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Questions & Help Mar 25, 2026 at 2:50 PM

Supreme Court decision on piracy case deals a blow to music industry

Posted by Abject-Pick-6472

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/25/supreme-court-music-piracy-case-ruling/87828936007/
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Dariaskehl Mar 25, 2026 +1343
If it’s not piracy for Sam Altman to feed every existent piece of audio, video, or text ever created to his profit engine, then it’s not piracy when anyone else does it either.
1343
PedanticWookiee Mar 26, 2026 +108
It's complete bullshit that the act of robbery or hijacking by violence at sea was ever conflated with making unauthorized copies of media.
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ShowBoobsPls Mar 25, 2026 -469
It's not. Piracy is about how it's distributed or acquired
-469
isoviatech2 Mar 25, 2026 +264
Did he pay to acquire all that material?
264
neverfearIamhere Mar 25, 2026 +179
Stick to topics about b****, please.
179
MeatSafeMurderer Mar 25, 2026 +56
/r/confidentlyincorrect
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Due_Amount_6211 Mar 26, 2026 +26
Incorrect. VERY incorrect. For *any* commercial use case, you need licenses for any media you use unless (AND ONLY UNLESS) it’s public domain. For personal use, the end user should not be directly punished for obtaining paid, protected content for free, neither should the ISP; the entity distributing such content is at fault. In the case of OpenAI, they illegally obtained and commercially used tons of media, yet no major punishment has been levied against them. Why should the end user be punished or the telecom company be required to punish when they’re not the issue? If piracy is about only acquisition and distribution, then OpenAI shouldn’t even be in court right now and should’ve been charged for EGREGIOUS copyright infringement, as they’d be the biggest pirates since the Copyright Act of 1976 was enacted. If the law says their usage is fair use but me downloading a game or some songs without payment isn’t, then it isn’t about the creators of said content. Take SEVERAL seats.
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iRysk Mar 25, 2026 +28
Well that’s just flat out incorrect
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quantum_trogdor Mar 25, 2026 +54
“It’s not” they say confidently. You realize it was all p****** correct?
54
FeloniousReverend Mar 25, 2026 -22
What's the third option here?
-22
spinosaurs70 Mar 25, 2026 +405
The Supreme Court deciding to not gut the internet is a pleasant surprise.
405
AuburnElvis Mar 26, 2026 +21
It was a unanimous decision too.
21
Bedbouncer Mar 25, 2026 +240
>And trying to go after individual violators directly, he said, is a "teaspoon solution to an ocean problem." Damn that evil "Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" said the music industry. "Our word that they're guilty should be sufficient evidence for anyone!"
240
norunningwater Mar 25, 2026 +78
RIAA veterans in shambles, tears at the news they can't sue and imprison some 30 year old dweeb downloading Britney Spears tracks
78
MentalDisintegrat1on Mar 25, 2026 +13
Riaa is a dinosaur. Go extinct already.
13
BrieF_APex Mar 25, 2026 +3
Mki. My
3
Usual_Roller Mar 25, 2026 +268
Rare supreme court W
268
BorkieDorkie811 Mar 25, 2026 +103
With the opinion written by Thomas, nonetheless.
103
toadfan64 Mar 25, 2026 +3
Almost makes me wanna shake his hand for that.
3
Jay-Five Mar 25, 2026 +42
He won't touch you unless you have a wad of bills in your palm.
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CAPOCAP Mar 25, 2026 +7
The trick is to leave money into his RV during his summer vacation. ![gif](giphy|frMjLBE5QbYZLu7fFA)
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newjerk666 Mar 25, 2026 -2
I don’t think it’s a coincidence. He has been seeding that video of a German shepherd f****** a lady (the one he showed to Anita Hill) for decades. Also, somehow, another pubic hair has appeared on his can of Coke. EDIT: *decades* DOUBLE EDIT: downvotes mean you love Clarence Thomas and dog p***, and also pubes on cans of cola. You love the whole picture.
-2
SoftlySpokenPromises Mar 25, 2026 +71
Piracy is an issue of convenience. When streaming services were still customer friendly and not directly hostile to the artists piracy was dropping. This is an issue the industry caused for itself and I hope it's forced to change. Drastically.
