# What do you think about piracy?



## Gromitandwallace (Aug 14, 2019)

I'd think piracy should not be persecuted on the belief that what is being shared is merely a digital copy. In that line of thinking, there's not a problem with it since it's just sharing of a copy so it should not constitute as theft. It is like if I buy a game online and manage to hack past the drm and distribute it among my friends. I did not steal or rob anything so I don't see why it's necessarily bad by itself. In this logic, it would not be bad  if someone were to pirate my work since they would be doing as I would to them in this situation, and to be honest, I don't see much of a problem with it. I think artistry can be born out of hard work and through suffering, but they can still live through donations and from good will. Back in Europe, artists typically starved and had to live by what they had. The rich artists were employed through patronage. I do think a evolved version of this system would work, and a higher quality of work would emerge or at least be very different. But I do see problems with it. What do you think? I'm aware kiwis are very differing in this topic as there are many shades of grey to be discussed so I do think it could warrant discussion.




If you're going to say all piracy is morally wrong, answer this one question first, do you pirate your porn? 
Remember, discuss without turning it into a war. It shouldn't be a good idea to just lump it al(or most) of it into one group without saying why.


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## Rand /pol/ (Aug 14, 2019)

Literally nothing wrong with piracy only soy filled bitch niggas disagree with me.


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## Flake452 (Aug 14, 2019)

It is stealing, and creators should have the ability to profit from something they created. You can own land you didn't create so should be able to own something you did. That being said I watch stuff online illegally all the time and don't feel bad about it. I support their rights even though I infringe them.


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## Recoil (Aug 14, 2019)

It's necessary when companies don't support older titles or make them available, or when licensing bullshit keeps something out of the stores or out of re-release.


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## Lone MacReady (Aug 14, 2019)

Piracy is great, what better way to vet a product than to try it for yourself first. If it's good and you're not a complete cunt you will support the official release. If you didn't like the experience then fuck them you were never gonna become a fan anyway.


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## NOT Sword Fighter Super (Aug 14, 2019)

I pay for Sam Hyde’s videos, and I’ll Patreon support creators I like (Dick Masterson, Whang, etc), but I’ll pirate mainstream shit all day long.


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## Colmerry (Aug 14, 2019)

I don't see it as stealing. It's like when you use an adblocker, the advertiser doesn't lose or gain money; and when you download digital files, the IP owner doesn't lose or gain money.

It's not like you're stealing a physical copy of something that costed money to manufacture.


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## Damn Near (Aug 14, 2019)

I hate paying for shit content, so I'm firmly in favor of it


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## MasterDisaster (Aug 14, 2019)

I advocate the piracy of movies because if a movie costs 100 million to make and makes 500 million in the box office and another 600 million overseas they don't need my twenty bucks for a bluray.

I don't pirate games.  Those guys work hard.


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## Recoil (Aug 14, 2019)

I'm a big opponent of the way copyright is enforced in music, it completely cripples sample based artists from reaching their potential and it's fucked that we'd only ever have a group like the Avalanches (3500+ samples in one record) come out of Australia on account of how copyright law functioned there at the time of recording.

Sampling the record crackling before the song even starts is - legally - an act of piracy. That sound belongs to the record company, because it's on _their_ record. Don't even get me started on Paul McCartney, who's been making a fucking fortune off of buying up rights to thousands of songs solely to license the recordings. 

That's awful. That's not why copyright was created. That's not perpetuating creativity. That's also the law of the land. Make your choice.


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## MuuMuu Bunnylips (Aug 14, 2019)

I'm just there for the raping. The other guys can do the pillaging.


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## RG 448 (Aug 14, 2019)

Meh, sometimes it’s the only way to get your hands on something.  Mostly though I prefer to financially support the shit I’m into.


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## Gordon Cole (Aug 14, 2019)

I'm all for it, it just depends on the medium:

Movie: Delete it afterwards or buy the blu-ray if you really like it if it's still in circulation, keep it if it isn't.
Music: Keep it, but buy a shirt/record/concert ticket if you really like them.
Vidya: If the publisher doesn't give a shit about keeping it in circulation, then why should I respect them when they also say not to pirate it? (This doesn't apply to games in circulation.)


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## Exsosym (Aug 14, 2019)

If the creator sells for fiat: fuck him for supporting the tax system.
If the creator sells for crypto: based, buy, support.


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## Crichax (Aug 14, 2019)

BigRuler said:


> i dont care about piracy but the chart you posted is laughable



What's the point of bringing up a chart like that in a piracy discussion? Also, Warren needs to be moved waaaaay to the left.


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## Gromitandwallace (Aug 14, 2019)

Crichax said:


> What's the point of bringing up a chart like that in a piracy discussion? Also, Warren needs to be moved waaaaay to the left.


It's supposed to show people being partisan can lead to them showing the world in a more biased manner. I want a fair and a more open-ended discussion even if it does prove to be hard.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Aug 14, 2019)

I have this autistic fascination with cartoons, especially obscure ones. And piracy does come up quite a bit in this hobby.
For example, Hulu has _Daria_, but they don't have _Daria _with the original music. So, barring finding someone who taped the original airings, piracy is the most feasible way to get the original show.
Some shows don't get Hulu or Netflix, so you go look for the DVDs. But some shows don't get DVDs. Sometimes, there is no feasible way to pay money for the show you want. If there is no way to pay, is it really morally wrong to pirate something?
The argument against that, however, is that when people IRL can't buy something, they just don't have it. That entertainment is not like food, and is not required for living. And that's true, I don't need to watch cartoons to survive.
But, does that hold true in the age of the Internet, where you can just send money and files as you please with minimal effort? It comes down to copywrite, and thanks to Disney it's bullshit. We have situations where a company that's been dead for a decade holds the rights to things no one is able to legally sell.
So, I don't think it's morally wrong to pirate something if that's the only way, but at least make an effort to pay the original creators if you can.


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## UnclePhil (Aug 14, 2019)

My decision whether to pirate is based on three criteria:

1. Is it in print or otherwise available for purchase in my country?
2. Did the fans provide a better version than what the IP owner has made legally available? (the Despecialized _Star Wars _versions, King Turd's _Beavis and Butt-Head _edits)
3. Is the alternative paying hundreds of dollars on eBay for it?

On rarer occasions:

4. Are the streaming services I subscribe to not providing it, and do I have to shell out extra fun budget money because it is behind some studio's paywall now?

Sometimes I am less scrupulous and just grab the torrent. "Try before you buy."


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## ThinkThankThunk (Aug 14, 2019)

I'm a cheap asshole, so I pirate a ton. The exception is unless it's vidya that has a multiplayer mode I want to play, or if something gets a suitably fancy physical release. The funny thing is that I still spend the same amount on shit now as I used to before I began pirating stuff, it's just that I spend more on the few things I genuinely care about supporting as opposed to spending a little bit on everything.


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## Easterling (Aug 14, 2019)

I watch TV shows on putlockers but i'll buy used dvds for movies I know are good because im a collector and they're extremely fucking cheap. But overall I pirate shit/ watch it online because I know the industry will survive because there are plenty of faggots that care about supporting corporations like netflix and amazon, the very same faggots that watched avengers endgame multiple times so beat Avatar in box office. The only example of piracy being a major issue for a film production was for the youtuber KSI and his god awful comedy "laid in America".


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## ES 195 (Aug 14, 2019)

I love piracy and fully support anyone who does it. Paying for useless things or overpaying for things is retarded and buyers remorse and/or feeling ripped off is one of the worst feelings. Stuff like Photoshop, Adobe Premiere and school textbooks are just too costly to make them worth buying and it's much more satisfying getting them for free after seeing the full price than scrounging around to try find some xx% off deal.


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## WhoBusTank69 (Aug 14, 2019)

Piracy is irrelevant when it comes to sales and your standard AAA game will make its money back and more through legitimate purchases. It's when they equate torrenting to robbing a Gamestop that the discussion becomes pants-on-head r'tarded.
I typically refuse to pirate indie games unless there isn't a demo provided - if I don't like the developers then I probably won't like the game and it's not worth my time. If I do like them and it's not an overpriced WarioWare minigame, then I'll buy it.


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## An Account (Aug 14, 2019)

Pasty programming nerds and Hollywood degenerates aren't getting a single one of my precious shekels.


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## CreamyHerman’s (Aug 14, 2019)

It's aight. I don't pirate as much as I used to. That being said, I do pirate epic exclusives, since Sweeney buys our copies for us already.


