Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?

I don't have an answer to your exact question but I want to emphasize...

NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to "stealing" or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

Practically speaking, the world we live in, with computers everywhere, cheap storage, and easy fast internet access for so much of the world, has only been around for about two decades, maybe three. NOTHING like this has ever existed before, and businesses, culture, and laws have been very slow to catch up.

I'm not saying pirating is right or wrong, just that the whole idea is still so new that society hasn't caught up to it yet.

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Even if I pay for a product I love some asshole suit is going to get a bigger cut than the artists who did the work.

Give me a reasonably priced, accessible way to enjoy the content and I will happily pay for it.

Streaming has become untenable and now it's neither affordable nor convenient to watch what I want to watch. And with how frequently shows and movies bounce around platforms, who knows if the show I want to watch this weekend will be still available on one if the many platforms I've been paying for.

I'm just done with it.

My philosphy is Buy what you can afford, pirate the rest

I cannot confirm, nor deny.

But, I will say, once upon a time, before the days of netflix, if you wanted to watch things, you needed to spend a fuckload of money, to watch it on cable, with commercials every 10 minutes.... or, you drove to a blockbuster. So, you either did that, or you obtained the movie/tv/etc, via a torrent.

Then, netflix came along, gave you a ton of content, at a reasonable price. And- then, there wasn't really much of an advantage to obtaining media via other alternative means. So, netflix took over by storm, and piracy went way down.

Then, everyone wanted a piece of the action. So, then Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO+, ESPN+, (And insert 50 other network-specific streaming services) jumped into the fray. Then, they all made exclusive streaming contracts. So, if you watch a handful of things, you would need a handful of streaming service subscriptions.

And- again, the alternative option of piracy, became the better option, as you can watch whatever the f- you want, WHENever you want, without having to pay for 50 different subscriptions every month, just to watch a TV series, which they decide to cancel after the 2nd season.

Do you justify?

If the fucking scumbags didn't get greedy in the first place, we wouldn't be in this situation. But, no, everyone wanted an extremely generous piece of the pie, and now everything has went to shit again. Fuck those guys. Isn't like the actual actors/writers staring in movies gets any of the money anyways.

All culture belongs to everyone, therefore should be accessible to everyone.

The sale of goods only concerns those who can and want to afford it.

Sharing is not theft.

Pirates are cool.

If there was a service I could pay like $100-200/mo for and just have every movie and TV show I'd happily pay for it. It doesn't exist, but pirate sites do and they do have every movie and TV show, including tons completely unavailable on any streaming service

GabeN got it right, piracy is a service issue. I haven't pirated a PC game in probably 12 years because steam works great and has basically every PC game I could ask for.

You know how writers get paid fuck all for the movies they write? You know how animators are paid criminally low wages for the anime they produce? At the end of the day for most media it's the companies that get all the money, not the artists. Therefore, fuck them, I am pirating your content not contributing to your profit margins.

I only pirate TVs/Movies. Streaming is in such a shitty state that I don't want to figure out what service is on what, and I'm certainly not going to subscribe for just one thing to watch. I feel no remorse.

I had to write a research report in university about whether or not piracy hurt or helped the recording industry.

From the research, I found multiple studies that compared brain activity of shoplifters compared to those of pirates. The area of the brain that lit up when stealing physical objects did NOT light up for those who pirated.

Digital piracy is not theft. No one is hurt except for unrealized revenue. But if someone pirates, was that even potential revenue to begin with?

It was also found that piracy allowed for greater reach of content which statistically resulted in more people attending live concerts (think of piracy as free advertisement). Concert attendance led to increase in ticket and merchandise sales.

So overall? Piracy is good. It is only bad if you ignore multiple factors and only focus on short term bottom lines. A net positive.

My justification: nobody has stopped me yet🤷

I spent a decade with streaming services, because for 10 years, it was the best, easiest way to watch what you wanted to watch. I paid a fair price, and studios got a fair cut.

When every studio decided they wanted a bigger cut by extracting more out of my pocket, they intensionally fragmented the market and made me pay an unfair price for an inferior product. They haven't innovated, done more, or produced better TV or movies, they just demand more for the same.

So, I pirate.

I agree with your friend.

If there's a media that I want to continue to exist and similar works to be made, I will buy it. Depending on how much I enjoy it I will wait for a sale or pay full price.

Do you?

Yes

Do you justify?

No

Philosophy?

Mood

Don't pay your employees a livable wage, or use creative accounting to minimise profit and therefore tax payable. don't expect money from me.

I dont have any deep philosophy. I do it because its free.

Copyright is fucking wierd and an anomaly. It has only existed very recently in all history. Part of the reason we have the works of Shakespeare is due to the fact that there was no copyright then, so taking a part of someone else's work and rehashing into something new was common and innovative. Disney do this with old folk stories, but then they get to "copyright" it? It's abhorrent. It stifles further creativity. Take that horrible weirdo TERF who wrote some wizarding shit. She would have done very nicely without copyright protection. It's not needed. So-called "piracy" is just normal behaviour. Nothing wrong with it.

My time is more valuable than money, but I still pirate. To me it's not about money but principles.
If I pay for something and still can't "own" it, I pirate.
If a generous portion of the money I pay isn't going to the rightful individuals but to our corporate overlords, I pirate.
If my internet freedom is threatened, I pirate.

If someone pirates due to lack of money and one day they have enough, I suggest keep pirating and donate to FOSS and pay to individual creators.

I pirate all media I consume and seed terabytes of pirated media every month, proudly. Fuck capitalism, that's my justification.

The last games I purchased are Dave the Diver and BG3. Those games have something in common:

1. No DLCs.
2. No DRM.
3. No external launchers.
4. Internet connection is not required to play.
5. Those games are polished, not broken and activelly supported/maintained/updated.

