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RE: We Need to Talk About Plagiarism and Piracy on Steemit, D-Tube and View.ly
If I could play devil's advocate for a second, maybe the law is wrong. In Star Trek they could replicate anything isn't that piracy? Instead of replicating matter we can replicate strings of 0s and 1s. Maybe if something can be reproduced at no cost than economically it should have 0 value, or the only value is in the production not the finished product. Maybe your business model is wrong and you should be funded some other way. The argument that you can't make money any other way is lazy, there are many open source companies that put food on the table and the same can be said about musicians and vloggers.
I agree that replication of films renders them less valuable but that doesn't change the fact that by placing them on D-Tube where you can earn directly from that upload is profiting off the artistic work of others. THAT is lazy. The law might in fact be wrong, but that also doesn't change anything. Profiting off of other people's work without consent is immoral because it enriches one person while harming the ones who made it and took the risk to fund it. Films are extremely expensive to make, even the cheap ones.
I'm not arguing for infinite copyright, or that the law is properly formulated or that sharing is wrong. I have no problem with sharing between friends. If I make a copy and hand it to a friend, that's different than me infinitely replicating something and then earning money off of it. Bootleg away, just don't start selling the bootleg, which is what people are doing by uploading other people's work on D-Tube. If you can't make your own content, you shouldn't enrich yourself with someone else's artistic work.
As a final thought, we don't live in the Star Trek universe, but if this demonstrates anything, it's that the economics of Star Trek are horse shit. Resources will always be scarce for one reason or another, whether by fiat or via the forces of nature and people's time and labor matter precisely because they are finite. Even though that time and labor might not be valuable to everyone, it strikes me as rude beyond the pale to shrug it off and say, "well since you've got your business model wrong it's okay to just take what you made and sell it myself."
I think the sooner we embrace piracy as a species the better. Linus Torvalds is making lots of money without having to charge people for linux. People uploading to the blockchain are providing a service that the content creators are not offering, that is why they are making money and not the original owners. IF the original owners posted their own material people would be inclined to subscribe to that channel and support them. They are filling a need in the market so it is right for them to be paid.
Not everything the market provides or tolerates is good and proper. There are things the market is not good at or is too good at, which is why WE, as our own agents have to police ourselves unless we want the state to do it for us. Stop using econ speak to justify unethical behavior.
There's nothing unethical, you only think that because you were brought up in a society with laws written to that effect. Learn to think for yourself.
What a cop out.