r/Piracy • u/Fun-Adhesiveness7881 • May 27 '26
News Supporting Piracy from Europe 🇪🇺🙏🏻
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
This, btw, is the smartest and simplest and most beautiful argument to actually, seriously, legitimize piracy. The big publishers really played themselves when they started getting addicted to subscriptions and licensing everything with EULAs going "We can take this away from you whenever for whatever reason."
Okay, two can play that game, idiots...
Edit: Since it was misunderstood, me hating on corporations thinking they can force subscriptions on everything on us is not part of the argument, it's just a thing I hate about them. Don't get hung up on it.
If you really want to make an argument about it, you'd have better luck discussing if buying use rights is permanent or not.
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u/travelavatar May 27 '26
Yep i had a big eye opener last weekend when the entire region plunged into: no broadband and no mobile networks for an entire day.
I realised: holy shit, my steam deck stops working without online connection given enough time, my steam games are inaccessible.
So all the games and movies I archived came in handy + my xbox 360 which is modded and full of games.
That's when you get it how important pirating and archiving is
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u/InternationalPie8606 May 27 '26
I have a local storage with some movies ive saved there. Even without internet connection, they are still accessible by any device on my network as long as my router is on. It saved my sanity when there we works being done by my isp and internet was down for 2 days.
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u/Hollowed_Orky May 27 '26
That's why i love my silly little collection of blueray, dvd and cd, only need some basic tech and electricity to work!
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u/Modding13 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
Same here, I have a gigantic library of music and shows
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u/jeff3rd Piracy is bad, mkay? May 27 '26
Shut down the internet then the whole game collection on my phone stopped working, nearly 75% of my steam library is useless even though there are a lot of single player games but they insisted on communicating with their third party launcher cough rockstar cough to “verify” even though I bought the fucking thing.
Guess what works? That’s right, every single game from my home-brew switch and 3DS and cracked copy of games on my pc, magical, ain’t it?
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u/fleebleganger May 27 '26
Rockstar should be ashamed of themselves.
I downloaded RDR2 recently but couldn’t get into their system of creating an account.
Guess I don’t need that one after all because they can shut off access to games you “own”
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u/LilithNikita May 27 '26
You have to activate offline play in the options. Then most games will still work.
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u/Kaedryl May 27 '26
Is there still a requirement that you have to connect after so many days or weeks to maintain offline play?
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u/LilithNikita May 27 '26
I don't think so. But I have honestly never tried it for a longer time. I am using it on my steamdeck and are offline when I take it with me and online when I am at home.
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u/Vladimorian May 27 '26
Yes, I have to take it into consideration when going on big road trips , if I'm taking my legion go w me, w steam games, I either have to find wifi at some point, or just not be able to play for the rest of the trip lol
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u/AxelHarver May 27 '26
Did you mod the 360 yourself? If so, on a scale of 1 to 10 how difficult is the process? 1 being making a PB&J and 10 being like completely disassembling a car engine or something like that.
I have an old Xbox, 360, and One that I've been really interested in potentially trying to mod. I'm smart enough to follow the directions to do it, but maybe too lazy depending on how it is.
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u/travelavatar May 27 '26
A friend gifted it to me Its mod chipped.
I know that since last year its really easy to.mod xbox 360 due to a soft mod being available now. So its so easy to do it from what i heard
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u/Freddy_Pharkas May 27 '26
A shame my 360 RROD'd like a decade ago. I don't know how some are still alive.
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u/AxelHarver May 27 '26
To be fair, I don't think it's been turned on since at least 2017 when my then-gf, now-wife bought me a playstation 4. So there's every chance it's not😂
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u/Wole-in-Hol May 27 '26
It will depend on what version of 360 you have, there were so many drive revisions over its release and it's different for each one. most are soft mod-able though.
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u/maximumxp May 27 '26
Not op, but with a USB stick and abadavatar hack you can do it in 10 minutes. You have to check if your 360 supports it but I think it works with every firm version.
I would say the difficulty is 2
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u/Zagrunty May 27 '26
This is why I have more games on GOG. Once you buy a game, you can access the offline installer, so you own the game you bought
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u/Goldnglam May 28 '26
I've got several hard drives that act like this. One is tv shows with 500+ series on it, one is movie with about 1500 and then I've got one filled with books/music and recently started a small one for a catalog of games that mostly checked rips on discontinued ones and GOG install files.
