Let me explain here, as just one example. There was a tv show that was broadcast in the late 2000’s - early 2010’s. About 5-6 years ago, right when I felt nostalgic and wanted to watch it again, the tv show in question was pulled from all major streaming services, and DVDs of the show were not produced (or if they were, I was never able to get my hands on them). The only way that this cartoonish show was watchable for a time was via second-hand archives on YouTube, dailymotion, etc. However, despite the fact that the show was made inaccessible, the copyright holder’s official website states even to this day that the show is copyright, which means that unofficial uploads on YouTube should be in violation of copyright (the YouTube channels were just amateurish accounts and not credible, official accounts, just to be clear). As such, it was ambiguous as to whether the production company was going to lease the rights to the show. Whilst interest in the show has gone now, it did make me wonder: is it ever justifiable (either legally or ethically, or morally) to pirate media that has been completely pulled from circulation despite the original owner maintaining copyright (and therefore ownership) of? Or, is it (legally, ethically or morally) justifiable to pirate media where the copyright status is ambiguous (i.e. you don’t know if anyone owns it) [classic case study I always hear about: British PSAs, icons of 70’s 80’s and 90’s kids childhoods, yet locked behind copyright doors whose keys may lie in the hand of legal ambiguity]
Piracy is justifiable in a vastly greater number of scenarios than just pulled media.
To keep it short: Yes, it is.
Short, sweet and to the point! Thanks for sharing your view (even if it’s not detailed lol)
If it cannot be purchased for reasonable price on a good medium and owned forever, then piracy is justified.
If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing.
Copyright violations aren’t stealing anyways
It’s probably illegal but it’s completely moral in my opinion. Like, wtf are you supposed to do if not pirate? They pulled the show. You cannot obtain it legally even if you wanted to
To add to this the price should be reasonable. If the price for some old ass shit is crazy expensive it’s essentially NOT available legally and should be pirated.
For example Nintendo charging full price for some nostalgia game.
Nintendo is awful in general, but especially when it comes to their old libraries.
It’s always justifiable to pirate shows. Specially in a world where they make it so hard to own the media you are buying.
if buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.
If buying were owning, piracy wouldn’t be stealing either. It’s copyright infringement.
Piracy is always justifiable.
Exactly. You’re pirating every time you watch an advertisement.
Go for it. AI basically made piracy legal, or these companies would be facing massive lawsuits, right?
In the start of 2000 the American diffusion rights for Cowboy Bebop was held by Disney. It cost in my region nearly 50$ for 2 episodes on DVD (there’s 26 episodes).
The reason was that « animation » was their turf and they were no good reason for them to let so oriental men be better than Disney at it. So they bought most of the diffusion rights and didn’t distribute the product.
Most of the time … piracy is ethical
If no one can own anything, then piracy doesn’t exist.
Download that show. It’s a form of protest, as far as I’m concerned.
Make sure to bind your torrent client to your vpn. VPNs have a killswitch but the binding offers a bit for insurance.
What makes torrenting justified in my view:
- Enshittification of streaming services with ad breaks.
- Shows typically have a 2 year gap before we can watch the next 8-10 episodes.
- Not all shows are available in all countries.
- The customer has to pay for multiple services to binge an entire show.
- Physical media is not always available.
Piracy is quite frequently justifiable, even on common media.
In our modern landscape, the vast majority of creators don’t see a dime when you view their material, so I have no reason to feel obligated to line the coffers of some conglomerate that’s effectively stealing the artist’s money.
I’ll pay for niche streaming services (paying for dropout directly helps the cast and crew) and buy merch from artist sites or shows, but I’m not going to feel guilty that downloading an album off a torrent takes away the fractions of a cent that my streams would give when I can pay them directly for a shirt and physical copy of the album if I ever get to see them live.
Legally, no. The law does not carve out any kind of exceptions here.
Ethically, it’s not a lost sale if you never could’ve bought it in the first place. And I don’t think it’s fair to audiences to say they just don’t get to enjoy the media at all if it’s not officially available. If official means no longer exist, then piracy is preservation.
Morally, creators still do deserve compensation for their work, one way or another. So if you can’t buy the work directly I think it’s good to try and find other ways to support the creators if possible - such as buying merchandise or other projects they’re involved with.
