Then everybody would be as wrong as you. You can repeat this as much as you like, but it is simply false.

Legally speaking: copyright infringement is an offense distinct from theft.

Speaking from reality: copyright infringement does not deprive the holder of the right of their property.

Speaking ethically: Copyright infringement is a violation of a particular commercial mode of exchange. "Unauthorized Looking" would be a better term for what retail bittorrent users are up to.

In that sense, copyright infringement _indirectly_ deprives the holder of the property through the capital that they invested in order to create the property in the first place.

I mean, if I spend $100 to make a movie with the hope that 100 people will each spend $2 to watch it, and then you make a copy and distribute it for free to my audience, then you’ve deprived me of my $100 in capital, and the $100 in profit. The profit itself is a loss because it is an opportunity cost: if I hadn’t made the movie then I might have spent my time making money some other way.

The distance between your position and mine is, I think, one of scale. Individual infringement of a property with millions of views is a tiny fraction of the cost of creating that property. But as the number of infringers increases relative to the audience, it really does deprive people of property.

Even if it was possible, surely the people who have invested real money should be the ones to make this decision? Indeed, lots of IP becomes free (even freedom-free) after it’s made money, eg the Quake engine.

Why? They have no inherent right to limit the distribution of their content, only the special rights society has decided to give them in order to encourage the creation in the first place.

And in the case of copyright society has decided that media is something that is worth investing in and we have created laws that encourage that.

Some of those laws suck and are stupid and overreaching, but that’s not the argument here.

I don't know what the legal term is for hiring someone for a service and then not paying them for that service.

My first search came up with "theft of services"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_of_services

If you want the your tax forms filled out you pay the tax accountant. If you want the movie you pay the creators of the movie.

I know there is a difference in the the movie already exits but is that an important difference? When I arrive at the tax accountant's office to collect my tax forms they already exist. Maybe I should just make a copy for free and leave and say "copies are free so it's not theft"?

It's not the document that was stolen, it was the value of their time.

I understand it might not seem right to you, but in all the social groups I am a part of piracy and sharing accounts is normative. The only fault I see is mixing personal and work resources, which naturally have separate concerns.

Back in the dvd days, I would frequently never get discs back. The few times I’ve loaned a file from a digital file I’ve bought on Amazon, I’ve never watched the movie again. So for all I care, they could keep it forever.

In terms of digital goods writ large, there is no good way for me to lend access in a provable manner -- so of course piracy is the natural evolution because that's the only way to lend things.

Also, we used to copy Blockbuster tapes too, which is illegal, but there was never enforcement because we never re-sold these copies. Maybe I'm just a miscreant through and through. Irrespective, this is another clear example of where the transition to digital caused a dissonance between the physical and digital worlds that led users to believe behavior called "illegal" was actually just a subtraction of their ownership rights.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23823166

I just don't understand this argument, physical copies of virtually any type of media absolutely still exist. If you want to own even Netflix shows on disc, you can do that pretty cheaply. I'd you want to get Blu Ray discs delivered to you by mail for a subscription fee, you can probably do that (although this is slightly more geographically restricted).

This argument is simply invalid.

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Complete-Seasons-Collect...

Also, I'm sure there are other Hulu, Netflix, Prime excluses that won't make it to the physical market.

----

This still avoids the main issue here: It's the right of ownership of the copy. Having a digital copy, in it's current state, prevents you from transferring it to others. Amazon's ebooks have the option for lending, but you're still reliant upon Amazon's "holy permission" to do that. (They can reascend it at any time). With physical mediums the original creators cannot prevent you from reselling what you own. (They can try.. but often times they've failed)

I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that if I watch a movie that I like, I should purchase it again on physical media just to loan it. And that my friend should buy a DVD player just to watch a borrowed movie.

If I’ve bought it once digitally, I will make copies and lend them to friends. Or more specifically, I’ll give them a login to my private Plex server.

The issue we saw is that there is no way to legally lend a digital resource to someone else, which is a constructed limitation. Lending here involves two things, one is that the resource is exclusive and the other that it has the same traits as the original good. In crux, why do an illegal, but "not as bad" thing when there is no legal difference -- just do the illegal thing at that point.

