I have no issue pirating:

• any content with massive profits
• any content made by a very rich entity
• any content where the artists, authors, creators, et al get a minority of the revenue (example: scientific journals, college textbooks). I always search for alternate methods of paying the artists directly if they exist.

I used to pirate quite a bit, but I’ve since pulled back and I’ll even buy stuff that I had formerly pirated, because I appreciated it so well and wanted to get a “clean” copy. Alot of the pirated stuff just sort of sits there most of the time, I’m kind of more a data hoarder than an active pirate. I “justify” my pirating by considering myself more of an archivist, as a big chunk of the stuff I pirate is old out-of-print RPGs that would have long ago disappeared completely were it not for piracy.

For me it's usually about availability. If someone suggests I try out a cool game that came out in the 80s, there's a pretty good chance piracy is the only way to play it. Sure, you can pay way too much on Ebay to get a physical copy, and I have a fair collection of retro games, but it's not like the money from Ebay sales go back to the original creators.

Same with movies. The version of Star Wars I grew up with, the one without all the digitally added stuff since the late 90s, isn't on Disney+. If Disney announced a nice blu-ray Star Wars collection that featured the copies without Jedi Rocks and the extra aliens in the cantina and whatever, I'd go out and get it. But they haven't, so I stick to the fan-made 'despecialized editions'.

I don't pirate from the little guy. I buy albums on Bandcamp and indie games on Steam all the time. I want the small creators to be able to eat. But I'm also fortunate enough to have a little disposable income. I know some people pirate as much as they can, and while I don't entirely agree with it, I don't know their financial situation (or the availability of these things in their country), so it's not really my place to judge them.

I just don't earn enough money to justify paying for movies, games and books, i can use those money to pay my bills and what little left after paying my bills, i save it for future

Everything not physical that can be pirated should be pirated.

You have better thing to do with your money.

Books exist to be lent out.

Games too at the time. Now you can't because of bullshit, so joke on them I won't pay.

Books & Music money is not going to the artists.

Movie world is full of shit and overpaid anyway.

I also don't wan't a single of my cents going to USA or US company.

If I like something so much I feel I should pay, which is rare, I find a more direct way without leeches.

If its region locked i pirate it. I just cant be bothered to look for a vpn that's not blocked by this site. Alao if site is a shit i pirate it ,in my case crunchyroll . I really tried using it but Its just not working with my shitty internet and the buffer size is too small to load whole wideo while i do other stuff. YouTube and Netflix somehow works on my internet.

I want to start pirating and I want a forever solution to media management. Photos, music, movies/television, audiobooks/podcasts, even construction literature I use for work. I don't know where to begin however. I'm just thinking I'll need to spend an incredible amount of money if I ever want to continue any subscription model.

Something fun I listened to today about tpb and free access to information/cultural peices of art. Kinda.. https://youtu.be/eFQFW5JgUjE?si=50BXG19ey8pVEYfv

i'm on basic welfare (400 dollars per month to afford everything i need) so yeah, i don't exactly have a choice..

Yes, I pirate, and I pirate alot. Games, books, shows, software, I do it all. But I also buy stuff, mainly games, occasionally books. I'm am not in a position where I have the sort of money to buy everything I want.

My piracy philosophy is mainly to almost always pirate it first. If I like the game enough, I'll buy the game when I have the money. I have done this alot, A Hat in Time, Hollow Knight, and recently Baldurs Gate 3.

With books it's alot more difficult, as they tend to be alot more expensive than games, especially for the series I read. (Manga and Light Novels). As there will fairly often be around 30$ per volume where I live, and close to 12 volumes total. And that's if you can even buy them in the country, or if they have even been translated officially, which if they haven't, then piracy is your only choice to read it.

Regarding shows, I basically only watch Anime, and the only way to really stream Anime is crunchyroll, which region locks alot of the shows, gives hardly any money back to the actual creators of the shows, then uses the money they get to make awful shows. Pirating anime is realistically the only way to enjoy it hassle free.

For software, everything is license based now, I'm willing to do one off purchases at a reasonable price (something like steam wallpaper engine), but I hate recurring fees. I pirate software like photoshop.

Ultimately piracy isn't really as bad as people tend to think it is, it's largely just people enjoying the stuff that they would never have been able to pay to enjoy anyway. It's especially good for people with less disposable income in helping them find where they can spend the money on things they enjoy, such as with me with the games I mentioned earlier.

I live outside the US market. As a rule I'll pay for whatever content is legally available in my country (netflix, disney+, steam etc) however there are certain publishers and/or content which is simply not offered through any channel. At that point they aren't going to see $ from me in any case, so I may as well pirate.

I regularly advocate for shows I pirate so I’m a walking ad for shows.

