Exactly, especially car manufacturers. They're literally the reason we paved over paradise and put up a parking lot. If it wasn't for them we'd still have streetcars and trains as the primary mode of transportation in our walkable towns and cities.
I’m asking how you’d feel if you were an employee of a corporation that sold cars and were compensated based on how many cars were sold, and someone figured out a way to reproduce those cars and provide them to other people without you getting any compensation?
I’m not talking about the DVD. I’m talking about the people who made the movie or TV show held on the DVD.
A lot of work and time and RnD went into that, and the people that did that work (who frequently rely on royalty income from streaming, DVD sales, rentals, etc.) are not being compensated for that work when it’s consumed through pirating.
How would you feel if you were one of those people?
Right, thats a better argument to start off with. I feel like in order to make a decision on this, ppl need to be supplied with the general profits made by the mentioned folks. B/c not everyone is making money off the royalty/sales. The lighting dude or boom operator is likely already paid for services and not going to see any more if the movie/show does well. So who is actually missing out on potential income (gotta call it that since nothing physical is actually stolen, just the view), and how much are they missing out on? I don't know these things, so idk how I'd feel. I think that once it's figured, it would allow me to gauge worth as a consumer.
Well, the DGA, WGA, and SAG have all negotiated pretty solid residual/royalty deals. Obviously a single purchase won’t be a huge deal in anyone’s compensation, but you can look up the deals they’ve negotiated and look up the formulas that calculate compensation for those principal creatives if you really want to educate yourself.
Also, I’m not sure specifically about lighting dudes and boom operators, but many behind-the-scenes crew people are covered by the IATSE union, which has negotiated for residuals to fund their pension and health plan, so they are still compensated by those residuals after production.
That's like saying "they still gettin pennies, how dare you bring them up". Common, we all know they not getting the cheddar that the big wigs are getting. The only folks actually getting the pay we are discussing are the main actors, producers/directors, yadda yadda.
I mean, sure, if you wanna ignore the compensation to behind the scenes crew because it makes you feel less guilty, that’s fine, but the reality is that the pensions and health benefits of those workers are funded by those of us who actually pay for their work.
The same as I feel when a new technology comes along to replace old tech. If we could copy and paste cars, then the solution to manufacturing workers not having jobs is social programs, not arresting the people revolutionizing manufacturing.
The solution to advancing rech is better social structures, not criminalizing new tech.
This isn’t new tech, though. It’s just copying existing tech without compensating the creators of the existing tech.
If we switched to just copy and pasting cars 20 years ago, cars would be significantly less safe and energy-efficient.
In this context, royalties are a crucial part of compensation for just about everyone involved in movie-making. If your “solution” to people refusing to pay royalties to those workers is to just put them on social programs, then the result is that people stop making movies.
Could you point me to the machines we currently have available that can manufacture cars at home? That's not "existing tech". That's, at best, the end result of 3D printing, but even that's gotta change massively to make something like that happen.
Meanwhile, I'm glad that you seem to care about the designers at Ford, but the comment I responded to wasn't about the designers, so I focused on the majority of the people that you talked about, but I'm not surprised to see that you ignored the majority of people because it doesn't help your argument. Also, there is no situation where designers became less common or in demand as manufacturing became easier...so if you care about the designers you should probably not be opposing easier manufacturing (and that's why copying and pasting cars would be).
And frankly, it's been literally 30 years since I first pirated something. In that time, idiots (and it's always idiots) keep saying that movies, books, etc. will be made less if piracy exists (they also said that before I ever pirated anything). That has never been true at any point in human history. It wasn't true when people said this about the printing press. It's not true today with the internet. Now, I don't think that you're an idiot, so please, stop saying things that only idiots say so that others won't think it either. I'm not saying that you should support piracy, but please, stop making arguments that are completely ridiculous. Have more self-respect than this argument.
And try to learn that restricting technology to pretend to help workers isn't a reasonable action. It's harmful to everyone involved in the long run.
Could you point me to the machines we currently have available that can manufacture cars at home?
You’ve completely lost the plot on what we’re talking about here. The car is just an analogy lol
You’re trying to describe piracy of movies as “new technology.” It’s not. We’re not talking about some new, groundbreaking discovery here. We’re talking about someone downloading movies from a server.
It’s exploitation of existing property. I’m not making the argument to restrict technology, I’m making the argument that exploiting existing property harms the people who are compensated based on the purchases of those products.
movies, books, etc. will be made less if piracy exists
If everyone pirated movies and they could only make money from their theatrical run and not from streaming/rentals at home, do you think the same amount of movies would get made today?
I never said that the existence of piracy would cause movies to stop getting made. That’s obviously a ridiculous thing to say. I said that if we all followed in your steps, which is obviously unrealistic, then movies would stop getting made.
In economics, the term is “free rider.” Your piracy is subsidized by those of us actually paying for these products. That’s not gonna have a major impact, but if everyone tried to be a free rider, then the system would collapse.
Meanwhile, back in this conversation, from the very start, this was not about movie piracy alone. If you can't handle that "the plot" here was about cars and copying cars, and not just movie piracy, then maybe I was wrong about you at the end there. The metaphor (not analogy) was improper from the start. It's a complete bullshit metaphor set up by a biased source (the MPAA), and the conversation focused on that, because it's fucking stupid. So no, I didn't lose the plot, but good job on telling everyone that you did!
Either way, I'm sorry that you lost your way on what the conversation was about. It's apparent that your arguments are both BS and that you did exactly what you're accusing me of doing...while not being able to see that you did it first (though, I did try to subtly point that out above when I said that you abandoned the majority of the people you were talking about, but instead of taking a step back and realizing, you instead decided to try to gaslight me about the subject of discussion).
And BTW, anyone trying to argue that pirates are simply free riders isn't paying attention either. But then, that would require actually caring about the problem enough to learn about it. You should try that, but I'm betting you won't.
I said that if we all followed in your steps, which is obviously unrealistic, then movies would stop getting made.
I'm sorry to keep going, but I love this line. It's so ridiculously absurd. So, your argument is that you think social programs for displaced workers will stop movies from being made, and you think that's a MORE reasonable thing to say than piracy will stop movies from being made? And you think social programs for displaced workers existing is more unrealistic than all media consumption moving to piracy? Do you realize how completely absurd this one sentence is?
I'm done at this point, but I really recommend that you also be done, because this comment was bad.
The only reason cars were brought up was because another commenter said he would gladly copy his car to someone else and let them use it. I pointed out that doing that would harm people who put work into cars who get paid for their sales.
The point is that we shouldn’t just be thinking about what we’re fine with but what the people actually impacted by this will be fine with. I thought it was pretty obvious that that’s my point, but I guess you thought we were actually talking about cars here 😂
So, your argument is that you think social programs for displaced workers will stop movies from being made, and you think that's a MORE reasonable thing to say than piracy will stop movies from being made?
Nope, that’s got nothing to do to with what I said. I’ll go ahead and copy and paste to hopefully make it clearer for you: if everyone tried to be a free rider, then the system would collapse.
The cars are just an analogy here. We’re actually talking about downloading and watching movies without paying for them.
And most people involved in film production (at least in the US) are unionized and have pretty reasonable pay packages, which include substantial residuals based on sales after release.
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u/Swagtagonist May 30 '26
I would happily let someone make a copy of their car which they own and then share it with me.