PieFedAnyone ever want to pirate for moralistic reasons?
submitted by
CherryLips@lemm.ee
I wanna listen to a particular song by an artist who has recently turned pretty nazi. As I generally use Spotify I now refuse to listen to his music in there, esp as it generates earnings. I kinda wanna pirate the music somehow…I’m not gonna as I’m not gonna down a song or two and then store it on my phone like it’s the year 2000. But short story is this me justifying piracy to myself.
Ripping off Jeff Bezos is a moral imperative.
Why so specific...
Deny all parasites profit and engagement as much as possible where ever possible.
Who else owns as much content and causes so much harm?
Disney, Sony, comcast among other media conglomerates
Dropping truth bombs here
Similarly, I have pirated The Sims 4 multiple times. Not because I plan on playing it any time soon, but rather because *stealing from EA Games is always morally correct*.
The Sims 4 is the only game my wife plays nowadays. You can bet we didn't pay the hundreds of dollars it would cost to get all the DLC.
My wife refuses to let me pirate books for her. She wants to support the authors she reads, which is fair. But she decided she wanted to try the Harry Potter books, and asked me to pirate them for her to make sure JK Rowling didn't get a penny out of her.
Now that's a keeper
Yeah. She doesn't see the value in getting entertainment for free while there are starving children in the world.
She's only interested in getting brownie points from other consumerists.
Yeah, sure sucks when people go out of their way to bend their personal code of supporting creatives they enjoy to ensure they don't contribute money to a hateful bigot who actively makes things worse for vulnerable minorities. Yeah, that sure is motivated by external approval of internet strangers.
Which Kanye song?
No, they said recently
Haha, fair
Hmm I suppose I should amend. I have had this same dilemma with RKelly then MJ. I just can’t condone some artists.
Yeah I pirate all the games that:
- Require an internet connection
- Use Denuvo
- Require a dedicated launcher
- Require a connected account
If you're going to make the paid experience significantly worse than the free one because you want to implement anti-consumer BS, go fuck yourself
Also rootkit anti cheat.
Yeh I am not a gamer but have a family of them. As the tech person I’m usually the one dealing with purchases and set up. The evolution of gaming has become a real burden.
Really important "morals" you've got there. External launchers? Really? Almost like people just look for excuses to pirate and save money. At least be honest with yourself.
Then don't give me excuses. Don't be a scumbag. External launchers only exist to serve ads and DRM, they have no benefit to the consumer. I own *hundreds* of games, imagine if each one of them required a dedicated launcher!?
Honestly there's so much wonderful art out there not created by Nazis, I don't know that it's worth the energy to pirate Nazi music.
I totally understand the moral pirate argument, I just don't have time to enjoy all of the games, movies, and music from artists I support. To waste what time I have engaging with content from people I find morally repugnant is just not where I'm investing
Same goes for sexual abusers too.
Doesn't matter how good that first Lostprophets album is, I just can't listen to it knowing what Watkins got up to, so I'll listen to music by people who didn't fuck a literal baby.
I totally agree. I just mentioned RKelly and MJ. I have had to stop listening. As time goes by more comes to light and I lose some good tunes.
Use it as an opportunity to find new music and fill those playlists out with a little more variety
If it can't own my media, I'm certainly not going to pay for it.
Corpos think we are stupid and they gonna be able to use the big dick of daddy Sam to force us into compliance...
These idiots don't understand who the back bone of piracy communities are 🤡
I periodically delete my Metallica collection so I can re-download it for no other reason than fuck Lars.
Doing this is not only moral; it's virtuous.
I play bass. Metallica cut Newsted's bass line out of And Justice for All. I'll hate them for it forever. I love Trujillo now and still have not listened to a single Metallica album since he's played with them.
metallica are honestly a bunch of babies.
Eh, it's kinda down to personal perspective. In mine, absolutely a reasonable way to handle things if you love the art, but don't feel morally comfortable supporting the artist.
I recommend people pirate Enders Game, because fuck Orson Scott Card.
I was a newly out queer teenager when OSC started running his mouth about gay marriage. At the same time I was a big Harry Potter fan.
Fuck Orson Scott Card, but he doesn't seem quite so bad anymore.