I feel good seeing how the corpos squirm when trying their damndest to get rid of any pirating method (which is fair and what everyone in the world deserves free of charge by birth) only to be met with impossible tasks and fall flat on their faces. It's one of the better feelings in this world. I pirate everything, everywhere, unless I know I can help a talented (and actual) human out.

I want it, I don't want to pay for it, I can get it free.

Piracy leaves creators worse off when it deprives them of a sale, as in you would have paid for something but instead just pirated it because not paying was an option. So I pirate stuff I think is worth my time, but not my money. I then consider it victimless. Maybe that movie is interesting enough to watch but not enough to rent/buy, so I would pirate it. I'm now at a point where money isn't as scarce as it used to be, so the prices of entertainment seem reasonable and I am much more willing to pay.

There are a couple of exceptions to the above. I pirated almost every textbook I could since the fact that a student requires one specific product puts the customer in an exploitable position that allows the seller to charge unreasonable amounts (and used books have none of their proceeds go back to the creator anyway). Also, there is no issue with pirating content no longer being sold, since the creators aren't being deprived of anything. This is mostly relevant for me with old video games on emulators.

I want to support artists, but I will not pay for shit I've already pay for. I own an N64 and loads of games, I have the roms and will never pay a subscription to play worse versions in restricted conditions.

I will also not pay for the sports channels it is far too much. Where I am there are are like 3-4 different sports packages required to watch one league. Fuck that

I used to pirate a lot more when I couldn't afford to fill my media desires. Nowadays I'm a bit more principalled, I'm not paying collector prices for old super Nintendo games for instance. That shit gets emulated and if I've already bought a game on console, especially if I bought a standard and "complete" edition, I'll likely piratd a PC copy for modding and the like.

Though sometimes a piece of art is created by a morally bankrupt company and while I typically just ignore the things they produce, sometimes I really want to try it, so I pirate it. 

I pirate almost all american media, movies, tv shows, games, etc because often there's no legal way to get it in my country until months after release, if at all. Which is bullshit considering it's japan, not some backwater 3rd world hell hole, so you'd think there'd be more options, but if it's not on Netflix or Disney+, you're shit outta luck.

I pirate the odd bit of music and the ocassional film if I cant find it on streaming services, or if I need music in MP3 format for swimming with, vast bulk of what I pirate is music though. And probably less than 10% of all the media I have is pirated. Make something easily available in the format I need at a reasonable price and I'll happily pay for it

I pay for music because it is easy. I don't pay for video because there is no avenue like spotify for video

I live by the rules established by the founding fathers. Copyright is 15 years and if the creator of the work gets paid for it. Anything else can hit the bricks. Corporations? Not people. Classic movies? Thry are part of thr public conscious now.

I pirate. I don't justify pirating. I just do it, because I want things and have the ability to get them for free, so I do that.

When there's no legitimate way for me to rent something. I recently downloaded Joe vs the Volcano and Counterpart because there's no streaming service that has them on offer.

I will pirate it if it's old (tv series from the 80's, for example) or if I can't get it legally. I live in a country that falls through distribution loopholes moderately often. Like right now, I can't watch the latest season of Lower Decks on prime even though I could the previous ones. Some kind of licensing thing. If it's not resolved soon, I'll be taking to the high seas for it.

Only thing I've pirated was a show with no reasonable means to access it legitimately in my region. Hell, I couldn't even access it via VPN because the services it was on didn't accept my card due to region.

Normally of the mind that if it isn't worth my money it isn't worth my time, but in this case I just wasn't allowed to pay them for it. Hardly my fault when they've gone that far out of their way to block me buying it.

I pirate metric shitloads of movies and series. I don't pirate music or games (much).

I watch maybe 5-10% of what I download. That's probably true for the games I buy as well.

The reason is part convenience. I probably listen to royalty free 95% music of the time, but for the other occasions Spotify has anything and everything I want to listen to. I can't beat that library.

I game on Linux, the Switch and old retro computers. The old retro computers have all pirated games on them, but for Linux and Switch I buy my stuff on the Nintendo shop and Steam. They have everything and it just works.

The video streaming services of today have also taught me that they will pull licenses. When Netflix had a big library I stuck mostly to that, but today it feels like all the good content has been pulled and they mostly just have Netflix originals. So Hollywood has taught me that If I want to watch something, I shouldn't rely on it being available on my streaming service of choice in the future. I'm not going to subscribe to a dozen streaming services just for the odd chance that I want to watch something particular. I'm going to have my own plex server with everything I might want to watch.

The one show that would make me consider getting a second streaming subscription just to support it is Futurama. But of course, Hulu is not available in my region.. so, yarr.