• @2pt_perversion@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20•2 months ago

    I DVR the game. Later that night I come home to watch. Oh it’s commercial time, I guess I’ll just fast forward 2 minutes.

    Peter pan and tinkerbell float through my window. They capture me and tie me up. They shout at me, “Watching ad-supported media without watching the ads is a crime you monster!” as they hold my eyes open while ad after ad replay on the tv. Crime like this isn’t worth it folks.

    • CommunistEnglish
      9•2 months ago

      That’s not the same because the advertisement company has already paid the content creator.

      • @2pt_perversion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6•2 months ago

        Creators also get paid for in video ad reads and product placement. Media providers also make money on data collection regardless of the ads you skip. And furthermore advertising prices have always been based an statistics of reach. Companies like youtube have clearer data than the old Nielsen ratings but they’ve had a pretty accurate numbers of how many users skipped ads through time shifting too that have only gotten better since.

        It legally is not piracy in most places. Ethically just watching they are probably making money off of you even if you skip the obvious ads but if you really want to go over the top you could still skip and just find other ways to give money to the platform or creator.

        • CommunistEnglish
          3•2 months ago

          If it’s funded by live ads and the ads fund the creators, then skipping the ads means skipping your payment.

          It’s not legally piracy, but it’s the same spirit and the effects are indistinguishable on the creators.

      • my_hat_stinksEnglish
        4•2 months ago

        This is nonsense. Your argument is that you’re a pirate if one corporation with no relation to the content fails to pay a corporation which distributes but does not own the content. If you watch an ad then the advertising company refuses to pay you do not suddenly become a pirate.

        If a struggling McDonald’s franchise fails to pay some franchisee fee that does not mean you pirated your big mac.

        • CommunistEnglish
          4•2 months ago

          I don’t see how your example is even vaguely similar to mine, and the fact that you used that as an example means you don’t understand my argument.

          • my_hat_stinksEnglish
            3•2 months ago

            A little ham-fisted, sure, but if you think it’s irrelevant you evidently didn’t take any time to actually think about it (you did also reply instantly, so I’ll take that over you lacking reading comprehension).

            I’ll simplify.

            Digital piracy is illegal copying of unlicenced content.
            Alice creates content.
            Alice licences the content to Bob.
            Bob decides to distribute the content with advertisements from Charlie.
            You download the content.
            Charlie does not pay Bob.
            You did not breach any licences.
            You did not pirate the content.

            And just to further clarify, Alice is the person who made a video, Bob is Youtube, Charlie is an advertiser. Your argument is not an ad is piracy if “the advertisement company [hasn’t] paid the content creator.” The advertiser pays the distribution company, and the relationship between those two companies is irrelevant. The advertiser failing to pay does not retroactively turn you into a pirate.

            The whole argument is pointless in the first place, it’s irrelevant whether or not you consider ad blocking to be technically piracy. A sensible adblock argument would be around the ethics of manipulation versus payment, or security versus whatever it is advertisers want. Arguing semantics doesn’t matter.

      • @2pt_perversion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10•2 months ago

        I’m close to shore on my ship. “Arr FM plays the best shanties” I say as I tune my radio to my favorite station. After listening for 15 minutes, “Not another ad, I hate these.” I turn the dial to another station still playing some music for 3 minutes and then start to turn the dial back to Arr FM. Just then a cannonball whizzes across my hand. “Oh no, the HMS Pearl is on my tail” I shriek, but it’s too late chain shot has already shredded my sails.

        Robert Maynard boards our vessel and puts a sharp sword to my throat. “What say ye in defense you dirty ad-skipping pirate?”

        I yell out “But ad-skipping and even ad-blockers are legal! Even the FBI itself suggests using ad-blockers. It’s the responsibility of companies that serve free ad-supported media to ensure the efficacy of their ads but there’s no legal doctrine that says I can’t skip or block ads. Sure it might violate their TOS but they can find ways to block me or make the ads harder to avoid - or even switch to a paid delivery format that is covered by the legal system.”

        “That’s no excuse!” he says as he decapitates me. A just punishment for a obvious pirate trying to squirm out of responsibilities such as I. Don’t steal free media kids.

      • @Cataphract@lemmy.mlEnglish
        7•2 months ago

        Actually think that’s a rather apt description. Entertainment companies already went after Dish when they had an “AutoHop” commercial feature which included basically a streaming server from your home it would download and be accessible through (link). Kinda interesting because I didn’t know Dish was thinking ahead and had a pre-setup package for people wanting to remote stream home content.