this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Basically: should i care about ethics?

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[–] humanoidchaos@lemmy.cif.su 4 points 1 week ago

Everything.

Piracy is a tool to help reduce the disparity in wealth.

The only time you should buy something that you could pirate is if you can't find it and you plan on sharing it with everyone else. I call this "taking one for the team."

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 4 points 2 weeks ago

When society does I think its valid to. So right now - everything if you want. If we get back to wealth disparity levels from 50 years along with decent rights and working democracy. Then maybe tighten the ship. Certainly at the least money and corps need to be out of our democracy.

[–] ILoveDurians@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 week ago

Do what you want. No need to overthink things!

[–] Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 4 points 2 weeks ago

Just seed everyday

Everyone has different preference on what they would/wouldn't pirate so it your prerogative what feels right to you.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I pirate what's any good that I cannot find legally for streaming, as well as educational stuff that I want available should I and/or my family find ourselves without internet access.

Sometimes I'll go so far as to pirate things that I cannot find without ads(even with premiums*), but mostly if it'll let me see the first few minutes before playing an ad, I just live with it.

* The only reason I still have Amazon Prime is for the free shipping. I pay extra for no ads. I pay extra for HiDive. There appear to be things available on Prime with HiDive that aren't available on just Prime or just HiDive. Magically, those shows(Ranma 1/2, for example) have ads. WTF?

None of these companies have ethics. Why should you get hung-up in ethics for a victimless crime?

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No. Take what you like and burn the rest.

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 3 points 1 week ago

Pirate what you need unless you are one of them archiver preppers.

This ain't about "legality" this is about fighting the class war against owner class.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Personally, I think it depends. For me, I like to pirate games that there's no way for me to legally buy a copy of and if possible are way too overpriced. Think multi hundred dollar retro games.

For media, I would absolutely support buying used media second hand. New physical releases tend to be worse than they were in the past in my opinion, so second hand or piracy feels like a good enough deal to me.

For music, I'd rather have physical CDs, if possible, rather than paying for streaming because I at least either support a local business I like to go to for CDs or support the artist directly. Laws be damned, I'd rather pirate music than give my money to the companies who financially abuse artists. Similar reason why almost all my CDs are second hand.

For stuff I have legally purchased, if need be I can just pirate them if it's a digital product. Otherwise I can back up disc based media I have. No idea how to do it for the Sega Genesis cartridges I have, though, so if need be I can pirate those as well.

Edit:

For games, I pirate games I don't own. For digital games I could find on Steam, I use it as a sort of demo for the game because majority of games don't have a demo and I need one to ensure I'm not throwing my money down the drain.

There have been plenty of games I've bought because the "demo" was enough to make me wanna buy the game to support the devs. Latest example being Dungeon Clawlers.

I generally make sure to spend my money one contemporary artists or authors (who are not already filthy rich, if they are already super well-off i dont contribute to increasing that wealth and instead buy something else) and try to maxmize the amount of money that falls to them. You could also find ways to donate directly to these artists and then pirate their stuff to your hearts content (from my ethical point of view anwyay, law will not agree with me). Ive also first pirated stuff and then bought it later and just replaced the files on my media server.

I dont really care about big corporations or some random rights holder long after someones death. So any big studio movie or old rock bands get pirated.

[–] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

IMO support indie creators when you can. Aside from that, ahoy!

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

Depends which d&d alignment you're shooting for but I think empathy is necessary for ethics and moral reasoning. Reciprocity is a good moderator to prevent being a door mat, treat people how they treat you.

[–] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just pirate everything, more money for you to invest, bring food to your table, support your family, go on trips etc.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do the people actually performing the labor to produce the material not deserve that too?

[–] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

their boss gets your money, so no.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

100%. If my money is for sure going directly to the creator or artist, I’ll throw them money. Otherwise if it’s a corpo, YOINK

Feel free to pirate everything on personal use. If you like the work put behind it feel free to support it; but it's not necessary.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

You do you.

I try to stick to Indy games and pay for them. I have d+ nf Hulu atv and cable with all channels that aren't premium. I keep copies of any series/movies I like. If they lose the license or drop anything I'm not losing it. VCR rules, I paid to play it, I can record it/torrent to get it.

Stuff that's not on the air anymore, of I can't stream it paying that much, also not gonna feel bad about torrenting.

Qwest network had a commercial in 99.

Guy pulls up to a dirty motel in the middle of nowhere

“What kind of rooms you got?” “King size.”

“You got room service?” “Donuts and coffee.”

“Got entertainment?”

“All rooms have every movie ever made in any language, anytime, day or night.”

By now we should have that for a couple hundred a month. Definitely for less than I'm paying for all those services. Wanna put a limit on that? Everything over 6 months old is on it. But there's no reason outside of massive greed to get to the state of fracture where at with service provision.

I have apple Music and Spotify, I'm also keeping copies of music.

Books are a mix, I pay for new audiobooks from authors I like, I buy hardback for newish stuff I really like,

Old stuff, classics, textbooks, stuff with the rights going to an estate I pirate.

More or less, I want to pay a reasonable price that I can bear to make sure my authors in studios actors keep making new stuff. If the fat cats eat it all, I'm not giving them more.

[–] bastion@feddit.nl 1 points 1 week ago

I like to think about ethics. I still pirate some random stuff here and there, but one thing I like to do is make sure I'm getting some money to the creators of what I'm enjoying, skipping the middle man as much as can be.

this is mostly only relevant with music, but if I can buy an album or song directly from the artist, that's awesome. it not, i try to five what service benefits them most.

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