Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Do we really need excuses for pirating media?

I pirate movies because I think digital access to them is overpriced, goes to the copyright holder instead of the creators, it's convenient and most importantly because I can.

I can't pirate going to the cinema, nor can I afford to build my own, therefore I gladly pay to have a seat and enjoy a movie there.

Edit: I thought this may be relevant to the movies example I gave. I don't think movie studios, giving nothing back to society after massive profits are the ones we should debate the morals of stealing with.

Can we not become subreddit by posting this shitty screenshots trying to justify our reasons? Just share your media and enjoy it.

Until we live in a world where people have equal access to information and essential technology piracy is a moral imperative.

Should something which costs a few hours worth of work in the developed word cost three weeks worth of work in a less developed country, just to make a publishing company worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars a few extra bucks? Of course not!

Every other argument is a moot point to me. If I hadn't pirated Photoshop and other software when I was a poor kid I wouldn't have the six figure career I have today. The ultrarich steal from us every day in more ways than I can count. Maybe when they start being held accountable I will start caring about their bottom line.

I'm amused at these statements these 'wannabe' pirates make to justify piracy. A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know or justifying it.

I know why I do it & I don't want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.

Our current system of copyright is flawed and only serves the interests of corporations.

I think this logic is silly.

Employers don't own you, so witholding wages for services you provided isn't stealing. Getting a haircut and not paying isn't stealing.

I think the better justification is: rights holders make it a pain in the arse to access content affordably, so fuck you, just going to steal it.

This is what I’ve been saying. We don’t even own digital products, all it takes is a server to be taken down or an account to be lost and all you bought is taken away. Pirating also can’t be stealing because we aren’t taking something away from someone else, other people are not deprived of the chance to have this just because we downloaded it.

Major reason not to buy ebooks from amazon: you can't lend, give, exchange, sell them and you may lose all of them if you anger the right people. They are not yours, you are not buying them, you merely paid for conditioned access to them.

This is inaccurate. You are not buying it (the media), you are buying the right to stream it (as long as the seller provides the media as a stream). You don't "buy" a movie unless you are paying for it's ownership, which would be millions of dollars. For physical releases you buy the disk and the right to watch it under certain conditions (DRM). And you generally don't have a right be able to "buy" or have access to all media.

But all that doesn't automaticly make it amoral. ~~this comment is gonna be downvoted to hell~~

edit: There are probably gonna be more responces, so this will address everything else I have to say. What I wrote is how things are legally, more or less. I don't like that either. I do consider piracy stealing (under current laws) and morally right. Stealing is just not that great term for digital stuff. Please don't try to (uselessly) sway me and don't infight

galaxy brain

Well paying for it is essentially leasing it, piracy is neither. So...

Here I am wondering why there is still a downvote button in the YouTube comments... it does nothing!

I will accept my downvotes in advance because what I'm about to say is probably against the mindset of most of the people that come here but:

Piracy is wrong.

I say that as someone that pirates. I'm not sure why people have to justify their actions. I know what I'm doing is wrong, I know I'm taking money away from these businesses that run streaming sites, that make movies, write books(this is the one I feel worst about because this is likely taking money directly from creators). But I do it anyway because I'm cheap, I can't afford it, its easier to pirate stuff, plenty of reasons. But none of them make it morally right, and none of them make it ethically right.

When we pirate things, we're pirating entertainment. Entertainment isn't a right. You don't need this stuff to survive. Plenty of entertainment is provided for free at libraries, online with free movies and books. Hell, you can go outside, grab a stick and a rock and boom! Free entertainment. Sure, there are people that pirate things like Photoshop to get ahead in their careers or to jumpstart them, I'm not talking to those people. Adobe has done research and they know those people buy their products when they become professionals. I'm talking to the people downloading a movie and somehow morally justifying it. But when it comes down to it, you are taking something that someone paid money to make in an effort to make money off of it. In my mind, there's no justification for that. Again, I don't care that you do it, I do it too. But no one is gonna get any points in my mind for stating that somehow what you are doing is right, or that it isn't stealing because you're downloading a copy of something. How silly an argument that is. If you take something that someone else expects money for and it isn't vital to your survival, that is wrong.

I'll get off my soapbox now. I love all of you, have a great day :).

How does that work though if you rent a car? You don't own it, but still stealing if you "steal" it.

That's why I break into hotel rooms.

This is why I only carjack rental cars, it's totally not stealing!

Child logic to justify behavior. Be better than this ya’ll.

That's why I claim ownership of every hotel room I've ever stayed in and every car I've ever rented.

While I appreciate the sentiment, theft of service is a crime. You don't have to be able to own something to be able to steal it.

If a service costs money, and you take that service for free without permission it is stealing. If I rent a car I don't own it. Is it not stealing to hijack a rental car for a few hours?

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You steal because it is easier or cheaper. Thats it.

I have a better idea: Instead of piracy, just don't use/consume products that are exclusively distributed through shitty business models. At least when it comes to software, that's much more effective.