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?