Piracy, in today’s context of unauthorized sharing of digital content, is wrongly condemned as immoral theft. However, it is not piracy itself that is immoral. Rather, it is the greed-driven laws and practices that censor knowledge and creative works to maximize profits. At its core, piracy is about sharing information and creative works with others, which should be seen as a moral good. 🤑
If indie creators aren’t creating content for money, they can go ahead and give their work away, nobody is stopping them…
But stealing from people who actually want to monetize on the content they created? Maybe they want to grow their business, maybe a lot of workers depend on that income, maybe the company needed that extra income to avoid closing a branch, maybe they were in debt…
Go ahead and steal, I don’t care. But don’t think highly of yourself for doing so, that’s such bullshit.
If pirating wasn’t illegal a lot of industries would die. So let’s keep it illegal and unethical, so people actually purchase the products that keep these industries alive and thriving.
I came here expecting to get tips on piracy and instead I saw a bunch of people claiming they were doing God’s work. Insane.
But stealing from people who actually want to monetize on the content they created? (…appeal to emotion…)
It’s not stealing, it’s copying data my dude. If they want to monetize on software, they can completely. SaaS exists and it’s everywhere. Me downloading a piece of software and running on my machine doesn’t actually cost them anything either. And they are not losing sales, because I would not have bought it otherwise. I dislike being forced to pirate, and would love my fellow friends not being forced to use Photoshop for example just because it’s an industry standard. It’s closed, it’s very limiting, but they can’t use Gimp due to limited collaboration possibility after, so using a pirated piece of software to convert to and from correctly just to work with it seems more than reasonable.
I came here expecting to get tips on piracy and instead I saw a bunch of people claiming they were doing God’s work. Insane.
I know it seems insane, but there are other schools of thought than the dominant capitalism model we live under. Religious communities also seem insane. For bloody sake Kopimism also exists. The problem everyone sees is that your only argument is lost sales (which is valid and correct under capitalism) and there are other points that must be acknowledged. Some may argue, they are more important than what money can measure.
Capitalism is important, never said it wasn’t. It actually gamifies our choices as producers, also helps by providing a metric of desires. The fact is people need food and it works well (we will ignore the subsidies on food production) to produce it and distribute it. The taxes works as a great tool to force you into the game. The problem pirates see, is that you can monopolize on a production of a product and ruin the game for all. For example when during a crisis someone starts selling water for 25 dollars a bottle due to being the only available provider at which point that is seen as unethical and stealing as ethical.
So with this view people see it ethical, because there are tribalisism reasons why you more or less must have consumed a piece of media in order to fit in.
So far, “fitting in” has been the worst excuse for stealing. So, can people go into an IShop and steal Iphones because they want to fit in?
Look, I don’t care if people steal. Go, do it, I’m doing it too… But pretending it isn’t wrong is such bullshit.
How is stealing anyone’s effort and hard work fine? Just because the work can be duplicated easily doesn’t mean that it didn’t take a lot of effort to produce and should be sold individually.
Imagine telling a book author that they only sold a copy because everyone agrees copying and sharing his book was fine. It took him 5 years to write it. He’d probably kill himself. Again just because something can be duplicated doesn’t mean it doesn’t take work!!!
So far, “fitting in” has been the worst excuse for stealing. So, can people go into an IShop and steal Iphones because they want to fit in?
No, stealing an object is not copying my dude. I don’t encourage stealing unless it’s a basic human right ( water/food stealing for survival is another subject for example ).
How is stealing anyone’s effort and hard work fine? Just because the work can be duplicated easily doesn’t mean that it didn’t take a lot of effort to produce and should be sold individually.
Again copying is not stealing. I’m not disregarding he should not be compensated for his work. I’m against pay walling for people who can’t afford the information. It’s needlessly cruel.
Imagine telling a book author that they only sold a copy because everyone agrees copying and sharing his book was fine. It took him 5 years to write it. He’d probably kill himself. Again just because something can be duplicated doesn’t mean it doesn’t take work!!!
Imagine me writing a new book which basically is the same book, then going full on on ads and selling way more then the first guy. Then suing the first guy for stealing my ideas (disregarding the fact it was I who stole) and getting a monopoly on it. Then imagine it becoming a staple book on which everyone in an industry must have. Is it ethical to steal from me or not?
What’s the point of your last paragraph, are you saying that only certain pirating is ethical?
Because I agree it is OK in that particular scenario, but not everywhere. But people here aren’t being this specific. And it is weird that you had to go to that specific scenario after I told you how piracy can destroy the life of a person.
The point is that there are cases that it’s okay and ethical. That was the point from the beginning.
Also that creative works are special and there should be a different way to compensate creators for them than to gate keep the poorest people from enjoying the media or getting crucial information for deepening their craft.
