Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Would you download a train?

Devil's Advocate: Many pirates would have not paid for access to that media so to say it takes away from the creators profit isn't exactly true since one act of piracy does not equal one lost sale.

Devil's Advocate Part II: There is s significant amount of research that supports the notion that pirates actually spend more money on media than the average person.

I personally am an example of part II. I pirate a lot of music but I refuse to use Spotify because of how little it pays artists and I have also spent significant amounts of money buying music from artists I enjoy via Bandcamp or buying from the artist directly because I know they get a bigger cut of the profits that way.

Cool argument, except a huge quantity of pirated works aren't "owned" by the creator or even a group that funded it, but instead by parasitic companies that abuse capitalistic tools to actually steal value from those creators.

I have thousands of purchased games. 3 categories here:

1: obtained as part of a pack (humble gog etc)

2: purchased AFTER trying out via pirate copy to know if it is my kind of thing

3: picked up early access due to demo or general interest from being a known smaller dev/studio (hare brained for example)

With less and less access to shareware and viable demos, piracy is often the only conduit to prevent me getting ripped off of $80 for something that looks like a shiny sports car but end up being another "buy $800 in dlc for the full story!" Ford pinto.

Additionally, I now flat refuse to fund the likes of Denuvo, and wish that piracy actively hurt the bottom line of companies deploying that kind of anti-user shit.

it does definitely take away from the creator’s/distributor’s profit.

Oh no! Not the distributor's profit!! Oh holy Supply Side Jesus, I pray in your name- protect the profits of the Capitalists. Take the money I worked hard for and give it to the do-nothing rich, they clearly deserve it more than me. Amen

So a little more in depth:

So, a little more in depth:

Im poor as fuck. So the option isnt 'buy/pirate' its 'pirate or get nothing'. Fuck you if you think i should live without art.

The artists generally do not recieve profit when a copy is streamed/sold. It simply is not done; their unions are too weak. This is blatant corporate propaganda.

The entire mechanism to do that is fucked anyway, even if it were hooked up to something. I'm sorry, but i wouldnt deal with that shit show for free. Even new releases or classics have to be hunted down like cult films, and then even if i buy them, i lose them at some arbitrary later date. Music was the last thing i tried to pay on, and i just could not keep a cohesive collection together-at this point, if it's not on bandcamp, i assume the artist doesn't want money. And even bandcamp has disappeared tracks i paid for, reducing me to local backups. So fuck em.

I'm sorry. I really would love to support art and artists, but it simply isn't possible to do that systemically within capitalism. There is no clear systemic option. Just ways to lick corporate boot and waste your fucking time.

although

I bet i do actually pay artists-cast crew and musicians at least-more than you do. When i dine out, rare as that is, in los angeles, i tip ~30% in cash. So i am actually supporting the arts, while you, my boot licking friend, are not. Youre supporting the corporate ghouls who feast upon them.

Piracy is somewhat similar to vigilantism to me. My ability to consider it a negative is directly related to how fair I consider the legitimate methods available to be.

If similar efforts were focused on consumer protection laws as we do IP protection, I don't think pirates would have much leg to stand on, and they'd be seen in more of a negative light.

But since consumers are regularly fucked by corporations, all I see is two sides both doing bad shit and I'm not feeling all that charitable for the faceless megacorp. I also dislike pirates who pirate from small time creators. But that's about as far as I can care given the state of things.

We should be focusing on stronger consumer rights to truly fix the problem for all sides.

Nah. Id pay artists if i could.

And in fact do tip them pretty well at the jobs they take to pay rent when im in LA.

What we need is for parasitic creativity destroying shit stain ip-troll ghouls to get the guillotine, so they arent parasiting on every fucking artist.

We need a society that values humanity and art.

Because as is, there kind of isnt a reliable systemic way to support them. Capitalism prevents it.

Nah, I want all those companies to burn. If they can't afford to make new stuff because of piracy then there won't be stuff to pirate. I am totally fine with that. There is a life to live beyond just consumption, you know?

You forget the alternative mindset:

An active desire to see traditional ways of funding to disappear, and the media along with it.

The idea is that you support creators out of the appreciation and not because you're forced to.
This seems to work as a model for YouTubers and podcasters. They usually have most of their stuff available for free, and people pay them money, and more often than there is no reward for the money, other than satisfaction of supporting the creator.
This is obviously one example, and it only works for periodic installments, but it is a working alternative to the system, where people who don't want or can't pay don't do that