This is how torrenting, piracy, and account sharing became normative. Access to digital goods was restricted further than physical goods, meaning that as content moved to digital first, there was a dissonance between worlds (This is where all the "First Sales Doctrine" litigation tens of years ago comes from). When that dissonance was resolved in favor of businesses, we adjusted via legal brinksmanship -- wherein we said "This is normal behavior, but if you're calling it abnormal and illegal I'll just do the actually illegal thing because it doesn't matter anymore".

I have a library card, where I borrow exclusive, digital copies of a resource for a reasonable price (If we snake a path between my taxes and the library service). I think this system is great, even though it has just the same properties as physical lending has. It is when properties are lost inexplicably that you see new, emergent behavior.

Once again, I understand that this isn't widely accepted view point in some circles and that you may just fundamentally dislike it. I know that behavior might be illegal by US code, but the nature of something being illegal is that it is illegal because it is an accessible possibility. We create laws to inhibit possible behavior, and, in this case, many of us have just said "I don't care" to these laws in a similar way to jaywalking or speeding.

You only have two choices as a rights holder when it comes to digital works; much less sharing or much more. There's no workable digital equivalent of the kind of sharing limits imposed by having to move a physical thing from one place to another. In order for sharing to be viable with digital versions the DRM would need to be much more sophisticated, or the prices would need to be much higher.

Edit: if you want a concrete example of the harm caused by this attitude, go look into why there's no HD remaster of DS9 or Babylon 5. The studio broke down sales figures for previous SciFi remakes and then the degree to which those shows are torrented. If even an appreciable fraction of the freeloaders ever actually bought the discs, then it would be worth it to make one. You don't, so they don't.

Are you sure digital piracy is theft? Wikipedia defines theft as:

"The taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it."

Copies are made, sales (possibly) lost, but no property is being taken such that the owner cannot continue to sell/rent/etc it.

My take: I'll pay for whatever streaming service that has the content I want (except Hulu), but if it is not available to stream then Internet Copies are an option for me. I don't have a DVD/Bluray/etc player to go the physical copy route and would simply go without if not for streaming first then Internet Copies.

physical copy theft: the physical medium is being stolen, the works are still available, but it is theft because packaging is an industry unto itself, costing money. Making an internet copy costs (basicallly) nothing.

In all: I will pay for what is available, I will even wait if they announce something I want is coming to x-platform at y-date. Because of Netflix alone, I basically don't download movies now. Disney+ is an interesting option now, too. If the market provides, it can have my money!

Not really, I pay for Amazon prime, tho in Germany, as such the content is very limited and often only exists dubbed, granted: They've been getting better with this.

But delivery of certain shows sometimes is days and weeks late compared to US release, streaming quality has also been spotty for me with no real way to fix anything.

I also have shared access to Netflix, but once again: It's German Netflix, as such it does not have the same offerings as what's current in the US, for example no second season of Twilight Zone.

With Netflix I could use a VPN to get access to the US version, but finding a free VPN with enough bandwidth to stream Full HD content is easier said than done and finding a good paid one seems like quite a bothersome task.

Meanwhile, none of that matters with the warez scene, which also covers everything, not just specific IP. Meaning that I don't run the risk missing out on something interesting or a new season due to not having properly kept up with the news or checked dozens of different services.

No weird issues with streaming, just a handy *.mkv file, add whatever language subtitles I want/need because unlike the entertainment industry, the warez scene actually has been extremely good and consistent about setting and keeping standards [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)

My understanding is that you'd still be breaking copyright laws, so you might as well download from torrents...

A pirate however, does not deplete any of the provider's resources. They don't use computational or transactional resources.

In practice they’ll just bar you from the premises.

So I’d say that piracy is potential copyright infringement and leave it at that. It’s curious to see moral judgement on this. I assume that the judgers work in media or something.

But I also come from a generation that thought DLC was unjust.

Back in the Napster days I bought so much more music based on stuff I downloaded. Not everyone was like me, buty piracy made money for the record industry.

I also think copyright infringement has allowed lots of knowledge and entertainment to be available to low resource markets that would never attract releases. How many young people in Lagos got software and media only through piracy?

I challenge you to demonstrate that copyright infringement per se is bad for society. This would mean copyright is good for society which is still to be proven at least in it's current acception.

Some people we're never and are never going to pay for some of the they consume, they'll either pirate it or just not consume it.

I'm presently watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Which I just pirated earlier today. I'm never going to our-right buy, nor rent, it.

One season is presently on Netflix here in Australia, so I'll watch that there, and the publisher will get their three cents out of me via Netflix, or whatever Netflix pays.