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## Dom Cruise (Aug 14, 2019)

It depends on what you're pirating.

In this day and age you have little excuse to pirate video games for example, what with digital marketplaces and frequent sales pirating is a bigger hassle than just simply buying a game legally, although to be fair that's kind of changing with the growing number of said marketplaces most recently.

But then we have anime, I pirate my anime, because as a US fan my money would be mostly going into the pocket of middle men US publishing companies than the actual original creators and especially now when it comes to Funimation, who aren't going to get a dime of my money after how they handled the situation with Vic, these US companies are increasingly becoming ticks on the industry.

And I'll be frank, anime can be expensive as hell and I only have so much disposable cash.

Then we have movies and TV shows and in those instances you have a lot of stuff that is either on out of print media or was never legally available to begin with or wasn't released in your country, in which case piracy for preservation is just fine.

So yeah, I'm kind of middle of the road on it, it just depends.


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## BW 182 (Aug 14, 2019)

I try to buy if the option is there and I'd like to support the developer, but I see nothing wrong with piracy if the options aren't. Streaming has made it where you don't even own your things, and it's useless to any consumer who wants to make a purchase. Also, companies eventually stop making things or supporting them, which gives more reason to pirate.


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## Zeke Von Genbu (Aug 14, 2019)

Colmerry said:


> I don't see it as stealing. It's like when you use an adblocker, the advertiser doesn't lose or gain money; and when you download digital files, the IP owner doesn't lose or gain money.
> 
> It's not like you're stealing a physical copy of something that costed money to manufacture.



I mean depending on what we're talking about, you have to manufacture, develop, or produce the product itself. If you pirate a new video game release, sure you didn't technically steal anything but the makers did produce the product. The product isn't the packaging (which costs peanuts compared to the actual product in the packaging), the product is the what you've "stolen" through pirating. So if the main point of the product is the digital product you're using right now, you've effectively dodged out of paying for it which to me is the point of stealing a product, to avoid having to pay for it.

This is ignoring the idea of, pirate something then buy the actual product once you're satisfied with paying for it, I'm purely talking about pirating then never ever legally purchasing it regardless of how satisfied you would have been with purchasing it.


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## Colmerry (Aug 14, 2019)

Zeke Von Genbu said:


> I mean depending on what we're talking about, you have to manufacture, develop, or produce the product itself. If you pirate a new video game release, sure you didn't technically steal anything but the makers did produce the product. The product isn't the packaging (which costs peanuts compared to the actual product in the packaging), the product is the what you've "stolen" through pirating. So if the main point of the product is the digital product you're using right now, you've effectively dodged out of paying for it which to me is the point of stealing a product, to avoid having to pay for it.
> 
> This is ignoring the idea of, pirate something then buy the actual product once you're satisfied with paying for it, I'm purely talking about pirating then never ever legally purchasing it regardless of how satisfied you would have been with purchasing it.


Like I said, I see it similar to using an adblocker, and I could say the same for advertisers since they invest millions into advertising and people who make ad-funded content on the Internet get money this way, but most just block ads anyway. It's not a completely apple to apple comparison since most people hate ads and people who make ad-funded content don't typically invest millions into what they're making, but there's still a comparison to be made.

I usually buy it if I like it (buy it physically, that is - I don't see a point in paying for files, unless it's a game or something), although it's not a strict personal policy of mine.

Another thing I would like to add - which specifically pertains to music - is that if you're streaming music on, say, YouTube, and are using an adblocker, why not just download the album? The artist isn't getting money from your listen, and most artists/labels put their entire discography up for free. Usually if I'm talking about piracy with people I bring this up, because I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't be allowed to just download music seeing as free streaming is so widespread nowadays, and most people just use adblockers. If it's OK to listen to it online, why does downloading it make it illegal?


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## Niggernerd (Aug 14, 2019)

I'll stop pirating Nintendo games when Nintendo stops overpricing their classic digital downloads.
Pirating movies is good because fuck giving my money to Hollywood. only the  people of greater Nippon deserve my money because their vidya games are lit


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## Zeke Von Genbu (Aug 14, 2019)

Colmerry said:


> Like I said, I see it similar to using an adblocker, and I could say the same for advertisers since they invest millions into advertising and people who make ad-funded content on the Internet get money this way, but most just block ads anyway. It's not a completely apple to apple comparison since most people hate ads and people who make ad-funded content don't typically invest millions into what they're making, but there's still a comparison to be made.
> 
> I usually buy it if I like it (buy it physically, that is - I don't see a point in paying for files, unless it's a game or something), although it's not a strict personal policy of mine.
> 
> Another thing I would like to add - which specifically pertains to music - is that if you're streaming music on, say, YouTube, and are using an adblocker, why not just download the album? The artist isn't getting money from your listen, and most artists/labels put their entire discography up for free. Usually if I'm talking about piracy with people I bring this up, because I don't really see a reason why you shouldn't be allowed to just download music seeing as free streaming is so widespread nowadays, and most people just use adblockers. If it's OK to listen to it online, why does downloading it make it illegal?



I was more looking at the idea of downloading files for something then never ever paying for it, just because you didn't "steal" a physical product doesn't mean you aren't effectively doing a similar act. I think it equates to the same general idea as stealing assuming you never pay for it. I personally watch YouTube ads and other ads from things that people find annoying such as news sites for that same general reason in relation to downloading something illegally. The only time I use an ad blocker is for sketchy looking sites with ads that lead to websites I have reason to believe aren't safe (like chinese bot farming websites that sell MMO currency for real money) or has some stupid baiting pop up ad, so fuck'em is my personal stance on that small section of the internet.

My exception to pirating software or streaming something illegally is if it is something old that is basically impossible to buy from the original developer(s) or doesn't have a legal form of distribution, buying a old video game off eBay isn't supporting the original developers in anyway so I personally don't care about pirating a game and using an emulator. I also don't personally mind if people can't legitimately buy something due to country reasons, this usually comes up with illegal streaming.

As for your music question, I don't have an honest response because I listen to music on YouTube that are uploaded on various YouTube accounts through random YouTube accounts quite often. So I don't really have an answer to that point that makes it relevantly different to my position about pirating digital goods like software, movies, streaming content, whatever. Though if the copyright owners take down these music related videos on YouTube I'm perfectly fine with that and won't throw a fit over it. I've never downloaded music illegally though, but in the end listening to it on YouTube isn't that much different outside of it being a minor inconvenience at best.

In short: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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## AverageAnimeWatcher (Aug 15, 2019)

Everyone loves piracy until they are the ones selling that thing.

Personally, I do think piracy can be beneficial to everyone. It can protect you from being ripped off,  archive old stuff, beat region blocks, and imho it can even be the best publicity ever.  

Have you seen how expensive some software is? Maya, Z brush and Photoshop are inaccessible for someone broke.

But let's not kids ourselves. Lot's of people just like free things. That's all there is to it,


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## CWCissey (Aug 15, 2019)

I see piracy as a necessary evil.

I'll rip songs off YouTube until I know an artist hasn't written two or three good songs and the rest of the album is filler and I'll stream stuff that shows weeks or months earlier in Burgerland. But I will support the official release if I deem it good value.


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## NOT Sword Fighter Super (Aug 15, 2019)

Colmerry said:


> I don't see it as stealing. It's like when you use an adblocker, the advertiser doesn't lose or gain money; and when you download digital files, the IP owner doesn't lose or gain money.
> 
> It's not like you're stealing a physical copy of something that costed money to manufacture.


Meh, I can try to convince myself that I don't see it as stealing either, but it kinda is.
I'm still OK with it, though.  I can't tell you how many times I went to see a movie that sucked balls that I had already paid to see and therefore couldn't do shit about it.  I only had the foresight to walk out of a movie once.

If I see a movie I like via piracy, I'll probably pay for it somewhere along the line to make up for it.


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## Gravityqueen4life (Aug 15, 2019)

been one since the age of 12 beacuse why pay for something when i can get it for free? i know that its wrong and illegal but i just dont care. i do buy things if i want to support a game dev or an artist.


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## CakeCutey (Aug 15, 2019)

I think it's okay when your using games that can't be played conveniently anymore.
If I have to go through several downloads or subscriptions for a single product it's probably not worth buying it.


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## UnclePhil (Aug 15, 2019)

WhoBusTank69 said:


> It's when they equate torrenting to robbing a Gamestop that the discussion becomes pants-on-head r'tarded.



