this meme is a criticism of that. it shouldn't be like that. if I buy a chair, I own the chair. I can then choose to sit on it, burn it, or give it to my neighbor, whatever. if I buy a movie, it's suddenly not like that – but not because of some inherent quality that would make it impossible, but only because they say it is like that. but they have one weakness: it's only like that if we actually stick to those rules. they're all arbitrary anyway! we can therefore treat a bought movie just as it should be: a physical copy that we actually own. we can then decide to watch it, to lend it to our neighbor, to play it for everybody to see on the street, to cut it and remix it and do something new with it. will they come and claim we've "pirated" their media? yes of course, but this is nonsensical, dead law, that has to be broken again and again by just – ignoring it, and making it not so. if I buy a movie, I do own the movie, and the company that says otherwise can get fucked. that's what this is about.

That's kind of their point, because we are not in fact buying the media the argument is that piracy has some moral element. Put another way there is no option to own it outside of piracy.

For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM).

I'd like to point out German law (maybe this expands to EU and other countries) with traditional media.

Traditionally you bought movies and music on physical discs. You had a guaranteed right to be able to sell it to other people, as well as make personal copies of it for private use/backups.

DRM has always tried to oppose this right. And obviously, in the last decade(s) a lot went into service-oriented streaming and temporary access instead of owning even on a partial or theoretical level.

Legally, piracy is not stealing. It is copyright infringement. That's a totally different ball game with different implications.

While stealing even cheap items quickly lands you in legal hot water, just downloading (without uploading) doesn't. I don't know of a single case where someone got a significant fine or even a lawsuit for just downloading (and not redistributing) content.

The legal main difference between stealing and illegaly copying is that when you steal something it's gone.

This changes the damages calculation a lot, since the only damage you caused by copying is the opportunity cost: Since you copied it, they didn't sell it to you. But you might have already bought it in the meantime (then the damages 0), or you might have not bought it at all (then the damages are also 0).

Also, stealing is criminal law, while copyright is civil law, which makes it legally entirely different.

Looks nitpicky, but if you talk about current laws, nitpicky is the whole game.

Piracy is always stealing. Y'all can keep trying to spin it if it helps, but its pure copium.