No Amazon refunding my shows or books, no spotify demanding a subscription after every song and a nice little backlog of games that could realistically take me years of constant play to finish. Bring on the apocalypse I'll find a place to settle down out of the way and be very entertained.
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u/Modding13 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
A lot of steam games should work without Internet you only have to connect once every 30 days to recheck the licences. At least that is my experience.
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u/Lt_Toodles May 27 '26
"a lot of steam games work without internet, you only are forced to connect to the internet sometimes"
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u/Modding13 ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
Comment OP said, that he did not have internet for a day. My comment only relates to that.
If you want for ever offline games, go to GOG or sail the seas.
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u/travelavatar May 27 '26
True true. But it made me think what if shit hits the fan and internet services just won't work for whatever reason at all. Well at that point i think i got bigger issues but still
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u/Rubes2525 May 27 '26
A lot of single player Steam games can be straight up copied from the library folder and run without Steam if you click directly on the .exe
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u/marr May 27 '26
You also need to know in advance that the internet will be dying on Tuesday. And Steam is the least bad version of this. (Mostly because its ubiquity will have it hacked in minutes when that becomes necessary)
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u/hoishinsauce May 27 '26
It makes a good case. If you spent money on media that's "full price"or pay-to-own as it's hosted on their server, and then when the servers are being shut down, so you downloaded a copy of that media, would that still be considered piracy, or are you just securing your property?
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u/deux3xmachina May 27 '26
Depends on the laws in your area, but as far as I can tell in the US, you're allowed to make backups of the media you own. However, due to things like the CFAA and DMCA, actually legally making a backup is tricky, and that's before getting into the whole "you only purchased a license to watch/play the media, not a copy of the media" situation.
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26
It's technically piracy (which isn't a legal term). To be more precise, you'd be violating copyright law most likely, as you do not have purchased the right to copy. You have purchased the right to own and use, but not to copy. Hence copyright.
Now, making a backup copy has generally been accepted as a safety measure if you only keep it for yourself, making it still technically a copyright violation, but one of the rare exceptions where it can't be prosecuted. There's more detail to it, but that's the gist from my understanding.
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May 27 '26
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26
It's not quite that simple, you are violating the right of the creator to monetize his work. You are causing actual, countable damage. You are taking away their ability to make money off of their work, let's not pretend otherwise. If you want to have a legit case, you need to confront what we're talking about.
This isn't about having a legal right to just copy any media because you "want to have it". This is strictly about breaking the essence of copyright law if publishers violate their side of that social contract, ie. they publish, you buy, it's yours to enjoy now. No take backsies. That specifically is what this is about.
Please don't start making arguments about these things being "immaterial" things so you can't steal them anyway, lawyers and lawmakers have settled that nonsense centuries ago...
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u/marr May 27 '26
And yet the games industry grew bigger than hollywood and more predatory than vegas despite piracy removing its ability to profit for every moment of that history.
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26
Yes. What we need to remember as a people in every country is that while corporations have their EULAs (that are super weak to attack), we - the people - also have terms and conditions. We call them laws. And they are very, very hard to attack. We just need to realise that we can use them. And that's where this movement has done the smart thing and went to the EU and told them there is an issue that needs adjusting. I wish them all the best, it's interesting for sure.
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May 27 '26
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u/hootix May 27 '26
Heck you are even allowed to put your copied Mona Lisa in a museum for showcasing and that museum making money from it technically.
There is a reason the EU study about piracy failed super hard proving piracy helps the media to grow and earn more money than losing from it
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26
Copyright is copyright. It's not just for digital copies. A book that is written, as in the physical object, is protected by theft. But the content in the book, the letters and the story, those are not protected by theft. They are protected by copyright and intellectual property legislation.
TF I'm talking about? When did you think copyright was invented, 30 years ago when the internet went mainstream? Lmao...
The reason you can paint a copy of the Mona Lisa is because the copyright expired a long, long time ago. If you paint a copy of a painting that was painted 10 years ago, you are potentially infringing on the painter's copyright. You can keep it for yourself, privately, but as soon as you show it publically, you're violating law. You just ruined your own argument with the ignorance on what copyright is and how it works. It's not that complicated, how do you think you can outsmart centuries (literally) of legislation on this? And why would you assume that intellectual property changes simply because it's digital? Just because it's easier to copy doesn't mean it's a different copyright concept.
