Piracy

[Wictorian]

How can you define piracy?

I know I can Google this. That’s not the point. I know what piracy is. I wanna know what you think is piracy and whatnot. For instance I think adblockers and apps like YouTube Vanced could be included. I think it boils down to the question what can the corporations mandate. Most people agree they can mandate paying for their services. Fewer people believe they can mandate watching ads. I don’t think there is a big difference between the two, Linus says piracy is okay aslong as we support the developers so can we say it is benefiting the products without giving anything in turn? 

[IAmNik]

When I hear "priracy", my mind automatically goes back to the Napster days and Lars Ulrich suing them lol and of course the, "YoU WoUlDnT dOwNlOaD a cAr"  previews on movies haha

[da na]

Illegal distribution (or sometimes ownership but mainly the first) of materials with actively maintained rights.

Download HL2 from archive.org? Gray area. But 80s and 90s software or things that were freeware to start with is totally fine. 

I usually only pirate if it's not obtainable or functional in original form. Like if I can't find a copy on ebay or it's astronomically expensive so I get it from archive.org.

(If something hasn't been taken down there, it's probably fine anyway)

I've never intentionally pirated music or movies. Just software. (Unless you count downloading YouTube videos as piracy, but I'm not distributing them so IMO it's not a massive breach of rights)

[Wictorian]

3 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Illegal distribution (or sometimes ownership but mainly the first) of materials with actively maintained rights.

Download HL2 from archive.org? Gray area. But 80s and 90s software or things that were freeware to start with is totally fine. 

I usually only pirate if it's not obtainable or functional in original form. Like if I can't find a copy on ebay or it's astronomically expensive so I get it from archive.org.

(If something hasn't been taken down there, it's probably fine anyway)

I've never intentionally pirated music or movies. Just software. (Unless you count downloading YouTube videos as piracy, but I'm not distributing them so IMO it's not a massive breach of rights)

How do you even pirate music?

[AnonymousGuy]

I'm under no obligation to watch ads as part of receiving content.  Of course someone who financially benefits from people watching ads is going to make a false equivalency of adblockers to piracy.   Piracy requires someone to be deprived of money they are owed for their content.  There is no terms of service or agreement that YT content creators are guaranteed ad revenue.

[mariushm]

Piracy = using something for which you have no rights to use or in a way you're not authorized - buying gives you a license to use that something in a specific way (ex a software can be used only on one computer, you may not be able to resell it etc etc, a music cd is for personal listening only and technically it's not legal to play the disc in front of an audience, or use the cd if you're a radio DJ)

There is public domain and there's licenses which have very permissive terms (open source software, some creative commons licenses etc) 

 

If the Youtube's terms of service say you agree to accept being served ads in exchange for access to the website, then legally you're not respecting your end of the deal by blocking ads.

 

As for things like Youtube Vanced ... it's more complicated ...  for example, it uses Youtube's brand and recognition to gain popularity ... it's not quite right to use "Youtube" in the name... 

[RoseLuck462]

Ad blocking!

[da na]

20 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

How do you even pirate music?

Napster - Wikipedia

[Wictorian]

27 minutes ago, mariushm said:

 

If the Youtube's terms of service say you agree to accept being served ads in exchange for access to the website, then legally you're not respecting your end of the deal by blocking ads. 

The question is what can they include in the guidelines? If it said you had to stand on your knees while watching YouTube videos, would you obey that?

[Ezzy-525]

45 minutes ago, IAmNik said:

When I hear "priracy", my mind automatically goes back to the Napster days and Lars Ulrich suing them lol and of course the, "YoU WoUlDnT dOwNlOaD a cAr"  previews on movies haha

 

[GuiltySpark_]

It boggles the mind that people find this topic so controversial. 

[TetraSky]

Piracy is when you get something without doing a proper exchange between you and the owner of the content you decided you were entitled to. If this "exchange" is you receiving everything and them not getting compensated(unless it's truly free and they state as much), it's piracy.

This exchange can be anything from actual monetary payment/subscription or simply watching their ads, as long as they are compensated.

Be it from non paying for a piece of software, game, document... or a video.

Even if their video is "free to watch" on youtube, they expect you to watch ads for them to get paid a few cents for your view. Not doing so is stealing from both Google (who pays for the bandwidth to deliver the video to you) and the creator.

