What do you all think about piracy?

[fmt99@lemmy.world]

Far be it from me to criticize people pirating this software but after some period of adjustment I'm very happy with the open source alternatives to most of these.

[geodad@lemm.ee]

Yes, with the exception of Final Fantasy XIV Online.

[iii@mander.xyz]

Video games are an exception though, right?

I don't use those, no

[darkguyman@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Yeah tbh I don't actually use adobe products at all. I only want windows and games so that's why I asked this question in the first place, piracy also included of course.

[darkguyman@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

How about future games like GTA 6 for instance? Are you willing to play temporary non-foss games with no immediate replayability and uninstall them afterwards? Just curious.

[geodad@lemm.ee]

I play Nintendo Switch games.

A fair amount of PC games just aren't appealing to me. Outside of FFXIV and my Switch, my go to is something like Sudoku or crosswords.

[roux@hexbear.net]

I do all my pirating with Transmission as my torrent client, so both?

A long time ago I pirated because I was poor and wanted to play Skyrim and stuff. I'd download movies occasionally too but streaming services came along and I mostly didn't need to pirate anymore. Then the streaming industry boomed and the enshitification started. I got real sick, real fast with not being able to fined common movies that were either exclusive to a service I didn't have or was behind a paywall of some other sorts.

So, I donned the hat again, beefed up security wit ha VPN, got a 6 TB hard drive, set up both Jellyfin and Plex(I need my IP addy to log into Jellyfin and kids and partner don't know how to retrieve that so Plex is the backup.) and went back to the high seas. I pay substantially less to watch almost anything I want, than to trudge through 7 different streaming apps trying to find that one movie or show. It helps when you realize pirating against streaming apps only hurts those companies and not the creators themselves(unless you take all of the services originals into account, which is a cache 22 since anything that would catch my eye got cancelled after 2 seasons).

[etterra@discuss.online]

Yo ho ho bitches.

I once was wearing my music pirate tee, with a skull wearing head phones, while walking in public in the city (Chicago). I was in a light crowd crossing the street and this traffic cop gave me the dirtiest goddamn look I've ever seen lol

[auster@thebrainbin.org]

Personally, I think piracy is a tool of the desperate, the disheartened and those that don't care for awarding merit. The desperate if a software is too hard to come by legitimately, the disheartened as a form of protest if the software/company has draconian practices at play, and those that don't award merit because they would, if not never, at least rarely buy/rent anything if not forced to.

FOSS is nice and all, but do mind people are expending their time in such projects, so if you think a project is good and you can afford it, I'd suggest supporting financially the creators.

[newoldguard@hexbear.net]

Piracy is ethically correct against corporations and I do it with glee

[ulrich@feddit.org]

Not entirely sure what you're asking. Pirated software is just software you've copied without permission. It can be anything.

[landedgentry@lemmy.zip]

::: spoiler spoiler
askldjfals;jflsad;
:::

[pixelatedsaturn@lemmy.world]

I pirate everything. I started more than 35 years ago when I didn't have any other option because of my location, so it became the norm. Later, I didn't have much money and I didn't want to spend it on software and games. Later I just stuck with it. I never delved into ethics of it - it seems a very tedious task to do.

I did buy some stuff here and there. But even today, id pirate games for sure, in not going to dish out 50, if I don't even know if I'll like it.

Interestingly, never in my life I had issues with viruses or malware. Sure I got some, but the basic antivirus software delt with it and I had no consequences.

[irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

There are three points I could make:

1. Most software that is not free these days is also stealing all your private data. The value in these applications is generally greatly reduced, and in many cases, truly free alternatives exist, so the need to pirate should be much reduced from the past.

2. Where the first point doesn't apply, there is usually a reason. Either the company has used their monopoly powers to force people to use their software in order to do their job or to interact with government agencies (Adobe is one that often comes to mind). In this case, the ethics of the situation IMHO mean that pirating is OK. If the company is doing unethical things to force you to buy something, then doing something unethical to not pay for it is an exception in my opinion. The person would not be buying the software if they weren't forced to and purchases should not be forced.

3. Access for the poor is another issue where I don't see this as an issue. The poor will never be able to afford the software, so no one is losing money on the sale and it only benefits the company to have people using it if it's a locally running application. There may be some concerns if there are essential services involved that require servers or other systems that have to be maintained by the vendor, but otherwise, Windows having been pirated for decades made it ubiquitous. Without that, poor people likely would never have touched Windows and would have learned Linux or Mac or something else instead and Windows wouldn't have as many people locked in as it does now. So, for the poor, assuming it's software that runs locally, I see no issues from an ethical standpoint in general.

These are just my opinions, but I'm not alone. And this is not to be used as justification for specific actions, just very general points about the ethics of software piracy. For reference, I've done a lot of research on software ethics from both the user and vendor side and used to run a nonprofit on this subject.

[sylver_dragon@lemmy.world]

My personal preference is to use FOSS whenever it's practical. For home use, I've switched to FOSS for the vast majority of my computing needs. I run Linux on both my server and desktop. Most of the software on my server is FOSS, with the one exception being a container using the Splunk free license. My desktop is running Linux, and I use LibreOffice for documents and the like. I do run Visual Studio Code, which is technically Open Source, though I would not put it past Microsoft to do a rug-pull on that eventually. And I have an extensive library of games with Steam, basically nothing of which is Open Source.

I have reached a point, financially, that piracy is not morally defensible. And I'm not willing to get into the mire of if, or where such a line would be. I believe that creators should be rewarded for their work. Though, I also agree that the limits on copyright are way out of whack with the changes Disney has purchased through the years. So, piracy as a moral question is a murky subject, with no clear answers to me. But, the end result is that I buy games, movies or TV shows. For other software, I usually look to FOSS projects (e.g. Gimp vs Photoshop, FreeCAD/OpenSCAD vs Autodesk), free licenses (e.g. Splunk) or just do without. For TV Shows/Movies, if it's not on one of the streaming services I subscribe to, I may buy it via a digital service; or, I do without.

[lattrommi@lemmy.ml]

I'm just here because I got scurvy a couple times. Stay in school, ye' landlubbers n' doan't farget to eat yarself a fruit or vegetable, least once n' a fortnight. ccccccc.

[that_devil_girl@lemmy.ml]

Generally, if software was affordable and their business model is ethical, I wouldn't pirate it.

If a company is charging a subscription for something that has no business being a subscription, I'll pirate it. If a business is stealing data or willingly collaborating with evil people/governments/regimes/etc, I'll pirate it.

[lattrommi@lemmy.ml]

I only pirate adult cinema, because in the end it's not piracy if it's not racy.

[cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de]

I prefer to use FOSS software. There is a risk of getting malware from pirated software. Even if there is no malware, commercial software usually has lots of tracking and telemetry anyways.

[geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml]

If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing.