Asklemmy

When i was younger, physical copies pf games and the used market were common things. Now pc games get no physical release, or if they do these are tied to steam or epic games, and consoles are pushing towards going all digital.

All while raising the prices even though there is no logistics involved anymore.

So i should pay more for something that i can't resell and can get taken away from me for one of several reasons (account gets banned, game gets delisted, service eol...)?

So that's why if it can get pirated, i will pirate it.

1. yes
2. yes

Your friend has a similar belief to me it appears. Companies don't care about piracy as long as it doesn't stop a quarterly profit. Of course don't pirate a book or video game from a small author or devs. If the game or book is hard to come by there isn't much to do any way.

I however rarely do pirate things for various reasons. Namely I don't have time for reading or playing a new video game. Maybe once in a while. If you're friend is doing it every day I would be concerned but probably not care

Yes to movies and shows that aren't available on Netflix, Disney, or Amazon. My kids watch a lot of shows on those, so they're worth it, but I refuse to pay for others.

No to everything else.

I don’t pirate at the moment but my philosophy is that if something is not available to buy, it is free to pirate in my book.

Otherwise, every company that makes a game and rakes in more than 100% profit from it is fair game imo. (That would be revenue devided by the engineer’s salaries, machines and office related stuff times 100. explicitly leaving out ceos overinflated salaries. They should not be tax deductible anyway.)

My self justifications are thusly...

I typically don't try to "keep up with the latest or greatest" of things. So I feel zero guilt at finding ROMs of all the video games from my childhood and emulators. Neither do I feel bad about hunting down old PC games that are abandonware instead of trying to find some Steam version (which will stop working soon with my ancient computer anyways soon so... pppfffttttt).

Most of the books (comic, fiction, nonfiction) are of old stuff that has been out for years so whomever was going to make money off the sales has already made their money. The only people who are being denied any potential income are the resellers.

Most streaming services, whether I pay for them or not, run adds that had about a 90% chance of freezing my old entertainment computer to the point of requiring a restart. This dropped to practically zero after moving from windows to linux. Also, most of my devices are so old that the services I had been paying for wouldn't work on them anyways... so... :shrug: ... fuckem.

I've never felt that something "wasn't worth it" because I got it for free as far as media. Usually when I go on a download spree of video games its because I've gone a bit manic and decided that I want to try to play every Final Fantasy game up to FF9 or all the MegaMan games or something and I'll just burn myself out after playing the crap out of them.

I have, however, purchased books because I kept reading/hearing them referenced as being worthwhile or interesting and found myself thinking... "wow... that's 25 bucks and a week's worth of reading I can't get back." I also, have had a bad habit in the past of just purchasing books because they looked halfway interesting on impulse, tossing them into one of several trunks full of books, and they'll sit there for 10 years before I even realize that I had the book.

Another thing that I have considered after years of thinking about it. These items were never going to be purchased by me, so me reading a scanned copy of a comic book from 20 years ago or me not reading it effectively results in the same amount of money leaving my pockets to go... somewhere. I say "somewhere" because I'm not paying the comic book writer/artists/inkers or the actual development teams of video games, I would be paying some other intermediary who pays their intermediary who pays their intermediary who might be required to pay some sliver of their revenue to the people who actually made the thing I'm playing/reading.

It also doesn't hurt that I'm middle aged and barely make enough money to make ends meet on a good month even though I live a pretty frugal life. I've come to accept that its not worth beating myself up too much about.

I only pirate when the company makes it extremely hard for me to pay for the product or I would be paying for a worse product than if I pirated.

For example, I watch a lot of hockey. The NHL has an idiotic system where I would need to pay for like 4 different services - including cable TV - to watch every game of my favorite team. They would all be in different places, so I would need to figure out where each game is being broadcast, then go to that service. Depending on the broadcaster, the quality may be finished (lower resolution or framerate). If I pirate the games, every game is on the same web page. Every game is 1080p at 60fps. I just click my bookmark and hit play when the game starts.

