Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters

But they contended that Thursday’s event was similar to other Microsoft-sanctioned employee giving campaigns

Seems like employer approval is an important piece.

But I think the most interesting part of the article is

Nasr said his firing was disclosed on social media by the watchdog group Stop Antisemitism more than an hour before he received the call from Microsoft. The group didn’t immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on how it learned about the firing.

Thank you for actual POV

The Brewster’s Millions genie

It is, and it does provide improved performance at the expense of complexity. Both India and the US Air Force actually used clusters of PS3s to create supercomputers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor) has some more details as well

Why would you suddenly add in the “hundred” when you didn’t do it for any previous ones?

Except when you do https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apostrophes

Apostrophe when making a number plural is not uncommon.

Ah, that makes sense, like summa cum laude.

sometimes it’s a matter of means & availability, sometimes it’s a matter of controlling their paid-for content (like people who actually buy switch games but want to run them on their steam deck), and sometimes it’s basically a hobby

Very little of that justifies it to me. For means & availability, this isn’t a mother stealing baby formula. Pirated content isn’t a need (though I’d make an exception for things like school books). There’s plenty of content made to be free and available, as well as libraries. And I’m completely fine with people pirating copies of paid-for content; there’s an argument to be made that that isn’t actually piracy and is personal archiving. It probably doesn’t need to be said that “hobby” is not a justification in the least, just like people who shoplift for the thrill.

I see supporting a service hostile to users as immoral - it’s like enabling an abuser, however slight, you’re contributing to behaviors that are a detriment to others

To me the real crux is that you believe that not doing something immoral is the same thing as doing something moral. Me sitting here is moral because I’m not murdering someone. Yay me. I’m also not blackmailing, gaslighting, stealing, etc. etc. Me sitting here might be the most moral thing anyone has ever done.

To me the case for the absence of activity actually being moral is it requires some amount of sacrifice to continue to do the right thing. Avoiding going to Walmart to support a local business, even if you pay more and it’s further away. The difference between not wanting to see a movie and boycotting it. There’s nothing moral about not going to a movie you didn’t want to see. But I think it is moral to avoid going to a movie you wanted to because of labor practices; you made a sacrifice in support of your beliefs. If you then go and pirate said movie, it’s indistinguishable from selfish behavior.

As I’ve said in other spots, if it’s genuinely about not supporting hostile services and not about self-interest, donate however much you’re saving by pirating to a union or charity. That’s completely fair. But if not, all I see is people acting in their self interest and trying to justify it by saying that they are doing a bad thing to bad people so it’s okay (and maybe they’re doing a little bad to some good people as well, but that’s a price you’re willing to have them pay for you).

The problem is when people claim they were never going to buy an awful lot of content. If someone spends a significant amount of time playing, or consuming, pirated content, I call bullshit. They would have bought at least some of it if they weren’t getting so much stuff for free. Considering the rewards and lack of consequences, I doubt the vast majority of people pirating are being really honest with themselves about what they “would never have” paid for, and instead use it as a simple excuse for bad behavior.

And rejecting a service you don’t consider worth it isn’t moral. That’s just basic capitalism and self-interest. That’s the standard decision to not buy something, which is a decision people make literally dozens of times when they go in the store. And pirating that content anyways certainly doesn’t make it any more moral.

Which is my point. People do things which are cheap and convenient because it is in their self interest. They stop pirating for selfish reasons just as they were pirating for selfish reasons.

Which is why I can’t stand self-righteous pirates who try and convince themselves and everyone else that they aren’t actually doing it selfishly, they’re doing it for some fabricated moral good and we should be thanking them for their service, that they’re fighting corporations somehow, and pretending that they aren’t withholding money from the people who spent the time making the things they enjoy.

spotify basically killing services like limewire?

I thought you said that “piracy made the music industry be reasonable.” Spotify basically killing limewire is not evidence of that any more than saying radio made the music industry be reasonable since it’s just as killed.

any of the licensed content would’ve already been paid for.

Look up “residuals”

if this was the case why would we see piracy decline over the last decade, only to see it increase noticeably in the last 4-5 years or so

Because streaming services have been charging more for less content, as the content owners have come to realize how much streaming cannibalizes purchases from other revenue streams.