 

So yes, adblocking is piracy. Will that stop me from using adblock because the internet is a literal cancer without it these days? Heck no. But I at least recognize that what I'm doing is not great without pretending that I'm innocent in all this. Unlike many people who were arguing against Linus's "hot take".

[AnonymousGuy]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

Even if their video is "free to watch" on youtube, they expect you to watch ads for them to get paid a few cents for your view. Not doing so is stealing from both Google (who pays for the bandwidth to deliver the video to you) and the creator.

What content creators expect is irrelevant, because viewers don't make agreements with content creators they make agreements with the provider: Youtube.  Youtube doesn't demand you to watch ads or not use an adblock, they only have in their ToS that they reserve the right to dump you if you're no longer financially viable.  I can demand you give me a blowjob in exchange for reading this comment, doesn't mean it's enforceable or that you "stole" my knowledge because you didn't do it.

[bmx6454]

2 hours ago, Wictorian said:

How do you even pirate music?

i feel old...

[AnonymousGuy]

8 minutes ago, bmx6454 said:

i feel old...

iTunes and Spotify have made kids nowadays soft. 

 

Nobody jerks off to magazines anymore:

 

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f5715105-2c8a-4c91-8e4e-ccb94ff0e6f8/embed?autoplay=false

[Roswell]

3 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

It boggles the mind that people find this topic so controversial. 

People will participate in all sorts of mental gymnastics to rationalize immoral behavior. 

[SansVarnic]

4 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

It boggles the mind that people find this topic so controversial. 

Fortunately its a straightforward topic, people just make it controversial. 

[mariushm]

6 hours ago, Wictorian said:

The question is what can they include in the guidelines? If it said you had to stand on your knees while watching YouTube videos, would you obey that?

They can ask whatever is legal in the country they're incorporated, and more. Some terms may not be legal in some countries or regions and then the terms would say that (ex see lotteries and prize laws in some areas)

Not in guidelines, in their terms of service and what you agree on when you sign up, or visit Youtube without being logged in for the first time. 

 

They can ask for you to stand on your knees, but it would be a pointless because they have no way of checking that.

Just the same, while they could figure out you're MOST likely using an ad blocker, it's no 100% certainty, you could have a bad internet connection, you could have a bad DNS server from your ISP, could be using a VPN which messes with the ads (I have a company VPN that makes ads not work, for example I get the ad sound in background and right away I get a picture with the skip button so I can skip ads instantly - I think it has something to do with main youtube site being cached while for ad requests the DNS query goes through my vpn and times out/fails so the video fails to load and I get the skip button right away)

 

4 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

  I can demand you give me a blowjob in exchange for reading this comment, doesn't mean it's enforceable or that you "stole" my knowledge because you didn't do it.

Well, no, you couldn't, because when you signed up on this forum you agreed to give LMG a license to publish your content.

See https://linustechtips.com/terms/

 

Quote

Copyright and Licensing

If you submit any of your own copyrighted content to linustechtips.com, you retain the rights to that content. However, you also grant linustechtips.com a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, and worldwide license to redistribute, reproduce, and publicly display said content, as well as to prepare derivative works and to grant others permission to do the same for any purpose in any medium.
 
By submitting any content, you declare that you have the rights to do so and that you are not infringing upon the intellectual property rights of another party.
 
You may not post links to external resources containing unauthorized copies of copyrighted material.

 

Basically, even I as part of the "grant others permission to do the same for any purpose in any medium"  could take your comment and put it on t-shirts, mugs, other forums etc ... unless I'm reading it wrong and it's meant to say you grant linustechtips.com the right to grant others the same permission ( basically I think the idea is to allow users to quote your message like I just did, without getting into copyright issues)

 

 

[Ababba]

If you willingly send me data, it's none of your business what I do or don't do with it.

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, Ababba said:

If you willingly send me data, it's none of your business what I do or don't do with it.

Youtube is sending you data only if you request it, it's not pushing content to you as soon as you access the website, without any interaction from your part, it's not like an online radio or live tv, it's not like a person coming to you and shouting in your ear, without any control from your part.

You have to perform an action to view content, clicking on the video (title, thumbnail etc) .. that's your request, and use of the website, and you agreed to the terms of service when you started using Youtube. If you don't agree to the terms you're free to log out and never access the website.

