What does Holla Forums think about pirating media?

No one pirates anything around here mr alphabet soup

Piracy is not just okay, it's a moral imperative. Paying for copyrighted media is unethical because it involves selling your species' culture into private hands.

If you want to support anime studios or whatever, buy physical goods instead.

From a classical marxist perspective, pirating media is, in fact, a revolutionary act - Zizek

Piracy is communism.

There's debate if it's a "revolutionary" act, as
piracy isn't theft. That being said, I've pirated everything I possibly could since I was 10 and have about 20tb worth of shit that I have never nor will I pay for.

My nigga. Started with a SNES emulator and Earthbound, my first torrent was Fallout 2, and it never stopped.

Who cares about data that can be infinitely reproduced?

Wait a minute, are you literally saying I can get to play Fallout 4, without steam, or having to pay for it? What kind of magic hacker shit is this, and how do it?

I can't remember the last time I paid for media…

Whelp, Fallout 4 is dogshit, but grab QBTorrent, find a torrenting website and download the small file it provides. Wait for the torrent to complete and you just saved 60 dollerydoos from Todd Cowards wrath.

Did I hear correctly? Are you considering… pirating Fallout 4™?

Get New Vegas instead. It's the good 3D one.

Doesn't open source software and the like put the lie to piracy as morally imperative, let alone defensible in any way?

I mean, it's not like other commodities, where moral arguments such as "no ethical consumption under capitalism" and "markets are fit only for looting" may apply, both because the commodities themselves are necessary regardless of capitalism, and because capitalism isn't inherently linked to those commodities' production on a conceptually inherent level.

The arts have a history before capitalism. Under feudalism and empire where artists begged wealthy patrons (aristocrats, churches, governments) for patronage, and the only art that was made primarily appealed to their vanity and pretension, with a handful of works that were truly great beyond more technical execution, because of a few patrons with good taste or talented artists that were personally wealthy. And in primitive times, where folk art was created by small groups or individuals usually in their spare time, and given to or performed live for each audience depending on medium, as such tending to be simple and unoriginal. Moreso, both these forms of art continued and continue to exist alongside new forms, including the unique form of that capitalism ushered in.

This capitalist form, copyrighted/trademarked reproducible mass media whose massive cost of original creation is directly funded and reimbursed by the inexpensive purchases of reproductions by masses of common people, has created new types of art that were completely impossible before. It has not eliminated them, but instead added variety aside from them.

This new post-capitalist model, exemplified by open source software, but also extant in other media to a lesser degree (eBooks, games, web videos/animation, online music, etc.) is free from capitalism and intellectual property rights, but also largely suffers from the same flaws as pre-capitalist models. Mostly produced spare time or part time, mostly ripoffs of capitalist products, mostly low-budget and low-tech, and most ambitious projects bankrolled (or done directly!) by wealthy patrons (usually giant corporations). But even aside from the future prospect of a new socialist economy shaking the broader economic context up, new funding models (shareware, crowdfunding, micropatronage, etc.) under capitalism seem to be fixing some of these issues.

From this perspective, enjoying capitalist intellectual property without paying for it isn't an attack on capitalism, it is instead a deeply hypocritical act of loving something intrinsically linked to capitalist property rights.

Nani!?

10/10 Poe's Law, I honestly can't decide whether this is sincere, ironic, or double-meta-post-ironic shit taste.

Get Age of Decadence or Underrail instead

I already did ;^)

I don't think about it, I just do it. Like most people.

Wow, that's a lot of words to say literally nothing
Fuggin hipster

Dumbass, did you not read his post?

I might be a socialist through and through, but I can recognize a good argument for capitalism when I see one. The fact of the matter is, despite all its inefficiencies and flaws, capitalist principles (and concepts such as intellectual property) do incentivize "pure" (as opposed to "applied") creativity, which is something that socialism and communism will have to address in the future.

RPGcodex/10

Can i ask you to better explain this concept?

At least in my mind, I wrote under the notion that a democratic workplace encourages workers to reduce the amount of work/resources necessary to to produce a good or service. These ideas (such as designs for robots or computer scripts) are the products of what I referred to as "applied" creativity.

