Pirate some things, pay for some things. It doesn’t have to be absolute.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
When I was younger I pirated because I didn’t have any money to spare for digital media. Today I have a stable income and can afford all these things but I still pirate because it’s just more convenient in many ways.
Whenever I consume something that I really like I 100% support the artist / developers mostly by buying this exact product and / or some merch or by going to their concerts (if it’s music related)
To me piracy is just a way of freedom. Which includes to respect other people if they like or dislike spending money on certain things. In my eyes we should not split this community in such a way because this would kill the essence of freedom to make your own choices
Most of us are presumably adults who can afford to pay for things when they’re convenient. That’s what it’s about for me, convenience. If you’re not making it convenient for me to buy your thing fair and square, then I’m gonna pirate it.
In the case of small little indie bands, they often aren’t on torrent sites at all. Given the choice between Spotify and Bandcamp, I’m going to buy the album on Bandcamp 100% of the time. I can contribute to the artist more and usually end up with a vinyl copy on the process.
Pirating has always been a solution to poor ease of access to content. If I could pay a legitimate subscription for a site with the catalog of PTP or RED, I would do it in a heartbeat. It will never happen though.
Some people are about piracy, others are about ownership and fighting back against neo digital feudalism
People generally will fairly buy content when it’s available and fairly priced if they want to support the creators. There’s a huge difference between wanting to help your favorite content producer VS companies that fart out mult-hundred dollar box sets of old content
Isn’t it generally pointing out what was actually worth paying for?
I don’t pirate because I’m opposed to paying for things. I pirate stuff because I don’t want to support scumbag corporations that don’t give a shit about me. In fact, I buy most of the media and games I consume, in order to support the devs behind it.
And that’s not a “new piracy gen”, that’s how piracy has always been for most people. You’re the odd one out here.
Yea, I’ll pay for things. The problem is, what I want (DRM free media I can use on anything that will open them) is not generally for sale.
Exactly. When pirating is more convenient than purchasing, I’ll pirate.
Well said!
I’ve gone back after I’ve already pirated something and bought a legal copy if I thought it was worth it or if it’s in some sort of Humble Bundle deal that benefits charity and gets me a legal copy at the same time. Sometimes I’ll even pirate things I already bought & paid for because I want a backup copy (in the case of books or tabletop games).
I pirate a lot of books since I love to read, if I particularly liked a book or an author then I donate the cost of the books if the author has that option (most do)
My best friend does this with games. He doesn’t keep the pirated copy of games he doesn’t like. Just plays to see and then deleted it if he doesn’t want it. Buys it if he does. Back when we grew up they had demos for this purpose. But not anymore unless you happen to sign up for an alpha or beta program. Most big studios don’t do it.
I ain’t cheap, I just don’t like my money going to billionaires who give us nothing in return. I pay for email, I don’t pay to watch a Marvel film.
I don’t think it’s that hard.
You…pay for email???
Proton!
The fuck if I’m gonna let Google train an AI off my emails.
Some people do. There are options (like Proton) that offer good services that respect their users and their privacy and I personally like to support that
A lot of us pay for privacy focused email because we don’t want Google or MS steal our data
Aye, as @forensic_potato said. And they have really good free options too, that are actually improved upon feature wise (only usage is limited)
Gonna pay once I can actually afford it.
You have to pay to get a real domain
Pirating gives me the option not to support shit corporations that fuck over consumers with no business ethics. I can pirate the content I choose and pay for it when I want to support creators.
Historically, pirating and underground markets for good and services begin to proliferate in a society as a sign that their economic system is failing. IMHO, unbridled capitalism and corporate shitification in the US is turning the Internet into a hellscape with 5 companies basically controlling the entire Internet with so much lobbying muscle behind them they remain untouchable through what remains of the democratic system.