 

 

[Ababba]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

Youtube is sending you data only if you request it, it's not pushing content to you as soon as you access the website, without any interaction from your part, it's not like an online radio or live tv, it's not like a person coming to you and shouting in your ear, without any control from your part.

You have to perform an action to view content, clicking on the video (title, thumbnail etc) .. that's your request, and use of the website, and you agreed to the terms of service when you started using Youtube. If you don't agree to the terms you're free to log out and never access the website.

 

 

 

They are willingly sending me data I request, they don't have to do that.

 

Viewing a website isn't a contract. I didn't agree to anything. I was simply like 'hey can I view this?' and they were like 'sure go ahead'.

 

[jaypro]

What I don't understand is how working around ads with ad blocks is okay, but then people also get upset when companies work around working around ads. 

If its okay for end users to workaround ads...then it should be okay for companies to do whatever they want to find ways to workaround those workarounds.  Which just leads to an arms race of ad-blocking and anti -ad-blocking.

 

Here's a hypothetical..

Imagine Youtube created a 100% accurate way to detect ad blocking.  LIke those websites that put a full banner "ad block detected" thing.

And they offered it as a toggle to the content creator to block all content when detected.

How many content creator turn that on?  Would LMG turn it on? 

 

[Ababba]

12 minutes ago, jaypro said:

If its okay for end users to workaround ads...then it should be okay for companies to do whatever they want to find ways to workaround those workarounds.  Which just leads to an arms race of ad-blocking and anti -ad-blocking.

Freedom can be messy, just as I can decide what I do and don't put on my computer, they can decide what they do and don't send people. Anyone complaining about it either way is being silly imo.

 

17 minutes ago, jaypro said:

Here's a hypothetical..

Imagine Youtube created a 100% accurate way to detect ad blocking.  LIke those websites that put a full banner "ad block detected" thing.

And they offered it as a toggle to the content creator to block all content when detected.

How many content creator turn that on?  Would LMG turn it on? 

 

If they feel implementing such a scheme adds value for them, then they should.

[jaypro]

22 minutes ago, Ababba said:

If they feel implementing such a scheme adds value for them, then they should.

Yeah that's the same conclusion I had.

Try to figure out which has more value..

% of users that will turn off ad block to watch video

% of users that would watch ad free video, but then go and buy merch or something.

 

In the end, it all boils down to money and not really principles or views on what or what isn't piracy.

 

Youtube offers a ad-free version, its called Youtube Premium.  LTT offers a second source of ad free version, Floatplane.  People want more money (in this case, by saving money), so just use adblock, its like a free version.

 

Businesses also don't care about the principles, they also just want more money. They don't usually take the nuclear option and block all access to the site, since the users still provide some sort of value, like increased traffic or engagement.

 

 

[mariushm]

"Geek" people and very motivated / stubborn people will make the effort to use ad block , install plugins, do things like pi hole etc. These people are most likely not the "market" for advertisers anyway, as they're unlikely to click on ads .. so only the "impression" ads and brand awareness type ads would work (ex the coca cola / mc donalds etc type companies that push ads to keep the brand in people's mind not to promote a specific thing)

 

The Premium Youtube version works for that niche of viewers who are not skilled enough to install ad blocks or simply have enough paycheck/revenue that they don't feel 5-10$ a month is that big of a deal,or they're too lazy, too "can't be bothered" and would rather pay than deal with setting up things like ad blockers. 

A small subset would be those that feel that paying premium is worth it to hopefully reward the channels they view or whatever.

Some will be content creators themselves or reactors who will pay that small amount to react to other people's videos without getting ads in the middle of their reactions. 

 

Then there's the general audience who doesn't want to pay or doesn't mind waiting a few seconds to click on skip on ads ...  Youtube will constantly try to find that threshold where too much ads would annoy people and move to some other platforms (where? only twitch is competition, sort of) or there's just enough ads to convince someone it's worth going for Premium.

 

I've just noticed a couple days ago they're offering TWO months free to try the premium, they kept offering 1 month until a few days ago ... so I guess that 1 month free trial was successful enough to be worth expanding it to 2 months free...

 

Basically, Youtube Vanced went after this "general audience" segment, making it stupid easy to skip the ads, which is what Youtube doesn't want. It wants to convert these users to Premium paying users, and with Vanced, they'd have little interest to do it.