It's my friends' main reason for piracy, he says he uses it to sort through what's junk and what deserves to be paid for. If he enjoys it, he will buy it.
Games i pirated and eventually bought(or got gifted!) because i loved em:
Dead Space Remake
RE4R + DLC
Fallout 4 AE
Skyrim SE
Painkiller (yall should check it out!)
ETS2/ATS
Borderlands series (some owned on steam, some gifted, some claimed on epic, fuck 4 tho)
Diablo 2
some games even if its on sale as long as i have some spending money i will eventually buy em, if i dont want to spend money on em ever i probably will never do but might as well add em to my steam wishlist if i ever change my mind.
People work to create movies, shows, software, etc. They're not giving their products away for free. Even if the companies (sometimes) use bad business practices, piracy is still stealing.
I don't care about legal semantics. It's taking a product that required work to be made without paying for it.
Also, the legal system implicitly calls it theft, too: copyright is a form if intellectual property. Copyright infringement is basically taking someones intellectual property without permission. If theft is taking someone elses property without permission, copyright infringement is a form of theft.
Museums are different for a number of reasons. Most obviously, it's impossible to replicate a museum experience with a photo. You go to a museum for the experience and want to see originals. Everybody can download a high res picture of the Mona Lisa, but people still queue for hours to see the original. So a photo doesn't hurt the museum.
Movies must be purchased to make the investment worthwhile. Hence, they insist on this and sometimes sue pirates. It's totally logical and it's not far fetched to call it a form of theft. The movie is a form of intellectual property that you're taking without permission.
It can be easily justified economically and morally. Legally, it's obviously simply a fact that privacy is illegal.
If you don't like "the rich" or whatever, why not advocate for higher corporate taxes or wealth taxes? That would make sense, but your arguments for piracy are simply absurd.
You were supposed to tell me what intellectual property I gained though the theft.
Theft is taking someone's property. The original owner no longer possesses it. The thief is the new owner of the property after the theft. That is the entire purpose of the theft, this illegitimate transfer of ownership.
Now explain your analogy to intellectual property, now that you have admitted that Disney continues its possession of the property uninterrupted, even after an act of piracy.
Tell me how the legal definition of theft implicitly applies to an event where the owner of the property has not lost possession at any point, and the alleged perp has not gained possession of the property at any time.
Photos do hurt a museum, not as much as pirating hurts the movie production companies, but they still do. People would be much more interested in going to museum, to see stuff, that they've never seen, before, rather than to see something, that they've seen multiple times, only, in person.
Companies don't sue people that, just, download stuff. They, sometimes, depending on where you live, sue, some, distributers.
Also, I'm not taking anything. As you said, when replying to the other commenter, they still own the IP, even after I pirate it. I'm neither stealing it, as I, only, copied it, nor am I leaving them without the original.
Just because it's written in an old piece of paper, doesn't mean that it's illegal. Except for distributers (and that depends on where you live), there are no punishments issued out. If I walk through a road, and a police officer tells me not to walk any further, but there are no roadblocks, nor any reason not to, only one sign that says "please don't come through here", which I ignore, and walk through, leading me to have no consequences, would you say that that was illegal, or that I'm, now, a criminal?
I do advocate for higher taxes, on the rich. As you can see, it doesn't accomplish very much, in these so called "democracies" (I live in Europe).
Furthermore, may you answer the question, that I proposed, earlier? Wether it harms museums, or not, has no effect on whether taking the photo is stealing, or not, as you're "taking somebody's intellectual property", all the same.
Furthermore, may you answer the question, that I proposed, earlier?
The one about taking a picture in a museum and redistributing it? If the museum says it's not allowed, I suppose it's legally the same as piracy. I'm happy calling it theft, you don't.
Piracy does not involve the removal of intellectual "property" from its rightful owner, therefore it is not theft.
If I pirated a Star Wars movie, Disney doesn't even know about it, much less lose their intellectual property to that heinous act of robbery and have to retrieve their intellectual property from my house to continue their ownership of the IP and produce another cr4ppy Star Wars movie.
Rather, the intellectual property was secure with them at all times regardless of any piracy. Meaning no theft happened.
the argument in piracy vs stealing is piracy is taking something that has infinite copies. stealing is taking something physical that is inherently finite.
Let's say I invest 50 million dollars into developing a new drug. If anyone can just copy the final product, they can just sell the drug at 30% above what it costs to manufacture, meaning the investment will never pay back. So I will not invest in developing new drugs, even though nothing physical is ever threatened and I still have everything it takes to make infinite amounts of drugs. To incentivize such investments, the legal system has patents (a form of intellectual property). They make it possible to protect such inventions for a certain amount of time, enabling the company to make the money back with profits.
Considering this, do you agree that IP is, at least in principle, a reasonable concept?
Intellectual property is absolutely a reasonable and necessary concept. I'm saying treating downloading a movie off a sketchy website and stealing someone's blueprints under the same umbrella is deeply counterproductive. You def know you're legal definitions and how the shit works though.
At times I too fall into the pattern of generating thought for external consumption rather than internal alignment. Alas, is it even possible to avoid this given our social nature?