I’m not trying to argue that people don’t pirate less when there are cheap convenient services available. I agree with that. But that’s just people behaving in their own self-interest, not some moral good about fighting big companies or other stuff pirates say to feel better about it.

I accept that people do selfish things, just as I accept when people jump the turnstile in the subway without paying their share. What I don’t accept is the self-righteous pirates who try to act like they’re doing something good for society, like I should be thanking them for downloading the shows I helped pay for, and pretending that it has no impact whatsoever on the people who depend on that for their income.

So, in summary, their income comes from people buying their stuff. So I ask again, how do artists get paid when you pirate? Or is your stance that you want the artists to get paid, you just want other people to do it for you?

is it not the case that the more archival copies there are of something the more likely it is to survive?

No, it is not. Compare 10,000,000 copies of something that only live on some random people’s phones or 1 copy in the library of Congress where it is someone’s job to manage and preserve it. 50 years from now I think it’s way more likely that the Library of Congress one is still around than the random ones.

Am i not supposed to consume it? That’s the most effective and reliable way to determine the integrity of an archive. Sure i could use hashes or checksums, but those are only are reliable as the original creation of the hash/checksum.

No. Consuming it is neither efficient nor reliable. How would you even know when you consume it that it is the original?

And none of this justifies the piracy itself as opposed to buying it and archiving it? Or if you don’t have the capabilities or means, buying a copy and then pirating that said copy as the archive.

Source?

And more importantly, did Netflix pay the creators a greater amount for the relatively little amount of money they were charging you? Was Netflix more moral because of their treatment of employees? Is that why it allegedly killed piracy?

What’s that? No? It was just convenient and cheap? I guess it is, once again, just about you not wanting to pay money for things other people make.

Archival and piracy are different. For you to pirate, there was already an archival copy. Mission accomplished. You downloading a copy without paying for it is not you helping preservation.

You didn’t answer the question. Where did the money come from that paid for their time?

That literally doesn’t make sense here.

What are the margins, specifically? Do you do the research on every piece of media you take, or is “just kinda a feeling” that you believe enough for you to feel fine about what you do? And what is your line for at what point you’ll grace them with your money?

It’s great that you make donations, but do you make contributions in line with what you would have paid for the media to take? If so, I believe you that it’s not about the money but a moral stance. If not, I don’t believe that you aren’t doing it for your own self interest.

I understand they need to be financed, but the whole point of unions is to get a better bargaining position & thus finance. That shouldn’t need money. You dont donate to the strog guy that already has the power, you donate to the poor. Ot perhaps like some sort of semi-political parties that help organise workers? But we have regulators that strongly encourage unions at certain company size or sector.

I’m genuinely not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that you don’t think unions need money? Are you familiar with union dues? Or strike funds? Lobbyists or lawyers?

And are you saying that the unions are the “strog guys?” If so, then why are you saying that they don’t make enough of a percent for it to justify you paying them for their work? If you want to pay to the poor or a charity, fine.

My fundamental point is, if you pirate a $20 movie/game/whatever and you don’t donate $20 to whatever cause you feel is worthwhile, and instead keep that money for yourself, you are pirating because you want things without having to pay for it. Full stop. Anything else is just trying to justify your free shit.

Great response, totally makes sense and justifies everything you said.

Morals are not the same as laws, lol.

Agreed. Don’t know why you’re saying that, since I didn’t mention the law anywhere.

And what you call selfishness is the boycott here. That takes away from the megacorps

It is not. If you boycott something you aren’t benefitting. You are making a sacrifice in order to enact a change. And critically, if corporations want you behave differently, in a boycott they give in to demands. With piracy, they try to crack down on piracy.

(and not from the artists).

I’m sorry, how do the artists get paid when you pirate?

I don’t wanna boycott people making series, I want way-too-big publishers & co to die.

If that is genuinely what you want, all you have to do is not purchase the content. Pirating it does not help you kill giant publishers. All it does is make it shittier for the people funding your free entertainment.

As I said in a different comment, if this is actually a moral thing for you, for every dollar you save by not paying for the things you enjoy, donate it to a union. If you’re not, it clearly wasn’t really about the artists, it was about you getting free shit.