I view it like the "discomforting uncle versus outright hateful aunt". I still really don't want to support him, but equally, fuck her, she's out here on the fucking daily with her shit.
Plus, at this point, telling someone to pirate anything Rowling is like telling someone to breathe. You're either doing it, or okay with the outcome of your actions.
Basically, don't invite either of them to queer Thanksgiving.
I wouldn't invite either to straight Thanksgiving either. Who wants that kind of toxic shit bag hanging around? Fuck those assholes and the hateful garbage they spew.
What about Hogwarts Legacy? I find the game is in an awfully awkward position. I absolutely do not condone Rowling and have divorced her from the franchise as well as almost everything newer than Deathly Hallows from my beloved IP, also hate WB for being corpo scum, but I really liked the groundwork the game laid down so I'd like to see Avalanche Software get a chance to make another game that fixes what the first got wrong while building on what it got right.
Without demolishing copyright laws, we have to give money to WB and some unknown percentage to the witch to get the game we want and I, personally, think we HP fans *deserve* a genuinely good Hogwarts simulator along the lines of HL meets Bully. Sadly, I can't designate my money to only go to Avalanche.
So in short, can we kill Rowling, WB execs and still get a Hogwarts 2 Electric Boogaloo? Because I like that option. Short of it, pick your annoyingly screwed moral box 😒
What about Hogwarts Legacy? Fuck copyright laws, pirate it. Just like with any other big-name game, lots of people will be buying it. Nobody will notice or care that you pirated.
If only Rockstar would make Bully: The Dark Ages.
Well yeah, I don't respect copyright law at all, but with HL, I genuinely liked the product and only bought after reviews and because I wanted it to be seen as a success so a sequel could get greenlit. I voted with my wallet for the product I want to see more of but I find it it a complicated stance when rubbing up against art vs artist.
See, that’s the thing. I don’t listen to music by Nazis.
Honestly, after seeing billionaires buy the US gov and then learning that Spotify is owned by a billionaire and artists are terribly compensated, I have been planning to once again fly the pirate flag. I want to pay the artists, but fuck the current options unless there is a different way idk about.
Don't forget that they fund the military complex.
Daniel Ek? More like Daniel Ick
Bandcamp is decent. If you wait for Bandcamp Fridays, all of your money goes to the artist.
I moved to Qobuz for that reason. Much better payout for the artists.
Might be a good idea to pirate and then contact the artists about setting up donation channels.
Publishers are obsolete.
When I wanted to revisit Harry Potter via audiobook, I pirated the books, and I will do it again someday.
A system that allowed one to pirate corporate American made or distributed content while being able to give back directly to creators would be nice.
Go to their shows. Buy their merch. That’s where the creators get the most profit.
Nobody is stopping you from pirating
Many musicians are set up to accept cash
I never needed any moralistic reason to pirate.
I'd make backups of my purchases and share them with love for preservation and promotion of their authors hard work. "Piracy" was already shown to increase sales, not reduce them. If you really want to do something against an artist you no longer align with, dont consume their products. Don't purchase, don't download and don't share their stuff. Just look around for other artists you do align with, get hooked to their art and support them instead.
You should download it to a personal media server and stream it to your phone if you want to enjoy piracy the modern way.
I've found navidrome, tempo, and beets to be a pretty solid combo for that. Jellyfin technically has support for music, but I was not impressed with any of the players or library management that had to go with it.
Yes I do this all the time for games
They tell us we don't own the game, only a license to play the game that they can arbitrarily revoke.
If you are going to hold my right to play something I paid for hostage, you can bet I am going to reclaim what I lost if that access is taken away from me (this does not apply to you selfish assholes that hack games to cheat then get banned).
Disco Elysium is a great target for this
https://archive.org/details/disco-elysium-the-final-cut
Absolutely. Chris Brown is a prime example. I quite like some of his collab tunes, but I absolutely refuse to give any money - a percentage or not - to that wifebeating spunktrumpet.
In fact, the fact that I'm actively screwing him out of money makes me enjoy the song more.
Yup another one.
Yup, if you use Denuvo for your games, you can fuck right off
Yeah. I refuse to give cuts to amazon, spotify, netflix etc.
