The marker of our dystopia is not that the "do not sell my personal info" button is on by default. It's that it's there, in the first place.

I had a professor require the purchase of a $300 TEMPORARY ACCESS to an online textbook which also gave the professor royalties. I was morally obligated to pirate that book, but now they're tying busywork to the online software and you cannot pass unless you pay up

Another tier that's missing is "I pirate because I can't afford it due to the lack of regional pricing". This is often overlooked, but there are places in the world where paying 15$ for something is the equivalent of not having food for the next week.

Piracy is not only ok but mandatory to preserve the existence of media. The corporations have shown that they'd rather their IPs be destroyed.

@Louis -Years ago, Weird Al Yankovic was an advocate for piracy - he wrote a song lampooning the RIAA and MPAA ("Don't Download This Song"), he bought back the rights to all his music, and he put his ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY up for FREE DOWNLOAD on his website - I don't know if it's still there, but he did it, and he KNEW it would get seeded around. The man is a legend of a creative, and I am glad to have given him my money for many years.

if there’s a one time purchase available, I buy it. If it’s subscription only, I pirate it. Simple as.

Without piracy, I wouldn't be the person I am today. As a child with parents who need to feed the kids/put a roof over our heads, I found all of the books, video games, movies, and music I still enjoy today from piracy. Now, I only pirate products that have shitty services and EULAs. Shop local and pro consumer companies, buy used, and support indie artists. It seems legit since I've never pirated a Steam game, but haven't bought a Nintendo game in the past 6 years. Great video!

On a personal note, piracy can allow a "try before you buy" option. I did the same with many video games, the Mass Effect trilogy and Spec Ops: The Line most memorably, and I wholeheartedly approve of people purchasing a product after they recognized the value.

I had a friend who worked for a well known game company. I had to explain to him that no, you don't get payed a second time when someone buys something used. He was convinced buying second hand games was theft. I had to explain to him that if I buy something, it is mine. Until I used cars as an example, he could not understand the principle and once he did, he still tried to convince me I was wrong.

If I've said it once, I've said it a quintillion times: if you distribute digital content in exchange for money in any way or in any capacity, if you want to or have to take it away for any reason, you should legally be required to refund the full purchase price + 15%, turning all revocation of digital goods into a legally mandated net loss

It should be considered fraud if they say it's a purchase. Purchasing is ownership. This needs to be established in court so we can finally have companies not be able to screw us over individually. Also, unrelated but not unrelated, nobody should ever be able to have their right to sue someone taken away from them in any kind of contract or EULA. If someone has a valid reason to sue, that should never be able to be taken away from them.

Somewhere in the middle there should be an adobe tier: "I enjoy a product, but it's based on a subscription. I believe that buying is owning, so I get a pirated copy"

If purchasing it isn't owning it, then piracy isn't theft.

If you pay full price for something you should have access to it, end of story. If companies try to take your purchased product away from you then they're the pirates... steal it back.

I would like to add "The movie/media I wished to purchased is not available in physical form and only available through a subscription service". My wife and I have a very large DVD collection. The pleasure of looking through the collection to find a movie to watch is almost as enjoyable as the movie sometimes. Recently, we wished to purchase the DVD for the Disney movie Elementals. What we found was at the time, this movie was not available in Australia in physical form and only available through a subscription service to Disney+. I did find a copy that I could ship from the US but that was $50 plus shipping. So for the first time in over 10 years, I downloaded a movie to add to our collection. If the movie was available in physical form

I remember a few years ago a TV interview on the subject of piracy. One of the people interviewed said (as I recall) "theft involves depriving the owner of an item access to that item. Piracy is taking a copy of the item, therefore not depriving the owner of the item access, and as such, is not theft".

The word PURCHASE needs replaced with LEASE, not hidden in some agreement that details how “purchase” more or less means “lease.”

piracy always seems to result in a better product. This is a bad strategy for content providers. It would be like If buying food from a market resulted in the cashier spitting in it, but if you stole the food there would be no spit. And then when you bring this up morons on the internet say "yeah but the markets terms of service say its ok to spit in your food" screw that terms of service.

