Piracy explicitly is not stealing. Theft requires denying the owner of the ability to use the thing that is stolen. Copyright infringement does not meet this bar, and is not a crime in the vast majority of cases. Commercial copyright infringement is the only offense classed as a crime, which in a nutshell is piracy for profit ie selling pirated material.

Someone: Photographs pages of a book in a book store

OP: "Hello Police? Someone is stealing a book!"

aside: why can't lemmy just let me expand the thumbnail without directing me to an external site

Don't make me tap the sidebar again...

Media Piracy is copyright infringement, which is totally not stealing.

The US Supreme Court taking content out of the public domain so that it can be reserved for private use isn't stealing either, but it causes more harm than piracy.

You can steal digital goods, but to do so you have to copy it and erase the original. Otherwise its just copying.

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I don't know man. Where I live the law says it's not stealing. It says: legal to share, illegal to share for profit. On other words: legal to share, illegal to sell.

Talk about blowing smoke up your own ass.

I honestly don't care about the legality. Plus I come from a country where we have way bigger issues to deal with than piracy.

All I care about is coming up with ways to make sure my friends watch some of the stuff I recommend to them. Best way is still going "hey, check out this cool new show. Yes it's on saltyflix"

Or you could just not give a flying fuck about the moral and ethical aspects and go on with your life.

It's a lot earlier when you realize that everyone else is going to treat this world like a smash and grab regardless of what you do. These companies ~~included~~ especially.

I live on a small island and the closest cinema or shop where I could buy anything is 3 hours away.

Piracy is more comfortable for me.

then why don't you subscribe to streaming services?

Well, my friend: I don't like to be locked out of other regions.

If no one loses anything they never had in the first place it is not stealing

This meme is stealing.

"But I want to support those little poor billionares, who's going to look after their livehood and ethical buisness?"

The more you pay for big brands, whatever product you buy, be it clothes, food, or any form of knowledge, the more you drive up the sales, the more you reinforce the idea that money is a tool only a few chosen are rightful of having, just like the riches and the labour of the many. (Buy from local producers as much as you can)

Ironically enough, pirating makes people more aware of what it consumes, what labor is and mostly to get to support creators directly for what they put out. You can't steal from corporations, you only get back the unpaid /underpaid labour of many. Quality content and effort should be rewarded, so please support/help your creators in any way you can.

I am proud of pirating and I don't get why people who also pirate would have a problem with that. Like you think it's wrong and do it anyway, but think people who don't think it's wrong are cringe somehow? What's wrong with standing up for what you believe in?

More pirates vs pirates memes when it should be pirates vs executives

Yep, I pirate for the same reason my dog licks his balls.. because we can

i disagree. not that i would care anyway