According to your values, is illegally downloading a song, TV show, or movie immoral?

[Chan790]

113. I went with "other."

As a creative worker, I have great sensitivity to copyright and protection of intellectual property. I don't download music or TV or movies because there is a way to obtain access to them that protects the copyright holder/artist and doesn't cost me anything or at-least not more than a low subscription fee.

I use Spotify for music.
I get my TV from the provider's website or Hulu or Amazon or Redbox or Netflix.
I get my movies from the same.
I get other visual media from places like YouTube, Vimeo and other sites more specialized to the subject matter. (Okay, I mean porn.)

You would think that would put me solidly in the "No/Immoral" camp. It largely does. I do however believe it is perfectly-moral to download or pirate content that is not widely available but may still be under copyright. This often includes rare or b-sides, material out of publication, indie films that did not get a wide release or DVD, old or rare books...it actually serves a purpose to pirate these materials, one of preservation. If you can take something and thus use the fruits of that piracy to bring attention to it, you're doing a net-good in my book...that act of preservation not only keeps the work available, it can lead to republication or reprint or rerelease which may enrich the owners of that intellectual property. Minimally, you're keeping the work from being lost to history or time. More than 100,000 cultural artifacts of this type are lost to us forever everyday.