Do what you want. No need to overthink things!

I like to think about ethics. I still pirate some random stuff here and there, but one thing I like to do is make sure I’m getting some money to the creators of what I’m enjoying, skipping the middle man as much as can be.

this is mostly only relevant with music, but if I can buy an album or song directly from the artist, that’s awesome. it not, i try to five what service benefits them most.

do whatever you like nobody cares (no offense)

No need to make everything complicated

Fr tho basically what /u/AnimalsDream said

I used to only pirate things that I owned in different formats, (like owning a DVD, but wanting to watch it on my iPad), or planned on buying in the near future. But nowadays, it feels more like stealing from billionaires is a moral imperative.

From my personal ethics standpoint, intellectual property is a form of private property which I’m against, also a form or artificial scarcity, which I’m also against.

If you want to support a small artist? You can maybe donate to them directly? Is that a thing? Maybe they have a patreon or something? In my case I have way less money than the artists I consume from so donating would make no sense.

Also, the act of making a copy doesn’t remove the original, the artist doesn’t get poorer because you pirate their content.

Ha ha. I got your mass produced shit and i didnt pay for it, and then shared it with people so they dont waste their money.

And

Oh hey wanna buy that bluray for Toxic Avenger cause its a great movie?

Are 2 thoughts im completely fine with holding in my head.

Basically: should i care about ethics capitalist ideology?

No.

The system is literally genociding people, destroying the planet, etc. It’s a major mistake to take their “ethics” seriously. It’s just another grift. Enjoy the natural freedom of information while you still can.

The US Supreme Court said it’s cool for LLMs to pirate shit for their garbage so it’s free game. Pirate everything. Support indie developers and artists though if you dug some of the stuff you pirated and have the means. I pirate manga all the time but still like having a lot of the physical copies so I end up doing that a lot even though they’re usually raking in money

Pirate anything you want, and buy from anyone you want to support.

I sail to find higher bitrate versions of things on the few streaming services I pay for. If I stream a show on Prime I don’t want to get a non-HDR or non-Dolby Digital version just because the platform got enshittifed since I signed up.

it depends.

I’m old enough to remember when PC demos were a thing and essentially if a demo didn’t exist, the game likely wouldn’t sell well. Hell there used to be entire websites that ONLY had demos for download of upcoming releases. So now game companies don’t do demos anymore, I pirate the games as a demo. If it’s something I think I’ll play through and come back to in a month or two or even a year then I’ll buy it. If it’s an indie dev I’ll buy it because I want to support them.

If it’s something I’m no likely to finish or will finish and never pick it up again, high seas.

Music is different. I just soulseek everything. I’m not paying some crappy streaming service to then provide pennies to the artist. I can support artists I like via other means. Merch sales, going to concerts, etc that’s where they get their money.

TV and movies? fuck em. I’m not paying for that crap when 9 times out of 10 something that I like is just going to get cancelled after 2 seasons. They don’t need my money.

Books? nope, always pay for those.

Do what your ethics dictates. There is no right or wrong answers.

I generally make sure to spend my money one contemporary artists or authors (who are not already filthy rich, if they are already super well-off i dont contribute to increasing that wealth and instead buy something else) and try to maxmize the amount of money that falls to them. You could also find ways to donate directly to these artists and then pirate their stuff to your hearts content (from my ethical point of view anwyay, law will not agree with me). Ive also first pirated stuff and then bought it later and just replaced the files on my media server.

I dont really care about big corporations or some random rights holder long after someones death. So any big studio movie or old rock bands get pirated.

You do you.

I try to stick to Indy games and pay for them. I have d+ nf Hulu atv and cable with all channels that aren’t premium. I keep copies of any series/movies I like. If they lose the license or drop anything I’m not losing it. VCR rules, I paid to play it, I can record it/torrent to get it.

Stuff that’s not on the air anymore, of I can’t stream it paying that much, also not gonna feel bad about torrenting.

Qwest network had a commercial in 99.

Guy pulls up to a dirty motel in the middle of nowhere

“What kind of rooms you got?” “King size.”

“You got room service?” “Donuts and coffee.”

“Got entertainment?”

“All rooms have every movie ever made in any language, anytime, day or night.”

By now we should have that for a couple hundred a month. Definitely for less than I’m paying for all those services. Wanna put a limit on that? Everything over 6 months old is on it. But there’s no reason outside of massive greed to get to the state of fracture where at with service provision.

I have apple Music and Spotify, I’m also keeping copies of music.

Books are a mix, I pay for new audiobooks from authors I like, I buy hardback for newish stuff I really like,

Old stuff, classics, textbooks, stuff with the rights going to an estate I pirate.

More or less, I want to pay a reasonable price that I can bear to make sure my authors in studios actors keep making new stuff. If the fat cats eat it all, I’m not giving them more.