Linus Tech Tips uploaded a video showing how to block ads on Youtube. Which was removed by Youtube for community guidelines violations.

But it is? Don't lie to yourself. We all do it but it's still piracy, and it's okay.

Isn't he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?

He's also got a generally nuanced opinion of piracy, in that it's justifiable in some situations. If you call it piracy and you're okay with piracy then it's not really a contradiction.

Being willing to talk about it despite working against your interests isn't always bad depending on context.

Breaking news, people on the Internet have no concept of nuance.
- How dare you make such a direct and personal attack on me!
- A fact I struggle with on an almost daily basis...
I had the vague recollection of him having a small-business-owner-brain moment and going on about how it's theft, and it's taking money out of his pockets, or something along those lines.

Looks like I may have been either thinking of someone else, or misinterpreted a snippet of video of him ranting about something.

I will admit to not watching his stuff for a good number of years now, and could be totally conflating things.
- That was probably his stance when YouTube ad revenue was his stream of income.
  
  In 2024 they pay pennies, and his real income is from sponsorships like those d-brand skins and manscaping utilities. And their own merch, of course.
  
  They've been pushing their own media platform (floatplane), so I'm willing to bet this was a bit of a game of chicken with YouTube. YouTube wouldn't ban one of their biggest channels, and even if they did it'd turn into great publicity for floatplane.
  
  While I don't think they'd be able to get a lot of their subscribers over to floatplane completely, I do think they'd be able to pull over lots of random views by having their shorts on Facebook, Instagram and whoever else is trying to mimic tiktok these days.
  
  Nah, I'm pretty sure that it was more recent, like 2023 or 2022
  
  Think this was sponsorblock due to above statement
- They've been pretty good about playing both sides. There have been plenty of videos of how to bypass add traffic and in the same video explaining how they rely on ad traffic . I don't love everything LMG does but they do seem to be kind of Open about the house wise and why nots of ad blocking.
- In 2022 he tweeted this.
  
  That might be what you're remembering, but he's definitely addressed his views on piracy during the WAN show several times as well.
  
  Edit: someone else posted the full context elsewhere in the thread. I'd link to that comment, but idk how on lemmy so here: https://archive.ph/VavFc
- You're not misremembering. I remember seeing it on there "podcast" or whatever it is where they talked about it extensively and I believe louis chimed in with a video going over it.
He directly called it bad because it hurt his revenue stream. He is ok with ad blocking as long as it isn't being done to him. That's pretty bold if you ask me. A double standard, quite the opposite of nuance. He equated it with entering a cirque due soleil show without paying a ticket, which is a false equivalence. He thinks that he is entitled to have his ads seen as a price of admittance to watching his videos. No one is entitled to have their ads watched.
- Source on "he's ok with ad blocking as long as it's not done to him"? Doesn't sound like something he'd say.
- The way I see it is if I'm forced to watch ads when watching something, I won't watch it. In that case, no ad revenue for you because I'm not watching your shit. Now, If I watch it with no ads, you get the same result, BUT I might tell someone to watch your shit or buy some merch. That person I told to watch it might watch your ads and that person would not have watched you without me telling them to. You're up 1 revenue.
  
  The corporate greed is out of control. The amount of bullshit ads and tracking is insane. I'm blown away by the people that defend this shit.
  
  You're just justifying your actions. YouTube is not free to run, and the content there is not free to create. You're a parasite.
  
  Don't worry, I'm as well - but be honest about it. What you're doing, and many other gigabrains here, is just pathetic. There is a lot of corporate greed in this world, but this ain't it.
  
  Every person is already paying for Youtube with their data. The ads are asking above and beyond.
  
  It would be an entirely different story if Google wasn't primarily first a data-mining company, but since they are, and since selling that data (or the results of using that data) in of the MAIN revenue streams for their business, it is disingenuous to act like Youtube is some free service that is being offered to us. It's not; it's a massive data-mining operation of incredible value as it offers not just demographic information but vastly more details on individual interests and what kind of things they are likely to actually click and interact with than the vast majority of other platforms and sites.
  
  We have got to stop ignoring the data aspect of businesses like Youtube.
  
  Google can axe YouTube to stop the bleeding aaaaaanytime they want. And creators can go back to working 9-5 aaaaaanytime they want, too.
  
  When G bought YT, it was clear as day that the site was unprofitable. G bought it anyway. Now they are like 'but it's too expensive whaaaaaa'. Bed, sleep in, all that.
  