All other titles I simply pirate. Here are my reasons:

1. Runs like trash on day 1.
2. 60-80€ price for a buggy mess.
3. Companies usually under-deliver of what's promised.
4. Has DRM (hurts performance) or requires active internet connection (hello steam deck while I am on a plane) or has additional launcher bullshit.
5. Ubisoft usually copy/paste games (assassins creed, far cry series). I don't want to pay 80€ for a game with a new map and new skins, while everything else is literally the same mess.
6. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Regarding this:

6. Not sure if I'd like the game (for 60-80eur). Companies no longer release trials.

Once upon a time, I pirated Subnautica. Played for 10 minutes and realized "fuck it" and I bought both games. Realised that this is going to be a loooong game for me. No regrets supporting the company - those became one of my favorite games of all time.

For me, paying 20-60 eur (depending on a game) is fine and using Steam is more convenient, but in most cases - piracy is usually more convenient to me. :)

I don't justify it. I stopped caring. That's as evil as it can get, I suppose.

No, I don't, because I can afford stuff and pirating in this situation would be just pure stealing which I believe is morally wrong. Yes, being a billionaire is usually morally wrong too but I don't think it just cancels out.

Justifying piracy by saying capitalism is bad sounds like a hypocrisy to me. You want to use something that exists thanks to capitalism without participating in it. You want to eat your cake and have it too.

Now, the case is different for people that can't afford stuff, especially when they genuinely need it (but I don't draw the line at entertainment, after all people NEED entertainment too). In that case, please pirate away. Everyone deserves a decent life. In general, I largely agree with OP's friend.

I pirate to seed to y'all in need

yes

1. copyright is a deeply flawed system invented by capitalists with moronic consequences for well-intentioned artists today
2. i regularly support musicians i like through bandcamp (especially on bandcamp fridays where they get 100% of the money)
3. i usually do not pirate indie things (but remember that if your only options are piracy or “key reseller” sites, ALWAYS pirate. you are actively costing the devs money if you buy a stolen key from a reseller (and they are all stolen))
4. i’m poor and adobe can choke on my balls

I can afford to buy or subscribe to services but at this point streaming is just more annoying than pirating. With pirating I can use my favorite player (mpv), maximize video quality (high quality blu-ray rips), watch offline, no bugs or buffering, instant seeking et.c. As for games I might pirate a game before buying it but usually I just buy it since it's convenient (unless it has intrusive DRM).

I want the stuff so I get the stuff.

Sometimes I pirate media as a trial run. If a get a few chapters into a book or an hour or so into a game and decide I hate it then great, I didn't waste my money. The flip side of this is I have to be honest with myself and shell out when I feel I've gotten enough out of the media. The nice thing is that I get to draw that line for myself rather than some third party arbitrarily telling me how long my trial should last.

Do I pirate? Yes.

My philosophy? I don't wanna pay for it.

Honestly, with the exception of abandonware that can't legally be bought anywhere, piracy can't be legitimately excused. If you do it, you do it because you want something that you should pay for, but don't wanna. Which is a choice you can make, I won't hate you for it, but own that instead of pretending that you have a logical moral argument to getting it.

Yes. If I could purchase what I get from piracy (media files with no DRM that I can use as I see fit) for a reasonable price I would do so. Unfortunately this is not a thing and even the compromise of being able to stream doesn't work because all the media companies have decided they need their own services and even then not everything is available. Piracy is just way more convenient.

Back when Netflix was actually decent I actually did stop pirating tv and movies for the most part because there was enough content on there to keep me entertained. Eventually I had to unsubscribe though because it got to the point there was nothing on there I wanted to watch.

Every company that owns media or copy protected information has one goal. To bleed consumers dry of as much money as possible. They lobby governments against our interests, track our data, and destroy the integrity of the product that they are selling to accomplish this.

For everything that I am interested in, I seek the best experience. I want the media I consume to be available, convenient, and unaltered. If I can pay a reasonable fee for that then I will. If not then I will seek other means. I am tired of corporations fighting to change culture and expectations to be "more profitable" rather than delivering a product that consumers actually want. I will continue to vote with my dollars (or lack there of) until this practice changes (which will likely be never).

I don't pirate, but generally, I don't pay for digital goods either. I'm mostly not a fan of how digital goods are tied to corporate platforms, which could disappear or make changes I don't enjoy. For some digital goods, you can fully download them and back them up to a hard-drive, but I just don't care enough to do that, when I can use FOSS software and Creative Commons songs, e-books etc..

My piracy preference revolves around that convinience tops all. Spotify has all the music I listen to, so I subscribe to it. Netflix doesn't have the shows I want to watch, so I make a Jellyfin server that auto downloads all the stuff I'm planning to watch. Steam has most of the games I would want without much restrictions, so I buy games there. I want no interruptions from the content I want to use, and stuff like ads, content unavailability, geoblocks are a big no for me.

I pirate when it's literally less effort than buying. This mostly applies to E-books. Also I pirate a lot of shows and movies because fuck subscribing to 10 different streaming services.

So my philosophy is: If I couldn't pirate this, would I ignore it or buy it? If it's the latter I buy it, if it's the former I pirate it. Basically if the creator (or distributor or whatever) isn't gonna benefit either way might as well enjoy it. I also exclusively pirate anime because the way streaming currently works is a mess.

Yes. Yes, because I fucking can. And if I love a movie so much I want to own it, I buy the bluray, no I don’t that’s a lie

If I didn't pirate everything, I wouldn't buy it anyway because I don't have money.
I do not purchase any digital content.
If I like some movies enough, I will purchase them on DVD. I like to have something physical.
I'd do likewise with games, if I played any. If it's just download, I am not purchasing it. If it comes on disc/cartridge, sure.

Exception to this is FOSS. FOSS is almost always free in cost, but if possible, I'll donate on it. It is the only digital content I am willing to pay for. That is because it has the chance to benefit other projects. And if I'll ever learn programming, potentially even some of my own.

For TV shows, I am just fed up with stuff not being available in my country. If you don’t want to sell it to me, I’m not going to pay. Or all the studios having their own streaming services. I pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime. Those were supposed to be the new Blockbuster kind of thing, if you want to fragment the market so much that I’d be paying close to a hundred dollars then it’s simply not something I’d could buy anyway. So if I’m not able to afford it I can just pirate, no customer lost. Also, because it’s fucking easy and often more convenient than streaming services.

Stealing means taking something wrongfully from someone else. Piracy doesn't take anything.

