About watching YouTube videos and when we should be charitable

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Is it okay to watch it just to be nice if your family wants to share YouTube videos with you? Because it is a video downloaded by a user from a tv show and uploaded it online and I think it could be stealing but the show, up to my knowledge, shouldbe broadcasted for free and there seems to be no DVDs for it, though it might.
My dad showed me a video today and I was thinking when it is acceptable to do one thing because you want to please others ( such as eating high you are not hungry because your friends offered something) even technically it may be marginally against the rules of our faith?
If while I was watching and I was struggling but unwIlling to stop because of my dad and I thought of reasons that it is okay to watch, does that count as a mortal sin?
 
I get the sense you may be a bit too scrupulous about this.

However, if you’re worried about it, talk to your priest or confessor. 👍

God bless you. :signofcross:
 
starrygirl said:
Is it okay to watch it just to be nice if your family wants to share YouTube videos with you? Because it is a video downloaded by a user from a tv show and uploaded it online and I think it could be stealing but the show, up to my knowledge, shouldbe broadcasted for free and there seems to be no DVDs for it, though it might.
My dad showed me a video today and I was thinking when it is acceptable to do one thing because you want to please others ( such as eating high you are not hungry because your friends offered something) even technically it may be marginally against the rules of our faith?
If while I was watching and I was struggling but unwIlling to stop because of my dad and I thought of reasons that it is okay to watch, does that count as a mortal sin?
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First, as to whether it is mortal, only you (possibly with help of a priest) can really answer that.
    • Is it grave matter
    • Did you know it was wrong
    • Did you freely choose to do it (knowing it to be grave and wrong)
    As to watching YouTube videos, it really depends on where they come from. Most are uploaded by the copyright owner (creator/author or other person authorized). There is nothing wrong with watching those. That is why they upload them to YouTube.

    Others are illegally recorded. Either copied from a DVD or recorded off air. Yes, even off air recording, (with certain exceptions, like a DVR to watch yourself later) is illegal. Just because it is broadcast for free to you doesn’t mean that someone didn’t pay for that broadcast – commercials pay for the right for you to watch TV when broadcast. You have NO ownership of a broadcast and therefore are not legally allowed to copy it or load it on YouTube.

    The copyright owner has no way of being compensated for his or her work that is illegally loaded on YouTube. Watching it is, therefore, a form of stealing. Of course, many people don’t realize this when they do it.

    In theory, everything on YouTube is supposed to be with the approval of the copyright owner - but in practice that is not the case, so it isn’t safe to assume that something that is obviously a recording of a commercially broadcast show/movie is legal unless the group uploading it is obviously the copyright owner (such as a television network, animation studio, etc – some networks do upload TV shows by the way)

    Of course, your Dad wanting you to watch it also complicates matters. My father, for years, when he was living, would rent movies on VHS - watch them, copy them and return them. His belief was that he had paid for the right to watch a movie when he rented it and therefore, he could watch it whenever he wanted. At the time, it kind of vaguely bothered me, but I didn’t understand the legal basis for what he was doing. I knew people that copied movies and software - some would argue that the copyright owners know that people will copy the material and therefore it was “ok”.

    Fortunately, I’ve noticed that people are much more aware of the intellectual property rights of copyright owners and are much less willing to illegally copy or watch illegally copied movies or illegally copy software. Convincing your dad of that may not be easy, however.

    So, after all that babbling, it comes down to - IS there a reasonable expectation that the person/organization that uploaded the video has the copyright owners’ permission to upload it on YouTube.
    • If they do, enjoy it.
    • If not, maybe search and see if there is a legal version there.If there is none, you probably need to have a talk with your dad about intellectual property rights.
 
From your other posts I know that you are over scrupulous. You need to speak to a priest about the issue of scruples and not worry so much about whether everything is a mortal sin.
 
