I’ve begun discontinuing many US services in favor of EU ones. However, I’ve noticed that some individuals, instead of simply ceasing to use American products, resorted to illegally downloading everything. While it’s true that the money goes to the US when you pay, it can’t justify disrespecting others’ hard work and effort while still consuming or using their products, and it is also illegal. This is especially true considering that they likely don’t have any direct connection to MAGA. This applies to actors, directors, YouTubers, and many others. We should simply cease using their products without giving them any further consideration.
Edit: adding to the last line, we should give instead more attention to locally and European made creations and products
Piracy isn’t stealing because you don’t take the original away from the creator, you just create a copy which doesn’t detract at all from the original copy. In fact, copyright is more a tool for stealing than piracy, as large corporations will get small creators to sign over the rights to the content they created, consolidating ‘ownership’ rights in the hands of a bunch of greedy corporations (Disney, Microsoft, etc) rather than the people that actually created them.
I bet you wouldn’t be happy if something you made and that you’re trying to sell get copied and shared completely for free. Many people would use that without giving you a penny. It is not stealing in a stricter sense, but it would hurt your finances for sure.
To add (kinda what you said but from slightly different angle)
Intellectual property is a crime.
Just think about it, just because someone was first to fill the paper work for an idea means you have to ask their permission to express any similar idea you had yourself.
If you want to support creators there are other ways which are often more direct without middle men taking a cut.
And this is the same logic that big companies are using when they rip off small scale creators to feed their AI algorithms.
The argument is more nuanced than “it isn’t stealing because it is just copying”.
With the AI stuff, they are not just copying the work, they are stealing small creators livelihoods as well as the efforts of their labour.
I know, it’s cool to say the catch phrase, “of buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing”, but ultimately this benefits the massive mega corporation’s more than the little guys.
They’re also distributing the work and making profit off of it. This isn’t really comparable to someone pirating a game in the age where digital ownership is near dead and every other new game is $60 with game breaking glitches on release