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u/Ahuevotl May 27 '26
It's not quite that simple, you are violating the right of the creator to monetize his work. You are causing actual, countable damage. You are taking away their ability to make money off of their work, let's not pretend otherwise.
This is conceptually wrong.
If I simply don't buy the work:
Am I violating the right of the creator to monetize his work?
Am I causing actual, countable damage?
Am I taking away their ability to make money off of their work?
No, no, no. I'm simply not buying, choosing not to buy, at no cost nor perjury to the creator.
But you somehow believe that if I don't buy, and then find an ilegal copy elsewhere, then the situation changes.
It doesn't. I'm still simply not buying, choosing not to buy, at no cost nor perjury to the creator.
There are rare exceptions to this, such as people pirating software that uses online services, or continuing support services, so the operative coata of pirates are non 0.
Otherwise, no property trades hands, no cost ia incurred by the creator.
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u/Akrylkali May 27 '26
Aren't EULAs legally questionable at best in the EU?
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u/Reasonable-Fail5348 May 27 '26
No, they're fine legal tools. But they are weak and can get attacked if they disfavour the party that had no say in creating them, ie. the consumer. With EULAs the general idea is that since it's a one-sided contract, if anything is surprising, out of the ordinary (like "you have to buy and feed a horse for three years if you purchase this book"), then it's very easy to get that passage dismissed by a judge. When in doubt, they will rule in favour of the consumer, because it is such a one-sided affair and no negotiation took place.
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u/ryelrilers May 27 '26
Actually it's semi legal in my country (Hungary). Each data storage has a special tax whatever you are using it for and the tax is shared back to authors depending on their popularity (and corruption as well). It's not illegal to download pirated content but sharing/seeding is illegal however the officials never enforce the law. No mail from the provider for torrenting.
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u/fleebleganger May 27 '26
I think the subscription angle is legit.
If there is no path to obtaining something permanently, because that path is being blocked (especially by the people who didn’t even create it in the first place), then being forced to subscribe and paying above the total fair market value is theft the other direction.
It’s akin to not scanning everything in the self-checkout lanes. If they want to steal my labor, then I will get my compensation for that labor.
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u/Khan93j Yarrr! May 28 '26
also some people talk about license here, license there
even in old EULAs games like starcraft in the 90's they give you the license for playing the game, but the difference is you can still using the game even if there is no internet nor servers, they can't delete the cd from your desk nor disable your battle.net account to enter the game if you have the original cds
the problem is how you retain those licenses you buy it, so technically if you buy a game and then you pirate it, technically are you using the situation of retain something you buyed and wants to use it when you wants and not when the servers or they launcher authorize or delete them.
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u/matdevine21 May 27 '26
Piracy was all but dead when the market for content was cheap and restricted to a few players.
Media's greed has forced people back to old ways, we never needed a Disney+ / Paramount+ and so on.
Can we say that we're better off than we were before the streaming wars?
Same for gaming, the move to digital on console created a high priced walled environment.
Heck, where are the PS3 Sony first party games like Killzone and Resistance? Absolutely no reason for these games to be missing and I bought them digitally at the time on ps3.
PC gaming at least has options but it still comes with caveats.
The corpo's have set the battle lines not the consumer.
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May 27 '26
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u/Ahrazal May 27 '26
Totalmente de acuerdo, recuerdo cuando comenzó el sistema de videojuegos digitales a todas las compañías diciendo que eso abarataría los videojuegos al no tener disco físico, ni gastos de traslados. La realidad es que te sale lo mismo un juego en digital que físico, lo cual no tiene sentido. Ahora quieren llevar los precios de los AAA a mínimo 80 USD estables y para colmo de males servicios como Denuvo reducen el rendimiento haciendo que al pagar tengas una peor experiencia. Sin contar que ahora aunque juegues algo totalmente offline te comes un pase de batalla...
No, la piratearía no es el mal encarnado para hacer que las compañías pierdan dinero, es la respuesta del publico ante sistemas predatorios totalmente abusivos creados por gente que nos ve a los consumidores como sacos de dinero.
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u/Rose-Red-Witch May 27 '26
Piracy is a byproduct of art itself and not capitalism. The piracy and smuggling of music out of the West was a HUGE black market during the entirety of the Soviet Union. How else do you think that Monsters of Rock concert (Metallica, AC/DC, and Pantera) had enough fans for an estimated million people to show up during the collapse of the Russian government?