That's three cents they were otherwise never going to get out of me.

If the content was available at a reasonable price, say some portion of what I pay my ISP and the AU$8 I pay the VPN service to hide my traffic from my surveillance-state ISP, I'd pay it.

But it isn't, and I can't afford to pay for all the content I consume on my trifling skilled-tradesperson wage.

You realise when people like me see job ads for doctors getting paid in a day what I earn in a fortnight, and revenue figures like:

The Last Airbender had grossed $131,772,187 in the United States, and $187,941,694 in other countries, making for a total of $319,713,881 worldwide.

... there's no way you're going to convince me this side of the heat death of the universe that copyright infringement in universally bad.

Or maybe not, I can just about imagine a bunch of suits suing Jesus for multiplying bread to feed the poor because it deprived them of their baked good sales revenue.

There would be infringement.

:D

If it was a clear choice between buying something or pirating it, equating piracy with theft would be more reasonable (though the owner still has their good so not entirely identical) but that doesn't seem to be the typical scenario. The ads only make that equivalence because it's better for the companies if they convince people it's theft.

From a moral perspective I think whether it is theft really depends on your motivation/what you would do in the absence of piracy.

You should have just stopped there. That "or takes the place of a sale" rider is a very recent invention. You know what else takes the place of a sale? Spending your time doing anything else and ignoring the fact that the work even exists. If I could have paid to listen to a song from artist A and instead I listen to a song from artist B (free or paid, but we'll assume it was with permission either way) then that "takes the place of a sale" for artist A, but there's absolutely nothing immoral about choosing to listen to artist B's song instead. Or reading a book, or sleeping, or whatever. You could even write your own songs and give them away for free, directly competing with artist A and taking the place of many sales, and there still wouldn't be anything immoral about that. Artist A was never guaranteed sales, so they haven't lost anything simply by not making a sale. They still have their copy of the work, so they have not in fact been deprived of anything.

Complaints about piracy always read to me as: "You aren't complying with this monopoly which was promised to us in a rather one-sided deal with a third party (government) which (unilaterally) claims to represent you. If you don't shape up—or even if you do—we intend to sue you for everything you own in courts run by our beneficiaries and otherwise do whatever we can to ruin your life, just on general principles and not because we suffered any actual damages." And yet they have the audacity to pretend to claim the moral high ground…

Copyright infringement, by contrast, arguably creates value - instead of one person being able to see the movie, two can see it.

If I don't watch your movie or watch it for free, it doesn't change anything for you (I'd even argue that the later might actually be better for you, but that's another topic)

On the other hand, whether I eat your apple or not make a big difference to you, since you might not be able to eat it in one scenario.

They have clunky interfaces, making users miss mpv. They don't have chapters, making it annoying to seek to a specific part of a film or episode. They don't allow users to download content beforehand, locking them out whenever there's no internet connection. They have annoying DRM, preventing content playback on perfectly good computers and TVs for no good reason. They aren't available in most countries, locking out entire regions of the globe. When it is available, users get only a subset of the content and feel like second rate consumers. Whatever ends up being available is frequently modified, censored or cut. Users straight up lose access to content with no warning when licensing agreements expire. Every copyright holder launches its own little streaming service with its own annoying quirks. They compress the video so much even pure black frames have massive artifacts and have the audacity to charge for this garbage. They don't have enough subtitles. There's usually zero extra content such as commentary tracks. They track everything users do and watch.

There is exactly one area where streaming offers a superior experience compared to copyright infringement: multiple audio tracks. This is because of a technical limitation: video players can load subtitles that are external to the video file but not audio tracks.

Something as good as "piracy" shouldn't have to stop existing for the benefit of aging industries. It's the 21st century, copyright doesn't make sense anymore. Society must rethink its laws. The copyright industry must adopt new business models or disappear.

> Because everybody does it, that makes it okie dokie?

The fact everybody is infringing copyright is evidence that the law is wrong. Laws are supposed to codify the customs of a people. If everyone is violating a law then that law obviously does not represent the customs of that people. Society must recognize this and adapt so that the behavior can be allowed.

Not true for MPV:

    --audio-files=<files>
           Play audio from an external file while viewing a video.

           This is a path list option. See List Options for details.

    --audio-file=<file>
           CLI/config file only alias for --audio-files-append. Each use of this option
           will add a new audio track. The details are similar to how --sub-file works.