People also should be able to pay the artist directly and not some billion dollar company who continue to try to squeeze the artists and limit creativeness all in servitude to the almighty dollar (or any other currency)

People need to expect to pay reasonable prices on a reasonable basis for art and entertainment, and pretending everyone should be cool with fifty different streaming services and never owning anything again is its own sort of immorality and lack of ethics.

I agree with you.

But we had a situation where consumers were happy and were paying for content, piracy dropped off, and it was insanely profitable for Netflix.

Then everyone got greedy and stuck their dicks in the pie and ruined it, and this is the backlash.

If you buy content digitally, it gets pulled from your library without your consent or recourse. If you steam you're paying more and more for less.

What we had was good, now none of my friends talk about TV shows because it starts with "hey, did you watch X, it's on paramount?" "No", "oh, nevermind".

I think most people would agree that artists should be fairly paid for their work. But when greedy, profiteering corporations are the ones commissioning and profiting from art, then IMO we have a moral duty to fuck with their exploitative business model.

I have no problem paying for such things.

But when the distributors block access, and tell me buying ain't owning by removing access to what I've paid for, well fuck 'em.

And art should be accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy. There's a reason that piracy almost died out completely and then came back with a vengeance. People don't mind paying a reasonable price for art, the prices and accessibility of art has just become unfeasible.

I disagree about art. Art exists for art's sake. It's not a commercial product. I don't have to pay to enjoy the Mona Lisa or the Bach. I might pay to enter a museum, or attend a performance, so I agree with you about entertainment, but art is different. Art enriches the world, improves life, expands understanding, and we should all of us pay for it with taxes. And we do!

Where does this expectation come from?

I did not commission these works.

They created their art without a contract between them and I.

Their ability to recover their cost is not my responsibility.

Their right to obtain a profit is capitalist nonsense.

The force of government injecting a contract doesn't create a moral obligation.

So where does this moral obligation come from?

Is there some religious text indicating the divinity of copyright?

The concept was created from nothing.

It's a tragedy of the commons - as an economics problem it matters, sure, but copyright is an artificial monopoly, not a human right. We could provide these more efficiently with public funding of the arts or crowdfunds, without the need to make up imaginary property with imaginary ethics.

But if you want to sign up for a bunch of subscriptions because some might trickle down to the writers, be my guest.

The writers strike who has to fight over getting streaming royalties goes to show that the money doesn't even make it to the artists.

The issue isn't paying. It's how fractured the services are and how we don't even get to pay to own a copy of the art.

I don't disagree, but isn't there something to be said for denying people access to the popular culture based on their ability to pay for it?