Strive4Karuna wrote:Most videos are posted by people who use footage that aren't their own, does this violate the stealing precept to watch it?
If the footage was not owned by the person who uploaded it and the owners had not given given their permission for it to be uploaded, then the person who uploaded it has broken the precept against taking what is not freely given.
The position of anyone viewing it is not so clear. As Ben said, we should normally be able to assume that material shared online is shared by (or with the consent of) the owner, and that would be fine. If we view or use anything without knowing it to be stolen, there was no intention to steal and IMO we haven't broken the precept. On the other hand, we do have some obligation to make sure that what is given to us is not stolen, whether it's a Youtube video or a gold watch.