this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
348 points (95.8% liked)
Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
54803 readers
609 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):
💰 Please help cover server costs.
Ko-fi | Liberapay |
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hoo boy, opening up a can of worms with this. I'll give the "hot take" here and don't bother replying because I'm not going to be drawn into (another) debate. Feel free to downvote away.
I think most piracy is unethical but it depends on exactly what you're pirating.
The top comment here is about scientific papers. I think that's also totally unethical unless the research is publicly funded. You are not entitled to that information. It usually requires a large amount of funding and wouldn't be possible without it.
I think piracy is okay for items that are otherwise unavailable for purchase, or put behind arbitrary hardware limitations (looking at you Nintendo).
Also I pirate from YouTube (ad blockers) because Google is an incredibly unethical company and the official app is abhorrent and even if you pay for Premium the "official" method of watching videos (YT app) is abhorrent and does not respect any of your input on what you actually want to see. There are unofficial apps made by nerds in their Mom's basement that are 10x better at showing you that, while also respecting your privacy and not logging your activity for use in profiling you and showing ads, so that's what I use. I budget $30/mo to donate directly to my favorite creators on other platforms.