preach

I'm amused at these statements these 'wannabe' pirates make to justify piracy. A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know or justifying it.

I know why I do it & I don't want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.

Until we live in a world where people have equal access to information and essential technology piracy is a moral imperative.

Should something which costs a few hours worth of work in the developed word cost three weeks worth of work in a less developed country, just to make a publishing company worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a few extra bucks? Of course not!

Every other argument is a moot point to me. If I hadn't pirated Photoshop and other software when I was a poor kid I wouldn't have the six figure career I have today. The ultrarich steal from us every day in more ways than I can count. Maybe when they start being held accountable I will start caring about their bottom line.

Here I am wondering why there is still a downvote button in the YouTube comments... it does nothing!

I think this logic is silly.

Employers don't own you, so witholding wages for services you provided isn't stealing. Getting a haircut and not paying isn't stealing.

I think the better justification is: rights holders make it a pain in the arse to access content affordably, so fuck you, just going to steal it.

Do we really need excuses for pirating media?

I pirate movies because I think digital access to them is overpriced, goes to the copyright holder instead of the creators, it's convenient and most importantly because I can.

I can't pirate going to the cinema, nor can I afford to build my own, therefore I gladly pay to have a seat and enjoy a movie there.

Edit: I thought this may be relevant to the movies example I gave. I don't think movie studios, giving nothing back to society after massive profits are the ones we should debate the morals of stealing with.

Can we not become subreddit by posting this shitty screenshots trying to justify our reasons? Just share your media and enjoy it.

I don't think piracy needs to be justified because different people have different reasons.

Sure you could argue that you're not actually stealing but creating/downloading a copy of something it already exist. I always found that anti piracy commercial "you wouldn't steal a car" ridiculous as that's not how piracy works.

For example, I do it because I don't agree with how segmented the video streaming industry has become in recent years with this many different services that force you to buy a bunch of subscriptions while continuosly pulling content. Unlike the music streaming industry where all the most popular content (the majority of it) can be found on pretty much every serivce. You could have Spotify or Apple Music, not much difference (if any at all) in content or quality.

When I was a teenager I did it because I couldn't afford to buy any sort of media content and options were limited. Pretty much everyone that owned an MP3 player was pirating music.

This is inaccurate. You are not buying it (the media), you are buying the right to stream it (as long as the seller provides the media as a stream). You don't "buy" a movie unless you are paying for it's ownership, which would be millions of dollars. For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM). And you generally don't have a right be able to "buy" or have access to all media.

But all that doesn't automaticly make it amoral. this comment is gonna be downvoted to hell

edit: There are probably gonna be more responces, so this will address everything else I have to say. What I wrote is how things are legally, more or less. I don't like that either. I do consider piracy stealing (under current laws) and morally right. Stealing is just not that great term for digital stuff. Please don't try to (uselessly) sway me and don't infight

I seriously don't understand the mental gymnastics here. We pirate because we'd rather get something for free than pay for it. There are certainly cases when someone is forced to pirate a product due to copyright restrictions in their country but that isn't the case most of the time for people like us who pirate. We're just selfish and there's noting wrong with admitting that.

I will accept my downvotes in advance because what I'm about to say is probably against the mindset of most of the people that come here but:

Piracy is wrong.

I say that as someone that pirates. I'm not sure why people have to justify their actions. I know what I'm doing is wrong, I know I'm taking money away from these businesses that run streaming sites, that make movies, write books(this is the one I feel worst about because this is likely taking money directly from creators). But I do it anyway because I'm cheap, I can't afford it, its easier to pirate stuff, plenty of reasons. But none of them make it morally right, and none of them make it ethically right.

When we pirate things, we're pirating entertainment. Entertainment isn't a right. You don't need this stuff to survive. Plenty of entertainment is provided for free at libraries, online with free movies and books. Hell, you can go outside, grab a stick and a rock and boom! Free entertainment. Sure, there are people that pirate things like Photoshop to get ahead in their careers or to jumpstart them, I'm not talking to those people. Adobe has done research and they know those people buy their products when they become professionals. I'm talking to the people downloading a movie and somehow morally justifying it. But when it comes down to it, you are taking something that someone paid money to make in an effort to make money off of it. In my mind, there's no justification for that. Again, I don't care that you do it, I do it too. But no one is gonna get any points in my mind for stating that somehow what you are doing is right, or that it isn't stealing because you're downloading a copy of something. How silly an argument that is. If you take something that someone else expects money for and it isn't vital to your survival, that is wrong.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I love all of you, have a great day :).

