- It’s morally good when people access information, culture, and entertainment.
- It’s morally good when the author of a work gets rewarded by their work.
Piracy is morally justified when 1 is a more pressing matter than 2. As such, it’s justified in situations like this:
- If, in the absence of piracy, the pirate would still not pay for the goods - because #2 is set up to zero (the author of the work is not rewarded anyway).
- If it’s impossible to obtain the goods without piracy. For example, abandonware.
- If the author of the work would get breadcrumbs of the money used to access legally the goods, and the pirate compensates the author directly (e.g. donation).
Nuance seems rare in these posts sometimes, I appreciate your post!
Yes
Yes. Next stupid question.
yes but why is probably the bulk of it…
I am not stealing. It’s there, I take it and it’s still there. Don’t know why these posts keep popping up in piracy communities. Same plague was there on reddit too. Like seriously it’s 2025.
Its almost like you think pirating something has no effect on anything.
I want the stuff, the stuff is there. I take it. The stuff is still there, nothing was lost, nothing was stolen.
You’re not stealing stuff, you’re stealing revenue. The missing revenue is what they care about. But they have plenty of that already, so they can get bent
Stealing revenue it’s hypothetical, because it supposes that you were going to pay for the product if it wasn’t available pirated. And that is far from being certain.
That is very true, but that doesn’t stop them from going after piracy to protect the revenue
Not really, it’s just free publicity.
Unless their product is shit, of course, and no one would pay for it after trying or recommend it to others… in which case, fuck them, they deserve it for attempting to sell shit.
Me at the grocery store
Except the second half
Same. And for some reason I can’t seem to lose weight.
Everyone has already given their response so there’s nothing really to add other than, well, there’s lots of reasons to justify piracy. Most of them are even provided by the publishers / distributors themselves!
Also it’s weird to browse the top 10 responses or even below, and NOT see this xkcd posted or even linked. What is going on, Lemmy?
Usability and user experience. I’ve been on irc, newsgroups, dc++, etc etc. hell i traded d2 items for game keys on d2jsp.
Why? Convenient as fuck. From my perspective, fuck anyone who is gonna tell me how to consume media. Give me a better experience than i can give myself or fuck off. I’ll give my money happily (i have subscriptions) if it’s a good service. If it’s the only service, meh AND if it sucks ass well, fuck off again.
Why would anyone need to justify their piracy?
I bought a quite expensive piece of animation software (that cost over $1000) to use professionally. The specific term it was sold to me under was a “perpetual license.” I took this to mean “never ending”, which is the dictionary definition of the word “perpetual.” You can probably guess where this is going.
A few years later, in the middle of a professional project, it stopped working. I contacted support, and was told that they changed the way they were doing licenses so I’d have to buy a new one (at almost double the price) or eat shit. I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it.
So yeah, if you’re thinking of buying a Toon Boom Harmony perpetual license, maybe save yourself a lot of money and hassle and just pirate it instead. Or tell them to get fucked and use their direct competitor. I have done both.
Better question: Who decides what software “piracy” even is?
Sid Meier, obviously.
I am pro-piracy and I actually think that’s clearly a worse question.
Did you take something that was intended to be sold or only given with explicit permission without permission or payment? Yes? Piracy. To be clear this is completely separate from the ethical questions that surround that, but defining piracy is (generally. GENERALLY, for emphasis) not that difficult.
Yeah.
For example, does Microsoft deserve my money for how much of a dumping they’ve taken onto Windows since Windows 8? No, they don’t.
Because if I did give Microsoft my money, I’m REWARDING them for their half-assery.
It’s always moral to steal from billionaires
Most Billionaires don’t write much code.
I agree, but software piracy isn’t stealing from anyone.
Stealing definitively requires depriving someone of their own stuff. Piracy is more akin to a massive crowdsourced library. We’re all just helping to share the burden of hosting costs.
Huh. Based on the community this was posted in, I can assume that the answer the video comes to is “yes” and not watch it. But according to Betteridge’s law of headlines the answer is “no.” I need to argue about this without watching it but I don’t know what stance to argue about.
Ah! I’ll use the Orbit plugin to get an AI to summarize the video for me. Hm. The AI-generated summary says the video describes an anecdote about music copyright violations, talks about some ethical considerations about both music and software piracy, and then:
The speaker concludes by acknowledging the complexity of the issue and the importance of considering the perspectives of all parties involved.
So I guess the answer was “Maybe?” How am I supposed to have a pointless Internet argument about “Maybe?”
Bah. Someone attack me for using AI, at least that’s a debate I can sink my teeth into.
Lazy prick! Should have just put the video on in the background while doing dishes, or do what I did and briefly skim the comments for someone to fight with! AI is dumb, it’s not even named effectively and you’re dumb for using it and a sheeple for calling it AI in the first place!
Fight me! ❤️Joke’s on you, I have a dishwasher machine! Robots do my dishes for me too! It is you who is the dumb one, having to labor manually as you do!
Ah, there we go. Thanks.
Is this the online equivalent of fisticuffs?
And now I’m here to fight with both of you, not about what you’re arguing about, but I’m going to police your tone and call you both stupid because you didn’t argue in the arbitrary fashion I’ve determined is “correct!”
This is the least helpful contribution I can make, while simultaneously attacking you both!
Is it to early to drop in and call everyone Nazis or nah?
Fuck! How did I miss the most unhelpful option?
Educated guess: your brain isn’t wired to be useless in an conversation
You used the wrong word for “two early!” Worse than Nazi!
Something something literally Hitler?
No worries fam, I got you.
Yes. Next question.
Why do I sneeze when I’m not even sick?
Irritant particles in your nose. Or you may be someone with a photic sneeze reflex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
Thank you! Next question.
Why is my voice so low in the morning?
Likely a contraction from a lack of activity while sleeping. Similar to how singers need to do vocal exercises to achieve the full range of what their voice can achieve wbich, in my experience, means being able to reach higher notes than lower notes.
Your bed is too low to the ground, as we age our voices begin to struggle to get upright. Try whiskey.
I am not a Doctor, this is not medical advice.
Is it true that if you don’t use it, you lose it?
Whiskey? Yes, definitely. Look up “The Angel’s Share”.
Next question.