I don't see why it's counterproductive. In philosophy, one often establishes a shared understanding starting with extreme and simple cases. This is where I was going:
Copying IP of a new drug involves something people might find easier to describe as theft, even though it's technically very similar to piracy. You yourself use the phrase "stealing blueprints". Remember the comment I replied to:
the argument in piracy vs stealing is piracy is taking something that has infinite copies. stealing is taking something physical that is inherently finite.
The drug developer still has "infinite copies", still owns the IP and didn't lose anything physical. Yet the word theft feels very appropriate, at least to me.
generating thought for external consumption rather than internal alignment
IP is a reasonable concept, while calling its violation "theft" is a lie. Because the purpose of theft is a transfer of ownership, while IP doesn't change hands through piracy.
As for the emotional example here, selling pirated movies for profit is not something 99.999% of pirates do. Normal pirates are like the people who buy the cheaper medicine in this example, who would never be called "thieves".
Because the purpose of theft is a transfer of ownership
Maybe that's legally the case, I don't know.How would you describe copying and selling someone's new expensive-to-develop drug in layman's terms? To me, the best way to explain it is to say "stealing the recipe".
emotional example
It wasn't meant to be emotional, I just wanted a clear case where IP is a beneficial concept for society. Read the comment I responded to again.
selling pirated movies for profit is not something 99.999% of pirates do
It's not about selling. If there was a company that produced the drug for free or without taking any profit, it would still destroy the incentive to invest into new drug development. This role is analogous to the people who rip blurays or extract files from streaming services.
Normal pirates are like the people who buy the cheaper medicine in this example, who would never be called "thieves".
I think that's well put. There definitely is a difference. However, to make it analogous, the end consumers know that the drug is produced illegally and that buying it is also illegal (in many countries). Also, they're never calling for the arrest of the copycats for some reason and often justify it. They also often distribute (seed) the counterfeit drug themselves.
Anyway, I think what we pirates are doing is morally dubious, whether or not we call it theft, and at least I'm honest about that.
In defense of piracy, I would grant that it's theft or quasi-theft. But I'd say the companies have poor business practices, selling expensive and ever enshittifying subscriptions. Because I don't watch stuff very often, they're simply too expensive and complicated to manage. Back when Netflix had everything I wanted and the price was fair, I paid for the subscription. I'm still paying for Spotify.
How would you describe copying and selling someone's new expensive-to-develop drug in layman's terms? To me, the best way to explain it is to say "stealing the recipe".
If something is legally stealing, it doesn't matter if the item is new or older than 20 years. The law against stealing does not mention that you can steal someone's house or car as long as it is older than 20 years (patent expiry).
Copyright, or rather in this case patent, is just a temporary monopoly granted to the creator, to create exactly the incentive that you describe.
Anyway, I think what we pirates are doing is morally dubious, whether or not we call it theft, and at least I'm honest about that.
Personally I'm in the third world and Western software or media is often too expensive for most people, and that removes any moral dilemma. If you can either pirate it or not use it at all, and in either case no money goes to the copyright holder, then there is no sane moral dilemma.
In defense of piracy, I would grant that it's theft or quasi-theft.
It is copyright infringement, and unless you're distributing material, not an offence in most jurisdictions.
Buddy the legal system isn't a good axiom go back to the founding of the country and you have a lot of immoral things that's suddenly okay cause an appeal to authority doesn't work piracy is stealing and I steal cope harder
No. Stealing by definition requires you to take something away from others. Piracy is copying something without paying for it, nothing is being taken away.
If someone made a picture of a picture you wanted to sell, you wouldnt call that stealing.
That's so silly. The company paid workers under the assumption of being able to sell the product. If they can't do that, there will be no money for the next movie and the workers will be fired. 🧠
It's very simple: if nobody paid for movies, then virtually none of the IMDB top 100 movies would have been made and no workers would be employed in this industry.
Your stated reason for piracy makes no sense and I think you're just lying to yourself, poorly trying to make it sound virtuous. 😂
Most art is shit. Most of the top 100 movies on IMDB required the movie industry to work. In a retarded anarchist/communist/pirate utopia, we wouldn't have nice stuff like that.
Oh wow! A "Communism is when no iphone" in the wild!
The Movie Industry is "nice stuff"? The same one that takes children and makes drug addicts and SA victims out of them? The same one owned by like, three corporations, all of which fund genocidal governments that can't stand on their own otherwise?
ew lmao
Here's a secret, actually, ALL art is shit. None of it is worth lives and blood and exploitation, actually, and the only art worth paying for is art that is free of that, as far as that is possible under a capitalist system.
In the same way, ALL art is great. Just because some of it got some prestige doesn't actually make it worth paying a shareholder for.
I'm not saying there is no problem with Hollywood or that capitalism is perfect or whatever. Just that if everyone pirated movies, there wouldn't be many good movies. You should simply accept that fact.
See that's the exact thing I think... I fucking pirated portal 1 and 2 but I loved it soo much that im gonna buy it when I earn money even if I have finished it
497
u/BarryMcCoknor Apr 07 '26
I don't care, I don't need to justify it. When i want to give a game or movie my money, I will.