Table of various levels of piracy

Here's a table I adapted from Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it. (spreadsheet file)

I tried to condense each rank and make it less about a specific type of media like CD audio or DVD video, along with a table of simplified characteristics of each situation. Of course more levels can be added and there are many situations not covered. This hierarchy is simply the way Louis ordered it from more to less justifiable; he respects people can think about it differently and I do too. He suggests that he doesn't really care about people that pirate without giving a shit about creators, and that he only has a problem with people who aren't honest with themselves about their motivations.

Setting legality aside, what 'level of piracy' is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

80 comments

what ‘level of piracy’ is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

If I could, I would download a car.

65
- Cars are bad for the environment, please download bicycles instead.
  
  50
  
  Good point ... also I don't have a driver's licence anyway.
  
  8
  
  ...an electric car?
  
  3
Setting legality aside, what 'level of piracy' is morally or ethically acceptable to you?

All levels. I think that human beings are morally and ethically obligated to do anything that causes a corporation to lose or miss out on profits. They exploit and disrespect our power as consumers by changing EULA after we purchase products, I see no reason not to rob these mfs blind.

If it's an indie game I'll pay for it after pirating, if I enjoy the game.

39
- I hate opening this way, but, as an "artist," DL everything. Art deserves to be pushed away from profit motives and i hate hearing, "but your fave musicians wont get ur money!" Theyre not getting money off of record sales anyway, they hardly ever did. Ill put out what i make for free download. If ever ppl seem crazy enough to wanna donate, ill look into opening up those avenues, but its not like thats happening anytime soon. Way i see it, its not like i could stop if i wanted to. Why ask for money and limit how many ppl i can reach?
  
  25
  
  @Pan_Ziemniak @JimboDHimbo not an artist, but i 100% agree art should never be for profit. Ethics and piracy aside, profit is the reason why every big IP ends up being dog shit eventually. When passion is over, move on to the next cool and fun project. I'd rather spend all my savings (if i had any of course) on some random indie dev or music producer on their patreons than throwing a single penny to [insert big tech/media company]'s endless need of money. They don't deserve it both morally and artistically. Hell if art wasn't for profit, we wouldn't be discussing piracy, but "who should I invest to"
  
  1
- I'd say for myself it's a tit for tat situation.
  
  If the company I hypothetically pirate from is a total prick, mistreats their employees, donates a part of the money they earned from my purchase to lobby to my government to reduce the rights of minorities, I won't give a single fuck. I may even just never touch their product out of spite.
  
  Are they inoffensive and fairly neutral? I likely won't pirate if I have the means to buy it.
  
  Are they basically ConcernedApe? I will follow them to the ends of the earth showering them with praise and riches. Never pirate and would actively shame those who do
  
  10
  
  Are they basically ConcernedApe?
  
  Literally the main person in mind when I was writing that last sentence 😂😂 he can have my money.
  
  Edit: I pirated stardew initially, then bought three copies over the years on different platforms, either for myself or as gifts for friends.
  
  4
- this. no need for a complex system to justify it to myself either.
  
  only caveat is that its not really 'robbing'
  
  6
  
  I was raised on pirated copies of PS1 games and taught about torrents/P2P by my mother. I've been immersed in piracy since I was a child, It's just normal to me. Never needed to make myself feel bad about it. if anything, once I got older and learned more about how the modern world works, I started to feel righteous about my actions.
  
  2
Where's the "Rent is 60% of my monthly wage, so I can't afford a 120 euro game."

31
- see my other comment
  
  4
I pirate be because I don't have money, that's why.

26
- In a sense, not being able to afford it is itself a region lock on it.
  
  15
  
  If you assume they're from countries with weaker economies. Meanwhile, I live in the US, and I survive under the poverty line. Nothing about the US is 'region-locked', I'm just treated like shit for being disabled. It's a lack of income first and foremost.
  
  3
- Thank goodness LM can't see this because that would be the cue for a corporate bootlicker to say "yOu dOnt HavE to PlAY thEm tO sURviVe"
  
  4
  
  Which of course makes no sense - if you don't have the money to buy it either way, pirating has no effect on revenue.
  
