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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 Subject6051@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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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[–] sajran@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (10 children)

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.

[–] SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I also can afford stuff but sometimes stuff doesn't allow itself to be bought. Tried buying some music in mp3 format from Amazon, they wouldn't sell me digital music because I didn't live in one of the handful of countries they sell to. So I just ordered the audio CD and ripped it. Now I have the physical disk as well which, I'm not going to lie, I like, but convenience went out the window. This was a new release.

On a different occasion (older release), I couldn't find the audio CD version but found a site that sold to me (not Amazon, but what do you know, it is possible to sell digital goods all over the world. Whoddathunkit?).

And then I have some music I still cannot find neither digital nor disk except for some very rare vinyls which pop up once in a while. And I don't have a set-up to rip vinyls, so what does one do about that? Piracy is also a service problem.

[–] sajran@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, I didn't mention this but if it's just impossible to buy something then I don't see anything wrong about piracy. No one looses anything.

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