Streaming services are cheaper in India. Games are cheaper in India.
I’m not sure what gatekeeping you’re talking about.
Also, imagine saying a top restaurant is gatekeeping people from quality food. Well, damn, quality music is more expensive to produce!! Quality books take longer to write!! Quality movies require millions of dollars!!
If pirating wasn’t illegal a lot of industries would die. So let’s keep it illegal and unethical, so people actually purchase the products that keep these industries alive and thriving.
You fail to realize that piracy is what is actually contributing the most behind the scenes. Artists gain more from exposure than to direct purchases of their products. If piracy was illegal many musicians wouldn’t be so famous/well known because not so many people can/are willing to make a purchase in order to discover something.
Actually going to concerts and buying merch contributes to musicians much more than buying their songs for $2 on the Apple Store or whatever. Music labels and distributors keep the majority of the revenue anyway.
Also what you actually call “stealing” is actually just sharing digital data. Nobody is taking away anything from anybody. It’s not a physical good with limited availability.
The people who pirate digital products wouldn’t be buying it regardless (for whatever reason that might be, it doesn’t matter), essentially it doesn’t make any difference to the creators.
The difference between purchasing a game for example and the difference between pirating is the same as the difference between purchasing the game and NOT purchasing the game.
Let’s not even get into DRMs where they make the experience worse for paying customers by tanking game performance. Or forcing to always be online to play single player games. The list can go on and on.
Pirating in 2023 is the only ethical way of consuming media. I’m done paying greedy corporations for a ridiculously fragmented entertainment industry where an individual has to subscribe to different services just to watch different seasons of the same show because they somehow decided to remove content I wasn’t done watching. Or renting a movie on Prime Video just to find out I need to purchase a specific device to watch it in HD when my machine is more than capable of playing 4k.
The only way I’d pay for digital content again is if they provide some sort of convenience over piracy. I happily pay for my Spotify subscription because it is actually a good service, at a good price and most importantly it’s convenient! I can listen to whatever song I want from one single subscription using only one app on my phone.
I used to pay for YouTube premium, I downloaded a bunch of videos to watch offline while on a trip where I knew I didn’t have internet access only to find out that in order to watch the videos I downloaded I needed to be online in the past 3 days. So I couldn’t even watch them because of some nonsensical, anti-consumer policies.
So I downloaded a third party app that gives me premium features (and more) that allows me to actually watch videos offline.
I came here expecting to get tips on piracy and instead I saw a bunch of people claiming they were doing God’s work. Insane.
You came here looking for tips but you’re getting a reality check instead. I think it’s awesome.
I have pirated games that I would have bought if I didn’t know how to pirate it.
That, right there, counters everything you said. It is stealing because I’m not paying for something I would have payed.
Imagine getting in a concert without paying and saying “it isn’t stealing because there’s free space and the sound is shared”. Is that how you live your life?
No, I’m so sorry, your low quality response doesn’t disprove any of my points. You didn’t even try because you know you can’t.
In your case choosing to pirate = choosing not to buy. If you chose not to buy without pirating it would’ve been the same thing. You were never forced to buy anything, don’t convince yourself otherwise.
It’s been some years since I pirated stuff, but I definetely did it because I had no money and I wanted to play the games ASAP. I could have saved to buy them, but I chose to be selfish and focus on instant gratification.
Most pirates just want free content, that’s it. They want to save their money.
I’m not judging you for that, I’ve downloaded stuff because I couldn’t afford also.
There are different type of pirates all doing the same thing for different reasons, which are all very valid.
The one thing to keep in mind is that piracy is by no means “stealing”, not even close. When you pirate stuff you’re not depriving the creator or other buying customers of their products because you’re essentially just sharing/downloading a digital, replicable copy.
If anything it’s copyright infringement, we should start calling it for what it actually is.
No what’s bullshit is you coming to a place about piracy while not believing in the free exchange of media and information. It is unethical to prevent people from doing so not the other way around.
I believe in FOSS because it is voluntary effort. I don’t believe stealing from someone who doesn’t want to give their work for free is ethical.
You’re clearly borderline communist, so I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. You think everyone should work for free for you, it is your born given right to get all their effort freely, even if they don’t want to give it to you for free. Gotcha.
I am libertarian. I believe in the maximum amount of personal freedom possible. You have the right charge for something and I have the right to not pay it. And it’s not stealing it’s copyright infringement. It’s making a copy.
I don’t believe it is ethical to block other people’s happiness behnd a paywall. If you make something that could make the world a better place and then not share it, you are objectively making the world a worse place. How is that morally right?