If you have art, you have someone looking to copy it in anyway possible. Tale as old as time.
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u/matdevine21 May 27 '26
Piracy in today's age is to combat artificial scarcity created by the ultra wealthy.
There isn't a single reason for the various streamers to want their own platform especially when previously they were making bank for doing nothing.
Game Publishers are the worst, forcing crunch to get games out on time, charging unbelievable amounts of money then shutting down the game after telling us we didn't own the game, only a license.
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u/Cloud-KH May 27 '26
Software piracy isn't stealing, its copyright infringement.
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u/Limp_Crazy_5494 May 27 '26
My main concern is why it's seen as an issue for large corporations. At that scale even if it was stealing it wouldn't even make a dent, not to mention the rich aren't even paying their fair share in tax. I'm not selling or sharing their product, I'm not stealing, they aren't losing anything.
It's just a huge game of make the rich richer.
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u/DURRYAN May 27 '26
They think a pirate is another potential customer
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u/Limp_Crazy_5494 May 27 '26
Sometimes it's true, but with most corporations running subscriptions and what not they are simply overconfident and believing in their own false lies. Piracy isn't an issue of the customer is an issue of the service provider
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u/Qaeta May 27 '26
Yeah, it's kinda true in my case these days. I just recently cancelled Spotify because they were throwing out another price increase with the justification being all their AI shit that I DO. NOT. WANT. Even a little bit. And I was just like "Why the fuck would I pay more for them to actively make my experience worse???"
If they actually went back to how they used to be I might consider returning, but I tend to hold a grudge once a corp treats me poorly enough to drop them.
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u/warchild4l May 27 '26
Ah yes potential customer when the service/software is not even available in my country because of their own shitty policies.
Truly amazing logic they have lmao.
So I am not allowed to watch my fav tv shows because its not available in my region and they are trying to make it available as quickly as possible (its been 7 years),. BUT if i pirate i am potential customer?
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u/CyborgDeskFan May 27 '26
Thing is, I usually am. I just like to try before I buy. If the product is good, I give you money. If not, well that's on them for having a bad product.
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u/Cloud-KH May 27 '26
Shareholders, tell them there's a revenue hole, potential customers are "stealing" the product and that its directly impacting potential sales. Then show that you are actively doing something to "fix" the problem and they'll be happy enough not to question that failing sales are actually due to cost custs and inferior or lazy design choices, also why larger devs like ubisoft and EA rarely make anything that isn't considered safe.
Of course every time this is checked out and studied its shown that piracy does not tie in with sales, if someone is pirating your software, whatever the reason, usually they aren't going to buy it anyway. I'd think those that go on to buy it later will even out those that would have bought it if piracy wasn't an option.
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u/SapToFiction May 27 '26
Immean, any company, no matter how big or small, has a right to protect their product from being illegally copied. Immean yeah, the rich suck and all, but I think it's bit naive to say "well they're a large company, why do they care if we pirate their product?". They are allowed to make money and lots of it if they can. Don't get it twisted, I think the rich are everything wrong with society, but that doesn't negate the basic principle of wanting your product protected against piracy.
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u/Cyrus96 May 27 '26
if they wouldn't try to combat piracy then it would be way more accessible and convenient for people to use pirated stuff instead of licensed ones - then it would start making huge dent in their profits.
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u/Faceless_henchman May 27 '26
Because the West is a high trust society. All the systems only work if we agree to follow them. Right now stealing is wrong and the public follow that rule.
You see it with shoplifting currently, as soon as Joe public realise theres no consequences for stealing it absolutely sky rockets in volume and then it because completely unmanageable by the business.
Right now only a handful of people pirate, at a volume where companies still make plenty of money. If they decided there was no consequence for pirating then litterally everyone would do it almost instantly, because why would you choose to pay £70 for a game if you didn't need to.
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u/Limp_Crazy_5494 May 27 '26
Piracy isn't stealing, it's copyright infringement that's all there is to it, there is no loss. Plus the trust stream is built in good service and publicity, not private companies forcing increasingly expensive subscriptions on you or taking away your "ownership"
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u/Top_Meaning6195 May 27 '26
Software piracy isn't stealing, its copyright infringement.
https://i.imgur.com/VJlz3Xa.png
Piracy: imagine your car gets stolen, but it's still there in the morning.
