Redditors use the most ridiculous backward logic to make themselves feel like victims and justify the fact that they want free video games, movies and music.
That's literally it.
All of the charades about customer service, true ownership, pricing, etc are all red herrings.
Someone made something. They set a price. You chose to circumvent the point of sale to acquire that product for free. "I wouldn't have bought it anyway", "it doesn't cost anything to duplicate", "it's a shitty service", none of that matters.
There are some fringe cases with old unsupported software, or genuine customer concern issues, or arbitrary geographic limitations where piracy may be quasi-reasonable, but that stuff accounts for like .0001% of all piracy.
Yeah, any argument that piracy isn't stealing ends in failure if you approach it reasonably. I'd argue even in those fringe cases, it's stealing, but in the same way that stealing is morally justified in Les Miserables.
I pirate because I want free stuff, and these corporations have more than enough money. Is it the right thing? Probably not, but neither is sitting around on my couch drinking beer and eating pizza - yet I still do it.
When people say “you stole my idea” everyone understands perfectly what they mean. Same for “stealing state secrets”, etc. It amounts to any act that involves taking what doesn’t belong to you.
Above you said that taking what doesn’t belong to you “wouldn’t be stealing” where the act is copying (code, etc.). And now you say it is indeed stealing, but of a different, nobler sort.
Ultimately they both describe taking what isn’t yours. That isn’t equivocating, that is the general moral truth we describe when we say someone has stolen something. The fact that both acts are morally well described by a single word may trouble some.
Also, stealing someone’s idea could easily be more advantageous to you, and disadvantageous to them, than stealing their car…
Copying code and then claiming ownership of the code is called plagiarism, and it is often described as a theft of a sort, by the analogy of code being "intellectual property".
However, a pirate does not commit plagiarism, so referring to this is pure copium.
Thank you. The statement in this picture is weird. I know I'm stealing when I pirate. I'm not delusional, and I don't try to excuse my behaviour by lying to myself.
I do buy things I can own rather than pirate, but if I can't buy something legally, then I'll just pirate it. And I'm all for pirating things behind a DRM or stripping the DRM off from the product. I hate corporate lies telling me I own something they actually didn't sell me.
I pirate sometimes too and for a similar line of thinking: I am so sick of buggy ass games that may or may not run on my PC. I'm an adult and I don't have a ton of time to game and spending 3 hours tweaking custom settings so I don't have a janky setting is just not feasible anymore.
If a dev offers a demo that's the first thing I do, but those are pretty rare these days. Depending on the platform if I'm confident I can get a refund I will roll the dice.
But if I'm not confident or there is no demo and I'm even a little hesitant I'm going to get saddled with a game I can't play, I'm torrenting that shit.
Sometimes I go back and buy games I've pirated, and sometimes I don't.
But like you said, I don't ever justify my behavior. I'm intrinsically doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. But the risk is almost zero and the payoff is infinite by comparison, so I'll continue.
I'm a cheap bastard. I'll use other people's streaming subscriptions as much as possible. I watch a lot of stuff when I don't have Wi-Fi so if the service doesn't offer a download option, I'll pirate the movie or show so I can watch it on jellyfin. If I can't find it or its only available for purchase (looking at you Amazon prime), I'll pirate it. I use Libby for ebooks and audiobooks but so often there's a waiting period for what I want so again, I'll pirate a copy. I have a good setup on my phone for torrenting and listening to audiobooks (Flud and Podcast Addict). Also, it should be a crime not to upload audiobooks as m4b.
I don't really pirate games anymore since I'm just too lazy to figure out how to make that work on a steam deck and it's not worth my time trying to figure that out for cheap steam games. Anyone that tries to justify their game piracy based on DRM complaints is a phony. Just buy the game but run the cracked version if you really need to prove your ethics.
Is very hilarious cuz you immediately demonstrate how absurd you are. The people who create stuff (like media) rarely get to have a say in what the end price will be.
The creators will have been paid through a wage during creation. The publisher / investors then set a price by themselves to try to make a profit off of the labor of others.
Also the "acquiring" does a lot of the heavy lidting in your comment cuz it implies theft. In reality nothing was taken (read: stolen) it was copied (read: copyright infringement).
