this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
338 points (94.9% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

61326 readers
475 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):

🏴‍☠️ Other communities

FUCK ADOBE!

Torrenting/P2P:

Gaming:


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

No, it's not like stealing a physical item from a store.

"stealing" a digital copy of a movie, tv show or a game is like if the item you're stealing from a store is infinitely copyable. Like the replicator from star trek...or that one episode of Sabrina the teenage witch with that box that can make a perfect copy of everything you put inside of it.

Of course I personally would never pirate anything, no matter how much streaming services increase their prices or how much they crack down on VPN usage to get around geo-restrictions, PIRACY IS BAD AND ONLY BAD PEOPLE DO IT.

I've never pirated anything in my whole life!

There are people who understand what I'm saying...but apparently most people don't get it.

Of course that means I still would never pirate anything. That would be horrible to "steal" a copy of a movie or a TV show

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Evkob@lemmy.ca 88 points 4 months ago (5 children)

No, it’s not like stealing a physical item from a store.

I'd argue stealing physical items from massive corporations is also morally acceptable. If you shoplift from a small mom & pop store, you're actively hurting your community, however, if you shoplift from Wal-Mart, you're actively hurting an entity which is hurting your community, therefore helping your community.

[–] Alice@beehaw.org 36 points 4 months ago

Shoplifting from Walmart hurts my knees because the boss won't believe that our onhand numbers are wrong and makes me check high and low before I can nil pick it 🥲

This isn't an ethical argument against shoplifting btw, this is an ethical argument in favor of nuking Walmart

[–] med@sh.itjust.works 16 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Stealing sustinence from societal cancer is practically an immune response.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 43 points 4 months ago

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If buying isn't owning, then pirating can't be stealing.

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 39 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

perhaps the only ethical consumption under capitalism is that which denies capitalists their profit.

[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean...if the movie is good you should support it. Vote with your wallet.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

If the movie is good, you should support it by making a donation to the strike fund of the unions that represent the artists that actually create the movies. You can support artists without supporting the amoral companies that produce these works.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] FantasticDonkey@reddthat.com 26 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] TuxEnthusiast@monero.town 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 8 points 4 months ago

I do since it's a better service

[–] yozul@beehaw.org 7 points 4 months ago

¿Por qué no los dos?

[–] weirdo_from_space@sh.itjust.works 26 points 4 months ago

Given that no one makes a fuss about it when corporations do the stealing, I think so.

[–] noorbeast@lemmy.zip 23 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I would like to suggest an alternate perspective, that digital media be beholden to protocols not platforms.

In other words lets focus on the drivers of competition...most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.

[–] MajorHavoc@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago

most evidence suggests that piracy goes down in response to easily accessible and affordable market conditions.

The assholes know this too. We're about due for another round of deshitifcation, just long enough to restore complacency.

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They promised they would go out of business if I pirated their content, and that was a lie.

[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago

And of course, they did go out of business. That's why they need welfare from the government now.

You should never pirate anything, that would be bad.

There are people who understand what I'm saying, and then there's the idiots that downvoted me on some of the comments I posted

[–] orsetto@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 months ago

If they keep raising my food subscription I'm gonna start pirating from supermarkets too

[–] chahk@beehaw.org 15 points 4 months ago

If "buying" is not owning, then "piracy" is not stealing.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 14 points 4 months ago

Worrying about "property" of any parasite is something that I never bother to do.

Giving money to your enemy is idiotic tho.

There is a class war out there and normies are too busy funding their oppressors

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 4 months ago

There is no "stealing from corporations"

It's as easy as that

[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

People try to boil these things down to incredibly simplistic rules in an effort to justify what they’ve already decided they’re going to do.

I am pro piracy, as I imagine virtually everyone on this community is. But I also think people get way too reductionist because that is easier than engaging with the nuances of what it means to “steal” or “pirate” or when we are or aren’t hurting a creator.

I think the pros vastly outweigh the cons, the “victims” are few and far between due to it being so rare/situational as to make it ok to functionally treat it like there are none, and I also think all the people arguing they are “doing media preservation” who don’t even know what a proper 3-2-1 backup is are full of shit lol. I also think people need to accept the fact they just want free shit sometimes and trying to dress up their motivations/sense of entitlement to free media with high minded arguments about sticking it to corporations or whatever is disingenuous - just own the decision!

I use my server because it is convenient and because I don’t want my kids being visually assaulted and manipulated every time they turn on a tv. I used to watch one of them visibly become panicked when all the tiles of a streaming service would pop up in front of him, it was just so overwhelming. I went a solid seven or eight years without the high seas because there was a time when streaming services were reasonably priced, convenient, and not dominated by ads. Now that that is no longer the case, I have gone back to my server. Simple as that.