The Touhou Project franchise gathered a Western fanbase pretty much only thanks to piracy. The creator of the franchise is an indie and self-publishes in Japan. The only way to even get a game legally was for a reseller to have one of the limited physical copies in stock, and even then you wouldn't have any translation (all fan made). And if you wanted to play the first five games, you need an emulator because they weren't even on Windows. The situation has changed in recent years, because the creator has added more and more of his games on Steam and has understandably been more protective of his games, asking a website dedicated to sharing copies of the games to close. Still, we owe the fan community for the games even being a thing outside of Japan.

You have helped me so many times over the years and I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you.

A tier to add in between 1 and 2. “I bought a physical medium and it has degraded. I can buy it from a third party at an inflated price. I pirated a copy”

The top of my hierarchy is this: Any company engaging in anti-customer actions is fair game for anti-company actions.

I'm going to be honest, I've always skirted the edge of the piracy debate, and I felt that if it is at all possible, just pay for your stuff. And while I still do not condone piracy, I can understand why some people turn to it. It makes sense in my head. And I don't blame anyone who works with the first almost half of your list. Having said that, your last 2 or 3 videos here are what have helped me make a very important decision for my future. I was contemplating getting a samsung book 4 ultra, but you have convinced me that a Framework laptop would be the more ethical choice, as I can repair and replace any part of it myself, which means I have true ownership of my product. Thank you, sir.

Louis, thank you for always being the voice of reason and (un)common sense. I was a customer of yours in your NYC days and till now very few other businesses have provided me with the same level of transparency and trust you did. Definition of a great man.

22:49 I'm glad you mentioned this. I'm a musician who sells my music on CDs. I have had people tell me that they won't buy my CDs because record labels don't pay their artists well enough, and then when I tell them that I make the CDs myself and retain 100% of the profit, they don't believe me!

The retro gaming tier of the hierarchy - I want to play a retro video game and are happy to pay a fair price to compensate the creators but the publisher no longer sells it, complains about not getting a cent from a second hand sale, it is out of the reach of virtually everyone because of the collectors market inflating prices and the publisher has no intention of re-releasing the game, it is seen as "abandonware" and you find a pirate copy.

There’s also: I purchased this product in one format, I want to experience it in a different format without repurchasing the media I’ve already paid for, I pirate it in that second format.

In India, a lot of US IT companies setup offices to get access to cheap labor since the cost of living is lower here. Based on the cost of living, they lower the paycheck. But when it comes to selling their products, US companies basically charge us same as US folks knowing full well that we don't earn near as much as them. Or in some bizarre cases like Apple, they actually charge more than US. What do you think, is it morally ok to pirate in these cases?

These corporations are gonna learn one way or another. If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing. Say the words. Believe in them.

If purchasing a digital product doesn’t mean I control it, then copying a digital product and storing locally is my only recourse

I'd add a tier for "I like this old game on this old console. It's discontinued now, but it's been remastered and put for sale on modern consoles, however it's a buggy, shoddy port and an awful experience. The original version is also very rare now and resellers want hundreds of dollars for it, so I'd rather pirate a digital copy of the original to use on an emulator"

I really appreciate hearing a nuanced approach to this. I love old games and there are just so many ps2 games and older pc games that I have been playing in Japanese that there is no way to give the creator money. I love supporting artists but if I can’t hand them money anymore because the game was never remade or ported then it’s not stealing. There are some really dumb takes out there about how if you can only get a game by paying a reseller on eBay 200 dollars for a twenty year old disk then that is still morally wrong to download a rom but that is just so asinine that I can’t handle it.

"If buying isn't owning pirating isn't stealing." I love this quote or something similar.