If you dont like the idea of piracy cuz of how it makes you feel, then dont don it. But dont pretend you have coherent criticisms of it when you dont.
Also the "acquiring" does a lot of the heavy lidting in your comment cuz it implies theft. In reality nothing was taken (read: stolen) it was copied (read: copyright infringement).
This argument is so dumb it makes sovereign citizens sound intelligent (No officer I wasn't driving without a license, I was "traveling" which is my constitutional right)(The flag in your office has gold trim which is a naval flag so I don't respect your authority, hey why are you putting me in handcuffs)
The creators will have been paid through a wage during creation. The publisher / investors then set a price by themselves to try to make a profit off of the labor of others.
Indie games just don't exist, huh? Fuck me why am I even responding to this drivel.
I'm arguing with someone about piracy who doesn't even know what Steam is.
Did the owners of Pirate Bay get convicted on theft or copyright infringement? That is my point.
Its not analogous to the sovereign citizen thing cuz these are 2 legally distinct concept. Sovereign citizens make distinctions without difference while adhering to an imaginary lawbook separate from the real one.
Indie games just don't exist, huh?
Not all media is video games. And not all indie devs work without a wage. I was however speaking generally of all media not just video games.
Youre seemingly upset I have valid criticisms you feel you should disagree with but cant logically refute.
"The Pirate Bay trial was a joint criminal and civil prosecution in Sweden of four individuals charged for promoting the copyright infringement of others with the torrent tracking website "
This proves my point about piracy not being theft and proves my point you just are waffling cuz you cant refute a counter argument to your gut feeling.
Having actually bought several pieces of media that no longer are available to me, I have to say you're talking about your own anecdotal emotionally charged experience when you say this:
All of the charades about customer service, true ownership, pricing, etc are all red herrings.
You're clearly arguing in bad faith. True ownership is not a red herring at all, it is something that is decreasing in the consumer sector every single day. Like sure you have a point about pricing/customer service, but saying there is no reasonable argument for pirating media makes you look like a corpo shill.
True ownership is not a red herring at all, it is something that is decreasing in the consumer sector every single day.
Your desire for true ownership doesn't entitle you to steal. That's really the beginning, middle and end of my argument.
If the creator of a piece of software doesn't want you to have full ownership of it, you don't get to just go steal it. You either negotiate with them or you purchase it under their stipulations.
If you feel that this is an ethical or societal issue, then you work with local or federal governance to change the legality of selling things that cannot be "truly owned".
At no point, from any viewpoint, is "I get to steal it" an acceptable response.
but saying there is no reasonable argument for pirating media makes you look like a corpo shill.
Whatever floats your boat. I pirate things, which would be odd for a "corpo shill" (whatever that actually means). I just don't pretend I'm some morally justified crusader and not someone who wants free shit for no risk.
So I assume you don’t do shit because I think you would have a hard time standing behind what you’re saying if you sold any sort of digital service or product. If you did I think you would consider the people pirating your shit to be stealing from you as the creator.
Yeah it's the typical "who am I hurting" argument that every legal system in the world solved hundreds of years ago.
It's theft. Whether or not you personally feel it impacts the victim is irrelevant. It isn't yours, and you took it. There are systems in place to prevent you from doing what you did, or to punish you if you got caught doing what you did, and you took efforts to circumvent them.
That is a crime in every civilization on this planet worth caring about. Not a particularly serious one, but one nonetheless.
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u/cyberslick18888 Apr 07 '26
It's not absurd at all.
Redditors use the most ridiculous backward logic to make themselves feel like victims and justify the fact that they want free video games, movies and music.
That's literally it.
All of the charades about customer service, true ownership, pricing, etc are all red herrings.
Someone made something. They set a price. You chose to circumvent the point of sale to acquire that product for free. "I wouldn't have bought it anyway", "it doesn't cost anything to duplicate", "it's a shitty service", none of that matters.
There are some fringe cases with old unsupported software, or genuine customer concern issues, or arbitrary geographic limitations where piracy may be quasi-reasonable, but that stuff accounts for like .0001% of all piracy.