Just would like to have a discussion on the topic. I’ve purchased around 20ish movies/shows on Vudu, and my wife has grown to be unhappy with Vudu’s UI and especially how the watch progress works. I am curious what some others thoughts on this are. My initial thoughts are I recognize I’ve purchased a license to watch the content, but feel that because I’ve purchased it I should have the right to retain total control over it and do what I please. I would like to purchase movies on physical media from now on, but wouldn’t like to repurchase all the same movies and shows again when I’ve already paid for them
Legally, yes it is wrong.
Morally? That depends on the person. I think asking a piracy focused community means you’re going to get a heavily skewed set of answers that all veer towards various forms of “Not wrong” or “It’s good actually. Don’t even support the platforms that make the content legally available because DRM sucks” etc.
Generally speaking though, most older visual media releases no longer make money for anyone who worked on them directly. Use that information however you see fit. I know it changes how I think about piracy in general.
Is it wrong to pirate movies…
…lemme stop you right there
One of the rights we are continually trying to claw back from the IP Maximalist lobby (and their minions in office) is the right to enjoy the media you own in a format available to you.
However, the studios and labels like taking another bite of the apple by releasing new versions, or versions in new formats, sometimes twice as they release better versions that correct for bad transfers (e.g. the lightsaber problem with the early blu-ray release.)
Hollywood has established though repeated bad-faith behavior, it’s not interested in getting your money legitimately or while retaining a positive customer experience, but extracting your money any way they can.
The DMCA forbids breaking DRM even for legal or non-copyright violating reasons (which is how we lost the right to repair or even jailbreak phones). And they could use this to prevent you from converting formats of your media to one you can actually use, but they’d have to make a stretchy case in court.
Sony also overcharges for scratched or failed media, so they’ve been caught treating their stuff as licenses or media when it legally suits them.
PS: Illegal ≠ Wrong. LGBT+ people are not grooming children, but religious ministries are.
There’s a couple angles you can take on this. My favourite is from the dotCommunist Manifesto:
Society confronts the simple fact that when everyone can possess every intellectual work of beauty and utility—reaping all the human value of every increase of knowledge—at the same cost that any one person can possess them, it is no longer moral to exclude.
Essentially, this argues that the unethical position is the one that creates the false scarcity.
Another less extreme position would be that many countries allow for exemptions for format shifting: if you buy a CD with some music, you’re legally permitted to rip it so long as you don’t distribute copies. One could argue that someone in your position is operating within the spirit of these laws… provided that you haven’t torrented the videos since that necessarily includes some partial distribution.
Finally, the least generous interpretation would point out that you didn’t buy the videos in the first place, but rather a licence to let Vudu stream them to you. Given that you don’t own anything, you’re not morally entitled to own it in a different format. This is why many people have rejected the streaming model.
As someone in camp #1, I think you’re a-ok ethically, but I thought you might want a broader perspective.