  Now, for about a third of my subscriptions, I either buy merch or am on their patreon. Some are, amazingly, still there just because they like making videos (no direct monetization), and others I watch their vids but they don't give me enough reason to financially pitch in.
  
  But you can't be like 'oh yt is just some scrappy startup that will fail without your help, you're killing a platform'. And even the biggest creators out there, I think they are a fucking moron for literally basing their livelihood on a website - run by G, of all companies. gestures to the g graveyard
  
  Not my issue, not my problem. And I'm sure as fuck not going to feel bad about it.
  
  You are just self-important and cannot come to terms with reality, lol. All those creators and their content would not exist in this form, for free, without YouTube. All other platforms are locked behind a paywall.
  
  But geniuses like you then talk down paywalls as well, because how dare they monetize their time?! You just want everything for free - be honest about it.
  
  You are just self-important
  
  Why you looking in a mirror tho?
  
  Nothing important would be lost if yt shut down tomorrow. If all these income-driven 'creators' left due to lack of income, returning yt to just self-made videos instead of having budgets in the 5 and 6 figure range, again nothing would be lost.
  
  I am clearly a genius from your perspective though; that's the only logical statement you've made. Congratulations! Maybe some day you will be of comparable brainpower. 🎉
  
  Modders make mods for free. Video creators publish free videos on sites like Youtube or Vimeo today without any revenue stream. Prior to that creators published their content for free on sites like ebaums, or albinoblacksheep, or on personal pages.
  
  Humans want to share. If Youtube had never existed, people wouldn't have suddenly stopped making videos to share, they should have just found another method of sharing or created their own alternative. The desire to create and share is innate to humanity; the concept of monetary compensation is not.
  
  As for wanting everything to be free (I'm not who you were talking to but I'm responding anyway)... I mean, yeah kind of? Here's my question: why should everything be paid? I think that's a backwards mentality. People were sharing stories and art and other creations for no reason other than the love of sharing long before Youtube, and they will keep doing so after. Imo not every effort in life needs to be directly compensated. To me this is the same reason I will never pay for game mod: I want to support and encourage a modding community who mods because they love do it and they love sharing with community, not because they see a possible revenue stream.
  
  Imo turning your hobbies into jobs or "side hustles" is one of the worst consequences of capitalism, and one we should push back against.

Isn't that essentially what it is? Getting something for free through certain means you wouldn't get for free otherwise? Which means no money goes to whoever owns the service you're using?

Say you walk up to some person giving out free samples of food. As a condition of taking this free sample, you also must take a pamphlet of advertisements from the people who are giving you the free sample. You take your free sample, and then walk away while dropping the pamphlet in the nearest trash can. That's essentially what ad blocking is. You're simply preventing certain parts of a web page from being downloaded to your device. That's why people have issues with the "piracy" label, because nothing is being "stolen". You're just refusing to take all of it.
- More accurate comparison would be taking the sample but refusing the pamphlet. Dropping it in the nearest bin would be skipping the ad after 5 seconds.
- No, that's not what ad blocking is. You just described viewing a traditional "1 banner at the bottom/top" ad. There's a snowball's chance in hell that you actually check out/click on the ad after seeing it; you throw it away after seeing it. On the off chance you're intrigued by the ad, you take it home.
  
  That's not what ad blocking is. There's no suitable metaphor for ad blocking IRL, but it'd most nearly be raiding the nearest available ad pamphlet warehouse or interrupting the guy who gets the pamphlets to the foodgiver. Sure, the difference is that nobody gets the ads anymore, but that's not a bad thing for you, is it? The foodgiver gets no ad revenue for now until delivery is re-established.
  
  Edit: Please say why you think that I'm wrong, just as I did. Thank you for your cooperation. Let's not be redditors.
  
  There's no suitable metaphor for ad blocking IRL
  
  Sure there is.
  
  Every week, your community puts on an old movie in the town park that everyone can watch for free. You, an avid movie enjoyer, watch this movie every week.
  
  But, the movie equipment isn't free. To make this event happen, the community accepts a donation from The Church of Microwaving Babies and Kicking Puppies. In exchange, the Church of Microwaving Babies and Kicking Puppies pauses the movie every 50 minutes and puts on a small two-minute presentation about why you should consider joining and what puppy-kicking can do to improve your life.
  
  You don't care. You do not agree with their views, and you definitely are never going to join. Instead of paying attention to their mandatory presentation, you stare at your phone and read Lemmy. Then, when the movie is back on, you once again pay attention.
  