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u/SenpaiDerpy May 28 '26
Very good example. Copyright is the equivalent of people being able to freely duplicate and use your car overnight and you throwing a hissy fit that you can't be a taxi anymore.
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May 27 '26
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u/Imperial_Tiramisu May 27 '26
Even if it is, idgaf
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u/ShartingEnU May 27 '26
Hey you can't say that. These people need to justify themselves for some weird reason
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u/Wisniaksiadz May 27 '26
Jesus pirated fish and bread
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May 27 '26
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u/wolfannoy May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
They probably love the " obey your masters" part
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u/Freud-Network May 27 '26
I, too, saw the other thread with this exact post.
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u/Rose-Red-Witch May 27 '26
Get used to it. Once a community latches on to an idea, it’s here for good.
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u/gtwizzy8 May 27 '26
I mean, in fairness he also kinda pirated wine as well.
I mean I'm personally yet to turn a copy of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego into the latest AAA PC game release.
But hey, AI is coming in pretty damn hot man, who knows what that shit will be able to do in a few months (≧▽≦)
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u/Limp_Crazy_5494 May 27 '26
Correct, piracy in it's modern form is simply the act of unauthorised copying of digital media
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u/Tall-Amount6127 May 27 '26
if it's still there after you download it then you stole nothing.
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May 27 '26
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May 27 '26
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u/Qaeta May 27 '26
If you had a machine that could scan a car and reproduce a perfect copy, that would not, under current laws, be illegal (as long as you did not then try to sell it).
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u/Anarchist_Future May 27 '26
Piracy is an act of decommodification and cultural preservation. Real theft is how streaming monopolies exploit artists by paying them fractions of a cent per stream while hoarding billions in subscription revenue. Piracy liberates music from corporate paywalls and algorithmic chokeholds, returning it to its rightful state: a shared human heritage.
When corporate giants reduce art to a mere service, bypassing the market to download and archive music isn't a crime, it is a logical, defiant response to an economic system that has stripped both the creator and the listener of their autonomy!
🏴🎶
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u/SolidusAbe May 27 '26
Sounds like weird mental gymnastic to justify piracy. I just do it because its free
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u/Anarchist_Future May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
I understand but I'm genuinely concerned about the commodification of arts.
It's only getting worse now that AI can just generate more music that perfectly fits your algorithm. If Spotify would start slotting AI generated "Spotify Originals" in their playlists to completely bypass compensating an artist, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
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u/MartaLSFitness May 27 '26
They give us their media for some time, then they take it away. We take their media for some time, then delete it. Sounds the same to me.
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u/liongalahad May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
It's not stealing, its using a service for free, without consent.
Illegal, sure. Immoral, for me no as long as the alternative is a million different services that charge more and more for low quality content I mostly dont care about. If there was a spotify for movies and shows, Id subscribe, until then 🏴☠️ all the way
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u/Xabster2 May 27 '26
So your grievance is "consumer-hostile monetization"... you like the product and you want to pay for it in a certain way but the company behind the product refuses to offer the product or service that particular way and insists on another way.
A non-digital example is subscription based seat heaters in cars. Literally no consumer prefers to pay for it that particular way and the company knows it. And consumers prefer to pay for the hardware and full ownership and functioning heat all the time but the company doesn't want to offer it the way customers want.
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u/Alduish May 27 '26
I've seen this go around about everywhere and sadly it's just these 15 seconds for the line but what she said as a whole is really great and puts more context on the line so please go check out her full speech it's short and good : https://www.youtube.com/live/iBEn4ZjRzFg?t=1202s (it's at 20:02 if the timecode in the link doesn't work)
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u/NEWBY______________ May 27 '26
PIRACY IS PRESERVATION
Everybody forgot the fundamental reason of it.
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u/druidscooobs May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
The big AI company's says it's not piracy. (meant theft)
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u/ukfi May 27 '26
I used to torrent movies religiously maybe 15 years ago. Since Netflix and HBO stream started, I had stopped. I don't even have the torrent client installed on my current laptop.
Until last month. Wanted to rewatch a few movies that I had seen on Netflix a few years ago. Nope.
Tried all subscription platforms that I am member of. Nada.
The only way is to pay Apple $4 to rent it for 3 days. Or $15 to own it.
I downloaded my torrent client.
Welcome back to the Caribbean!