Plus, money can go to better causes than exploitative movie studios.

I buy stuff to support authors/artists that I like, and my dollar goes further if I keep as much money as possible out of corporate hands. Oh and if any scum bag puts ads in something I already paid them for I am pirating and seeding the torrents.

For me, it's simple. I generally stick to A/V media for any of the Linux ISOs I download.

It simply comes down to this: is there a simple, and affordable way for me to watch what I want? If so, do it.

For music, I just have a subscription to my music service of choice. For me that's YouTube music (formerly Google Play music); but it could just as easily be apple music or Spotify or tidal.... they all have 99% of all music, so the provider I go with will service all my needs for less than $20/mo. With ytm, I can also share the service with family, without really any additional cost. Within limits, of course.

For TV/movies, everything is splintered between more than a handful of services, each charging ~$15/mo or more. So to get access to everything, I would need to pay more than $100/mo.

Yo ho ho me maties. That's not simple, nor cheap. Yarrrr.

Give me a single website to go to, that gives me a single reasonable fee that I can then access everything on paramount+, HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+.... (You get the idea)... and I'll hang up my hat for good. Since that's never going to happen, I'll just be over here, sharpening my hook.

I'm very casual for a pirate.

If I can't afford it or I believe it's ridiculously overpriced (cough, adobe cough cough), or if I am against some stupid client that phones home and sucks resources (again cough cough adob..) then I'll pirate it.

If I can't purchase it because it's nowhere available for sale, say, some 90s series in such and such language- pirate.

Finally, if I'm curious about something but not feeling comitted, I'll pirate first then see if I buy.

I don't justify any of this. I just do.

When Netflix went viral, things were nice, all the content I wanted to watch was pretty much there, for an affordable price.

Then it all went to shit with geolocking and everyone having their shitty streaming service.

I liked how on Netflix you could initially change language and subtitles, then for some pretty fucking stupid reason they decided to remove languages and subtitles, so I went back to the bay.

Regarding games, it's pretty messed up how Mexico is the most expensive country in the world to buy games, steam normally increases the price up to 75% more than the base price.

Just for context, in my state the average monthly personal income is around $7k MXN which is around $400 USD

Starfield premium edition was being sold for $135 USD. Imagine paying more than a third of your monthly income just to play a bugged ass Bethesda game.

I pirate shows/movies, and books by big name rich authors, or dead authors.

I’m not going to lie to myself to justify it. I know what it is. I’ve known what it is since my dial up days.

It's super interesting to me that piracy is generally considered immoral, but going to the library is considered pious. Obviously there's some differences with these things... But in general I find it incredibly frustrating and depressing that we have developed the tools to copy and share information pretty much instantaneously across the globe and that we have decided that this is a bad thing instead of a miracle. Obviously I still want people to be able to make things and make a living, but I wish we could find a better way to do this while providing access to more people. We can have kick-ass libraries with modern technology, but it's stunted for legal and capitalistic reasons... I'm not saying I have all of the answers, but I wish more people could at least recognize that as a shame.

I get almost all literature for my papers from libgen and scihub. I even have access to a lot or journals through my uni's VPN, but it's just much simpler and quicker to use the open seas.

My justification is that a) scientific journal publishers are evil and a scourge on humankind, and b) on average, I only need like 1% of the info in such literature, so I would never buy it anyway, which means that me pirating it doesn't affect sales in any way.

I just want a service that's better than Netflix/Amazon/Disney/Spotify can offer. I want all my media in one place. I want access to it even if the internet is down. Segmentation of media across all the platforms is bullshit and it drives me wild. I'm getting less than what I paid for when Netflix was the only game in town. It's worse and less than what it used to, so why bother paying them.

I pirate everything I consume.

I do believe artists should be paid for what they create, so I still purchase music even if I've already pirated it. The artists get more money from me than they would have if I just streamed on Spotify. I think it's a win-win for me and the artists.

I pirate mostly out of convenience, I just want access to whatever media I'm interested in and if there's a subscription wall between it and me, then more often than not it's just easier for me to pirate it than bothering to pay for it

I live in a country where the government doesn't really care about piracy so I pirated a lot of things in my life.

Before the whole "streaming wars" I actually stopped pirating shoes and movies because Netflix was much more convenient. But nowadays every service has 1 or 2 things that I want to watch or sometimes it just gets removed from the platform so pirating became more convenient somehow.

Books on the other hand are kinda different. I prefer physical books but I live in a non English speaking country so when a new book comes out and I want to read it I have two choices either hope that some publisher translates it even then the translation sucks most of the time or just pirate it.

I don't pirate indie games. Other games depends on the company.

If unemployed: Pirate EVERYTHING.

If employed: Pirate EVERYTHING (excluding: indie games)

I only "pirate" stuff that isn't being sold by a rights-holder at the current time.

There's a stunning amount of stuff out there (like really old games that have now-defunct devs and publishers, for example) that isn't being offered first-hand for sale any longer.

Morally, I think it's our duty to use and preserve such things, so that they aren't lost to time. Some may say that it's technically piracy, but... I really don't see it that way.

I used to pirate everything when I had no money. Now that I have money I buy games - including everything I ever pirated - and I pay for a few other subscription services that are worth or nearly worth their price. I pirate anything else.

The antifeature of DRM anyone? Wanting open source that you can keep running, up to date and secure, as long as you want?

I pay for free stuff (FOSS services etc), and pirate paid stuff. Feel right somehow, can't explain why exactly.

Because streaming services are either slow at releasing new episode or the service isn't available at my region. (Restrictions they put themselves, not my countries government)

They don't want my money :(

I can't find any logically consistent way too label piracy as immoral. It doesn't remove the original and it's just creating virtually free copies. It's the definition of a victimless crime.

The fact that you're hypothetically removing profit from the creator only becomes a moral issue if that loss of profit is A) guaranteed, that is, the recipient of the free copy would definitely have paid for it otherwise, and B) is significant enough to impact their life negatively. And the latter happening is much more an indictment of the system that demands people justify their existence through the extraction of profit than it is of the consumers who are just copying a few bytes.

