this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

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Hi guys, first of all, I fully support Piracy. But Im writing a piece on my blog about what I might considere as "Ethical Piracy" and I would like to hear your concepts of it.

Basically my line is if I have the capacity of paying for something and is more convinient that pirating, ill pay. It happens to me a lot when I wanna watch a movie with my boyfriend. I like original audio, but he likes dub, so instead of scrapping through the web looking for a dub, I just select the language on the streaming platform. That is convinient to me.

In what situations do you think is not OK to pirate something? And where is 100 justified and everybody should sail the seas instead?

I would like to hear you.

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[–] 3valc@mujico.org 5 points 1 year ago

Pirating anything from nintendo since they won’t release anything from the gamecube era and the new games never drop in price.

[–] Dark_Blade@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

If the copyright holder no longer provides a legal way to acquire any piece of media directly from them, making it so that the only way to acquire it legally is in a manner that prevents the copyright holder from seeing any profit, and the legal option is essentially a grift where you’re sometimes paying 100x the sticker value for something where the copyright holder won’t see a single cent…

[–] teft@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All piracy is ethical since all information should be free.

[–] hoodatninja@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I think most anti-piracy arguments are completely ridiculous but your logic is so absolutist that it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine why this could hurt artists/small devs/etc. Not everyone who sells a thing is Walmart.

[–] CaptionAdam@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

For me anything Nintendo is fair game, I also dont bat an eye at any movie or show piracy.

[–] jules@fedi196.gay 4 points 1 year ago

A lot of folk bring up (correctly, imo) indie creators and end up mentioning Stardew Valley as an example - especially within the first couple years of its release. SV as an example has fell off, as it's had it's years to rake in cash.

But I absolutely pirated SV for YEARS, multiple times. I was in a place where I was utterly broke, could not always afford food, and only had internet because of assistance programs. My laptop couldn't run much, not even minecraft at that point. It could, however, run Stardew Valley. So I re-downloaded it multiple times over the handful of hand-me-down hard drives that I used in a laptop that kept frying hard drives. (eyeroll)

I did eventually get to a place financially where I could afford to buy SV, so I did. Then it went on sale on console so I bought it again, knowing I'd never play it (console without the aiming mod is awful), but it helped pay it back how much play time I'd enjoyed back when I couldn't afford the game.

That, to me, is ethical.

[–] Pixel@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I believe online piracy is the uploading part, not the downloading. I think uploading has a much more narrow use case, but if everyone stopped we wouldn't be able to download.

[–] ComradeKhoumrag@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago

Whenever EA or Ubisoft releases a half assed game with stellar marketing

[–] oldfart@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

I stopped going to cinema when the Hollywood movie cartel started messing with freedom on the internet, and I don't feel any remorse pirating Hollywood movies.

When I started earning enough to have disposable income, I made sure to buy ebooks and audiobooks, as well as supporting my favourite musicians on Bandcamp or by buying merch.

[–] whodoctor11@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I only don't pirate indie games.

[–] FluorideMind@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can't really trust that a game is worth the price tag anymore. So I treat piracy as a extended demo. If I feel the fun to price ratio is solid I'll buy the game.

[–] gigachad@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the system of Steam letting you try out a game for 2 hours/2 weeks is pretty fair. You can return it without further reasons.

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[–] itsAsin@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

i have downloaded tens of thousands of dollars of audio recording software. i always told myself that, if i were to ever make money from my efforts and usage thereof, i would be happy to pay the author.

i never made any money. but i hope the right people got paid by those that did.

[–] c1177johuk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Pirating content with the intent to buy it after trying it out using the pirated version (e.G indie games)

[–] Buttfore@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I purchased Zelda BotW when it was 6ish months old. Didn't like it, didn't finish it.

I'm working on getting it now on the steam deck because it's critically acclaimed and I'd like to understand what other people like so much about it. It's also my young nephew's favorite game. Totally legal emulation if I were actually dumping my own firmware.

When I pirate Tears of the Kingdom afterward, I'll have several different reasons;

The switch is underpowered. I'm done buying games for a device that can't keep up with modern game development. I'm not some performance purist either, I'd just like 60 frames at 1080. Zelda still looks good at that res. Also the hardware just kinda sucks. The joycon issues remain unaddressed and and the facebutton mapping should at least be mappable on a system level if they insist on being backwards.

Nintendo has pathetic online gameplay support, and a history now of gutting their digital stores. If I'm going to lose access to my switch purchases in the same time frame that the cartridges give out, I'm not paying. The walled garden they've created as a children's toy company doesn't serve me at 30.

If they'd throw these games on steam or epic with some industry-standard sales on occasion I'd just buy them outright.

If nintendo sold a box closer to a PS4/5 in power I could call my emulation unethical, but they don't. Their game runs better as an illegitimate product and that's on them.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

To me it's like buying a physical book, but then downloading a drm version of the ebook.

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