Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined - eviltoast
    • zbyte64@awful.systems
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      6 months ago

      Certain types of content. But YouTube’s own existence started because people made content without licensing rights.

      • evidences@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Technically YouTube exists because three horny nerds wanted a dating site with video integration. It only turned into a video sharing site when they realized they couldn’t find the clip of the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction and they decided they wanted to build that platform instead.

    • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Not really. I can undersgand licensing but at this point it’s become a distopian practice completely separated from the basic need to monetize the content an make a profit. That’s why those companies become such gargantuans monsters.

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Nope. People will still make content. It’ll be on far less of a budget, but that didn’t stop the Film School generation of independent films in the 1970s (before which you had to sell your life and soul and beating heart to a studio). In between all the schlock were the occasional arty films we consider classics today.

      And then there’s government subsidization of art projects, as per the National Endowment of the Arts.

      I think the MCU movies, the DC movies, the many studio iterations of Spiderman have shown us what capitalism eventually churns out. Sony actually chose this path content as product the same resort to formula that plagued the music industry in the 1980s (and drove the Hip Hop Independent movement of the next half-century).

      We just need to empower artists. Make sure they don’t have to moonlight as restaurant wait staff in order to eat and pay rent while they create, and make sure they have access to half-decent (not necessarily high end) hardware with which to do their thing. And yes, as Sturgeon observes, most of it will be schlock, but through sheer quantity of content we’ll get more gems than Hollywood is putting out.

      • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If you take away the ability to own and control your intellectual property, then you won’t be empowered.

        Licensing art allows creators to earn a living off of their hard work.

        • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          6 months ago

          Not in the US or the EU. If you make music in the States, then RCA or Sony owns your content, not you, and when they decide they’ve paid you enough (which is much less than they’re getting) then they still own your stuff. Also, if you make an amazing film or TV series ( examples: Inception, Firefly ) and the moguls don’t like it, they’ll make sure it tanks or at least doesn’t get aftermarket support, which is why Inception doesn’t have any video games tie-ins, despite being a perfect setting for video games.

          Artists are empowered in their ability to produce art. If they have to worry about hunger and shelter, then they make less art, and art narrowly constrained to the whims of their masters. Artists are not empowered by the art they’ve already made, as that has to be sold to a patron or a marketing institution.

          No, we’d get more and better art by feeding and housing everyone (so no one has to earn a living ) and then making all works public domain in the first place.

          Intellectual property is a construct, and it’s corruption even before it was embedded in the Constitution of the United States has only assured that old art does not get archived.

          I think yes, an artist needs to eat, which is why most artists (by far) have to wait tables and drive taxicabs and during all that time on the clock, not make art. The artists not making art far outnumber the artists that get to make art. And a small, minority subset of those are the ones who profit from art or even make a living from their art, a circumstance that is perpetually precarious.

          But I also think the public needs a body of culture, and as the Game of Thrones era showed us, culture and profit run at odds. The more expensive art is, the more it’s confined to the wealthy, and the less it actually influences culture. Hence we should just feed, clothe and home artists along with everyone else, whether or not they produce good or bad art. And we’ll get culture out of it.

          You can argue that a world of guaranteed meals and homes is not the world we live in, but then I can argue that piracy (and other renegade action) absolutely is part of the world we live in and will continue to thrive so long as global IP racketeering continues. Thieves and beggars, never shall we die.

          • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Sorry, I’m not going to read all that, but it seems like you’re upset about the shitty deals made by record labels and other large corporations, not intellectual property rights.

              • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                So if an artist creates a piece of intellectual property, do you not think they should have control over how it’s used? Including who can make profit off of it?

                • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                  6 months ago

                  That’s an extremely vague question, and presumes that any art is de facto intellectual property.

                  It also presumes that anyone has access to the institution that defines and enforces intellectual property.

                  Also, intellectual property isn’t a real thing, but you don’t want to read too many words, so you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.

                  • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world
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                    6 months ago

                    In most if the modern world, copyright laws give automatic ownership of unique works of art. Legally IP is a real thing.