Again, piracy is not stealing it is copyright infringement. I don’t believe ideas are property so I don’t believe in protecting them. It’s not that complicated.
Whatever world you envision, I’m glad I’m not part of it. Imagine a world in which inventors have no incentive to create because their ideas get stolen in the blink of an eye, leaving them bankrupt.
We already live in a world with copyright law and it’s a shitshow so how much worse can it be? Have fun owning nothing and being nickle and dimed by subscriptions.
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⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.
If indie creators aren’t creating content for money, they can go ahead and give their work away, nobody is stopping them…
But stealing from people who actually want to monetize on the content they created? Maybe they want to grow their business, maybe a lot of workers depend on that income, maybe the company needed that extra income to avoid closing a branch, maybe they were in debt…
Go ahead and steal, I don’t care. But don’t think highly of yourself for doing so, that’s such bullshit.
If pirating wasn’t illegal a lot of industries would die. So let’s keep it illegal and unethical, so people actually purchase the products that keep these industries alive and thriving.
I came here expecting to get tips on piracy and instead I saw a bunch of people claiming they were doing God’s work. Insane.
It’s not stealing, it’s copying data my dude. If they want to monetize on software, they can completely. SaaS exists and it’s everywhere. Me downloading a piece of software and running on my machine doesn’t actually cost them anything either. And they are not losing sales, because I would not have bought it otherwise. I dislike being forced to pirate, and would love my fellow friends not being forced to use Photoshop for example just because it’s an industry standard. It’s closed, it’s very limiting, but they can’t use Gimp due to limited collaboration possibility after, so using a pirated piece of software to convert to and from correctly just to work with it seems more than reasonable.
I know it seems insane, but there are other schools of thought than the dominant capitalism model we live under. Religious communities also seem insane. For bloody sake Kopimism also exists. The problem everyone sees is that your only argument is lost sales (which is valid and correct under capitalism) and there are other points that must be acknowledged. Some may argue, they are more important than what money can measure.
You can say capitalism is not important all you want. The fact is that people need money to feed their families.
If pirating was much more widespread, industries would die and workers would have no jobs. That’s a fact.
The only thing stopping piracy from growing are laws.
Capitalism is important, never said it wasn’t. It actually gamifies our choices as producers, also helps by providing a metric of desires. The fact is people need food and it works well (we will ignore the subsidies on food production) to produce it and distribute it. The taxes works as a great tool to force you into the game. The problem pirates see, is that you can monopolize on a production of a product and ruin the game for all. For example when during a crisis someone starts selling water for 25 dollars a bottle due to being the only available provider at which point that is seen as unethical and stealing as ethical. So with this view people see it ethical, because there are tribalisism reasons why you more or less must have consumed a piece of media in order to fit in.
So far, “fitting in” has been the worst excuse for stealing. So, can people go into an IShop and steal Iphones because they want to fit in?
Look, I don’t care if people steal. Go, do it, I’m doing it too… But pretending it isn’t wrong is such bullshit.
How is stealing anyone’s effort and hard work fine? Just because the work can be duplicated easily doesn’t mean that it didn’t take a lot of effort to produce and should be sold individually.
Imagine telling a book author that they only sold a copy because everyone agrees copying and sharing his book was fine. It took him 5 years to write it. He’d probably kill himself. Again just because something can be duplicated doesn’t mean it doesn’t take work!!!
No, stealing an object is not copying my dude. I don’t encourage stealing unless it’s a basic human right ( water/food stealing for survival is another subject for example ).
Again copying is not stealing. I’m not disregarding he should not be compensated for his work. I’m against pay walling for people who can’t afford the information. It’s needlessly cruel.
Imagine me writing a new book which basically is the same book, then going full on on ads and selling way more then the first guy. Then suing the first guy for stealing my ideas (disregarding the fact it was I who stole) and getting a monopoly on it. Then imagine it becoming a staple book on which everyone in an industry must have. Is it ethical to steal from me or not?
What’s the point of your last paragraph, are you saying that only certain pirating is ethical?
Because I agree it is OK in that particular scenario, but not everywhere. But people here aren’t being this specific. And it is weird that you had to go to that specific scenario after I told you how piracy can destroy the life of a person.
The point is that there are cases that it’s okay and ethical. That was the point from the beginning. Also that creative works are special and there should be a different way to compensate creators for them than to gate keep the poorest people from enjoying the media or getting crucial information for deepening their craft.
Streaming services are cheaper in India. Games are cheaper in India.
I’m not sure what gatekeeping you’re talking about.
Also, imagine saying a top restaurant is gatekeeping people from quality food. Well, damn, quality music is more expensive to produce!! Quality books take longer to write!! Quality movies require millions of dollars!!