  1
piracy yes

Simplified it a bit

26
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free

24
I pirate because I want free shit

22
- Couldn't have phrased it better. Do people really care about ethics when pirating content ?
  
  6
Rank 16: Pirating because I grew up with low access and got used to it.

Now I have enough money to buy things, but it's no fun. I like the challenge of finding something for free, it feels like cheating capitalism.

17
I pirate because I dont earn my wage in dollaridoos, and I believe information and culture is a human right that shoudln't have any impact on me being able to pay my bills.

If I can, and want, I'll pay. Other than that big corporations that boasts about record sales every year could cry some more about me downloading an .iso for all I care.

16
Here's a rough summary of my philosophy:

Intellectual property as it is typically defined and legally defended is a self-contradictory concept.

IP in an ideal world would protect creators from fraud, (others falsely claiming credit for their work.) And would ensure fair payment distribution to the artist and workers directly involved, (not allow giant multi-billion dollar corpos to control and profit off massive swaths of IP).

You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc.

It is always preferable to pirate vs funding corpos.

Pay for products that respect you, don't pay to be abused or to help abuse others.

I always try to pay the artist and those actually involved directly.

As for the sound techs, producers, etc that work on a project, most of them are already receiving a salary/wages for their time. So I disagree with Louis that pirating media generally hurts those folks.

The artist usually has some conditional debt where the record label requires them to cover some portion of the production costs from sales before they start actually making money. This is frequently a very exploitative arrangement that favors the studio and label. (See points 4 & 5)

There is no perfect solution. If the artist is small enough, direct sales of merch and media is the best option. This is what I try to do as much as possible.

I think another point is that art is fundamentally not a commodity, or at least, shouldn't be treated as such. Capitalism corrupts everything it touches, art is no exception. Artists who are truly passionate about their craft will create no matter what, as evidenced by the far larger portion of "starving" artists in the world vs wealthy ones.

I hate that music, film, paintings, and such are now treated as portfolios of investments by billion dollar corpos and rich fat cats who don't give a shit about the purpose of art and just want to get rich.

Pay for products and services that respect you. Don't pay to support abusive and exploitative industries if you can avoid it. Support genuine artists. Everything will always be fuzzy, make your best call. Copying is not theft. Corpos are scum.
15
- Yeah, so it seems like some of the situations in the table would be acceptable to you but not all.
  
  You always have the right to do with your copy of media, whatever you want. Remix, trade, critique, promote, copy, etc
  
  Not if the way they give you the media restricts you from exercising those rights.
  
  Warner Brothers is a perfect example about an art industry giant that doesn't give a flying fuck about art and artists. They'll throw years of artists' work in the trash if it makes them more money than not doing that.
  
  3
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  Not if the way they give you the media restricts you from exercising those rights.
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  1
I pirate because I’m broke, and when I’m not broke I pirate because I want to test before buying, or because fuck this company in particular (like with Disco Elysium or anything EA)

If you’ve got the means to pay for media and the company or person that produced it isn’t awful, you should probably purchase it. But I don’t particularly care either way, do what you want

12
Where's I pirate coz it's way more convenient?

10
- Ah, Gaben's "piracy is a service issue."
  
  3
I wish to live in a society in which this question is a moot point. Creators should have the freedom to create without having to worry about the goodwill of their audience, or worse, marketing strategies. Fans should have the freedom to access art without having to worry about the well-being of the creator, or worse, suffering guilt. Anything that is not aimed at creating and maintaining this state of being is inhumane.

10
I refuse to pay for pirated content out of principal. It's bad enough that I'm infringing copyright (and boy do I!) but commercialized piracy rubs me the wrong way. I even prefer Bittorrent over Usenet and FOSS media software over commercial software. Yarr!

10
I think that a system where we should abstain from things that are basically free to reproduce (i.e. things you can pirate) is dumb. There are many movies that I probably wouldn't pay money to but that I've pirated. The companies that own the rights to the movie don't lose any sale they would have otherwise made but I get whatever enjoyment I get from watching the movie at least, so it's a net win.

