I've just reduced it to this, because 1) I don't want to spend all my time explaining things, and 2) it really is the crux of the matter. We were debating morality, not legality. We all agreed that a leak would be against American law. The debate was whether a leak was morally wrong or not. But it seems it is the same debate to you, meaning to you American law and morality are interchangable. It is a position that is so profusely stupid that I can't even imagine it being honest. And, okay, I guess I can't let that part go; I accept your claim that you never looked at Snyder's leaked JL material, as unlikely as that sounds. But, should Snyder not have been faced with legal consequences for them? You outright called for legal consequences for anybody participating in a hypothetical leak of the Batgirl film, so being consistent, you should also call for Snyder facing those same legal consequences. But you don't. You never have. And that's the main problem here, your hypocracy. Nobody cares if you personally watch leaked material or not, that's a personal decision, and - as most of us agree, even @fireproof78 - a matter of personal views. But you went ahead and not only called anybody even watching leaked material immoral, but calling for legal consequences for a leak when you did nothing of the kind when the leaker was somebody you liked.
It's easy enough to find in an online search. And it's actually not bad. With a rewrite to fit current versions of the characters, I think it could still make a good JL movie.
The only "we" in this matter is you--and anyone else putting their criminality on full display, all due a shocking sense of entitlement / obsession not only about a film that was shelved, but any property you deem your "right" to access, in full opposition to the law. But it is known you have some highly irrational, boiling hatred of Zach Snyder, and that has been your oft-called out issue in this and other threads, so your every word cannot be seen as objective. To you, Snyder is Satan set loose on earth, killing all you hold dear, which--of course--is a nonsensical, crazed belief in the extreme. Then your reference to the German constitution remains irrelevant to this discussion, as it has absolutely no bearing on how an American corporation under American law deals with issues of this nature. Further, its has been maintained that the legality and morality of the issue are sides of the same coin. What is "profusely stupid" is any so-called adult arguing that the embracing of criminal behavior for the sake of their fanaticism / sense of entitlement about entertainment has any moral core, motivation or ground to stand on. If you are incapable of understanding your position is criminal--astoundingly ignorant of inherently connected legal and moral norms, then I wholeheartedly encourage you to continue to receive as much stolen property as you can get your hands on / download, etc, and we shall see how well your "b-but the people who worked on it did so because they wanted it seen...aaanndd it should be leaked and we should b-be able to s-ee it" works in court, and how much Kleenex you soak in the event that day ever comes. Again, well put--the mature acceptance of how law where creations, property and ownership are concerned.
Wow, that's a bad design, reducing it to a simple binary. That can lead to very misleading data by exaggerating the difference between positive and negative assessments. This is why Rotten Tomatoes' aggregate audience percentages for a movie are often so radically different from the critics' aggregate, even when their actual reviews aren't so different if you actually read them -- because the audience ratings are a 5-star system while the critic scores are reduced to a simple up/down binary, so the critical score is stripped of nuance. "Nothing wrong" may be a bit of an oversimplification. The general idea behind civil disobedience is that if a law or practice is unjust, it may be necessary to break the law to protest or change it, but you still accept that you're committing a crime of your own and choose to take responsibility for that act by surrendering to the law and accepting any legal penalty for your actions. It's not so much that you deny you did anything wrong, as that you accept that the lesser wrong was necessary to change the greater wrong. Although there is an element of symbolism to it, because behaving extra-morally by accepting the punishment for your crimes shows the public that you're not doing it out of contempt for law and order or out of selfish reasons, which helps counter your opponents' attempts to paint you as the villain.
Yeah, it's like he's being actively obtuse. Like missing the whole point of why I brought up the German constitution being to show that law and morality are not the same. And he still hasn't adressed Snyder's illegal actions, let alone called for legal consequences for Snyder.
No, you are simply demonstrating that you are a grossly unconscionable child who used a pointless reference where it was utterly inapplicable, just as you obsess over all things Snyder to make yet another inapplicable argument designed to defend actions that are equally illegal and immoral. The fact you actually believe that which is illegal cannot be immoral says much about who and what you are.
No, you're being insanely obtuse. What they're saying is not and never in this conversation has been 'that which is illegal cannot be immoral'. What they're trying to get through your head is that *What is legal is not automatically moral*. The law is not the same as morality. Following the law does not automatically mean doing the right thing. Breaking the law does not automatically mean doing something immoral. There is nuance to the question of whether something is right or wrong that goes a hell of lot farther than just 'American corporations following the laws of the USA'.
Not just a legal question but also an ethical one. What right do I have to another person's property?
Anyone who chooses to engage in practices like file-sharing (including the one-to-one distribution of things such as privately recorded episodes of a television series or a privately recorded film), video game emulation, production of fan-films, or the writing and distribution of fanfiction, opens themselves up to the legal consequences associated with the violation of copyright and trademark laws should their individual participation in such practices become known to the individuals or corporate entities who hold said copyrights and/or trademarks and should said entities decide to take legal action against said individuals. In the case of Zack Snyder's behavior and conduct prior to WB agreeing to sanction the creation and distribution of his Justice League Director's Cut, he was absolutely opening himself up to facing legal action from WB had they opted to go in that direction. That is, I believe, pretty obvious to most people and goes without saying, even if there are some posters here who want other posters here to say it.
