Hi guys, first of all, I fully support Piracy. But Im writing a piece on my blog about what I might considere as “Ethical Piracy” and I would like to hear your concepts of it.
Basically my line is if I have the capacity of paying for something and is more convinient that pirating, ill pay. It happens to me a lot when I wanna watch a movie with my boyfriend. I like original audio, but he likes dub, so instead of scrapping through the web looking for a dub, I just select the language on the streaming platform. That is convinient to me.
In what situations do you think is not OK to pirate something? And where is 100 justified and everybody should sail the seas instead?
I would like to hear you.
- When the content is no longer available for retail purchase (i.e old games or shows that have been pulled entirely [see Infinity Train])
- You have a physical copy, but want a digital version.
Slightly more gray: content I’ve already paid for in one form or another. I spent like $100 going to the theater to see Mario with the family. I’m not losing sleep over adding it to my Plex when it hits VOD.
I pay for a smattering of VoD services, I don’t lose sleep over watching something that isn’t available on them.
If corporate greed didn’t force a hundred different services on us, then it might be different.
This is doubly true for games, which tend to be re-released over and over again on different platforms. This is true to a lesser extent for things like movies, but it’s much worse with gaming where each console is a closed ecosystem that’s incompatible with other systems. At least with Blu-Ray, you can expect any Blu-Ray player to play the movie you’ve purchased. It’s not like a Toshiba player will only play Toshiba brand Blu-Ray discs.
Companies love to use the “you don’t own the game, you own a personal license to use the game” line when revoking rights to play games you’ve legally purchased… But that goes both ways; If you own a personal license to use the game, it shouldn’t matter what platform it’s on, because it’s the same game regardless of whether you’re playing on PlayStation or PC.
Straight black but I still consider ethical:
The entire “going to the movies” experience is terrible for me and my wife, only going to get worse with a runt on the way. It’s certainly a fault of the theater I try and attend, but I’m not driving 2 hours for a decent viewing experience.
I pirate like CRAZY. BUT if I find a film/TV show I really enjoy, I certainly do my part in word-of-mouth or digital marketing for them. It’s certainly once it’s left the theaters but I wasn’t going to that anyway. It also gives a chance for older films/series to get some funding that I may not have picked up otherwise.
Occasionally if there’s a film/show that’s a standout, I’ll buy a physical copy. Honestly I never open them as I have a more convenient digital copy on plex but I do put in some for it.
That said, watch Grave Encounters 1 (not 2…) and Cabin in the Woods. I believe they’re both on Netflix but absolute top tier movies if you’re into horror for GE or horror parody for CITW, cabin possibly being in my top 5 of all time.
Also that said, I’ve seen way too many episodes of MTV Cribs for me to care about it too much >:(
Paying for a ticket isn’t the same thing and I’d argue that’s not morally justified piracy. You went from a rental to ownership at a rental price.
I thought you were going to say something like “I already bought a copy of Star Wars thirty years ago, then THEY made the way I watch it obsolete, so I don’t feel as bad getting another copy since I already paid for it once.”
That would be closer to moral than “well I watched it in the theaters once, so I totally own a copy!”
We’ve all got our lines, mate. That’s the point of this post.
Or content you have purchased and have now lost access too, or shit if you buy something at all you can ethically pirate it. You already paid!!
- You have a physical copy, but want a digital version.
Kind of similar but I feel like pirating content you have legal access (Steam, Spotify, Amazon, Netflix, etc.) to get around DRM ethical.
For example wanting to listen to songs you have on Spotify on an iPod or reading ebooks purchased from Amazon on your PC.
- Content that you cannot acquire by any “lawful” means.
- Content that you already own a copy of (Yes, this includes “only” having a “license” to it; you own what you own).
- Content that is outrageously priced, and/or from large companies where the people who worked on the product will receive nothing from sold copies. (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc)
Third category also contains works so old that only the people hoarding rights to said works profit from giving out licenses to them bc they never worked on them.
Content that isn’t legally available in your geographic location
Most TV shows in foreign countries, and a billion movies are like this. Since they refuse to take my money, I can’t feel guilty for getting it for free.
3a. Nintendo.
Scientific articles. You’re not robbing the authors of a single penny, because they don’t get a cut of the sales by the publishing house anyway and the journal reviewers are volunteers.
many, if not most, authors of such papers are more than happy to provide a copy if you were to ask them directly.
IMO it’s better to not pirate small indie content (mostly games in my case).
When the money goes to people who did not create the media. Support creators, not exploiters.
