Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.

He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate

Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.

He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.

What are your piracy habits?

  • denny@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Working minimum wage or struggling with money for any reason shall not mean you cannot have nice things in life, never. So I do the thing. Sometimes. Normalizing spending money into things you physically cannot touch is one thing i could get over with, like buying GOG (DRM free) games i’ll actually end up playing, but licenses to play a dang video game that is valid for god knows how long? This is where I draw the line.

    Your friend is right: when them corpos suck us dry, we gotta suck em back. It is easy as that.

    Furthermore: It’s not piracy when paying for it is not owning it.

  • SecretPancake@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • jray4559@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • FIST_FILLET@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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
    • Nobsi@feddit.de
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      1 year ago
      1. Yes, it has gotten out of hand sadly. But it was a well meant way to stop people stealing intellectual property.
      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        It wasn’t well meant, it was Disney who didn’t want other people to replicate drawing 3 circles.

        If someone else can not only copy the product you designed, but even improve on it, then that is on you.

        • Nobsi@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          If i create something new, and you merely copy what i created or you use my thing as advertisement for any of your schemes, then yes, i deserve some protection from that.

  • Nobsi@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I pirate everything that i cannot afford. Lately it’s gotten to the point that i can afford everything but before i had Money i would pirate all games that looked interesting.
    I just didnt wanna lose money that i barely had saved.

    And no, my interest in the thing i stole never had any impact from the pricetag.
    I liked the thing, thats why i wanted it.

    And i do not understand people that try to make theft morally okay.
    It is not okay to steal from Target the same way it is not okay to steal from EA.
    If you can afford it just buy the things.

    I made up exceptions to this rule to make myself feel less guilty. At the end of the day the reason was that i was poor and i couldnt accept that i couldnt get a thing.

  • Kissaki@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • aksdb@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Bonifratz@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • comfisofa@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Knusper@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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…