this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
37 points (89.4% liked)

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

63843 readers
516 users here now

⚓ Dedicated to the discussion of digital piracy, including ethical problems and legal advancements.

Rules • Full Version

1. Posts must be related to the discussion of digital piracy

2. Don't request invites, trade, sell, or self-promote

3. Don't request or link to specific pirated titles, including DMs

4. Don't submit low-quality posts, be entitled, or harass others



Loot, Pillage, & Plunder

📜 c/Piracy Wiki (Community Edition):

🏴‍☠️ Other communities

FUCK ADOBE!

Torrenting/P2P:

Gaming:


💰 Please help cover server costs.

Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Basically: should i care about ethics?

top 30 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] cmgvd3lw@discuss.tchncs.de 34 points 7 hours ago

Do what your ethics dictates. There is no right or wrong answers.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

Basically: should i care about ~~ethics~~ capitalist ideology?

No.

The system is literally genociding people, destroying the planet, etc. It's a major mistake to take their "ethics" seriously. It's just another grift. Enjoy the natural freedom of information while you still can.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 22 points 6 hours ago

Support the creators who deserve support. Otherwise you will end up with nothing good to pirate, because all the creators who deserved support and made your favourite creations, starved to death (or got other jobs, effectively the same thing)

Your single act of piracy is not likely to make a difference either way, but on the other hand, your single act might indeed be the straw that breaks one particular camel's back. And collectively we have to take some responsibility for that. It's not even just about ethics (although it is ALSO about ethics), it's about self-interest. You can be an individual freerider if you want, but eventually the freeriders overwhelm the system and it shuts down.

Realistically there will always be plenty, plenty of games to pirate. But the key question is, will enough of those be good games, the really enjoyable ones that you want to play? The AAA slop and rehashes will never stop, oh they''ll churn and froth and lay people off and blame pirates but they're effectively self-sustaining, it takes money to make money and it takes money to lose money and there's enough money in the system to keep them churning out sequels and derivative "new IP" until the heath death of the universe. There will always be some good games to pirate and to play no matter what you do, no matter what we all do.

But it's not a binary condition whether our financial support or piracy matters. You vote with your dollars. Your dollars guide the AAA studios in their desperate chase to steal the dollars from us, and your dollars literally enable indie developers to continue their projects at all. If too many people are not rewarding the kinds of novel and well-made games they want to see from AAA studios, and not supporting people's passion projects that they've poured years of their lives into, you're not going to see as many novel and well-made games or passion projects like that happening, and odds are good that at least one of the ones you won't see happening will be one you really would have enjoyed.

[–] artiman@piefed.social 19 points 7 hours ago

Do whatever you want I personally live in iran and I have a 160$ salary previously 300$ but snapback mechanism sanctions something something and 2 AAA games are 160$, also do not buy from key selling websites that harms the developers but piracy doesn't its the same as nobody buying

[–] Eternal192@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 6 hours ago

Technically you rented that what you think you bought and when the licence expires the game,movie, etc. will be deleted from your library, best recent example is The Crew by Ubisoft and there was that whole debacle with Sony and their Discovery Channel licence where people lost a ton of documentaries, was later restored... mostly, but it showed how fragile this digital ecosystem is and why people turn to piracy eventually since you basically don't own anything you shouldn't feel guilty about it.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 points 7 hours ago

It's not pirating if you bought it. That's just downloading.

[–] HilichurlJack@lemmynsfw.com 10 points 7 hours ago

Up to you. I'm comfortable with:

  • buying smaller or indie games
  • subscribing to lesser known / low profile / niche content creators
  • pirating anything old, hard to buy, or incredibly popular (like people who make 100k+ per month on Patreon)
  • avoiding AAA games altogether, with rare exceptions (those I usually buy, or they are F2P)

I'm also comfortable with pirating some content first and later buying/subscribing if I see I keep enjoying the content.