71
NiteFyre Mar 26, 2026 +28
Yep! Theres a reason Steam generated 17 billion in revenue last year. When it is convenient and reasonably priced people will pay for it. When whatever I want to watch is locked behind 10 different streaming services because every studio had to get in on it...well
28
coleslaw17 Mar 26, 2026 +16
You know what I also love about Steam? It’s consistent. It always works and is almost never down. The user interface has been essentially the same for 10+ years. You know how it works and you know where everything is at. So many companies just want to keep f****** with it to pump more cash out of it. Even Apple with Apple Music; they change the ui every few years while throwing in a bunch of new features at the same time. It makes it unfamiliar and inaccessible. I appreciate innovation as much as anyone else but god damn just try to be consistent.
16
NiteFyre Mar 26, 2026 +4
Gaben (the founder of steam in case people dont know) is such an eccentric billionaire and loves yachts. So he bought the company that makes his yachts and told em "don't change anything". So yeah I fully believe in him 100%. But im also scared cause he's an elderly obese man and when he does eventually die im scared steam goes to shit. A private company is one thing but if he dies and they go public and are beholden to shareholders? Thats when enshittification happens.
4
IdToaster Mar 26, 2026 +1
He's lost a ton of weight, at least.
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Mijder Mar 26, 2026 +2
Like some kind of invisible hand?
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Im_with_stooopid Mar 25, 2026 +51
RCA didn't give Clarence the required RV equipped for a SOB
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compuwiza1 Mar 25, 2026 +65
To hell with the recording industry!
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Noobphobia Mar 25, 2026 +16
I mean, the first "hey bro we caught you pirating" letter i ever got was from cox. So they definitely were notifying people. What did they expect cox to do? Cancel their internet? Lol. Lets live in reality. Good on the supreme court. Also, how the f*** did a jury not come to that conclusion lol
16
gwaydms Mar 26, 2026 +1
Sony's high-priced lawyers manipulated the emotions of the jury.
1
astaten0 Mar 25, 2026 +24
"And trying to go after individual violators directly, he said, is a 'teaspoon solution to an ocean problem.'" Except that's like, objectively the correct way to do it. You know, just like how you don't prosecute an entire family when one person in the house commits a crime. Boo f****** hoo, sometimes the correct thing is hard. Sony can suck a fart out of my ass. Rare unanimous Supreme Court W.
24
Spirited-Humor-554 Mar 25, 2026 +15
It's an open season for pirating
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bloodbath500 Mar 25, 2026 +17
![gif](giphy|090EX1YvSUXxy23Tty|downsized)
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azhillbilly Mar 25, 2026 +5
Aye aye captain
5
Unlucky_Peanut_1616 Mar 25, 2026 +6
Good news. They have already jacked concert prices, and artists release 5 different versions of the same album with slightly different tracks. This is why I get most of it for free.
6
M0nkeyGalaxy Mar 25, 2026 +11
Context??
11
westondeboer Mar 25, 2026 +122
Music industry wanted isps to ban repeat piracy infringers
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inkyblinkypinkysue Mar 25, 2026 +117
Not just ban- be liable for their actions
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matadorobex Mar 25, 2026 +72
Music industry wants to collect money from ISPs who fail to ban anyone they accuse of piracy
72
dBlock845 Mar 25, 2026 +22
Lol. I got a letter from my ISP once maybe 10 years ago and they never banned me. Paper tiger.
22
Wildmen03 Mar 25, 2026 +17
I was torrenting at home in the early 2000’s after college. Never had an issue for years. I visited my parents and opened my laptop and Azureus or whatever was still running. I shut it down as to not bog down the internet for everyone else. My parents got a letter like 2 weeks later about some file I was downloading. My mom called me in a panic thinking they were about to be sued for millions. I’ll told her to ignore it. They never heard anything else about it.
17
PossumExtreme Mar 25, 2026 +10
I got like three letters and then they switched to emails which I probably got a dozen of, charter didn’t give one single f***.
10
azhillbilly Mar 25, 2026 +16
I was testing something, just to see how the whole thing worked, I think I picked survivor of all things. It was taking its time so I fell asleep and woke up to dozens of emails from my ISP. I freaked out of course cause for 8 hours it was going and every few minutes my ISP was sending me a warning lol. And nothing happened.
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DrZaious Mar 25, 2026 +6
I torrented a movie and the next day Cox Cable shut off our internet and called me immediately. Told me they had to cut off our internet until we were given a warning.I just played dumb and said we weren't even home during that time. They told me the exact file name and size, I just continued to play dumb and acted like it might be our neighbores son, cause he's goood at computers. My friend then linked me some program that screws with trackers movie studios use on torrents. I just ran that program everytime I torrented anything. Wish I could remember the name of that program.
