Illegally watching movies

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AAFJ1985

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I realize this topic has been discussed over and over again and my apologies in advance for those who think this is not a big deal - however, personally it’s been a dilemma I’d like to put to rest for my own sake.

I recently moved to Europe for work and live here with my wife and 1.5 children (the half child is still in the womb hence relatively care-free from my point of view). My wife and I love watching movies - especially living in Europe it’s practically the only “taste” of home we can get! Long story short, a lot of the movies you take for granted in the US we can’t rent here (typically 6 months to 1 year delayed). Netflix to the rescue (sort of - because those who use Netflix know that the new movie selection leaves much to be desired). Not so fast…it’s prohibited for Netflix users to watch movies overseas and the only way to do so is to use a paid VPN service which basically tricks Netflix into thinking I’m watching from somewhere in the US. Same thing goes with iTunes and other “legal” movie sites.

For a while we used this method but have recently stopped partly because of the lack of new American movies, the cost, and the fact that it’s illegal (and hence immoral in our Catholic faith). I switched to downloading movies off the net. Even “more” illegal but the selection is great and violators are not fined to the extent they are in the US. The morality issue is constantly on my mind, however. Plus I obviously want to reward those that deserve to make money off of their hard work (despite the fact they make exponentially what I’ll probably ever make!)

So - question for you all. Do I,

a) Stop watching movies, learn to like the stuff they have here.

b) Subscribe to Netflix, albeit, legitimately pay for it but use it illegally based on my geographic location and the agreements in place by the movie studios and Netflex - on one hand give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, give to God what is God’s - but sheesh morally speaking hard to justify this and how it’s “wrong”

c) Continue downloading movies - donate 2x what I would be paying for Netflix to a good Catholic charity and justify this somehow.

Many thanks for your words of wisdom and God’s blessings to you all…
 
We use Netflix.

As far as illegal downloaded movies, my husband brought one home and when I told him I wouldn’t watch it, he thought I was being silly. I then explained to him that I work for a training company who produces/sells training videos - copyrighted material. If everyone pirated, I wouldn’t have a job.Never mind the fact it’s STEALING!

Hmmm… that got him. No illegally downloaded movies enter our home.
 
Movies are nice, and I certainly sympathize with your desire to connect with American culture while living abroad. But difficult circumstances does not make it okay to violate applicable copyright laws.

Simply because you can’t get the latest movie on (or near) the release day doesn’t make it okay to download them illegally. My wife and I get most of our movies from the library, which means we have to wait till it comes out on DVD, then wait behind a couple hundred people who are waiting to borrow the same movie. That means we typically watch something about a year after it came out in the theaters. Is it a pain? Sure. But those are the breaks.

What do people in Europe do to watch movies? I admit I have no idea. Is there not some infrastructure established by which you can watch movies without breaking the law?
 
Not so fast…it’s prohibited for Netflix users to watch movies overseas and the only way to do so is to use a paid VPN service which basically tricks Netflix into thinking I’m watching from somewhere in the US. Same thing goes with iTunes and other “legal” movie sites.

Oh, I just caught the above in your post. I didn’t see it the first time. So my answer would be NO to any of it, as it’s STEALING.

Any public libraries or can u get movies shipped from the States?
 
It feels like Robin Hood to me. I do it, a lot of the time you wouldn’t buy it anyway so it is just a free watch. I chose the last option and if I really like I go buy it to show appreciation. But why spend money on vain things when you can spend them on good things? My opinion may be a minority however.
 
pigzig said:
It feels like Robin Hood to me. I do it, a lot of the time you wouldn’t buy it anyway so it is just a free watch. I chose the last option and if I really like I go buy it to show appreciation. But why spend money on vain things when you can spend them on good things? My opinion may be a minority however.
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Certainly, we need to be frugal with our money and not spend more than we should on vain things. But neither do we have some sort of right to a “free watch.” If we don’t want to spend money on it, then we should do without.

Entertainment is not food and water. We’re not talking about necessities here. We really can live without it.
 
I appreciate all of the responses. I can understand that in our faith there is no such thing as a lesser of 2 evils. I also understand that illegally watching movies is, in fact, stealing. Stealing what the movie studios would otherwise earn on my purchasing or renting said movie.

