Not sure if this the right place to ask but since I love sailing the high seas, maybe you guys would know. A preface before the question: I am of the mindset that others’ reasons to pirate are their own and any discourse on supporting creators is not productive and financial support should be left to the individual’s own devices and morals. It’s not for me to judge, blah blah blah.
Anyway, I was thinking about South Park and am wondering how their shift to Paramount+ has been. I wonder if they’re making any good profit since not a lot of people have subcriptions and especially so after the whole Colbert thing.
It’s been suggested here and there on this sub that a good way to financially support creators, if a pirate wants to do so, is donating directly do them. Does anybody know of a way to do this with bigger creators? If South Park was in any danger of being cancelled due to funding, I was considering this option since I’ll never give my money to a streaming service again. Any ideas?
I don’t think there really is any other way, without making it incredibly awkward. Can you imagine the scenario? Who would you find? Who would you know is directly responsible for the thing you’ve pirated?
See, there is quite a slope here to go down on when it comes to this very thing. Let me put it into perspective for you.
Pirating movies isn’t really hurting anyone that badly. Usually, actors and actresses are paid six to seven figures a film with lesser-than actors probably getting four to five digits of funds. They’re fine. It’s the greedy, ungrateful and unappreciative executives operating the studios that want more and more.
That’s just an example. A lot of the time, the rights of media content is largely signed over to the networks anyways so it would be a moot point to bother with doing this. I really don’t know what to tell you in regards to this.
I just think it’d be awkward to hunt down almost every individual involved with something you pirated, to directly support them. That’s a lot of lives to sustain and make up for in directly supporting. Not everyone here has bottomless pits of cash laying around, that’s why they sign with record labels and make deals with studios, because they have that kind of pull and money.
Also to consider, maybe some people are against piracy whom you want to support, you don’t know that. You can run into the wrong person, tell them you pirated their material, they could get offended and take you to court for it.
So to wrap it all up - it is not simply worth it. We know who we’re “hurting” and it isn’t the creators. All that they’d ask us to do the most, is appreciate what they’ve done.