  That's ad-blocking. Some group gains revenue from their publicly available service by having an advertiser peddle their crap through said service. You take an active role in ignoring said crap, while most people just sit there twiddling their thumbs and pretending to care. The only tangible difference between you ignoring the ad while it plays and you blocking it is 60 seconds of your time and the bandwidth required to serve the ad.
  
  Advertisers don't like it—but fuck the advertisers. The difference that you as an individual makes in how much money is made through advertising is less than a hundredth of a cent. If the impact of the collective using adblockers is enough to be an issue in sustainability, then advertising was not the correct business model to begin with.
  
  Again, that is not ad blocking. That's just reading the phone while the ad is playing. That preserves the ad revenue, blocking does not.
  
  The difference that you as an individual makes in how much money is made through advertising is less than a hundredth of a cent.
  
  That's just one view. It adds up within the month.
- The thing being stolen is the advertisers ability to advertise, which in turn pays for the platform. So, it is stealing from the platform.
  
  Also, if you take a quick look at the pamphlet and throw it away, that's the same thing as looking at an ad and ignoring it afterwards. You were still looking at it, so the ad did its job.
  
  Btw, don't get me wrong, I also use ad blockers for a lot of things. But I do pay for anything that I use for a good amount of time, like Youtube, video games, movies or music.
  
  Nope, you're not taking anything away from the advertiser. They are free to display but they're not entitled to being watched. You don't get penalized for ignoring or closing your eyes during trailers at the cinema. But that is exactly what arguing against ad blockers is. The entitlement of advertisers to your attention. This fundamentally breaks the social contract of ads. Imagine corporations arguing that municipal anti-billboard laws are theft
  
  I'm not arguing against ad blockers, I'm arguing that they are still a form of piracy. Also, if you go to a cinema, you've presumably already paid for the ticket, so the cinema has already made money from you...
  
  Yes you are. When closing your eyes during trailers, the cinema still gets paid. When blocking ads, websites don't get paid.* Billboards are also different, as they don't give you some sort of service benefit except "land"; they're equivalent to domain parking ads which are absolutely awful, for which I see no plausible justification whatsoever.
  
  *There was this fork of µblock that tried to just hide them instead of removing them, but that didn't seem to work when I tried it. I also forgot the name.
  
  Does that make me a pirate if I go to the bathroom during commercial breaks? If I get to a theater late and miss the commercials, am I a pirate?
  
  You've already paid to view the movie, it's not funded by ads. Same with commercial breaks. I presume you're already paying for the channel or service in some form.
  
  No. The owner of the media has already been paid in both of those scenarios. It makes zero difference to them whether you're watching the ads.
  
  Adblocking, on the other hand, is actively hurting the owner of the media because they get paid based on how many ads they can serve. If you block the ad, it isn't served, and they don't get paid.
  
  Personally, I definitely think it's piracy. I also still do it.
  
  The thing being stolen is the advertisers ability to advertise, which in turn pays for the platform. So, it is stealing from the platform.
  
  FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THIS! You seem to think they are somehow entitled to force people to view their shit. They are NOT! I have sovereignty over my computer and my eyeballs, and I have every right to control what happens to them.
  
  Okay, and you are not entitled to use the platform. How do you suppose people are to keep it running? Charity? Good luck with that. In the case of Youtube or Twitch, video streaming is more expensive than you can imagine.
  
  Requesting users play ads but giving them the content even if they don't means it's more like asking for a charitable donation than a transaction. They could paywall it but they don't, and it's not like there's a competitor with the same content.
  
  Also, Google feel entitled to record your voice on your phone and send it to their servers. Do they think their users are a charity, or worse?
  
  Youtube can't paywall the site, since that would create an even bigger outrage than longer ads. But they are already working on unskippable ads, so people won't be able to block them with conventional means. So to them, it's not a simple request. Either you watch ads or you pay. I'm personally not a big fan of that, since it feels way too intrusive and dystopian.
  
  And yeah, Google as a whole sucks ass, we all know that. Again, I'm not arguing against stealing from them, but just that it IS indead still stealing/piracy to block ads. If you want to do that or not is a personal decision, but people still need to be aware of what they're doing.
  
  Google can make it more difficult but it's like anti-cheat, a losing arms race. In the end users control if adverts play even if Google controls the computer as strictly as North Korea OS.
  
  Words do not have innate definitions and "piracy" can mean whatever you want (when not in a court of law). If people understand what you mean then no direct issue. Due to the association with stealing and murder on boats I won't call copyright infringement "piracy" (thanks music industry propaganda) or when blocking adverts. If you insist on calling me a pirate I will respond with pirate talk, ye landlubber.
  