Piracy and archiving resulted in a niche children's show being seen by its owners as still having an audience and now with the archivists' help is now being streamed on Peacock. The show is called Princess Gwenevere (Starla in UK) and the Jewel Riders, for anyone curious.

Thank you for this. It contextualizes into words the problem I have with the discussion of piracy, as an artist. Especially when, as a visual independent artist, I am repeatedly asked to bend over backwards to provide free content on the hopes that someone would find value enough to support me. What I’ve noticed is that people who are mostly in the latter few categories (lie to justify piracy/feel entitled to content and tools) will similarly bend over backwards to use the first-to-middle few categories to justify their actions. Mostly cuz no one’s actions exist in a vacuum, and you can see the inconsistency in how they treat different situations. Thank you for your last point (don’t engage/don’t feed the corporations). I think that last point is what truly exposes where people really sit on the issue. Most people (in the piracy space) don’t really care about the ethics of piracy OR the practices of the company as long as they get theirs. I think the other thing that we don’t consider (because admittedly, distribution is glutted up by greedy corporations*) is “right to withhold.” If a producer simply doesn’t want whatever they made out in the world anymore, at what point are we not simply not entitled to it anymore? Or (in the case of video game console makers) the media was meant to be consumed a very specific way, and once that way is gone, the producer simply isn’t interested in recreating it? *to address the asterisk, most corporations shoot this argument in the foot by re-releasing their media in predatory fashion, but that does not, IMO invalidate the right to withhold distribution, in the same way that right to withhold doesn’t invalidate right to distribute existing copies/versions. Either way, great points, and thanks for the video!

Thank you for making this video. While watching it I realized that I was much lower on that list than I would've liked to admit and I've just started a subscription and will support some of my favorite content creators directly right after this. I hope you keep challenging your viewers to be the change they want to see as I think that, maybe even more so than your informative videos, will be the biggest positive influence.

Even the word "piracy" is fake. They had to name the act of making a copy of something to sound really bad.

When I was in college about 25 years ago, we learned that copyright law allowed the consumer to have a copy of a piece of software for backup purposes. Where that backup came from is irrelevant. If you pay for a piece of software, you have the ability to make a copy for your own personal use. The idea was you make a purchase, make a copy, and then use the copy as your main means of consuming the content. This way the original would be preserved and if the copy got damaged, lost, stolen, or erased, then you could make a new copy. This means when you purchase access to content and then the content is for whatever reason, removed. You can legally use a copy you've obtained (source does not matter). As the the content was obviously lost, stolen, or damage (aka removed from an account). EULA do not apply, they are not legally binding, and they would have the burden to show a signature to any sort of binding contract they wish to claim. Therefor, using digital means to obtain a copy of content that you have purchased is NOT piracy. Software piracy is when a user obtains or creates a copy of a product that has not been purchased. Once the owner or distributor has received payment for digital content, it is impossible for the consumer to commit software piracy. When content is removed from an account, it is considered lost or damaged. And to my knowledge, this law hasn't been changed in the last quarter century. So if you all decide to use some form of online procurement of content you have already purchased, you are not doing anything immoral, unethical, or illegal (in the US at least, can't speak for outside, though I believe the EU is very similar or even more protective of the consumer in some cases). The ones offering such a service might be doing something that is in a grey area by not verifying purchases, but that is none of our business, that is between them and the IP holder. If businesses do not wish for consumers to obtain their legal copies from sources they feel operate in such a grey area, then they should offer the ability to their consumers to obtain such copies in a fashion that is easy, no restrictions, and without any strings attached. That should be considered an ultimatum. Either offer the service or we go elsewhere.

I agree with you, the main problem I have with the copyright stuff is that forever now. There is a reason that it was supposed to be 14 years with one extension possible. They should never had changed this.

I love your content!!! And thamks to your sage advice no way will I put my images on photobucket!!! Dude, you rock. Much love from a college professor who loves 90's grunge more than any other genre. You made my day!!!