I don’t mind paying for a service, I don’t even mind the occasional advertisement in my life. But what we have right now is absolutely ridiculous and easily justifies so many reasons for pirating.

All of this is to say you’re not gonna find people here who disagree with your decision to pirate. But you’re also not going to find some airtight philosophical argument that works 100% of the time. You have to consider the ethical implications of your actions in your day-to-day life, there are no simple rules to avoid that.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Piracy is a response to various kinds of market failure, inequality.

[–] sunglocto@lemmy.zip 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No but i dont care

I've been pirating for years. I just don't want to pay for things

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Hegar@fedia.io 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.

Having power neurologically suppresses empathy. Therefor resources controlled by the powerful will on average be used more harmfully. Taking resources from the powerful reduces total harm done.

You will use a loaf of bread less harmfully than Walmart will use the profit from it.

[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Stealing a physical item from a giant corporate store is also always morally acceptable.

not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.

Of course, theft wouldn't happen nearly as much if no one was desperate the survive, but even then there'd still be entitled assholes that want even more.

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 2 points 4 months ago

not really, it makes the store lock everything up behind plexiglass creating more friction for paying customers too.

That's not really harm in the way that hunger or poverty or lobbying against workers protections is harm. That's more like a temporary inconvenience that doesn't stop anyone getting what they need, right?

[–] Zier@fedia.io 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

When you download music online for free and prevent the company from making a profit off of a creative work by the artist, that they prevented from making a profit & royalties, is that wrong? Doubtful. You can always send the artist money directly if you want to support them.

[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 7 points 4 months ago

the DMCA doesn't protect the artists or any of the singers, it protects the shitty record labels and the money that the executives at those companies get

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 8 points 4 months ago

I'm not going to say piracy is right or wrong.

What I will say is if everyone had access to that replicator, and everyone replicated everything in the store and left, the store would close down, and the products would stop being made.

Likewise, piracy is only viable because not everyone does it. If literally every person pirated the games or movies of any given company, that company would no longer be profitable and would close down.

Piracy is getting something for free because other people pay for it.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My moral is always on match with that of the company so in most cases everything is acceptable.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It is always morally preferrable to pirate things made by giant corporations

Fixed It For You.

Regardless of what is regarded as a crime against the state, it is wrongdoing against the public to support corporations that seek to extract more wealth than value they produce.

Intellectual property rights were a (very) temporary monopoly to give creators an incentive to create in order to build a robust public domain.

Copyrights, patents and trademarks no longer do that. So charging for content is now rent-seeking

Corporations, their share holders and the plutocrats who own them pull wealth out of the economy by hoarding it. The whenever you buy from anything but directly from the creator, you are reducing the wealth in the economy since your money goes straight into Scrooge McDuck's swimming coffers.

And our public domain only contains stuff from a century ago. Steamboat Willie became public domain just a year or two ago. Copyright holders and courts even assert all content should be owned and licensed, including SCOTUS. (Though the US Supreme Court is a traitor to the United States and its constitution.)

Pirate everything. Steal from companies for they have already stolen from you.

[–] lemmeBe@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago
[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago

Why do you have to take a moral stance?

Do it because it’s cool

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 months ago

Should you feel bad? No. Will there always be people who want you to feel bad? Yes.

[–] FPSXpert@discuss.online 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Honestly if it's a big setup like Spotify or Netflix or etc, "royalties" don't mean shit to the production team / artists / whoever. Unless they're Mariah Carey levels of replayed every year everywhere to the tune of sitting on millions in checks yearly, they aren't going to get shit. Personally I'd rather support them in other ways such as buying merchandise, going to live shows etc but that's just me.

Remember though this is in minecraft, don't pirate irl because that is very bad and you will personally prevent executives at warn-a-brother from buying another learjet. Remember: "pirating is bad and you should feel bad" 😂

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Anarki_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 months ago

Rage bait. Yawn.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"stealing" a digital copy of a movie, tv show or a game is like if the item you're stealing from a store is infinitely copyable.

What if it's a physical Blu-ray? Those are infinitely copyable.

[–] ThatGuyNamedZeus@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

physical media is a physical finite item. digital media can be copied infinitely

the reason why physical media is getting harder and harder to find is because the copyright nazis can't control it. If they want to memory-hole a scene, they can't change the content of that blu-ray disc with the original version on it

[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 months ago

and steal other things as well

[–] CeruleanRuin@lemmings.world 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Theft from the wealthy is morally right, period.

[–] AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 months ago

myth: ~~cable~~ piracy is wrong.

fact: ~~cable~~ companies are big, faceless corporations which makes it okay!

[–] killabeezio@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Can you further expand on why you think it's bad? I'm generally curious.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›