Which also benefits them when they use piracy as a scapegoat. Is no one going to the theater anymore, buying Taylor Trainor's new album, or putting down $60 for the latest AAA game? We did nothing wrong. It's those damned dirty thieves.


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## Pontiff Sulyvahn (Aug 15, 2019)

I refuse to finically support anything remotely related to Hollywood. That being said sometimes I like to throw on the occasional Jewish propaganda film on a rainy day if it’s decent. You won’t catch me ever paying for it. The only video game company I support currently is CD Projekt Red. Everything else is dogshit except maybe Dwarf Fortress.

Edit: Typo


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## Adolf Von Merkel (Aug 15, 2019)

I don't 100% agree with this video but Gaiman said some interesting things.






I mean , the first weeks are vital for a product(bad sales may kill it) but how many games or film have we watched/played because a friend lent it to you.That also hurt the sales if we think about it.
In the end , I don't care, I will buy what I think is interesting and ignore what's not.


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## ZeCommissar (Aug 15, 2019)

In the mid-late 2000's when I was younger I would pirate things without abandon.

Now I buy 90% of what I play. I might pirate something if I don't like the company (ubisoft) or if I just really want to play the game and don't want to spend $60 on it. I never pirate indie games anymore, usually if I do I plan on playing for maybe a hour or two to see if I would enjoy it enough to buy it.

Its easier to buy something and get all the acesss to it then wait for someone to crack through the DRMs nowadays.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 15, 2019)

Flake452 said:


> That being said I watch stuff online illegally all the time and don't feel bad about it. I support their rights even though I infringe them.


"O somebody looked at a thing and we didn't squeeze profits out of his eyeballs. Let's try to criminalize seeing for free."



Dom Cruise said:


> And I'll be frank, anime can be expensive as hell and I only have so much disposable cash.


WTF who watches anime?!?


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## byuu (Aug 15, 2019)

I'm absolutely opposed to actual piracy, i.e. making money off other people's works.

Making private copies and sharing them for no financial gain on the other hand is a right not a crime, even on the internet.


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## Flake452 (Aug 15, 2019)

Webby's Boyfriend said:


> "O somebody looked at a thing and we didn't squeeze profits out of his eyeballs. Let's try to criminalize seeing for free."
> 
> 
> WTF who watches anime?‽


If IP rights didn't exist why would people invest millions/billions into their products?


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## Stoneheart (Aug 15, 2019)

Its called privateer...


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## Haramburger (Aug 15, 2019)

Adolf Von Merkel said:


> I don't 100% agree with this video but Gaiman said some interesting things.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Similarly, GabeN has a great take on it:




Piracy is always going to happen, so don't waste your energy & money on trying to stop it. Instead, if your product is good enough, if you strive to make it the best possible product you can, the customer will gladly do business with you. Any piracy that happens is people trying your game who might still buy it, or bad service in not making the product available to your customer in a good customer experience.


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## QI 541 (Aug 15, 2019)

So does watching someone play Telltale games on youtube count as piracy or not?  Watching a movie on the internet usually does but I'm not too sure about video games that try to be movies.


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## Gravityqueen4life (Aug 15, 2019)

raymond said:


> So does watching someone play Telltale games on youtube count as piracy or not?  Watching a movie on the internet usually does but I'm not too sure about video games that try to be movies.


its funny you say that since thats how i dealt with every David cage "game" just watching it on youtube. there was also a game called asuras wrath thats 50% cutscenes, 40% quick time events and 10% gameplay and the gameplay sections were awful.


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## WhoBusTank69 (Aug 15, 2019)

I will say, though, with how software is going these days there is no excuse not to pirate it.
Look at all the separate licensing issues these shitty companies tack onto their service that not only lead to an increase in price but versions that will have licensing agreements that eventually expire and become illegal to own anyway. Autodesk, for example, purges old versions of their programs every so often when the new versions don't support specific older file formats. Don't even get started on how Microsoft and hardware companies want to require Windows 10 for new shit.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 15, 2019)

Flake452 said:


> If IP rights didn't exist why would people invest millions/billions into their products?


If human trafficking and slavery wouldn't exist why would the Ancient Greeks have invested so many silver coins to invent drama and philosophy?


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## PL 001 (Aug 16, 2019)

I used to pirate all the time. Mostly because I was a cheapskate who wanted to spend my money elsewhere. I still have about 6tb of movies, shows, music and books because why bother deleting them after I've already downloaded them. 

I don't pirate very much anymore, only on the occasion where something I want hasn't been given a physical release, or is incredibly rare to track down. I'm fairly neutral on piracy. I do view it as a method of stealing, but I also don't see an issue with it if what you're pirating is pretty much the only way you'll be able to enjoy the content.


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## John Titor (Aug 17, 2019)

As Gabe Newell has said, it's an issue of service, not price. 

Some games I have to pirate because they're out of print and even if I pay $200 for a physical release, that money is going straight to the middle man than the people who made it. And if I ended up really liking the product, I will actually go and buy it.

Anybody who unironically compares it to robbery is a brainlet.


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## Overcast (Aug 17, 2019)

I grew up thinking that it was bad. But because industries in media don’t really care about preserving titles that aren’t big name successes, I find it necessary to experience said things.

Also, as I grown older I’ve become a lot more money conscious.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 17, 2019)

scorptatious said:


> Also, as I grown older I’ve become a lot more money conscious.


Especially comicbooks are absurdly overpriced. Four bucks for 15 minutes of entertainment is retarded.


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## InvertedDickEnthusiast (Aug 17, 2019)

I think it's great, why shouldn't I? As long as the standard in all industries is to treat paying customers like scum who you gracefully allowed to give you their money it should be the default method to acquire any media.


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## Iris Hunter (Aug 17, 2019)

It's okay in my book.
I live in a country suffering economically because of an incompetent president giving roles to his incompetent supporters. I don't see my country survive the 2020's.
I watch movies/cartoons illegally always, If I can support them in another,  more direct way(For example, STUDIO TRIGGER(Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia...) has a Patreon) I will.
Steam's regional pricing is a godsend, so I 90% time don't even pirate for games, I thank Gaben for that one.


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## spurger king (Aug 17, 2019)

Pretty based, I can get stuff movies & anime and not have to pay for it.


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## Jewelsmakerguy (Aug 17, 2019)

Depends what you do with it. If you're using it for yourself then fine, pirate away. Unless it's out of print or it's something no one, not even the original copyright holder(s) care about, then just leave it at that- personal use. Streaming sites are another issue, but one I'm honestly going to say I don't give two shit about. Go nuts there for all I care, that's what I do.

Then again, I always delete video files and Canada's laws regarding this sort of thing are different than other countries.


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## Faket0Fake (Aug 17, 2019)

I don't think any measures will stop piracy so they should spend the money on making better products. If people want to pirate it then they will and when you look into it a lot of people will end up buying things they like anyway. Piracy also introduces a lot of people to things they wouldn't even know about without it so it's driving up sales for people who would be struggling to get noticed among huge companies with marketing divisions. A lot of bands I ended up liking I discovered through Napster and other platforms because I was more willing to take a chance on things. If you bought a CD back then you'd be spending $20 on something that might suck. 

Anime fansubs also helped publishers in a lot of ways because they could see what was popular and which titles to buy the rights to. Many famous titles started out popular among fansub circles. Streaming isn't a huge deal either because it allows for titles to be seen by a potential audience for a nice boxed set. Subscription websites pay fuck all for the rights to simulcast and make tons of money from people who want the service. Anime is so cheap to buy the rights to except in very few cases that companies are only gaining money from the interest pirate streaming websites generate. I don't lose any sleep over that stuff.


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## Alex Poulos (Aug 17, 2019)

Once I thought that piracy is a bad thing because those poor artists wouldn't get the reward they deserve. What a load of bullshit that is. Having observed the BS that's going on, I've come to the conclusion that we have a moral obligation to rip the guts out of the beast that is the entertainment industry. The world would be a better place without copyright shenanigans. It's also an effective incentive for content creators to spend their time more usefully. So go over and pirate as much as you can. I want to see the whole thing getting teared apart and shredded into pieces. If you like an artist's work it's fair and reasonable to directly donate money, though.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 17, 2019)

Alex Poulos said:


> Once I thought that piracy is a bad thing because those poor artists wouldn't get the reward they deserve. What a load of bullshit that is. Having observed the BS that's going on, I've come to the conclusion that we have a moral obligation to rip the guts out of the beast that is the entertainment industry. The world would be a better place without copyright shenanigans. It's also an effective incentive for content creators to spend their time more usefully. So go over and pirate as much as you can. I want to see the whole thing getting teared apart and shredded into pieces. If you like an artist's work it's fair and reasonable to directly donate money, though.


