I’m amused at these statements these ‘wannabe’ pirates make to justify piracy. A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know or justifying it.
I know why I do it & I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.
I think some still feel some level of guilt about it and naturally, whether consciously or subconsciously, rationalize it with ideas like this. I guess the progression from that is posting about it to show that “yes I pirate, but I’m not a bad person because rationalization”.
I don’t want some validation, internet points, 2 minutes of fame to sound / look cool.
No, you just need everyone to know you don’t care about sounding/looking cool to sound/look cool. Totally different.
While I do have no morals when it comes to copying smb elses hard work(I am a programmer, basically my job) I Support games when they are good. Movies are rarely any good but the cinema isn’t as expensive for me anymore than when I was a student.
And most important you can’t refund bad movies in the cinema.
I still think it should be illegal to sell someone elses work though. This also means profiting from it when you use it in your product/development environment.
TL;DR:
Piracy can be a means of demonstration to show the flaws in copyright. Which obviously needs to be public.
Because for some piracy isn’t simply about being a cheapskate but also about activism
Theres some truth to this, but a lot of people do use this as a shield against the general cultural acceptance that piracy is stealing or otherwise morally underhanded. I do it, but I don’t have any illusion I’m one of the activists. I just get indignant and refuse to pay someone for content or entertainment who I think is damaging to the medium or predatory in general. I feel like if I really wanted to make a statement, I just wouldn’t consume their work at all – but life is short and I want to have my cake and eat it too.
It’s possible to do both, I consume plenty of pirated media simply because it’s unavailable due to pathetic capitalist imposed digital distribution limitations and lack of equitable paid access.
I also consume other pirated media because I wouldn’t spend my resources for access because I don’t yet know the value of the content and won’t pay just for an opportunity to be disappointed, been there enough times to have learned that lesson. I’m happy to spend my time to find out your media sucks, but not my money, because that’s also my time with the addition that I’ve put actual effort into converting it into fungible assets.
I also deliberately pirate media that I would pay for and do understand the value of, both because I can’t always afford to purchase said product from a company making billions of dollars in exploitative corporate profits and because I have no interest in caring about that over my own personal satisfaction in life.
Now for most sources of media it’s more ethical to pirate their content than obtain it legitimately.
Though granted, if you want to hurt the company more than by pirating their content, you can by not pirating their content.
(Sadly, as seen with The Wizard Game, people are not so motivated to walk away from their beloved franchises. So ⛵️🏴☠️🦜⚔️🌊)
Confused - how does not pirating hurt the company more? Wouldn’t it be the exact same outcome for the company (as when pirated) or is this kinda like when GoT was arguing their popularity is even bigger when you look at the number of people torrenting their episodes
When we consume content and like it we have a tendency to want to patronize it, so yeah, if you pirated Wednesday season one, you’re more likely to watch season two buy T-shirts and other swag, look for more Addams related content, and so on.
A good example of this happened in Russia when Neil Gaiman’s books hadn’t yet been marketed there. There were some unofficial and crowdsourced translations (some Russians learned English just to read Gaiman!) and so when the market finally reached Russia, it exploded, because the fan base had already been established.
GoT was an unusual case because HBO was bought separately from normal cable packages, and so fewer people had it, so it depended on piracy and social contacts (groups gathering for viewing parties at their friend’s house). There were even public venues who would show the new episode (unofficially, so an unlicensed public performance) and by HBO ignoring these, it allowed the fanbase to swell to incredible proportions (at least until Season 8 which popped that bubble). Still, there are tons of spin-off markets from which HBO (now MAX) continues to profit.
When we like our content, we become invested in it. It becomes part of our lifestyle. We talk about it with friends. We make friends with folks who are also fans. And this is the point when we’re susceptible to collectables and spinoffs.
Also we† pirate for one of three reasons:
- We can’t afford to buy the content but want to consume it. Or it’s not available in our region
- The official version is odious to use (has DRM, forces us to watch commercials, etc.)
- The company that makes this stuff is malignant (cruel to its employees, bigoted against marginalized groups in the society, is associated with dangerous sects and subcultures) and we don’t really want to support them.
So in those cases where these are not factors, most people are going to choose to not pirate content they like, or support it in other ways. (If you want to support musical artists, it’s far less important that you buy their songs on iTunes, and far more important that you go to their concerts when you can. And buy their concert t-shirt for $60. John Coulton also takes tips.)
† We in this case refers to the larger demographic of those capable of pirating. When a product is expensive or unavailable or whatever, people who sometimes buy will look for ways to pirate or obtain deals or whatever. Yes, there will be piracy enthusiasts who never buy, but that’s a slender demographic despite what the anti-piracy propaganda might suggest. Also if content is only pirated, that may mean it was never officially released, or the release version was really poor quality.
“A smart person would pirate quietly without letting the world know” While posting “I do it & I don’t want some validation…”
To be fair, saying on the one hand what a smart person would do, and on the other hand doing the exact opposite, makes them a dumb person even by their own standards. At which point it matters less if one particular statement of theirs is correct or not, cause they’ve established themselves as an untrustworthy source.
Disclaimer: I don’t actually know if the previous poster meant to go in this direction or not.
