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Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, I mostly pirate anime and some live action. I was saddened by the closure of RARBG, I used to torrent from there daily. Nowadays I mostly use Nyaa and 1337x, Nyaa for anime and 1337x for live action and other animation. I pay for Spotify premium, YT Premium, and Amazon Prime. I use Steam to purchase video games.

Piracy via torrenting is my preferred way for watching series or movies, I just want the mkv files, I don't care for the BD menus, UI, bloopers & extras, buffering, etc. I remember trying Netflix a few years back and noticed that some content wasn't available for offline viewing. I also don't have to worry about things like licenses expiring meaning the streaming service no longer has the right to have it in their catalog or the drm in Blu-ray discs.

I think piracy exists in a gray area like "illicit" drugs among other things and labeling or moralizing it as either good or bad paints it with a broad brush traps and confines it to a dichotomy that we really should look beyond. Heck, even services like Crunchyroll and Napster(Rhapsody) started off as piracy sites before they legitimized. Piracy also has benefits like preserving content from being lost due to it being out of print or licensing issues that limit sale or access. Old games can be played again by using emulators and roms.

Personally, I've become more technologically literate through piracy. I started off with apps like PopcornTime and sites like Kissanime, 9anime, and Putlocker. I used to exclusively stream or use direct downloads until I discovered torrenting. I used to use UTorrent until I discovered Fosshub and Qbitorrent. Most of content I've torrented I've yet to watch so I'm more of a data hoarder. I have multiple external hard drives filled with data. I don't thinking purchasing would've made me more likely to watch the content I've watched as I've purchased many physical books that I have yet to read.

Imo the term piracy means the unauthorized tampering/modification, access, and distribution of a product or service. That also poses the question whether or not consumers actually own what they buy. Piracy fights back against anti-consumer practices such as DRM which has been around since 1983. Also I'd say that corpos have gone way overboard with their anti-piracy measures when they can prosecute and extradite individuals.

I'll end with this video, "Why We Should Get Rid Of Intellectual Property.