Let me explain here, as just one example. There was a tv show that was broadcast in the late 2000’s - early 2010’s. About 5-6 years ago, right when I felt nostalgic and wanted to watch it again, the tv show in question was pulled from all major streaming services, and DVDs of the show were not produced (or if they were, I was never able to get my hands on them). The only way that this cartoonish show was watchable for a time was via second-hand archives on YouTube, dailymotion, etc. However, despite the fact that the show was made inaccessible, the copyright holder’s official website states even to this day that the show is copyright, which means that unofficial uploads on YouTube should be in violation of copyright (the YouTube channels were just amateurish accounts and not credible, official accounts, just to be clear). As such, it was ambiguous as to whether the production company was going to lease the rights to the show. Whilst interest in the show has gone now, it did make me wonder: is it ever justifiable (either legally or ethically, or morally) to pirate media that has been completely pulled from circulation despite the original owner maintaining copyright (and therefore ownership) of? Or, is it (legally, ethically or morally) justifiable to pirate media where the copyright status is ambiguous (i.e. you don’t know if anyone owns it) [classic case study I always hear about: British PSAs, icons of 70’s 80’s and 90’s kids childhoods, yet locked behind copyright doors whose keys may lie in the hand of legal ambiguity]
Piracy is justifiable in a vastly greater number of scenarios than just pulled media.
If no one can own anything, then piracy doesn’t exist.
Download that show. It’s a form of protest, as far as I’m concerned.
Make sure to bind your torrent client to your vpn. VPNs have a killswitch but the binding offers a bit for insurance.
What makes torrenting justified in my view:
- Enshittification of streaming services with ad breaks.
- Shows typically have a 2 year gap before we can watch the next 8-10 episodes.
- Not all shows are available in all countries.
- The customer has to pay for multiple services to binge an entire show.
- Physical media is not always available.
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Piracy is quite frequently justifiable, even on common media.
In our modern landscape, the vast majority of creators don’t see a dime when you view their material, so I have no reason to feel obligated to line the coffers of some conglomerate that’s effectively stealing the artist’s money.
I’ll pay for niche streaming services (paying for dropout directly helps the cast and crew) and buy merch from artist sites or shows, but I’m not going to feel guilty that downloading an album off a torrent takes away the fractions of a cent that my streams would give when I can pay them directly for a shirt and physical copy of the album if I ever get to see them live.
piracy is always justifiable.
Legally, no. There are some grey areas to be poked around in like orphaned works whose ownership is ambiguous or contested, but it doesn’t sound like your problem falls into that category. The media company that made the show you’re after still maintains copyright and legally controls every aspect of distribution.
Ethically is a much more interesting question. If you pirated the media you’re after, an older work with no way to watch it legally, the creators aren’t really hurt because you’re not depriving them of revenue. Pretend there were DVD’s to be had though, if you buy them on the second hand market the creator doesn’t get a cut of that sale so who’s really harmed? What if the new price of the DVD’s was more than you could afford or justify spending? If you were never going to be a new customer, does that make it okay to steal since again the creator isn’t losing anything?
Huh, that point about the DVDs is interesting. Only question I would ask is: even if they’re second hand, does it factor into the debate that the DVDs were originally put out by the company and initially bought by someone for the correct price (but then on the other hand, the second hand buyer is paying less for the same show (arguably legally?) but in any case both the first hand and second hand buyers are buying for less than the new price…)
I can’t decide!!!
Someone could make the argument that the secondary market for media is part of the total ecosystem. Someone might be more inclined to buy something new if they know they can resell it later so the secondary market impacts the new market in that way. The creator doesn’t see any of the money being exchanged on the secondary market though so the people really benefiting from it are resellers and collectors trying to unload something. They’re hurt if you choose to pirate instead of buying used.
But in terms of the creator a pirated copy and a used copy are no different. If your desire is to make sure the creator gets what they deserve then you’re best option is new DVD’s or streaming. But, if like the show you’re currently after those options aren’t available, I’d say there’s no reason not to pirate the media. If you still want to make sure the creator gets paid keep an eye on them and buy/stream it if they ever release it.
Wow, that’s a very well thought, articulated opinion. Thanks for sharing
Ethics is cool and all but have you tried coming to your own conclusion?
Do you feel okay with doing whatever measures you must to secure it? Is taking something that someone else has ‘legal’ control over wrong to you? Think about it this way, are you justified at coming up to my windows and taking pictures of my art work in my house? I’m not selling it, so clearly it’s fine since you’re not depriving me off monetary value and, if I wanted to have some control over it, I should be selling prints of it at least, right?
Or, like, it’s just a show. Keeping it and sharing it with others keeps it alive, instead of digitally rotting away. Don’t spend that much time thinking about any of it.
Why don’t you just say the show, though?
Well first of all, I did mention that this was something that happened 5-6 years ago. To be clear, I did watch the show on YouTube back then (I know I didn’t mention that, I probably should’ve), that wasn’t really the point of this post. You’re looking at it backwards: you’re assuming I’m asking because I want to know if I should watch the show. What actually happened is, I watched the show and it got me curious in a general sense what other people think (years later, I didn’t have Lemmy back then). I’m asking out of curiosity what other people think, not because I’m trying to make my own mind up. I was actually only using that show as an example for the question I was asking — any other show under the same ambiguity would’ve sufficed just as well to explain what I was asking, really. Second of all, the reason I don’t want to say the name of the show is because it’s a show that had a very niche audience, and I know other people IRL who use this platform and I don’t want to risk them finding out I have an account here for personal reasons. They know I was a huge fan of this show so they’ll click straight away if they came across this and I’d named the show.
