So on a morality point of view, I've downloaded epubs of books of an author where I've previously bought copies of their books multiple times, either because the originals wore out or I gave a copy away. I still have copies on my shelf or in storage, I just want to have copies on my Kindle.
I've bought things (or had bought for me) things on VHS and DVD formats and no longer have a player for either. So yeah I downloaded stuff I wanted to watch again
There are things only available on DVD and not available to stream. There are things that were available to stream which have since been removed and have been taken down. Why not pirate stuff to watch it again?
For a long time the Beatles weren't on Spotify etc. I had their stuff on their official paid for tapes growing up, then on CD when I was older. So in the interim I pirated it when I lost the original digital rips I made from the CDs. And until they release their mono albums officially I'll be hanging on to my pirated copies.
Notice a trend in the above? I very rarely pirate new media. But I treat the internet like an archive (I've not even gone into the stuff that is no longer available anywhere except YouTube or piracy). Quite often I've paid the creator('s masters) more than once for their work. I feel no guilt.
I mean... The piracy communities have very useful links to wikis all about how to sail the high seas...
Don't get me wrong, I don't really have any skin in this game, I dabble in a bit of piracy now and again, and am broadly pro having a community for people to chat about it although I don't myself.
But at the same time when a community description has a link to a page with comprehensive lists of the best sites to download/torrent from, including a cute little goat emoji next to the best ones, let's not be disingenuous. (That wiki is terrific btw)
If theoretically someone did decide to investigate you for having links to lots of legally dubious information available on your instance I don't know the law in other people's countries but in mine it wouldn't be worth the hassle or attention. I say theoretically because at the moment Lemmy is probably too small to get attention but still.
I can see why people might want to play it a bit on the safe side if they're not sure if they're going to get into trouble over something or not.