Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.
He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.
What are your piracy habits?
You cannot steal what is not physical. Theft implies removing a physical object from somewhere, creating a loss of an item.
Digital information is 1s and 0s, and you just create a copy. You do not remove the original one. There is no theft taking place.
The value of a product does not go down because I didn’t pay for it. If anything, if it’s a quality product, the value goes up. If I pirate something and enjoy it, chances are I will pay for it when I can afford to. If I pirate something and don’t enjoy it, well, I wasn’t going to buy the product anyway so there’s no loss. Let’s say I watch a movie at a friend’s house and absolutely hate it. I do not buy the movie. How is that different than pirating it and coming to the same conclusion? I see the movie without paying money.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Even if I pay for a product I love some asshole suit is going to get a bigger cut than the artists who did the work.
bigger cut than the artists
that’s the shitty part! I don’t like that one bit.
not ideal, you know, I would prefer it if creators had pay links attached to their accounts and you could anonymously send them money. Pirate something, pay the creator some money if you can. I mean, if enough people do it, the corps would be forced to change the game.
I’m an indie author, and all my novels ended up on PDFdrive.
Not that I’d be mad about it. If someone pirates my books and likes them, maybe they’ll support me in the future.
Just saying, I’m not wearing suits. I’m working full-time and write when I have off and got the time and energy.
For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.
If we had any sense as a species we would be funding artists so that they can pursue their art full time. Industry advances technology, but art advances the mind.
We might end up like people who do graphics… replaced by AI tools. There aren’t any that make it as easy yet (and maybe there won’t), but who knows where tech will lead us.
If you do it as a hobby, you don’t need to worry about it so much, but it does take something away for sure.
Yep! Often the math is “the people who pirated probably wouldn’t have bought your product if they couldn’t pirate it, so you didn’t lose anything. But you did gain a reader, who can now recommend it to others, and / or make future purchases themselves”. Generally speaking, pirating isn’t bad to the bottom line (not saying it’s good).
It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)
It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)
libraries are not comparable to what damage piracy does to brick and mortar stores and small authors
I’ve always been of the opinion that people who truly love what they piratesd will at some point want the author to carry on writing. Just like someone who just stumbled upon your work by accident. That’s the beauty of humanity, people do remember, and they do care, and creative arts are a pursuit that connects author and reader.
For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.
I am sorry to hear that. If it ended up on pdf drive, then I guess it’s either that, enough people want to read it or pdf drive has a bot which is ruthlessly uploading all the books it can find. Have you tried self publishing on kindle? Also, name your books if you want to, it looks like some eyeballs and popularity will do you some good.
I tried on Kindle, but the reality is that every day, a six-digit number of books are being released, which leads to insane odds.
I wrote cyberpunk/urban fantasy crossover books, but am now switching over to space opera. If you’re still interested, I can give you the title of the “entry book” that starts the story.
Just curious — why do you consider writing to be an expensive hobby? I mean, it’s totally expensive from an opportunity cost perspective, but wouldn’t any hobby be? Is it the cost to get it published somewhere?
If you just write for yourself, it only costs time. If you plan to (*self-) publish it, though, you want at least a good cover, and optimally, you’d hire an editor and maybe things like sensitivity readers. And then, most people seem to prefer audio books these days, which is either expensive, or hard to pull off, due to having to find a narrator who’s okay with royalty share with a non-established author. And then you haven’t advertised your book at all yet.
I’ve so far only worried about cover and editing. Wrote 4 novels. Now I’m writing a series and am considering writing the whole thing completely first, then getting a deal with an artist for all the covers. This also makes it easier to do foreshadowing properly over the course of more than one book, and it’s probably advantageous to stagger book releases, even if that means a few years without putting anything out to the world.
*All these points are moot if you aim to get published by an established house, but then you’re dealing with “the suits”, and people who rank “will it sell” higher than “is it good”.
So you pirate it and donate the normal price to the author directly, right?
Sometimes, when it’s particularly impactful. But you can save your shaming for somebody who cares about your opinion. The fact that you’ve given me more attention than anybody with the power to change things shows where your allegiance lies.