The idea of paying more than a few cents for any digital media is frankly absurd. It's highway robbery that we're paying the same amount to rent a copy of a movie as to buy a pound of meat or a gallon of gas. It's 99% just blatant price gouging.

my philosophy is that it's 1s and 0s and it's harming absolutely nothing.

companies push malignant restrictions all the time, geolocking being one of the grossest, drm, the no-screenshot thing, price increases, random rights bullshit, etc. pirating is simply better. better than buying the disc, even! [special features aside], you just get the file, no fuss, no case to put somewhere, no annoying menus, etc. unlike vinyl, having the disc doesn't really enhance the experience as much, i find.

I pirate music to archive it. I use youtube revanced to listen to music but the songs just disappear from my playlists with no way to know what dissapeared, spotify is nice but I still like to keep my music locally.

I pirate movies to also keep them, I don't have a DVD player so paying just for digital copies where ownership is questionable seems not worth it. Better to pirate and have it forever then to buy it and lose is it due to changes in policy or regional blocking. Streaming services are just not worth it, small roster of movies so you have to use different services for each movie. So simply not even worth the hassle

I pirate most book, finding books I want in English is not possible and the best alternative is amazon which I'd rather not feed money.

For games I have basic rules:

1. Indie games are mostly offlimits, I'd rather support the studio (I might pirate indie games to see if I like them, since most don't have demos but I would buy them if I liked them)

2. Pirating bigger games I look at the developer and publisher. I pirate games made or published by companies I don't like, for examle: EA (generally disliked for squeezing every ounce of profit out of games, too many micro-transactions) or blizzard/activion(Sexual harassment allegations, corporate greed). No need to support such companies just take what they make while they're here.

Publishers can also ruin games, look at how deep silver betrayed metro fans and signed and exclusive contract with epic last minute.

As lord Gaben did say, piracy is just an issue of convenience but I would like to also add the factor of security of keeping them.

I think copyrights are a heresy, a cancer for humanity. So I don't care about pirating.

But I don't pirate much these days because it became more difficult with torrent and I can easily pay for video games and support the studios I like.

Most of the time, I view piracy as a last resort. I'll try to legally obtain it, but there are circumstances when I do sail the seas:

1. Textbooks. This is a all around greedy industry preying on poor college students like me that barely pays the actual authors. They don't deserve my money, and I don't have much of it anyways.

2. Video games/books I already own. I already paid for it, so it's justifies to me.

3. Old video games that don't have a real platform that I emulate. I understand that I shouldn't pirate a 2021 video game, but a 2001 video game that I can't legally buy on PC/phone is a different matter.

4. Aforementioned skimming through books. I might buy it after doing that.

5. Music. Why? Half the stuff I listen to isn't even on Spotify or other streaming platforms. Additionally, I can manage my own library, listen offline without having to follow the whims of a streaming app, and even change the pitch and speed of the music!

If I don't have access to a paid version of it, I'll pirate it. It's not like you're losing a potential sale if I literally can't give you my money.

If I disagree with the ethics/philosophy of a company (i.e. Disney) I'll pirate it. They may make good movies but I'll not support them financially.

If it's too damn difficult to find an accessible version of it, I'll pirate it. I'm fine with paying for shit, but not spending an hour of my free time just trying to give you my money.

I never pirated much, then I pretty much stopped when online services became usable and cost effective.

Now I really feel the urge to go back to pirating, services have become extremely fragmented and difficult to use. There are less shows/movies available than ever. And the cost is sky rocketing.

1. Yeah, sometimes.

2. I justify it if it's me getting free stuff from rich and greedy game dev companies, publishers, streaming services, large record companies, etcetera. They were never going to see my money anyways, so it's not like they are losing any money (despite the fact they claim that they lose money from people who were never gonna buy their products in the first place).

3. Again, they were never gonna see my money, so why should I care so long as I don't get caught? Hell, even if piracy somehow became impossible, they'd still never see my money. With music, it's more complicated since I usually just download songs off of YT to listen to on my phone or desktop.

Though, I will say that I will never buy into music streaming since I cannot say with certainty that whoever I'm listening to will get even a percent of a percent of a penny off me listening, while the service gets pretty much 100% of the profit and leaves the artists in the dust.

Yes, I mostly pirate anime and some live action. I was saddened by the closure of RARBG, I used to torrent from there daily. Nowadays I mostly use Nyaa and 1337x, Nyaa for anime and 1337x for live action and other animation. I pay for Spotify premium, YT Premium, and Amazon Prime. I use Steam to purchase video games.

Piracy via torrenting is my preferred way for watching series or movies, I just want the mkv files, I don't care for the BD menus, UI, bloopers & extras, buffering, etc. I remember trying Netflix a few years back and noticed that some content wasn't available for offline viewing. I also don't have to worry about things like licenses expiring meaning the streaming service no longer has the right to have it in their catalog or the drm in Blu-ray discs.

I think piracy exists in a gray area like "illicit" drugs among other things and labeling or moralizing it as either good or bad paints it with a broad brush traps and confines it to a dichotomy that we really should look beyond. Heck, even services like Crunchyroll and Napster(Rhapsody) started off as piracy sites before they legitimized. Piracy also has benefits like preserving content from being lost due to it being out of print or licensing issues that limit sale or access. Old games can be played again by using emulators and roms.

Personally, I've become more technologically literate through piracy. I started off with apps like PopcornTime and sites like Kissanime, 9anime, and Putlocker. I used to exclusively stream or use direct downloads until I discovered torrenting. I used to use UTorrent until I discovered Fosshub and Qbitorrent. Most of content I've torrented I've yet to watch so I'm more of a data hoarder. I have multiple external hard drives filled with data. I don't thinking purchasing would've made me more likely to watch the content I've watched as I've purchased many physical books that I have yet to read.

Imo the term piracy means the unauthorized tampering/modification, access, and distribution of a product or service. That also poses the question whether or not consumers actually own what they buy. Piracy fights back against anti-consumer practices such as DRM which has been around since 1983. Also I'd say that corpos have gone way overboard with their anti-piracy measures when they can prosecute and extradite individuals.

I'll end with this video, "Why We Should Get Rid Of Intellectual Property.