When I pay may bills at the end of the month I also put some money towards paying for things that I've pirated that I like, usually with a focus on smaller creators. It doesn't really feel meaningful to pay for a marvel movie for example. It's not really a perfect system but neither is artificially limiting the access to digital media.

10
- Warner Bros. is an example of a movie company that gives zero fucks to any of the artists producing their movies, not sure what good supporting them will do.
  
  5
- Copying is not theft. It does not remove the original.
  
  If I send you a PDF copy of a book that I own, that I scanned into a PDF myself; that is not theft, that is ownership. So long as I make you pay nothing for that copy; and I do mean $0.00, I cannot charge you for any costs incurred while making that copy; I am not breaking the law until a judge summons me before them and tells me I am abusing my rights and are summarily breaking the law in another manner as is judge's right to do.
  
  I own the physical book and I am allowed to enjoy it in any manner I see fit...including loaning the book to you physically or digitally in perpetuity.
  
  The law supports and recognizes fair use and ownership. It is up to us not to abuse that ownership. I do not recommend making 1,000,000,000 copies of a book and giving them away just because you are mad at the author. That's an asshole move and likely to get the metaphorical judge I described involved in the matter.
  
  Similarly; it is an asshole move for a content creator to sell you a copy of a book or some other media and then go about trying to tell you how you may or may not enjoy the material you just purchased. They can recommend ways to enjoy it; but they do not have an enforceable right, even through contracts, to tell you that you cannot exercise your ownership rights in a certain way...unless you overdo it to asshole levels and a judge and/or the police get involved.
  
  2
I do not know about the video but i can't agree with this table. Even if you don't buy it an artist work should be spread if you're not the one buying it by talking about it or just seeding you'll allow someone to support the author. This makes piracy look like some grey thing, IT IS NOT.

Support the artists and if you can't or don't want to, spread the word this is how it works.

8
- When someone says piracy or "using an unauthorized copy of someone's work" it can be for many different reasons.
  
  On the moral and ethical side (as I'm leaving out the legality aspect from the discussion) some of these situations may sit well with some people, some may not. The list of situations themselves are adapted from Louis's free-market viewpoint. He has articulated in the past that people that bring something of value should be awarded in kind, and spreading the word to drive sales justifies using work without paying to him is like paying a professional photographer in "exposure".
  
  I can understand if you disagree with the premise of the chart because of the above, it's just the basis from which I formed it.
  
  3
Yeah I'm number 15

7
- Don't be ashamed! This is a post on !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com after all.
  
  3
  
  I'm not ashamed, louis always says that of you want to be a "number 15" then just be honest about it and don't make up bullshit excuses.
  
  3
What's the significance of the colors? Greenish = "stealing", orange = "okay", yellow = "grey area"? Seems awfully negative, maybe invert the whole thing.

7
- The colours have only partial relevance to whether it's more or less ethical in the context of piracy. The colours signify more what is better for that category specifically. Having no DRM is better than not, supporting a creator is better than not, having it availble to buy or rent is better than having it discontinued, as a few examples.
  
  Green = Good for that category, Red = Bad, Yellow = Mixed, Grey = Not good nor bad.
  
  5
  
  Good for that category
  
  According to whom? For example the premise of the last question is "I want free shit and don't care about the creator". So how is "not putting money forward" a negative? It's the core of the outcome I wanted.
  
  7
The whole point of "ethical" piracy is ridiculous. It's old good corporate anti-piracy propaganda but rechewed with some progressive takes. "You wouldn't download an indie car", literally. If you need some justifications and excuses for piracy, than just don't pirate at all. The fact that i'm downloading some game from torrent because i've broken purchased DVD with it never makes me more ethical in any way than some other leecher on the same torrent who's never going to pay for it.

7
I go straight to the bottom of the barrel

7
- Do it loudly and do it proudly! Well, not so loudly that the feds hear about it.
  
