I feel good seeing how the corpos squirm when trying their damndest to get rid of any pirating method (which is fair and what everyone in the world deserves free of charge by birth) only to be met with impossible tasks and fall flat on their faces. It's one of the better feelings in this world. I pirate everything, everywhere, unless I know I can help a talented (and actual) human out.
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Piracy leaves creators worse off when it deprives them of a sale, as in you would have paid for something but instead just pirated it because not paying was an option. So I pirate stuff I think is worth my time, but not my money. I then consider it victimless. Maybe that movie is interesting enough to watch but not enough to rent/buy, so I would pirate it. I'm now at a point where money isn't as scarce as it used to be, so the prices of entertainment seem reasonable and I am much more willing to pay.
There are a couple of exceptions to the above. I pirated almost every textbook I could since the fact that a student requires one specific product puts the customer in an exploitable position that allows the seller to charge unreasonable amounts (and used books have none of their proceeds go back to the creator anyway). Also, there is no issue with pirating content no longer being sold, since the creators aren't being deprived of anything. This is mostly relevant for me with old video games on emulators.
I want it, I don't want to pay for it, I can get it free.
I want to support artists, but I will not pay for shit I've already pay for. I own an N64 and loads of games, I have the roms and will never pay a subscription to play worse versions in restricted conditions.
I will also not pay for the sports channels it is far too much. Where I am there are are like 3-4 different sports packages required to watch one league. Fuck that
I used to pirate a lot more when I couldn't afford to fill my media desires. Nowadays I'm a bit more principalled, I'm not paying collector prices for old super Nintendo games for instance. That shit gets emulated and if I've already bought a game on console, especially if I bought a standard and "complete" edition, I'll likely piratd a PC copy for modding and the like.
Though sometimes a piece of art is created by a morally bankrupt company and while I typically just ignore the things they produce, sometimes I really want to try it, so I pirate it.
I pay for music because it is easy. I don't pay for video because there is no avenue like spotify for video
I pirate the odd bit of music and the ocassional film if I cant find it on streaming services, or if I need music in MP3 format for swimming with, vast bulk of what I pirate is music though. And probably less than 10% of all the media I have is pirated. Make something easily available in the format I need at a reasonable price and I'll happily pay for it
I live by the rules established by the founding fathers. Copyright is 15 years and if the creator of the work gets paid for it. Anything else can hit the bricks. Corporations? Not people. Classic movies? Thry are part of thr public conscious now.
I pirate. I don't justify pirating. I just do it, because I want things and have the ability to get them for free, so I do that.
I will pirate it if it's old (tv series from the 80's, for example) or if I can't get it legally. I live in a country that falls through distribution loopholes moderately often. Like right now, I can't watch the latest season of Lower Decks on prime even though I could the previous ones. Some kind of licensing thing. If it's not resolved soon, I'll be taking to the high seas for it.
If i don't see the value i'm pirating.
Money is tight, don't expect me to pay for a play button that you'll take away the second i can't spare the money. It means there is no value delivered for my money so i don't have a reason to spend my hard earned money.
Especially when the amouny is as significant as 10/15โฌ. Fuck i would've bought a cd for each month i could spare that money.
Only thing I've pirated was a show with no reasonable means to access it legitimately in my region. Hell, I couldn't even access it via VPN because the services it was on didn't accept my card due to region.
Normally of the mind that if it isn't worth my money it isn't worth my time, but in this case I just wasn't allowed to pay them for it. Hardly my fault when they've gone that far out of their way to block me buying it.
I pirate metric shitloads of movies and series. I don't pirate music or games (much).
I watch maybe 5-10% of what I download. That's probably true for the games I buy as well.
The reason is part convenience. I probably listen to royalty free 95% music of the time, but for the other occasions Spotify has anything and everything I want to listen to. I can't beat that library.
I game on Linux, the Switch and old retro computers. The old retro computers have all pirated games on them, but for Linux and Switch I buy my stuff on the Nintendo shop and Steam. They have everything and it just works.
The video streaming services of today have also taught me that they will pull licenses. When Netflix had a big library I stuck mostly to that, but today it feels like all the good content has been pulled and they mostly just have Netflix originals. So Hollywood has taught me that If I want to watch something, I shouldn't rely on it being available on my streaming service of choice in the future. I'm not going to subscribe to a dozen streaming services just for the odd chance that I want to watch something particular. I'm going to have my own plex server with everything I might want to watch.
