this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (16 children)

The problem with almost every pro-piracy argument like this is that they fundamentally require a significant percentage of the population to disagree with it. "People who can pay will pay and I'm not taking anything from them" only works for as long as both the general population and retailers regard piracy as wrong and keep funding all those games, movies etc for you.

Heck, all you pirates should be upvoting anti-piracy posts like this, we're the ones keeping your habit funded...

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (41 children)

The amount of people that take these moral high roads is fucking ridiculous.

Well, the faceless mega-corp made it difficult to purchase or stream

I don’t like that I have to play the game on Steam

Akshually I’m just copying it, so it’s not theft

There are too many streaming services, so I shouldn’t have to pay for ANOTHER service

I’m not depriving the content creator or publisher from any money, since I wasn’t going to pay for it regardless

Just fucking own up to it. You are downloading content that you did not pay for. I don’t take some enlightened stance when I download a movie; I just do it. What I’m doing is not right, but I still do what I do. I don’t try to justify it with some bullshit political take.

We all have our line on what we deem acceptable or not. The only piracy that, in my opinion, could have a leg to stand on is when it is actual lost media. No physical copies available, no way to stream or pay for it. Anything else is just the lies we tell ourselves to justify our actions.

Just admit that you could pay for the content if you wanted to, you just choose not to, because you are a pirate. You are depriving someone somewhere from a sale or some other form of revenue.

Edit: I worded “Just own it” poorly. Clarified it to “Just own up to it”. That was the original intent, just an oversight on my part.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

Just admit that you could pay for the content if you wanted to, you just choose not to, because you are a pirate. You are depriving someone somewhere from a sale or some other form of revenue.

I usually can't, actually. Not immediately anyway. But that doesn't stop me from paying for it when I can. Done it with plenty of games. And if I didn't have that option, which I primarily use for games I'm not entirely sure I'll stick with, well... I just wouldn't buy it. Full stop. Wouldn't be a consideration at all. There is no lost sale here, only the potential to fall in love with it enough to buy it when I eventually can.

Not saying this is some moral high ground. It's not. But plenty of folks just can't afford to gamble on whether or not they like something and end up paying it forward when they can.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Yeah, OP's take is like that of petulant child arguing semantics as though it changed a thing. Doubly cringe for adding that second section at the bottom where he depicts his opponent giving up and agreeing with him.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (3 children)

When I return from the library instead of the bookstore it is with the deepest shame.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

This is a specious analogy. e-books from libraries are already heavily controlled and are usually quite expensive to provide. Physical copies have their own inbuilt limits to distribution.

You're treating copyright like it's some sort of hardline moral stance against consuming any media you haven't directly paid for, when actually it's more like a very long list of compromises to balance the conflicting requirements of creators' needs to be compensated for their work versus society's need to benefit from that work. This is why lending libraries, fair use etc are legal and piracy isn't.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah, me too. Especially when I only have a scale model PLA print of the car I downloaded.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I wouldnt download a car, but that's only because im fanatically anti car.

Because cars are bad. There should not be cars.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Would you download a train?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes. Fuck yes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

But would you download a bus?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Depends on file size, and if the train download is done.

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