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.
I don’t think you can really convince someone like this. They either do it themselves or stay the same. You can throw a bunch of stats and facts but their fundamental belief is that paying = valuing
I bet you OP's partner thinks using adblock counts as stealing from Youtubers.
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
The most foundational principle of communist theory is the abolition of private property. The distinction between that personal property being things you use and private property being things you don't use but restrict others from using for profit. Copyrighted works are private property. Copyright should be abolished.
Respecting copyright is liberalism. Saying that we should respect the copyright of small artists while not respecting the copyright of large artists, is the same liberal line of thinking that small businesses are somehow better than large businesses.
Working class artists sell their labor. Most artists don't receive much money from media sales. Media sales money goes mostly to the record label or publisher. Most artists work for a salary or get payed by selling their labor through live performances. Copyright exists to protect the bourgeoisie, not the proletariat.
As far as I'm concerned, copyright infringement is fair game as long as you're not making money from it. If you want to support a small artist, give them money, but still you don't have to respect copyright.
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,
:cringe:
I hate arguing with people like this when they're the ones who start the damn thing
yeah I hate being confronted in that way either make your case or don't
I would honestly rather be yelled at or even phyiscally fought as I know where I stand with each of those
Maybe someone can dig up sources. I don’t have time to atm. But piracy increases media consumption and those who pirate are also more likely to buy.
Anecdotally, if I pirate a game and don’t enjoy it, but it was a more indie title, I’ll still go and buy it if I have the money.
One time some dude at a bar was giving me a hard time for “not supporting devs”, so I looked up one of the pipeline artists for the corporate studio on LinkdIn, asked for her Venmo, paid her the MSRP for the game, and then showed the guy. I said, “and none of that went to the executives who didn’t do the work, so in a way, I’ve supported this game more than you ever have.” And of course, he still thought I was an asshole who “didn’t support developers”. And he was right about the asshole part But it quickly became clear that he was upset that I didn’t support the company itself. It’s bootlicking all the way down.
That last one is probably not a great anecdote for your partner, but goddamn it really lays bare how much the whole “support artists” thing is bullshit for so many people
Where's the money go?
If it's an indie game or film and the money goes right to the creators, always buy it to support them. If it's the product of a multinational firm that spent hundreds of millions of dollars on it, pirate that shit guilt-free because most of the actual creators won't see a dime of your money.
Don't confront them directly, you'll just put them on the defense. Instead share content from pirate friendly creators that may be relevant to their interests and let it bleed in. For example, if they're into video games, The Jimquisition would be good for them to get into.
Your partner has real hall monitor/narc energy. I am at a loss of coming up with some stunning argument for piracy because I don't know a single person who would be this upset about piracy. Virtually everyone I know in real life is either cool with piracy or apathetic towards piracy. I've only ever encountered "piracy is stealing bro!" when I used to be on /r/games, a bunch of cringey R!ddit G1mers. There's a reason why sharing Netflix accounts is universally a thing even though that counts as "stealing."
Do they also get mad when you take too much paper napkins from McDonalds? Do they think installing adblock counts as stealing money from Youtubers? Do they have a nervous breakdown when they realized the pen that they were using at work is still in their car a week later because they forgot to put it back to their work desk where it belongs?
And I'll be that person, but I think it's completely disrespectful and rude for your partner to completely shit on your friend who's trying to share. If anything, they're the one who's entitled expecting the entire world to conform to their garbage (and let's be frank, completely unpopular and out of touch) opinion on piracy. A simple "no thanks" or a "nah I'm good you don't need to do that but thanks anyways I appreciate that" would've been fine instead of throwing a temper tantrum in front of a complete stranger like a spoiled brat.
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.
Lol, they're the one who brought it up in the first place. And what do they mean by "never talking about it again" because this sounds like they don't want you to pirate anymore.
just explain Labor Theory of Value to them, and that most media workers where paid already and won't see any of the sales money
this opens up a broad topic of discussion around the means of production and capitalism, etc
There are two prongs that can help someone with a personal moral objection to "piracy" handle it.
The first prong is what others have said: it's good to look into what happens to your money when you buy a piece of media, like a movie. Generally speaking, nearly all of it goes to the producers and there's a lot of fun accounting tricks in Hollywood to prevent profit-sharing deals from benefiting the creatives involved. Therefore, any money you provide only nebulously benefits artists to the extent that it makes producers see profit in making movies on the first place, but your miniscule contribution has almost nothing to do with that. And again, I can't emphasize this enough: the artists almost never see a dime from that sale. They sell their rights to a production company or similar.
The second prong is to actually support artists. You can go find Patreons, you can find personal websites with store merch that goes to them, you can attend concerts, book signings, indie premiers where there are opportunities to directly sponsor them. This provides basically infinitely more support for the artists.
These can both work on liberals and anti-capitalists. If your partner is anti-capitalist, you can also point out that production companies are the capitalists in this situation and the strategy of supporting artists through buying media is nearly always just a defense of trickle-down economics.