  Arrr, matey! I think we have an understanding! Ye may sail the seven seas, I don' see a thing wrong with it!
  
  They are not entitled to force people to look at them, but they are entitled to load them in the browser and display them.
  
  No they're fucking not! My browser on my computer is my property, not theirs! I have every right to control what it does!
  
  Where the fuck do you get off, claiming that corporations have some sort of right to colonize my computer and subvert it against me? Why do you hate property rights?
  
  Let me spell it out for you even more explicitly: you're arguing that a fake corporate "person's" fake "right" (i.e. privilege) to their fake "property" (i.e. temporary monopoly) is somehow superior to an actual person's actual right to their actual property. (In fact, it's even worse than that: what you're really arguing here is that fucking website terms of service -- which barely even qualify as a contract! -- are superior to property rights.) Do you comprehend, at all, how fundamentally ass-backwards your argument is‽
  
  Yes, you may pirate with your computer and vote for your local pirate party. No, it does not cease to be piracy. You think money just fell out of a coconut tree? Edit: I often do it, and it is piracy, plain and simple.
  
  jinx!
Exactly. Getting media without paying (either in currency or in data for ads). Which they also address and talk about plex and jellyfin to consume the newly "liberated" media. I find his opinion on this quite fair.
- Piracy is distributing media you don't own. How does blocking ads equates with acquisition and distribution of media you don't own? It doesn't.
  
  Evading advertisement is not piracy.
  
  Piracy refers to the taking, not the giving.
  
  Pirates didn't sail the seven seas heading out gold to others.

He's right that it's piracy, he doesn't go on to say piracy is wrong, and neither would I.

It's piracy to block ads, and piracy isn't always wrong, so who cares?

It's really not. YouTube doesn't get to decide what I play on my browser, I do. I just choose to not load the ads, and I choose to skip over sponsor segments manually. I don't use sponsor block or anything automated like that, I just use a content blocker and the fast-forward buttons YouTube provides.

At what point did I pirate anything? I asked YouTube for content, and it gave it to me. I didn't ask it for the ads, and it didn't give it to me. I fail to see where the piracy occurred.

I'm certainly breaking their TOS, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm pirating their content.

If I find value in a platform, I'll pay. I pay for Nebula, for example, because I've gotten a lot of value from a number of their creators and prefer to watch their content there than on YouTube. I'll occasionally buy merch from a YouTuber, and sometimes donate. But YouTube actively tracks me in ways I'm not comfortable with, so I block their trackers and their ads.
- ...So, you skip the ads using an external program, which prevents the youtube channel you're watching from getting their money.
  
  That's the part that makes it piracy. Of course you have the right to do this, I have no ethical problem with it, i'm doing it now, but you have to understand that when you're doing this you're preventing the youtube channels you're watching from getting paid, you're taking their content without paying them what they asked for in return.
  
  If the youtube channel disables the ads themselves, that's one thing, but you not watching those ads is not what the youtube channels want... because that's how they get paid. Getting free content without paying the content maker is... piracy.
  
  It's like a free booth that offers products and says donations welcome. It legally is not stealing if you take a free product and don't give a donation. The enrichment of the creator legally has nothing to do with whether skipping ads is piracy. The creator has the option to stop offering their content for free in the future if they don't like the money they're getting from the amount of people watching the ads.
  
  ...except that's violating youtubes terms of service, and skipping paying the content creators.
  
  Which makes it for all intents and purposes piracy.
  
  A restaurant has a sign that says "no shirt no shoes no service". I walk in barefoot and order a burger. They serve me the burger. They had the right to deny me but they served me anyway. The responsibly to enforce their own terms of service is on them. Similarly youtube has the right to deny service to people blocking ads and sometimes does. That does not make ad blocking piracy for all intents and purposes. The onus to enforce their own terms of service is on them. And it would be very easy for them to take more drastic measures but they don't.
  
  I get that you're trying to make an argument that morally it can feel like piracy, but it's just not actually piracy. No copyright was violated. Youtube's TOS doesn't change that.
  
  It's actually not easy for them to take more drastic measures, and they're actively working on enforcing it.
  
  The part where the content creator doesn't get paid and is supposed to according to the rules of the platform that you're violating is the part where it's piracy.
  
  There's no external program, it's just an extension on my browser, which uses APIs within the browser to instruct it which content to load and which not to load. I tell it to block all kinds of things, from malware to large media elements to ads. YouTube doesn't get to decide what content it displays in my browser, I do, because it's my computer.
  