"...Repeated, Implicit, Enthusiastic consent..." This is why i have so much respect for you Louis

I have a Cannonball Run policy. If the movie or TV show is not available on any modern format beyond VHS or laserdisc and not available streaming, I consider it abandoned. Pirate it.

Good video. It's important to remember that everyone's circumstances can influence their perspective. For example, someone living in poverty may view things differently than someone with plenty of money. A wealthy person insisting on paying for content out of moral obligation might be acting out of ignorance about the realities of piracy. For instance, a wealthy person doesn't pay because they're being ethical; it's likely they've never heard of piracy due to having plenty of money or no time to consider it.

For sampling music, some music stores used to (not sure about today) have a way to sample music before purchasing. Back in the old days, they would have a dedicated listening room or just play the music over the PA system. Back in the newer days (once digital music became a thing), they would have self-service listening stations with headphones sprinkled around the store where you could pull up (almost?) any album they had in stock and listen to it. I can remember going into a store like The Wall, grabbing a CD that I was interested in, putting on the headphones there and jump around the album on their digital storage to listen to full tracks or parts of tracks to see if I was interested in the album. If I was interested, I would check out and they would put their "lifetime warranty" sticker on the outside of the case and I'd head home. (Now the lifetime warranty stickers are amusing bits of nostalgia on some of my CD cases.)

Piracy is never stealing. Stealing requires you to deprive the owner of their property. Pirates make unauthorized copies. Piracy can never be stealing and we should not allow media conglomerates to redefine words to suit their agendas.

Intresting. There's also a video explaining a reaserch done on how piracy affects videogames. They found that it has a positive effect on that particular industry.

One aspect of piracy you didn't touch on that I think is distinct is when a hobbyist pirates professional software for which no adequate free version exists, especially if that software is offered only as a subscription.

My favorite model are the donation based models. Manjaro Linux is a good example in my case. When I was ok, financially, I donated. Now, I'm pretty effed, I'm disabled, but I still get to have the updated versions of Manjaro. If my situation improves, I'll donate in the future.

I recently bought a vinyl for collecting sake, and the company sent me a zip with all the music I bought as mp3s. I really wish more companies would take that route. It was so nice being able to listen to it right away and have the files without having to find them online, sort and organize them and such

Ubisoft forcing you to create an account with them (accept their ToS) to play games I bought on steam , also wipes save files after ~8 month break

This is the type of discussions we need to have to mature people's purchasing decisions, which effectively control the economy and the behavior of companies. Great take on people's purchase decision making. Thanks for the vid!

i think you didn't include the case " i pirated that piece of software because the price is too high for the value it provides to me and if i had no other choice but to buy that for the full price in order to get access to it i would just never do it and just never use it" so that there would be no purchase anyways

KZfaq actually does do this too if you rent movies. Rent in 4k but you can’t even watch in 1080p in the same browser you paid for.

The original full metal alchemist, a show I grew up with, is no longer available for sale because the copyright owners don’t want people watching it instead of brotherhood. Because of this, the only option is to pirate the video or to purchase a low quality burned dvd from ebay

My father's argument for pirating was that the more things he had to trade the more likely he would have something someone wanted to trade FOR. Thus piracy drives purchase to have a large variety. He had a friend group that would purchase various media with trade in mind. One would pay full price for a program & trade a copy to get a copy of a program purchased by someone else. He said it was to combat middle man resellers who sold overpriced copies that cost them pennies to produce. Piracy as Bargain Bin Shopping.

My philospohy is if something is relatively new, reasonably priced, readily available, and from a company I trust to not just take it away in a few years I will happily pay for something as many times as I need or want it.

I think you forgot a key level: "I'm too poor to purchase media just for my pleasure, so I'll pirate it with the understanding that if it brings me value, I'll go back and purchase it as soon as I'm able."