You fail to realize that piracy is what is actually contributing the most behind the scenes. Artists gain more from exposure than to direct purchases of their products. If piracy was illegal many musicians wouldn’t be so famous/well known because not so many people can/are willing to make a purchase in order to discover something. Actually going to concerts and buying merch contributes to musicians much more than buying their songs for $2 on the Apple Store or whatever. Music labels and distributors keep the majority of the revenue anyway.
Also what you actually call “stealing” is actually just sharing digital data. Nobody is taking away anything from anybody. It’s not a physical good with limited availability. The people who pirate digital products wouldn’t be buying it regardless (for whatever reason that might be, it doesn’t matter), essentially it doesn’t make any difference to the creators. The difference between purchasing a game for example and the difference between pirating is the same as the difference between purchasing the game and NOT purchasing the game. Let’s not even get into DRMs where they make the experience worse for paying customers by tanking game performance. Or forcing to always be online to play single player games. The list can go on and on.
Pirating in 2023 is the only ethical way of consuming media. I’m done paying greedy corporations for a ridiculously fragmented entertainment industry where an individual has to subscribe to different services just to watch different seasons of the same show because they somehow decided to remove content I wasn’t done watching. Or renting a movie on Prime Video just to find out I need to purchase a specific device to watch it in HD when my machine is more than capable of playing 4k.
The only way I’d pay for digital content again is if they provide some sort of convenience over piracy. I happily pay for my Spotify subscription because it is actually a good service, at a good price and most importantly it’s convenient! I can listen to whatever song I want from one single subscription using only one app on my phone.
I used to pay for YouTube premium, I downloaded a bunch of videos to watch offline while on a trip where I knew I didn’t have internet access only to find out that in order to watch the videos I downloaded I needed to be online in the past 3 days. So I couldn’t even watch them because of some nonsensical, anti-consumer policies. So I downloaded a third party app that gives me premium features (and more) that allows me to actually watch videos offline.
You came here looking for tips but you’re getting a reality check instead. I think it’s awesome.
I have pirated games that I would have bought if I didn’t know how to pirate it.
That, right there, counters everything you said. It is stealing because I’m not paying for something I would have payed.
Imagine getting in a concert without paying and saying “it isn’t stealing because there’s free space and the sound is shared”. Is that how you live your life?
No, I’m so sorry, your low quality response doesn’t disprove any of my points. You didn’t even try because you know you can’t.
In your case choosing to pirate = choosing not to buy. If you chose not to buy without pirating it would’ve been the same thing. You were never forced to buy anything, don’t convince yourself otherwise.
Are you telling me how I think?
It’s been some years since I pirated stuff, but I definetely did it because I had no money and I wanted to play the games ASAP. I could have saved to buy them, but I chose to be selfish and focus on instant gratification.
Most pirates just want free content, that’s it. They want to save their money.
I’m not judging you for that, I’ve downloaded stuff because I couldn’t afford also.
There are different type of pirates all doing the same thing for different reasons, which are all very valid.
The one thing to keep in mind is that piracy is by no means “stealing”, not even close. When you pirate stuff you’re not depriving the creator or other buying customers of their products because you’re essentially just sharing/downloading a digital, replicable copy.
If anything it’s copyright infringement, we should start calling it for what it actually is.
No what’s bullshit is you coming to a place about piracy while not believing in the free exchange of media and information. It is unethical to prevent people from doing so not the other way around.
I believe in FOSS because it is voluntary effort. I don’t believe stealing from someone who doesn’t want to give their work for free is ethical.
You’re clearly borderline communist, so I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind. You think everyone should work for free for you, it is your born given right to get all their effort freely, even if they don’t want to give it to you for free. Gotcha.
I am libertarian. I believe in the maximum amount of personal freedom possible. You have the right charge for something and I have the right to not pay it. And it’s not stealing it’s copyright infringement. It’s making a copy.
I don’t believe it is ethical to block other people’s happiness behnd a paywall. If you make something that could make the world a better place and then not share it, you are objectively making the world a worse place. How is that morally right?
Bro, please go back and read what being libertarian means.
Being libertarian doesn’t mean you get to do whatever the fuck you want. In fact, libertarians protect free market and property.
A libertarian would never agree with stealing someone’s private effort. Never.
Again, piracy is not stealing it is copyright infringement. I don’t believe ideas are property so I don’t believe in protecting them. It’s not that complicated.
Whatever world you envision, I’m glad I’m not part of it. Imagine a world in which inventors have no incentive to create because their ideas get stolen in the blink of an eye, leaving them bankrupt.
No thanks.
We already live in a world with copyright law and it’s a shitshow so how much worse can it be? Have fun owning nothing and being nickle and dimed by subscriptions.
So the world is bad because of copyright. OK.