The one show that would make me consider getting a second streaming subscription just to support it is Futurama. But of course, Hulu is not available in my region.. so, yarr.
I used to pirate anything. Music, movies, softwares, games...
Since I have a developer job and a stable income, I don't really pirate much stuff anymore, only movies and series, but then the whole piracy thing is not even illegal here where I live.
Maybe softwares, too, if I can't find any free and/or open source alternative of it.
For games and music, I like to pay, if I can. If it's expensive, I wait to some sale.
And also, with pirated stuff, you always end up something doesn't work or missing or you just have to make compromises. Fuck that, I'm too old for that.
One aspect of pirating is appealing to me tho - preservation. Anything you can't go and just buy because of dead services or just time going by needs to be preserved. It applies for hardwares, too. Liberating closed hardware and software is a noble thing in my eyes, and it justifies piracy.
I just started pirating again in the last couple of months after basically not pirating for years. Now fuck corporations lol.
I pirate books for a few reasons, first is because knowledge should be free, second is because buying books gets expensive real quick and third because I can't find everything I want to buy, sometimes pirating is the only way to get it. I like to have it physically when possible, tho.
Entertainment (Series, Anime, Cartoons, Movies) I pirate because I'm sick of being a second class citizen of nearly every streaming service just because I'm a Linux user. I can watch netflix at 1080p with an extension on Firefox, and Crunchyroll doesn't limit me in any way, but everything else is 720p or lower. By pirating, I even have 4k available. Also, fuck streaming prices and fuck netflix for charging extra for sharing an account.
Software I don't pirate because I prefer to use FOSS and in the case of games I don't really wanna gamble if I'll get a malware or not. Besides, I have a huge respect for the medium and I buy a game whenever I can.
For music Spotify and Youtube is too convenient, I only pay for Spotify, tho. Revanced for Youtube on mobile and ublock origin + sponsorblock + return youtube deslikes on desktop is great.
Besides all that, everyone should have access to knowledge and entertainment, it's 100% justified for people to pirate, specially those that can't afford it.
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn't pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
When I used to pirate heavily a decade ago yeah, today not really, buying or not my ADHD is so bad I can't get through easily anyway lol.
I tend to pirate and then buy later, when cheaper. Or for streaming services, I'll download a show as it airs but then purchase the service and background the series later to add viewership.
I think of it as time shifting the sale price.
If something is not for sale, I have no qualms about pirating it. Disney vault, abandonware, obsolete versions, etc.
I'm not gonna pay $200 just to play an old pokemon game. I do buy other games at my local shop though.
I pirate a ton of stuff, but I also see more movies in theaters than most people I know. I'm lucky enough to live in a place that still has an awesome local video store that has a ton of hard to find, obacure films. Like shaw brothers kung fu films, or documentaries like Jefftowne.
Working minimum wage or struggling with money for any reason shall not mean you cannot have nice things in life, never. So I do the thing. Sometimes. Normalizing spending money into things you physically cannot touch is one thing i could get over with, like buying GOG (DRM free) games i'll actually end up playing, but licenses to play a dang video game that is valid for god knows how long? This is where I draw the line.
Your friend is right: when them corpos suck us dry, we gotta suck em back. It is easy as that.
Furthermore: It's not piracy when paying for it is not owning it.
When i was younger, physical copies pf games and the used market were common things. Now pc games get no physical release, or if they do these are tied to steam or epic games, and consoles are pushing towards going all digital.
All while raising the prices even though there is no logistics involved anymore.
So i should pay more for something that i can't resell and can get taken away from me for one of several reasons (account gets banned, game gets delisted, service eol...)?
So that's why if it can get pirated, i will pirate it.
I just do whatever's easiest -- just signing up for some of these services takes way too long to watch one 2 hour program. The money's not an issue at all in my mind, im happy to pay $70 for baldurs gate 3 with a dedicated download server and installation package. But im not willing to spend half an hour downloading and installing some streaming service.
About the only thing I pirate these days is stuff that isn't available to legally pay for in my country.
My relevant philosophy, if that's the right word, is linked to on my Lemmy bio. Written more than a year ago, it's still defaulted to. Someone on Lemmy told me it's the most socialist-esque thing they've ever seen from me.