1410
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] mriormro@lemmy.world 271 points 1 year ago

I've been pirating since I was a child. That being said, I don't think it's particularly healthy to pin 'media pirating' as a personality trait.

[-] DrQuint@lemm.ee 32 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I basically stopped pirating entirely despite doing it relentlessly early in life. I still owe Capcom a thousand bucks if I am to pay that one alone back.

The basically part is that I still pirate what little music I need. Fuck the music industry.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] spookedbyroaches@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

Do you know what community this is?

[-] fiah@discuss.tchncs.de 76 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

participating in a community ≠ making it a lifestyle

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] ColonelSanders@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Yup. Pirating is about filling a need where companies sorely lack in providing services. When a company provides a shitty service or offers no viable alternative to obtaining something I would gladly pay for, pirating bridges that gap.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] pip@slrpnk.net 227 points 1 year ago

If you have money to spend (and THAT much), you can still pirate, but if you pirate without trying to fund the source of your art and tools, you're a mega asshole. Especially if you have as much money as this dude claims to have. You can find the creators of your games online, find their ko-fis, their patreons. Where there's a will there's a way

[-] whoamibro@lemmy.world 35 points 1 year ago

For some people, it's the convenience with pirating. It's easier to pirate a movie from a go-to piracy website that you use than to find in which of the 50 different streaming sites the movie is available.

[-] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 43 points 1 year ago

Gabe Newell agrees with you. He said that piracy is almost always a service problem, not a pricing problem.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 27 points 1 year ago

Also I'm top 4-5% in my country, but compared to developed countries in not even at top 50% and so many of these digital products are not necessarily priced lower for my region specially the big houses like EA and Ubisoft, so I understand the original comment. And i also agree on the second part that where there is a will there is a way.

But i remeber donating about 10$ for a small dev that was livestreaming and i had pirated the game because game costed 40$. And I thought 10$ was a decent enough donation to cover my sins. Dev in a couple of days was crying over stream about how donating 10$ is doing nothing and he just would buy a beer (10$ buys about 14 beers in my country) and was just being an ass over the stream.

I'm not saying all devs are like that, but for a lot of third world country pirating is a lifestyle not because they just want to keep stealing, they just see it as a movement against wealth inequality. I'm not saying it's right or not, I'm just explaining how the thought process works.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] lipilee@feddit.nl 19 points 1 year ago

this. pirate all you want, netflix/disney/etc. will be fine. but find and support the artist. this is why i'm now stuck with the crap news around bandcamp. there are less and less ways to support creators instead of the leeches every day :(

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (14 replies)
[-] doublejay1999@lemmy.world 186 points 1 year ago

Anon willl soon be 14 years old

[-] BrandonMatrick@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago

Ah, to be young and -6 years old again

[-] Gormadt 18 points 1 year ago

People lying on the Internet?

They can't do that, that's wrong

[-] Lennard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 129 points 1 year ago

If you have enough money to live comfortably, I think you should pay for art you love. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pirate anything (especially from big corps), but please donate some money to indie games, music, theatre...

[-] CoderKat@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

Heck, I'd say even give money to those big corps so long as they are being reasonable with the price and availability. Reasonable varies by person, of course. But for me, I'll pay for any $70-90 game (the normal price for new games now in Canada), but stuff like Sims DLC or how the original Mass Effect only let you get DLC through some dumb BioWare credits are cases where I'd pirate no regrets even with my current income.

After all, there won't be AAA games if people don't pay for them. I have (mostly) no qualms with big publishers pocketing a significant profit on those games if they get made well. Bigger problem I have is with games that get rushed to the point of impacting quality, but that's something I see more for changing how you approach that individual title. Stuff like mistreating staff (crunch time) is a bit iffier. I still lean towards giving them my money, since nobody enters the game dev business without knowing it'll involve crunch and I do want the devs to be rewarded for their hard work with a commercial success (cause that's unfortunately just how success is measured in our capitalist society).

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] zwaetschgeraeuber@lemmy.world 104 points 1 year ago

if you have enough money, pay for stuff you like.

