Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.
He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate
Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.
He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.
What are your piracy habits?
I don’t really pirate much anymore, because I don’t consume much paid media anymore. Occasionally, if I really, really want to watch something on a platform that I don’t have a free subscription to (through a phone plan or isp), I will find a stream of it, but that is rare.
I justify it by generally not being on favor of modern IP laws. On a less ideological basis, fuck’em for making their content inaccessible. And from the current strikes, it looks like most of their talent doesn’t get much of a cut anyways.
I haven’t pirated a game in years, just because Steam is so convenient, and I can pay for more games than I have time to play. In the past, when I couldn’t afford all the games I had time to play, I would pirate them. I couldn’t afford them, so it was no “potential loss” for them anyways.
For software other than games, there is usually an adequate Free Software alternative, so I just use those. I am a developer, so sometimes I make small contributions on software I use a lot, and have a good understanding of.
Haven’t pirated music since big streaming services became available (first, Play Music, now Spotify). I do kinda feel bad that Spotify pays shit though. I would happily pay the artists directly if it was convenient.