If I pirate something from a not super rich artist and I really enjoy it. I’ll send them an email and propose to transfer them some money to support them. I don’t want spotify or amazon or google taking a cut.
My piracy is probably equal parts sticking it to greedy corpos and me just not wanting to pay when I can get it for free.
Same, but rather than not wanting to pay its more like I can't afford to pay.
piracy is always better than paying a corpo
You don't have to justify it, really, but it does feel satisfying when you do.
Which song of his out of curiosity? Just use Soulseek. (nicotine+ on desktop or Seeker on Android)
Thanks for the response. I’ll take a look
If he has turned Nazi then I probably wouldn’t bother to listen to them anymore.
Nah I'm just poor
If I had a better situation though, I would pirate for moral reasons
If there is an indie game that I like I will buy it
I would rather own my files on my phone like it's the year 2000 than my devices becoming useless whenever $streaming_service shuts down or changes policy like it's the year 1984...
I agree with this. But also, it's hard to beat the convenience of music streaming. It's getting more expensive, which is sad, but for awhile there it worked great. Almost any artist or music you wanted, just, available.
Personally between downloading music from youtube with yt-dlp and bandcamp I don't feel like I'm missing out.
Of course. By giving a big corporation money they then turn around to pay lobbyist groups to advocate for shittier copyright laws that favor big corporations. Why would I pay them for this "privilege?"
I am the High Priest of Kopimism. Download from where you want, and go in peace my child.
Downloading and listening can still indicate an indirect form of support. Up to the individual, but I lean towards this guy being as canceled as possible, recommend rerouting any efforts to listen to this towards searching for some new exciting music.
Personally I won't even download it, I even deleted music ive had for years because the artist went maga. And let my daughter use the CD in some arts and crafts, because I can't listen to it anymore.
That said, yeah, I'd prefer to download over buying if I didnt want the company or artist to get the money for it.
You have commitment issues with subscriptions.
I despise rent seeking behaviour.
we are not the same.
😝
I have this. Paid for these things through from cassette and VHS to cd/dvd then paying for streaming. I have paid over and over for some content. I hate subscriptions.
Nearly everything is priced in dollars and I'm too fucking broke and Brazilian to pay the asking price most of the time.
I mean free is nice but I seed because fuck the system and upload stuff because it's suppose to be available to all.
I only recently started seeing it this way but ive had several people tell me theyve canceled netflix or other streaming services because of what i offer on my server for free and it brings me great joy to know that.
I know its just a drop in the bucket to the corporations, but i now consider it a personal goal to get as many people to cut the streaming cord and use piracy instead.
Absolutely.
Piracy is a tool to fight back against the ruling class and help reduce the disparity in wealth.
That's why useful idiots have been conditioned to hate it or only use it for 'privacy' purposes.
Of course. I stand on high moral ground when I chose to pirate.
Economy is broken and anti-consumer. Piracy if the only way I know to balance things of. If I wouldn't be pirating I would just be letting those economic bullies take advantage of me.
And specially with cultural products there's another big reason, as I think human culture is to be shared, not sold. I do actually think is inmoral to prevent other humans to freely access anything that could be considered cultural.
U seed out of spite. Fuck Hollywood 🐸
This is why you should only ever buy physical or DRM-free, rather than streaming. If an artist goes in a direction you don't like, you can still enjoy their older work without giving them active income via streaming.
Anyone found a convenient way for music that’s not perpuating a subscription? I’m an iPhone user and do like my tunes in the car. I’m good for movies shows etc. Dropped them all ages ago.
Bandcamp.
Download all the music you like, whether buying it on Bandcamp or Amazon or pirating it for literally any reason. If it's too much media to keep locally on your phone then host it on a computer in your house with one of any number of hosting solutions (Jellyfin, Plex, Subsonic, etc.) and VPN your phone's internet connection to your home network so you can stream them from anywhere without having to set up and secure another method of remotely streaming it. If you were on Android I'd recommend Symfonium, but I don't know anything about the iOS app ecosystem.
Spotify only pays for the first few listens I think. Also, the payout is a fraction of pennies.