Is defeating a paywall piracy?

[Alefroth]

I'm inclined to think yes, inasmuch as it is knowingly taking measures to access content you are not entitled to.

[Jaymann]

Not if it is irritating.

[Sudy]

I feel like the relevant questions here are, "What is piracy?" And, "Is piracy always unethical?"

I'm not starting a recurring subscription to a news site to read one article. Usually those browser tabs just get closed unread no matter how interested I was in their content. I don't care enough/am too pissed off to bother trying to circumvent it. Do I want journalism to die out? Of course not. But this isn't a pay model that makes sense to me. I didn't subscribe to a newspaper before, and I'm not doing this now. Would I potentially agree to a micropayment/tip before or after? Yeah, actually. But most of the stuff hidden behind paywalls is controlled by morally questionable corporations and not individual creators, so I don't really care. They should find/create better models.

Now if you're talking about accessing members-only features on a site/service, I think that's more questionable and may veer into the territory of hacking or fraud. But I don't think that's what you were referring to.

In the late 90s/early 2000s (mostly when I was in high school, before I had a full time job), I pirated a lot of movies, music, and games in the sense that I downloaded from file sharing services. But I also bought a ton of media when I could afford it. I still occasionally steam movies on file sharing sites if I can't find what I want on pay-streaming services. Though digital rental has become a lot more reasonable ($4-5 CAD?), I should probably convert to that even if just to avoid ads and dead links. I struggle to justify paying $3-4 per episode of TV series though; those don't usually have a rental option. I also have trouble justifying paying full price for e-books and audio books, but I just haven't adjusted to the concept of books going digital yet and don't use them much anyway. I also resent losing access to an open used/sharing market. As with PC gaming, make it east/cheap/convenient enough that I can't resist switching, and I'll convert.

People who re-sell pirated material? Unless they're in a region where it's otherwise unattainable, or they have almost literally no other means of ethically supporting themselves... yeah, that's wrong. When I worked at a discount computer store in the early 2000s, we had several customers who pirated movies as a full time gig and it disgusted me.

[Kraken]

I subscribe to my three most frequently read news sites, but I use Bypass Paywalls and Disable Javascript to get around 90% of everything else, and uBlock Origin to reduce annoyances when I get in. Does that make me feel guilty? Well, now it does. I rationalize it because I do support three major content providers, which is probably more than most people do, and because the number of people who know how to beat paywalls doesn't move the financial needle all that much.

One could as well ask if ad blockers are piracy. If a site nags me to disable mine, I look at how many elements are being blocked on the current page. Fewer than 10? Fine, sure. 20 or more? Hahaha no. (The site's reputation or lack thereof also factors into that decision.)

[Lorini]

To me a better question is it copyright infringement. Which technically it is because the material is being made available subject to you paying for it. Whether or not that matters to you is an individual question that people should answer on their own.

[Sudy]

Yeah, if you potentially benefit from harvesting and selling my data, I feel zero guilt about blocking your ads/affiliates/cookies/etc. The system is already irreperably broken. You broke trust first.

[dbt1949]

I've never hears that term before so I had to look it up.
If a site has pay services then I'm not interested and never go back to the site.
Is it piracy to bypass this paywall? I suppose it is.

[Daehawk]

Wouldn't know. I run an ad blocker for ads and dont feel bad at all. On a site like a news story might be on I just dont visit known blocked sites. If I accidentally end up being on one and blocked I just copy the headline and then find it on a free site. Barring all that I just dont see the story if all that fails..

[Jaymann]

If all that fails, ask someone on OO to give you the gist.

[Victoria Raverna]

Next poll, is using an ad blocker piracy?

[Sudy]

I watched five minutes of Downsized on someone's phone over their shoulder on the bus and was sentenced to six months. I couldn't even hear the audio!

[hitbyambulance]

Seattle Public Library has a thing where you can get three days of unlimited access to nytimes.com by clicking this activation link on the library website. you have to click it again after the 72 hours to get access again, but i find it a fair compromise - the library is paying for the temporary access, which is in turn funded by taxpayer monies.

[Blackhawk]

Probably. I'm OK with that.

What I wish is that a broad swathe of these sites would band together under a single subscription. Say, $10/month with a single login, and that $10 would be divided up between each article the subscriber reads.

It's one thing to subscribe to, say, the BBC, but in this day and age you need multiple news sources for current events, plus every third google search on non-news topics sends you to a paywalled site. What's the best video card of 2020? What's a good tool to manage your budget online? How do you boil an egg? Paywalls. If I subscribed for every article I read online, I'd probably be subscribed to 30 different sites, most of them for a single article. That's not manageable. It's not reasonable. Give me an alternative.

Next poll, is using an ad blocker piracy?

Also probably, which I'm also OK with. This is the only time I know of where piracy is done 100% in self-defense. I don't block ads because they're annoying. I block ads because they're dangerous. Not blocking ads is like going to Mardi Gras without condoms.

[LordMortis]

I dunno but I don't do it, so deep down, I'd say yes or at the very least it's unethical but on the surface, I'm undecided.

[Rumpy]

Also probably, which I'm also OK with. This is the only time I know of where piracy is done 100% in self-defense. I don't block ads because they're annoying. I block ads because they're dangerous. Not blocking ads is like going to Mardi Gras without condoms.

That's a good analogy. One thing to note is that internet ads are quite different than other forms of advertising in that they can actually cause harm. They're active, and they can. contain scripting. I feel bad for site owners who may be living off ads, but I've already been burned once by a rogue ad and it's not something I want to repeat. It's like the wild west out there, and you can't really ask a site user to blindly trust in the ad server, because ad servers can easily become vectors. And scripting on websites have become so bad as of late that they compromise the viewing experience by slowing down browsers. So yeah, I prefer having safety and sanity of mind. It's made it much easier to browse.

As for paywalls, I've personally never felt compelled to use a site that uses a paywall. Our local paper's website started offering a member's area with behind the scenes stuff and contests, and they introduced that just as Covid hit. Not really the best tactic, I don't think.

[Paingod]

Unethical? Yes.
Piracy? No. In my mind, piracy had always involved downloading content and keeping/redistributing it. This is more like scratching the paint off a window to peek inside. You're not really storing anything. If you're bypassing the paywall and downloading something to keep, then yes.

We probably need a new word for it.

[Sudy]

Pirasee.

[Blackhawk]

Hey, we haven't argued piracy on here for years! It feels like old times!

Piracy in the context we're using it is a fairly recent word, and the meaning is changing. The old definition of piracy is unauthorized use of copyrighted works for profit. In the past 15-20 years, though, the definition has changed to include simply acquiring copyrighted works without authorization. Bypassing a paywall is clearly the latter. They put something they created online, say it is $ to use it, and you find a way to get it without paying said $, that's piracy. Steam puts their games behind a paywall, and nobody would argue that finding a way to get around paying on Steam would be piracy.

Whether it is right or wrong is a more involved question with plenty of room to argue.

[LawBeefaroni]

Someone overcharging for their product or making you jump through an inordinate number of hoops for their product doesn't mean you get to steal it.

[Unagi]

Someone overcharging for their product or making you jump through an inordinate number of hoops for their product doesn't mean you get to steal it.

Yeah. I honestly don’t know why this is even a debate.
It’s stealing.

Someone creates something and says it costs money to buy. If you circumvent that, and take the product without paying, you are a thief.

[hepcat]

Yeah, I'm not sure how this could cause one to have any doubt that it's piracy/theft.

edit: Unagi beat me to it.

[Blackhawk]

Oh, goody. Now it really feels like old times!

Piracy is stealing. Piracy is not theft.

[disarm]

Piracy is stealing. Piracy is not theft.

Does not compute. When has piracy ever NOT been theft? When has theft ever NOT been stealing?

Theft is our legal system's name for the crime of stealing something. Some forms of piracy, while of questionable ethics, would not result in a person being charged or convicted of the crime of theft.

Gotta love semantics!

[Blackhawk]

Piracy is stealing. Piracy is not theft.

Does not compute. When has piracy ever NOT been theft? When has theft ever NOT been stealing?

Stealing is taking something without permission. Piracy fits that.

Theft requires that the owner is deprived of whatever is taken. After one pirates (a movie, a game, an article), the item is still there. It remains in the owner's possession.

All theft is stealing. Not all stealing is theft. This isn't some quirky whim. Law enforcement, congress, and the US Supreme Court have said that piracy (slang for a form of copyright infringement) is not theft.

Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

[hepcat]

Theft and stealing may differ because one is traditionally seen as using force to get what you want and/or seeking to deprive someone of a good, while the other does not (I had to look it up to figure out what you were talking about), but you get the gist.

'A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.'

edit: and you responded as I was updating. Semantics aside, the end result is the same: getting a service that costs others money by going around the required act of paying for that service is wrong.

[Holman]

As a librarian, I'm obligated to vote Yes (although I might use a different word than "piracy").

Publishers have the right to publish as they see fit.

[Unagi]

Piracy is stealing. Piracy is not theft.

Does not compute. When has piracy ever NOT been theft? When has theft ever NOT been stealing?

Stealing is taking something without permission. Piracy fits that.

Theft requires that the owner is deprived of whatever is taken. After one pirates (a movie, a game, an article), the item is still there. It remains in the owner's possession.

All theft is stealing. Not all stealing is theft. This isn't some quirky whim. Law enforcement, congress, and the US Supreme Court have said that piracy (slang for a form of copyright infringement) is not theft.

Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

Sea of Thieves

[Blackhawk]

Oh, goody. Now it really feels like old times! We're arguing semantics

Theft and stealing may differ because one is traditionally seen as using force to get what you want, while the other does not (I had to look it up to figure out what you were talking about).

Spoiler:

'A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.'

Exactly! Without depriving the owner of what is taken, it isn't theft. But it's still stealing. But if we're arguing semantics, if force is a factor, it's robbery. And if you enter a structure, it's also burglary.

[Blackhawk]

edit: and you responded as I was updating. Semantics aside, the end result is the same: getting a service that costs others money by going around the required act of paying for that service is wrong.

Which if you look back, I didn't argue. I separated the 'is it piracy' question from the 'is it wrong' bit. Whether it is piracy is black and white. Whether all piracy is automatically wrong is fodder for hours of debate.

[hepcat]

Now, the real question is how many of us that say it's wrong have actually done just that before? I'll start: I have. But I also realize it was wrong and won't try to justify it through mental gymnastics. I realize it's wrong and I try not to do it.

[Holman]

Are we still talking just about paywalls, or are we expanding to other forms of content?

I'll come clean. Here's what I've done:

Evaded a paywall for published news (pretty rarely, actually, since I have subscriptions where I need them)
Downloaded a pdf of a published product available for a cost elsewhere (e.g. some RPG books I already owned in print)
Lots of cracked software piracy (but only as a teen in the 1980s, never since)

Here's what I've never done:

Pirated any computer game since the floppy-disk days
Pirated any other piece of software (Word, etc)
Pirated a movie
Stolen any physical object

[Blackhawk]

Twenty years ago I regularly pirated games, music, movies, you name it. I haven't been like that in a long, long time. Even then I didn't deny that it was wrong. I might have argued that there were shades of gray, but never that the color 'white' appeared anywhere. Now? I do use Bypass Paywalls, and I will occasionally download an ebook that isn't available anywhere else. Again, I make no claims that it is right. I'm an imperfect person, and sometimes I do things that aren't ideal.

[Unagi]

Exactly! Without depriving the owner of what is taken, it isn't theft.

It's a theft of a potential customer. Is it not?

[gilraen]

Exactly! Without depriving the owner of what is taken, it isn't theft.

It's a theft of a potential customer. Is it not?

Is it really a potential customer if the person wasn't going to pay for it anyway?

[ImLawBoy]

FWIW, I think that the distinction between "theft" and "stealing" has import in the legal realm, because it can likely have an impact on charges (in a criminal situation) or claims (in a civil situation). I think it is a distinction without difference in the more colloquial sense - I don't think, for example, that it has much value in this discussion. The terms are generally used interchangeably in casual conversation, and to insist on using the proper legalese terms in this context tends to derail the thread (and lead to posts such as mine). I think it can be easily noted that there is a difference between stealing/theft that results in the loss of the original material vs. stealing/theft that does not if that is a point that one finds relevant, and we don't have to worry about technical definitions to get there.

[Unagi]

Exactly! Without depriving the owner of what is taken, it isn't theft.

It's a theft of a potential customer. Is it not?

Is it really a potential customer if the person wasn't going to pay for it anyway?

We can't say, right?- because perhaps some people aren't paying for it because they have the option not to.

I mean, when I hit a paywall my mind has no problem saying "Nope, if you want me to pay for it, I will pass"... Other people, apparently, say "Urrrg! I want this - but - I don't want to pay for it though!!!"

If you are looking at the product (game, article, movie) you are a potential 'customer'. It's the 'price' you don't like.

[Exodor]

Back in Ye Olden Days I used to read the paper every day - by reading a copy someone else left in the lunchroom.

Was I stealing? I was consuming paid content I didn't pay for.

[hepcat]

It was on its way to the trash at that point, and as far as I know there's no Gamestop like market for used newspapers.

Do you seriously not see the difference between reading a discarded newspaper left in a lunchroom to actively trying to get around a paywall to get to a service you're expected to pay for?

As I said, I'm guilty of what I'm talking about...as are most of us, I'm sure. I just don't try to justify it.

[Jaymann]

After reading the discussion, I changed my vote to yes. But it's like pleading guilty with an explanation. I never knowingly go to a paywalled newspaper site with the intent of stealing. Once in a while I follow a link from an OO'er to a news article and discover a paywall. At that point I will peer around the block to see if I can pick up the gist of the article. Then I will move on. If I absolutely must know, I will ask the OP to provide the gist of the article.

[Unagi]

Back in Ye Olden Days I used to read the paper every day - by reading a copy someone else left in the lunchroom.

Was I stealing? I was consuming paid content I didn't pay for.

I also played on someone else's Atari, and read a magazine in the Dr's office.