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?
Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates.
Good on your friend. Poor or not, you should too.
Do you pirate?
Yes
And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?
Justify it ? you seem to suggest it’s wrong or something
Do you think there will arise a time where no one would want to pay for the services they want thus watering down the quality of the content for everyone? I mean, I think of whatsapp, If I had to pay a dollar a month/year, I would happily do that, but yeah, that’s not gonna happen anyday now.
That’s one of the services where everyone refuses to pay, thus resulting in an inferior product (in terms of privacy). So, put this into the picture for piracy, do you think there will be a time where people will just refuse to see movies and this would result in shit movies being produced that no one likes.
I think the profit motive isn’t the best at producing good quality artistic content; and I think people would still produce it without such a motive.
Mind you on paper I wouldn’t even be against paying for a good movie, for example. But I want a .mp4 in x265, with subs, that I can store on my NAS and read with whatever open source software I want to use. None of the legal platforms offer that - piracy literally offers a better service, universally
Same goes for video games: I want a native binary that I can install, that does not phone home at all, and does not have DRM or require a launcher. Only a minute minority of games, even on gog, match those
this would result in shit movies being produced that no one likes
I think that has already happened to be honest
The absolute tidal wave of shit media available belies that argument. Quality of material isn’t going to be affected, that’s produced by creative - who aren’t being properly recompensed anyway.
Studios don’t care about ‘quality content’ they care about money. In a world absolutely devoid of piracy they’d release a four hour film of a cat shitting in a box if they thought it would sell.
I’m very casual for a pirate.
If I can’t afford it or I believe it’s ridiculously overpriced (cough, adobe cough cough), or if I am against some stupid client that phones home and sucks resources (again cough cough adob…) then I’ll pirate it.
If I can’t purchase it because it’s nowhere available for sale, say, some 90s series in such and such language- pirate.
Finally, if I’m curious about something but not feeling comitted, I’ll pirate first then see if I buy.
I don’t justify any of this. I just do.
No, I don’t, because I can afford stuff and pirating in this situation would be just pure stealing which I believe is morally wrong. Yes, being a billionaire is usually morally wrong too but I don’t think it just cancels out.
Justifying piracy by saying capitalism is bad sounds like a hypocrisy to me. You want to use something that exists thanks to capitalism without participating in it. You want to eat your cake and have it too.
Now, the case is different for people that can’t afford stuff, especially when they genuinely need it (but I don’t draw the line at entertainment, after all people NEED entertainment too). In that case, please pirate away. Everyone deserves a decent life. In general, I largely agree with OP’s friend.
No, I don’t, because I can afford stuff and pirating in this situation would be just pure stealing which I believe is morally wrong
Stealing suggests they don’t have the content anymore; they do. “Copying” is the word you’re looking for.
The whole “stealing” comparison rather breaks down when there is basically no scarcity / no cost to duplicating and distributing what has been produced
Even arguing it’s “stealing” because it deprives the publisher of the cost isn’t exactly true, because it only holds if you’d actually have ponied up were the content not available for free (I know for sure I definitely wouldn’t have played some games or watched some shows if I had had to actually pay for them)
You want to use something that exists thanks to capitalism
Artistic content is, believe it or not, produced outside of capitalism as well. And in capitalist societies it often is produced despite capitalism, not thanks to it, and one could argue capitalism itself is a large part of the reason that content’s quality has taken a dive over the past decades
I definitely mean “stealing” as “depriving the publisher of the cost”. Limiting the term “stealing” just to moving physical objects really makes no sense in the current world.
it only holds if you’d actually have ponied up were the content not available for free
That’s an interesting case I never really considered. If you only genuinely pirate stuff you would never buy otherwise then… I guess it’s fine? But this alone doesn’t put the end to the discussion because I find it really hard to believe that people would just give up all of the stuff they pirate if they had to pay for it. But in some cases, sure, sounds reasonable.
Artistic content is, believe it or not, produced outside of capitalism as well.
That’s true of course but I don’t think just pretending we don’t live in a capitalist world and taking stuff for free is making this world better in any way.
Let’s say something costs $20, from which 75% goes to make some rich guy even richer and only 25% goes to the actual author who put in the work. It’s more important to me to give that $5 to the author than NOT to give the $15 to the rich guy. Would I prefer there wasn’t a rich guy in the equation? Yes, of course, but that’s often just not possible.
In the end, I genuinely want the world to be a better place but I don’t really believe in extreme solutions. I appreciate your civilized answer despite different opinions. Peace!
You want to use something that exists thanks to capitalism without participating in it. You want to eat your cake and have it too.
These things don’t exist because of capitalism. They exist in capitalism. They were created by people with talent, skill and artistic vision, and the passion to pull it off. They would be creating in any system. All capitalism did was add people above the creators to own their work and siphon the majority of profit.
That might be true in many cases but do you actually believe that things requiring immense investments and years of work like AAA games and high budget blockbuster movies would be created in any system?
Of course they could. Why not? You’re still thinking in terms of capitalism, which is the problem. Only in a capitalist system do these things require large amounts of investment.
Films are created by teams of people. Under capitalism, they need to be paid, and handsomely, because they need money to survive. What about a system that already provides basic needs? One that directly invests in its community? One that doesn’t even need money, because it becomes redundant once goods are provided freely?
In such a system, people work on what they want, when they want, and provide for society because it’s their true desire. Such a system not only would still create art, it would create vastly more art, because literally anyone could make it.
Specifically for books I pirate because I get a better product this way. I prefer reading on my phone and downloading an epub means I can open it in any app I want, add chapters and share it with whoever I want. If I could easily pay for a book and get the same experience without any drm or online account bullshit I would probably do it.
Physical books are also ok but buying anything not in my language means possibly waiting forever for it to arrive and paying more for transit costs. I may still do it if I really want to support the author but I’d rather have a way to pay them directly tbh.
Yes I pirate everything.
I don’t really understand the justification question. What is there to be justified? I’m not hurting or harming anyone.
Supporting content creators by paying for access is just idiocy.
It’s a bit like disabling your ad blocker to pay content creators by viewing ads - happy to let idiots do that on my behalf.
You are a German are you not? How do you pirate? (.de makes me think you are German, sorry If I am wrong)