Fair enough on the name of the show being personally identifiable but, five years ago or today, what does it matter? What does it matter to you? What sin are you looking to be absolved of? If it’s so niche that a) the only place you could find it was YouTube and b) so few people know of it that it would identify you, go look up the creator and find a way to send them a fiver and pirate that. Who actually cares?
Because I’m interested, as in, in the topic of legal, moral and ethical implications, not just of this show, but ambiguous media in general. I’m not on about absolving anything. I simply find it an interesting topic is all. Is that not motivation enough to ask? In any case, what’s it to you why I care?
A better and more important real world case is revenge porn. The moral difference should be obvious to people with (y’know) morals, but it’s slightly more complex to define from a stricter ethical or especially legal framework. What fundamentally justifies the piracy and unregulated distribution of a show that’s been removed from public access vs material that the person may have originally consented to making and showing to others but objects or no longer consents to it being shown to a wider audience? It can’t just be the sexual nature in and of itself because what’s defined as intimate enough to restrict viewing is highly subject to cultural influence.
Are you asking if it’s ethical, or asking if it’s moral?
Legal and ethical (you can add moral too, ig). Yeah, why not? Let’s do all 3
I’d say it’s both ethical and moral, but also illegal.
One of my gripes about how goddamn long copyright lasts is that it makes officially sharing a digital copy a crime. Perfectly applied, most music would have disappeared from existence before it can be digitized and disseminated throughout hard drives around the world. The only reason the majority of copyrights are even monitored at this point is to harvest money from YouTube videos; those people have absolutely no interest in preservation.
Makes me think of that old horror movie Nosferatu: Stoker’s wife sued the producers and the court ordered that all copies of the movie be destroyed. It was only that a few prints of the movie were hidden (arguably pirated, certainly meeting the legal definition) that that movie is still watchable today, and critics call it one of the greatest horror movies of history (or at least one of the earliest/most influential)
That’s a cool story.
There’s a lot of cinema that was just thrown into the trash. If you ever see Metropolis, imagine 100 movies like that that we will never see.
Sad
Justifiable? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not an armchair ethics professor like most of the nerds in this discussion.
I cut out all all the extra dance steps and forgo justification entirely. If I want it, I’ll attempt to take it one way or another.
I think not only is it justifiable, it is a necessity for archival purposes. If you can’t stream the show, they should be forced to release it for free or at the very least, release the copyright so other people can upload their archive.
My view is the difference between an artist and a scam artist is that an artist would not mind others seeing their work without payment to make some assessment of its value and to build genuine support. I stopped going to movies because of my utter disappointment with the trash in the industry. A scam artist is going to demand payment before you even know what you’re actually getting and use various shady marketing tactics, including sunk cost fallacy, to get your business.
If it is something I like and see value in what a person is doing, then I want to contribute to that. I don’t want to pay a bunch of money to see something that I am left feeling like I just wasted money. Therefore, I have no problem with piracy to the extent that if I were to really enjoy it and want to keep watching then naturally I want to support the creators.
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In theory, copyright law exists to create an incentive for people to engage in creative works. Copyright allows the creator to monopolize the distribution of their own work, and that monopoly makes the enormous amount of effort put into the work financially viable, in theory. If the creator has published the work, and is no longer distributing it, there is no monopoly for their copyright to protect. However they are using their copyright, it is not in the intended fashion and so it is ethically justifyable to bypass it.
That being said, in the modern context; the issue creatives face with monetization is not distribution, but discovery. There is so much content that being seen is the primary gatekeeper to financial success, so much so, that most creatives will legally give up their monopoly on distributing their work in exchange for promotion (publishing). In such an environment, piracy is effectively aiding the creator by spreading their reach, even if they are not directly paid. Their cultural relevance is much more important than that one sale. Despite this, the ownership of the properties ip is what holds value, and so the owners must keep up at least a token amount of resistance to piracy, to maintain their legal legitimacy.
You can see this reflected in the modern environment; easy, widespread piracy that is only occasionally resisted in the cheapest and most non-committal manner possible. Pirate whatever you want, and understand that you will occasionally be told to stop. However; that that request always comes with a wink.
I bought so many CDs of artists I found and downloaded on Napster and Limewire
What was the show?
I would rather not say tbh. The name of the show is not relevant to the question being asked, as the topic in question can apply to any and all shows that are stuck in this state (there are actually more than you might think). However, if you are knowledgeable about that era of shows, I will soon be posting about another forgotten show which you might find more interesting as I cannot for the life of me find this other show.
It is never legally justifiable to pirate anything, by definition.
That being said, ahoy maties, 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
Just commenting that Tubi afaik has a lot of old shows that Copyright holders put on there just to make a few bucks. It has ads and is owned by Fox.
Didn’t they just make a deal with Cartoon Network for 20 old shows or something? (Was it Cartoon Network or another old channel/service?)
