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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" (pluralistic.net)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Piracy is a service problem. People will always choose the way of least resistance and that seems to be piracy for the moment.

I said this elsewhere and there are many, many examples of this. For example, in the age of streaming music services where you can pick between a decent handful that have basically everything on each, and that are pretty reasonably priced, how many people are still pirating a ton of music? I know there are some, but if I had to guess, peak music piracy has been gone since the mid oughts. On the other hand, peak video piracy probably hasn't happened yet and probably will continue to grow until a similar situation is reached. Like, there is no way that Sony/Discovery didn't just create another wave of piracy.

But those are people we don’t need to talk about because they wouldn’t pay anyway.

And oft-overlooked, but lots of them couldn't pay. Especially today, arbitrary spending is limited for a lot of people, and I'd hazard a guess again that the vast majority can't afford eight streaming services. They'll buy a couple they find the most value in, and then when they're out of money, how is anyone harmed if they just download content on some of the others?