The creators don't get much. For every book that's sold, the author gets like 10% or so.


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## Slap47 (Aug 17, 2019)

The only games I have ever pirated have been from companies that are long dead. 

I have never purchased anime. The sites (Crunchyroll, Funimation) are shit and their subtitles and dubs are half assed. Anime was on sale on Steam for 6 dollars an episode. 

I'd probably buy anime if they weren't so retarded. 

Aside from anime, most of the stuff I pirate is book related. The academic publishing industry is degenerate and there needs to be reform. I actually do this as a matter of principle.


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## Mediocre (Aug 17, 2019)

I've been pirating since Limewire but slowed down when Netflix was in their prime but ever since they removed the ratings system and produced nothing but crap I cancelled it again months back, I also found Amazon Prime to be complete shit also due to their limited library.

Another issue is I have a hard time actually finding some TV series available for streaming in the UK due to bullshit licensing agreements e.g Queen of the South, you can't even watch it with a US VPN due to needing a cable account therefore my only option is to torrent it.

Another reason is that many older TV series simply aren't on any streaming platforms and I refuse to pay $15-$20 for each season which would end up costing like $100+ just to watch 7 seasons of an old TV show.

Not to mention all these companies creating their own platforms which means you'll have to sign up and pay for 3 or 4 different subscriptions.

And lastly, if I was forced to pay for everything that I have ever watched then I doubt that I would have paid for 95% of the content as I only watched it because it was free and just kind of stuck it on for background noise while I did other stuff.


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## Teri-Teri (Aug 27, 2019)

I've been pirating games and movies until 2011. 

Because I'm stingy and some movies are that I watch are unavailable on television. Also back then, I can't watch a good stream due to those annoying pop-ups and ads until I discovered AdBlock.


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## ArnoldPalmer (Aug 28, 2019)

I pirate things for several reasons.

1. Archival. I do not trust the rights holder to actually vault everything they produce, or even keep masters, and why should I? Metal Gear Solid hasn't been available nearly anywhere since it was remade on the Gamecube in 2004, MGS2 hasn't been re-released anywhere since 2003, and it was re-released on the same console it made its debut on. The unedited version of the Star Wars Trilogy was nearly memory-holed by its own studio. There are literal dozens of films that Disney refuse to release, to appease the SJW crowd, like Song of the South. I don't give a zippity doo-dah about Song of the South, but plenty of people put a lot of time and effort into filming and animating it, and all of the other things that we'll never see with a higher quality release. It's better to at least make sure it's not lost forever.
Think of the THOUSANDS of MSDoS programs and games that would be lost to time, if not for archival. Think of the LITERAL ANYTHING that was backed up with tape storage, floppy disk, or even old platter hard disks. If there weren't people copying that floppy to a more stable medium, we wouldn't have damn near any software or digital information prior to 1984.

2. Intellectual Property laws are fraudulent, and so long as Disney continues to exist, you can be damn sure that nothing will enter the public domain again.  They'll keep bribing the government to extend copyright, ad infinitum, I do not respect IP law, I don't see it as legitimate. We've missed out on remakes to Metroid II, Streets of Rage, a demake of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and several hundred other fan games, simply because someone used characters belonging to an extant franchise in a free game, and that made some lawyers upsetti spaghetti.

3. I used to support things like Netflix and Hulu, that is, until they started removing everything that gave me a reason to have a Netflix subscription. Hulu remains pretty stagnant, and their originals are even worse than Netflix's. Also, looking into the political narratives that Netflix tries to shill in their original programming, it's something that I just can't justify giving money to. None of the alternatives to Netflix are as good as Netflix was around 2014. I don't watch enough anime to justify Crunchyroll. The only good thing Amazon has is The Grand Tour, Crackle is fucking garbage, and the rest are just literally whos. Plex is the wave of the future.

4. Because I want to and I can, go fuck yourself.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (Aug 28, 2019)

ArnoldPalmer said:


> 2. Intellectual Property laws are fraudulent, and so long as Disney continues to exist, you can be damn sure that nothing will enter the public domain again.  They'll keep bribing the government to extend copyright, ad infinitum, I do not respect IP law, I don't see it as legitimate.


Intellectual property is an outdated social construct.


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## Equivocal_Iki (Aug 29, 2019)

Piracy creates competition even if there is none, because the firm would always have to compete with piracy. The only reason you can pay money over the internet and instantly start downloading is because you could just as easily look it up on a torrent site and do the same thing. If they implement DRM, they can't make it so inconvenient/malware-like that the pirated version is better than the paid version.


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## AmpleApricots (Aug 29, 2019)

I pirate mostly because of DRM. I don't want to be tracked in how and when and how much I used the content I paid for and I don't want to pay to access that can be rescinded when the platform feels like it.  Also DRM usually works like ass on linux-based systems, especially video streaming platforms and the people that run these platforms don't give a shit about linux so I don't give a shit about their wallet. I just do not feel like supporting that entire concept. Give me drm-free downloads I can do whatever I want with and I might consider paying.


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## Notgoodwithusernames (Aug 29, 2019)

With games I have a set of standards
Anything from 1st to sixth gen is fair game (when the ninth gen rolls around then the seventh will become fair game

If it wasn't released in the US  (Mother 3 for example) then its fair game

If I already own a copy then its fair game

If the DRM is shit then its fair game


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## Sun Shihong (Aug 30, 2019)

Piracy is a wonderful tool at best and a necessary evil at worst. It's your best way of advertising a product and it's your best way of preserving what was done.

Let's take Emulators for example. People consider them to be piracy because laws in some countries dictate that you should delete any copy of a game you don't own in 24 hours, but there's a few problems in that regard:
- Certain media formats (Usually, Arcade boards) have suicide batteries on them. Which means they end up dying no matter what.

- Consoles or media often go out of production, and there's all the issues with the formats (Oxidation in cartridge chips, lifespan of console decks fading away, scratches on CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray) and online purchases being pulled off.

- And here's my favorite: There's an entire layer of hell in terms of Copyright issues. Say you want to play Super Mario World. You could afford a decent PC and broadband to get the game, but the site that offered Super Mario World without viruses or trojans is now shutdown because Nintendo supposedly wants to protect their IP; SEGA wants you to enjoy the new Sanic game, gotta go fast while snooping as usual and all that jazz, but SEGA (Either them or the Outsourced devs) demands the use of some DRM that hinders your performance and may be harmful to your hardware. 

And that's not even counting the C&D letters that fangame makers often get, SEGA did it once when they realized Streets of Rage had such a following when they took Bombergames' remake down, and even hired ROM hackers themselves to work on Sonic Mania.


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## Mexican_Wizard_711 (Aug 30, 2019)

Kinda Off-Topic, but does anyone know where can I get Live-Action Shows?


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## Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost (Aug 31, 2019)

Back in the old days of torrenting I used to do a fair bit of pirating, though that said it was often films or audio books and the occasional older game that wasn't easily available anymore.

GOG/Abandonia took care of most of the older games stuff and Steam as well. 

The quality of most of the modern music scene in my opinion is shit, so I circled the wagons and only listen to a few different play lists that are free to download. (Small indy bands, etc) 

Most new releases and TV series, anime, manga, and if I could afford it I'd buy a copy.  

I only resort to pirating now days if it something that. 

a) I'm potentially interested in, but not 100% sure if it's going to be good. (If it is I will buy a copy) 

b) TV series and movies that aren't commonly available anymore or tend to be more obscure.

c) Cinema releases that I think are going to likely be shit, and therefore want to preview before I waste my ticket money/evening.

d) The Sims, because fuck EA for making a game that was at one point as addictive as crack and then longing it out in shitty add-ons, and making the consequent releases extremely vanilla, because they want to cash in again on the same group of people, buying the same old add-ons for a new edition.


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## Rand /pol/ (Jun 16, 2020)

I pirate all the time and love doing it. That being said I recognize it's bad for the film/games industry and I'm fucking over creators, I just don't care.

I also don't seed my torrents so I'm double based.


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## Lemmingwise (Jun 16, 2020)

Piracy is obviously stealing, but I've got letters of marque for any foreign media which is most media as a Dutchie.

