i'm a longtime lurker and sometimes poster that made a new account to ask this. my partner, i, and my friend group recently got into an emotional argument about piracy recently. one of my friend group was casually offering to pirate a movie for my partner who was looking at movies to buy on a videogame console storefront, and my partner took it very, very personally for reasons i don't entirely understand. my partner called us all disgusting and entitled and said we didn't value art, and made it really personal saying they would be heartbroken if the managed to make an indie movie and nobody would pay for it. the rest of us were very hurt and offended at being called entitled and being accused of not valuing art. my partner refused to even hear us out, saying that neither side could possibly change their mind and that we should never talk about it again and that they regret being open about their feelings, which makes me very sad. i want them to be open and honest. but i think they have media industry brainworms really bad and i don't know what to do. i guess i'm looking for advice or sources on what impact piracy actually has on artists, especially new or emerging artists. i feel like my partner's fixation on the economic aspect of art devalues art and humanity. i obviously think artists deserve to have their needs met, i think everyone does. but i'm not going to cry about christopher nolan making less money than he hypothetically might have, even indie artists i dont think deserve more money than others just because they are lucky enough to be doing what they love instead of a fucking miserable minimum wage daily grind soulcrush. i don't know how to handle this situation, i love my partner very much but this seems like a serious difference in values and perspective regarding the media industry that could have implications for how we see the world in other more important ways. my partner referred to youtube as this shining beacon of open platform content creation, just pure myopic bullshit ideology, it disgusts me to see my partner a victim to those idealistic brainworms. i don't know what to do. i'm worried this conflict will reopen down the road. sorry if this is the wrong comm or anything. i probably need relationship advice just as much as piracy advocate resources and/or relevant theory.
Easiest solution don’t pirate independent movies (which means they cost less than 2-5 million bucks, and you have not heard of them). Any movie with typical budget has some porky sitting beside it, and all cameraman and set caterers won’t get your 2 cents of proceeds, it will go to some studio. All money has already been spent in other words :shrug-outta-hecks:
Music is more complicated, but band camp exists to more directly support small artists
yeah , when i had to build my 20-35 gb library that took idk 4, 5 years back up,from scratch i think most my shit came from rutracker(seriously shout out to the russians , i can find nearly anything, i can find super obscure albums and any thing else)
but if an artist is particularly worth being supported (like if nobodys heard of them and their income is basically non existent) ill buy their music directly from them (i paid for several Csh albums off their bandcamp several years ago after illegally downloading, for example ) if im not dead broke, and the artist isnt a shithead