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Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?

Well, my friend, he's kinda poor he can't afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don't understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.

He usually doesn't like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it's the right move to pirate

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.

He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let's all hope that day is soon.

What are your piracy habits?

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  • I was 14 and just got a cable modem when Napster came out. I just got introduced to modern music, had no way to pay for it other than asking my folks. Let's jump on the pirate ship!

    Now I'll let you do the math on my age, I have very stable income, and a fair amount of disposable savings, and I still pirate pretty much my ears will be hearing. Plex has equal or better tools for watching/listening than every other service I've tried (shuffling episodes is my favorite)

    I go to concerts, watch movies in the theatre, read physical books and support creatives in other ways.. so I feel different about that..

    I also started noticing this when itunes came out. You could only listen to music YOU PAID FOR on devices you've authorized. Then soon after I saw this, a friend was down on his luck but had a very good and varied cd collection. He started selling them to second hand shops and his friends.

    I ended up seeing this dichotomy and thought to myself.... this sucks. Let's just pirate it..

    I should note the amount of physical unread books I have on my shell are similarly rationed to the amount of music I haven't listened to or movies I haven't watched yet that I've also pirated

    • Your friend's situation brings up the question of ownership. Do you actually own a persistent thing if you can't later sell it and pass ownership to someone else?

      I think media companies want to ideally have us think of their products as candy bars, we buy it and consume it. If we want that experience again, we have to buy another. They want us to buy the opportunity to read, look, listen every single time, or buy a pass that gives access for a limited time.

      But a lot of us consider media like a personal, well loved library or museum. We buy books and things in order to revisit again and again. We replace or repair if worn out. If it's one of a kind, we take actions to safeguard it. We search for rare and unique things and acquire from other private collectors if it's no longer publicly available. The value of our collections increase if the media stops being published and goes out of circulation.

      But these entities would rather see everyone's personally owned copy spontaneously combust just because they didn't want to sell it anymore. And it's what they have done to digitally sold and DRM'd media, or by deleting from streaming services while also cutting the creators off from being able distribute independently.

      We are at a major crossroads as to what ownership and ongoing availability and access means. Piracy is currently a failsafe until property can be safely bought and protected - for the purchasers.

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