On the contrary, "pure" creativity is what I use to refer to ideas that do not directly benefit oneself or one's workplace. These include most kinds of off-the-shelf software solutions, and most if not all works of modern fiction. Though these would undoubtedly be rendered under communism, capitalism paradoxically encourages them by providing ownership of the idea, as well as the possibility of a reward if one's lucky.

You could argue that welfare programs would render the reward a moot point, but I personally wouldn't be pleased if my hard work was taken from me, simply for being written rather than manufactured. It's all a real can of worms, and I can't think of a good solution at this time.

Welfare/UBI/NIT/etc wouldn't cut it. I was primarily talking about art with significant capital requirements beyond "some autist with a PC and free time".

Are you fucking retarded

...

Socialism doesn't mean getting rid of rewards. Nothing you said made sense there.

Under socialism after a transition from capitalism, even rigidly enforced central planning, capitalist-style mass media would still compete for scarce resources, with popular appeal as the primary appetite it aims to sate. The only difference is that copyright wouldn't be necessary, since everyone would be paying for it, and instead of just markets, politics would play a greater role.

False. There is a huge difference between an oilpainting and a digital painting. One can only be in use at one place, the other can be replicated for no cost or labour infinitely.

It is an attack on capitalism. The "makers" (aka the bourgoiesie who paid some wageslaves to make it) of digital media get paid many times more than the labour it took to create it. As such, they both exploit the workers by not paying them the fruit of their labour and they hold hostage information. It would be like if you had to pay the maker of your shoes everytime you wanted to go for a walk.

The artist of old and the information producer are nothing alike. One creates a commodity, the other creates information. One is a product to be bought and sold due to its solid nature, the other is a product that can be replicated and enjoyed by infinite amounts of people.

Also its not hypocritical, stop being retarded. I do not want to support the bourgoiesie. If I could steal my food from them without repercussion I would too. Stealing from the bourgeoisie isnt a crime, its a moral duty.
The only people that deserve my money is the artisan producers who make a normal wage, IE small indie devs.
Any argument for copyright it moot, the only exception being the original purpose of copyright
which is not what copyright does anymore. It is keeping things hostage for money, just like the rest of capitalism.

The fact that printing presses and capitalism emerged simultaneously is a coincidence. There have always been public domain works and derivatives thereof, from the pre-capitalist models, mass reproduced alongside copyrighted capitalist art.

The mass reproduction industry is only incidentally related to the (sometimes necessarily very expensive) industry of artistically creating the originals from which reproductions are made.

So some autist with a PC and free time? I like that sort of art, too. But shouldn't capital-intensive art exist as well, if it can somehow be freed from capitalism?

Thats not the argument you stupid fuck.
There is a massive difference between the pre-printingpress and the pre-computer era and the computer era.
A company that makes money off of printed books from the public domain makes money of providing a physical book, not from the information in the book.
A company that produces plastic statues from the public domain makes money from statues.
A company that holds hostage information with copyright produces nothing. They do not produce any value. The aforementioned book printing press doesnt come to your house and arrest you if you also print alice in wonderland, the statue company doesnt come to your house if you also make statues, the copyright owner does come to your house and arrest you for making your own copy.

WRONG. Publishers pay workers to make a game or software, then "mass reproduce" it and sell it. But they actually just have an artificial monopoly on the mass reproduction. It is not the publishers or patentholders who deserve money, it is those who create information, and only insomuch that it covers the cost of its creation.

You are talking about capitalism. I am talking about capitalism. You cant worm yourself out of your retarded porkloving opinion by saying "oh but shouldnt factories exist in socialism as well hurhur got you now".

Fuck off. There is no excuse for copyright and those who hold copyright dont deserve a single dime for owning it, just like how a factory owner doesnt deserve a single dime for owning a factory.

How do you imagine capital could be raised or repaid for popular art, under capitalism, without copyright? Like I said in my first post, this art is far more tightly bound to capitalism than the non-artistic commodities churned out in a factory.

Michael Bay looks a lot like Todd Howard. I find that very fitting.