Why Is It Ethical To Buy Bootlegged Products

Is it ethical to buy illegal copies of music CD's and movies from street vendors. Especially when you know that by buying these copies, the record companies, movie production companies, actors, artists and others involved in their production do not get a profit from the sale. This is the dilemma I had as weather or not I should buy bootlegged products because while they are cheaper, it is depriving the legitimate profits that companies who produce the music and movies would receive along with the actors and artists involved. The situation that I encountered was while I was walking around New York City with friends. Everywhere I went, I saw street vendors selling various music and movie titles, including titles were not yet released on cd
or dvd, including some movies that were still in the theaters. The majority of which were illegal pirated copies. But then I also saw a Tower Records store, which sells the real legitimate cd's and dvd's. I had to make a choice if I wanted to pay $15 or more for a CD or movie when down the block I could purchase one of these illegal copies for as little as five dollars and have money left over to buy another one.
I had to weigh the pros and cons as to weather I should purchase the pirated copies or not. The biggest advantage of buying these is that many of the music and movies titles offered are brand new and have not yet been released for sale in the stores yet. Another big advantage is that the cost of these copies is much cheaper than you could get them in the stores. Also why should I spend all my money on a CD or movie to listen to for a few weeks or a dvd that I watch once and never use again. Then now we find out that the record production companies were illegally price fixing their products thus overcharging the consumer in the first place.
While on the downside, it is illegal to buy these bootlegged products. The companies, actors and performers who produce the titles do not get any money from the sale, thus no money goes to pay salaries for actors and support people, costs involved with production, and deprives the company of making a profit so they can produce more movies and music cd's in the future. Also the quality of many of these cd's and dvd's in many cases is not quite as good as an original copy.
Ethically speaking what is the right choice to make?
According to Kant's view of ethics, he would ask would ask not about the outcome that is achieved by the purchasing the pirated copies, but what is the motivation behind purchasing them. The motivation for most people weather buying or selling these cd's is money. The people selling them want to make some money easily, while the purchaser wants to save money by purchasing a cheaper product. If there were something cheaper, many people would buy that product even though it might be illegal as compared to a legal copy that costs several dollars more. Using Kant's view then, if the only motivation for the purchase is to save a few dollars, then he would not look upon the purchase or sale of such product in a favorable ethical light. According to Kant, one should "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." If this is such, I doubt he would want the purchase of illegal copies to save a few dollars to become wide spread and as he called it a universal law. Nor would he want the sale of such copies to become ramped depriving the people who produce the legal cd's and movies to be deprived of their fair compensation for the work they
did.
Aristotle defines and ethical life as something being good. This good could be either intrinsic or instrumental. The highest intrinsic good would be happiness, or what he called Eudaimonia. While the Instrumental goods are good only because they are used for some other thing or purpose. Aristotle would approach this situation by asking whether or not he would be happy. If he were to be happy with his decision then it would be the right thing to do according to Aristotle. In this situation, if I would buy the bootlegged copies it would make me happy because I am getting something that I want and also not spending a lot of money. However he also defines a vulgar lifestyle. The vulgar lifestyle is based on instant gratification where goods are simply pleasures one enjoys immediately and temporarily. So while I would be happy purchasing the cd or movie cheap from the bootlegger, this happiness would only be temporary. This is because as I mentioned earlier most likely I would only watch the movie once or listen to the CD only a few weeks and not use it again, only to go on to find some new one to give me temporary satisfaction. The sale of such illegal products would also fall under this vulgar lifestyle, because it gives instant gratification to the bootlegger, while depriving legitimate people who made and produced the music and movies their fair reconision and profit. So taking into account the views of Aristotle and Kant, it would be unethical to purchase the pirated copies. While using the same criteria, it is also unethical for the companies to price fix their products, The right choice on a personal level is to go into Tower Records and buy the real copies and let the law handle the unethical price-fixing of the recording companies.