Netherlands is one of the few countries where it is legal to download copyrighted material, but not upload it (putting torrents in gray area).

Copyright fatcats dealt with this by legally forcing largest ISPs to IP block the most common piracy sites.


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## Ascendancy0 (Jun 16, 2020)

Piracy is based. Anything that's online can and will be acquired for free.


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## Orion Balls (Jun 16, 2020)

I will steal epub versions of books that I have hard copies of. Don't have much to say about piracy other than this...


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## FeedMyHabits (Jun 16, 2020)

I use legit sources when possible. But I'm not paying 20-60$ for a game without playing it first.


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## Mao Hao Hao (Jun 16, 2020)

I don't pirate books, as I prefer the feel of holding one in my hands. The only games I pirate are stuff like gameboy advance games, since Nintendo have still not made any kind of Switch emulator to be able to play a lot of their older games (and the batteries in GBA games seem to die over time and I am not sure how to replace mine). Movies, TV shows and anime I download/watch on free streaming sites purely because I do not have the disposable income to pay for something and find out its terrible (that and the increase in so many different streaming sites is just becoming too much to pay for, I already pay for three of them). I will buy merch/DVDs/Blu rays etc if I do like the media I pirated, so I give money back eventually in some shape or form.


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## Xarpho (Jun 16, 2020)

My logic for video games:
- If I bought or legally received the game in any form before, I'm not paying for it again.
- I have the implied right, despite what your EULA says, to archive my own games for personal use.

Finally, I have to ask three questions to myself and others, with the answers all to be YES.

1. Is the game still available new in your country or has a digital release?
2. Is the original developer still around, and if so, is it a supported title?
3. Can it run on a current system without emulation? (This includes titles needing SCUMM)

This marks a clear line between the modern games on Steam/similar services/Nintendo Switch and everything else (all Nintendo games prior to the Wii, games that haven't seen official updates in more than a decade, re-selling emulated/DOSBox titles, etc.)

For movies and TV shows, I only refrain myself from new stuff (newest TV shows, movies still in Redbox) or limited items that I'll never be able to legitimately reach otherwise (HBO miniseries, anime). If already subscribe to the service that has or had it, go for it. Anything else has generally run its course.


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## Jonah Hill poster (Jun 16, 2020)

Torrenting and emulating things on the Internet will end up being the possibility for the most of us.

Considering things are getting censored/removed, and streaming services getting expensive, I do hold sympathy for those that can’t be able to afford the things they want, while not wanting to give their money to corporations that don’t think that highly of them.


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## Lemmingwise (Jun 16, 2020)

Mao Hao Hao said:


> I don't pirate books, as I prefer the feel of holding one in my hands


I wonder how many writers are able to eat due to the group of people that enjoy the feeling of woodpulp in their claws.


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## XYZpdq (Jun 16, 2020)

piracy has always been so natural to me that I've never really "thought" about it
my parents had stacks of reel-to-reel tapes of music so the idea of "just make a copy and keep the copy" has literally been around me all my life, then the internet came along and made it a lot easier


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## Pissmaster (Jun 16, 2020)

I'll pirate games until they get a good price drop.  Game piracy can be kind of a bitch and now they're like a hundred gigabytes a pop and I can't just burn them bitches onto DVDs anymore and don't wanna end up with a ton of external HDDs just full of pirated games.  But there are like, almost no games whatsoever that are worth $60, so, piracy it is and _maybe _I'll buy it when it hits the $20 mark.

TV shows, movies, and music all get pirated 100% of the time because lmao fuck those industries, and hard copies aren't much of a thing anymore so I get an overall better product if I just pirate rather than buy through iTunes or whatever.  I don't think you can even watch any movies or TV shows you buy from there on Android or any game consoles, or smart TVs for that matter.  Why do that when I can just have a Plex server on my desktop?




Mao Hao Hao said:


> I don't pirate books, as I prefer the feel of holding one in my hands. The only games I pirate are stuff like gameboy advance games, since Nintendo have still not made any kind of Switch emulator to be able to play a lot of their older games (and the batteries in GBA games seem to die over time and I am not sure how to replace mine). Movies, TV shows and anime I download/watch on free streaming sites purely because I do not have the disposable income to pay for something and find out its terrible (that and the increase in so many different streaming sites is just becoming too much to pay for, I already pay for three of them). I will buy merch/DVDs/Blu rays etc if I do like the media I pirated, so I give money back eventually in some shape or form.


the back has one small philips screwdriver, just pop that bitch open and go on ebay and just search for "gba sp battery" and voila



XYZpdq said:


> piracy has always been so natural to me that I've never really "thought" about it
> my parents had stacks of reel-to-reel tapes of music so the idea of "just make a copy and keep the copy" has literally been around me all my life, then the internet came along and made it a lot easier


Piracy really wasn't thought of as anything until the RIAA started kicking up a fuss about Napster.  Older efforts like "Don't Copy That Floppy" were always seen as jokes, but it's not like any kind of media was ever killed off for good due to piracy.  Hell, taping shit off of the TV and radio and keeping it indefinitely was something absolutely everyone did for ages, and even Minidisc was designed to copy from your CDs so you could have them in a much more portable format. 

then came the internet and now we have legions of faggots who genuinely believe you'll get thrown in pound-me-in-the-ass prison if you so much as download a single MP3 or a ROM of Donkey Kong Jr. Math for the NES


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 16, 2020)

Pissmaster said:


> I'll pirate games until they get a good price drop. Game piracy can be kind of a bitch and now they're like a hundred gigabytes a pop and I can't just burn them bitches onto DVDs anymore and don't wanna end up with a ton of external HDDs just full of pirated games. But there are like, almost no games whatsoever that are worth $60, so, piracy it is and _maybe _I'll buy it when it hits the $20 mark.



Don't pirate games then, the market needs to know what the demand is if you are to get products which you want. All these games which cost $60 are essentially worthless because they're overpriced (not worthless as in the content that's in them is worthless but that they're worthless to the market) but pirating them is justified if that's you're only option, however that's not you're only option as smaller game studios who are putting out fine games would be happy to take your money. Once you show to the market that there's a demand for these games at that lower price then these larger studios will shift to producing what you want or making games of a higher quality so it deserves the $80 price tag. 
Of course not every game can be made by indie studios, I would never expect Yacht Club to make an alternative to Breath of the wild, but there must be an order of priority when buying games, always choose to buy games from an indie studio before choosing to pirate.


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## Pissmaster (Jun 16, 2020)

Austrian Conscript 1915 said:


> Don't pirate games then, the market needs to know what the demand is if you are to get products which you want. All these games which cost $60 are essentially worthless because they're overpriced (not worthless as in the content that's in them is worthless but that they're worthless to the market) but pirating them is justified if that's you're only option, however that's not you're only option as smaller game studios who are putting out fine games would be happy to take your money. Once you show to the market that there's a demand for these games at that lower price then these larger studios will shift to producing what you want or making games of a higher quality so it deserves the $80 price tag.
> Of course not every game can be made by indie studios, I would never expect Yacht Club to make an alternative to Breath of the wild, but there must be an order of priority when buying games, always choose to buy games from an indie studio before choosing to pirate.


Buying things you don't actually consider to carry the value for the money they cost just because you're hoping your purchase helps shift the market your way is a total cuck move.  Don't waste your cash just because a bunch of whiny faggots on GameFAQs told you to.

But, hey, if _you_ want to buy extra copies of games you wanna support and send me free Steam keys, I'll happily take them.  I'm going to play those games without a dime leaving my wallet one way or another, but I'd prefer Steam copies.

And I especially pirate games from any studio that's ever spouted out socialist bullshit, because what better way to prove how their system works than through piracy?  If one person bought the game, I'm technically sharing it with them, so therefore, it's _our _game.


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## heyitsmike (Jun 16, 2020)

It's wrong. The mental gymnastics needed to justify why it's not are insane. Taking someone else's work without the compensation they demand is stealing, plain and simple.

The fact that the pirater wouldn't have bought the good anyway so the creator doesn't lose any money in the real sense misses the point. The pirater is still getting to enjoy goods they're not entitled to. So it's a distinction without a difference.

Nor is it convincing that some random study says piracy increases sales by exposing the creator to a bigger audience or that many people will ultimately buy it legally because they were able to try it first. Even if that's the case, it's not for the pirater to make that business decision for the creator.