HOWEVER, can someone please explain to me how it is stealing if I legitimately pay for a Netflix subscription and watch it (albeit tricking the system to think I’m in the US). It’s not stealing. I’m not even sure it’s copyright infringement - and, to be honest, I don’t even think it’s illegal. It’s against Netflix’s terms of service which open up their service only to those in the US. Therefore, my question - who is being hurt.

Hypothetical (and analogous) example - you rent a movie from the library like Joe 5859 with a 2 week due date. You are traveling on vacation and watch this movie while on the plane. Pretty sure it’s the same idea.

To be honest I’d prefer option c. MUCH easier to download illegal movies and my money is going to a good cause. Not really sure how option b justifies as a sin - WHICH ONE?
 
AAFJ1985 said:
I appreciate all of the responses. I can understand that in our faith there is no such thing as a lesser of 2 evils. I also understand that illegally watching movies is, in fact, stealing. Stealing what the movie studios would otherwise earn on my purchasing or renting said movie.

HOWEVER, can someone please explain to me how it is stealing if I legitimately pay for a Netflix subscription and watch it (albeit tricking the system to think I’m in the US). It’s not stealing. I’m not even sure it’s copyright infringement - and, to be honest, I don’t even think it’s illegal. It’s against Netflix’s terms of service which open up their service only to those in the US. Therefore, my question - who is being hurt.

Hypothetical (and analogous) example - you rent a movie from the library like Joe 5859 with a 2 week due date. You are traveling on vacation and watch this movie while on the plane. Pretty sure it’s the same idea.

To be honest I’d prefer option c. MUCH easier to download illegal movies and my money is going to a good cause. Not really sure how option b justifies as a sin - WHICH ONE?
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I’m less inclined to use the language of “stealing” in these situations. I usually just call it copyright infringement. As far as I can tell, the morality hinges on the legality. Since we are morally obligated to follow the just laws of our civil society, we ought to obey the copyright laws.

Now, I fully admit that your situation is far outside the realm of my knowledge of copyright laws. I barely understand our own laws let alone those of other countries or how they apply for those crossing borders. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think violating a company’s terms of service is the same thing as violating copyright laws. The main difference is that if you violate their terms of service, they simply cut off your service; they don’t fine you or arrest you.

It does seem like it would make sense that if you have a subscription you are paying for, you can use it wherever you are located. But I’m sure someone who is fluent in international copyright laws would tell me it’s a bit more complicated than that.

I know your option C seems like a moral, altruistic solution, but it really isn’t. If we followed that same train of thought, we could justify all sorts of wackiness in the name of charity. “Well, I know Ben & Jerry’s supports Planned Parenthood, so I’ll just steal their ice cream and donate the money to a crisis pregnancy center instead.” The ends never justifies the means. If everyone behaved that way, society would break down.

Is there no way for you to get some sort of “European Netflix” subscription? There are really no other options besides piracy?
 
Is there anyway you can have someone in the States use a sling box and you can watch anything you want via your PC that way? Of course that would mean someone setting up a dedicated TV just for you, so don’t know if that would actually work or not.
 
Wish there was a European Netflix but no dice. Some of these Eastern block countries don’t even have copyright infringement and to this day it’s a-ok to download movies with no legal repercussions - there is a moral dilemma!

@Garn - Officially also prohibited by the terms of service by slingbox AND your local cable or satellite provider. The only way you would be breaking the law is if the production company could prove (in a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction - wonder where that would be!) that you have caused them a direct financial loss <—hard argument to prove. Remeber the good old days of splicing cable wires and having TV everywhere in your home - illegal too, now the cable companies just got smarter and introduced separate set top boxes. (Maybe if I continue downloading movies the movie companies will give Netflix the ok to go international!)

To be perfectly honest - If Jesus were right next to me I don’t think I could look him straight in the face and justify downloading movies. Using a location shifting program and legitimately paying for a service that is legal in the US albeit I’m somewhere else - I really have a hard time finding the moral issue in this.

For those who went to college and have left over textbooks - it’s like donating your old books to poor kids in Africa and knowing that you are breaking the law because those textbooks are not for any kind of distribution outside the US. Clearly, I’m not helping anyone and should probably spend my time helping others but it is an interesting issue.
 
