It’s no different than stealing - in fact, it is stealing

Imagine what you’re reaction would be if you created something beautiful; poured your skill and countless hours into it only to see it stolen and passed around without you getting even a penny for it

Theft is illegal. Plus, it’s a sin

Ads pay server fees. It's actually more illegal for the free streaming site because they are actually generating individual profit from the copyrighted works of others. Torrents just share for no profits

The two I mentioned earlier are legitimate services, I can't imagine that Amazon would integrate their prime video apps with a illegal service because I can access IMDb TV from the official Prime app.

Studios get a flat payout for their work. Only the publisher sees profit for sales. The creators were already paid, you're only supporting corporations

You should talk to froski. I hear he’s becoming a lawyer

He could tell you the legality of streaming services

Hulu also used to be a free streaming service that was paid through by ads years ago before they made it require a subscription fee.

The ads still only funded Hulu, not the show creators. They get paid once and only once, then a studio owns their work forever

Usually the movies and TV shows on these free streaming services are older so I imagine the companies that own the licensing are licensing them out in hopes of getting some profit from their older titles that aren't making money by traditional subscription streaming.

Okay so the money is going to the studios, but that doesn't make them illegal.

netflix, prime, disney +

wish i had discovery

favortie cable channel

It makes them immoral. Someone made something for everyone to see, but a studio that bought the rights to display it wants to put it behind, not only 1 paywall, but several. They want you to subscribe, sometimes pay an extra rental fee on top of that. And everything you want to see is spread across multiple platforms with the same issue. They refuse to innovate or fix their problems, instead seeking further profits. They're bad laws designed to protect greedy corporations with no consideration for real citizens or what the actual market demands.

A moral argument can be made, but that's not the same thing as legality. Pirating is plain and simple illegal under US law.

One Google search would immediately show you that torrenting itself is not illegal in the US.

y'all pay for streaming service <:KEK:795742276549607456>

No, torrenting is legal but pirating is not because it's copyrighted material.

Hate the term "pirating" because it implies that you're taking something. You're making a copy without affecting the original. Like miraculously turning one loaf of bread into enough to feed a crowd...

Some baker put a lot of work into baking that bread just to have Jesus illegally copy it a thousand times. I bet he lost a lot of money right?

The term torrenting as most people use it is a name for peer-to-peer protocol which is used for many things including Windows updates but also distribution of other legitimate data.

pirating also doesn't necessarily require the use of torrenting but could also just be from a traditional HTTP website and it's more inclusive term for all illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

How do you lose money from people that were never going to pay you in the first place? If torrenting wasn't easy, people would just skip these shows. The creators aren't losing anything, they're gaining potential fans and future merch customers. These people are real arrogant thinking their movies and shows are so great that if they couldn't be seen for free, people would pay anything for them. Nah, I'll grab a legit copy if it's really good. Not before checking.

The reason the studios likely own the rights to the media after release is the fact that they take the risk is fund a movie or TV show. In contrast, the actors get paid a flat rate, regardless if the movie was a success or a flop. It's the whole socialism argument with businesses. People think because the business owners make more then the average employees that it's wrong. However, when they were starting the business they had all the risk while the employees had no risk except potentially losing a job if the business flopped. In contrast, if the company didn't make profit, the owner was responsible for the debt.

When a small business is starting off, often the owner takes home no profit or very little, only went to the company becomes a success do they get large paychecks.

TORRENTING pirated content specifically definitely is, since you also upload the pirated content, which is defacto pretty illegal. Pure direct download is more of a grey area but definitely could be argued to be illegal as well

never

<:thinking:726878987837636698>

if you can get it free, get it free

just be smart about it, dont torrent if your isp is one that reports people

Just use a vpn

ye, and make sure it doesnt leak your ip

and set the client to ONLY use the VPN network adapter

There is a very simple solution to all of your problems.

Don't watch tv

<:9360_pixel_yes:726877001138569286>

How did this get into a debate about the legality of piracy

~~because we don't want to shill out money for things we can get for free~~

idk how to pirate

i want to tho