[-] seitanic@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 1 year ago
[-] MashedTech@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're right. If you can afford something you like you should steal it, it's much better. Whenever I go into a library I just take a bag and dump all the books and take them home. Why should I put in the effort of wasting my time(meaning money I could have earned) signing a library card when I can just steal? It's THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY. That's how I stay RICH. I never pay. Whenever I see someone about to pay for something they want I just steal their money, why should they keep it if they're not smart enough to not waste it? Their money is much safer with me. The apartment I'm currently living in is so cheap, because I never pay. I just changed all the locks, have triple bolts on all the doors and just stay here. It's mine, it's free and they can't kick me out because I won't let them. Why should I pay for the internet when it's basically flowing free through these wires and air? I just take some from my neighbor. When I go to a coffee shop I just grab the first drink I see that's on the counter. If they're not fast enough to take their drink, I take it, it's just sitting there, it's free.

[-] YeeterPan@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

steal

Tldr~ the comment isn't relevant as piracy isn't stealing

load more comments (12 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] mriormro@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

It's a nice way of showing the people who make the things you like support.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] val@infosec.pub 100 points 1 year ago

My coworkers were talking today about all the hoops they were going through with streaming to find the content they wanted and navigating the byzantine extra charges to share it with their family. If piracy wasn't an option I still wouldn't go through all that, it's madness how much worse the paid service is to the high seas.

[-] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 53 points 1 year ago

Yup. My gf has Netflix but for one of our shows, the English subtitles disappeared (she's ESL). Took like 15 minutes to figure it out, but happened again the next day. Now we pirate that show because it's easier, even though she has it on Netflix.

[-] DrQuint@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also used someone else's Netflix to finally hit the attack on titan craze some years back.

No english subs. Have to read the local language. Whatever. The names were not accurately translated. Whatever. I could look past that since they were consistent within the subs as presented.

Season 2 - all the names changed from season 1. Even something as simple as changing a K to a C is too much and unacceptable, but the fuckers were straight up changing the name of the militaty units and shit. I had no idea who was who.

20 minutes later, I'm watching the HorribleSubs version with the worldwide-accepted English names and I never watched anime on Netflix. Piracy is a service problem.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Enkrod@feddit.de 91 points 1 year ago

Aye, I used to sail the high seas, the hull of my ship gnarly with viruses, adware and malware from some infectious crackers or key-generators.

Then I had money, and started buying my software and my movies and all was good for a time. Then my media consume shifted to mobile devices, but I had Amazon Prime Video as the only really available video-streaming service around and all was good for a time. Then I added Netflix, as it arrived on my countries market and all was good for a time. Then I added Crunchyroll, Disney+ and Hulu and everything sucked, streaming the shows I wanted to watch was suddenly so expensive, no single streaming service had everything I wanted to watch, so I needed to subscribe to them all, costing an amount of money I would not spend on buying those shows.

Now I have unsubscribed from all but two again, but the market is so fractured, there is barely anything interesting on the services I still go to.

So my eyes keep wandering to that old tricorn, the hook and peg-leg, gathering dust on the wall. I can hear the waves crashing and feel the tide rising in my bones. The moneybags have decided to press us for more and more, their greed means no single harbor, not even two are enough to supply our demands. So there is plenty of bounty to be found on the high seas again, big fat galleons full of content otherwise unreachable or too expensive.

Doncha hear it boys? Davey Jones is singing again, calling us back to the sea, put on your VPN, defy the torrents and right your compasses with a good magnet. We did not choose this life, they made us turn to it.

[-] PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 76 points 1 year ago
[-] MrSqueezles@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago

I'm a really great person. I'm good at everything. My friends are all tools and won't ever be as amazing as me.

Congratulations. I bet those friends are absolutely real.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 54 points 1 year ago

I'm heading back to it.

The streaming was sort of OK, and now it's wank. Spread across dozens of services, that don't have enough content to justify their existence. No UI linking them all together means you have no idea if something is available or not without checking justwatch.com

If music was like this, I'd pirate that too.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Rabbit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 51 points 1 year ago

The hunt is part of the fun. Like how people will opt to build a PC or a keyboard over a pre-built or pull out vinyl over digital. The steps taken to retrieve and enjoy the media is sometimes a relaxing process.

[-] Redredme@lemmy.world 74 points 1 year ago

Yeah, no.

The hunt is only fun if you've got time to spare.

Throw in a spouse, kids, good but demanding job, a place to live, social obligations, detoriating (geriatric) parents, and you're so happy you can just mash one single button and your favourite track, game or series starts to play.

That's the reason why people stop pirating. Time.

When time is not (yet) your most precious resource you can see the fun in anything. Even virus scanning.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm well over 25 years of sailing now (40 if you count games for early PCs), and they'll pry the sabre out of my cold, dead hands. I've made not watching ads a lifestyle and piracy is so much easier than dealing with the bullshit interfaces of streaming companies.