AAFJ1985 said:
Using a location shifting program and legitimately paying for a service that is legal in the US albeit I’m somewhere else - I really have a hard time finding the moral issue in this.
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This is probably what I would do and wouldn’t even think twice about it.
AAFJ1985 said:
For those who went to college and have left over textbooks - **it’s like donating your old books to poor kids in Africa and knowing that you are breaking the law because those textbooks are not for any kind of distribution outside the US. ** Clearly, I’m not helping anyone and should probably spend my time helping others but it is an interesting issue.
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and with the important stuff already highlighted 😉
 
AAFJ1985 said:
For those who went to college and have left over textbooks - it’s like donating your old books to poor kids in Africa and knowing that you are breaking the law because those textbooks are not for any kind of distribution outside the US. Clearly, I’m not helping anyone and should probably spend my time helping others but it is an interesting issue.
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It is interesting. I think some of it probably has to do with the fact that different types of media are priced differently and each country wants to control their own market without having it saturated by cheap foreign copies. That’s why DVDs have region codes. That’s why the Japanese get all the cool bonus tracks on their CDs. 😛

If I remember correctly, one CAF member from the Phillipines said that over there even the stores only sell bootleg copies of movies and CDs. :eek:

I can see how it gets dicey. There’s a couple hundred countries, each with their own laws, and not all of them play nice with the others. And then you have these international media corporations that don’t necessarily have a presence in or an agreement with each of those countries about how their material is distributed. And in the digital age, it’s easier and easier to cross those boundaries.

All that said, I don’t see how downloading a movie for free off of some shady website located in some obscure country with minimal copyright laws could be on solid moral ground.
 
Ah US copyright law, the most screwed up system in the land. Lets get some things down first…

The copyright laws in place in the US are bought and paid for by the MPAA and RIAA.

So therefore the illegality of “piracy” (argghhh!) as an argument for it being immoral isn’t there the scale is broken.

But “piracy” is stealing.

Again nope, to steal you must do one thing take value of someone else’s and give it to someone else (for example you steal a car, take 5$ from a wallet, break a window (you devalue in that case), etc).
But you are not “taking” anything here a better metaphor is you go up to a nice blue Lambo and copy it. That isn’t stealing the original owner still has his car you didn’t take anything or theirs.

What about the 250 billion Hollywood loses every year.
Again wrong, they are making more and more money every year not less.

Here are some links
torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-not-theft-111104/
freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/
byterevel.com/2011/11/11/why-piracy-isnt-theft-and-why-you-should-question-copyright/
 
Zimm3r said:
Ah US copyright law, the most screwed up system in the land. Lets get some things down first…

The copyright laws in place in the US are bought and paid for by the MPAA and RIAA.

So therefore the illegality of “piracy” (argghhh!) as an argument for it being immoral isn’t there the scale is broken.

But “piracy” is stealing.

Again nope, to steal you must do one thing take value of someone else’s and give it to someone else (for example you steal a car, take 5$ from a wallet, break a window (you devalue in that case), etc).
But you are not “taking” anything here a better metaphor is you go up to a nice blue Lambo and copy it. That isn’t stealing the original owner still has his car you didn’t take anything or theirs.

What about the 250 billion Hollywood loses every year.
Again wrong, they are making more and more money every year not less.

Here are some links
torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-not-theft-111104/
freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/
byterevel.com/2011/11/11/why-piracy-isnt-theft-and-why-you-should-question-copyright/
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Zimm3r - Appreciate your feedback and links - hope to read through them tomorrow when I have a few minutes. I have read through your argument somewhere else on CAF, however, as much as I would prefer not to, can’t agree.

The problem with movies (compared to your Lambo example) is that movies aren’t created by Disney, Universal, etc. and everone else involved for artistic reasons. They’re created to generate MONEY - lot’s of it. By downloading something you are directly taking away some piece of the pie (lets call it lost opportunity cost) they would have otherwise earned. I agree that the money they are making is simply ridiculous. Movies are overpriced as are legit rentals (iTunes). At the same time there are other cheaper alternatives for those who live in the US - redbox (bucks not too bad?), netflix. The fact that the industry is growing should only be motivation to open up cheaper channels and healthy competition which is clearly currently lacking.
 
AAFJ1985 said:
Zimm3r - Appreciate your feedback and links - hope to read through them tomorrow when I have a few minutes. I have read through your argument somewhere else on CAF, however, as much as I would prefer not to, can’t agree.