None. We--as consumers are only granted a "right" to legally purchase a product legally offered, yet as you see in this thread. the ever-bottomless well of fanaticism and entitlement about entertainment leads some to make the woefully ignorant claim that one--because employees had the expectation of their work being seen, that it justifies using any illegal means to distribute it, two, fans have any right to obtain illegally distributed property, and worst of all, that a legal matter cannot be a moral matter. That anyone can easily name crimes considered a violation of both, yet they argue against that speaks to a deviant attempt to avoid what should be an inherent trait, as sweeping its power away is somehow lessening a legal consequence (if the immorality of an act is not considered in judging a crime). Telling. Still, they can attempt to spin this (and lie about their original intent, which is plainly evident in their quotes), but the bottom line of it all, is that there is a part of the culture believing they have a right to steal a product (or receive a stolen product) its owners decided is not for public access. They have elected to die on that particular hill, lacking even a particle of self-awareness enough to realize that there's no winning position in being the champion of criminality.
I suppose that also applies to using images from television series as profile pictures on internet forums.
What right does an employer have to screw over dozens of his employees just to get a tax write-off? Maybe technically the movie is his legal "property," but he obviously doesn't care about it, while the people who worked hard on it for months or years care about it a great deal. So who really has more of an ethical right to consider it theirs?
It would come down to who has invested more resources. If it is about caring then fans should control properties. But, that's not the only consideration, especially since the people who worked on it were already compensated.
. I am sorry, but its obvious to conclude that your excusing of Snyder's actions and your obsession with the law (which doesn't apply to people you like) makes you sound like a fascist. And your hero Snyder has some pretty fascist tendencies too. It all makes sense, and its a bit scary.
There's not even a question: employees are paid to provide a service (the job). Once that service is complete, that is the end of their connection to the job--they have no ownership or control over work they (when contracted / hired to work) fully understood is the sole property of the employer--in WB's case, Batgirl. They could spend a day or years on a job, but they know once they've fulfilled the specifics of their paid service, they have no say or right to control a company's property. It is one of the most sensible of all business principals and it is rejected (along with your suggestion that fans own properties if they wish to control them) in favor of the entitled thief mentality. Companies were not, nor will they ever be in the business of having a free-for-all structure where every employee has some say/control over their property.
Hey TREK_GOD, I was with you up until this point--but you cannot equate illegal with immoral-- or even using the term criminality to make moral judgments about others if you are defining "criminal" as one who violates the law of a specific country. Committing a crime is not always an unethical act. Here in Canada we capitulated to maintain our NAFTA agreement on our copyright laws. Our copyright laws now reflect the "American" standard of 95 years-- suddenly any James Bond stories written and published are now immoral as well as illegal? Does this also mean that same-sex marriage was immoral in countries where it was legal until it became legal in the US? Were married couples immoral people as soon as they crossed to border to the U.S.? Are laws around cannabis use also a more/ethical reflection? If so, is smoking weed immoral in Canada too--or does it only become an immoral act when you cross the border? Of course I'm using exaggerated examples here, but the fact is that law is not always ethical or good--in fact it is not in many cases. Violating the law may be illegal, but it is not always the "wrong" thing today. In the case of releasing a movie, I am on the side that it is not worth someone risking their job to try to leak it. It is a movie not the secret to replicator technology. I also don't it as unethical because piracy are designed to protect the financial profit of selling/distributing a creative work and in this case there is no more profit to be had for anyone. Neither am I going to say somebody is ethically challenged for choosing to watch it if it does get a bootlegged release. In this case, I disagree. We are not talking about a person's property but a corporations property that it has chosen to abandon. The creators want their creation seen. The laws in the U.S. declaring corporations are people is also not an "ethical" law but a purely legal one created because of payouts from lobbyist.
So... your definition of "ethics" is strictly based on materialism? That seems contradictory. The point is that it's not about just one thing. You can't understand a complex issue by trying to dumb it down to a single variable. There can be valid points of view to consider on more than one side of an issue. Yet deprived of future compensation that they would've gotten from residuals for the film's showings and home video sales. Not to mention that, again, we're not just talking about shallow materialism here, we're talking about the emotional value of a work to its creators and the sheer cruelty of tearing the fruits of their hard work out from under them. You can't claim you want to talk about "ethics" yet show no consideration for human feeling, or for values that have to do with deeper things than money.
No, it's not my only basis. But, I'm looking at the considerations and real world realities of the relationship between producers and employers. And it's a big consideration because the investment of resources and time is a major consideration to me. I'm not. But, objectively, we are looking at ownership and investment of resources, not just emotions, but also material. Which takes precedence in this case? For me I'm more transactional in the ethics on this matter. That's my view here. Others, no doubt more emotionally invested than I, will value the emotional energy more.