  Yes, I'm preventing channels from getting ad-revenue, but that doesn't make it piracy. What we call "piracy" is more correctly called "copyright infringement." I'm not violating anyone's copyright, the video is freely available to load and watch, I'm just choosing to not load and watch the optional extras that get shipped along with the video. I'm violating YouTube's TOS, but that doesn't mean I'm violating copyright in any way, and I don't even need to login to YouTube to do this either, so it's not like I formally agreed to anything here.
  
  What the channels want isn't my concern. If they want to enforce payment, LTT can post the videos to floatplane exclusively, or join up with Nebula.
  
  Getting free content without paying the content maker is… piracy.
  
  That's absolutely not true. Piracy is copyright infringement, and I'm not infringing anyone's copyright here.
  
  Here are examples of things that would be piracy/copyright infringement:
  
  downloading the video and reposting it as my own
  
  downloading the video and uploading it to another site
  
  downloading the video and sending it to someone else
  
  Each of those violates copyright because I'm sharing the video with people I am not authorized to share it with. Just watching the content and refusing to load the ads doesn't violate anyone's copyright, it just violates YouTube's TOS, which, AFAIK, isn't legally binding in any way. They can choose to block me from the platform, but not loading optional extras doesn't violate any copyright.
  
  Your copyright license to download the video content from YouTube is granted to you by the YouTube Terms of Service. By not agreeing to them, you do not get a license to watch the content.
  
  Copyright law may be dumb and over-reaching but that doesn't mean you get to redefine it to just avoid an icky word.
  
  If that was true, I would have to agree to YouTube's TOS to watch videos. That's not required, so there's no legally binding agreement between me and YouTube since I haven't actually signed or accepted anything. My understanding is, I'm not bound to something that's hidden in a link somewhere and never presented to me.
  
  But even if I were legally bound to the TOS, nothing in the TOS says copyright is granted on the condition that I watch ads. This is the closest that I could see:
  
  The following restrictions apply to your use of the Service. You are not allowed to:
  
  ...
  
  circumvent, disable, fraudulently engage with, or otherwise interfere with any part of the Service (or attempt to do any of these things), including security-related features or features that (a) prevent or restrict the copying or other use of Content or (b) limit the use of the Service or Content;
  
  I don't think blocking ads counts as "disable... any part of the Service," it's just blocking certain web requests. It's close I guess, but it seems they're more worried about "hacks" on the service to get access to things you're not supposed to. For example, accessing adult content w/o making an account would probably count as a violation under this TOS.
  
  Honestly you’re just showing your complete lack of knowledge on the topic. Using your logic, downloading a pirated movie and watching it myself, then immediately deleting it, is not copyright infringement.
  
  Despite the fact that it literally is.
  
  How do you think people get fair use clips from films for use in videos?
  
  That… isn’t at all what is being talked about here.
  
  Not according to German, French, and I suspect most of other european countries laws. Only torrenting copyright-protected content is against the law because you're uploading the content (distributing) while downloading.
  
  I can torrent without seeding btw
  
  There’s no external program, it’s just an extension on my browser
  
  That's... external software. But even if it wasn't, it's still circumventing the youtube terms of service with software.
  
  You're breaking the terms of service of youtube by doing this... that makes it piracy...
  
  No, breaking TOS doesn't make it piracy, those are two completely separate concepts.
  
  The part where the content creator doesn't get paid and is supposed to according to the rules of the platform is the part where it's piracy.
  
  It's really not. Piracy is copyright violation, and an ad blocker doesn't violate copyright, it just violates the platform's TOS.
  
  Your definition of piracy is not correct
  
  How so? This is straight from the dictionary:
  
  3
  a: the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright
  b: the illicit accessing of broadcast signals
  
  unauthorized - I'm not hacking around any YouTube authentication, nor did I agree to any additional terms of service
  
  infringement of copyright - again, I'm not sharing it, reposting it, etc; I'm just accessing it as normal
  
  illicit - I'm not breaking any laws
  
  So which part is incorrect?
  
  You're really spending a lot of energy calling piracy not piracy.
  
  Would you call it piracy to yank out the ad insert from a free newspaper and throw it into the trash without looking at it? Because that's the exact analog from the non-digital world. Just because the mode of payment changes with the technical abilities of the medium doesn't change that.
  
  If you show me how that's physically possible I will concede your point, but until then: No, that's not nearly the same. You can't just selectively block physical ads.
  
