Inspired by a post since deleted, I feel bad for probably coming off judgemental about the poster’s taste in the movie that drove him to consider sailing.
The earliest desired media I can remember that drove me to figure out sailing was DC Talk, a Christian rock band. Pop music was not allowed in my house, so a Christian group was tantalizing and scandalous to a rebellious, young Vanth. Things escalated from there.
When I was a poor student I pirated everything. Music, software, games, you name it.
Now that I have a good stable income, I pay for the things I want because I want to encourage artists and developers. But corporations and capitalism are ruining it all.
So, I’m changing my habits. Paying money where it actually has a significant impact on the creators, (like going to live concerts and shows, buying albums directly from the artist or from their own site, buying indie games from small studios, going to watch movies from studios that respect their employees and artists and unions) and pirating the ever loving shit out of everything else coming out of a large corporation.
This seems the most ethical to me. Don’t pirate smaller stuff. I would say it’s ethical to also pirate where the artist has passed away and it’s just their estate who get the money, but I’d take that on a case by case basis.
I paid over $1k about 10 years ago for music software. My computer killed itself, so I made a new one and redownloaded the software…but the company said I’m an imposter. After years of fighting with them, they refused to activate my paid software despite proving my identity and showing proof of purchase. I didn’t choose to pirate, the system chose for me
“You merely adopted piracy, I was born in it, molded by it”
Young and didn’t have any money. Certainly not enough to blow on movies or shows. Since then it’s been a jumping off point into learning more and more about computers. Networks, data transfer, Linux, virtual machines. I’m looking to get some certifications and get into IT now, and I probably wouldn’t have the knowledge to do so if I hadn’t spent my years on the high seas.
Was a student, couldn’t afford CDs.
Nowadays I
- don’t want to subscribe to too many streaming services, each just having a few things I want to watch. Also I broke my neck and I’m now on disability, there’s no budget to waste, at all.
- Like to watch old shows and “rare” movies that aren’t available anywhere.
The first time or the second time?
The first time was because I was sick of paying the “Australia tax” for new releases that took longer to reach us than most of the rest of the world. The second time was due to subscription fee hikes with associated reduction in quality & range of content.
I was sick of paying the “Australia tax” for new releases that took longer to reach us than most of the rest of the world.
Exactly this, except I actually stopped for a long time when Netflix first came out and wasn’t geo-restricted… then the enshittification started.
I didn’t have money as a kid. I still don’t have money.
My mom showed me what Limewire was when I was a kid. She didn’t know what piracy was.
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Subscriptions, subscriptions everywhere
Gronk found fire. Gronk thought good idea. Gronk shared idea. Fire never belonged to Gronk. Idea never belonged to Gronk.
My dad got into Kazaa in the mid-00s, then Limewire, before discovering Mininova and TPB. Just kinda saw what he was doing and thought it was interesting. (We were often told not to touch the computer as it’d “knock off his download”…)
I seem to recall one of the first things I pirated was… er, Pirates of the Caribbean, which I watched with my friends huddled round my laptop. Quality times.
Cable installer guy came to the house one time… Hooked up internet and asked me if I was going to Torrent or not. I had no idea what he was talking about as this was 2005.
Did some googling canceled my cable subscription and I never looked back.
Got off the The seas when Netflix was big… And then all that changed again…
So here we are again.
Ideology. every cent a capitalist doesn’t make because of me is a small victory.
First time, it was because I was a kid that couldn’t pay for the movies/music/games I wanted. The high seas provided me with a solution for that.
Then I started making money and Netflix streaming came along making it both cheap and convenient. I docked my ship and forgot about my pirate life for a long time. Everything was good, living a quiet life…
But then the corporate greed caught up and ruined everything. Streaming prices became absurd, content got fragmented to way too many services and they fucking started introducing ads.
So here I am, setting sail once again. I didn’t need or want this, but they have forced my hand with their infinite greed.
When i first started as a kid, i just wanted games, shows, movies and music without having to pay for it, as i would not be able to afford it all. First movies from P2P-clients like napster, kazaa and limewire. My older brother taught me what i needed to know to get started with torrenting later, and i built up a great ratio on 3-4 private trackers to get what i needed. This continued until soptify and netflix came along and i had some more cash on hand. The initial service was good enough for me to stop pirating.
So after about a decade of being a landlubber, i started pirating again. The services are fragmented, they treat you like shit and using any of their services is a privacy nightmare. As this dawned on me, i regretted having ever stopped pirating, because now i barely had any stuff at all. I didnt own a thing, and i did not like it. So now i had to spend a lot of time building up a library from (almost) scratch. I have a jellyfin-server running at home with about 600 movies and some of my old favorite shows, while also picking up some of the new stuff that i want. I dont have to sit thru all the bullshit on netflix to find a show/movie i like anymore, and the experience is pure bliss in comparison. Still lacking a bit in the music department, but that is also growing and i again enjoy some of the music i listened to before that is not available on spotify. I dont exclusively pirate though, i purchase some music of bandcamp, games of gog (and steam) and audiobooks of libro.fm.
Next time there is an enticing offer that does not involve downloadable drm-free files, im not falling for it. Fool me once etc etc
For me it was the Simpsons when I was a kid and a relative would record it off satellite TV for me. It just carried on from there. I started recording stuff off TV myself, recording music on audio cassettes and eventually copying VHS tapes.
Then I got a PSX console and my parents “knew a guy” who burned games.
After that I heard about Napster and started downloading MP3s on the family PC. When Napster was shut down I moved onto other apps like Kazaa and Limewire.
Then I got a DVD burner. At first I just copied DVDs but when I got broadband I started downloading torrents and burned the files to DVDs.
About 10 years ago I started storing those files on a NAS. Planning on moving to Jellyfin in the next few weeks.