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

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.

Both FOSS and piracy are about freedom. The first is given, the second is taken.

people will hate about this, but as long as you didn't installed malware, and you blocked pirated software with firewalls (simplewall:https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall), you can have "privacy" because it never connects to internet and you don't give anyone information. so shoot for it if you want.

I have a few personal rules about it, eg. I'll try not to pirate smaller, independent things where it might conceivably screw over the creator, but other than that it's all fair game IMO.

As a side note, it's been interesting to grow up hearing non-stop from the corporate world that piracy is evil and is killing art or whatever, only to watch them do a full 180 in the last couple of years now that they need to pirate the entire internet to train AI.

History will thank pirates for keeping our cultural history preserved and safe from for profit leeches that would burn every single book in existence if it made them a dollar.

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.

I'm honestly... In the middle.

My home network is covered by a VPN, which means I can't use streaming services without punching a hole for my home IP and sacrificing a little privacy - which I'm not willing to do. I've gone through my part and contacted providers to lemme through, without success. Even Amazon who CLEARLY knows my name and mailing address still won't let me watch things even if I own Prime...

So yes, I pirate movies and tv shows. I've tried to cooperate, but if my money isn't enough, then so be it.

Video games I no longer pirate, I'm content with Steam. I also backup all my installs on an external hard drive in the unlikely event Steam goes under or a company demands pulling a game from my profile.

This is no longer true for Nintendo. Their latest attitudes have resulted in me deleting my account and becoming a loyal pirate for Nintendo games. They literally turned me into what they're fighting, ironic right?

I also no longer pirate general software because 98% of the software I use are FOSS, self created, or just free+offline in general. The other 2% is software I purchased because it was a lifetime permanent license and for software I felt deserved the money for support.

So yeah big tech is my main enemy. If I need something and they won't work with me without ransoming my privacy and rights, then yeah so be it.

If a provided service is good and made accessible reasonably, I’ll use it and happily pay. As soon as it is intentionally obtuse or consumer hostile, say no more; I take to the seas.

But in all cases, I prefer FOSS first. It is generally better, more secure, has more vibrant communities, and represents a dying breed of freedom that we all need.

Piracy is the great economic equalizer in the age of digital exploitation.

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.

I would definitely download a car.

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.

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.

With how shit my countries consumer protection laws are, 🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

I have been dealing a lot in piracy. I don't really do that anymore. I've switched to many free or fair software creators. I don't mind paying for the software or games I use. I do mind paying for something, and then not owning it, and being tracked by it and just paying a lot, because the software producer has a kind of monopoly.

I support FOSS and others, with small donations. Like Mozilla, LibreOffice, Inkscape, Krita, Linux Mint and a lot of others.

I think you should pirate away on unethical companies. Do it for many of the reasons other mention in this thread, and do it because they are greedy and don't respect you!

Ethically? If you would've bought it if you couldn't pirate it, you should probably buy it.

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

@darkguyman There isn't much I can't do with open source that I can do with commercial software, hence the motive for pirating it isn't there. I used to prefer adobe premier to kdenlive for example, but not so much for what it can do but for the user interface which I found superior, and I was even willing to BUY it when it was for sale but damned if I'll pay a monthly extortion fee.

The benefit of OSS, to me, is that it's not a black box. You see where your data goes, you get it to interact with the rest of your setup the way you want it (automation, backups, notifications, etc).

Closed source software, pirated or not, puts unnecessary limits on what I can do with my devices and my data.

I mean ethically it's kind of in the air. Personally I only recomend pirating when there isn't a viable FOSS alternative, and without very specific reasons IMO there's some nice linux distro's out there. Personally I feel so bogged down when forced to use windows for work or to help others etc... and these days you can run pretty much anything beyond certain online games that refuse to allow linux through their anti-cheat.

Now when it does come to software in general, I guess it depends on the view. IMO there's 3 categories that make a big difference there.

Software is bad/not worth the price: Well if you believe that why use it at all.

Software is good, worth the money but you are broke: Honestly on the whole I agree with pirating in these situations... however I would actually recomend buying it when your finances allow. You should want to support products that you use and help you.

software is good, but exploitative in methods: IE say adobe with their forced subscription models etc... To me that one makes the most sense and probably agree with you.

software is good, but their anti-piracy is stupid: IE a lot of good software programs, throw in anti-piracy measures that wreck the game. IE things that require you to always be connected to a server, that may be unreliable, to access resources that are on your computer. Yeah fuck those guys, definately pirate it.

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.

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

I think it’s good :)

If piracy wasn't possible I would probably be against computers entirely

I am conflicted about it.

I was a teenager in the 90s and piracy back then was new and was an act of rebellion, a fuck you to copyright assholes and a way to stick it to The Man (whatever that means).

Now I think more about the damage that it could cause to creators and developers, but also I don't like to support predatory and exploitative platforms, so I could say I have become more selective with my piracy, and whenever I think it's fair, I will pay for the thing I have pirated if I like it/find it useful/think the price is fair.

Piracy is terrible, but there are very few places in the world where it still exists, like Somali.

Corporations can't suffer. It doesn't matter whether you "steal" from them or not.

3 words.

Stand.

And.

Deliver.

I'll admit to being mostly right of center in a lot of ways gasp HERE??! Lol.

But I'm no boot licker.

Anarchocapitalist is probably the closest category.

That said, there's nothing I like more than fighting back against "the man" whether that "man" is a corporation or the government itself.

So when corporations, or anyone really, tries to fuck me over?

Stand. And. Deliver. Bitch.

I turn 49 in August. I've had a home computer since 1984. I am of the generation that could work on the old school computers, and I've been pirating since the 80s.

If you want me to PAY you, make it worth the money. Otherwise, I'll get it however I can get away with.

Stealing boats should not be considered a crime against humanity.

FOSS is nice in that it's not going to turn around and do something malicious. Pirated proprietary software both can and has a stronger-than-usual motive to.

It’s a good way to get your data stolen/malware. Don’t get me wrong from 10-18 I used pirated software exclusively. But it’s not secure or a good idea at all if you’re going to use, say, banking or crypto stuff. You can get a winblows key from a reseller for like $15-20USD. I personally wouldn’t mess around with any of it anymore. I got a bunch of cool art programs in a bundle for I think $25 ($400 usd value) that I use now, and before that I used Krita.

It's not so easy to answer if piracy is ethical, depends of the context. It's not the same soft from a shady company and from a small dev team or startup. Anyway, due to the overhelming amount of free alternatives, piracy in most of the cases isn't necessary. I'm using an PC since almost 30 years now and never had the need to piracy an soft or pay for it. There are tons of free and OpenSource soft and services out ther, often better as the commercial ones, giveaway campaigns in games (Steam, Itch.io, DigiPen and others are full of good free games) and soft, free music (Bandcamp, Pixelfed, FMA,,,,,), etc. only needs to search a little.

I think it is unethical to pay (or demand payment) for things that can be copied freely. It's a joke, insanity, a depraved legacy/necessity from the Blue Church.

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.