  While the comparison may make sense when not thinking it through, print is a completely different medium than digital where comparisons only make limited sense. In this one they don't at all.
  
  Physical media does not track views (directly) or click through numbers, for example.
  
  No because the content creator got paid for the ad.
  
  Just because the mode of payment changes with the technical abilities of the medium doesn't change that.
  
  Of course it does, the part where the content creator doesn't get paid and is supposed to according to the rules of the platform is the part where it's piracy.
  
  I understand your reasoning for calling ad-blocking for piracy, but I'm not sure I agree, or else we have to split "piracy" into degrees.
  
  So what if it has to be split into degrees? The world is a complex place and wishing it was simple doesn't make it so.
  
  Just use another word for something that is in some ways similar to piracy, but isn't piracy.
  
  2pt... Had an important point: piracy = copyright infringement.
  
  Blocking ads is a ToS violation, not piracy.
  
  By describing what you mean in place a word which often leads to discussions on word definitions, you can avoid the latter.
  
  I found saying "homophobia" lead to talk about "I don't fear them" (phobia) rather than discussion on mistreatment. So instead I would say "aversion to homosexuality".
  
  Request I watch an ad but give me content either way means I can decline the ad. Demand I watch ad and withhold until I do, then I have to watch the ad (or seek another distributor). They asked for a donation, not payment.
  
  If they could they would do that, they just can't stop you.
  
  They're trying desperately these days, it's just a hard problem.
  
  Paywalling content would easily make this a transaction, but they choose to make this optional.
  
  If Google didn't have such influence over web browser specifications maybe they would give up on adverts - while users are the ones in control of their computers then it will never be up to YouTube what is played on our machines.
- It’s really not. YouTube doesn’t get to decide what I play on my browser, I do
  
  Could use the same argument for most games, streaming services, movies that you bought etc. Games that require you run Denuvo or Steamworks to function, streaming sites that require you run that particular browser or app with that particular DRM software, Blu-ray discs that require HDCP to work etc.
  
  You can avoid these companies dictating what you run on your computer by doing one thing...
  
  There is an argument that bypassing cryptographic and security features is a violation of the DMCA and therefore a copyright violation (not piracy unless you distribute though), but that's also a gray area. E.g. I flashed my Bluray drive with software that allows copying the raw footage after it has been decrypted, so I'm not breaking the encryption, I'm just bypsasing it by copying the decrypted content while it's in memory. I'm guessing that's covered under the DMCA.
  
  But blocking ads is nothing at all like that. I'm not breaking any security measures, I'm just not loading their ads. It's like a DVR only storing the non-ad parts of the video, and those were commercially sold and AFAIK totally legal. I am not legally required to download everything the website asks for, requiring that would be insanity.
  
  And yeah, I could completely avoid these companies, and I could choose to actually pirate content and likely totally get away with it. But what I'm doing (blocking ads, bypassing copyright on content I own and not distributing copies) is in a gray area. Blocking ads isn't illegal AFAIK, and ripping DVDs and Blurays is in a gray area of the DMCA because I own the physical media (so it could be considered a "backup," which is allowed).
I put the local football game on my tv over antenna. Oh a commercial, I guess I'll walk away to take a piss now. The swat team busts down my door. I run for my scabbard to resist but with one peg leg I'm not quick enough. The seas are rough sailing for pirates willing to skip ads mateys.
- You're not violating their terms of service by doing that.
- But you're not preventing them from showing the ad if your TV is open while it's running, so no it's not the same, what you're talking about would be you doing the same for ads on YouTube (going to pee while they're playing) instead of stopping them from playing altogether.
  
  I DVR the game. Later that night I come home to watch. Oh it's commercial time, I guess I'll just fast forward 2 minutes.
  
  Peter pan and tinkerbell float through my window. They capture me and tie me up. They shout at me, "Watching ad-supported media without watching the ads is a crime you monster!" as they hold my eyes open while ad after ad replay on the tv. Crime like this isn't worth it folks.
  
  That's not the same because the advertisement company has already paid the content creator.
  
  Creators also get paid for in video ad reads and product placement. Media providers also make money on data collection regardless of the ads you skip. And furthermore advertising prices have always been based an statistics of reach. Companies like youtube have clearer data than the old Nielsen ratings but they've had a pretty accurate numbers of how many users skipped ads through time shifting too that have only gotten better since.
  
  It legally is not piracy in most places. Ethically just watching they are probably making money off of you even if you skip the obvious ads but if you really want to go over the top you could still skip and just find other ways to give money to the platform or creator.
  