I justify it for these massive companies that have been making record profits for years, while the common person is struggling with energy crises, fuel price increases, lack of housing. And these Hollywood exces are chilling in their mansions and yachts.

I don't pirate games though, as I like them in my library, and they're not tied to a subscription or a shitty company like Amazon.

I pay for things that are more convenient than piracy. Namely games and music.

EBooks and audiobooks are too expensive, the multitude of video services too inconvenient.

My actions sometimes result in massive corporations not maximizing their potential profit. I'm fine with it, capitalism gets all my money anyway.

Gabe newell once said “piracy is not a problem of price its a problem of service" after people kept pirating valve game titles. So he made sales more frequent and games cheaper. Piracy is usually frowned upon but it also teaches businesses what the customers don't like. AE like with adobe and there photo shop suite aswell as the newer unity game engine dispute. As a consumer I have no problem paying for a service unless it is inherently difficult to cancel as discussed by Louis rossman in mulitible videos aswell as company's nickle and diming the consumer.

I pirate because i want to own something. For example, if i buy a physical book or cd, its mine forever. i can make digital copies for myself to archive or enjoy on different devices, this is legal. if i pay the same price for a digital copy, i am buying the temporary privilege of enjoying the media in the format that they specify for thw time period that the seller has a license to distribute, before i understood this, i spent good money on digital goods that just went away, furthermore, i had bought books and tapes and cds that were destroyed by time, rain, a flood, etc. i feel i am just exercising my rights and getting what i am entitled to. and fuck the big companies that shit on the actual producers to make money copying bits and bytes.

I download ebooks that I already own the physical copy of. I pay for 4 (yes 4) streaming services. if a movie i want isnt on any of them, high seas. a few years ago things were better and i almost never had that situation come up, now it seems its every other movie either isnt on anything or on some niche service

Streaming sucks at the moment so I pirate TV and movies. I've recently pirated a few books but that's mainly because it hadn't even occurred to me that I could until recently. I'm not a big reader.

I don't really care about the ethics of it. I used to pirate music in my teens but now we have things like iTunes and Spotify and I don't feel any reason to now. If TV and movies get back to that, I'll stop pirating that too.

For me it's just convenience and saving a bit of money not having 18 subscriptions.

As a fledgeling author, I could only be so lucky and actually get my poor excuse for work pirated: free publicity and a sure way to reach another potential reader market public.

My opinion on piracy is extremely dependent on what is being pirated.

Pirating a game published by EA, made by a studio that hasn't existed for twenty years? Go right ahead, the people that made the game won't see any money either way and EA fucked them over anyway.

Pirating a new game from an indie studio that is asking a fair price? Yeah that isn't cool imo.

I believe all information should be free. Be it of cultural or academic importance no one deserves to be left out because capitalism screwed them. If the system cannot adequately compensate the people that make they should change the system or stop making the thing. I make my pirating decisions with that in mind. The vast majority of movies and tv I would rather not exist than exist only for the rich so I pirate it.

Personally, I've been boycotting plenty of things during the years because of the crusade against piracy. If Big Media is spending so much effort into ensuring that people that can't pay don't have access to their works, then fine, I'll boycott those works just to prove their actual point - that what they want is to earn more money, not to have their artwork locked in a box due to lack of buyers.

In this post they asked what one considers ethical piracy, and this is how I commented:

Calling it ethical is a higher bar than calling it ethically acceptable. Ethically acceptable is a higher bar than practically acceptable.

If you are factually incapable of getting it otherwise, it is ethically acceptable. If, at the same time, you need the material, it is ethical.

Without the need and unavailability or unavailability, I would always be careful about calling it ethical - I would not call it ethical.

In those cases it is at least subjective and a weighing of various morals, costs, need or desire, and practicality. (By pirating you are a beneficiary without supporting the thing - which one should at least be aware of and weigh.)

I often don't consume what I don't deem a reasonable price for a reasonable offering. I occasionally (or maybe rarely?) buy music on Bandcamp because I can download and own it in high quality. For movies and series, there is no such thing, which is a requirement for me to pay. So I don't buy or rent individual movies and series at all. (Bundled streaming can be a reasonable offering. It's not about individual products then.) Overall I buy videogames for reasonable prices, to a higher degree than I play (or even can play) them. When it's a good or great price for something that interests me, looks good, and I want to support, I buy it. Software has many free and open source software available - so I don't see a need to anything in that regard.

Copying is not theft. Stealing a thing leaves one less left. Copying it makes one thing more; that’s what copying’s for. Copying is not theft. If I copy yours you have it too. One for me and one for you. That’s what copies can do. If I steal your bicycle you have to take the bus, but if I just copy it there’s one for each of us! Making more of a thing, that is what we call “copying”. Sharing ideas with everyone. That’s why copying is FUN!

There is no such thing as piracy (in this context). No such thing as "intellectual property". There are only copyright, trademark, and patent. And I violate them like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

Yes I pirate everything.

I don't really understand the justification question. What is there to be justified? I'm not hurting or harming anyone.

Supporting content creators by paying for access is just idiocy.

It's a bit like disabling your ad blocker to pay content creators by viewing ads - happy to let idiots do that on my behalf.

I pirate when getting a copy of something is otherwise too inconvenient and/or ridiculously overpriced and I REALLY need to watch it. I used to pirate basically everything. Nowadays very often I will wait for and then rent a movie on iTunes because that is the most convenient way and the price is fine. My FOMO is not as strong anymore. I also rarely watch any series that is not on a streaming service.

I pay for all the cable channels, netflix, hulu, d+. I had HBO Max before they started doing whatever it is they're doing. At this monthly cost, I should have access to everything that existed 6 months ago and older. The fact that they can't sort out all greed and multi-million dollar media exec paychecks is none of my concern. If I were to keep copies of everything that I like, I find it REALLY hard to feel bad about that.

I used to Pirate everything when I didn't have any money, once I started making some money I pirated the things that I didn't want to afford quite yet, these days I only pirate on occasion for testing things out before I buy them

I pirate movies because they split content into multiple streaming service with separate prices. And some of those are not available in my area.

