Is Media Piracy a Valid and Ethical Form of Protest, or Intellectual Property Theft?
You’ve probably heard about the recent rise in piracy. Sources including Forbes, Variety, Muso, Music Consumer Insight Reports, and many more (Link), have shown a consistent rise in piracy rates year-by-year, with an almost 40% increase between 2021 and 2022, and recent figures project that 2023 will be similar. So should you start pirating too?
We can’t exactly say it was unexpected either; you probably own a subscription to Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and HBO, just so you can sift through thousands of garbage shows and documentaries to find the show you actually wanted to watch, and depending on where you live, you’re adding a VPN on top of your monthly bill due to region restrictions. We’re not even mentioning advertising on YouTube, Twitch, or news outlets that genuinely make videos unwatchable without an AdBlock.
The biggest contradiction in all of this is that consumers will begrudgingly pay these exorbitant prices, only to not even own the media you’ve paid for. When you subscribe to Netflix, pay for premium Spotify, or buy a game on Steam, you don’t own the property you’ve paid for. Contrary to every other form of monetary transaction, you are paying for access that can be revoked without your approval or notice. I’m only barely old enough to remember my parents complaining about cable TV packages, but at least back then, if I bought a CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray, I owned it–it couldn’t be taken away. Now, streaming services cost more and deliver less than those same packages we used to complain about, and we aren’t even given the luxury of saying we own it.
It’s almost like the parasitic and exploitative motives which incentivise anti-consumerist practices never went away, they just had to catch up with the next form of price gouging. I think it’s fairly safe to assume my bias and stance on digital ownership and streaming; I completely endorse the recent wave of media piracy as a form of protest, but is ethical?
How can I, a filmmaker, endorse piracy when it directly harms the film industry’s biggest revenue source? The industry is already in a downward spiral, with film productions still recovering since lockdown (Link), and the rise of generative AI continues to threaten the sustainability of artistic livelihoods (Link). If everybody starts pirating media, there will be even fewer avenues for funding, translating to fewer opportunities for emerging filmmakers to turn their passions into a career. If anything, encouraging piracy directly correlates to the death of my own career, so why would I say I endorse it?
Well, why should the consumer be exploited in the name of protecting artists who are equally exploited? I can assure you, while the creative leads of your favourite entertainment media do benefit from these business practices, they don’t get a say. Ultimately, it is the producers, funders, and distributors who decide how their art is sold to general audiences, and I’m willing to bet that the added revenue is going to their pockets, not the people who actually made your favourite shows and movies. When a streaming service asks you to pay more, it isn’t because the money will reach the people who deserve the compensation; they’re still being worked overtime and hardly making ends meet. No, instead your hard earned money is going straight to their pockets, and when consumers are naturally upset and start pirating instead, those same streaming services lobby for harsher punishments against media piracy.
I want to make it explicitly clear that I am not stating piracy doesn’t affect artists. It does. Those losses in revenue seriously impact livelihoods, and there is absolutely a demographic of pirates who simply do it because they’re too cheap to pay for a movie ticket. But voting with your wallet and pirating your favourite shows and films is, unfortunately, one of the most effective forms of protest against unethical business practices. We’re all being exploited by corporations, and the only way they will listen is by hurting their bottom line.
But does exploitative business practices excuse breaking the law? I can’t make that choice for you. What I will say is that the rise in piracy is a natural response, and it’s hardly the fault of the consumer that intellectual property theft is a reasonable alternative to willing exploitation. I want to believe that, with enough protesting and complaining, eventually corporations will see sense and embrace more consumer-friendly practices, but let’s be honest, their current business model makes complete sense; they are thriving while artists struggle to make ends meet. I don’t like the idea of piracy, but I don’t see much of an alternative…
Do you think there’s a better way to protest against media companies' practices, without resorting to piracy? Write your response below or on social media. If you enjoyed this article, you should check out the rest of my blog, and if you’d like to support my work, you can follow my social media, share this article, or donate using Google/Apple Pay via Buy Me A Coffee!
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