So yeah, it's wrong no matter how it's justified.


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## Emperor Julian (Jun 16, 2020)

I'll steal from the Rat as it's  end must be encouraged otherwise it's wrong.


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## Samson Pumpkin Jr. (Jun 16, 2020)

Pissmaster said:


> Buying things you don't actually consider to carry the value for the money they cost just because you're hoping your purchase helps shift the market your way is a total cuck move.  Don't waste your cash just because a bunch of whiny faggots on GameFAQs told you to.
> 
> But, hey, if _you_ want to buy extra copies of games you wanna support and send me free Steam keys, I'll happily take them.  I'm going to play those games without a dime leaving my wallet one way or another, but I'd prefer Steam copies.
> 
> And I especially pirate games from any studio that's ever spouted out socialist bullshit, because what better way to prove how their system works than through piracy?  If one person bought the game, I'm technically sharing it with them, so therefore, it's _our _game.



I have never said to buy games that you don't actually think is worth the money, what I have said permits pirating _IF_  there is no reasonable alternative. Like I said; Yacht Club is never going to make a BOTW alternative and any attempts to do so would be a slobbering mess, so if you think that BOTW isn't worth the money then pirate it. What I'm saying is that you should look to the indie market first if you want a game from a specific genre, what you find may surprise you. 
And for multiple reasons aside from "proving their ideology wrong" I do agree that you should pirate games from socialist developers. One of the most pressing is that we live in an era where politics and the free market are getting closer and closer so by buying from a socialist developer you are directly supporting the socialist cause in general


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## Jewelsmakerguy (Jun 17, 2020)

Pissmaster said:


> Piracy really wasn't thought of as anything until the RIAA started kicking up a fuss about Napster.  Older efforts like "Don't Copy That Floppy" were always seen as jokes, but it's not like any kind of media was ever killed off for good due to piracy.  Hell, taping shit off of the TV and radio and keeping it indefinitely was something absolutely everyone did for ages, and even Minidisc was designed to copy from your CDs so you could have them in a much more portable format.
> 
> then came the internet and now we have legions of faggots who genuinely believe you'll get thrown in pound-me-in-the-ass prison if you so much as download a single MP3 or a ROM of Donkey Kong Jr. Math for the NES


Hell, wasn't taping shit off of TV considered a selling point during the early days of VHS? I mean if RCA and the other manufacturers are literally telling you "Here, you can record an entire football game with our machines!", then there was clearly no issue for it unless you played it out in public.


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## Watermelanin (Jun 17, 2020)

Piracy is bad when it reduces the incentive for people to produce their art.
Tbh, I don't think people are generally dissuaded from buying a game/video/etc. when a pirated version is available. If someone's looking for a pirated copy of a thing, they generally would never pay for it in the first place. Those that would pay for it would generally just buy the thing and not waste time looking for a free (often lower quality and potentially malware infested) version. I think most pirates would rather go without the media than pay for it. 
Still: I don't think it should be _legal. _I think it should be more like jaywalking. It's fine as long as you aren't causing any clear and present problems by doing it. If a major platform like facebook or youtube is hosting pirated work, there's a good chance people would seek that as an alternative to buying the product. That is where problems start. The people making these works often put as much (if not more) man-hours into their product than a 9-to-5 job. They need to be compensated if they're going to keep producing. If their work is shit and that's why nobody wants to buy it, that's just the free market doing its thing. If they lose revenue because people are pirating their work instead of supporting it, then we lose a valuable producer of art to thieves. 

The point here is that the act should stay illegal, but should only be prosecuted in egregious cases.


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## AcidityLiquidity (Jun 17, 2020)

Fully support piracy. 
The souless mega-corp pushing the games these days have enough brainwashed paypigs dropping $60 for the basegame, $30 for the season pass, and who knows how much more for the lootboxes.

Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free while everyone else pays for the farm?


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## Pissmaster (Jun 17, 2020)

Jewelsmakerguy said:


> Hell, wasn't taping shit off of TV considered a selling point during the early days of VHS? I mean if RCA and the other manufacturers are literally telling you "Here, you can record an entire football game with our machines!", then there was clearly no issue for it unless you played it out in public.


Yeah, same with cassette tapes, minidiscs, CD-Rs, you name it.  Moral panic over piracy is a very recent thing.  You only ever really see faggots acting like pirating NES games is worse than the holocaust because of Nintendo's incredibly protective business practices, despite other companies like Sega outright encouraging romhacking.  Fun fact, they outright give you the raw ROMs to work with on the PC version of Sega Genesis Classics, they're in the game folder under "uncompressed ROMs".  Some of them are obviously pulled from internet rom collections, like Gunstar Heroes having the name "Gunstar Heroes U.bin" and Ecco Jr. is "eccojr.smd".  

Atari Vault's roms are located under Steam\steamapps\common\Atari Vault\AtariVault_Data\StreamingAssets\FOCAL_Emulator.  There's something to be said about id software and others just outright putting the source code to their games out there, so everyone can make source ports of Doom and such.  Only Nintendo seems to be fucking insane about keeping their ancient games under wraps and demonizing playing them in any way whatsoever that they don't explicitly approve of.  And then they do wildly baffling shit like not allowing you to play NES games on their newer systems with Y & B as B & A, but instead having you use X & A instead.  



AcidityLiquidity said:


> Fully support piracy.
> The souless mega-corp pushing the games these days have enough brainwashed paypigs dropping $60 for the basegame, $30 for the season pass, and who knows how much more for the lootboxes.
> 
> Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free while everyone else pays for the farm?


That's really why freemium is the way to go in the mobile market.  It's more profitable to let 1% of your players subsidize everyone else by spending crazy loads of cash so they can get the waifus with the biggest titties, than it is to charge everyone a flat entry fee.


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## Dom Cruise (Jun 17, 2020)

I have mixed thoughts.

If something is out of print and not readily available on a digital marketplace or a reasonably priced disc/copy/whatever then it's totally fine.

If it's not then I'm a lot more hesitant, but I'm not perfect, I've pirated anime for years simply because it's expensive and I only have so much cash to go around, however given the changes to the western anime industry I think it's imperative for every fan to pirate anime, I have zero moral quandary about it now.

I also think ROMs are a grey area where it's ok to pirate, it's a little silly to spend actual money on old NES games or whatever these days, although I did buy a Super Nintendo Mini because I wanted the bonus of the controllers, but I have no problem with putting extra ROMs on it, they're never going to re-release everything from the old days of gaming officially so ROMs are totally fine.

So rare, obscure, out of print stuff, anime and ROMs is ok to pirate.

And it's ok to pirate a bit if you really do need to save some cash, but you shouldn't go over board with it, you should try to obtain something legally if you can, pirating everything just because doesn't sit right with me.


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## Wonderful Id (Jun 17, 2020)

If you want me to buy something, sell it to me.


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## Dutch Courage (Jun 17, 2020)

Recoil said:


> I'm a big opponent of the way copyright is enforced in music, it completely cripples sample based artists from reaching their potential and it's fucked that we'd only ever have a group like the Avalanches (3500+ samples in one record) come out of Australia on account of how copyright law functioned there at the time of recording.
> 
> Sampling the record crackling before the song even starts is - legally - an act of piracy. That sound belongs to the record company, because it's on _their_ record. Don't even get me started on Paul McCartney, who's been making a fucking fortune off of buying up rights to thousands of songs solely to license the recordings.
> 
> That's awful. That's not why copyright was created. That's not perpetuating creativity. That's also the law of the land. Make your choice.



Why single out McCartney?  I'm not a fan, but he has done nothing wrong.  He began investing in publishing in the 1970's, long before sampling was a thing.  Music publishing is (or was, thanks to piracy) a very solid investment (so solid that when McCartney told his former pal Michael Jackson that he should do the same, Jackson bought the Beatles' catalog)

While I agree that sampling ought to fall under "fair use" or something if it is minimal, I see no moral wrong in charging for the use of recorded material if it is used as a basis for a whole new song.

As for 'piracy', I don't necessarily consider it a crime, and I have used Pirate Bay and its progeny myself many times.  The average downloader/pirate actually spends more money on music annually than those who don't illegally download, according to a legit study.  But I don't delude myself into believing I am entitled to someone's intellectual property and the creator is not entitled to reimbursement.  Among other things, it has killed music as a viable avenue of pursuit for most musicians.  

