Re: pirate bay, w3m, and the interface is just an interface (BEST post ever)

[Paul Rankin]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> at 15:14 on 14 Dec 2014:

> Most illegal copying doesn't hurt any artist, but only hurts companies
> that engage in entertainment.  Notice that they don't call themselves
> "the cinema industry" but "the entertainment industry", and indeed
> 99% of it has nothing to do with art.

It seems that this kind of naive armchair perspective is spouted so
profusely that its validity is taken prima facie. No, the companies in
question don't gnash their teeth and take the losses, they pass them on,
mostly to their predominately middle-class workforce, but also by
shifting output to focus exclusively on opening-weekend,
merchandise-friendly fare and away from anything "cinematic" in the
Steven Soderbergh sense. It is myopic to suggest piracy has no affect on
cinema-as-art when it has all but killed it.

Please don't perpetuate this kind of false Robin Hood myth, it's
wilfully ignorant self-interest under a thin veil of trumped up "people
vs the system" garbage. Whatever of this self-deception one practices,
the truth is piracy is stealing from real people.