Agreed, and to me the solution is not "let's hope the companies play nice", but rather to bring in anti-monopoly regulations, like Canada's Bill C-56.
We need to force companies to add interoperability, transparency and fairness imho. Like the ongoing fight to force Apple to allow competing browsers in iOS. Or alternate app stores for Android and iOS.
Ah, that's not my understanding of civil disobedience. I prefer this definition: "civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/)
I suppose the piracy aspect might not be public enough to count as civil disobedience though, unless you count as public the noticeable cumulative effects of all piracy.
I was under the impression that there were resources in that area that the US currently has privileged access to because of their alliances there. So they have a stake in making their allies come out on top.
How much should they be paid for it? In a situation where the streaming services have a stranglehold on the market and are extracting a big amount in rent-seeking price vs actually paying the people who labored to create it, should we continue to pay and give in to their morally dubious tactics? In this lens, can piracy be considered a form of civil disobedience?
Yeah, agreed and every person can only do so much. I like to think that it's all the same fight, it's the fight against the stranglehold that the rich have on the rest of us.
That's the point, though. Spotify is rigged specifically so that they don't have to pay small artists. Spotify splits the pot with the Big Three and everyone else can go fuck themselves. I would much rather my monthly payment go toward the artists I actually listen to. Instead, most of a monthly payment goes to the most played artists-- which Spotify rigs to be whoever nets them the most money (low royalty artists, high dividends for Spotify and the Big Three who are highly invested in it)
Cory Doctorow writes extensively about how it's Spotify's fault, as an extension of the common exploitation of musicians in the industry, in the excellent book Chokepoint Capitalism. Here's a short summary of the Spotify argument by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ5z_KKeFqE
What Spotify does affects the entire music market. Why should you worry about their income? Because Spotify's strategy makes it harder and harder for musicians to have the income to keep on making music. If you care about having music to listen to, you should care about this. Also, Spotify and music is just one example of the overall exploitation of workers. If you don't stand for artists when it's their livelihood at stake, why should anyone stand up for your rights when it's your livelihood at stake?
It does more than that, it magnifies, feeds and perpetuates them. It's not just simple exposition.
I agree that the technologies did pan out, but I don't think it's an ignorant opinion.
I also feel blasé about the new battery articles because they tend to promise orders of magnitude changes rather than incremental change. Batteries did get much better, but it doesn't really feel that way I suppose. Our experience of battery power hasn't changed much.
It's really about getting excited about the article or the tech, it takes so long to see its mild effects that there's no real cashing out on the excitement, so it's not very satisfying.
No no, that is not what the headline says.
The headline says "you're told that what you're doing is buying by the people selling you the media, but that's not what you're actually doing. So, if they're lying to you about what you're buying, then pirating a different thing isn't stealing the thing they are trying to sell you."
It's definitely tongue in cheek and has some hyperbole in it, but that is the gist of the statement.