Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

1. When the content is no longer available for retail purchase (i.e old games or shows that have been pulled entirely [see Infinity Train])
2. You have a physical copy, but want a digital version.

1. Content that you cannot acquire by any "lawful" means.
2. Content that you already own a copy of (Yes, this includes "only" having a "license" to it; you own what you own).
3. Content that is outrageously priced, and/or from large companies where the people who worked on the product will receive nothing from sold copies. (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc)

When the money goes to people who did not create the media. Support creators, not exploiters.

IMO it's better to not pirate small indie content (mostly games in my case).

to answer the opposite of your question i would say it’s unethical to steal things from indie developers and creators; the same way its more wrong to steal from a local corner store than it is to steal from Walmart

Many people already said stuff I agree with, but I'd also include low-income families being "justified" in pirating stuff, be it for work, study or entertainment (as entertainment is a basic right imo)

Any piracy related to scientific papers I consider ethical. That kind of knowledge should NEVER be hidden behind a paywall

Abandonware is a very clear cut case of ethical piracy, too. Without it, a lot of digital stuff "wouldn't exist" anymore. Mainly games, but also loads of productivity programs, doubly so for discontinued platforms, like Amiga computers.

Archival of information and software that is no longer available, such as NES games.

Any and all book piracy is ethical. It's just like a library. If libraries are ethical libgen is ethical.

If it is not available to buy anywhere for me and the only way is piracy, I feel like piracy is justified. No one loses anything on this scenario.

The only (ethical) reason not to pirate games is indie. But I still buy on Steam/Gog cause its convenient / I don't risk malware.

-Not available to buy or only second hand for exorbitant prices (cough cough Nintendo) -Overpriced subscription (cough cough Adobe) -Getting a version of a game you already bought free of invasive or resource-heavy -Trying out a paid program/game/etc. with the intent of buying it if it you like it and it runs well

if you owned a game but your license got pulled for no reason (assassin's creed)

although pirating triple a titles is always ethical imo, devs usually get paid the same no matter how the game does

also pirating to try a game. steams 2 hour refund policy isnt enough, as 2 hours often is not enough to get into a game and see if u like it

pirating retro games
if the only way to play a game legitimately is to pay $500 for a cartridge, it's ok to pirate

if you can't afford a game (ex. low income countries), it's ok to pirate. there are places where a full months salary isn't enough for a single triple a titile

If a product is no longer for sale on any storefront, or the edition for sale is lacking content had by previous versions of the same product, piracy is morally correct for the sake of archival and preservation

I think something most folks can agree on is abandonware. If there is literally no way to purchase something and you want to buy it then I don't think people should be angry that you "stole" it.

Most people here arguing that the "ethical side" of piracy is when the media is not available elsewhere. Or if it's available but at an abusive price/requirements. To which I agree.

But I also believe that culture shouldn't be only for those who can afford it. Books, movies, videogames, tvshows, education, science is what makes a society culturally rich. This is exactly why we have libraries. It's a public service. I've seen teens become avid consumers and incredibly knowledgeable in certain subjects, to the point that they are making a living because of it. Because the internet allow them to explore and grow. Without a pricetag nor preassure on their families.

Heck! Even I pirated almost everything in my teen years. Nowdays I pay for a lot of media. Don't get me wrong, we should be supporting artists. Always. If possible.

If it's not possible, go ahead just pirate it. Piracy it's just the best digital library in history. With a heavy euphemism attached: "piracy" (the act of attacking ships in order to sack them, kill people, rape people). It has a bad connotation on purpose. Don't fall for it.

Edit: punctuation

Ethical piracy is a reddit fallacy(which I used to believe too) where people think showing a company a middle finger is acceptable.

The solution is to use FOSS, and kill their stranglehold on the market

Take adobe's crap for example... they are big because of the students pirating it, expecting employers to pay for their license in the future. Creative cloud is all they learn and then it's hard for them to switch to freemium or libre options, so they pirate it.

This happens with ms office too! We were taught how to use word, excel, powerpoint as kids, and now are forced to use those since everyone around us uses those...

Pirating copies of games I have already paid for a "license" for is ethical IMO. I want to be able to have offline-capable backups that can't be taken away from me.

1. Work where the original author is dead. (The money is not going to the author).

Piracy is a service problem. They keep making it harder for people to watch things, and piracy gets easier every day.

If I have already purchased a copy of the physical media, I don’t think it is piracy to acquire a digital copy of the same media for personal use

All of it. By pirating you support other pirates and oppose copyright, which should be abolished. The more people disregard copyright, the closer we are to getting rid of it.

It is always justified to pirate something. Private property is a scam, and intellectual property even more so; there is no justification for these concepts that does not boil down to "because the current dominant economic paradigm requires them in order to function" or "possessions are more important than people." Information should always be free. Period.