@ChatGPT@lemmings.world

What is your opinion on the following argument defending piracy, as in copyright infringement: "Piracy can't be stealing if paying for it isn't owning"

Sometimes I like to imagine what a library from a highly advanced race who have transcended the base concepts of copyright and currency in general would be like. If every person in the civilization could absorb any form of media ever made as well as knowledge formerly sequestered away behind paywalls or otherwise suppressed, just imagine what heights such a society could reach.

To be completely frank, I couldn’t care less if it’s stealing or not. They should sell their shit for cheaper if their companies care so much, which I’m not sure they really do.

This is what I’ve been saying. We don’t even own digital products, all it takes is a server to be taken down or an account to be lost and all you bought is taken away. Pirating also can’t be stealing because we aren’t taking something away from someone else, other people are not deprived of the chance to have this just because we downloaded it.

If they make it difficult or impossible to acquire through purchase (false scarcity by removal fro market) or if despite purchasing a physical object, say a car, I can't fully use it or repair it without special software I think an argument can be made for surfing the high seas.

This means GoG is the only game storefront you can actually steal from...

Major reason not to buy ebooks from amazon: you can't lend, give, exchange, sell them and you may lose all of them if you anger the right people. They are not yours, you are not buying them, you merely paid for conditioned access to them.

Our current system of copyright is flawed and only serves the interests of corporations.

This is why I only carjack rental cars, it's totally not stealing!

If as the purchaser you don't outright own the product you've purchased, then there's no reasonable argument that it's "stealing" if you pirate that product instead. At best it's copyright infringement, and they can come at me in small claims court.

Well paying for it is essentially leasing it, piracy is neither. So...

Nature wants information to be Free!

Piracy is Good:The Moral Imperative of Sharing Knowledge

check out

That's why I break into hotel rooms.

galaxy brain

Good point right there.

If a service costs money, and you take that service for free without permission it is stealing. If I rent a car I don't own it. Is it not stealing to hijack a rental car for a few hours?

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You steal because it is easier or cheaper. Thats it.

The real piracy was the friends we made on the way.

You know, there is less ethical angst over making a copy of something you can ONLY rent vs something you can buy.

However, both options are stealing under most laws!

So what does he think about renting cars? Lol, what a dumb take.

Touché.

Amen.

While I appreciate the sentiment, theft of service is a crime. You don't have to be able to own something to be able to steal it.

How does that work though if you rent a car? You don't own it, but still stealing if you "steal" it.

Heh, never thought of this argument.

Amen!

This💯

"92 minutes of applauses"

Unsure if anyone can clarify. But my understanding that simply downloading a watching isn't an issue.

Selling illegally copied content is what can cause real legal issues.

I'm uncertain of any cases of anyone getting in trouble for simply watching copied content.

Example... 1st user pirates movies or videos and uploads them to YouTube or any streaming company.

2nd User then streams or downloads them to watch them offline. I've yet to see the 2nd user in this scenario face legal consequences.

Vs

2nd User then streams or downloads content and makes money off it. Here I see the 2nd user have legal issues.

Again I'm just a regular guy going based on regular guy logic.

Absolutely amazing, let’s just hope I won’t forget about it in my next “piracy-is-moral” argument

Child logic to justify behavior. Be better than this ya’ll.

‚so would you steal a car?‘ nono.. hear me out i actually have a thesis/question.

so, if you rent a car, that you don’t own, but ‚subscibe‘ to for a certain amount of time. does that mean by following the logic of this statement, that stealing this rented car is ok? im aware that this aims at software and the non-materialness of software but still.. do i have a point here?

based af

That's why I claim ownership of every hotel room I've ever stayed in and every car I've ever rented.

I am stealing this line for future references

I have this one truck the banks don't want you to know about!

You know what, it's only 530 here but you've really made a good effort at most ignorant post of the day award.

so so true

Nonsense, paying doesn't always mean you get to own it. I would understand the excuse more if you let's say bought a game on Steam, but then Steam went away forever and you lost the game and you don't want to pay for it again. But by that time the game would be super cheap anyway... Well, unless it was now unavailable, then piracy is the only solution to actually getting it.

I have a better idea: Instead of piracy, just don't use/consume products that are exclusively distributed through shitty business models. At least when it comes to software, that's much more effective.

I would steal this argument, but if it can be reposted here for free, then I don't think anybody really owns it. 🤔

When corporations write the laws, the laws help corporation.