  4
I can't stand Rossman's videos; but I respect the hell out of his ideas, principles, and efforts to better the slices of technological life that he cares about.

7
- I don't agree with everything he says but he does stick to his principles well.
  
  5
  
  he does stick to his principles well.
  
  He's an open source advocate but made his grayjay app closed source.
  
  4
Amogus with a broken back

7
The only time I see piracy as unethical is if you would have paid for it otherwise and it's a small creator who will actually notice the lesser revenue. This covers very, VERY few cases because the vast majority of the time if something is good enough to want to pirate it, it's popular enough that more than enough people paid for it to adequately compensate the creator.

Basically, are you hurting the creator's ability to make a living by pirating it? Giving them less money when they already have more than enough doesn't qualify.

5
Okay, but what the heck do the colors mean??

5
- See my comment
  
  0
I am 12 to 15

5
Im glad your useing OpenDocument.

4
I can't really afford to pay for some things. I feel like pirating indie games is hurting indie creators by showing there's demand for pirating them, making it more likely indie games will be pirated.

So I only play indie games that were originally released free of charge to begin with.

For AAA games, I pirate freely.

For anything else, I pirate without much thought of the morals and ethics of it (that is some music (from the 60s-80s so I'm not hurting creators) and movies/tv that are oftentimes not keeping up to the standard expected and make their money at the cinemas anyways (and for the TV shows, they have already made more than enough, as I don't really follow anything newly released))

4
Does piracy for the sake of preserving media (even if countless others are also preserving it) count for number 15?

Generally, I'm good with 1~5 or so, but there are lots of legit reasons there.

3
- Louis' list comes from the perspective of moral in the sense that "were the people that provided you entertainment value provided appropriate compensation" which is why the list is ordered this way.
  
  Looking at it in the lens of preserving items for the common good, this could take form of #1 or #3, where you bought a copy but you don't want it to degrade or fade into obscurity, but it could also be #15 where you just don't want to lose it and it doesn't matter to you whether the creator should have benefited.
  
  2
  
  That's fair! I imagine there's also somewhere in the middle where they want to pay the creator, but have no way to do so, or no way to know who it is.
  
  I mean, so you pay the studio? The current rights' holder? The creative? (Hard when a piece of media is made by a team that isn't together anymore)
  
  2
Depending on the situation, up to #13 for me. A caveat to that might be whether or not the creator has appropriately priced their product so as to justly compensate themselves without charging consumers excessively. While I had it in my Steam library already, Factorio deserves to be pirated for breaking with the standard practice of not raising game prices with inflation. Same with Sega's anti-consumer move to remove the Sonic ROMs from the Sega Genesis collection to boost sales of Sonic Origins.

3
I see a whole lotta “yes” in that graph. 🏴‍☠️

3
Ranks 1 through 9 Is Not Piracy as you've paid for your copy in some manner typically. Rank 11 & 12 is not piracy

Ranks 10, 13, and 14 are JUSTIFIABLE Piracy. You are free to debate the merits of doing these things or choose not to do them yourself.

Rank 15 is blatant piracy and is arguably socially unacceptable and fully subject to full penalty of law. Don't be that guy!

My ethics are simple; You must fulfill one of two conditions:

You pay for a legitimate copy (license) in some format. How much you pay does not matter as long as the transaction is for a permanent (indefinite time length) license and not blatantly a rental. This legitimate copy does not have to be purchased directly from the IP Rights holder or their designated and authorized (re)sellers.

You are 100% unable to obtain a reasonable, purchasable, legal copy in your city of residence through any physical or digital means. Any Digital options available to you must not be reasonably obtainable due to unreasonable cost of buy-in.

Notably:

Both rules exclude the ability to "Rent" a piece of content from somewhere, "Borrow" it from a library and "Buy" it online from a digital market place that is exclusive to a piece of technology you do not own and do not plan to, and would not elect to purchase.

As an example; any and all content that is exclusively available on iTunes or exclusively through using an iDevice is not reasonably obtainable; I do not own an Apple device, I do not wish to buy or own one. I would be within my rights to pirate any content I see as desirable. I despise Apple and refuse to use their products; so I am within my rights to pirate anything that requires you to use an Apple device or account to access the right to purchase it.

