Piracy is whatever. Using an old school ass MP3 player in 2023 is unhinged though. I'm sure their phone can do whatever that MP3 player can do just as easily.

I will torrent the latest movie, but I will buy the latest album from my favorite band directly off Bandcamp. Might even buy a t-shirt or some stickers.

I think for movies and music this is totally true. Video games less so but not impossible

I don’t pirate games because Steam just makes it more convenient, and sites like IsThereAnyDeal make it easy to find sales.

However, as someone that’s been a hobbyist developer for 15 years, and never really been able to overcome the imposter syndrome to be able to publish anything, I’d be happy if someone thought my game was even worth the time to pirate, much less be paid for.

I can afford Crunchyroll at this point, but I still watch exclusively from Aniwave (formerly 9anime)

I pay for netflix, prime, disney+, paramount+, youtube premium, nebula, and a few more services. I buy music and movies, if available, on bluray and rip them to my own jellyfin server.

And yet, about 20% of what I watch, I've got to pirate because there's no reasonable way to actually watch it. Legal ways often only have the German dub, or are lower quality.

(When I was younger, my family was relatively poor, so back then I obviously pirated everything, but once I could afford it I wiped my entire collection and bought the exact same content properly again, for moral reasons obviously but also because I prefer to do rips myself so they've got proper quality).

From Limewire to QBitorrent, I've been sailing since I've had a computer.
It's crazy that people aren't aware of the alternatives out there, when all it takes is a little googling. But I guess that's just a sign that the likes of Netflix and Spotify have a stranglehold on mainstream consumers though

I personally don't believe in copyright. Nobody should be able to own an idea or data and be able to tell me what i can and cannot do with said 1s and 0s, which is what digital media is. I will find other ways to support artists and creators like going to concerts, donating or buying merchandise etc... You can't steal data because nobody owns it to begin with in my view.

Anything confidential should be kept encrypted or offline of course.

The RIAA drove me to piracy in the early days.

Then stuff like Google Play music came along and I stopped because I can actually pay for basically any song I want to listen to, all at my fingertips and that is still true. It makes me happy to support the artists and their music though I know they don't get very much of the cut.

The MPAA was much of the same story.

Then Netflix happened and I was all set for the same thing to happen, but it didn't. Now streaming is almost as fractured as cable TV packages, and I went right back to piracy.

Screw it. I don't feel bad about it because they haven't shown any regard for the people they continually exploit, namely their customers. They don't give any shits if I financially sink while trying to afford to enjoy the things that they make, so I won't give any shits about their financial situation while I enjoy it anyways. Fuck them.

Or, pirate because it’s what Jesus would do.

Jesus 2024 gets sent straight to jail for just copy pasting everything for everybody, completely ruining the economy. You wouldn’t just download food for the hungry? Think about the corpo farms.

Just a few days ago I pulled an old Sony's NWZ player as they still have superior audio quality compared to phones. I had to throw it away after 10+ years as the battery died.