If I have a way of directly donating to creators and not via their shitty production companies, I'll take it. Podcasts have it right, I can send money to creators and get an ad-free stream. If I can't, I don't donate and I don't listen to their work.

In the end, me avoiding ads isn't costing anyone anything, because if I hear an ad, I likely avoid that product going forward. They have at best zero effect on my buying decisions, if not a negative one.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

What a twat. Imagine your personality being you don't support creatives because you are addicted to stealing.

[-] Nevoic@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

I support creatives with direct donations. When you buy Netflix, you're supporting extraordinarily wealthy capitalists.

If you actually care about supporting creatives, end all your subscriptions, pirate all your media, and give 100% of your previous subscription costs directly to the creatives you want to support.

[-] exhaust_fan@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

IIRC paying for streaming services rarely supports creatives beyond a fraction of a cent per play tho

[-] CaptKoala@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago

How many times do we have to write this exact line? "Piracy is not stealing, as the original remains in the hands of the owner. Piracy is simply making a copy and distributing it."

It''s not a morally correct act to be sure, however we really need to come up with a better terminology.

I do agree with your assessment of this particular twat though.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago

4chan and randomly using slurs for no reason

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Hazmatastic@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago

I buy the things I want to support. Small game studios get my money. Bands get my money directly, I buy albums and merch. Pretty much, small businesses or organizations that put great amounts of care and love into their high quality work get my money all day, as directly as i can. But would I pay for an Activision/EA game? Or a Marvel movie? Absolutely not.

[-] Tom_bishop@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Pay it forward. I'm from 3rd world country. Growing up pirating gave me and my brother precious memories playing cs, doom, star wars, gta2, rollercoster tycoon, sims etc. Not to mention music and movies which would've cost us weeks of our food money if we would've bought it legitimately. We both grew up and made decent enough money now. I paid for my games and sometimes paid to play old games if i could find it in Steams. Million thanks to all the crackers, hosters, translators, modders, seeders, etc. You made my childhood memorable, and worth living despite all the shits going around us where we live. Oh not to mention i learned better english playing games than learning it from school.

[-] Cannacheques@slrpnk.net 29 points 1 year ago

I pirate a lot of stuff too but I prefer to buy stuff too sometimes just to provide support

[-] daniskarma@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

I tend to buy stuff I've already pirated.

I have games bought with 0 hours played because I already played them with my pirate hat.

When you are a pirate you have a different mindset. You get to really choose who do you want to give your money to, and you tend to chose people who really deserve it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 26 points 1 year ago

So hilarious to see this on this sub after people assured me time and time again that "we only pirate because prices are too high!"

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 33 points 1 year ago

It's almost as if we're all different people.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[-] newjunkcity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 year ago

There're a couple of huge downsides (for me personally) to streaming services that just grinds with me:

  • the quality is always worse than physical media, and
  • scrobbing (moving back and forwards in the video, with the arrow keys or by moving the playback head) is almost never instantaneous, it usually requires a couple of seconds while the video rebuffers

Perhaps physical media is better these days (than DVDs were) for scrobbing, but then you have the FBI piracy messages to deal with. I've never owned a BluRay player, perhaps they're better?

But I know that sailing the high seas gets me a high-quality video, and I can jump backwards ~5 seconds instantaneously when I've not heard a bit a of dialogue.

[-] emax_gomax@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean, if you can afford it you should support industries. I pirate a lot. Movies. Games. Music. Etc. Nothing wrong with that IMO, at this point piracy is the closest we can get to true ownership over anything because the entire industry has f*cked over consumer rights for assumed profit. But I still buy physical releases because I don't want content I enjoy to die and I like building a collection of good content. Blurays are great (although also DRM encumbered :/), nothing beats the smell of new manga, and at this point music streaming is just a far better experience than piracy (I use qobuz). If you're young or poor then do what you have to to enjoy yourself. If you're an adult with a great salary then don't be an entitled prick. If theirs ways to support content you enjoy you should. If such ways aren't provided like most Netflix originals not having blurays then f*ck Netflix release some blurays if you want my money.

[-] Discoslugs@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

When i search roku for a movie made in 1969 and its $9.00 to rent or 15 to "buy" on their shitty platform......

Ahoy, matey

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
1410 points (100.0% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

54627 readers
406 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS