Streaming movies (mortal sin?)?

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yosi11

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I really like watching movies online…
But right now I’m really confuse should I watch online or not…
Is streaming movies illegally is a mortal sin?
 
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good topic in this day and age of accessing the internet. In the last year I have been accessing sports and movies on a device that is apparently accessing the internet legally. I don’t exactly know what this means. As long as the “streaming” is out there to access, does this mean we can watch it and know that it is okay? I guess by me asking, sheds some light on it not being so “legal”. I think I am just approaching this topic from a different angle and the answer is still the same.
 
boodha97 said:
As long as the “streaming” is out there to access, does this mean we can watch it and know that it is okay?
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You already know the answer to that.

There’s a difference between streaming a movie on a legitimate service like Netflix (where you pay the streaming service and they pay the producers) and streaming a movie on a torrent site. The copyright owners don’t try to shut down Netflix, do they?
 
It’s probably not a mortal sin, but it’s still not ethical. Just pay for your movies. Use Netflix or iTunes or whatever. Modern technology makes it very easy
 
i do have netflix but just hate to pay the crazy prices of the cable companies that have so much terrible programming. I just want to watch the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets 🙂
 
It is not intrinsically immoral to download free music, but it may be against the law. As it is within the just purview of the law to restrict such free downloads, a Catholic should respect the law if there is one in place. Check with a lawyer – one who specializes in copyright law would be especially helpful – to find out what the laws are in this matter.

That was Michelle Arnold answer

what do you think of Michelle Arnold (apologist) answer?
 
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Whether or not the act of streaming constitutes copying under US law probably comes down to technical considerations regarding precisely how the streaming works. But in any case the act of making a copyrighted work publicly available for streaming constitutes public display and is therefore against the law on the end of the person making the work so available. In any case I don’t think that the particulars of whether or not the act of streaming (on your end) is technically illegal affect the morality of it.

The primary moral concern would be whether or not you are supporting the person who made the work available, or merely benefiting from his action without supporting it (either internally or externally). One might consider whether or not there are ads one views during the stream, whether or not one can avoid viewing the ads in such a way as to make money for the person operating the stream, and so on. It seems that if one does not make the person money even indirectly, there would be no moral issue with privately streaming. OTOH, it would seem to be clearly immoral to pay for access to such a stream. Watching a stream with ads and thereby indirectly making the stream operator money seems to be a grey area.
 
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I don’t think it is a mortal sin. Watching streaming movies ‘illegally’ would be a matter of breaking copyright law. I can’t see how that could be a mortal sin. It is more like speeding which also breaks the law. We are obligated to follow just laws. So if copyright law is just then we should follow it whether it is a mortal sin or not.
 
yosi11 said:
I really like watching movies online…
But right now I’m really confuse should I watch online or not…
Is streaming movies illegally is a mortal sin?
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If you are streaming it from a legal source, you are totally fine.

If you are streaming it from an illegal source, I would think it is sinful.

Whether mortal or venial, I don’t know (my guess venial). But regardless, I would avoid streaming movies from an illegal source.

God Bless.
 
As someone with many family and friends in the music business, I promise you that stealing their work product is stealing.
 
Arwing said:
If public display of a copyrighted work is immoral, wouldn’t the same be true for benefiting from that act? I would think a licit means of receiving such a benefit wouldn’t require another to commit a sin.
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It’s never licit to ask another person to commit a sin, however there are many cases where it is licit to benefit from a sin that another person is committing regardless of one’s (name removed by moderator)ut (e.g. it is licit for political power to be exercised by a government that was originally established through unjust means, it is licit for an illegitimate child to accept and inheritance from his or her father).

Using a publicly available stream doesn’t require asking anyone to commit a sin, but only to take advantage of a sin they’ve already committed (setting up a computer server to publicly stream the copyrighted work). As long as one was not glad for the existence of the stream, I would not see a moral issue here on the viewer’s part. The case would be different if an actual person had to add each person to the stream.
 
boodha97 said:
i do have netflix but just hate to pay the crazy prices of the cable companies that have so much terrible programming.
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G’ah. This is sorta my thinking as well. I’m forced by the cable companies to include basic cable with my internet package. I can’t have one or other. I haven’t watched anything on cable TV in maybe years.

I pay for Netflix but I want to watch a show on Amazon and another on Lulu. I can’t afford my whole life to turn into subscriptions. 😫
 
A legitimate paid service of course, with proper licensing and whatnot. Otherwise it would be a far graver offence.
 
Arwing said:
I see. Still I feel that publishers deserve to be compensated for their work given the laws against public display and other such transgressions are what they assume protect them when they make that work available. Since readily available options to comply with that exist I probably would see an issue with streaming in practical scenarios considering the benefits one would receive from it (in my opinion illegitimately).
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I do think there is some merit with this idea. However, the publisher still suffers no actual loss. He doesn’t have less of something he had before. Also the person who uses the media may not have been willing or even able to pay anything for the media he used. So even if you bring in the notion of potential lost revenue the potential may have been nothing.
 
We are not talking about necessities of life, but, of luxuries here.

When someone cannot afford a luxury, and when the rightful owner will “not notice” that it is gone, that still does not make stealing it okey dokey. The moral thing to do is to save up to purchase it or find a legal means to obtain that entertainment.

Public libraries are a wealth of movies, books, ebooks, music, etc. My library has a service called “Freegal” where you can download and keep forever a certain number of songs or videos. They also have services like Hoopla Digital where you can borrow movies, TV shows, audio books, ebooks, to your device for a certain number of days. These are all free services (if you qualify for use of the library).
 
TheLittleLady said:
When someone cannot afford a luxury, and when the rightful owner will “not notice” that it is gone, that still does not make stealing it okey dokey.
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It isn’t stealing. Stealing would mean the person you took from no longer has something he previously had. If we approach this issue from the idea that this is stealing we are starting off wrong. If you take a dollar out of my wallet then you’ve stollen from me. If you make a copy of a dollar bill in someone else’s wallet then you haven’t stolen from me or them. I’m not really involved at all.
 
Not all free TV is unethical- My family, and most of those ‘tv for free’ devices, get signals the same way from before cable- most of the time, you get less than 25 channels, and its mostly ABC CBS NBC, some oldies, PBS, and then some random Evangelical stations.
 
Stealing a work of art, a book, a song, is stealing. You do realize that the people who worked to produce that song, book, movie, do so to earn a living, don’t you?
 
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