Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.

He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate

Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.

He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.

What are your piracy habits?

  • drcouzelis@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have an answer to your exact question but I want to emphasize…

    NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to “stealing” or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

    Practically speaking, the world we live in, with computers everywhere, cheap storage, and easy fast internet access for so much of the world, has only been around for about two decades, maybe three. NOTHING like this has ever existed before, and businesses, culture, and laws have been very slow to catch up.

    I’m not saying pirating is right or wrong, just that the whole idea is still so new that society hasn’t caught up to it yet.

    • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In Babylon Alexandria, docking ships were required to surrender any and all written materials to the library. There, scribes would make a copy of everything that was submitted.

      The originals of the documents were stored in the library and the copies were given back to the ships.

      First instance of intellectual property piracy?

      • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        First instance of intellectual property piracy?

        Perhaps, but of course there are still significant differences.

        To make these copies you needed a team of highly skilled scribes and their accoutrements, and the ship had to wait in port for several days.

        That is to say, these copies in babylon would have come at a significant cost.

    • Ganesh Venugopal@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to “stealing” or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

      YES!

      Nice comment, tq!

    • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to “stealing” or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

      old uk piracy ads used the line “Piracy is theft!”
      the funny thing is that it wasn’t actually legally theft
      theft required (and still does i think) depriving the rightful owner of the goods themselves

    • sock@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      thats a super copey way to say you pirate and dont see it as wrong. digital or not its still a product so the rules are the same.

      of course the rule being pirate from big companies and try to not pirate indie stuff (unless ur a poor college student)

      i pirate all my games and movies generally but i would pay if i liked a game a lot. but piracy is bad for the sole reason of if everyone pirated hypothetically then digital content would likely cease to exist which would also be bad. or maybe not if ur amish

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Digital content wouldn’t cease to exist, it just wouldn’t be able to be monetised.

        The content would once again be made by the people who are passionate about those projects, and not about the greedy shareholders that want mediocre content just enough to get people to pay for it and line their own pockets.

  • Stuka@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Give me a reasonably priced, accessible way to enjoy the content and I will happily pay for it.

    Streaming has become untenable and now it’s neither affordable nor convenient to watch what I want to watch. And with how frequently shows and movies bounce around platforms, who knows if the show I want to watch this weekend will be still available on one if the many platforms I’ve been paying for.

    I’m just done with it.

  • Joe Bidet@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    All culture belongs to everyone, therefore should be accessible to everyone.

    The sale of goods only concerns those who can and want to afford it.

    Sharing is not theft.

    Pirates are cool.

  • JasSmith@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t pirate music or games because there are reasonable platforms and pricing models which make pirating more hassle than it’s worth. Shows and movies, on the other hand, are an absolute shitshow to purchase legally.

    • Outrageous pricing.

    • Declining quality. Especially writing. See Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, and Foundation.

    • Content is often unavailable to purchase. See Disney vault.

    • Competing streaming services. I’d have to subscribe to six services to access the shows I like.

    • Content disappears from services with little notice.

    • Studios and platforms have been removing and modifying older content for political reasons.

    It’s like they’re trying to make the experience as bad as possible. So fuck ‘em. Thank you Sonarr and Radarr.

    • thelastknowngod@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I don’t pirate music … because there are reasonable platforms and pricing models which make pirating more hassle than it’s worth.

      Hopefully Spotify is not the platform you’re talking about. I don’t use them because they do not pay the artists. Bandcamp is the spot for music… It’s really the only place I get music anymore.

      • JasSmith@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I don’t use Spotify, but no one forces artists to list their music on Spotify. They can choose list on any platform they like. FYI Spotify does in fact pay artists. Just less than Bandcamp. Streaming is why I don’t pirate anymore. If I had to go back to paying $30 for an album I’d be a pirate again. So artists can take some of my money, or none of it.

    • Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It makes me so mad that company’s edit or change original movies or books for politcal or because it hurts somebody’s feelings. The movie/book was written or produced in a time period that was very different and its ugly to try to change history. If you don’t teach about the ugly things in history they are doomed to repeat themselfs

  • comfisofa@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    You know how writers get paid fuck all for the movies they write? You know how animators are paid criminally low wages for the anime they produce? At the end of the day for most media it’s the companies that get all the money, not the artists. Therefore, fuck them, I am pirating your content not contributing to your profit margins.

  • HTTP_404_NotFound@lemmyonline.com
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    1 year ago

    I cannot confirm, nor deny.

    But, I will say, once upon a time, before the days of netflix, if you wanted to watch things, you needed to spend a fuckload of money, to watch it on cable, with commercials every 10 minutes… or, you drove to a blockbuster. So, you either did that, or you obtained the movie/tv/etc, via a torrent.

    Then, netflix came along, gave you a ton of content, at a reasonable price. And- then, there wasn’t really much of an advantage to obtaining media via other alternative means. So, netflix took over by storm, and piracy went way down.

    Then, everyone wanted a piece of the action. So, then Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO+, ESPN+, (And insert 50 other network-specific streaming services) jumped into the fray. Then, they all made exclusive streaming contracts. So, if you watch a handful of things, you would need a handful of streaming service subscriptions.

    And- again, the alternative option of piracy, became the better option, as you can watch whatever the f- you want, WHENever you want, without having to pay for 50 different subscriptions every month, just to watch a TV series, which they decide to cancel after the 2nd season.

    Do you justify?

    If the fucking scumbags didn’t get greedy in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation. But, no, everyone wanted an extremely generous piece of the pie, and now everything has went to shit again. Fuck those guys. Isn’t like the actual actors/writers staring in movies gets any of the money anyways.

  • 👁️👄👁️@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I only pirate TVs/Movies. Streaming is in such a shitty state that I don’t want to figure out what service is on what, and I’m certainly not going to subscribe for just one thing to watch. I feel no remorse.

  • skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    If there was a service I could pay like $100-200/mo for and just have every movie and TV show I’d happily pay for it. It doesn’t exist, but pirate sites do and they do have every movie and TV show, including tons completely unavailable on any streaming service

    GabeN got it right, piracy is a service issue. I haven’t pirated a PC game in probably 12 years because steam works great and has basically every PC game I could ask for.

  • unfinished | 🇵🇸@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I pirate all media I consume and seed terabytes of pirated media every month, proudly. Fuck capitalism, that’s my justification.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I had to write a research report in university about whether or not piracy hurt or helped the recording industry.

    From the research, I found multiple studies that compared brain activity of shoplifters compared to those of pirates. The area of the brain that lit up when stealing physical objects did NOT light up for those who pirated.

    Digital piracy is not theft. No one is hurt except for unrealized revenue. But if someone pirates, was that even potential revenue to begin with?

    It was also found that piracy allowed for greater reach of content which statistically resulted in more people attending live concerts (think of piracy as free advertisement). Concert attendance led to increase in ticket and merchandise sales.

    So overall? Piracy is good. It is only bad if you ignore multiple factors and only focus on short term bottom lines. A net positive.

  • pachrist@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I spent a decade with streaming services, because for 10 years, it was the best, easiest way to watch what you wanted to watch. I paid a fair price, and studios got a fair cut.

    When every studio decided they wanted a bigger cut by extracting more out of my pocket, they intensionally fragmented the market and made me pay an unfair price for an inferior product. They haven’t innovated, done more, or produced better TV or movies, they just demand more for the same.

    So, I pirate.