  If it's funded by live ads and the ads fund the creators, then skipping the ads means skipping your payment.
  
  It's not legally piracy, but it's the same spirit and the effects are indistinguishable on the creators.
  
  This is nonsense. Your argument is that you're a pirate if one corporation with no relation to the content fails to pay a corporation which distributes but does not own the content. If you watch an ad then the advertising company refuses to pay you do not suddenly become a pirate.
  
  If a struggling McDonald's franchise fails to pay some franchisee fee that does not mean you pirated your big mac.
  
  I don't see how your example is even vaguely similar to mine, and the fact that you used that as an example means you don't understand my argument.
  
  A little ham-fisted, sure, but if you think it's irrelevant you evidently didn't take any time to actually think about it (you did also reply instantly, so I'll take that over you lacking reading comprehension).
  
  I'll simplify.
  
  Digital piracy is illegal copying of unlicenced content.
  Alice creates content.
  Alice licences the content to Bob.
  Bob decides to distribute the content with advertisements from Charlie.
  You download the content.
  Charlie does not pay Bob.
  You did not breach any licences.
  You did not pirate the content.
  
  And just to further clarify, Alice is the person who made a video, Bob is Youtube, Charlie is an advertiser. Your argument is not an ad is piracy if "the advertisement company [hasn't] paid the content creator." The advertiser pays the distribution company, and the relationship between those two companies is irrelevant. The advertiser failing to pay does not retroactively turn you into a pirate.
  
  The whole argument is pointless in the first place, it's irrelevant whether or not you consider ad blocking to be technically piracy. A sensible adblock argument would be around the ethics of manipulation versus payment, or security versus whatever it is advertisers want. Arguing semantics doesn't matter.
  
  Again, not the same thing.
  
  Actually think that's a rather apt description. Entertainment companies already went after Dish when they had an "AutoHop" commercial feature which included basically a streaming server from your home it would download and be accessible through (link). Kinda interesting because I didn't know Dish was thinking ahead and had a pre-setup package for people wanting to remote stream home content.
  
  I'm close to shore on my ship. "Arr FM plays the best shanties" I say as I tune my radio to my favorite station. After listening for 15 minutes, "Not another ad, I hate these." I turn the dial to another station still playing some music for 3 minutes and then start to turn the dial back to Arr FM. Just then a cannonball whizzes across my hand. "Oh no, the HMS Pearl is on my tail" I shriek, but it's too late chain shot has already shredded my sails.
  
  Robert Maynard boards our vessel and puts a sharp sword to my throat. "What say ye in defense you dirty ad-skipping pirate?"
  
  I yell out "But ad-skipping and even ad-blockers are legal! Even the FBI itself suggests using ad-blockers. It's the responsibility of companies that serve free ad-supported media to ensure the efficacy of their ads but there's no legal doctrine that says I can't skip or block ads. Sure it might violate their TOS but they can find ways to block me or make the ads harder to avoid - or even switch to a paid delivery format that is covered by the legal system."
  
  "That's no excuse!" he says as he decapitates me. A just punishment for a obvious pirate trying to squirm out of responsibilities such as I. Don't steal free media kids.
  
  Next time ""piracy"" comes up this is how I want to write a reply.
  
  Aaaand... Again...
  
  But nice story though...
Let's go to the early days of "piracy"

You are claiming that fast forwarding the opening trailers and adverts on a rented VHS is piracy.
- No, i'm explicitly not, those aren't tracked and nobody gets paid based on whether or not you fastforward. That makes it not piracy. The content creator gets paid.
  
  nobody gets paid based on whether or not you fastforward
  
  You know skip exists. Advertisers only pay when viewers watch at least 30 seconds of a long ad or engage with it.
Is it piracy if I skip the ads on the DVD I bought?
- No, the ads on the DVD you bought have already paid the company that made the DVD.
  
  You skipping those ads has no consequences for anyone, and nobody cares if you skip them.

LTT always seemed "slimy" to me, especially after the whole mistreatment allegations ordeal

Yeah, ever since all that stuff came out just before the new CEO took over, including the video/audio of the sexual harassment meeting which was treated as a total joke, I unsubscribed and stopped viewing their content. I couldn't reconcile their fun and approachable/friendly image with how they're treating staff. Moved on to watching more from other creators like Jayztwocents. Unfortunate that people keep turning out to be shitty left and right.
- All I want is a tech youtuber that doesnt do clickbait, currently I only know hardware unboxed
  
  GamerNexus and Level1Techs are pretty good at that since they target a much more technical audience. For mobile devices I thought Michael Fisher is also great. High production value and has a very different style.
  