AdamPeter said:
From your other posts I know that you are over scrupulous. You need to speak to a priest about the issue of scruples and not worry so much about whether everything is a mortal sin.
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Thank you for your observation. It never occurred to me that I might be over scrupulous. I will mention it to my spiritual director to see if he agrees (although, I hope he would have mentioned it on his own. )

As for the mortal sin part, I was responding directly to the OP’s question:
does that count as a mortal sin?
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I was simply explaining the criteria and leaving it up to her to make her own call. I am obviously not in a position to judge the condition of someone’s soul. I certainly would not attempt to make a determination of that type based on this post. Personally, based on the post, I think she quite likely falls well short of the full knowledge and consent criteria. But it is also our calling as Christians to educate with charity and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.

I certainly apologize to you and the OP if I came off as condemning in any way. That was not my intent. I simply intended to educate the OP on both the criteria for a sin to be mortal (which she may have been aware of or not, I am not sure) and the legalities involved in dealing with intellectual property which most people don’t really have a firm grip on, even those working in positions dealing with intellectual property.
 
jbarbaretta said:
Thank you for your observation. It never occurred to me that I might be over scrupulous. I will mention it to my spiritual director to see if he agrees (although, I hope he would have mentioned it on his own. )

As for the mortal sin part, I was responding directly to the OP’s question:

I was simply explaining the criteria and leaving it up to her to make her own call. I am obviously not in a position to judge the condition of someone’s soul. I certainly would not attempt to make a determination of that type based on this post. Personally, based on the post, I think she quite likely falls well short of the full knowledge and consent criteria. But it is also our calling as Christians to educate with charity and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so.

I certainly apologize to you and the OP if I came off as condemning in any way. That was not my intent. I simply intended to educate the OP on both the criteria for a sin to be mortal (which she may have been aware of or not, I am not sure) and the legalities involved in dealing with intellectual property which most people don’t really have a firm grip on, even those working in positions dealing with intellectual property.
Click to expand...
My post was in reference to the OP
 
starrygirl said:
Is it okay to watch it just to be nice if your family wants to share YouTube videos with you? Because it is a video downloaded by a user from a tv show and uploaded it online and I think it could be stealing but the show, up to my knowledge, shouldbe broadcasted for free and there seems to be no DVDs for it, though it might.
My dad showed me a video today and I was thinking when it is acceptable to do one thing because you want to please others ( such as eating high you are not hungry because your friends offered something) even technically it may be marginally against the rules of our faith?
If while I was watching and I was struggling but unwIlling to stop because of my dad and I thought of reasons that it is okay to watch, does that count as a mortal sin?
Click to expand...
Youtube video’s cannot be copyrited, its against their terms of conduct and when they see copyrited material they removed the video and ban the user, so everthing on youtube should be 100% legal and if it isn’t than its not your fault.
 
AdamPeter said:
From your other posts I know that you are over scrupulous. You need to speak to a priest about the issue of scruples and not worry so much about whether everything is a mortal sin.
Click to expand...
I have been reading scrupulous anonymous and trying to leave my worries to God. But I don’t feel like talking to a priest face-to-face because then I have to get my mom to contact my regular confessor. Then my parents (at least my Dad) might become irritated by it (because he isn’t Christian) and will say things that make me doubt my faith or make me really sad by saying how I am stupid in worrying so much.
 
I am not sure about the legality of full length TV shows, and movies, but also regarding music videos and clips of show. If it is illegal why aren’t videos that have been on there for years not being deleted by YouTube?
 
_Abyssinia said:
I am not sure about the legality of full length TV shows, and movies, but also regarding music videos and clips of show. If it is illegal why aren’t videos that have been on there for years not being deleted by YouTube?
Click to expand...
Right now, legally, YouTube gets a pass as they “are not responsible” for what is uploaded to their site. They will remove things when asked, but otherwise, they don’t want to get into the business of policing the millions of uploads they have - which would be a near impossible task.

If they tried to enforce those rules, then a court could reasonably find them negligent for not removing something that they missed. This way, they have less legal responsibility.
 
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