Unpopular Opinion

I'm a big fan of paying the people who make things for me.

But digital piracy is the only thing keeping archive copies of obscure media around today. Even libraries aren't keeping up. Plenty of media creators have revived their thing that found an audience after decades forgotten - through piracy, and only successfully revived it thanks to archivist pirates, since they had thrown that thing away.

It's not black and white.

Patronage funding, early access, streamlined delivery, and white glove support are the funding models that are working for creatives today.

The difference being that money is finite and digital media isn't.

Shop local, steal from corporate.

No you shouldn't steal from small or independent creators. However don't try to tell me that Disney is going to go out of business because I pirated their latest movie.

People pirate for different reasons, and the legal definition of it changes nothing really. There's...

• People who will absolutely not ever pay for anything
• People who will pay as long as they get their money's worth, who may also be open to supporting the creator directly (Patreon, Nebula, Bandcamp, Floatplane, Liberapay etc.)
• Preserving content in a usable format (e.g. vinyl record plastic breaking down, old 8track players becoming uneconomical to repair and rare to find, playstation magazine CDs that will never be available online despite being susceptible to CD rot)

I'm in the last two camps personally. I wanted to also share my opinions on the points you mentioned directly...

It is illegal and immoral

I think It is illegal and immoral to sell consumers a license to use a product, under the guise of them owning it without explicitly and clearly stating such at the point of purchase, i.e. consumer electronics where you may "own" the device but only have a license to use the operating system, digital game purchases on consoles which can be revoked at any time by Sony/Microsoft or the publisher, services like Amazon Prime Video where a digital box set you purchased (that can only be watched via Amazon's website) can be deleted by Amazon at any time, leaving you no recourse.

It steals the rightful intellectual property of directors

In my opinion, it should not be right for directors at the likes of UMG to profit from music made by artists who have died.

and developers who are only trying to make a living

The developers do not make anywhere near as much money as they should for their efforts, and quite frankly they are going to get paid regardless of whether you as an individual decide to purchase or pass on a product.

If you want to be a thief so badly, then rob a federal bank.

IMO the people in the first camp probably aren't interested in money if they have chosen not to purchase their media to begin with

I'm curious as to the reason behind the post though, has someone pirated your content before?

There is no way to buy media forever. Even DVDs go bad and get worn out, then you're back buying something you already own.

Piracy is not immoral, it is the free market pendulum that always forces media to care the tiniest bit of thought toward consumer experience.

I started pirating stuff I have subs and apps for, it's simply a horrible experience right now. These episodes of this season are on this one, and these are on another service that I have to switch to.

Now which service has the other episodes? Oh now they moved to a different app, and I'm still paying the old app.

The vast majority of time I'll just go torrent and plex something than chase it to many different apps, even if I have those subscriptions

If the money actually went to the people that made the content then there would be an argument, but it doesn't, it goes to a bunch of assholes who conned the actual content creators from their hard work.

Have an upvote!

You are wrong of course and "intellectual property" is a bullshit concept. Owning information is what is immoral. It's also no stealing as you're making a copy and not taking anything away.

I'd rather spend another $1000 on harddrives than give a single cent to streaming services or filmstudios.

First, piracy is not illegal everywhere, and a personal copy is the most legal way in almost every country to archive what you have bought.

As for the morality of it, it's your problem, not mine.

And the most important question is: What can I do when whole countries do not sell their music or TV shows? I'm thinking of Poland or Japan for example. I cannot legally buy media from those countries because they don't care about foreign customers. How can they lose money if they don't sell anything?

If you want a concrete example that happened to me yesterday: I want to buy a subscription to https://pilot.wp.pl/tv/. I want to give my money yet they refuse it. What can I do?

Are people downvoting because this is actually a popular opinion and doesn't belong here or because they disagree with it?

I can't get most of the content legally. What is my option?
When my friend wanted to watch “Breaking bad” a few years ago, he subscribed to a streaming service, it had only the second and third season. He paid for it, but piracy is the only option for him.
Even if you are in the USA, 87% of video games before 2010 are currently impossible to buy.

So on a morality point of view, I've downloaded epubs of books of an author where I've previously bought copies of their books multiple times, either because the originals wore out or I gave a copy away. I still have copies on my shelf or in storage, I just want to have copies on my Kindle.

I've bought things (or had bought for me) things on VHS and DVD formats and no longer have a player for either. So yeah I downloaded stuff I wanted to watch again

There are things only available on DVD and not available to stream. There are things that were available to stream which have since been removed and have been taken down. Why not pirate stuff to watch it again?

For a long time the Beatles weren't on Spotify etc. I had their stuff on their official paid for tapes growing up, then on CD when I was older. So in the interim I pirated it when I lost the original digital rips I made from the CDs. And until they release their mono albums officially I'll be hanging on to my pirated copies.

Notice a trend in the above? I very rarely pirate new media. But I treat the internet like an archive (I've not even gone into the stuff that is no longer available anywhere except YouTube or piracy). Quite often I've paid the creator('s masters) more than once for their work. I feel no guilt.

If I were to do it, I would only do it from large established companies or products that are extremely popular anyway, as the percentage of sales lost due to piracy is probably very little in that case.

Against indie devs yes, against Ubisoft and EA no.

If the product studdenly stop release, then it sometimes could be count as moral, because, when there are lots of digital products rely on the digital distribution (e.g. online game shop) then suddenly shut down, people will no longer to enjoy the digital products on that specific devices.

Please search "3ds eshop closeure"

Edit: "rely on", not "relay to"

Define a "living". then tell me who isnt making it. Piracy is self moderating, the content that is being pirated the most involves directors and developers that made the most money, even with the piracy. As you go smaller in scale to creators that are more likely struggling to make a living, are also the least likely to be pirated. Every artist Ive known, digital arts, music, tubers and streamers, have hated copyright strike systems. The ones that are popular enough to have pirates also have comfortable income from fans. There is no one being prevented from "making a living" by piracy.

Is it wrong to take food from a grocery store that would otherwise be thrown away? The grocery store isn't losing anything except potential future revenue.

I see it as a "try before you buy".

As a consumer, I have a right to know what I am buying. I shouldn't have to pay to see a movie, watch it and then find out that I didn't like it.

If I pirate music or TV/film and really like it, I will absolutely then pay for the album or the DVD and I have the CD/DVD collection to prove it.

As some other people have mentioned, there is the awkward situation where a DVD may not be available in your region or a CD is out of print etc. There is some music and TV that I'd love to own my own legal copy of, but it's logistically impossible and it's unfortunate that the only way to consume that media isn't legal.

Curious, are the people supporting piracy also supporting the writers & SAG strike?

How can you support writers and actors getting paid fairly when you steal their product?