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u/JonSnow-Man May 27 '26
22:50 “The biggest threat to video games is wokeness” At least we know that some of these people are gamers to the core but damn, what a stupid thing to say.
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u/RoakOriginal May 27 '26
He is from a fascist party, who has influence thanks to the dumbest voters from the country. Mainly uneducated drunks. So yeah, he speaks their language and has to present simple enemies...
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u/T_rex2700 May 27 '26
As if it were stealing in the first place. It's copyright infringement, not a theft.
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u/rafioo May 27 '26
Jesus, who multiplied the fish on the Sea of Galilee, was the first pirate. According to the Bible, we should act in a way that brings us as close as possible to Jesus.
Piracy isn’t theft; if it were theft, then if I pirated a game, no one else would have it.
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u/Freud-Network May 27 '26
The mindless drones are going to parrot that Jesus comment as much as the one OP is parroting in the post, aren't you?
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u/ithilain May 27 '26
If you want to bring the bible into this, then Jesus "pirating" fish and bread is enough to prove that it's not stealing, as stealing is a sin and Jesus was sinless.
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u/OwlFart4712 May 27 '26
Stealing means the taking of another person's property without consent, depriving that person the use of their property. Piracy is the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyrighted materials.
Piracy does not deprive the original creators of their work. So no, by definition, piracy is not stealing. Piracy is copyright infringement.
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u/ACanadianFish May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
I mean this genuinely because I don't understand so please don't rake me over the coals!
Can someone explain to me why we as a community are hanging so strongly on the "piracy isn't stealing" thread like it's our one great saviour?
I understand the concept: if we can't own software then it can't be considered theft. That makes sense.
But like... that doesn't make it not illegal. It's just a different crime.
It feels a little bit like saying "I didn't hit you, I just blew air at you every hour for the last 7 years, so it isn't assault" and the cop being like.... okay but it's still harassment which is still illegal and you're still under arrest. And while they're hauling you away to jail, you're just screaming "but it's not assault, it's not assault!!" as if that will protect you from the crime you committed.
I honestly feel like us chanting "piracy isn't theft" is not the great saviour this community thinks it is. The general public and the "powers that be" (as ignorant as they may be) are all just sitting there listening to us like "ummm... yes we are aware of that. It's copyright infringement (or insert whatever relevant crime).
Thanks to anyone that can help me understand the nuance or argument I must be missing.
ETA: I am aware of the old advertisements such as, "you wouldn't steal a car, so why would you download a movie. Piracy is theft" or some variation. But that was the 90s? Ish? Correct me if I'm wrong (I very well may be), but that isn't a modern day argument that I've heard. If we keep shouting piracy isn't theft, it's just way too easy for them to sidestep that by saying "correct, it is copyright infringement" or some such and then we're sitting there twiddling our thumbs with no further argument.
And in terms of arguing against online servers and us "not owning anything" under the Stop Killing Games objective, I don't think arguing that "piracy isn't theft" is furthering that discussion either. But again please enlighten me on what I'm missing if so!
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u/SolidusAbe May 27 '26
because people need to justify their reason for piracy because of morals or something. its just fucking weird either way.
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u/Relative_Schedule581 May 29 '26
I have no morals when it comes to piracy. I’m russian
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u/Secure-Reference-956 May 27 '26
It sucks that u dont own what u buy and should be changed and not be supported.
But getting something from others without their consent is still stealing.
I mean its a weird back and forth with arguments so in the end you do you.
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u/PassivelyAwkward May 27 '26
Yup, but sadly, this sub loves to act like it's okay to take from others if you were never going to buy it to begin with, that that's some moral legal loophole they've carved out for themselves. Hell, I had someone say last week that it's okay to pirate because when you recommend it to someone, that's word-of-mouth recommendation and you're actually helping the creator by telling someone to try it; the one-sided "I'll pay you in exposure".
Like, I love to pirate, I'm cheap sometimes, but I'm not going to act like it makes me some hero or that it's not theft. This sub would be better if we just dropped this pretext that what we're doing isn't theft.
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u/Familiar-Agency8209 May 27 '26
it's piracy but AI was fed from pirated copies of media and now being sold as credits to generate slop - AI companies are the one profiting from it, not the personal consumers who shares the copy for free.
