Support creators though. Especially if the thing you pirate isn’t from a soulless corporation. This is why creators should always have something like a ko-fi or Patreon page. So I can pay them directly if I enjoyed their work.
I buy a ton of XKCD merch for this very purpose. I support others on Patreon, by buying from their advertisers and by buying their audiobooks on Libro.fm or a physical copy.
Amazon and other middlemen add nothing, they simply take a cut off the top. They maintain DRM solely to extract an maximum profits and lock in their customers and sellers. It is extortion and should be illegal.
Last time I bought audiobooks I got them from Downpour which included DRM-free downloads as either MP3 or M4B files, in addition to listening through the website or app. I believe Libro.fm may also offer this. Most of my ebooks are through Kobo and are DRM free as well.
I have to download pirated video games otherwise I can't play them offline on my handheld. They also launch 10x faster. I learnt that you can't use everything you own a copy of offline!
I use a mix of Goldberg emulator and GOG i prefer Steam though. Mostly for valves Proton compatibility layer and all that valve does for linux gaming. So if a game is drm free on steam i get it there.
I agree, but I also sort of think that's fair enough. The fact that most people "buying" ebooks don't understand what their transaction implies suggests a major market failing.
Here is my idea: Everyone makes a private key. When they buy a song they receive the file and a digital signature by the label saying they sold it to your private key. When you are caught with a bunch of songs, you have to prove ownership using your key. Tadaa provable ownership, no blockchain, You loose the file, but still have the signature? You can download it again and all is good.
A digital signature from the label would be created with their private key.
What would they be signing? Your public key plus the ID of the song? They can't sign your private key, it's private.
What stops you sharing your private key and a song with a friend. Then when either of you need to provide proof, you can both show that you have the private key that matches the signed file?
Technically you can: if you distribute the comic but don't give the attribution, you are breaking the terms of the license which is just about the closest thing to "pirating" it that you can do.
I just rip my songs from Spotify. It's not the highest quality, but it's easy to find stuff and I wrote a little script to quickly download lists of tracks and albums so it's pretty convenient.
Bandcamp was acquired by Epic, but they still offer DRM-free downloads of all your music, give artists good cuts, and if you buy on Bandcamp Friday, the best cut any artist could hope for. I'd rather there was a distributed solution without a corporation taking a cut off the top, but it's still getting you pretty close to the artist.