I pay for music streaming because the service is easy, wherever you go, the content is almost the same, so you won't miss any content or if any it's minimal. It will just go down to what service preference you would like.

I pirated console games in the past before digital, because some of the games were not available in our area. Now it's easy to purchase so I wait for a sale and purchase.

I buy knockoff items if it's cheap and unimportant. I buy legit items if it's important and I need quality and after sales support.

Media in English language are either inaccessible or overpriced while translations vary in quality. I'm also a little fan of how individuals in seed-peer networks keep content alive just for the sake of it. I don't see how piracy hurts artists as much as it's said to.

Games, no. Honestly, my limit at this stage of life is time and energy to play them. As a kid, I'd have boxes of pirate floppies and CDs.

I have Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime subscriptions. All three have taken a quality nosedive. Amazon shoves ads in, Disney gets little added apart from it's own releases, and Netflix struggles to get anything before the others.

I've recently started using the streaming pirate sites just because there's more choice. Not just for new movies, but things like Children of the Corn, or Timecop. Older stuff that really should be on one of those three services, but isn't.

It's become a service problem. Everyone wants to run their own streaming service, nobody really has the content to justify it, it's now even more fragmented than cable and satellite were.

They need to take a hint from the music industry. Every service there has just about everything.

So let's say you want to buy a painting for your house. You've got a few options. You can go online, look at various items and choose to buy it. You could go to a gallery, look around and decide to buy whichever one suits you.

But crucially, you get to what you're buying before you commit to the ownership. You may not own the rights to the paintings (its probably a print), but you know what you're getting. Why would I pay for a movie if I don't know whether or not it's worth it.

Netflix, Hulu, amazon, etc. Are like galleries. They have an entrance fee and that's ok. But what most of them don't have anyway for me to actually buy a copy. Netflix movies require you to pay month over month to maintain access. So you are forever required to go to their gallery.

Like your friend, I'll pirate to watch a movie and if I like it, then I'll buy it. I try to buy physical discs, but they are becoming more and more rare. I pirate because I want ownership. Subscription models work because they are more convenient than physical purchases. But that convience is getting smaller every day.

There is a few reasons why I want physical copies. License deals expire and thus the content may disappear from the service it's on. My internet may be out. Yes, I can download, but that requires inconvenient forethought and you're always limited in the number of downloads and quality of those downloads. Having a large collection of movies in my home means I'm never without option.

Basically, I pirate because I'm not going to buy something that I don't know if I want it, and because I'm a doomsday prepper who has no other option 90% of the time.

I pirate what I can't get by reasonable means within my boundaries.

I pay for three streaming providers constantly. If the one series I want to watch is on a fourth provider, they can fuck off and I'll just download it. Same if the offering gets moved out of a provider I use (because their license expired or whatever).

Games I typically don't pirate, since Steam is just too damn convenient. Epic Exclusives though... well, if possible I just avoid them.

Most books can be bought via Kindle store so that's also convenient and I just do that.

Music is basically close to equal on all streaming providers so I am mostly good with that. If something isn't I either buy them on beatport or just rip them off youtube (so pirate).

I basically live GabeN's theory: piracy is a service problem. Give to me without having to bend over and I gladly pay. Try to fuck with me and I shrug my shoulders and go elsewhere.

Intellectual property isn't real, it's a self-contradicting concept. Thus, it is impossible to steal it, just like it's impossible to poach a unicorn. If you had the magical ability to point to an object and clone it, that wouldn't be stealing either.

I only pirate things from large corpos. I don't pirate stuff from indie developers or small artists. I usually buy some merch from them too so they get some extra money, I try hard to support the little folks.

There are rare times where I feel that big time developers deserve my money, like No Man's Sky. Indie devs that made it huge, screwed their fans when the game dropped initially, but have redeemed themselves fully by being honest, transparent, and providing incredible value since their flop to their customers.

I bought their game even though I don't really play it, just to show my support of a game Dev studio that truly cares about their players and product.

TL;DR support the small-time folks, screw the corpos.

Convenience and lack of ads

I pirate ebooks, especially textbooks, when I can't get something through my library. I don't watch enough television to bother pirating shows and movies. With video games, the circumstances that would make pirating a game worth it rarely come up for me; pirating games means losing out on updates and bug fixes, multiplayer, Steam cloud saves, and more. For new games, not getting bug fixes and updates makes my experience worse, and older games usually go on sale for cheap enough that I might as well buy it

I never pirate games from indies or smaller publishers, but from the likes of EA, Activision, Take Two, etc? Since they're always going to use, abuse and discard their workforce so they can keep giving the C suite their multi-million dollar annual bonuses, I will pirate their shit without an ounce of remorse.

With music, I never pirate simply because it's more convenient to stream the music at a reasonable price. If there's an artist or album I really love, I will buy it and/or some merch to support the artist directly.

My rule of thumb is this: if I perceive that the IP I want, was created by an individual who must have spent their blood sweat and tears creating it, I'll pay for it to encourage that work. If, on the other hand I'm being made to pay extra for something just because there's a queue of corporations that just want to profit for providing something made by others, I pirate it as a form of protest. As an example, I'll gladly pay for an ebook being distributed through an author's website even if I'm not sure I'm going to like it. But I will not pay for a cable subscription just to be able to watch sports programs. Another example: I've paid money for mobile games when I see a lot of effort being spent in making the gameplay engaging, but I will delete or try to cheat or pirate games that I perceive as pay-to-win.

I pirate content that is not in print within my region. Fan subs of Japanese TV shows, emulated games for discontinued consoles, things like that.

Not at all. This is not a moral judgement about anyone else. Just answering the question.

I guess I've reached a point in my life where I can easily afford to buy something if I want it, especially in the price range of a video game or book. I used to do all that stuff, not to get back at the man, but because it was the only option that was accessible. Eventually the hassle factor of piracy kept going up while just paying for it became an accessible choice.

My friend only pirates 80€ games to try them out before buying.

If I have legally purchased content or an application, and that content or application is no longer available for some reason, then I feel justified pirating.

A game that requires an online connection but the company took down the servers and won't release the code for example.

There is no legitimate way for me to use the thing I already bought.