I don’t know what you mean by “allegiance”, you were talking about ethics and that authors don’t get what they deserve. Your problem was not compensation itself but that some people that you don’t think deserve it get a bigger cut than you’re comfortable with.
It logically follows that in this frame of mind the ethical thing to do is to cut out the middle man and compensate the original author for their work directly.
I don’t know what kind of box you put me into based on one sentence but not everyone is out to get you who doesn’t 100% agree with you. This is why civil discussion is not possible online anymore.
When I was in university, I watched a movie online using alternative means that I had been kind of interested in, but never went to see. I then watched it again. Then I went out and bought a DVD.
A little after that, I watched a lets play of a game that basically gave the entire experience in a single watch. I liked the game enough that I bought it immediately and just let it sit on my steam library without an install, just so the creator would receive their dues.
A year or so ago, I got a game through a charity bundle and wound up playing hundreds of hours of it. Since the creators got no money from my purchase, I bought merch, and waited for DLC to come out for me to buy instantly, just so they’d get something from me.
Recently, a AAA studio let go a bunch of creators while their game was wrapping up, essentially punishing them for a job well done. The creators will get nothing if I buy the game they made, but the studio that screwed them over will get everything. Just like I always have, I will give as much as they deserve to receive.
Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates.
Good on your friend. Poor or not, you should too.
Do you pirate?
Yes
And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?
Justify it ? you seem to suggest it’s wrong or something
Do you think there will arise a time where no one would want to pay for the services they want thus watering down the quality of the content for everyone? I mean, I think of whatsapp, If I had to pay a dollar a month/year, I would happily do that, but yeah, that’s not gonna happen anyday now.
That’s one of the services where everyone refuses to pay, thus resulting in an inferior product (in terms of privacy). So, put this into the picture for piracy, do you think there will be a time where people will just refuse to see movies and this would result in shit movies being produced that no one likes.
I think the profit motive isn’t the best at producing good quality artistic content; and I think people would still produce it without such a motive.
Mind you on paper I wouldn’t even be against paying for a good movie, for example. But I want a .mp4 in x265, with subs, that I can store on my NAS and read with whatever open source software I want to use. None of the legal platforms offer that - piracy literally offers a better service, universally
Same goes for video games: I want a native binary that I can install, that does not phone home at all, and does not have DRM or require a launcher. Only a minute minority of games, even on gog, match those
this would result in shit movies being produced that no one likes
I think that has already happened to be honest
The absolute tidal wave of shit media available belies that argument. Quality of material isn’t going to be affected, that’s produced by creative - who aren’t being properly recompensed anyway.
Studios don’t care about ‘quality content’ they care about money. In a world absolutely devoid of piracy they’d release a four hour film of a cat shitting in a box if they thought it would sell.
I’m very casual for a pirate.
If I can’t afford it or I believe it’s ridiculously overpriced (cough, adobe cough cough), or if I am against some stupid client that phones home and sucks resources (again cough cough adob…) then I’ll pirate it.
If I can’t purchase it because it’s nowhere available for sale, say, some 90s series in such and such language- pirate.
Finally, if I’m curious about something but not feeling comitted, I’ll pirate first then see if I buy.
I don’t justify any of this. I just do.
I usually don’t pirate, if something is overpriced then I’ll wait until it’s on sale. I have a set budget every month that I pay for entertainment, if something like a new video game is more expensive I’ll just wait a month.
I’m especially against pirating products of asshole companies like Adobe. That’s because even if you don’t pay for them you’re still popularizing their products, helping it stay an industry standard. I’m not in a profession where they’re a necessity so I use their competitors like Affinity, which is good enough for my purposes, and I’m ok with supporting them.
I sometimes watch movies or series on non-legal streaming sites if they’re not available elsewhere, but that’s about it.
I’m especially against pirating products of asshole companies like Adobe. That’s because even if you don’t pay for them you’re still popularizing their products, helping it stay an industry standard.
why are adobe assholes btw? I mean, I seriously don’t know. Also, when a company becomes big enough, it’s almost like you are hurting yourself by not pirating their products.