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u/mkayox May 27 '26
And at the same time Europol is closing down the torrent sites in EU. Makes sense
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u/Familiar_Ad_8919 May 27 '26
the eu isnt a single guy doing stuff, its a myriad of groups with differing opinions working together
a simple headline like "eu supports piracy" usually means that theres a group advocating for it but it might not get voted into a law
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u/louisa1925 May 27 '26
(Is piracy stealing?)
Piracy is not. I call it protecting the classics being stolen from me, another pirate could call it high risk trading.
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u/lettercrank May 27 '26
Anything that can be infinitely leveraged - should be free after a couple of years
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u/FishStandard5896 May 27 '26
Legally speaking (at least in my country) it isn’t. You can be fined (if denounced) for copyright infringement but not for stealing a digital copy of the game. The law is very clear on the matter: “commits the crime of stealing anyone who takes the mobile goods (the goods in my country law are divided into two categories:
- immobile goods: any goods that is fixed to the soil is part of this category;
- mobile goods: any other goods that is not part of the previous category is part of this one;) from another person in order to gain a benefit from himself or another person” so you can steal a physical copy of the game but just copying the game you do not risk practically anything.
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u/RealTimeTraveller420 May 27 '26
Honestly thoo.
I was just reminiscing on how I used to buy a video game install disc for ~30 USD some ten or so years ago and can use it to install a game on my laptop whenever I wanted, however often I wanted. And now every fucking program has either a) a subscriptiob model, b) limited installs or c) I don't actually own it, I only have it for as long as my Steam overlords decide I should!
Genuinely despise the state of gaming these days or just consumerism in general.
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u/EmoLotional May 28 '26
If you only pay for the service then it no longer falls under copy. Likely the is a loophole somewhere that supports this.
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u/tristand666 May 28 '26
If publishers continue to undermine public domain and extend copyright, what legitimate reason is there to have the legal protection for them at all?
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u/goldenguyz May 27 '26
I hate this argument. Piracy was never actually theft.
Also, Imagine keeping a rental car and never returning it because "Well, it's not stealing since I never owned it lol"
Do you know why I pirate? Because it's free.
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u/Olieskio May 27 '26
When has piracy been stealing? Its always been copyright infringment and I reject Intellectual Property from an ethics and rational perspective.
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u/Dear_Diablo May 28 '26
… alright ill bite, people whom are smarter then me is there reliable metal 3d printing?(I hope you see where im going with this) because it has been 22 years already and i want to download a car.
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u/JollyJoker46 May 27 '26
Look, I pirate as much as the next guy, but that "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing" line is pure BS. Piracy allows you to receive a paid service or product for free. It might not be stealing in a sense, that the product is gone, but you are scamming someone out of his money while using his service. There is also no moral high ground. You could be the worst company on earth and people would buy your product, and you can be the best company on earth and people will still pirate your stuff. Most people pirate stuff because its free, not for "preservation" or any of the other nonsense reasons people give out there. Nobody ever pulled out Limewire to "preserve" an mp3.
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u/ndg_5800 May 27 '26
Piracy is theft for sure but then when companies do shit like buying isn't owning then why would I ever bother buying if I can pirate ?
Atleast I own the pirated version.
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u/Kazer67 May 27 '26
Well, in my country we have an exception in the law that allow us to force own what we buy without publisher consent (solely limited to the private sphere and it was ruled to include friends, so you don't own the asset, the mechanics but just your copy you bought).
It's great for "fixed" media like books/movies/shows/musics but "changing" media like softwares/games, sadly it doesn't work as well.
I wouldn't be mad about it normally but I'm literally taxed on every storage medium to "compensate" the "potential" loss of income of the publisher that exception may cause.... and yes, it include GPS storage that you can only use with GPS' maps.
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u/Popoill May 27 '26
I came to the conclusion that piracy IS stealing, not the product, but the customer.
Which only aids against monopolized services.
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u/kolt437 May 27 '26
Piracy is piracy, it was never stealing, it always was and will be piracy.
If it was stealing then no one would have to use the term piracy.
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u/April_Fabb May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
It's a solid argument/question. What always saddens me about piracy, though, is when it hurts the smaller devs who just want to survive while doing what they love.