I think streaming is a way to save the business, but the payment per stream is so paltry, you can have your song streamed five million times and get a check for about fifty bucks.  Something seems wrong in that equation, and it is the record companies who are to blame.  They cut their manufacturing costs practically to nothing, but also boosted their cut of the profits, leaving the musician out in the cold.


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## ToroidalBoat (Jun 17, 2020)

It's disturbing how cult-like the devotion to "intellectual property" can be in the modern world. I've seen people (on deviantART of course) argue that fair use is bad. And of course, the "woke" think intangible culture itself should always be property ("cultural appropriation" and "indigenous intellectual property"). I think it may be best if people stop having the idea that one can own ideas themselves, and "steal" by copying alone. Real "plagiarism" (from a word meaning "abducting") should be thought of as lying or dishonesty, not some kind of "theft".

That said, we're stuck with copyright - no thanks to Di$ney lobbyists extending it far beyond a lifetime. So the way things are set up, I personally think at the moment that it's best not to _illegally_ copy, when doing so actually "replaces a sale".


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## BadBoyCentury (Jun 17, 2020)

I see piracy not as problem between rightholders (and their property) and pirates (gaining access to it), but as problem between rightholders and the environment (internet, generally speaking) they chose to distribute their work through.
If there is an easy and/or free way for me to access paywalled content, then it's the rightholder's fault that their property isn't adequately protected from any kind of copying/sharing.


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## haurchefant (Jun 17, 2020)

Piracy is not immoral or moral, it just is. Pirate if you want, buy stuff if you want. Anyone trying to attach moralfagging to piracy is a queer.


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## Stoneheart (Jun 17, 2020)

Piracy's a crime and crime doesn't pay
And we go home poor at the end of the day
But I'd rather live my life in rags
Than be taped to a desk with a wife as a hag
We live each day like there's nothing to lose
But a man has needs and the need is booze
They say all the best things in life are free
So give all your beer and your rum to me!


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## Imposteroak (Jun 20, 2020)

If you are gonna pirate shit then just do so and shut up about it. If you want to debate with strangers on the internet to defend your piracy then you are retarded. You don't need a moral justification to pirate shit when there are plenty of practical ones. Like "I'm a neet and spent all my tugboat on tendies."


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## Deadwaste (Jun 21, 2020)

why should i have to justify myself for pirating several thousands of dollars worth of books, movies, games, and software? dont tell me how to live my life.


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## The 3rd Hooligan (Jun 21, 2020)

People who say it makes creators less money are wrong. Most people pirate because they wouldnt buy it otherwise. Money or not being able to buy due to diffrent reasons.

Heck some people who wouldnt buy do so after pirating.


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## William Tell Underpass (Jun 21, 2020)

I would pirate things I would not pay to own / consume.

I developed this approach by realising I would almost never pay for things and gladly sit at home reading internet forums, project gutenberg, and playing 1999 unreal tournament if pirating was not an option.

At the end of the day if I didn't have the pirating option, those same people who don't get my money now still wouldn't.

I spend my dollar to promote things I like, such as the remasters of Crash & Spyro, but that is very much the exception.


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## Dwight Frye (Jun 21, 2020)

With everything being censored or hacked to pieces now to placate the far left, I have no issues pirating older shows or movies I like. I'm not selling the copies or redistributing them, just keeping them for my own enjoyment. I'd rather do that than hunt down out of print DVDs selling for an extremely high price, if the shows have even been released on physical media in the first place. I don't have to worry about disk rot either.


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## stares at error messages (Feb 20, 2021)

The term that copyright protects a work could be shorter. Companies should not be all to own copyrights because companies are immortal and many copyright laws allow for _N years after the death of the artist._


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## Dread First (Feb 20, 2021)

Silicon Valley already mines my fucking data to no end, even when falsifying/compartmentalising as much of it as I can. The least I could get is some fucking gratis software out of it. Hell, they should be paying me for all the data they mined off of my accounts over the years. Do we see this happening? Of course not.

Objectively though, the WinRAR model is the best one in order to combat piracy. I will die on that hill tbh.


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## Flavius Claudius Julianus (Feb 20, 2021)

I don't pirate nearly the amount of media I used to, but I'll still download film torrents and rip music illegally on occasion. That said, reasons why I do it:

1) I can do it, seemingly to no end, with no hope of punishment whatsoever

2) I'm big into my classic and foreign cinema, really hard to find shit. Criterion and a few other companies do restoration work on old films, extras, clean-up, etc; but their prices are nothing short of absurd, and really the domain of wealthy film students when purchased even in insignificant quantities

3) with software, as a kid and adolescent I simply didn't have access to any of the big suites due to being poor as fuck. Faced between that and harmlessly downloading an illegal copy, why wouldn't I? Hours of enjoyment and added skill sets accrued for nothing but my own time.

4) preventing buyer's remorse. We've all bought some expensive shit before and realised it was a mistake. I've experienced this countless times both in real life and with stuff I've pirated. In the case of the latter, all it to cost me was the time needed to search out the torrent.

5) I'm very much a physical media over digital kinda guy, so it never sits right for me paying for something which essentially doesn't exist. This is more applicable to software subscriptions and streaming services, but also other media. If I can get away with acquiring a gratis digital copy of something over paying for pixels, I'm going to do it.

6) I get supporting the creator and all that, but money spent on media which not necessarily need be spent, is taking away finite resources which could be better put to work on more pressing and important matters, i. e.: savings, sports gear and other items with no digital analogue, etc. Get the stuff that may be acquired for free, for free; and anything else which must be paid for, pay for it.


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## 💗Freddie Freaker💗 (Feb 20, 2021)




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## Pimpleking55 (Feb 20, 2021)

Since everything has become digital i found there is no attachment to the product, i buy games on steam or movies on netflix and somehow it doesn't register with me as owning something. So pirating is becoming less and less an issue for me cuz there is no difference and more often than not the pirated version has all the dlc. I used to look at my game collection and cd collection with a bit of pride and always bought the fancy collectors edition but now you get a fancy box and in it is a piece of cardboard with a number to download the game....


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## PhoBingas (Feb 20, 2021)

Rand /pol/ said:


> Literally nothing wrong with piracy only soy filled bitch niggas disagree with me.


95% of the time if I pirate something, I'll pick up the legit copy at some point. Call me cheap 'er whatever, but I've been shafted before by online game stores counting launcher install time as game time; so if a game runs like shit within or above spec, I'd rather not be on the hook for a 20-80$ game I won't be able to play without a couple hundred in upgrades.


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## ClownBrew (Feb 20, 2021)

Firmly against it as I have worked as a pro musician. Sorry for the powerlevel.


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## Santa Fe Swag (Jan 24, 2022)

I love piracy, it's how I got to see Shrek 2 as a kid.


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## YourFriendlyLurker (Jan 25, 2022)

I find piracy to be OK, especially with current prices on video games and their "quality". How else should I know if I like the product or its just another pre-beta version issued as alpha? Besides, most of products I really like end up in my bucket list.  Another reason is that there are some companies I just don't want to support financially due to their politics, sjws and other shit, while I will almost always buy the products of studios I want to support.


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## Jarch6 (Jan 25, 2022)

Copyright/IP is a spook, I love scihub, libgen, and torrenting


This sentiment is shared by everyone who is not under the idealogical dominion of anglo Jurisprudence


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## Cloaca Rimjob (Jan 25, 2022)

Kind of mixed feelings on the topic.

Modern day piracy is obviously a serious issue and merchant vessels should be allowed to arm themselves against amphibious lightbulb heads from Somalia.

Old school piracy was cool though. Maybe not at the time but it did inspire a ton of fun and interesting stories. I think there's something about it that reaches out to people's sense of adventure.


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## ArnoldPalmer (Jan 25, 2022)

I'll pirate everything I can get my hands on. Especially Metallica albums.

I used to buy things until the early 2010s, but with this "You own nothing, goy" approach to buying media, by way of digital downloads, DRM, and streaming? Hah! Fuck 'em!


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## B2_Spirit (Jan 25, 2022)

Piracy of movies and stuff like that, made by mega-corporations with more money than some countries, I don't give a shit about.
(_Actual_ piracy like Somalians RPG-ing boats at sea to ransom its owners I believe should be dealt with in the fond manner the late Britsh Empire employed. Libertarian though their M.O. is).
I'm an artist on the side and I make comics, and I couldn't care less if people pirate my shit. It's literally free advertising and gets me more followers.


