Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

Today you can download a car.. And then 3D print it for 'free'.

These days (at least in my country) I can't own movies, games and watch or play them at my will

Companies like Netflix, Amazon are lending movies but not making them free for you. And then they wonder why piracy is rising

Tbh for a student like me, piracy is the only option. If buying isn't owning then piracy isn't stealing

Now make the exact same meme but substitute "AI training" for "piracy" and watch the downvotes flow in.

Holy fuck this meme is so old it's probably of legal age to drink

The copyright holder is only actually harmed if I would have paid them otherwise. Since I never would have paid for the movie nothing changes for them. Nothing is stollen because they would have no idea someone had a copy unless they check.

Piracy is making a child share toys with the kid who has none.

I downloaded a car. I love my Tisla Model C

Isn't it more akin to stealing money though? Or to be more precise stealing the potential of money since not everyone who pirates would ever have paid for it on the first place.

I am 100% down for sailing the high seas. But let's not sugarcoat it, this analogy is always been kind of crap.

Somebody went to your mailbox took out your paycheck, made a copy of it, put the original back in your box, went to the bank and cashed it.

Theft still took place. You're probably still getting paid. Maybe it got taken up by insurance and everyone's premium goes up a tiny fraction, maybe it got taken up by the bank or by your business.

It's still an incomplete analogy but it's a little bit closer.

That's not to say that the vast majority of piracy isn't people who wouldn't pay anyway. And back in the day, you certainly got more visibility in your games from people who were pirating.

But now that advertising is on its toes and steam exists, I won't think they're getting any serious benefit from piracy and I don't think that they're not losing At least modest numbers of sales.