The real question, as we know the answer to, are we pirates, which is yes, is, is it a bad thing to use these sites. The question has no correct answer, but I would be happy to hear what you guys think about it. On one side, it is a problem as we are for free, viewing material that someone put time and effort into creating, in the hope of getting paid, and we are taking money out of the equation, so we are forcing people to work for free. On the other side, many of these content creates get most of their money, not from the individuals watching, but the operations getting involved, so how much of an effect do we have by not paying.
This question was many other answers, and I am wondering about your opinions on this.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2018/03/21/what-happened-to-the-piracy-sites-that-nearly-destroyed-the-music-industry-part-1-napster/#58e947f72293
(and the documentary)
This is a very interesting concept. As I was reading this post, Soundcloud immediately came to mind. It strays from the so-called "Netflix piracy" that you touch on, but is more closely related to 123movies. On Soundcloud, there are both famous, verified musicians as well as just normal people. Soundcloud varies from iTunes or Spotify in the sense that regular people can upload their music in hopes of making it big. However, in this arises the problem of these same people posting copyrighted versions of the famous musicians' tracks. It is interesting because I know a lot of people who refuse to pay for music because they know Soundcloud has what they need -- and for free, without paying the membership fee. I think it is a blatant example of piracy that probably does take after Napster. It is crazy to see the effects of Naspter still lingering today on the music industry and affecting the demand of music in terms of consumption on Spotify, iTunes, and "more pay to listen" sites.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it's hard to say sometimes with piracy whether it's good or bad. I wouldn't really feel bad watching Frozen on 123movies because Disney already makes absurd amounts of money and made tons of money off that movie alone. They can handle my free movie watching. But if I was stealing a small indie flick that barely anyone has heard of, or a book by an author just starting to get off the ground, I'd feel bad. I want to support those people, because they aren't a huge corporation with a monopoly that's raking in cash. So for me, I tend to avoid stealing anything by smaller creators who are just scraping by. But I don't really feel bad stealing from Disney.
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