Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Piracy is always ethical unless you undoubtedly show proof that it harmed someone.

I give you a hint: it almost never actually does.

To me it's like buying a physical book, but then downloading a drm version of the ebook.

There is no value in spending money anymore, you used to get some long term benefits. You bought movies, music and games for example and got to use them however long you want to. Now you pay significantly more under the guise of: "it's only x amount per month" and own nothing.

For me, something like Spotify is far too expensive, considering i could buy an album from the discount bin for like €2 and play it for a full year until i got slightly bored (you still owned and got to use it after that). Spotify is €11 a month, times 12 compared to a single €2 permanent purchase. I usually only bought one or 2 albums per year.

I'm not saying you need to agree with this, but for me it makes absolutely no sense to pay this much especially when i look at my wage not going up and the cost of living having doubled over the past few years.

It's a tautology.

Even in the very strict sense of "ethical" (pretty much a simpleton's "Ethics == Law"), I would say that Abandonware is abolutely ethical to pirate.

By its own definition it's software that is not being commercialized anymore, so nobody "loses" (if you use the current intellectual property legislation to defined winning/losing) any copyright income when somebody else copies it without paying them because there are no options for those people to get it by paying - even by the most fantastical definition of it, it's not a "lost sale".

Now, if the copyright owners resume commercialization of it, then it stops being abandonware hence stops being ethical to pirate it under this definition.

That said, for me anything that's outside the copyright length in the original legilsation (14 years) before Disney bought themselves extension after extension until the current "lifetime of the author + 70 years" (which adds up to around 150 years) is absolutelly ethical to pirate (or if you want to ponder on the Ethics of it: "Is it ethical to obbey a Law or a change of it which was bought?!").

I'll pirate music via Soulseek. If I listen to something a lot I may pay for the music but more likely I'll see them when they tour then buy stuff from their merch table. This is small stage stuff, the big mega acts not so much

I'd like to ask myself the opposite, when is it unethical to pirate? Because it's just data, and how many copies there are of it shouldn't change anything. If I want to support a developer I'd 'buy the product', regardless of already having it or not, and I would never in my life buy a product (Not a service, just the data) just because I cannot get it otherwise. I believe it's pretty much the same for most people that knows how to download pirated content.

But I believe that early leaks are strongly unethical, as you end up interfering in the creative and production process before it's ready. Furthermore, a lot of people whom usually won't pirate will jump at the possibility of doing so just for the hype of getting the product NOW, and maybe will not feel the necessity of buying later. I cannot think any case in which a leak is ethical or even beneficial for anyone, and I'm surprised that I've never seen much push against it by pirates.

Downloading a copy of media or software is just a copy. You can make infinite copies, and you're not taking anything away from the creator for copying it.

Thus all piracy is ethical.

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.

If a product can be offered without much issue on a pay once and own-as-is forever model, then I think there is an ethical imperative to pirate it.

I would be willing to pay a few hundred bucks for a perpetual license to look 2023 version of Adobe Lightroom. Unfortunately the only place to find such a product is on the high seas. Adobe will only let you buy a subscription based equivalent. I like the actual software product, and I've gotten good at using it, but if I can't just buy it, I'm not going to pay for it.

I actually have a plug-in for Lightroom called topaz Labs AI enhancement suite. I pay for a single year's worth of updates, but I can still use the software as of the final update forever. If Adobe actually offered something like that I would be all over it.

There was a television show from another country that I wanted to watch. It wasn't available to stream in my country from the source, and wasn't available on any other streaming platforms. I even tried making an account, but they wouldn't accept my credit card because of the billing address.

Pirating that would be justified; the argument isn't just that, if I can't buy it then I should be allowed to take it, but that if I can take it without causing financial stress on the artists, then it's OK. They are refusing my money, so pirating it wouldn't deprive them of a sale.

I also strongly agree with what others have said, that my ethics require me to purchase something once.

Where I get fuzzy is on the right for producers (studios and distributors) to make profit. Money going to artists is clear to me; and production studios need to fund projects, some if which will fail. But the existing, purely profits-driven, risk-averse, homogenizing movie production industry... I'm not sure I agree that they deserve the lion's share of the profits.

When I can't buy it in a reasonable way lol

Simply wanting to save money is a valid enough reason to pirate. The only time you should have any second thoughts is if its a product you REALLY want to see more of or if its made by a smaller group that could really use that money.

Even then though, you can always help without spending money. Easiest way is to spread the word.

You enjoyed that game?

Tell others its a good game worth getting. In many cases, that might help more than buying the game and saying nothing about it.

I used to be a lot less lenient in the past, but as I've gotten older and DRM and streaming services have gotten worse I've been sailing the high seas more. Now I'll do it if there's no reasonably easy/convenient way to buy it in my country, if the work is old/big enough that nobody creatively involved is going to notice, or if I already bought the same or similar version in the past (such as wanting a movie for my Plex server that I know my parents have on DVD somewhere). Sometimes I'll "acquire" something and end up financially supporting it down the line if I like it.

I do agree with some of the other comments though, that for things like software where there's an alternate FOSS or independent version, I'll go for that. I've begun getting in the habit of donating or paying one-time purchases (such as ad removal) on software I use a lot.