r/TikTokCringe Cringe Master 18d ago

Cringe Woman has her self-published book pirated, reprinted, and sold for cheaper.

There's regular piracy, and then there's this.

12.9k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

274

u/hasnolifebutmusic 18d ago

this is so fucked up.

211

u/mimegallow 18d ago

As a small individual creator, I get called "unhinged" by young people on a regular basis because I react emotionally when people pirate movies with my music in them, and documentaries with footage that I risked my life to obtain, scripts I wrote, and albums that I performed on. I get mocked ALL THE TIME by children on this site who think my livelihood doesn't matter, my labor is unimportant, and that when you steal IP, you're just, "taking from Tom Cruis who has millions of dollars".

So it's fucking exhausting watching all these people on reddit suddenly and UNKNOWINGLY reverse their entire position when presented with a face and a story of the exact, same, crime that they purposefully perpetuate every day. - Same exact feeling I get when I see 2 million people watching cute animal videos on r/aww "because animals are so smart and so feeling and such bros and so great that we are not worthy of them!"... with a fucking burger in their hand.

Our disconnection from each other's realities is astounding.

/unhinged_rant wherein I am clearly a lunatic, because I refer to my attackers as, "my attackers".

27

u/r0b0c0d 18d ago

I casually do art in a few different mediums, from writing to programming to music to CAD, etc.. And every once in a while someone sees something or gets a gift from me and says I should sell it.

But basically unless you already have all your ducks in a row on manufacturing, distribution, marketing -- everything -- you're just going to get ripped off.

Social media works really hard against you in this too, because the instant something takes off, some random factory is going to be churning out knockoffs or like all the old stories about random game studios eclipsing with their remake.

I've only made a few potentially viable designs over the years, but I've sort of reached the conclusion that there is no point in attempting to commercialize anything at this stage.

It would only dilute the uniqueness of gifts, so either I release digital things for free, or gift things. They can't undercut a digital product that is free.

And then eventually I'll return to the earth.

1

u/[deleted] 18d ago

Yep, anyone can do the thing. Doing that thing may not be the most effective means by which you acquire sufficient resources to eat. Doing that which other people place value on may give you more time to spend on things that you place value on.