In this case, society adopted the word "piracy" to represent the new semantic, whereas the recording industry chose "stealing" so as to conflate the issue. The word war is not a neutral process.
> copyright existed before digital content too
And it's application in modern times is increasingly contrived and outdated. Since when was it decided that mandatory "remastering" was a reasonable condition to repay for a media all over again? Why would I have to pay additional fees just to use a different medium (mobile phone vs laptop, for example).
>In this case, society adopted the word "piracy" to represent the new semantic, whereas the recording industry chose "stealing" so as to conflate the issue. The word war is not a neutral process.
No, but it's also not as clearcut as "society uses piracy / recording industry chose stealing". If anything, the recording industry refers to piracy all the time.
>And it's application in modern times is increasingly contrived and outdated.
From a consumer standpoint? Because it's meant to protect creators, not consumers.
>Why would I have to pay additional fees just to use a different medium (mobile phone vs laptop, for example).
Because the seller sets the price. People can pay it or not use the product. It happens with everything else.
Yes, but "piracy" seems to have stuck. "Stealing" I'd consider non-neutral.
> Because the seller sets the price
But I already paid. The seller is also asking to control the medium. That does not happen with everything else. In fact, there has been a creep toward control in the hands of distributers (e.g. Amazon deleting recalled ebooks off the devices they sold to you).
This isn't just a case "seller has product, seller sets price". The landscape of available products is being purposefully manipulated to expand the number of different products that exist e.g I'd consider a digital movie file to be one 'product', independent to whatever medium I choose to play it on; But the movie industry might advocate for a separate 'product' per medium.
At that point it's not even related to the original "artist"/creator or their compensation - I'm now dealing with middlemen actively lobbying to create new forms of compensation, and restricting the ways in which I can access certain services without them. In the example I gave above, "remastering" is an excuse to charge for the same product on a different medium. There might be compensatory charges on top of DVDs that go to offset piracy, but there will never be compensation for consumers who already bought a film on a different format (VHS, for example) - the advantage only ever goes one way, so I don't care what narratives industry lawyers care to craft - piracy provides a necessary pressure to prevent consumers being taken advantage of even more.
They can set it to be e.g. "I sell the ability to see just 1 minute of my 10 hour movie, only in black and white, with mono sound for $1000, only once" if they so wish.
>I'd consider a digital movie file to be one 'product', independent to whatever medium I choose to play it on; But the movie industry might advocate for a separate 'product' per medium.
So, isn't that to their discretion?
The question is rather: why are buyers so desperate for those things in the first place.
They could have boycotted the whole thing.
But buy buying and/or pirating them despite such terms (e.g. only in DVD), they show there's value to what the sellers are trying to sell.
(Note: not entirely my personal preferences on the subject, playing the devil's advocate)
Who decides? Politicians romanced by industry lobbyists? Why should the government/public bear the costs for legislating such things?
> So, isn't that to their discretion?
Now you are switching from "what is right" to "what is legal". The law is dictated by society, based on common morality.
> they show there's value to what the sellers are trying to sell.
And that value exists under a mandatory layer of DRM. And sometimes enforced by industry-sponsored legislation. Your assumption of value (or the power to boycott) ignore the monopolisation of media formats - When all computers contain a "DRM-chip" then "all I have to do" is boycott it? And what if they are mandatory by law - just oppose it? The general public is susceptible to targeted divide-and-conquer tactics, which doesn't result in a true representation or expression of public opinion at the mercy of industry motives.
> They could have boycotted the whole thing.
They did - they pirated. They didn't just boycott the technology, but the law as well - that shows that the public do not value those laws, and the laws were erected in contradiction to the will of the people. No?
>Now you are switching from "what is right" to "what is legal". The law is dictated by society, based on common morality.
No, I keep using both moral/legal.
It's their thing, so they get to set their rules for giving access to it.
What's immoral about "I created Star Wars 555 but only allow you to see it if you pay $10,000. Oh, and you only get to see it once for the price while I play the kazoo".
That's their proposition. The buyer can simply decline.
>* They didn't just boycott the technology, but the law as well - that shows that the public do not value those laws, and the laws were erected in contradiction to the will of the people. No?*
Only as much as DIU shows that the people don't value driving laws.
We can still say that pirating doesn't show that they don't value those laws, as much as that they found an easy way to bypass them and not get caught.
> It's their thing, so they get to set their rules for giving access to it.
The government isn't "their thing". They need to negotiate with the rest of society if they want anyone else to enforce those rules.
> What's immoral about "I created Star Wars
You are ignoring a lot of what I wrote about monopolising middle-men, or the role/interest of government in actively enforcing these "propositions".
Do you also not believe in "resale" laws?
> Only as much as DIU shows
Yes, I don't believe this either, I think these kinds of argument are specious. And people acting under under DUIs are a) under the influence, not at their full rational capacity b) a minority, most people support DUI laws.
