this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Disclosure: I have been sailing the seas for years, but...
This logic does no justice to the objective financial harm being done to the creators/owners of valuable data/content/media.
The original creator/owner is at a loss when data is copied. The intent of that data is to be copied for profit. Now that the data has been copied against the creator/owners will, they do not receive the profit from that copy.
Yes yes the argument is made that the pirate would not have bought the copy anyways, but having free copies of the content available on the internet decreases the desire for people to obtain paid copies of the data. At the very least it gives people an option not to pay for the data, which is not what the creator wanted in creating it. They are entitled to fair compensation to their work.
It is true that pirating is not directly theft, but it does definitely take away from the creator's/distributor's profit.
According to who?
I guess herein lies the potential fallacy of my statement. Decreased desire is a Subjective observation.
One cannot draw a direct correlation, but there is data to conclude that not having a piracy option will boost sales of data initially, at least when it comes to games. (Hence why publishers continue to use Denuvo)
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/the-true-cost-of-game-piracy-20-percent-of-revenue-according-to-a-new-study/
Counterpoint: When Louis CK (prior to being outed as a sex pest) released one of his comedy specials on his website DRM-free for $5 he became a millionaire almost overnight.
https://boingboing.net/2011/12/22/drm-free-experiment-makes-loui.html
Price point matters, too.
It also jives with early Steam Sales when Valve would cut titles like ~~Left 4 Dead~~ Counter Strike down to 90% off, and they would sell so many digital copies that they were actually making more money off the lower price.
https://www.geekwire.com/2011/experiments-video-game-economics-valves-gabe-newell/