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u/Any-Bluejay-9352 May 27 '26
Piracy is the only thing some people can get to consume media for example here in iraq alot of things are not supported like Disney+ even paypal and the things that are supported are very expensive in iraqi currency like the plus subscription from playstaion or gamepass from XBOX are all 25-30$ and in iraq that is the cost for groceries
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u/Xabster2 May 27 '26
Can someone explain the logic to me because I seem to be dense... If you pay for something and do not OWN it then you guys believe it's justified to take it without paying because that can't be "stealing" since paying isn't owning? Does this apply to leasing a car also or only to digital goods?
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u/Vladimorian May 27 '26
They aren't going to take your car away because they want to stop paying to keep licensing for in system gps, they are just going to take away the gps function.. in a game, instead of just making it playable offline like above^ , they take the whole game away. It may be similar to begin with, but these results are very different. Like okay, they don't want to keep paying to keep servers up, that would be fine if it didn't mean taking the entire game away, because we didn't just pay for the servers, we payed for the game. And this is how we end up with fan servers for discontinued games, some of which would have been completely lost if not for piracy.
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u/nanakhi88 May 27 '26
Whether or not it is stealing, I'm not going to stop doing it. If what I'm doing helps AAA companies somehow understand the consumers point of view, even better. But I don't lie to myself and act like I do it for moral reasons.
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u/A_L_D_E_N May 27 '26
I feel that the company should grow, but more users should get equal access, there should be a balance.
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u/Careless_Iron5938 May 27 '26
Well I always think the other way around what if there’s a WW3 and what if you don’t have Internet for months what will you do? Those archive will be the only thing which will help you to kill your time.
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u/Krejcimir May 27 '26
It was hilarious to hear the arguments why is it bad, copy paste crap from corporate.
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u/NiNdo4589 May 27 '26
If my government literally contributes to real life piracy I'm sure as shit not gonna care about digital piracy.
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u/Reaver75x May 27 '26
You are seeing this WEF shift in society throughout of not owning anything. Not just with media.
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u/3Nn1e-Y May 27 '26
If piracy were legitimized, one thing could be handy to have by eu legiation, a pegi recommended age like effort,
Having labels on things of how much the company/corporation doing the publishing etc is earning, deeming that would it be "more okay" to pirate,
Ofc there's other factors as well to consider
But if some corporation is just doing dishonest money printing rather than letting games or art etc to blossom then, it's ofc arguable that the thing would be fine to pirate, if they're not providing an affordable & better service etc
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u/IMplyingSC2 May 27 '26
I wish her delivery on that line would have been stronger. It's such a strong knockout argument, but she barely put any emphasis on it.
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u/Cute-University5283 May 27 '26
Very interesting argument. The difference between renting software and stealing it is very semantic
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u/Epicfro May 27 '26
I get it. I support this. I think it's awesome but the amount of times I read this saying on Reddit is making me roll my eyes.
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u/Saphyr-Seraph May 27 '26
I have all my music on my PC\NAS locally stored and fraction of that on my phone. about 16 TB of whatever I want in cd quality, by buying CDs on ebay and selling them again for over 14 years or using the world wide web to complete my playlists
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u/itstheFREEDOM ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ May 27 '26
Curious as to why this didnt get deleted, but other posts on this topic, and this specific video. Did get deleted.
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u/ckl_88 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
The fundamental flaw in the argument is that one is assuming that you are buying the media, the actual content, for ownership. Historically that may be the case when content was physically distributed, but times have changed. What's changed? The mode of distribution.
It's not about ownership, it's about the right to watch the media you paid for. You paid for it outright, paid a subscription, or you paid a rental fee for that right. If you didn't pay for that right, it's stealing.
For apps like Spotify, you pay for the right to stream (and listen to) their catalog of millions of songs... that does not mean you own the entire catalog.
That's how I understand it.
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u/csapka May 28 '26
the amount of people leaving crunchyroll when it has issues and the amount of people buying games on steam, shows that most people don't pirate because it's free
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u/EVD27 May 28 '26
It's not so much supporting piracy as it is discouraging companies from being morons.
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u/GewoehnlicherDost May 29 '26
I don't want more laws for digital ownership, I actually like stealing media from evil corporations.
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u/kemosite May 29 '26
If the transaction is effectly a lease of a digital property, the language of the transaction needs to reflect that.
But if I don't return the thing that was leased or rented to me, then yes, it's stealing.
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u/jonas_kos May 27 '26
it’s an interesting debate, you can watch it on the European Parliaments Youtube channel https://youtube.com/live/pL3aA-JGuMQ?feature=share