Great write up. This was the blinds of comments I was looking for in this chat.
piracy is always justifiable.
Are you asking if it’s ethical, or asking if it’s moral?
Legal and ethical (you can add moral too, ig). Yeah, why not? Let’s do all 3
I’d say it’s both ethical and moral, but also illegal.
One of my gripes about how goddamn long copyright lasts is that it makes officially sharing a digital copy a crime. Perfectly applied, most music would have disappeared from existence before it can be digitized and disseminated throughout hard drives around the world. The only reason the majority of copyrights are even monitored at this point is to harvest money from YouTube videos; those people have absolutely no interest in preservation.
Makes me think of that old horror movie Nosferatu: Stoker’s wife sued the producers and the court ordered that all copies of the movie be destroyed. It was only that a few prints of the movie were hidden (arguably pirated, certainly meeting the legal definition) that that movie is still watchable today, and critics call it one of the greatest horror movies of history (or at least one of the earliest/most influential)
That’s a cool story.
There’s a lot of cinema that was just thrown into the trash. If you ever see Metropolis, imagine 100 movies like that that we will never see.
Sad
Ethics is cool and all but have you tried coming to your own conclusion?
Do you feel okay with doing whatever measures you must to secure it? Is taking something that someone else has ‘legal’ control over wrong to you? Think about it this way, are you justified at coming up to my windows and taking pictures of my art work in my house? I’m not selling it, so clearly it’s fine since you’re not depriving me off monetary value and, if I wanted to have some control over it, I should be selling prints of it at least, right?
Or, like, it’s just a show. Keeping it and sharing it with others keeps it alive, instead of digitally rotting away. Don’t spend that much time thinking about any of it.
Why don’t you just say the show, though?
Well first of all, I did mention that this was something that happened 5-6 years ago. To be clear, I did watch the show on YouTube back then (I know I didn’t mention that, I probably should’ve), that wasn’t really the point of this post. You’re looking at it backwards: you’re assuming I’m asking because I want to know if I should watch the show. What actually happened is, I watched the show and it got me curious in a general sense what other people think (years later, I didn’t have Lemmy back then). I’m asking out of curiosity what other people think, not because I’m trying to make my own mind up. I was actually only using that show as an example for the question I was asking — any other show under the same ambiguity would’ve sufficed just as well to explain what I was asking, really. Second of all, the reason I don’t want to say the name of the show is because it’s a show that had a very niche audience, and I know other people IRL who use this platform and I don’t want to risk them finding out I have an account here for personal reasons. They know I was a huge fan of this show so they’ll click straight away if they came across this and I’d named the show.
Fair enough on the name of the show being personally identifiable but, five years ago or today, what does it matter? What does it matter to you? What sin are you looking to be absolved of? If it’s so niche that a) the only place you could find it was YouTube and b) so few people know of it that it would identify you, go look up the creator and find a way to send them a fiver and pirate that. Who actually cares?
Because I’m interested, as in, in the topic of legal, moral and ethical implications, not just of this show, but ambiguous media in general. I’m not on about absolving anything. I simply find it an interesting topic is all. Is that not motivation enough to ask? In any case, what’s it to you why I care?
A better and more important real world case is revenge porn. The moral difference should be obvious to people with (y’know) morals, but it’s slightly more complex to define from a stricter ethical or especially legal framework. What fundamentally justifies the piracy and unregulated distribution of a show that’s been removed from public access vs material that the person may have originally consented to making and showing to others but objects or no longer consents to it being shown to a wider audience? It can’t just be the sexual nature in and of itself because what’s defined as intimate enough to restrict viewing is highly subject to cultural influence.
Once it was shown and accessible to the public there is a public interest in the copyrighted work as well. It’s part of culture, of history, of the public and human system. The copyright and ownership is no longer a singular concept but stands in relation and potentially in conflict with the public interest.
Some jurisdictions explicitly allow archiving as exceptions to copyright. Museums and archive.org can conditionally evade copyright, for example.
On revenge porn, the persons autonomy, self determination, bodily safety and honor, and psyche is a high good and significance that must be protected. This right is much more significant than any “public interest”, which is less prominent to other works anyway, because “revenge porn” has no artistic and constructive value as a creative or cultural work.
