Pirates gonna pirate

I haven't talked about piracy very much. I didn't realize that. If you had asked me, I'd have said, "How did you get my number?" But if I answered you, I would have said that I had talked about piracy a few times, but I didn't go overboard. That's true, but I actually thought I had talked about it more than I did.

Searching the Website, I only found four times I talked about piracy. One of those was a follow up on an earlier post, so they could be considered one, meaning only three different topics were brought up that even touched on piracy.

One (well, two) were actually about IPTV, which is pretty much piracy services. One was about my not being a fan of Amazon Fire TV devices (I've since developed a better feeling about Fire TV Stick). One was about Roku's change to private/non-certified/beta apps, some of which were for piracy.

I am very opposed to piracy. Some people don't have an issue with it, but I do. I have a huge issue with it. I strongly believe that one is entitled to the fruits of his labors. And movies, TV shows, and the like, are the results of a lot of work by people who created and produced the content. They are entitled to benefit from that, and no one has the right to benefit without their permission.

It does not matter how much a person or company has. If they own the right to something, they own the right to that thing.

Isn't J. K. Rowling entitled to benefit from sales from her books and associated spinoffs? Yes she is. It doesn't matter how much she's made. Nobody should benefit from someone else's work without their permission.

It's that permission, I suppose, that people use as a loophole to justify their piracy. The fact that Warner Bros. has a lot of money does not make it okay to pirate Harry Potter films. Warner Bros. reached an agreement with J. K. Rowling to make the films based on her books, so WB is making money from her work, but with her permission. She's okay with it. They have a contract. Everything's fine.

A video pirate, however, is simply a thief. There's no other way to say it. Video pirates are thieves. And it amazes me that people with give them money to watch their IPTV services. I suppose they'd also buy stolen merchandise out of the trunk of a car. Thieves gonna thieve. Enablers gonna enable.

No one is entitled to someone else's property, whether physical or intellectual. I don't understand why anyone would think otherwise. This isn't a Streaming Life thing. It's a life thing.