  Except GN now is doing more and more investigative journalism against tech companies, which IMO isn't really what I want to watch when I'm looking for tech channels. Like, it's good that he's exposing shady businesses, but that's not really the content that got me into his channel in the first place, nor the type of content I expect from him. I'd rather that type of stuff be spun out into another channel or something and they come up with other ideas for tech focused content during slower hardware release cycles.
  
  That being said, they still at least have a steady pace of content unrelated to that and are definitely one of the best channels for thorough hardware news, reviews and/or discussions.
  
  Gamersnexus?
  
  Tech Jesus does not fuck around. Jokes aside- it's a good channel.
He’s a driven-but-not-that-smart type of person from the videos I’ve seen.
I find what happened, and their response to everything, completely unacceptable.

But even if you forget that entirely, i decided to see if anything has changed after a year, and the quality of videos is genuinely shocking. A production studio of such scale makes videos, that your typical 14 year old would find embarrassing. The attitude towards everything, and the overwhelming fake energy, are both very repulsive

Youtubers have no morals? What kind of idiotic generalisation is that?

BTW, adblocking is a form piracy, that I'm completely fine with.

Calling it piracy doesn't mean you think it's the worst thing in the world. I do it unless I like a service, and c'mon, it is piracy.

I've literally voted for the "Pirate Party" in my country
- There are dozens of us, dozens!

Isn’t he the same person who calls adblocking piracy?

Yes. Because it is, and I do it gladly.

It's really not. Piracy is sharing content you can't get legally. Blocking ads is just picking and choosing which content I allow to load on my computer. It's certainly against their TOS, but AFAIK there's nothing illegal about it, therefore not piracy.

No, that's called nuance and honesty.

Well it is compareable to piracy just like piracy is effectively stealing. I still partake in both but unlike much of my peers, I'm not lying to myself about what I'm doing.

just like piracy is effectively stealing.

IRL piracy, sure. Digital... not so much.
- Stealing is not the perfect term for it but it's the closest equivalance.
  
  Artists need to be compensated for the work they do, agreed? You wouldn't expect a photographer to give you a high resolution version of their picture for free despite the fact that they could, for no cost to themselves. They could hand out a million free copies if they wanted to, but they don't, and we all understand why, right? You need someone to put in the effort to create the original in order for those copies to be made. That's what we're paying for.
  
  Now how is pirating movies or games any different? How is that not unfair for the artist(s)?
  
  I was with you until the last paragraph.
  
  The difference is that i don't give two shits about not enriching multi-billion-dollar media conglomerates that hoard all profits and leave pennies for the actual creators. Hollywood, the music industry and YT fit the bill.
  
  Which is why i buy merch of local bands and/or buy their digital music if it's available as downloadable media i can keep on my devices (i won't buy into subscription crap), that way i'm indeed benefiting the actual artist and not some fat middle-man. Bandcamp and hdtracks have served me well lately, other suggestions welcome.
  
  But then the difference is in your personal attitude, not in the act itself. That's a bit like saying that it's okay to screw over a small artist because they're a jerk. It's just an excuse to justify the behaviour to yourself.
  
  Btw. that's how I justify pirating movies as well. I still consider it stealing though. I just don't feel any remorse for it.
  
  Yeah, piracy is illegal and it's, in practice, stealing IRL but digital piracy ain't stealing for sure. You're not subtracting anything...
  
  They can and do claim that they lost revenue but they can never claim you stole the movie - they still have it, you just didn't pay them for an extra copy. Rip a friend's DVD, same thing.
  
  Now if you were to hack them and steal all the movie raw material... but then again, Hollywood just spews out garbage nowadays,
  
  Anyway not a lawyer, don't care, stay safe.

Yeah, on the WAN Show.

Also I found this, https://archive.ph/VavFc.

He's already way past caring about anything other than money. He just gets the script and lends his known face for the video... regardless of anything else.

Can't entirely blame the guy though, cuz when he gets going you quickly see what an asshat he actually is, but he did have passion for the content a few years ago.

I just wish LTT would fade into irrelevancy already, it's just shallow clickbaity content that hardly provides any value. I'm also just waiting for their next workplace abuse accusations... the place is known to be abusive for years.

This is what I'm referring to https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZjJUVsmjIj4

It has been definitely downplayed and sugarcoated for public audience, but the shitty workplace smells a mile away...

Massive cunt is actually a massive cunt irl.