Digital and physical copies of media content differ significantly in their transmissibility and copy-ability.

For example, creating a digital copy of some content is typically so easy that creating an entirely new duplicate copy is actually how works are transfered. Compared to physical media where creating a copy can be so difficult that copies are shared by physically moving individual copies rather than re-duplicating them.

While many libraries do have significant and valuable collections of digital works, they also tend to have somewhat overrought (or overly trusting) systems for preventing illicit copying.

>At some point I find it hard to draw a distinction between a library and a torrent.

So why use torrents instead of the library?

You know full well the difference.

The library uses a shitty app and DRM.

Nothing stopping you from recording your screen a la a 1980s VCR

Actually, HDMI has DRM built in, and many DRM-laden apps won't work unless the HDMI DRM is working. The Amazon app has been telling me recently that my connection to my TV doesn't have it, but it actually does. Then I'll hit "play" again and it'll work. (I think it was a bug in their app, because it stopped again.)

So recording it requires something that implements that HDMI DRM scheme, but still allows you to record.

The "analog hole" is still there. Point a camera at your TV and record it that way. Yes, the quality may be bad...

But that is not the same as a 1980s VCR, which is what the parent said.

Yes, I understand. The parent is still correct. You can buy splitters that strip HDCP.

Or you could screen capture.

Some people use torrents, others use the library, and some use both. Are you asking why some prefer a library to a torrent? For them, likely ease of access and greater access to content. Effectively torrents are an expansion of the library where sharing is easier than ever.

Are you suggesting a library is only moral because of the difficulty in using it? If so, what if someone were to suggest that current libraries have become easy enough to use that they have already crossed that line?

And making a copy of something that hundreds to even thousands of people worked hundreds of thousands of hours on just because you can also has some negative morals do it.

I don't know what analogy to make since all the physical ones fail. Maybe it's like hiring someone for a service and not paying. You get a haircut and don't pay. You hire a lawyer and don't pay. You have an accountant and don't pay. In all of those cases the only thing lost is the time the hair stylist, lawyer, accountant, movie maker spent. Yet we generally consider the first 3 morally wrong. Why not the 4th. That you can copy without getting caught doesn't mean there are zero moral implications.

A library pays once and then allows an unlimited number of people to use an item. A torrent uploader buys once and then allows an unlimited number of people to use an item. The only core distinction is the number that can access it at once. I will grant this is something of a significant distinction, but only if we grant that a torrent technology that allows only one user of any given uploaded item at once is the same as a library, and thus has the same moral implications (multiple uploads can allow for multiple users as long as they don't exceed the number of independent uploaders at any one time, much like a library can have more than one copy of a book as long as they buy more than one copy).

> hundreds to even thousands of people worked hundreds of thousands of hours on

That’s called the “Sweat of the brow” argument, but it isn’t valid in the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow