> I can't speak for others but I generally turn to piracy when legal options are unavailable or unviable.

I do this too.

But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded. I'm assuming that the problems you've described with region locking aren't there. I resort to piracy when I have no other options.

> But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded.

I addressed that by referencing a study that concludes piracy has no measurable impact on revenue.

>> But I asked whether copyright enforcement was necessary for films to get adequately funded.

> I addressed that by referencing a study that concludes piracy has no measurable impact on revenue.

I'm weary of studies in general because they're capable of justifying absolute bullshit. Anyway, your study was conducted in a regime where getting films for free is illegal and therefore somewhat less convenient than it could be if it were legal. We don't have access to a world in which that isn't the case, so your study is kind of... not able to answer my question?

People who appeal to studies should look up "how to prove a counterfactual".

> I'm weary of studies in general because they're capable of justifying absolute bullshit.

Do you have a proposal for an alternative process?

> Anyway, your study was conducted in a regime where getting films for free is illegal and therefore somewhat less convenient than it could be if it were legal.

In Switzerland, the country I live in, piracy is legal. You might be interested in researching the consequences.

>We don't have access to a world in which that isn't the case, so your study is kind of... not able to answer my question?

Then your question is moot, as no one can answer it. Perhaps it is you who should actually look up unfalsifiable statements.

You're saying that for a statement to be falsifiable, a logically invalid falsification needs to be accepted. How can you argue that a counterfactual can be proven without actually setting up the counterfactual scenario? Or doing something else that makes logical sense?

[edit]

Also, to be clear, I think that if a study is being used to justify a counterfactual, a long-form argument needs to be made about why it does that. You can't just give the study results (which don't actually test the counterfactual scenario). The relevant counterfactual here is "If copyright law were to be abolished then it would not hurt producers of media like film".

This whole discussion reminds me of the 2000-2010 internet. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-o...

Finally, I've edited out some insults and comments which didn't make sense.

I don't know what to tell you, you said yourself that your question cannot be answered, so why even ask it?

There is no need for artificial scarcity, the arts could be funded like Patreon stuff, with instead the government giving the money to individuals to spend on creators they like: https://www.cepr.net/report/the-artistic-freedom-voucher-int...

The problem is that the definition of 'unavailable' or 'unviable' can quickly expand to include more or less anything. Have to wait a week for the film to be available in your area? It's not available on your chosen streaming service? The file costs a dollar more than you want to pay or doesn't come with the full set of download rights you want? People use all of these and more as excuses for pirating. If a programme owner wants to charge $10 a month to view their one show that's their right, and audiences have a wide range of free or cheaper alternatives to choose from if they don't want to pay it.

Unsurprisingly, HN being full of people who've got rich off Web 2.0 tech that profits from the spread of piracy and its resulting products (ultra cheap streaming at the expense of artists and creators), plus enjoyed tons of cheap/free digital goods and entertainment over the years, has a hive mind that considers all this perfectly ok

A film is just a bag of bytes. Consider we live in an age where:

- 20+MBit connections are the norm in the Western world

- there are no border checks or national firewalls to impede the flow of information worldwide (barring tyrannical regimes)

- the cost of making a copy and sending it out to anywhere around the world approximately = free

- we've had 20+ years to work on the service problem of piracy, to reach an acceptable equilibrium

It seems outrageous that we have fractured streaming services, no true digital ownership (even to match what we had for decades with VHS and optical discs), that restricting download rights is even a thing (I got my bag of bytes and paid for it, what is it to you what program or hardware I use to play it?), or that we have to wait at all for a film to be released in all geographies (I don't care that I'm in the Philippines - I already speak English and can't be bothered to wait for the official dubbing) if the bytes can come streaming down the pipe in less than a second.

I'm not entitled. I do have high expectations because we live in the goddamn future and copyright cartels are LARPing a world of digital cavemen. Like hell I'm gonna be content with that.

Call me um nitpicking, but files under CC (creative commons) is: 'no true digital ownership' ? No! [smashes-forehead] ^^

hint: i thought there was a finer drawn li...

> REM://youtube.com/watch?v=WpU7Hxf8iBw