiting from the exchange of a length of binary code. The whole idea is bullshit.

yes, you're defining morality in this situation, then condemning others for breaching your def. There actually isn't an ethical problem in taking pay TV for free.

why don't you just say "good caper!" and enjoy a good laugh with your beer, like a proper thief?

it's not the "others" im condemning, it's the ARGUMENTS.

again, i have a long list of offenses, and i know they're actual offenses, and im not gonna pretend they're not. i just rather keep it private or between me and my confidants. which the internet isn't. but that's besides the point.

human fallibility is a thing. i ahve no problem with that. it's a fact of life. but i have a problem with bullshit rationalization and fake claims of purity.

there isn't an ethical problem in taking pay tv for free?

please explain that. please explain it well, like you're trying to convince someone logically, rather than make yourself appear innocent by pointing the finger at someone else and deflecting.

i really wanna find a good argument here instead of blatant denials. something that holds up to examination.

as I was saying

Serious question: what are the ethics of pirating something that has long been out of print, and can only be purchased in used condition?

as you were dodging, the question has been dodged. i'm not gonna push you if you wanna avoid it. avoidance = achieved.


finally, a good one!

off the top of my head i'd say it's a lesser issue than the regular kind, since the issue of availability is an attenuating circumstance.

it's still unethical though, if we're going to be precise, but less so than withdrawing demand out of an active market.

it's not like we're talking about preserving antiquities from destruction. it's still piracy.

BUT if you take into account that the value of used items potentially increases, and there is a market for used items, i'd say the sellers of used items could claim to have been harmed--rather than the original producers

in any case i'm doing searches for good discussion on the issues. gtg back to work but will be posting links

so it is piracy on November 30, 2017, but as soon as the "legal" copyright expires on December 1, 2o17 it is no longer piracy? The whole thing is a house of cards designed to make money for those that have the clout and bankroll to purchase everyone's intellectual "property." (Disney for example)

I think it's ownership which makes piracy unethical. A free "experience" is not, otherwise libraries would be unethical, and as far as I know they are not. Lending a CD to friend to listen to doesn't quite pass the threshold for unethical behavior.

You may borrow a book and have it's experience, but if you want to be able to experience the book whenever you want, you have to cough up some money for ownership.

(Stuff on youtube is almost on the line, but is probably ultimately unethical because if certain simple steps are taken, you can watch whatever you want whenever, which is more or less ownership.)

So: I could check out a DVD at my library. But sometimes I like watching movies on my phone. I need the movie as a file. So I pirate the movie. After I watch it, I delete it. It was just some dumb comedy I'll never watch again.

Is this action unethical?

since we have legal frameworks that define our markets, yes it would be piracy on one day and public domain the next.

i don't know how that constitutes a "house of cards"

you could argue a bunch of things in court though and get it thrown out but yeah, time makes a difference.

your argument that legal frameworks are a house of cards-- is much more so a house of cards.

agh, i'll try to answer evollove's puzzle later as it's a much more complex one and break is over lol

"attenuating circumstances", he says. I guess your days must be numbered:o

actually, I'm not avoiding anything. I just don't have any moral or ethical dilemma about taking TV off the internet without paying cable. I do have a real strict moral code, but that's one particular item that isn't there.

i don't know anyone without numbered days. whether we know the actual number is another story, but everyone has one.

so what you're saying is that your strict moral code permits you to breach copyright in contravention of established law

which... is fine if that's your moral code. which might put you at odds with the law. but that's another story.

i have a strict moral code too but, being an animal and full of unlawful desires, i break it too often. thing is, i don't try to rationalize it by pointing the finger at someone else. my failings are mine. sure, sometimes, circumstances... extenuate or attenuate or i forget the word.

i throw myself at the mercy of the court!

ha ha ha

i still have a hard time parsing evollove's last question. which is a complex one and raises interesting points. maybe after work. to which my ethics now compel me. but i don't wanna! gaaaahhhh....

i'm glad to see you believe in private property. so do i. i'm not a communist.

what appears nebulous here is "what ownership". but it's not, really.

because with intellectual property and copyrights, what one owns is THE RIGHTS to something.

and when you violate those rights, yes, you violate that ownership and it's therefore unethical-- at least if you believe in private property, and that rights can be owned and therefore bought and sold.

if you believe it's all a free-for-all then this doesn't apply. but as i actually do, it applies to me.


libraries could be unethical depending on who defines the ethics. as it is, libraries i believe enjoy certain exemptions but they also have limits in what they can do.

the library does not give away infinite copies in perpetuity to anyone that requests them. the doctrine of first sale applies to the lending of books. but lending is not the same as making copies.

with digital though, similar principles as physical books apply.

for example, i can download an e-book from my public library, which is technically a copy, but i get it for a limited time and i must get in a queue if someone else has access to that book (to those *rights*).

there's more stuff here and i can't read it but it shows how libraries are a special case: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright


sure


i really don't know how youtube works but they're always taking down shit due to copyright violations. can't say more than that though. i don't know how they work behind the scenes.


if you believe in private property and if you believe that the content creator or distributor or rights owner has a right to administer access to that content, then yes, it's unethical.

it's not an atrocity against humanity but it's a little theft nevertheless. and it has an impact in the aggregate.

now if you're a communist who believes that all knowledge belongs to humanity, and you're willing to give away your labor and its fruits for free the same way you take them, then it's not unethical in that case and in that context.

so ethics depends on the society. and in a society as big as ours the only common ground we have is the law. so what's legal and what's ethical get conflated. but they're not always the same. so, war is legal but unethical to a conscientious objector. taxes are legal but libertarians call it theft. abortion is legal but christians think it's mass murder. so we're always negotiating those differences in legislatures and courts.

the issue for me though is where does the communist society get the economic incentives to produce content and innovation. they just kept playing the same 200 year old symphonies over & over while the west was cranking out all sorts of new things.

In a communist society, art production would drop off, but there are many many reasons beyond money why people engage in creative activities.

----

Is Chelsea Handler hip? I've seen her in a Sonic Youth t-shirt and a Bauhaus t-shirt. And I don't even watch her very often (for free on youtube).

truncated circumstances aside, anyone watching the Americans? It's really well done..

i love that show & recommended it to demoño, BUT

i'm acting my wage and thus a year behind w/ replays

just watched season... 4 i think? or 5? either way, great

sure creativity is part and parcel of human life and won't go away anywhere but the ability to make a living as an artist when the state doesn't sponsor you is a totally different story

--

eta: i've been saying that a lot lately in this thread. "different story" "different story" "different story"

god damn my echolalia

I think she's kind of intolerable, but that might be closet sexism talking.

Also, my girlfriend's tremendous pain in the ass of a sister acts and speaks exactly like Chelsea Handler in real life... AND she always has a massive fucking dog wandering around with her, taking shits on my lawn and scaring my cats. Maybe Chelsea Handler is entertaining to watch from a safe distance, but I guarantee you, the real-world Chelsea is a sloppy, entitled ne'er-do-well who plops herself down in your living room when she's passing through town and starts fussing with her bra, taking about dream "signs," and blowing blunt smoke all over your house.

:mad:

But does she really like SY?