I'm sick of goddamned streaming services

Yep, the music companies didn't want to let go of their high margins but eventually they figured out that when you are competing against free you simply have to offer low prices otherwise most people will go with free but illegal vs legal but high priced. Now that it is legal but low priced folks will opt for that.

TV shows still think they can be high priced but they are wrong. The same thing that happened to the record companies will happen to them.

I have Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, plus a decent cable package, I'm not getting any more services.

wHaT iS iT wItH pIrAtEd MeDiA tHaT mAkEs YoU tHiNk It'S oK?

I simply linked to an article relevant to the OP. I personally do not have Firestick. However, I also don't give a shit if Hollywood goes belly up and I don't have any moral qualm boycotting them. They traffic in propoganda, degeneracy, blatant lies and social engineering. Cry me a river.

Wares stolen from Walmart are no longer in Walmart. Whereas the whole idea of immaterial property is a fantasy designed to create a serviceable market. When it fails its function, we need a better fantasy.

I agree. There's certainly room for debate here, but I'm of the opinion that theft implies loss of property. That's only relevant in zero-sum systems. The concept of IP isn't zero-sum.

IP is the ultimate expression of White Privilege.

White privilege is merely a penultimate expression of capitalist privilege. It precedes even the capital, which is invented where it doesn't exist.

Horseshit. IP, internet protocol, isn't an expression of anything except electronic communications.

I think you mean the Internet. If this is what you're trying to say, you're still wrong. The internet knows no race or social strata. It's the place where the lowliest writer, musician, actor, artist may expose their work to the public where before you had to have a publisher, record label, producer, gallery. The Internet is the great equalizer.

If you mean intellectual property (I doubt it as you seem to be lacking) this is the purest form of property. It can be created out of thoughts and expressed as sound and light. Copyright protection is one of the greatest protections there is. Without it you wouldn't have anything to steal. Unless of course you advocate communism where no one owns anything, even their own creations.

I'm referring to the concept of intellectual property. I'll elaborate my position once I have time to do so. Short version: I disagree that a man has more claim over his ideas than his material possessions. Certainly the "world of forms" is more "pure" than the material world beneath it, but that's not what we're arguing...

Then you lack imagination.

A man has total claim over his ideas unless he chooses to share them. If he shares them it is either freely or licensed: the creator chooses. If licensed, anyone violating the license is subject to civil or criminal prosecution.

Why should this be otherwise? The majority of creative works would cease (or not be shared) if monetary compensation was not expected.

Welcome to Hollywood!

And if the creators choose to sell their rights, should not the buyer have some expectation of protection?

I agree, Lucas shouldn't have been able to profit from selling the SW franchise. And Disney shouldn't be able to profit from making more. It's a terrible, highly derivative series.

What you are describing is a very specific system employed for a small area and a tiny sliver of history. The rest of human history shows that there is nothing natural about this system, and that creativity certainly does not cease without it.

Yes, but there was more innovation and progress in the last 150 years than there was under pretty much the entire rest of human history combined. Other than a few inventions, Julius Caesar would've had little trouble understanding George Washington's world. Both of them would be absolutely perplexed in the modern one.

The natural state of affairs is that if you possess something someone else values, they kill you for it. Of course, in the state of nature, one would have few possessions of value.

While creativity still exists (because an aspect of the human mind), it never found anything like its full expression until people could profit from it.

Even Marx admits that the creative potential unleashed by capitalism is unparalleled in human history.

Nothing 'even' about that, since Communism tells a story of progress. Capitalism is the best system there ever was according to Marx, only still worse than what will follow.

Meanwhile, I doubt that the increased progress since 1704 or so comes from additional regulations and limitations on the exchange of ideas. I think it is much more likely that it stems from the increased exchange of ideas, which also leads to often calamitous attempts to govern and tame it.

At least until you get to the communism part.

Still waiting on that one. Would you want to trade places with any of your ancestors from 50 or 100 years ago?

Just sayin' that the increase in exchange of ideas is because people who came up with them could profit from them. Without capitalism, there was very little potential for one to prosper for laboring on a good idea.

No, and that is the point.

Doesn't seem a good explanation for creativity in the arts and entertainment industry, though, where many of the creators of the most successful content profited little to nothing.

Some people have a creative streak, and will create even if there is no financial incentive. But many fewer people would pursue arts as a vocation if there was no living to be made from it.

And though many people created valuable lasting content simply on a work-for-hire basis, I'd argue that their ability to get a salary doing something they wanted to do was a form of prosperity in itself. It's true Jack Kirby never got what he rightfully deserved for creating a lot of the Marvel characters, but when he started working, he was content simply having a paying job that allowed him to draw for a living.

Anyway, arts and entertainment is very big business today, and creators get better recognition and reward than they ever have.

Some lucky ones do. But there are much, much more creators than ever before, and most of them get nothing for their art.

Art is one of those vocations that doesn't pay much unless one is really, really good (in some marketable sense) at it. Everyone can make art, after all.

But I'd say that even those artistic people who are just eeking out a living in an art-related field are better off, simply because they're able to be employed doing they have a passion for.

Oh, absolutely. General welfare is a great boon for the arts for this exact reason.

By not purchasing media, I am not agreeing to the license. What others choose to do with their license is up to them, and if they choose to share it with me and thousands of others, then so be it. I am not in violation of that license. Unless you think people should be bound by contracts to which they never consented?

And there is a certain time limit to how long those ideas should be protected. At the behest of Disney and others, that time limit has steadily increased well beyond the lifetimes of the creators. If they can't play by the rules, why should everyone else?

By downloading pirated content, that you are fully aware was stolen, you are culpable. You enter into an agreement with every site you visit whether you pay something or not.

I think you're rationalizing bad behavior.

Besides the current sliver of history, publication was limited to calligraphists, artists on canvas or stone. Minstrel shows. Before that petroglyphs and storytellers. I'm sure some ideas were stolen, but the effort was naturally high.

Today, with digital recreation, copyright is more important than ever.

Regarding piracy...

Aside from the law, you should realize that you are benefiting from something that others labored and invested to produce in a way that returns nothing to them. And you should know intuitively that's wrong.

I'm not terminating friendships with anyone who pirates, just expressing that I personally don't approve, and suggesting you shouldn't, either.

Note: when people pirate what I have created, I still see the returns of my work in their appreciation, reactions, and their own productions that build on mine. Your intuitions are at odds with those of many creators.