And I have to say that because, apparently, there are still a lot of people out there ready to argue that Piracy Is Not Bad When [Insert Reason Here]:
You may safely assume that I am on the side of ‘pay for the art.’ If only out of sheer self-interest: eventually the pirates will come for me.
Takeaway: not even pirates want to waste their time on the Rings of Power goat rodeo.
A serious response:
Piracy is bad.
The current laws surrounding IP are worse.
Most pirates* don’t care about the thing they’re pirating. They’re not going to consume the product they’re pirating, they’re not going to make a profit selling it to others, and they’ve counterfeited—not stolen They want bragging rights among their little subculture for having the biggest and best collection.
They’re annoying, but not a serious threat.
*Not counting Chinese factories geared up to mass produce knockoffs, or Uzbekistan authors trying to plagiarize on Amazon.
OTOH, people who are trying to preserve abandonware, music, and the literary works of the past century are commonly denounced as pirates.
Worse, people creating original work are under threat from hyperlitigious corporations in an environment where guilt is assumed. (At this point, record labels are more protection racket than distribution network.)
Heck, us recording songs off the radio in our younger years even qualifies as piracy.
Shut down piracy?
Sure.
AFTER we reform IP law to protect the consumer and content creator.
Let me know when I can run the last good version of Word without the latest version of Windows actively interfering. Or authors who were cultural touchstones, and have been dead for half a century, become public domain. Or when I can put up original music, without the terror of financial ruin.
Until then? Yeah, I’m not really on board, and fully expect the efforts would be directed at punishing the innocent or laudable, while largely leaving the actual malefactors untouched.
While I overall agree, I am perfectly happy to cheer for anything good in either direction.
Disney, long-term owner of Sen. Fritz Hollings, who pushed repeatedly for extensions to copyright, are getting slow roasted on other issues ..
The copyright Goliath is down, Lilliputians must go for the throat, to blender a couple metaphors.
Mew