When i was in highschool piracy was pretty much the only way to get games and photoshop. My parents would occasionally buy me a game but that was the rare exception. Game studios never technically lost money because it would never have been bought

Long time viewer but rarely do I post: I love that you are very clearly a technically competent dude who could do all sorts of crazy green screen background effects but you run with two mismatched doors and a light switch for your backdrop.

I felt this so much. I purchased my Mercedes Benz e300 2019 in 2019 and it came with a hotspot and internet browser onboard. One year later they stop supporting it… this stuff is so frustrating. I know I still have a car but that feature was one of the selling point for me because I could get work done on the go.

For the older folks going from Vinyl to Tape to CD to Digital with music, or VHS to DVD to BluRay to Digital.. Hearing that it's copyright infringement or piracy to copy after I already paid for the same thing multiple times.. Yeah, totally equal!

I've bought PS1 games off of Sony's network multiple times as well as physical copies from my childhood AND my adulthood. I ain't buying them again. 4 times is enough. Especially now that Sony can literally go into your online library and remove media as shown with a video game demo they released and then deleted from everyone's system. Or netflix altering movies like removing a nudey book page from "Back to the Future." Who does that? This is why I have become like 8-track guy. I will have physical copies of everything until the day I die.

Stealing is when you take something that is not yours without the owners consent. You may consider something to be "ethically" stealing, depending on your moral view, but that does not change what it is. I get the multiple layers of nonsense companies will do, but the response is to accept the terms, not take the product, or steal. Again, this may be fine by your view, or depending on the circumstance, but piracy is theft. I love what you do Louis because you help to inform consumers of the actual cost of purchase and fight to see these BS things get reduce, even offering your time and money to alternate sources that treat the consumer better so they can make those 3 choices better. I understand digital purchases are a strange field, but one version of content does not equal another, just as I cannot go to a dealership and break into another car when my current one breaks down and does things I do not like. Or drive a car rejected by customs (as much as much love more station wagon options in the US :/)

I'd like to hear the thoughts about two very absent tiers: 1.) "I live paycheck to paycheck, 0% chance I experience this art/content unless it's free. The creator either gets nothing from me, or nothing from me, there is no difference, other than my enjoyment of their work. If I like it, I will go out of my way to tell others, who have a high chance of paying, themselves." I think everyone was young enough for this to be true at some point (before having a job). As a wild guess I would say that this describes the majority of people that regularly engage in piracy. As an adult with a decent job, I'd sooner abstain from experiencing content before I'd go through the effort to safely pirate something, however I think this justification is gray and extremely common. 2.) Another one, "the content does not allow me to make an accurate judgment as to whether the product is worth the price unless I fully experience the product/content. If I like the content, I purchase it later. If I don't like it, I do not." This happens in gaming a lot, and software in general. A demo only shows the first level, or even worse, a tailored experience that is completely inaccurate to the regular game/software.

_"You wouldn't steal a car"_ That ad used to make me laugh. I've been sailing the high seas since the C64 days, that will never change. If I genuinely enjoy something then I go and buy the real deal. Most of the time I don't make it beyond 20 minutes in to a movie, or 30 minutes in to a game etc. Without sailing I'd have bought things I ultimately didn't want more times than beggars belief. In a world where "try before you buy" is decreasing, it's the only viable vector for ensuring you're purchasing what you actually want.

It may be old school I still buy the dvd or blue ray. I can watch it until the end of time.

been sub'd and watching your video for about 2 weeks now. Gotta say I am very impressed with all of your content and professionalism with any subject matter while still remaining down to earth. Good to see someone with good values and providing everyone with this sort of information. God tier level youtuber. Thank you 😊 If your reading this now this channel desrves your subscription. piece to all in these trying times

You really have a stronggg communication skill very calm no nonsense but every word has a value and people will pay attention to it, so charismatic.

Just one of the things I have stuck to since Uni times: "If it is available on the open, free, public carrier waves, then I see no reason getting a copy from the high seas is a problem. I just have no desire to deal with an antennae, TV box/card, and TV when I already have a perfectly working computer that can play media."

