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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.
You've just let the world know you're pirating though
oops lol
Because for some piracy isn't simply about being a cheapskate but also about activism
Theres some truth to this, but a lot of people do use this as a shield against the general cultural acceptance that piracy is stealing or otherwise morally underhanded. I do it, but I don't have any illusion I'm one of the activists. I just get indignant and refuse to pay someone for content or entertainment who I think is damaging to the medium or predatory in general. I feel like if I really wanted to make a statement, I just wouldn't consume their work at all -- but life is short and I want to have my cake and eat it too.
It's possible to do both, I consume plenty of pirated media simply because it's unavailable due to pathetic capitalist imposed digital distribution limitations and lack of equitable paid access.
I also consume other pirated media because I wouldn't spend my resources for access because I don't yet know the value of the content and won't pay just for an opportunity to be disappointed, been there enough times to have learned that lesson. I'm happy to spend my time to find out your media sucks, but not my money, because that's also my time with the addition that I've put actual effort into converting it into fungible assets.
I also deliberately pirate media that I would pay for and do understand the value of, both because I can't always afford to purchase said product from a company making billions of dollars in exploitative corporate profits and because I have no interest in caring about that over my own personal satisfaction in life.
Your wrong. It’s what Jesus did, when the baker and fisherman couldn’t meet market demand.
So true! Here, have some internet points and validation!
I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.
No, you just need everyone to know you don't care about sounding/looking cool to sound/look cool. Totally different.
"A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know" While posting "I do it & I don't want some validation..."
As much fun as setting up a torrent box is, being an argumentative asshole is even better.
Especially when the statement makes no sense
You’re so right! Here have an internet point.
You just said admitted to pirating, you little muppet.
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.
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.
Here I am wondering why there is still a downvote button in the YouTube comments... it does nothing!
The same reason that a lot of crosswalks have fake buttons. So you feel like you have control.
While simultaneously undermining your sense of trust in the world
Actually it's worse than nothing. Youtube promotes comments based on engagement, so while only an upvote increases the tally, voting at all still makes it more visible.
Can we not become subreddit by posting this shitty screenshots trying to justify our reasons? Just share your media and enjoy it.
Our current system of copyright is flawed and only serves the interests of corporations.
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.
I am stealing this line for future references
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.
You're only partly right. You example services. Of course it is not possible to own services. Piracy is only applicable to products. The point of the Twitter guy is, that companies intentionally stop selling their software etc. as products to sell you the same thing as a service, so that you cannot own it.
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.
The real piracy was the friends we made on the way.
The real friends were the piracy we undertook along the way.
Remember: friends come and go, but pirated media is forever (as long as you have good backups).
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!
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.
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.
Downloading and watching is a crime. One night be able to say they didn't know what they were downloading but likely the file name and site or torrent is a good clue that's bullshit.
Your probably discussing chance of getting caught. You likely will see a DMCA complaint or something like that to your ISP at worse for downloading but enough of these might get your service terminated (some ISP don't care.)
Sharing the files and usually sharing a lot of files publicly or semi publicly will get you more attention and that will get the media companies more likely to take you down as a distributor.
VPN and smart browsing habits will reduce a lot of this risk though.
Think of downloading is one star in GTA. They will chase you if they are you. Uploading is two stars when they start shooting at you. Profiting of it is like three stars and that's when they get more aggressive. You can get busted at one star but it's just very unlikely.
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
For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM).
I'd like to point out German law (maybe this expands to EU and other countries) with traditional media.
Traditionally you bought movies and music on physical discs. You had a guaranteed right to be able to sell it to other people, as well as make personal copies of it for private use/backups.
DRM has always tried to oppose this right. And obviously, in the last decade(s) a lot went into service-oriented streaming and temporary access instead of owning even on a partial or theoretical level.
That's kind of their point, because we are not in fact buying the media the argument is that piracy has some moral element. Put another way there is no option to own it outside of piracy.
this meme is a criticism of that. it shouldn't be like that. if I buy a chair, I own the chair. I can then choose to sit on it, burn it, or give it to my neighbor, whatever. if I buy a movie, it's suddenly not like that – but not because of some inherent quality that would make it impossible, but only because they say it is like that. but they have one weakness: it's only like that if we actually stick to those rules. they're all arbitrary anyway! we can therefore treat a bought movie just as it should be: a physical copy that we actually own. we can then decide to watch it, to lend it to our neighbor, to play it for everybody to see on the street, to cut it and remix it and do something new with it. will they come and claim we've "pirated" their media? yes of course, but this is nonsensical, dead law, that has to be broken again and again by just – ignoring it, and making it not so. if I buy a movie, I do own the movie, and the company that says otherwise can get fucked. that's what this is about.