Yarrr! 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️
As long as piracy is easier than obtaining something legally, I’ll continue to do it. I stopped pirating music, because Spotify is much much nicer to use and gives a better experience overall. I stopped pirating games since steam is nice. I almost stopped pirating movies when Netflix came out. Only pirated some extremely niche stuff. But now I’m back in the high seas, baby!
I think I’ll be pirating until the economy gets better. And I don’t mean wall street, I mean when the average person get paid enough to have extra money for entertainment stuff. Aint nobody gonna pay for a netflix subscription every month or $70 for a game that could still have bugs, people got food to buy, bills to pay.
You want less piracy? Simple. Just give people a higher quality of life.
Mate, 95% of the world’s population lives in worse conditions than US, what higher quality of life are you talking about?
I think you might not be from the US, or live in a bubble here. All around me are people on the verge of homelessness, who can’t afford basic medical care, who work multiple jobs to afford rent and food, who can’t afford daycare for their kids while they work. There are plenty of places where things are far worse, but there’s also plenty of places where things are far better. Most western european workers get way more time off, unions, better medical care. Brazil has free medicine. China has wayyyy cheaper (and just as good) medical care. Granted these places have other problems, but I can’t say that the US has anywhere near the best quality of life for an average worker.
I’m from Western Europe. Housing is much much more expensive here. If you’re on a verge of homelessness in US, I have bad news for you.
In any case, billions of people can’t even dream of US quality of life. That’s just a fact. Your medical care might be expensive, but you have it, most people don’t have access to modern medicine at all. Hundreds of millions don’t have access to clean water. I don’t think you understand how people live elsewhere.
Even if what you’re saying is true, and nowhere exists on Earth where there is a high quality of life, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim to get there.
You can aim for whatever you want, but how’s that’s relevant to the discussion?
This in Western Europe? I live in northern Europe and have traveled a lot throughout all western Europe. Where the heck is this squalor you’re talking about exactly? Please be geographically specific.
I live in the UK. What do you want to know exactly?
It is much worse here in Latin America where you have European cost of life but Latin American wages.
Ah yes, ‘some people are starving so be happy you’re only struggling to pay rent’
US has one if the most affordable housing in the world https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2023-mid&displayColumn=6
Yeah, you should be very happy.
I think its worth taking a look at how this index is calculated: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/indicators_explained.jsp This is taken from an investment rather than housing standpoint. The US is great for people who invest in housing as landlords, not so much for those that must rent from them. One of the measures in your index is rental profitability, which is great for some and terrible for many. Our rental situation also varies dramatically in different regions. I live in California, where it is very bad. No prospect for home ownership unless you are very wealthy, and insane rent (most of our exploding homeless population is local people priced out of the market). Also note that the average wage in the united states is significantly higher than the median wage. This is because the US has fairly high inequality for a western country and we have a lot of crazy rich people who act as outliers. This does not make life better for working Americans.
It’s way better than living in many post colonial states, but a lot of countries such as France or Germany or Sweden or Denmark simply have a staggeringly higher quality of life for working class people, and the quality of life for working class Americans has also been diving downhill in recent years due to a number of developing crises. Median wage has shot down, even as inflation has spiked. Our hospitals are critically understaffed, and medical debt has exploded.
You mentioned you were from the UK, and you have my sympathy. It sounds like the UK is also suffering from similar crises, but to a greater degree, especially this past winter. I don’t doubt that it may currently be rougher in many ways for the average working class Brit than the average working class American. Though I still envy the NHS.
You see, the problem is that advanced Western countries are home to about 10% of world’s population. That still leaves 90% living in worse conditions.
Yes, California has very high prices, but you can just pack your stuff and move to a neighbour state. If you live in Syria or India you can’t really move anywhere because all your neighbours are not that better.
Also have you ever noticed how migrants from poor countries often end up being landlords and businessmen? I moved to UK from a poor country some years ago, it took me just two years to buy a flat. Yet Brits complain non stop how expensive their properties are and how everyone will be stuck renting forever. And I guess they will unless they change their attitudes and start working hard and responsibly. I believe the same applies to US.
Ah, so you’re a landlord? That explains things.
Ah, so you’re a landlord? That explains things.
Now that’s just wrong
That’s just a fact.
95% of Western Europe has better qol than the US
So?
I only pirate movies and shows because I refuse to pay for 10 different streaming services, all of them want 8-15 euros/month. I pay for Spotify, I pay for Youtube Premium, I pay for Steam and GOG games, I pay for Gamepass… but video? Fuck that
Yeah, Spotify makes music piracy kinda pointless. Soulseek was cool at one point, but then everybody just made everything private. Nowadays if it’s not on Spotify, it’s an artist actually making money from sales and they should be supported.
I share my music folder on slsk and I’ve gotten tons of rare obscure FLAC albums from there
I’m with Gabe Newell on this one. High piracy rates indicate a service problem.
