Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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What does a post-piracy world look like? (lemm.ee)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I believe we're approaching the final 3-5 years of prevalent piracy for several reasons:

Software: The difficulty of cracking and modifying software has significantly increased.
Movies and TV Shows: Numerous streaming sites have been shut down or faced legal penalties.
Adult Content: New releases are often removed within 1-5 weeks, and many older titles are no longer available on piracy platforms.

Given these trends, what might a post-piracy world entail?

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 7 months ago (3 children)

There is so much good, open source software that I haven't had to pirate any software in years.

As far as movies and TV, the piracy won't stop until the enshittification stops. Usenet and torrents won't go anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

This is so true regarding software. The FOSS apps present today are good enough with adequate features for daily day users like me - whether on Linux, Windows & especially Android (almost all my apps there are FOSS). I simply haven’t had the need to pirate software for a decade now.

Now games and media, that’s a whole different story. Coming from a third world country, I simply can’t fuel my gaming desires with a weak currency that even great services like steam hardly makes a difference. Therefore - sailing the high seas.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Torrenting on I2P especially won’t go anywhere. Even if you ban all VPNs/their legal protections

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Open source software offers significant benefits, but there are still many positions that remain unfilled. Specifically, it falls short in areas such as professional software (like AutoCAD) and business management software (such as QuickBooks Desktop and ERP systems).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

There's a difference here that I describe as "pro" meaning specialized, complex software targeted at big businesses vs individual tools of the trade: Vectorworks is gonna get paid for happily by companies needing support and relying on it for critical output, while your next door young architect will run an outdated, cracked version of AutoCAD because it's just too expensive - that kid could (and should) run Qcad.

Where I see pirated software surviving is also as a form of legacy support: if you run old hardware (i.e. 32bits), that's where "pro" software is gonna suck & leave you dry, while torrents are still out there.

In gaming or media, cracking looks like a sport, I feel people just want to have fun blowing restrictions to pieces. It's heartwarming!

Back to the 'tools of the trade" category, I am happy to pay a moderate price to support a talented dev (Isadora, D::Light) but get understandably annoyed at huge businesses practicing insufferable licensing schemes. I wish people start looking, and using then supporting more alternatives out there - but isn't photoshop still crack-able because it helps it dominate the market where The Gimp would do if it was the standard?