Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Would you teach your kids how to pirate? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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My gf and I have had discussions about teaching morals to kids. In that vein, I asked myself, would I teach piracy to my kids? Yes, it’s technically illegal and carries inherent risks. But so does teenage sex carry the risks of teenage pregnancy, and so we have an obligation to children to teach them how to practice safe sex. So, is it necessary to teach them how to stay safe in the sea? How to install adblockers, how to detect fake download sites that give you computer aids? Show them how to use a VPN and choosing the right one (a true pirate must always choose a VPN with port forwarding capabilities, so you can still seed) I feel like this is all valuable info we all learned as pirates the hard way, and valuable information to pass on to our kids.

I definitely want my kids to know about libgen. Want a book you want to read about? Wanna learn about dinosaurs from a college level textbook for whatever reason? Just go to libgen, son!

And I attribute most of my computer literacy and education to piracy, trying to install cracks to various games, trying to make games work, and modding the fuck out of skyrim as a young teenager. That, and also jailbreaking android phones. All the interesting things i’ve ever done with computers was probably against some BS terms of service.

So, is piracy something you would actively teach your kids? Sit them down and teach them how to install a Fallout 3 FitGirl repack? Or is this something you’d want them to figure out themselves?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Not a parent yet, so take this with a big grain of salt.

But if I were to talk about piracy from a moral standpoint, I would first talk about stealing. Yes, we all know it's not the same, and it isn't, but there will certainly be someone who says it is, and it's better to clear that out. Besides, there are some parallels.

Stealing is reprehensible, but extremely so when you steal for someone who much needs it himself. Shoplifting is bad and can lead to serious consequences. Stealing money from a poor person is extremely bad and can't be justified.
Stealing is when you take something and the owner doesn't have it anymore. Piracy ain't that.

Then a bit on moral and legal grounds of piracy:

While piracy isn't stealing, piracy does decrease profits of the rightful owner. When you pirate from someone who does not profit much off something, it's same as stealing from poor man. Piracy is impactful, and it's important to remember.
Piracy may lead to legal consequences, which is why one shouldn't normally pirate stuff regardless of morality. But if the conditions of rightful ownership (cost, regional or use restrictions etc.) are inadequate, there exists such a way.

And in any case, I think the later you tell your kids about "illegal doesn't mean bad" the better. Could save a lot of trouble IMO.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Piracy decreases the profits of the publishers, publishers decrease the profits of the rightful owner. Piracy hurts the rich man, the rich man hurts the poor man. The publishers will still hurt the rightful owners whether piracy happens or not.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

YES. My gf made the point that when our kids are young, when their frontal lobe hasn’t developed yet, we will teach them black and white morality. But that’s only half the truth, since stealing from walmart or a big chain has a different moral flavor than stealing some random person’s things. In a way, I acknowledge that piracy isn’t stealing, and carries with it enormous societal benefits, like the freedom of information, but it’s still illegal, and I don’t want them to be OK doing illegal things.

Maybe the perfect solution is to leave out the inconvenient fact that piracy is illegal when teaching them how to pirate. LOL

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Taking something from Walmart removes the item. This can increase prices for other shoppers and has consequences.

Duplicating/downloading a movie or a games does not. It just creates an identical copy and removes nothing.

Those are not really two things you can compare. I am totally OK with the latter, I consider the former unlawful. I can still go and buy a license to pirated content if I feel it's worth it after I consumed it. I guess Walmart would be very confused if you came back to pay for the banana you stole a week ago because you did enjoy it. Might even get you into trouble.

EDIT: And you're right, it doesn't make sense that piracy is illegal. The law should be changed. At least the punishment is ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

in my opinion, the key here is that asking "why?" is going to be the most important skill you can teach your kids early on. "because yes" or "because not" or "because i told so" is never a good answer, and learning to ask what moving parts there are to anything can and will open up a lot of options for things they will learn later on.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

smart. though i would add that shoplifting can be bad, unless its from a corpo. but i understand not telling ur child that