I can’t find very good data on this, but my suspicion is that PC piracy rates are lower than they were a decade ago. I’m betting piracy of movies and TV shows is far, far higher than it was a decade ago. It’s pretty easy to see why. If you want a PC game, you can usually (EGS timed exclusives aside) buy it from your digital storefront of choice, or add it to your wishlist and wait for a sale. Once it’s in your library it’s effectively there to stay. Game doesn’t work on your PC, or you don’t enjoy it like you thought you would? No problem, you can refund it. Now compare that movies and TV shows. An ever-expanding range of streaming services that all want $15 a month from you, region locking, staggered release dates. Nothing new you want to watch this month? Too bad, your $15 is now our $15 dollars, and we’ll take $15 from you next month too. Movie and TV show piracy provides a more valuable and convenient service, so it wins hands down.
Steam is just better than piracy. With video they made piracy the attractive option again.
I feel fine paying $15 for a game because I could spend hundreds of hours on it and it might have more replayability and allow me to play with friends and family and online. Paying $15 for a month worth of shitty content that is region locked and doesn’t think I’m the rightful account holder leabes a bad taste in my mouth.
If I had to put those 15/month somewhere, it’s Gamepass
And it always works, unskippable ads for other new releases never pop up, and it doesn’t just disappear when another platform gets the syndication rights for the next quarter.
Personal rule has always been I don’t give a fuck about major corps profits.
However, if I pirate a game I like, I pay for it. Simple as. Support devs, especially indie.
Same way I do it. If I enjoy Stray or Winrar enough or long enough, I always[1] buy. Even bought a Sylenth1.
[1] Fuck yearly repackaged sports games, Adobe etc.
Lol fuck winrar. 7z is better, free and open source.
I agree 100% 7zip is the shit. Just the old “buy Winrar” joke, ya know?
Theres like a RarReg Key floating around in the internet which activates WinRar forever.
Ah I’d consider it if I weren’t using NanaZip (win) and 7z(Linux)
It took me 8 years to finally buy a Total Commander license
Now my window has my name, easy to dox myself lol
With demos making a comeback I see pirating of games becoming even less of a ‘problem’.
Yeah man agreed, demos got me to buy quite a lot of games recently. Metal: Hellsinger, new system shock, just to name a couple examples
I bought Terraria and Geometry Dash just to support the devs. Also some Valve games as a reward to them for pouring so much effort into the Linux ecosystem and contributing all their improvements back to it.
Louis rossmann has been pirating board schematics since before he did board repair in a basement, since apple likes to make them so inaccessible. On some of his streams you can even see the watermark of the site he pirated them from on it xD
I’m surprised he hasn’t been imprisoned for copyright infringement. Using pirated schematics for a repair bussiness surely would’ve triggered law enforcement to shut him down, wouldn’t it? Or is this somehow bypasses DMCA because of the first amendment? I don’t know how laws work as I’m not a lawyer
I’m not 100% up on USA law, but wouldn’t this just be a civil matter?
Yes.
Rossmann is becoming more based by the day.
I love this new direction his channel is taking. I watch every minute of it at the moment, can’t get enough lol
He’s doingthe right thing. Whatever he uploads - he justifies it. And I usually agree with him.
Rossman has never not been based
Sometimes I find him a bit over the top, but yes, he is always based asf.
He’s one of those people who have a hard time recognizing the line between “being honest” and “being rude”. That’s not a disqualification though, we all have our quirks.
I’m okay with him being over the top. If he didn’t always put his money where his mouth his, I might feel a bit different but these are issues he’s put his entire life and a ton of his income into. He’s very much earned his right to be an angry New Yorker in his videos
Rossmann is based af
It always is.
I don’t think it’s OK but I don’t care about corporate interests.
I think more along the lines of “copyright isn’t ok” rather than whether or not actions that happen outside of it are or are not.
I’ve discovered his channel this year, and he seems really based. Many great takes on the tech industry and its relationship with society
Based
He also continues to stick the boot into Spez and Reddit to this day.
Why is this news, 99,9% of society says piracy is ok? Has anybody in your life ever reproved you for saying you downloaded a movie, game etc?
Some people say piracy is theft and I’m just like: 🙄
Have you ever been a Minecraft server admin? Have you ever been in a Nintendo fan space? These places really hate pirates
I mean I was a Nintendo fanboy when I was young. I have a switch now and owned N64, GC, Wii. Me and my RL friends lamented not being able to pirate. Sure there are people online that are anti piracy but I think they are actually a vocal minority.
Them and people profiting from copyright are the remaining percentage.
I spent a sizable chunk of my childhood playing SNES games on emulators, it is thanks to both piracy and preservation I got to have the experience. I actually respected Nintendo back then and had a Wii with a small stash of retail games. Well, I still have the Wii but it’s softmodded and has a 16 GB SD card full of games and homebrew but since Iwata died so did my respect for Nintendo. Imagine paying for P2P multiplayer and near absence of cloud services.
Nowadays I only get devices I can mod and customize by any means official or otherwise. If I wasn’t a full time student and I had enough money and time to spend I’d get an OLED Switch to mod and play all sorts of stuff, it could be a nifty tablet to both work and play with.
None of these things above are possible without piracy.
“Video games are art and everyone everywere should have access to art” - A guy on youtube on the topic if piracy is bad