Other than that, I'm just too lazy to do it any more.

When I was young and poor, there was various software I did pirate, but now days there is nothing I need that the company won't pay for.

It's the ease of use for me. Arrs + usenet + plex is an unbeatable combo.

Not much thought goes into it. I've never bought a copy of windows in twenty years of using it because they don't need the money. I buy small pieces of specialist software from small and independent developers. I've got a streaming video service but if it doesn't have the thing I want to watch I find it online.

It's capitalism, the free market at work.

I still buy physical media every now and then as gifts or to collect, but generally it just doesn't make sense to pay for data that can be freely and easily copied. I need that money for things that aren't freely and easily copied.

I do not pirate. I occasionally like to go out to sea, but I feel like spending long stretches of time out there would suck. I'd get sunburnt, I would eat like shit, my ship would probably not have decent internet access... like, there are so many cons, and I probably would make less money doing that than I am as an attorney. Not a great career path.

I do download movies I want to watch if I can't find them streaming. But I don't do anything that I'd call "piracy."

Yes, I pirate. But I don't justify it. 🤷‍♂️

I'll pirate anything I have owned but for various reasons I now can only license so all my old games I bought I'll have ROMs of as well as albums whose labels no longer exist or are not in circulation such as obscure Punk tracks.

1. It's copying and not stealing, and honestly current copyright law is stupid and broken
2. Decreasing the profits of big corporations like Hollywood movie studios is not immoral and shouldn't be illegal
3. There are some shows or movies I can't find in my country legally
4. With increased competition in the streaming market, it costs as much as a cable subscription to get all the content I used to be able to get from one streaming service

Tv and movies: streaming services have buggy and badly developed apps, random connection issues and sometimes shitty quality because of browsers DRM madness (looking at you Prime Video). Regular televion has too much ads. If I want to see something comfortably sometimes it's just better to browse your folder of .mp4, in full quality and with no interruptions.

Games: either 2000s era games you literally cannot buy anymore or games that keep releasing broken and unfinished remasters and enhanced versions and that pump up so many DLCs you would end up broke to have a somewhat complete experience. Or games you can buy but with the original price and that are more maintaned by the community than the developers (looking at you 25€+DLC codMW2 full of hackers with iw4x servers working perfctly)

If you're gonna do it, do it, but don't pretend like you're morally right in doing it. For the vast majority of us, we're pirating something we don't need but something we want. Is it hard to acquire? Does it come tied to annoying subscriptions? Does it come from a company you don't like? Is it too expensive? None of these are valid reasons to pirate something because you could just as well enjoy other media that are available to you. Or if you are out of accessible media to you, you could just not enjoy media. Be bored. You're not entitled to access to the things you're pirating.

Don't get me wrong, I understand you, and I empathize. I pirate too, when something I want falls under the conditions I listed above, but I'm under no illusion that it's ethical in some way. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism? Well there's no ethical piracy either. People put work into something and if you use it, you should pay what they ask for it.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, because no one wants to be the bad guy. Pirate if you want to pirate, your reasons are yours, but be honest about it. You pirated something because you wanted it, and you didn't want to not get it, and you didn't want to pay the entry price either. It is what it is.

I live outside the US market. As a rule I'll pay for whatever content is legally available in my country (netflix, disney+, steam etc) however there are certain publishers and/or content which is simply not offered through any channel. At that point they aren't going to see $ from me in any case, so I may as well pirate.

I pirate old stuff and overpriced stuff permanently. I refuse to pay an ebay seller $200 for an old GameCube game and I refuse to pay $700 dollars for all the Sims 4 dlc. You may also catch me pirating movies and shows as I strongly dislike subscription models.

I don’t pirate anymore, it’s more convenient for me to purchase in most cases, but I fully support the right of anyone to pirate anything, and in the few cases where I can’t find what I’m looking for I have no qualms with trying to pirate it. P2P file sharing is honestly the coolest part about the entire internet. Social Media, Web 2.0, it’s all mediocre compared to the absolute wonder that is p2p file sharing. Lemmy and other decentralized non-crypto web 3 projects are the first time I’ve been excited about the internet since I discovered p2p 20 or so years ago, and it’s because it feels like an evolution in peer to peer community. I hope one day we don’t have to rely on centralized servers too because p2p finds a way to have paper light websites run distributed across everyone’s devices.

i enjoy stealing

Yes, I pirate, and I pirate alot. Games, books, shows, software, I do it all. But I also buy stuff, mainly games, occasionally books. I'm am not in a position where I have the sort of money to buy everything I want.

My piracy philosophy is mainly to almost always pirate it first. If I like the game enough, I'll buy the game when I have the money. I have done this alot, A Hat in Time, Hollow Knight, and recently Baldurs Gate 3.

With books it's alot more difficult, as they tend to be alot more expensive than games, especially for the series I read. (Manga and Light Novels). As there will fairly often be around 30$ per volume where I live, and close to 12 volumes total. And that's if you can even buy them in the country, or if they have even been translated officially, which if they haven't, then piracy is your only choice to read it.

Regarding shows, I basically only watch Anime, and the only way to really stream Anime is crunchyroll, which region locks alot of the shows, gives hardly any money back to the actual creators of the shows, then uses the money they get to make awful shows. Pirating anime is realistically the only way to enjoy it hassle free.

For software, everything is license based now, I'm willing to do one off purchases at a reasonable price (something like steam wallpaper engine), but I hate recurring fees. I pirate software like photoshop.

Ultimately piracy isn't really as bad as people tend to think it is, it's largely just people enjoying the stuff that they would never have been able to pay to enjoy anyway. It's especially good for people with less disposable income in helping them find where they can spend the money on things they enjoy, such as with me with the games I mentioned earlier.

I don't pirate because I'm an adult who makes money and respects creators.

I regularly advocate for shows I pirate so I’m a walking ad for shows.

Just big companies and because they will screw people over for a profit.