[–] bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Ask yourself: what would an evil, monopolistic megacorporation that owns all this IP do in my position?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[–] Tolookah@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Facebook is willing to torrent to feed their AI, it must be okay for us to feed our natural intelligence

[–] ushmel@piefed.world 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

As I've made more money in life, I pirate the same amount of stuff, basically (besides games). But I also spend a shitload of money on the stuff I like. Instead of paying Netflix or Spotify, I buy DVD/BD box sets, collector's editions, vinyl, bandcamp my favorite albums, and way too many concert tickets. Avoid the middleman and support the creator.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

besides games

Yeah, same here. I haven't pirated games since I was a broke university student. There's simply no need to when digital storefronts make it easy to get the games I want in the format I want. Some even offer DRM-free offline backups, or in the case of Steam the games stay in my library even if the publisher decides to remove the title from the Steam storefront.

TV and movies are completely different from this, and so much worse. So many different streaming services, some with intrusive ads, and every one wanting their own monthly subscription. I shouldn't need to search "where is X streaming." Ever. Titles disappear from these services all the time. Even if you "buy" a digital movie or show, the rights holder can yank it back from you because... reasons?

TV and movie distribution is such a garbage deal for consumers that open source developers have created a complete software stack (the servarr stack) to automate the process of finding and downloading media. Once you get it set up, it's about million times more convenient than corporate streaming services.

TL;DR: Getting digital games is easy and feels like a fair deal for the average consumer. Getting movies and TV shows is a pain in the ass and feels like an absolute shit deal for the consumer. I'll continue to pirate movies and TV shows because as Gabe Newell famously argued, piracy indicates a service problem.

[–] Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Only you can decide the answer to this question. If you aren't too busy preventing forest fires. /joke

[–] MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Wait, preventing? Well, this is awkward.

[–] taco@piefed.social 2 points 4 hours ago

Small fires can prevent larger ones in the future.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe 7 points 7 hours ago

That's a question for you, I don't think there is a universal answer for everyone.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

pirate whatever you want, but just know that you're not voting with your dollar if you don't put your dollars anywhere.

it's really hard to make a living with a passion project these days.

you could buy music. and ethical/indie shit. books. things that you actually care about existing. or not, i guess. whatever

[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 hours ago

IMO if you cannot get it in a format that's appropriate it's warranted.

For example ebooks that only come with drm so you can't add it as an epub to your ereader.

I usually buy the book and then acquire the epub

[–] taco@piefed.social 4 points 4 hours ago

Pirate everything, and share as much as you're able.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

You can be the judge of that.

First of all: Decide a code of ethics for yourself.

(Piracy is equivalent to going to a book store and taking pictures of the books as you flip through pages. Ask yourself: Is this ethical?)

And if that's okay for you, then:

Second: If action is unlawful, weigh in on potential consequences and then ask yourself if you want to risk the consequences.

Piracy is not murder, cops would probably be too lazy to investigate.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 2 hours ago

When society does I think its valid to. So right now - everything if you want. If we get back to wealth disparity levels from 50 years along with decent rights and working democracy. Then maybe tighten the ship. Certainly at the least money and corps need to be out of our democracy.

No. Take what you like and burn the rest.

[–] Kissaki@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 54 minutes ago

That's a very ambiguous and loaded question.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I pirate what's any good that I cannot find legally for streaming, as well as educational stuff that I want available should I and/or my family find ourselves without internet access.

Sometimes I'll go so far as to pirate things that I cannot find without ads(even with premiums*), but mostly if it'll let me see the first few minutes before playing an ad, I just live with it.

* The only reason I still have Amazon Prime is for the free shipping. I pay extra for no ads. I pay extra for HiDive. There appear to be things available on Prime with HiDive that aren't available on just Prime or just HiDive. Magically, those shows(Ranma 1/2, for example) have ads. WTF?

None of these companies have ethics. Why should you get hung-up in ethics for a victimless crime?

[–] Sivilian@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago

I look at it this way, if I made a copy of this work irl would the person who made it go without their needs met? If I bought it IRL already then it is always fine IMO. If it is a independent person I try to buy it in a way that they get most or all the money and I get files that are not DRM. It really a case by case thing. Like I will never give Nintendo or Disney any money ever again so I have to find ways to get what I want most of the time it is second hand or pirating it.

[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

Depends which d&d alignment you're shooting for but I think empathy is necessary for ethics and moral reasoning. Reciprocity is a good moderator to prevent being a door mat, treat people how they treat you.

[–] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Just pirate everything, more money for you to invest, bring food to your table, support your family, go on trips etc.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Do the people actually performing the labor to produce the material not deserve that too?

[–] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 hours ago

their boss gets your money, so no.