Pirate some things, pay for some things. It doesn't have to be absolute.

Because in the words of GabeN, piracy (in a 1st world country at least) is a service problem and not a pricing problem. Many things are worth paying for, especially when you are supporting smaller creators, artists and indie game devs. But when heavy-handed DRM's and corporate shovelware and services that actively remove content I pay for makes it a shit experience. I'm gonna just torrent that shit, fuck 'em

When I was younger I pirated because I didn't have any money to spare for digital media. Today I have a stable income and can afford all these things but I still pirate because it's just more convenient in many ways.

Whenever I consume something that I really like I 100% support the artist / developers mostly by buying this exact product and / or some merch or by going to their concerts (if it's music related)

To me piracy is just a way of freedom. Which includes to respect other people if they like or dislike spending money on certain things. In my eyes we should not split this community in such a way because this would kill the essence of freedom to make your own choices

Most of us are presumably adults who can afford to pay for things when they're convenient. That's what it's about for me, convenience. If you're not making it convenient for me to buy your thing fair and square, then I'm gonna pirate it.

Some people are about piracy, others are about ownership and fighting back against neo digital feudalism

People generally will fairly buy content when it's available and fairly priced if they want to support the creators. There's a huge difference between wanting to help your favorite content producer VS companies that fart out mult-hundred dollar box sets of old content

Isn't it generally pointing out what was actually worth paying for?

I don't pirate because I'm opposed to paying for things. I pirate stuff because I don't want to support scumbag corporations that don't give a shit about me. In fact, I buy most of the media and games I consume, in order to support the devs behind it.

And that's not a "new piracy gen", that's how piracy has always been for most people. You're the odd one out here.

I’ve gone back after I’ve already pirated something and bought a legal copy if I thought it was worth it or if it’s in some sort of Humble Bundle deal that benefits charity and gets me a legal copy at the same time. Sometimes I’ll even pirate things I already bought & paid for because I want a backup copy (in the case of books or tabletop games).

I ain't cheap, I just don't like my money going to billionaires who give us nothing in return. I pay for email, I don't pay to watch a Marvel film.

I don't think it's that hard.

Pirating gives me the option not to support shit corporations that fuck over consumers with no business ethics. I can pirate the content I choose and pay for it when I want to support creators.

Historically, pirating and underground markets for good and services begin to proliferate in a society as a sign that their economic system is failing. IMHO, unbridled capitalism and corporate shitification in the US is turning the Internet into a hellscape with 5 companies basically controlling the entire Internet with so much lobbying muscle behind them they remain untouchable through what remains of the democratic system.

It's a convenience thing. Remember when Apple Music and Spotify used to be $5.99 a few years ago? It was really hard to justify pirating then, for example. Like I'd have to find what I was looking for, close a million pop ups to get the torrent, download it, then upload the files onto whatever device I was using. And I would have to do it over again for the car, and over again for my wife if she asked for it, etc.

Or I could just type it into a search bar, and bam. All for $5.99, and I didn't have to worry about storage? Sign me up.

The convenience of Spotify is still sort of worth the price, but it's getting pretty marginal. The other streaming services we use brought us the same level of convenience, but they are getting way too greedy and creating way too many of them. Netflix and the media streamers turned into Cable. Which is going to inevitably turn us all back to pirating as they start cracking down on password sharing and keep creating new services with bloated fees.

The dumb fuckers literally figured out how to defeat piracy. And then drove us back to piracy with their greed. So when they inevitably start crying about it again, tell them all to eat shit.

I do my best to pay for things from creators who are making a living from it, and I do my best to NOT pay for things that line a multi-billion dollar company's pocketbook.

Disney won't pay their writers, actors, etc anything close to what they are really worth -- so I pay what I can to people who don't even manage to make THAT much. I pay for indie games, I pay for things that have proven their value (Warframe...totally free to play. They made $300 off of me after me playing for 2 YEARS without having to spend a dime, because I was appreciative of a game so well made and that made me happy for that long)

And these days, it's not even worth the hassle of pirating games -- too many chances for an executable to bite you in the ass and I've gotten to lazy to set up sandboxes/VMs, etc in order to limit their damage - so in most instances I only pirate movies/anime these days.

There's a general sense of you should try to ethically pirate. Like no one cares if you shoplift from Walmart, but you're a dick doing it to the local mom and pop grocery store who's barely getting by.

On a more selfish level, paying for the things you enjoy shows whoever made it they'll get money for it. Simple as that. If you really enjoy something stealing it isn't going to convince them to make more. There's been more than once where a game or show got pirated more than bought legally and it's killed any future projects for it.

I'm a bit astonished how often I see this kind of thread, even here. It's like when people complain about FOSS apps charging subscriptions or standalone fees. How many times does it have to be pointed out that piracy as an activity does not define piracy as a movement or a collective?

I'm certain this simplistic "piracy = not paying for stuff" take can only come from a kind of ignorant individualism, one that lacks any structural analysis of why, when, and for what content people turn to piracy (and why, when, etc, they stop).

Cracking groups have always said they do it for the challenge and if u like the game you should go buy it. Crackers and warez ftp groups have never dissuaded anyone from paying for the stuff they crack and release.

I don't mind paying for things when the value proposition is there. Just in entertainment, the prices get skewed way outside value.

I would say there are levels to pirates. Not everyone here wants or needs to be a pirate 100% of the time. Sure, everyone could download all their music but why bother if you have a streaming service that you consider cheap and you prefer streaming over storage. Like anything, they're levels to it.

Piracy isn't a "movement" it's a means to an end.

To consider it anything more that "get shit for free or delisted/abandoned" is cringe.

Sometimes it's just about ease of access. I'm happy to pay for games but it's often harder to track down legal copies of retro or delisted games than it is to find a torrent.

And a number of the files you find on torrent sites were uploaded by someone who bought the content legally. Torrenting is just peer-to-peer file sharing, someone has to acquire the first copy somehow

At least for me it’s a matter of convenience. It’s not that I can’t afford Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. It’s more a question of why would I try to remember when they come out of my account and who has what shows when TPB has it all in one spot?

Depends on what it is? I pirated music for years when I couldn't afford to buy albums. When I finally could afford to support the artists I liked by buying their stuff I did. It's part of the reason I find the move to streaming services so frustrating. I want to pay once for access to an album. Not 100 times.

*you’re

I pay for stuff when I have money to spare or when it's more convenient like with Factorio or Rimworld where updating mods is infinitely easier through official channels.

if the author of a book is still alive and not an absolute tool I'll pay for it. I'll absolutely crack it, but I'll pay for it. and I pay for my VPN

There's a few DVDs I bought recently of movies that I couldn't find anywhere. 50/50 about uploading them to a torrent site. I want to but is there any way it could be traced back to me?

Well, I'm browsing all, so I see the posts here from time to time. And generally speaking, I pay for games and books and pirate everything else, so if the discussion is about games, I'm gonna mention I buy them (if relevant, of course, I'm not going around telling people I actually buy games).

I would have never bought skyrim if I didn't pirate it first. Studios should pay marketing commision for pirates

I pay for a service to not get letters with a bigger value than I pay.
Also I save money and for some of my friends as well.