6
FrozenLizard Mar 25, 2026 +4
If it wasn't a VPN, it was probably peerblock or something similar.
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DrZaious Mar 26, 2026 +1
Thank you, that's exactly what it was.
1
DavidinCT Mar 25, 2026 +5
Yea, happened to me once, moved to a private t****** and never saw one again, well, stopped checking that email account... .lol
5
Grokma Mar 25, 2026 +2
Alleged infringers, and they wanted them to do so based only on the word of a third party using an unknown system to determine who had been pirating.
2
M0nkeyGalaxy Mar 25, 2026 +1
🤣🤣
1
KoosGoose Mar 25, 2026 +42
**THERE’S A F****** ARTICLE, GOD DAMMIT!**
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M0nkeyGalaxy Mar 25, 2026 -50
Chill out Jeffrey, stop touching kids and f****** articles, just go outside and touch some grass 🤣🤣
-50
My_Password_Is_____ Mar 25, 2026 +4
[Here ya go](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/03/25/supreme-court-music-piracy-case-ruling/87828936007/)
4
RexDraco Mar 25, 2026 +17
Literally the first paragraph. 
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LowResGamr Mar 26, 2026 +1
Thumbnail is funny.
1
M4R5W0N6 Mar 25, 2026 +1
i guess they forgot to offer thomas VIP tickets to coachella
1
Lazerpop Mar 25, 2026 -40
Ha. "Cox"
-40
SethOval Mar 25, 2026 -147
Good. Musicians are nothing but plagiarists (especially the hiphop/pop/electronica producers). Music should be entirely free. It being sold to you is the real joke of the industry.  Anymore it is the industry where the children of millionaires put their kids after gifting millions of dollars in training and aesthetic updates. F*** musicians. F*** the industry. 
-147
Loganp812 Mar 25, 2026 +41
I think nearly every working musician in the world would vehemently disagree with you on that one.
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bat_scratcher Mar 25, 2026 +34
I think most people with functioning brains would disagree.
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goodusernamegood Mar 25, 2026 +45
You can't criticise musicians for being nepo babies and in the same breath say music should be free. Artists should absolutely be compensated when their art is being enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people. It's ridiculous to claim otherwise.
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SethOval Mar 25, 2026 -89
I can. I just did, and I still hold as strong as the words are true. As an artist I can have my opinion, and you can have your opinion.  Bbye.
-89
goodusernamegood Mar 25, 2026 +35
I mean, you can believe it, I guess. Doesn't make it less ridiculous to try and argue that artists shouldn't be able to make a living. And doesn't make you criticising nepo babies while saying that music should be free (something that would disproportionately hurt working class artists) make any sense.
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SethOval Mar 25, 2026 -69
Artist can make a living.  They shouldn’t depend on their art to do so. 
-69
goodusernamegood Mar 25, 2026 +30
So the people who are already rich and famous should get to make all the art they want while people who weren't born rich should work a full-time job, spend the rest of their free time creating art, and give it to you for free? What ridiculous entitlement.
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TopComprehensive8569 Mar 25, 2026 -12
This is literally how it is though. Everyone cares online but local scenes are dead and the musicians are absolutely exhausted. You do it for the love of the game and nothing more.
-12
musicaladhd Mar 25, 2026 +5
And do you see this status quo as a good thing? A balanced system that is working, as opposed to a system that is unsustainable and collapsing? Do you wish to uphold this status quo?
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TopComprehensive8569 Mar 25, 2026 -2
Of course it isn't a good thing I was stating a fact. I'm a musician in a local scene and it's pretty bleak. So your patronizing 'I'm a reddit warrior' questions aren't really going to resonate the way you think they were but is there anything else you'd like to teach me through condescension or are you going to brush up on your reading comprehension?
-2
musicaladhd Mar 25, 2026 +5
??? I really wasn’t trying to be patronizing or a “Reddit warrior”, i was just seeking clarity because the way you wrote it made it sound like you were stating a *rebuttal* to the person who saw a need for change. Like, yes, we already know that this is the status quo, so when you came in with “*but* this is how it is”, it sure sounded defensive, as in “in defense of the status quo”. I did’t want to assume that, so I asked, and this gave you a chance to clarify your stance. You chose to do that really rudely, though. Let’s be kind here, stranger. I, too, am a working musician. Please reread my previous comment without assuming my tone is against you, and then if you still feel like I’m deserving of being told hat it’s *my* comprehension that needs work, I’ll just sit here and listen while you tell me off again.
