this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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There's a general sense of you should try to ethically pirate. Like no one cares if you shoplift from Walmart, but you're a dick doing it to the local mom and pop grocery store who's barely getting by.
On a more selfish level, paying for the things you enjoy shows whoever made it they'll get money for it. Simple as that. If you really enjoy something stealing it isn't going to convince them to make more. There's been more than once where a game or show got pirated more than bought legally and it's killed any future projects for it.
I'm pretty sure ethical pirating is mostly just justifying it to oneself.
That said, these corporations regularly steal from their customers and employees in many ways they can and cannot see. In that respect, pirating is more of a way to fight back.
Stealing is not ethical, but these profiteers do much worse on a daily basis, including stealing from those who created their profit engines. See Bill Willingham's recent release of Fables to the public domain for a common example.