It’s a convenience thing. Remember when Apple Music and Spotify used to be $5.99 a few years ago? It was really hard to justify pirating then, for example. Like I’d have to find what I was looking for, close a million pop ups to get the torrent, download it, then upload the files onto whatever device I was using. And I would have to do it over again for the car, and over again for my wife if she asked for it, etc.
Or I could just type it into a search bar, and bam. All for $5.99, and I didn’t have to worry about storage? Sign me up.
The convenience of Spotify is still sort of worth the price, but it’s getting pretty marginal. The other streaming services we use brought us the same level of convenience, but they are getting way too greedy and creating way too many of them. Netflix and the media streamers turned into Cable. Which is going to inevitably turn us all back to pirating as they start cracking down on password sharing and keep creating new services with bloated fees.
The dumb fuckers literally figured out how to defeat piracy. And then drove us back to piracy with their greed. So when they inevitably start crying about it again, tell them all to eat shit.
Between power, hardware depreciation, Usenet/indexer fees and VPN I probably pay somewhere like €50/month to curate my own media collection.
I’d be happy to pay the same for a legal platform that has all the content I want in the same place, like Spotify for music (which I use and pay for).
Right now the piracy experience for movies/series is simply superior to the legal experience , so there is absolutely no incentive for me to switch things up.
And digital games being the same price as the physical copy. I remember when they were trying to say the uptick in price was due to the box and stuff inside, then digital came along and it was the same price, proving they lied and are simply greedy. Even if it was only $10 less I could justify the ridiculous price. Games should cost more. A lot of work went into them. But not $70. That’s over a days worth of work for those poor folk who make minimum wage.
This, 100% this, especially that last paragraph.
That and spotify quality is pretty horrendous for music
I do my best to pay for things from creators who are making a living from it, and I do my best to NOT pay for things that line a multi-billion dollar company’s pocketbook.
Disney won’t pay their writers, actors, etc anything close to what they are really worth – so I pay what I can to people who don’t even manage to make THAT much. I pay for indie games, I pay for things that have proven their value (Warframe…totally free to play. They made $300 off of me after me playing for 2 YEARS without having to spend a dime, because I was appreciative of a game so well made and that made me happy for that long)
And these days, it’s not even worth the hassle of pirating games – too many chances for an executable to bite you in the ass and I’ve gotten to lazy to set up sandboxes/VMs, etc in order to limit their damage - so in most instances I only pirate movies/anime these days.
There’s a general sense of you should try to ethically pirate. Like no one cares if you shoplift from Walmart, but you’re a dick doing it to the local mom and pop grocery store who’s barely getting by.
On a more selfish level, paying for the things you enjoy shows whoever made it they’ll get money for it. Simple as that. If you really enjoy something stealing it isn’t going to convince them to make more. There’s been more than once where a game or show got pirated more than bought legally and it’s killed any future projects for it.
I’m pretty sure ethical pirating is mostly just justifying it to oneself.
That said, these corporations regularly steal from their customers and employees in many ways they can and cannot see. In that respect, pirating is more of a way to fight back.
Stealing is not ethical, but these profiteers do much worse on a daily basis, including stealing from those who created their profit engines. See Bill Willingham’s recent release of Fables to the public domain for a common example.
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I’m a bit astonished how often I see this kind of thread, even here. It’s like when people complain about FOSS apps charging subscriptions or standalone fees. How many times does it have to be pointed out that piracy as an activity does not define piracy as a movement or a collective?
I’m certain this simplistic “piracy = not paying for stuff” take can only come from a kind of ignorant individualism, one that lacks any structural analysis of why, when, and for what content people turn to piracy (and why, when, etc, they stop).
piracy = not paying for stuff - in many countries around the world, that’s more like a cultural thing. I know because I’ve in both sides. I come from a 3rd world country but now live in Europe.
Cracking groups have always said they do it for the challenge and if u like the game you should go buy it. Crackers and warez ftp groups have never dissuaded anyone from paying for the stuff they crack and release.