This would not be acceptable if the content were available through Google Play; as I already own an Android Smartphone, and the marketplace is reasonably accessible and reasonably priced in most cases.

This does not include situations where accessing the ability to purchase content requires a large number of convoluted steps. For example; I shouldn't be required to mail in a letter only to obtain a temporary credential necessary to access the purchasing front-end, submit more personally identifying information than necessary to fill an order in an account creation process, or be required to call a specific phone number to support to ask for an exception to a policy or permission to purchase or retain access to a purchase.

As a final clarification: Streaming == Renting.

No 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts' about it. A streaming service is renting access to a specific batch of content for an agreed upon price, paid at a regular interval. This is not a purchase. Instead it is a patronage agreement.
2
- Thanks for engaging with the scenarios listed. The point of the exercise is to see where people land personally, there's no one size fits all ethical principles but a lot of overlap. The RIAA, MPA, Irdeto (the group that makes Denuvo) etc. could argue that all of these cases are piracy and unjustifiable. Others see everything as justifiable, just because they're used to it, it's simply not financially accessible to them, they don't care or they just want to subvert the entire concept of capitalist ownership, as evidenced in replies downthread.
  
  3
  
  In most cases either they filled option 1; or having no access to a purchase option they feel is reasonable fills option 2.
  
  Few people, if any, are truly rank 15. I don't give a damn what the corporate folks say or think. Most of the time they're basically blaming the victims of their own poor decision making anyways.
  
  I don't agree that Rank 10 should be placed where it is; it is more akin to Rank 15 in similarity...the attitude is more entitled than it should be. Ripping your own copy should be something you are not only allowed; but encouraged to do...as it often nullifies any content protection that might interfere with your right to enjoy the content that you purchased in a way that the rights holder didn't expect. Furthermore it removes all doubt that your digital copy is legitimate, as you derived it from a physical copy that you already own...and have fair use doctrine as well as purchase license and access to.
  
  Ripping your physical copies is also a further message to creators that DRM and Copy Protection is an unacceptable format.
  
  As an additional note: I firmly believe that people who sell copies of things they pirated are ranked at 15. They are blatantly ignoring the law for no justifiable reason. You as a customer purchasing from those people are not liable for their law breaking however; similar to how you are not liable for people who are ignoring the law by handing out free pirated copies to everyone. The burden of breaking the law is upon the one committing the crime.
  
  The reason I advocate ripping your own copies; is simple. If you got caught with a copy you obtained from someone else's physical copy; you could be reasonably ordered by a judge to "Forfeit (delete all copies in your possession of) that illegitimate copy". It's likely to happen when they catch the person making the illegal copies. Ripping your own personal digital copy from your physical copy is provably not piracy. It's a different act altogether; as you are using something you already own within your rights of possession and property. Instead, ripping your own copies is legal preservation.
  
  1
I don't know where I would draw the line...I guess if the content creator is small I would prefer to support if I can.

Generally speaking I don't pirate much. The main thing is probably anime/manga but that's due to accessibility/quality issues. But I end up buying merch usually so I guess I'm supporting in other ways.

I think the only other thing I've pirated in recent years is the sims 4 because holy moly their pricing is insane. Oh I guess also 3ds/wiiu games now that the shop went down

2
- Pirating DLC i guess is no issue.
  
  1
.

1
- It's important to be cognizant of various worldwide perspectives, considering the part of your comment on political discourse.
  
  Some countries don't care that everyone pirates everything and anything.
  
  Others, like Japan for example, have copyright ingrained both in the laws and in the culture. Some think "right clicking and saving an image on a public website" is theft. It's part of the reason Sony and Nintendo are so anal about copyright and how there are no Manga sharing sites located in Japan.
  
  So not only the laws different everywhere what is legitimate discourse changes too.
  
  2
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  2
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Louis Rossman's video on the levels of piracy, grey areas and his morals and ethics on it

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

1


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