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Critical support for the Lemmy world peeps in their fight against pro-intellectual property nerds
(hexbear.net)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Corporations when some dude steals a copy of a 30 year old movie: 😡
Corporations when they steal billions from their workers salaries every year: 🤑
Taking money for a 30-year-old movie is pretty much government-assisted stealing, if I'm honest. Copyright in the USA originally had a term of 14 years.
Here's the thing: copyright term includes the life of the author plus a fixed period. So the works you and I nobodies produce will eventually become public domain after we die. HOWEVER, and this is just my underatanding of the laws and I'm definitely not a lawyer, not big name IPs because they are not registered under the human author, but a corporation that is both a person under the law and effectively immortal. So even if it's two thousand years after George Lucas dies, Star Wars will still be copyrighted as long as Disney exists, and even if Disney dies, part of the process of corporate "death" is liquidation where they sell their IPs to the next asshole corporation.
Am I wrong? Please correct me if I am.
Afaik you are not correct. Copyrights for a corporation also have an expiration date.
Except -- The expiration date can be extended by just continuing to use the IP -- Ever wondered why movies get remakes/reimaginings every 30 years or so? We meme about them being "Out of ideas", but really it's so they can hold down their copyright.
No, that's just wrong. At one point, early Marvel contracts had clauses that allowed the movie producer to keep the contract going if they continued to put out movies. When Marvel got big (post-Iron Man), they had been trying to claw back those contracts. That's why Fox kept putting out an X-Man movie every few years, and Sony kept putting out Spiderman.
But, that has nothing to do with copyrights, and all of the remakes are just shit that Hollywood does for memberberries.
Using an IP doesn't extend the date at which it becomes public. Movies get remakes etc because they want to make more money. Some movie companies have deals around IP with the original IP owner that revert if they don't use the IP, but that's separate from when the IP goes public. Mickey Mouse for example will become public domain in 2024 unless disney successfully lobby for the length of copyright to be extended (again).
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/03/mickey-mouse-disney-copyright-expiry
Winnie the Pooh recently became public domain for example, which is how we got the god awful 18+ movie "blood and honey".
Sony for example have exclusive movie rights to the Spider-Man IP in perpetuity as long as they release a movie every 5.75 years at most, otherwise it reverts back to Marvel. That's why they keep rebooting it and releasing sequels no matter how garbage they are - it's better for them to release a trash movie that bombs than it is to lose the most valuable superhero IP in the world.
Now that Stan Lee is dead, however, there is a countdown set for when the Spider-Man IP becomes public domain, and no amount of movie or comic releases will delay that.
You're wrong, which is why Disney keep lobbying to get the length of IP ownership extended - they don't want all their IPs becoming public property.
IIRC corporate copyrights expire something like 95-100 years after creation. Copyright of works created by an individual is 70 years post death.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/jul/03/mickey-mouse-disney-copyright-expiry
We also pay for their bailouts and subsidies. Piracy is ethical.
See, this is the stuff I was talking about in my other comment. Too many arguments in favor of piracy are these little one off, no context one-liners that sound snappy/true, but lack nuance.
It’s not that you don’t have a point, but you need to actually tease this out a little more, and also addressed the fact that most people who are pirating are not doing it for that reason. There is always unwillingness by piracy advocates to acknowledge that some people do it just because they want free shit. It’s not a moral stance, it’s not a social movement, it’s not a financial necessity, they just don’t want to pay for it. 
I definitely don’t ever pirate. I would never use transmission or the pirate bay to acquire what I want. But if I did, which, of course I don’t, I would admit it’s because of a combination of 1) convenience, 2) the ability to deploy where I want it, more specifically 3) so I can put it on my server to stream on my network, and 4) because of fears of the programming being taken down, such as streaming services.
I would also be lying if I said I wouldn’t do it because I don’t want to spend money on it. That’s just me being honest.
My point being that whatever your reasoning, I just don’t like when people throw out bullshit excuses or examples that only apply to .001% of people engaging in piracy.
I agree about snippy one liners but I'm also not invested in this topic enough to go deeply into it. Maybe not until someone engages. I just browse lemmy, I share thoughts. I'm just here to hang out. If I want to learn then I read a book. I try not to take this site or myself on this site too seriously. I also like how you responded in somewhat long form. I like that a lot, and I'm hoping one day I can join tildes.net and participate in longer conversations.
That said, I don't think it's a bullshit response and I don't think I need to elaborate on how subsidies work or how deregulation has siphoned money from the public and given it to private companies. For me, it doesn't matter why an individual chooses to pirate or how they justify it. I see it as a form of protest and anyone participating in the protest for any reason is doing it for the right reason.
I think it's interesting that people jump to the defence of copyright, or question the morality of piracy on the grounds of what damage it might cause to creators and publishers. Tax laws - old (austerity taxes), new (lowered corporate taxes), and proposed (100% inheritance tax) are much more significant than any effect piracy will ever have. This is what we should be debating and arguing about, not with piracy. It's peanuts.
If you go through my comment history, you’ll see that I repeatedly am in favor of most piracy arguments. I am just talking about bad defenses here. 
I’m also not sure why you’re saying you don’t really care yet took the time to write all of that. 
Some people do it just because they want free shit. I don't care. It's still good.
I think you’re missing the thrust of my point. I am not passing judgment on whether or not it’s OK to want free stuff. I am saying making excuses to pretend you don’t undermines the pro-piracy position.
You were responding to:
There was nothing in this statement to suggest the motive behind piracy had anything to do whether or not it is ethical. There was nothing in this statement to indicate that the author was engaging in piracy for purely altruistic reasons.
I don't see how the author was "making excuses to pretend [they] don't" "want free stuff." And I don't see how arguing that piracy is ethical is implicitly arguing that you only do it for altruistic reasons. I think bringing up the selfish motives behind piracy without prompting is an implicit admission that there is a connection between selfish motives and the ethics of piracy. And finally, I think parsimony is effective.
I was widening the scope of the conversation and discussing a frustration, not accusing them of anything. I can see why my intentions were unclear though, that's on me.