5
This_means_lore Mar 25, 2026 +7
You know people have been making a living doing art for at least 600 years right?
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I_am_Andrew_Ryan Mar 25, 2026 +2
Bit low on that estimate
2
Loganp812 Mar 25, 2026 +12
Then you would have *a lot* less artists and art. What a sad world that would be. The vast majority of musicians aren’t Top 40 artists but rather people do it as their full-time job to get by whether they’re indie bands or even just some local musician who plays covers or sells their CDs/advertise their Bandcamp page at gigs. It’s already hard enough to make a living in that field as it is, and if they can’t make a living at all then there’s no point spending time to make music or any kind of art when they have to work full-time doing something else anyway. Artists depend on their art for a living because that’s who they are, and it’s what they do. Hell, do you think the legendary classical composers and musicians from centuries ago did it all for free? I assure you they did not.
12
SethOval Mar 25, 2026 -5
Quality over quantity. A vast majority of musicians are not making a living off their music. Same can be said for other mediums as well. 
-5
Loganp812 Mar 25, 2026 +12
That only affects quantity and won’t affect quality in any way. Not wanting an artist to be paid for their commercially-released music even if you listen to their music and enjoy it is like not wanting to pay a contractor after fixing your roof because you were physically capable of doing it yourself but just didn’t feel like it. > The vast majority of musicians are not making a living off their music. Whether or not that’s the case, it’s irrelevant. The only reasons why someone would have your stance on this that make sense are either if you don’t think art should have any value at all (in that case, screw you) or if you’re just a c**** b****** who thinks it’s okay to rip people off as long as you can find some BS reason to justify it to yourself.
12
geniasis Mar 25, 2026 +6
That would insure that only the rich could make art. Not a good solution.
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heady45 Mar 25, 2026 +25
You aren’t an artist your an a******
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TAExp3597 Mar 25, 2026 +9
Is it just the artist that has to work for free in your world view? Or do the recording engineers have to work for free too? What about the producers? Mixing engineers? Mastering engineer? What about when the musician goes on tour? Do the live sound people get paid? Does the road manager get paid? Is it just the artist getting fucked in your world or everyone who helps produce music?
9
musicaladhd Mar 25, 2026 +5
**PERSON A:** “The sun sets in the morning and rises at night! Also, the sun is out during the daytime. **EVERYONE ELSE:** “you can’t hold both those beliefs to be true, it literally doesn’t make sense. Rephrasing to smaller words for you: *you can’t say what you just said*.” **PERSON A:** “I can say anything I want! I mean, I already said it, which is proof that it is technically not impossible for me to say those words. You must be dumb” **EVERYONE ELSE:** “🙄 you don’t seem to understand, like, the basics of logic, or what we’re talking about here.” **PERSON A:** “I’m allowed to misunderstand everything, and you HAVE TO RESPECT MY OPINIONS!! YOU’RE the idiots!!! 😤🤬🤮”
5
salme3105 Mar 25, 2026 +9
You want entirely free music? Make it yourself. Your take is idiotic.
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Bjd1207 Mar 25, 2026 +9
LOL tell me you've never been to an indie show without telling me We put in 10,000 hours along side day jobs just to get the opportunity to drive 3 hours and play in someone's garage to maybe 15 people. F*** all the way off
9
DavidinCT Mar 25, 2026 +6
I disagree here, musicians. deliver entertainment, if you don't like it cool but, I enjoy music and will pay when it's something I want. .... .but, there should be a level of privacy when you have an internet connection. If your ISP watches everything you do, that is a major flag.
6
canofspinach Mar 25, 2026 +5
What an awful take. Haha.
5
littletinyfella Mar 25, 2026 +7
It’s funny how nobody bats an eye at paying for a movie ticket, paying for a streaming service, or buying a dvd, but clutch their pearls at the idea of paying for music.
7
alextastic Mar 25, 2026 +2
Found the guy with zero creativity.
2
TeuthidTheSquid Mar 25, 2026 -1
Sir this is a Wendy’s
-1
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