I’ve definitely never pirated before ;) ;) but but I’d imagine that pirating a college text book is more satisfying than just a tv show. My buddy did in fact save over $400 in a single semester by pirating textbooks.

Here's one I've been applying to video games. - I'm interested in a new video game release - I'm not sure it will run smoothly on my system and/or not sure I'll actually enjoy the video game - I'm willing to pay for a copy to play it to completion and support the developers - I download a pirated copy and play an estimated 10%-15% of the game to test it's performance and gameplay - I stop playing after no more than 15% of the estimated length of the game and decide if I want to buy it, not buy it, or wait for a steam sale - Regardless of my choice the pirated copy is uninstalled and deleted without playing it any further I personally believe this is 100% justifiable in cases where there is no free demo available, and even in cases where there is one since the Aliens: Colonial Marines fiasco has shown that demos are not always representative of the video game they are marketing.

Some of my favorite shows and games fall into that area where you just can't legally purchase them anymore. Mortal Kombat 9 a game a lot of players consider one of the series best is no longer available for direct sale because they lost the rights to a guest character Freddy. All the future releases also are on the path to sharing that fate with their guest characters as well.

i appreciate the hierarcy and the explanations for each tier! also really like the point about recognizing that there are a lot of people behind the scenes too besides artists who deserve to be credited as well. it's quite easy for people to devalue them and their contributions. people already devalue artists and the labour that goes into creating art in any form!

Fun fact: Copyright laws originally only protected works for twenty years, period. This was to protect authors and other creators, and their publishers, for a time to allow them to recoup the costs of distribution of the works and make a reasonable profit therefrom. Then came the ability for a copyright holder to extend a copyright by renewal. This was roughly concurrent with the advent of motion pictures. It was reasonable to allow rights holders to extend a copyright if the work was still selling well enough to justify it (of course, this criteria would be repeatedly abused). Fast forward to our rapacious 100 year copyrights under the DMCA, including scurrilous outfits who buy up and renew the copyrights for works that actually belong in the Public Domain, then sell them. Does anyone reading see a trend here? Another fun fact: _Information wants to be free!_

I got a steamkey for Borderlands 1 after contacting the customer service, showing pics of my CD version of the old version of Borderlands 1, that was very cool of them. My best customer service experience ever so far.

About the LG's option to sell your data, which was checked by default. I wouldn't trust even that checkbox, unless you will track your network usage and make sure it really acts that way.

I worked in the motion picture industry from the time I was 17 years old until I retired. Therefore I torrented movies (2.36Tb) with a clear conscience. Also have a card for free movie tickets that never expires. Thanks for the video and I agree with you. Greetings from -Gabriel of Norway.

those are the main reasons i pirate: 1)Region lock (content not avaliable on my region) 2)Censorship eg: you want to watch an anime... but instead of just translating it, they replaced the dialouges and/or add dialougues where there is none and/or replace the soundtrack and/or replace sound effects and/or redraw stuff to censor blood, violence, body parts exposure, foreigner food or for the sake of changing it without any reason. the reason why i mentioned anime is because that is quite common to happen in animes, but it can also happen in games and other medias.

What's your opinion on this: "I want a digital piece of software, but the company is preventing me from paying for it, while others can purchase it, so I go get a pirated copy"

I will never understand how resistant so many people are to any nuance when it comes to the issue of privacy. There are many people who will never buy content, and many who will never pirate content. There are many who will never be able to afford buying content, but still do, and many who can afford to pay for all content they'd ever want, and never will. Someone could take the time to graph out the many permutations of these factors, but who cares. The corporations make plenty of money, and many choose to spend even more on DRM methods to force more money out of the market, while others are happy just knowing people are enjoying their content. To go along with that quote from your former manager, there's a quote, possibly mis]attributed to Banksy: *_"An artist dies 2 deaths: The first when they quit breathing and their heart stops, and the second death comes some time later when someone speaks their name for the final time."_*

I still only buy my music on CDs and rip them myself. This way I have a completely lossless, DRM-free, perfectly tagged library and the CD goes into ‘The Archive (tm)’ and collects dust as a final stage backup. There are a few shops local to me that sell a really good selection of used CDs for $1-$5 USD, so it ends up costing a lot less too.

