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Table of various levels of piracy (fedia.io)

submitted 6 months ago by Rentlar@lemmy.ca to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Here's a table I adapted from Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it. (spreadsheet file)

I tried to condense each rank and make it less about a specific type of media like CD audio or DVD video, along with a table of simplified characteristics of each situation. Of course more levels can be added and there are many situations not covered. This hierarchy is simply the way Louis ordered it from more to less justifiable; he respects people can think about it differently and I do too. He suggests that he doesn't really care about people that pirate without giving a shit about creators, and that he only has a problem with people who aren't honest with themselves about their motivations.

Setting legality aside, what 'level of piracy' is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

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[-] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago

Depending on the situation, up to #13 for me. A caveat to that might be whether or not the creator has appropriately priced their product so as to justly compensate themselves without charging consumers excessively. While I had it in my Steam library already, Factorio deserves to be pirated for breaking with the standard practice of not raising game prices with inflation. Same with Sega's anti-consumer move to remove the Sonic ROMs from the Sega Genesis collection to boost sales of Sonic Origins.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

Does piracy for the sake of preserving media (even if countless others are also preserving it) count for number 15?

Generally, I'm good with 1~5 or so, but there are lots of legit reasons there.

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago

Louis' list comes from the perspective of moral in the sense that "were the people that provided you entertainment value provided appropriate compensation" which is why the list is ordered this way.

Looking at it in the lens of preserving items for the common good, this could take form of #1 or #3, where you bought a copy but you don't want it to degrade or fade into obscurity, but it could also be #15 where you just don't want to lose it and it doesn't matter to you whether the creator should have benefited.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago

That's fair! I imagine there's also somewhere in the middle where they want to pay the creator, but have no way to do so, or no way to know who it is.

I mean, so you pay the studio? The current rights' holder? The creative? (Hard when a piece of media is made by a team that isn't together anymore)

[-] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I don't know where I would draw the line...I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.

Generally speaking I don't pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that's due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I'm supporting in other ways.

I think the only other thing I've pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down

[-] doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 months ago

It's important to be cognizant of various worldwide perspectives, considering the part of your comment on political discourse.

Some countries don't care that everyone pirates everything and anything.

Others, like Japan for example, have copyright ingrained both in the laws and in the culture. Some think "right clicking and saving an image on a public website" is theft. It's part of the reason Sony and Nintendo are so anal about copyright and how there are no Manga sharing sites located in Japan.

So not only the laws different everywhere what is legitimate discourse changes too.