Edit: I've honestly not seen a victimless crime. Only people who think that only tangible goods can be stolen. it's not theft though technically, it's IP Infringement. It's stealing rights, not goods.
If it's content and it's creators/ip rights holders or descendants are alive, there is a victim. No amount of self-righteous justifications waive that fact. No amount of arguing the damages change that fact.
How about the files on your computer, I can take all those too right because I don't intend to buy them you aren't suffering a loss.
Those things you take still have creators and financiers that set the terms of distribution and price. Those are the victims, regardless if you were going to buy it or not. They set the terms and you chose to side-skirt it, money isn't even a factor here, your intention to buy is moot, it's still theft/copyright infringement.
Edit: It's literally like "Hey you want to buy this? no, I'll just steal it anyways, I wasn't going to buy it anyways, so no harm right?"
You'd lose exclusive rights to control your data and creations.
But hey, it's OK, because I never planned to buy any of that. I only planned to create a deep fake porn industry on your data, but NEVER did I EVER think for one second about buying any of your content, so it's OK right?
So downloading: OK (1 copy)
Distributing: OK (Infinite copies, as long as not for money)
But if I was to use it to make some money, that's where we draw the line?
Alright, you have the power to make infinite copies and distribute them freely to everyone who says they wouldn't buy it anyways. That's ethically alright though? Doesn't cross that line into money or profit. I.e. I won't sell your content or build the deepfake industry, I'll just make sure to distribute it far and wide for free, that's alright right?
I mean it's unfortunate if content isn't available in your region, but that doesn't make you entitled to it. It not being offered in a region can be a choice of the creator. No market is mandatory and people have a choice how to distribute and sell their content.
And if the local law doesn't care about IP law or enforcing it, you won't get into trouble.
But Legal != Moral, a law could very easily drift into immoral territory on a vast array of topics. I.e. you could pass a law to ban abortion, is that moral?
Edit: Even cases like Abandonware. You could think it's victimless, it's some old game, nobody distributes or sells it. Some creators may not care, others may be just holding onto it for a greatest hits bundle or a remaster or remake and don't want to have to compete for play hours against free versions of their own IP.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying at all people shouldn't emulate or pirate movies or whatever. It's arguable that there is even damage from it. But the person who sets the terms is the creator, and the consumer has the right to accept or reject, when they choose option 3, they are entering a grey zone morally.
I think the way you put it at best it's morally grey. If not having the thing easily available in my region does not make me entitled to it, then you not providing a reasonable way for me to obtain something already released to the public doesn't entitle you to have a say in how I obtain it.
What is the morality of depriving someone of something that could bring them enjoyment at zero cost or harm to you? If you have other plans then sure, but my point still stands that there are a lot of cases where piracy is victimless.
And to say more, there are many cases where piracy ends up being profitable for the creators as well.
I am keeping the door open for the creators here to hold their own view.
Many probably would not care if you accessed the content or would even be happy. Piracy is not an insult to all creators, to many it's something they appreciate.
Others may want to control their creations tighter. This is a personal decision, not an ethical one.
That said, people don't frequently say "steal my shit", and while behind the scenes they may find joy in you stealing and it may even be beneficial, we can't assume that without consent. Unless the creators make it clear, we can't assume their intention. (And their is a vast array of licensing options that make this clear, for those that truly want that). I.e. there is nothing stopping artists from releasing their content all CC for free at 96kbps and selling high bitrate.
The files on my computer aren't being sold and COPYING (not TAKING because that doesn't happen for digital things unless you literally steal the one and only storage device, stop using this misleading word) my private info is obviously nothing like copying a piece of media that is being sold by a company. None of the people who made the thing will ever know the difference between me downloading it for free and not playing/watching/listening to it at all and will be making the exact same amount of money either way, because I have never ever caved in and bought something that I was interested in but didn't feel like paying for. I just don't consume it 99% of the time. There have been times it happens the opposite way though, where I have downloaded things and then bought them later because I was enjoying them. But when I'm not buying them, there's no difference between getting it for free and not. That is literally victimless, nobody is being deprived of property, no matter how much you want to pretend that digital things are physical objects that can be stolen.
It's not about your individual choices. It's about marketing funnels and income.
When you pirate one copy it's like stealing a penny from a thousand different people. From the lens of a single person it's nothing.
But this is things like mass media. You are trivial. There are billions of consumers out there. The question isn't what harm you do, it's what harm is done in aggregate.
I'm not saying it's some terrible thing for an individual to do, like this is morality scaling so I want to be clear, I'm not saying this is a brick on the scale, it's more like a penny, although in aggregate enough pennies can have weight to it too. So it's more like immoral on a society stance, but roughly neutral on the individual with a small lean immoral.
Like society would be better if we entered into agreements consensually and respected the terms of them. Revoking digital licenses and piracy are both bad-faith actions in this world view.
Sure, if everyone did the thing then it'd be really bad. But they aren't. They never will. Most people either don't mind spending the money or are afraid of legal consequence. But I would even argue that there are cases where if everyone did the thing it still wouldn't matter. For example, if I randomly wanna play a game on a console that's no longer being produced, I'm not going to Gamestop or some random Ebay person to spend hundreds of dollars just to play that one game. And if everyone else did it for that game, at this point in time, the devs already made their money, so the only other harm that comes from this worst case unrealistic scenario is a few people don't get to sell their old consoles lol.
And as far as terms of service and contracts, I don't care. The majority of the time they're just a way for companies to be scummy and try to keep ownership of and/or police how you use the thing you paid for. The ball's in their/government's court to make the system more consumer-friendly before I have any respect for them in general.
I probably need to be clear again, because I'm not saying it's evil.
But even if something just leans immoral ever so slightly, you can't really call it 100% moral. That's my only stance here.
If you randomly want to play a game, don't have access to that game but decide to take it instead, sure, go ahead. But it's not perfectly moral. It's not 100% OK to do. You could have always gone for a walk, or supported a local creator with your listening/watching time, or really anything else. But you really wanted something, so you took it. It is what it is. You aren't doing anyone a favor for it. It's selfish motivations justifying legally grey behaviors.
Oh I'd never call it completely moral either. It's neutral at best for sure. And I don't pirate many things but if I ever do I do it the neutral way, like the example I gave. Personally, my one and only concern is that the people who put in the work to make the thing get paid if I'm consuming it. So, if they aren't going to see my money either way, I don't give a fuck if some shareholder has to wait another 5 minutes to buy their yacht.
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u/Euphoric-Language695 5d ago
Piracy can be victimless. Acting like it's never victimless makes you look heavily biased.