I'm in a good place financially, and I want to financially support things that I like so I can get more things that I like. But if a company isn't going to make a game available for me to buy, then it's getting pirated (Nintendo, I'm looking at you).

for legal reasons, I don't pirate anything.. but a friend told me that piracy is more convenient, and that it has more benefits (like, retain 'ownership' of content without annoying DRM)

train of thought (legal): what streaming service do I need to subscribe to to watch this? okay lemme go grab my wallet and sign up for an account

train of thought (piracy): click download

if companies don't want you to pirate their media, they should make it more convenient and flexible to purchase legally. adding DRM and making things subscription-only will push more people towards piracy.

I do, movies and TV shows. Occasionally books, but I buy them much more often than I do pirate. When I was in my teens and early 20s I also pirated games, but I'm too lazy to do that anymore. Movies and TV shows are too fucking expensive for the value they provide. I also pay for a few streaming services, so I only pirate stuff that isn't there.

Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn't pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.

Not really, with books and movies I only buy/download when I want to watch/read. With games I buy a lot more than I play, but I don't pirate those, so it's not relevant.

I generally pirate first and buy later if I want to support a game. I think of it as voting with my wallet.

I pirated BG3, enjoyed it even though it’s generally not the sort of game I play. Decided that I want to see more companies making games of this quality in future, so went ahead and bought it.

Same with FromSoftware games, I always buy those as I want more games like that.

Ultimately, if you never buy anything then you can’t expect companies to make the games you want.

I pirate media only, not games. Simply because I don't want to risk getting malware. Also too cheap to bother with streaming services; I want to own my media.

I don't believe in intellectual property. I will pirate anything I want to use and release everything I make for free.

Copying is not theft. Stealing a thing leaves one less left. Copying it makes one thing more; that’s what copying’s for. Copying is not theft. If I copy yours you have it too. One for me and one for you. That’s what copies can do. If I steal your bicycle you have to take the bus, but if I just copy it there’s one for each of us! Making more of a thing, that is what we call “copying”. Sharing ideas with everyone. That’s why copying is FUN!

It's only piracy if you grab a cutlass and storm the local shops. It's time to call it what it is = digital theft / running unlicensed software / whatever. If someone hacks into your accounts, I doubt you'd call them a pirate for stealing all you personal videos and pictures, taking over your steam account, 'borrowing' your netflix, and so on. The whole thing is deeply uncool.

Personally I wish the laws would change to make copyright non-transferable from the original artists, who deserve reward for their efforts but shouldn't be a meal ticket for others. I'd also like to see abandonware legitimised - if folk can't buy it then it should be fair game.

Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author

Your friend is pretty damn cool. I personally pirate whatever I feel like and then buy the stuff I like and want to support. I used to avoid pirating indie games then I realized I bought more indie games when I pirated them first to see if I enjoyed them.

I pretty much only pirate content that's not readily available in my countrys streaming services.

I'm not the pirate I once was when it comes to gaming but there's always EGS exclusives, games whose lack of regional pricing make them impossible to reasonably buy here, things like that. I'm a patient gamer for the most part so most of the time I can just get it a few years down the line but sometimes even that doesn't cut it. I avoid doing it to indie developers, but those are usually the few that follow Steam's recommended pricing guidelines so they tend to be fine anyway.
I pirate unbelievable amounts of tv and movies on a regular basis though through the *arr apps and whatnot, mostly because I refuse to pay for a dozen different streaming services with their rotating content and usually terrible apps. I self host whatever I can to avoid relying on the whims of a few corporations, and the one surviving service so far is Spotify.

I don't care about copyrights, and although I'd agree that I'm not entitled to someone else's work, I'll counterfeit it without a single qualm. I'm poor and would rather not have to choose between being well fed but bored as death, or hungry but entertained/educated. As much as possible, I try to support the little guys though; concretely, I'll eventually buy a game made by Octavi Navarro or Unspeakable Pixels, but Activision won't ever receive a kopeck from me.