"We want to justify things that we don't really want to do, which is pay for something, by coming up with some excuse.... Just be honest with yourself." very well said.

Thank you for clearly laying this out Louis. I started pirating as a poor college student, only because it offered my older shows in 720p when they were only 480p on Hulu. Even after finishing the show, I continued to pirate due to my lack of income. Now that I have a job and there are better options on the market, it's high time that I stopped and supported the creators of the media I enjoy, it's the only way it can keep being made after all. People do need to wake up and realize that. Call piracy whatever you want, even if you refuse to call it theft, if adequate compensation doesn't make it to the artist and those who support getting their artwork out there, future potential art is being destroyed. People will say that their share wouldn't make a difference, but it truly will add up with more people resorting to the piece of shit tier piracy every day. I refuse to take part in that camp any longer. Piracy isn't equal.

Damn Louis analysis is spot on. This shit affects us gamer nerds profoundly as well. Problem is... nowadays a lot of games are classified as "Live Service" and because of that, once the game company deems in there estimation that the game is over, its truly over. There are certain classics that we literally CANNOT play anymore because the infrastructure is gone, and with the way the DRM, the controls, or just the way the game is designed it WILL NOT WORK, without that live service. The DMCA needs to be updated, and it needs to be retroactive grandfathering where its like "Listen motherfuckers... you don't have to support these games or software anymore into perpetuity, but now it is ILLEGAL (IF!) you no longer sell a game or program, support, or make the article open source after its effective life. Maybe they don't have to provide support, or even explain how stuff works, but enthusiastic devs or fellow nerds have the right, if this game or software is EOL, its no longer supported, sold, or for all intents and purposes its abandonware, you have the right as a consumer to not only buy from others, but pirate, decompile, reverse engineer, sell, and create derivative works (and sell those) if its truly abandonware. There are soo many great games nowadays that will never be played again because the damn servers have gone dark, and there are people who WOULD be willing to spend the money to support the infrastructure, but because of the damn legalese in this country they cannot since they're not the original content rights holders, even though the original holders have no interest in supporting the IP.

Thanks for the message at the beginning

As a dyslexic I feel safe in saying that the people who notice these scams are almost always neurologicaly atypical. these scams are more invisible to most people and that is by design. They know how to hide the price point and the cost to benefit, etc. As a paper and pencil gamer my community has long been riden and used by companies who bought out the original creators and/or robbed them and refuse to pay royalties. I want to form pirate guilds to make fan edits of the games we already own and have to re-purchase every time the company rewrites the rules just to sell books. The dungeons and dragons community was once just people who did not fit in anywhere else but our community was great and we really did look out for each other. Now companies inject weird politics where they don't belong and try to divide communities. All the good will is gone and it is just a matter of time before more people wake up to how badly they've been abused for stinking worthless money. What they have traded for cash is priceless and will maybe never be again. They robbed the whole world with their stupid greed even if very few people realize it.

When I was a penniless student, I sought out authors who said they were okay with being pirated. I found Scalzi that way - I doubt I would have read him otherwise, but I didn’t want to be a jerk, so I only pirated from authors who explicitly said that they didn’t take it as an insult. I went back and bought those books when I had money later. And yes, I could have made better use of my local library instead - but when you’re broke you also tend to be time-poor, and physically getting to my library was more difficult than downloading text files. Shorter me: yes, piracy is a nuanced topic. We all draw our lines somewhere.