Piracy makes up for some huge inequalities in the world. The prices for digital goods do not usually take into account the economies of certain regions. I live in Morocco and our money is really low compared to the dollar. 1 dollar is like 7 Dirhams. The average salary for a normal job is really low if you convert it to dollars. So services like Netflix and HBO would cost 10 times more if you factor in wages and conversion to dollars. Why should we pay that just because we live in another place ? Why do these services pretend to be global and yet they are enforcing US prices on the rest of the world. You can't even speak of physical goods because Amazon doesn't give a fuck about Africa. Books would cost 3 times their price in shipping and you have to wait a month or so, not to mention that there are limits on how much currency you spend internationally. The fees for an international card are so high also. In short, without piracy 90 percent of the world wouldn't be able to partake in anything.

I'd say all piracy that isn't bootlegging or otherwise profit motivated is pretty ethical. It's basically a decentralized museum of modern art that our tragically morally bankrupt society can't be bothered to allow for the legal preservation of.

All piracy is ethical because Intellectual Property is a lie.

I will pirate from megacorps and indies, anyone who sets up a demand based distribution system for products.

The only products I will not pirate are those that have a needs based distribution system and are finite.

Watching youtube with adblocker 🤣

If you're not using it to make money it's never not OK. I can't see it as theft. It's just a different method of obtaining the same thing that doesn't harm anyone.

Not only are those making this choice unlikely to pay anyways, but all the regular people who worked creating it already got paid so nobody can say "oh the film crew, VFX artists etc will be out of a job". No they already did their job and got paid. The investors maybe want more money but they aren't hurting for it, I don't feel anything for them.

On Anna‘s Archive Front Page there is a book "Against Intellectual Monopoly", I think it would give you an interesting perspective to consider too.

Sharing knowledge and creative works is how society progresses. Scientific progress relies on open access to discoveries and data. Creative works are shared, remixed, and built upon. But restrictive copyright laws have allowed corporations to severely limit access to information and works of art to optimize their profits. They frame piracy as “stealing” to make it seem immoral, when in reality piracy often involves simply sharing creative works with friends or communities that can’t access or afford them.

To Read More: https://technomagnus.vercel.app/posts/piracythe-moral-imperative-of-sharing-knowledge

1. Work of art no longer sold.
2. Creator(s) and/or production company involved with the making are garbage human beings.
3. You don't have money and you don't just want to stare the ceiling.

The concept of intellectual property is incoherent IMO. Thus, in principle, it's never wrong to pirate anything because you're not actually stealing anything.

However, I personally have a principle that I never pirate anything from small creators, at least not without compensation to them. It's one thing to pirate from a multi-billion dollar mega-corp. But a small time creator who is trying to make a living, that is different for me. I always throw them money if they have a donation page or buy some merch, etc.

If it comes from a large corporation, its probably ethical, since they are exploiting you (or others) in an unethical way.

If it's an indie team (or one man team for that matter) then it's probably unethical.

Any stream content. Any subscription. Anything that I can't access because of my nationality.

I'd pay for other things.

If there is no legal way to play a game due to the game being too old, require obscure hardware, not sold in your region, etc. In that case since the player had no way to give the developer money, might as well pirate it.

I change laptops frequently. Used to buy songs from iTunes and every time I changed laptops, transferred music over, I'd lose access to them. Would have to go thru insane process to be allowed to listen to the music I'd paid for.

Similar thing would happen with some software, Adobe especially.

If you're going to treat me like a criminal, then I might as well be a criminal. Same with purchasing movies on Amazon.

I tried to pay for minecraft, but 2 hours later, Microsoft wouldn't let me. Kept trying to make me an Hotmail account.

Growing trend in software I'm not happy with. No longer allowed to own the things we buy, and forced to hand over my email, phone number, address, name, create account... used to be, you could just buy things, simply. That was that.

Corporations are getting drunk with power, overreaching, infiltrating people life.

Also, if in poverty, no food, homeless, etc. If I can't afford what I need. And can get it another way, I will

For me I have rules I set for myself when pirating, and generally try to reserve it for if it's something I'm unlikely to see or get otherwise (like how stuff is exclusive to a million different streaming services now, or older games that don't have an official re-release) or there's ethical reasons I don't want to support it (Like some EA stuff and Adobe, though so far the only [arguably] accessible PC games I've pirated are the Sims 3 and 4)

If it's indie stuff and [non-text]books I try to avoid it if possible.

Suppose some dude on the street hands out books for free and gives you a copy. Does it make you unethical for accepting one? Would it be different online?

Suppose your government charges a "blank media tax" on storage devices to "compensate" creators with the assumption you already "illegally" download their content, didn't you already pay for it anyway?

What if you're downloading stuff as a hobby but you'd never pay for it if that would be the only other option, did anyone lose anything of value?

Books: if I can buy a digital version and if it's not priced over its paper counterpart, I buy. If it's out of print and there isn't a digital version from the publisher, I look for the digital version from anywhere. I did that once for a book series and when the publisher finally put out a digital version, I bought them.

It's about access. The paywall has to be reasonable and the publishers should digitize "out-of-print" regardless of the cost to them. They can recoup the costs over time rather than counting "profits" in a quarterly window.

Blind readers should get the forever exemption. They should have braille/audio of any book, sold or not.