Asklemmy

I'm not the pirate I once was when it comes to gaming but there's always EGS exclusives, games whose lack of regional pricing make them impossible to reasonably buy here, things like that. I'm a patient gamer for the most part so most of the time I can just get it a few years down the line but sometimes even that doesn't cut it. I avoid doing it to indie developers, but those are usually the few that follow Steam's recommended pricing guidelines so they tend to be fine anyway.
I pirate unbelievable amounts of tv and movies on a regular basis though through the *arr apps and whatnot, mostly because I refuse to pay for a dozen different streaming services with their rotating content and usually terrible apps. I self host whatever I can to avoid relying on the whims of a few corporations, and the one surviving service so far is Spotify.

People that pirate shows and movies don't do it necessarily because they can't afford to pay for it or want to "stick it" to the corporations. They pirate because they're human and humans get a level of joy from not getting caught doing something they're not supposed to be doing. I may be experiencing a level of joy right now but won't confirm nor deny it here.

If something is not for sale, I have no qualms about pirating it. Disney vault, abandonware, obsolete versions, etc.

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!

I like stealing

I think pirates are cool but the download links they put to make you download viruses are not cool

I used to pirate like crazy in my youth. Now since Steam and Netflix I don't pirate, recognizing that creators deserve to get paid and also by paying them that supports making more content.

I don't really pirate much anymore, because I don't consume much paid media anymore. Occasionally, if I really, really want to watch something on a platform that I don't have a free subscription to (through a phone plan or isp), I will find a stream of it, but that is rare.

I justify it by generally not being on favor of modern IP laws. On a less ideological basis, fuck'em for making their content inaccessible. And from the current strikes, it looks like most of their talent doesn't get much of a cut anyways.

I haven't pirated a game in years, just because Steam is so convenient, and I can pay for more games than I have time to play. In the past, when I couldn't afford all the games I had time to play, I would pirate them. I couldn't afford them, so it was no "potential loss" for them anyways.

For software other than games, there is usually an adequate Free Software alternative, so I just use those. I am a developer, so sometimes I make small contributions on software I use a lot, and have a good understanding of.

Haven't pirated music since big streaming services became available (first, Play Music, now Spotify). I do kinda feel bad that Spotify pays shit though. I would happily pay the artists directly if it was convenient.

When I was younger (< 25) I would pirate loads - music, films, tv shows, games etc. The main driver was that I was poor and wouldn't have paid for them anyway, but also it was convenience , streaming services weren't around yet so it was the only way to consume digital products.

Now that I'm older and have a decent salary, I don't do it anymore. I'm happy to pay for Spotify and have a really easy experience, or use Amazon or Netflix. I don't play PC games anymore either. The only act of piracy I do now will be the very odd occasion where I watch to watch a full F1 race that I missed, but the service that I pay for might not have uploaded the race for up to 24 hours later. I don't want to wait because I run the risk of coming across spoilers and I'm eager to watch what happened, and seeing as I'm already paying for the service to watch the race I don't see what the issue is by seeing it a bit earlier.

I'll stop pirating when creators get paid their fair share. Before that, support them directly or sail the great blue

I pirate to try things, if I like it I pay for it. I have games on Steam with less than an hour played but most achievements unlocked because after finishing the game I purchased it.

People who say piracy is theft are wrong, actually holders of intellectual property are thieves that are stealing that what should belong to the public domain. When you pirate you make a copy of something, you don't take anything away from the other person. That's fundamentally different from theft. When you force people to pay for a free resource (copying data) you are creating artificial scarcity. To think that construction is helping society in any way is fooling yourself. It's very clearly limiting human creativity and freedom. Allowing people to do with it as they please free of charge would allow for better ideas and applications to emerge. When someone comes up with an idea (a medicine, product, song, whatever) they claim it as theirs and no-one can touch it. Look at it this way: someone invents the wheel. The wheel is a concept that is out their, waiting to be discovered by someone. Before it was discovered it was readily available for anyone to discover, but than someone finally invents it and suddenly he can claim it as his? Is the first one to discover the moon, the one who owns it? Ultimately songs and books and such are not fundamentally different. Also, no-one writes a songs out of nothing, you build upon the ideas of others. You walk the path, use all the stepping stones laid down by others, it brings you to a point and suddenly it's all yours? It doesn't make any sense at all, but we're so used to it that we can't see it for what it is. It's a scam. It's a monopoly and it doesn't belong in a free society. You should support creators and be thankful for their efforts, that's why trademarks should exist, if you want to buy the copy from the author himself you should know which product to buy through the trademark, which one is by the original creator and which copies are from third-parties. But all other intellectual property is theft from the public domain.

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

I pirate and I think doing so should be legal and accepted. It's one thing to have a copyright for profitable uses of some content, a whole other much crazier thing to say copyright forbids sharing that content for free. File sharing should be thought of the same way as letting your friend borrow your book - just a normal and uncontroversial nice thing to do, that you shouldn't avoid based on some concern it will lead to lower book sales.

I pay for my audiobook streaming because it doesn't cost so much and you cannot pirate the books I listen to anyway

I do.

Nope, not really.

Life's about more than money.

Generally stuff like Steam games I'll pay for, especially now that I can afford it. I have no qualms with people pirating things if they can't afford it, like teens, students, between jobs, on social security, people living in a country with an undervalued currency. To me it's not stealing, it's expanded access to knowledge, and unlike stealing benefits companies who get much better reach and recommendation than if the price tag (or stupid DRM) stopped them from trying.

When I do pirate something, I often treat it as a demo, like I can play the game to get the feel but no/limited networking features, no updates etc.. I don't like having to pay and refund something if I was just going to try it out. If a friend wants an idea of how a game is like, I give them a copy I bought after removing DRM if I can. Often times they go and buy their own copy because it's a cool game, when they don't it probably wasn't interesting enough to complete.

Sometimes there are just too many middlemen taking a cut here and there that I would rather obtain something in contravention of copyright then provide value back to the creator more directly if I could. Steam, a rare exception for me, justifies their value through their robust update, social, modding, Linux supporting ecosystem.

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.