On the Merits of Ethical Piracy

I recently came across a friend's Facebook posting about Netflix's announcement that they're raising the subscription rate for plans that include both DVDs and streaming by about 60%. Considering that most predictions call for their costs to acquire programming to grow far quicker than their subscriber base will, this was one of the least surprising announcements from a media company in recent memory, and I found people's comments on my friend's posting more interesting.

In particular, I was struck by a comment to the effect that the imperfect nature of video distribution is a justification for piracy. Their position, such as it is, seemed to hinge on two elements. One is the belief, admittedly not without some historical justification, that the creative people who make movies and TV shows get relatively little of the money from legitimate distribution. The other is the way in which movies and programs often go in and out of circulation for various reasons. Reading this individual's rhetorical plea for Hollywood to give him reasons not to pirate material, I was struck by what a load of crap that is.

Blaming the system in this instance comes across as little more than the hollow rationalizations of somehow who simply doesn't want to pay. The only meaningful question when it comes to whether or not to pirate copyrighted material is whether one feels that the people who produce creative works in whatever medium should receive compensation for their work. If you don't buy into that basic premise, everything else is window dressing. Whichever side someone comes down on, I just wish they'd be honest about it. Somehow it would seem more ethical.