Something fun I listened to today about tpb and free access to information/cultural peices of art. Kinda.. https://youtu.be/eFQFW5JgUjE?si=50BXG19ey8pVEYfv

I pay for music because it is easy. I don't pay for video because there is no avenue like spotify for video

I started pirating because it was the default for me. I was a young child and I had access to the family computer I had no money so I learned how to pirate before I learned how to buy games also piracy is real popular in my country because its poor af. Later on I became political and relized mega corps didn't need my money, lots of other people were throwing their money into these bottomless pits anyway. About indie games I try to buy them but since I now am a teenager with no money and in a lot poorer country I tend to pirate them anyway even though its wrong

Everything not physical that can be pirated should be pirated.

You have better thing to do with your money.

Books exist to be lent out.

Games too at the time. Now you can't because of bullshit, so joke on them I won't pay.

Books & Music money is not going to the artists.

Movie world is full of shit and overpaid anyway.

I also don't wan't a single of my cents going to USA or US company.

If I like something so much I feel I should pay, which is rare, I find a more direct way without leeches.

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 10/15€. Fuck i would've bought a cd for each month i could spare that money.

You cannot steal what is not physical. Theft implies removing a physical object from somewhere, creating a loss of an item.

Digital information is 1s and 0s, and you just create a copy. You do not remove the original one. There is no theft taking place.

The value of a product does not go down because I didn't pay for it. If anything, if it's a quality product, the value goes up. If I pirate something and enjoy it, chances are I will pay for it when I can afford to. If I pirate something and don't enjoy it, well, I wasn't going to buy the product anyway so there's no loss. Let's say I watch a movie at a friend's house and absolutely hate it. I do not buy the movie. How is that different than pirating it and coming to the same conclusion? I see the movie without paying money.

If its region locked i pirate it. I just cant be bothered to look for a vpn that's not blocked by this site. Alao if site is a shit i pirate it ,in my case crunchyroll . I really tried using it but Its just not working with my shitty internet and the buffer size is too small to load whole wideo while i do other stuff. YouTube and Netflix somehow works on my internet.

I need the definition of pirating since it always means something different to someone else.

If I stream movies and shows using my friends library am I pirating? What if I download a show from my friends library for later viewing for personal use, then delete it a week later since I don't need it? Let's assume my friends library was all purchased legitimatly.

Across everyone in the house, we have Hulu, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Disney/ESPN. Sailing the high seas means all the shows and movies available from those servicea can be accessed via one media server interface.

Every once in a while I log into Amazon Video to see if their interface is as hot trash as I remember. It always is.

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've been emulating for years, but the first and only game I've pirated is Starfield, because I was certain the game wasn't worth the asking price and I wasn't going to shell out $70 and risk a 2 hour time limit on the refund with a studio that's infamous for long intros.

Turns out I was right, and I've already deleted it. If at some point in the far future the modders make something good of it, I will buy it at a heavily discounted 'GOTY Starborn splappy boom blappy edition Mk VII' price.

I pirate almost all american media, movies, tv shows, games, etc because often there's no legal way to get it in my country until months after release, if at all. Which is bullshit considering it's japan, not some backwater 3rd world hell hole, so you'd think there'd be more options, but if it's not on Netflix or Disney+, you're shit outta luck.

After going through many phases of why i should and or want to pirate, i honestly just stopped giving a shit entirely about any of those and i ended with "who gives a shit, fuck em"

those that deserve my money get it directly

For me it's usually about availability. If someone suggests I try out a cool game that came out in the 80s, there's a pretty good chance piracy is the only way to play it. Sure, you can pay way too much on Ebay to get a physical copy, and I have a fair collection of retro games, but it's not like the money from Ebay sales go back to the original creators.

Same with movies. The version of Star Wars I grew up with, the one without all the digitally added stuff since the late 90s, isn't on Disney+. If Disney announced a nice blu-ray Star Wars collection that featured the copies without Jedi Rocks and the extra aliens in the cantina and whatever, I'd go out and get it. But they haven't, so I stick to the fan-made 'despecialized editions'.

I don't pirate from the little guy. I buy albums on Bandcamp and indie games on Steam all the time. I want the small creators to be able to eat. But I'm also fortunate enough to have a little disposable income. I know some people pirate as much as they can, and while I don't entirely agree with it, I don't know their financial situation (or the availability of these things in their country), so it's not really my place to judge them.

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.

If its not multiplayer, why care.

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.

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.

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.

Man, what an echo chamber of anti-corporation and anti-copyright sentiments. I pirate myself, because the services for tv/movies are not convenient, but I don't delude myself into thinking it's somehow justified. If I could get any movie or series on demand like spotify I wouldn't pirate (if I could afford it). I fail to see how anything else would be ethical to the creators of the content.

When there's no legitimate way for me to rent something. I recently downloaded Joe vs the Volcano and Counterpart because there's no streaming service that has them on offer.

Depends.

Sometimes I just can't find the actual thing by legal means. Go try listening to Bruce Woolley's version of "Video Killed The Radio Star" sometime. I can either try to hunt down a physical copy or I can just pirate it. See also: most video game soundtracks.

Usually though it's more about convenience. If I can just stream something on Spotify, I'll just do that.

If there's a movie I kinda wanna see but I'm not sure if it's going to be good I'll pirate it

I have no issue pirating:

• any content with massive profits
• any content made by a very rich entity
• any content where the artists, authors, creators, et al get a minority of the revenue (example: scientific journals, college textbooks). I always search for alternate methods of paying the artists directly if they exist.

for legal reasons, I don't pirate anything.. but a friend told me that piracy is more convenient, and that it has more benefits (like, retain 'ownership' of content without annoying DRM)

train of thought (legal): what streaming service do I need to subscribe to to watch this? okay lemme go grab my wallet and sign up for an account

train of thought (piracy): click download

if companies don't want you to pirate their media, they should make it more convenient and flexible to purchase legally. adding DRM and making things subscription-only will push more people towards piracy.

I generally pirate first and buy later if I want to support a game. I think of it as voting with my wallet.

I pirated BG3, enjoyed it even though it’s generally not the sort of game I play. Decided that I want to see more companies making games of this quality in future, so went ahead and bought it.

Same with FromSoftware games, I always buy those as I want more games like that.

Ultimately, if you never buy anything then you can’t expect companies to make the games you want.