The problem with movies (compared to your Lambo example) is that movies aren’t created by Disney, Universal, etc. and everone else involved for artistic reasons. They’re created to generate MONEY - lot’s of it. By downloading something you are directly taking away some piece of the pie (lets call it lost opportunity cost) they would have otherwise earned. I agree that the money they are making is simply ridiculous. Movies are overpriced as are legit rentals (iTunes). At the same time there are other cheaper alternatives for those who live in the US - redbox (bucks not too bad?), netflix. The fact that the industry is growing should only be motivation to open up cheaper channels and healthy competition which is clearly currently lacking.
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I don’t really see how the motive for creation effects the moral state of piracy? Also Lambo’s are made for profit motives not artistic reasons. I hope I misunderstood your objections because I don’t see how it objects.
 
Zimm3r said:
I don’t really see how the motive for creation effects the moral state of piracy? Also Lambo’s are made for profit motives not artistic reasons. I hope I misunderstood your objections because I don’t see how it objects.
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The motive for creation effects the moral state of piracy because “the laborer is worthy of his wages” (Luke 10), dont you agree?
 
AAFJ1985 said:
By downloading something you are directly taking away some piece of the pie (lets call it lost opportunity cost) they would have otherwise earned.
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Not completely true since there are many cases where if someone couldn’t have downloaded it for free they wouldn’t have went and paid for it.

Does it cost them business? Absolutely. But I don’t think it’s a 1:1 association since there are those who would simply not go and buy it if they had to pay for it. They would go without watching it.
 
AHapka said:
Not completely true since there are many cases where if someone couldn’t have downloaded it for free they wouldn’t have went and paid for it.

Does it cost them business? Absolutely. But I don’t think it’s a 1:1 association since there are those who would simply not go and buy it if they had to pay for it. They would go without watching it.
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Totally agree with you. It’s a tough issue because intellectual property was totally different 2000+ years ago. However, by this argument, if a merchant’s pastries were to spoil would it be acceptable for someone to steal them for dessert? Thief wouldn’t otherwise buy the dessert and the merchant wouldn’t earn profit either way.
 
AAFJ1985 said:
Totally agree with you. It’s a tough issue because intellectual property was totally different 2000+ years ago. However, by this argument, if a merchant’s pastries were to spoil would it be acceptable for someone to steal them for dessert? Thief wouldn’t otherwise buy the dessert and the merchant wouldn’t earn profit either way.
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This is what I find interesting about the whole thing. The digital age has really changed the landscape. I think there’s stilll a need to articulate the Church’s unchanging moral principles as they apply to the ever-changing digital continent.

Some people insist that it is “stealing”. Of course, the media industry was shrewd to label it “piracy” because that is an even scarier-sounding type of theft. On the other side, you have people insisting it is not stealing because you’re not depriving the person of the original object in the same way as if you stole their car.

I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I think saying that it is definitely not stealing (and is therefore just fine) is incorrect. But it is a different sort of thing than traditional theft.

I know, now I’m just rambling. :o It’s probably not helpful. I find this topic interesting, even though I don’t understand a lot of it. 😛 I understand enough to know not to illegally download stuff, so I suppose I don’t need to know. Maybe someday I’ll research and write a systematic treatise on the moral theology of copyright, intellectual property, and online piracy. I just hope no one uploads it to all the pirate sites. Wouldn’t that be ironic? 😃
 
I want to point out something. Illegally downloading movies is not only stealing but it is a violation of a just law. We are obligated to obey all just laws. It is a sin to not obey a just law.
1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."17

1900 The duty of obedience requires all to give due honor to authority and to treat those who are charged to exercise it with respect, and, insofar as it is deserved, with gratitude and good-will.

Pope St. Clement of Rome provides the Church’s most ancient prayer for political authorities:18 "Grant to them, Lord, health, peace, concord, and stability, so that they may exercise without offense the sovereignty that you have given them. Master, heavenly King of the ages, you give glory, honor, and power over the things of earth to the sons of men. Direct, Lord, their counsel, following what is pleasing and acceptable in your sight, so that by exercising with devotion and in peace and gentleness the power that you have given to them, they may find favor with you."19

17 Rom 13:1-2; cf. 1 Pet 2:13-17.
18 Cf. as early as 1 Tim 2:1-2.
19 St. Clement of Rome, Ad Cor. 61:SCh 167,198-200.
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