Louis coming out with based takes as usual and I learn you're a fan of Alice in Chains too. I work in tech sales and the information you provide is such a boon to my ability to be a good advocate for the consumer. Keep it up man.

as somone who has worked with a lot of abandoned and emulated stuff (yes im still pissed that citra was caught in the DMCA crossfire, I had to remove the direct github link and replace it with I think "I worked on emulation software"). My own pov is that if the software and/or hardware are completely abandoned or have reached full retro scalping prices (eg needing to pay something like 5000$ for a working ps2 or ds or gamecube,etc). And the original company is no longer selling the object in its original form and is providing zero support (eg provides responses like "sorry cant help or just purchase the remake") then piracy should be allowed because we are picking up the slack and also keeping the original IP/game/software/hardware alive.

Throughout this whole video, one little sentence you said resonated with me: "it's not my problem". I don't remember exactly when you said it or in what context, but it's a very good point to drive home, which is that when for example digital content gets removed because some company stopped paying to host it or whatever, why should i, the person who bought a copy of that content whether it's media, video games, ebooks or whatever, lose it? This all goes back to the whole new paradigm of "when you pay for something you don't own it you just are granted access to a copy of it and that access or the content itself is volatile" which is very abusive behavior by the companies that sell the content and goes completely against not just the right of ownership, but freedom. If the US is such a free country why do they allow and participate in these practices? Same applies for any other free country.

Love those final words of yours about attention! It's so true!

Piracy is only morally debated in first world countries. Where I live, piracy is something we born with. We have school computers with everything pirated. Every technician that comes into your house and "activates windows" does this pirating it. Big companies doesn't have a regulation that check if their computers have licensed software or not. Here, piracy is meaningless in terms of law. But it's not just because we like to pirate, it's because we need to. Here, a normal paid work pays around 500 USD per month, so more or less 6k every year. Imagine being a graphic designer and having to pay to Adobe 60USD every month, and also paying for spotify, Netflix/Paramount+/wathever, Internet, rent... It sums up. I'm only paying for something that's worth my money, like some indie and lovely created steam games, useful stuff like Google One (cheapest tier) and internet. And that's it. You want me to pay for your service? Provide me a very good reason and even then, show me why I shouldn't pirate your software. Then I'll pay. I love your videos btw, you're one of my favorite pseudo-podcast form of content.

if you appreciate someone's solo work it's always better to support the creators of movies, videos, etc DIRECTLY if possible than to pay greedy companies.

A friend of mine has kept trying to get me to watch your stuff for years now. Right to repair and similar being one of my passionate points also. I keep deferring due to poor 'net link. I now have a good net link, so my excuse shifted to 'eh, soon'. Here's the first vid of yours I'm watching. I think I'm now hooked. Good to see someone applying common sense to modern retail practices.

Many people pay a monthly "abonament" for regular regional television, which provides hundreds of channels, but they often find that there is nothing worthwhile to watch. They are bombarded by advertisements 90% of the time, leaving them with only 10% of low-quality content.

Thank you for this mature reflection about piracy and ownership in current and recent times

Tom Scott's video about copyright is right at the top of my recommendations under this video 😂

Fuck all corporations. You ARE the product and they give zero fucks about you. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

The one thing to watch is that (at least as far as I understand) Netflix et al pay a royalty per play. So they aren't paying the content creator until you watch it. Piracy does have a lot of knock on effects that we don't always realise because we think "well we paid the provider".

I pirated almost everything up through my teens. I didn’t make a lot of money then. Once I got a decent paying job we stopped pirating. 6 years ago we realized we were spending $50ish on streaming and I realized we were watching the same shows and movies but still paying a subscription, we then canceled the subscriptions and bought roughly $50 of physical media per month. Since then, the services have gotten worse, more fragmented, and have almost doubled in price. Our movie collection has become quite substantial, the budget for movies has remained the same, and we often have months where we don’t use it at all. Because that budget hasn’t been used in a while we are going to be setting up a server to host all of that media when we buy our home. I hope the music industry stays about the same because I really don’t want to do this all over again with our music library.