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## Professor G. Raff (Jan 25, 2022)

I enjoy piracy, though there are circumstances I will avoid it. Most of the time when I pirate something I tend to interact with it for less time than a demo before I decide I am just not interested and that is not a huge loss to it's creator. I am more prone to pirate things that have no physical version because at that point I can _never _actually own it, so whether the copy is illegal or not is somewhat meaningless.

An example would be Noita last year. After OneyPlays covered it quite a lot I thought I would try it out. I downloaded it and about 10 hours of gameplay later I started to think "Shit, I really like this." which made me realize I probably needed to support the small developer. Despite the fact it has no physical version I bit the bullet and legit bought it for that reason. Most TV/Movies I don't feel so bad for pirating because they are run by horrible people I don't have to support because I don't care too much about facilitating future content as I even only bother to pirate it rarely. One end I feel kind of bad on is that I pirate a lot of audiobooks for when I exercise, but the price of audiobooks seems way too high to me... I should probably just buy some of the physical books of those I have listened to. Pirating anime is also mixed since the legal option is primarily only to go through Crunchyroll which is one of the worst things you could ever support.

All in all, I think piracy is fine as long as you have at least some self-control and understanding of the creator's situation and can make a judgement call if you're fine with taking it for free or you think paying back is warranted.


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## Manul Otocolobus (Jan 25, 2022)

I think piracy is fine under 2 conditions.

1) You aren't using it to do anything that makes you money. This includes anything for your job. If you use it so you can make money, and you don't pay for it, you're a piece of shit.

2) If you really, truly enjoyed it. If you absolutely would buy it,  then you need to purchase it, or you are a piece of shit. Mediocre shit, shit you wouldn't have bought if it wasn't for free, etc... don't pay for it. But if it is something you absolutely enjoyed and would have purchased if you didn't pirate it, you need to buy. Why? Because buying the actual software with your shekels is a vote for the company that this is what you want to see, you want to see more of this shit. Letting them know that is important, because them knowing that is absolutely the only way you get more of what you want. Plus, if you really loved it, you have no excuse for not supporting the people that made it.


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## p4ddys (Jan 26, 2022)

Manul Otocolobus said:


> 2) If you really, truly enjoyed it. If you absolutely would buy it,  then you need to purchase it, or you are a piece of shit. Mediocre shit, shit you wouldn't have bought if it wasn't for free, etc... don't pay for it. But if it is something you absolutely enjoyed and would have purchased if you didn't pirate it, you need to buy. Why? Because buying the actual software with your shekels is a vote for the company that this is what you want to see, you want to see more of this shit. Letting them know that is important, because them knowing that is absolutely the only way you get more of what you want. Plus, if you really loved it, you have no excuse for not supporting the people that made it.


I can agree here. Bought The Witcher 3 few years ago after I played and liked it, at the time I liked the developer. 
Also bought Star Traders: Frontiers because it's incredible game by a small developer.  Also bought The Dark Legions lots of years ago.

But I'm absolutely never paying for shows/movies(unless watching in the cinema) or any other piece of media I can get for free. Hell, I have HBO subscription from my ISP and i'm not even using that and am still scratching my head like a robbed kike over the Netflix subscription my roommates made me get few years ago. Nothing beats the  comfy levels Stremio and Kodi provide and i'm not spending money to see any more nigger kangz and kweenz of medieval Europe.


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## Lemmingwise (Jan 26, 2022)

B2_Spirit said:


> I'm an artist on the side and I make comics, and I couldn't care less if people pirate my shit. It's literally free advertising and gets me more followers.


I think blizzard is the exact example of how and when companies care about piracy. When they were succesful, but small, they had all these tricks to get their games in the hands of more people. Every starcraft CD could install multiple copies that could play the full multiplayer game. Diablo had a similar kind of spawning version, which allowed one key to create one master and 7 slave copies IIRC.

This is how an upcoming korean cybercafe market was able to afford starcraft for all its pc's in an attempt to hook in young clientele (so much so that it almost became a national sport).

But then a company gets to a certain size where everybody knows them, and the game is no longer growing the pie, but getting more out of the part of the pie you control. That's where they started doing extra anti-piracy into their products. Especially starcraft 2 was made where tournaments had to be sanctioned by those who control blizzard servers. Being in the loop with some of the internal proceedings of blizzard, they really wanted to force korean esports scene to the table. Because blizzard had made almost no money on the korean market, despite a whole industry that stood on their game.

Korean esports leagues refused and instead remained vested on brood war rather than an enthusiastic acceptance of starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 also struggled on the esports scene, because always online is a bad technical necessity for esports events, with all of the technical problems it could and did cause.

As an artist you have no incentive to worry that much about piracy until you're the size of rowling, at which time it becomes sensible to care about it, but only from a greedy business sense of trying to grow the business by getting more and more out of the current fans and customers.

That's also a good way to lose a brand, btw.


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## Audit (Jan 26, 2022)

I fully support a Somalian's right to pillage commercial vessels and taking yacht enthusiasts for ransom. Piracy, writ large, has been a useful tool for waging an economic war against other nations. Back in the good ol' days of the British empire and their just war against the Spanish Armada, the British privateers would liberate large quantities of gold and silver from transport vessels crossing the Atlantic. Not only did this harm Spain's economic clout in Europe, but it also provided well paying jobs for many an honest sailor in the British's employ. Somalia is a third world country, one of the worst. How are they to sustain themselves if they can't loot the occasional vessel headed to and from Asia? Really, the western world ought to be subsidizing the Somalians. The embarrassingly low cost of Asian goods has resulted in countless jobs lost in our nations and increased the destitution of our working classes. Perhaps if we could empower honest pirates from such resourceful nations like Somalia, we could better normalize the cost of imports and improve the competitiveness of our domestic products. Also, yacht owners are fucking pricks and it serves them right getting kidnapped by Africans if they're going to cruise around in unguarded boats that cost a non-negligible fraction of Somalia's GDP.


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## TheTrumanShow (Jan 31, 2022)

Free flow of data is a beautiful thing.







Piracy forced Netflix and Steam and Spotify. 
It's civil disobedience, it's freedom under responsibility.


It should remain illegal and it should remain socially acceptable and that's not a paradox.


____


Also the post above me is absolute gold.


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## Lord Xenu (Jan 31, 2022)

ArnoldPalmer said:


> I used to buy things until the early 2010s, but with this "You own nothing, goy" approach to buying media, by way of digital downloads, DRM, and streaming? Hah! Fuck 'em!


The earliest thing for me was the clear push to digital media rather than offering an option of physical, along with digital. It's what really solidified my views around game piracy.

Another is fucking online only multiplayer content. Or their big push to kill used game stores. Or shit like the PS4 Tony Hawk game, where you buy the disk, and it's just a demo and DRM to access the content online. If I put my PS4 in the closet for a few years, I can't play the game because all the servers are long closed? Fuck all these bigger companies.

I was pirating music long before that, but still buying games regularly up until about 2010. Now it's few and far between. When I do buy, more often than not, I buy from pawn shops.


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## Fools Idol (Feb 5, 2022)

I don't some gay moral philosophy about it. I just do it when it's convenient.


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## updoot farmer (Feb 5, 2022)

1. Fuck you I'd download a car. 
2. HOIST THE MAINSAIL BOYS, WE GOT US A TRADING FLEET DIRECTLY OFF OUR BOW,


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## Enola Straight (Feb 5, 2022)

Fools Idol said:


> I don't some gay moral philosophy about it. I just do it when it's convenient.


Pretty much this. 

For instance, I really wanted to play Fatal Frame 2 the other day after not having played it for years. I could have A bought a PS2 or PS3, and then blow a couple of hundred bucks on a decent copy of the game OR I could emulate that sucker. My choice was clear.


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## NewRetroVagina23 (Feb 5, 2022)

Knock copyright back down to no more than life of the artist and I'll stop taking your shit without paying for it. I want to be able to buy your stuff on whatever the hell comes after Blu-Ray or maybe even tiny little plastic SD-like cards. Not fucking vinyl like it's 1975 or as an ethereal stream of diarrhea straight from some media conglomerate's digital asshole. When everyone is pretty much on the same page regarding these few items, wake me up: most of the trash being shoved out the doors of corporate America these days ain't even worth pirating, there is no FOMO I assure you.


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## NeoGAF Lurker (Feb 5, 2022)

I used to pirate more when I was poor and I pirate less when I was no longer poor. I don’t have a philosophy behind it, I just want shit for free or an affordable price.


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