That’s almost everything.
Correct.
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Many people already said stuff I agree with, but I’d also include low-income families being “justified” in pirating stuff, be it for work, study or entertainment (as entertainment is a basic right imo)
Culture should be available to everyone, I agree.
if you owned a game but your license got pulled for no reason (assassin’s creed)
although pirating triple a titles is always ethical imo, devs usually get paid the same no matter how the game does
also pirating to try a game. steams 2 hour refund policy isnt enough, as 2 hours often is not enough to get into a game and see if u like it
pirating retro games
if the only way to play a game legitimately is to pay $500 for a cartridge, it’s ok to pirateif you can’t afford a game (ex. low income countries), it’s ok to pirate. there are places where a full months salary isn’t enough for a single triple a titile
if you owned a game but your license got pulled for no reason (assassin’s creed)
I’m not quite sure what you mean. So you paid for it (not a physical copy I’m assuming) and when you woke up one day they took it away and you’d have had to pay again to get it? Just understanding what happened here.
no they pulled everyone’s license
to add on to that, they put it on sale to get some quick bucks before shutting it down
asdfasfsd
If it is not available to buy anywhere for me and the only way is piracy, I feel like piracy is justified. No one loses anything on this scenario.
Won’t someone please think of the poor corporations sitting on those IP rights hoping to squeeze them for profit someday?
You’re practically taking the bread out of the CEOs mouth
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Any content that exists solely to put ads in front of my kids is 100% fair game and not just ethically allowed, but creates an ethical necessity to remove it from it’s advertising.
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I am thinking specifically of broadcast tv kids shows that I have no problem with my kids watching, but that are broadcast with kid targeted ads in my country. I much prefer to rip them and let the kids watch them without commercials.
Sure makes sense. I think once kids are involved you pretty much have primacy in 90% of scenarios out the gate.
The only (ethical) reason not to pirate games is indie. But I still buy in Steam/Gog cause its convenient / I don’t risk malware.
Yeah, when the game won’t let you run it in a vm that is sketchy af.
When I subscribe to the service, but the app freezes up… Looking at you Paramount+.
- Work of art no longer sold.
- Creator(s) and/or production company involved with the making are garbage human beings.
- You don’t have money and you don’t just want to stare the ceiling.
-Not available to buy or only second hand for exorbitant prices (cough cough Nintendo) -Overpriced subscription (cough cough Adobe) -Getting a version of a game you already bought free of invasive or resource-heavy -Trying out a paid program/game/etc. with the intent of buying it if it you like it and it runs well
Media not available for purchase in any format. Final Space for example, it got pulled from Netflix and there’s no physical copies at all. The only way to watch it is to pirate it.
I have episode 1 downloaded from GooglePlay and I can still watch it. I can’t download any more episodes.
That seems to be a regional thing, it’s still available in Germany on Netflix.
Suppose some dude on the street hands out books for free and gives you a copy. Does it make you unethical for accepting one? Would it be different online?
Suppose your government charges a “blank media tax” on storage devices to “compensate” creators with the assumption you already “illegally” download their content, didn’t you already pay for it anyway?
What if you’re downloading stuff as a hobby but you’d never pay for it if that would be the only other option, did anyone lose anything of value?
Physical media and digital media are different beasts. When he hands you that book, he no longer has it. I would also assume he didn’t steal that physical copy. Someone got paid initially for the physical media, which the person is now deprived of by giving it to you. It’s not quite “apples to oranges” but it’s definitely not a parallel situation.
This is assuming - like digital media - some one took the time to spend his own free time to make copies of a physical medium.
There is no way of knowing whether the person has copyright or stole the first copy.
Or compare school books: the whole class buys one copy together, makes copies for every person to share costs. Likewise, a whole family can chip in to buy a car - you wouldn’t force them to buy a car each.
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Whether someone spends their personal resources to copy a medium digitally or physically doesn’t really matter to the copyright holder or author. They won’t get paid either way
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The two examples in your later paragraph are wholly different cases: the second is a completely different use-case and the first one is actually less morally unambiguous than you think.
@Fleppensteijn @vis4valentine another thing to consider is whether the creators of the work actually receive anything. When you pay to watch Barbie, basically 100% of that money goes to Bob Iger or someone like that. That’s what the strikes are about. When you pay to play Factorio, a lot more of the money goes to the people who made it.
But if you get it on VHS or DVD or whatever and sell it, or even give it away, Mr Bob won’t receive his cut and it’s not considered piracy or stealing
