At least, some of the recent controversies.

    • CleoTheWizard@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Believe it or not, I think he has a point and isn’t at all a hypocrite. He’d show you how to pirate and torrent stuff (and has before) while also telling you he doesn’t recommend stealing. What he was saying is that the content isn’t meant to be free. The ads pay for the content. So not watching ads means the producer doesn’t get paid. Its a soft form of piracy but he wasn’t telling you what to do about that. He just said “Be aware you’re not giving people anything for their content”. I don’t know why thats controversial, he’s not even suggesting its illegal or even immoral. I never understood the arguments here but I also dont visit twitter

      • NightOwl@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Piracy I associate as an illegal act that carries penalties of fines and imprisonment. Like real piracy…

        As blocking is legal and something even the FBI recommends. This is more a website shortcoming than an act of piracy. Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.

        • Chozo@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.

          Isn’t “taking something without paying” what piracy is? With YouTube, the “payment” is your time spent watching an ad. If you bypass that “payment”, are you not effectively pirating the content?

          It doesn’t seem that diluted to me. I actually agree with Linus’s take that adblocking is piracy. It’s just a much more socially and legally-acceptable form of piracy.

          If anything, I feel like adblocking on YouTube does even more direct damage to content creators than pirating blockbuster movies does to movie studios, honestly. If ten thousand people pirate a new Marvel movie, Disney’s not going to hurt too bad from that. But if ten thousand people adblock a YouTuber, that can significantly hurt their income by damaging their ad impression ranking. Advertisers on YouTube set their rates based on the engagement they get from a channel, and drops in engagement will typically result in drops in CPM.

          It’s the reason I pay for YouTube Premium, myself. I use YouTube pretty much all day long, and I want the creators whose content I spend my day watching to get paid for their work. And if not for YTP, I would 100% be adblocking YouTube, otherwise.

          • klubsanwich@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            If I tune into an NFL game using an OTA antenna, then turn off my TV during commercials and turn it back on for the game, would that be piracy?

          • NightOwl@lemmy.one
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            1 year ago

            That’s a whole lot of words for what in the end is not piracy with no laws being broken. There’s a difference between a moral argument and law breaking.

          • ditty@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            It’s not illegal to look away from a billboard or to close my eyes during a trailer at the movies, which seems more akin to using an adblocker in a browser.

            • Chozo@kbin.socialOP
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              1 year ago

              “Not acknowledging” and “directly interfering with” something are two different things.

      • snaggen@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I do not block ads. I however use Privacy Badger to block tracking cookies, which means that I don’t see ads. I will see all ads that are not tracking me, which seems to be none. Is protecting my privacy also piracy?

        • CleoTheWizard@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          It is, yes. It’s a separate conversation of if it should be illegal or immoral to keep your privacy this way. But as long as you are violating the intended method of revenue for the content you’re viewing, that’s piracy to me.

          I think most people hear piracy and think it’s immoral or illegal, but there are very valid reasons to pirate content such as game and movie preservation.

          • Boozilla@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Yup, illegal does not mean immoral or unethical. It just means some rich or powerful person doesn’t like what you’re doing. There’s a lot of overlap, of course. Many illegal acts are also immoral or unethical. But it’s not a 100% overlapping Venn diagram. Also YT is kind of evil, so it’s piracy against an evil corporation as much as the content creator. The smarter content creators have sponsors and embedded ads and don’t rely on YT for anything.

          • snaggen@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            The implicit contract is to show an ad for a service, but they are actually violating the contract by attaching other things to the ads. They then use the ads to steal information that they then sell without my consent. So, if anything we are discussing honor amongst thieves.

            • CleoTheWizard@beehaw.org
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              1 year ago

              It’s not like you see the ads that have trackers, they get blocked. So it’s still part of the agreement sort of. And you’re also aware that it’s revenue for them. People assume it’s a moral argument, it’s not. You can pirate from absolutely evil people, but it’s still piracy. That’s why I don’t view it as worth arguing over for the most part. I WANT people to realize that it’s piracy but that they’re actually doing something ethical.