Preface: I personally don’t care if it’s legal or not, I’m gonna do it anyway. But, I wanted to pose the question here to people who are smarter than me to get your opinions. Plus, my partner is completely anti-piracy so I can only enjoy it by myself and it makes me kind of sad to do so. So it’d be nice to give them a reason to consider it. Also also, I am not knowledgeable enough to even know if this is a stupid question, so please be kind.
I saw an old post/comment chain that the stremio + rd + torrentio combo is “technically” legal in the states due to some workaround about distributing vs consuming. You’re also not downloading anything or torrenting anything. I know that on their own, Stremio and RD are perfectly legit sites. But adding Torrentio into the mix is where it gets the spicy flavor. Now that some years have passed and that post might be outdated, what are your thoughts now? Is there a case to be made in favor of this being legal?
The arguments around piracy are less about legality (in most places its copyright infringement which is NOT “stealing” but is illegal). Its more the moral and ethical arguments. Is it moral for a service to remove something that you’ve paid for? Is it ethical for people, through no fault of their own, to not be able to afford entertainment. Is it moral for large corporations to price gouge and continuously Make Line Go Up while offering a continuously worse product? Is it moral to copy software not available in your country? Is it ethical for companies to force people into subscriptions for the sole purpose of making more money when they already have loads? Is it ethical to pirate when companies refuse to support the operating system you have? Is it moral to copy software when the company that makes it is not just unethical but has been found to be taking part in things like genocide? Is it ethical for huge corporations to manipulate democracy and laws to serve their profits at the expense of everyone else? Is capitalism itself ethical?
Most people I know who are anti-pirate just lack an understanding of why people engage in copyright infringement. Calling people “scum” and “thieves” without understanding the very big moral and ethical considerations behind what drives people to piracy is reductionist, ignorant and Othering for the sake of self-superiority.
Not saying that your partner thinks that way, just that its a very common example of thinking that misses the important points and that its not just about what’s legal and what’s not (because there are many things that are or have been illegal that are completely unethical.)
In the US, outside of licensed channels, it is a copyright violation on both sides. But I don’t think it’s ever really been prosecuted for people who only download, outside of one or two really weird and/or “make an example of them” cases.
Ok second question in response. So what would be the difference then of consuming copyrighted media uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo before they’re taken down because of violations? Would that also mean I violated the law by streaming it from an unintended source even though those sources are legit? (YouTube/Vimeo)
Those sources are not legit. Strictly speaking yeah it would be participating in copyright infringement, but it’d be real hard to convince a court that the rightsholder was materially harmed by you watching it. If anyone, they go after the person who uploaded it (and the platform hosting it, if they aren’t taking stuff down).
That’s fair. It would make sense for it to be consistent whether I watched it illegally through YouTube or the Stremio combo. Ah well, looks like I continue to pirate alone.
This makes a lot of sense. I didn’t think about the licensing of channels. Seems like thats a super simple, black-and-white way to say “yeah its illegal”. Thank you.
When you’re torrenting you’re always uploading as well, though (unless you’re a filthy leech), so the “only downloading is fine” only applies to RD (which I don’t know much about, I think it’s a bit like Usenet)? I have a friend in Germany who got fined for torrenting (this was years and years ago).
