Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The one thing that I do agree with the anti-piracy side as someone who is pro-piracy is this.
// Isn't that considered theft?
Yes. I do think that piracy is theft. Sure, theft requires the original owner not to have the object that was being stolen. Copying a file is not theft, but copying a paywalled file for free is theft because the owner should've gotten the money according to the price of that file. You got the file, but the owner doesn't get the money required for you to own that file. Oh, wait. I forgot that purchasing isn't owning these days, right? Never mind. I guess at that point, piracy is not theft at all.
Let's say that it is for a second. The problem with piracy being theft isn't whether it's theft or not. The problem is whether you can make someone to care that it's theft or not. The cops? They do not care. They only care if you are a massive distributor of illegal content, but if you're just streaming a couple episodes of The Pitt from a pirate website (great show), they do not care at all, probably because they too are doing it as well.
The ones who do care the most are the owners. They will threaten lawsuits to people that got caught with pirating their software. Nintendo is infamous for this. Too many stories to talk about. You can look them up yourselves, but recently, a developer who used Maya was charged because they used an illegal copy of it, even though they bought it on a legal store, not a key reseller. That has nothing to do with piracy, but it does show how certain companies care when their product was being fraudulently acquired.
Even then, companies enforcing their IPs are not universal to all companies around the world. Most of them generally do not care if you pirate their software. The ones who do are the incredibly petty, greedy, and downright predatory that you might as well avoid at all cost anyway.
The one thing that I do agree with the anti-piracy side as someone who is pro-piracy is this.
// Isn't that considered theft?
Yes. I do think that piracy is theft. Sure, theft requires the original owner not to have the object that was being stolen. Copying a file is not theft, but copying a paywalled file for free is theft because the owner should've gotten the money according to the price of that file. You got the file, but the owner doesn't get the money required for you to own that file. Oh, wait. I forgot that purchasing isn't owning these days, right? Never mind. I guess at that point, piracy is not theft at all.
Let's say that it is for a second. The problem with piracy being theft isn't whether it's theft or not. The problem is whether you can make someone to care that it's theft or not. The cops? They do not care. They only care if you are a massive distributor of illegal content, but if you're just streaming a couple episodes of The Pitt from a pirate website (great show), they do not care at all, probably because they too are doing it as well.
The ones who do care the most are the owners. They will threaten lawsuits to people that got caught with pirating their software. Nintendo is infamous for this. Too many stories to talk about. You can look them up yourselves, but recently, a developer who used Maya was charged because they used an illegal copy of it, even though they bought it on a legal store, not a key reseller. That has nothing to do with piracy, but it does show how certain companies care when their product was being fraudulently acquired.
Even then, companies enforcing their IPs are not universal to all companies around the world. Most of them generally do not care if you pirate their software. The ones who do are the incredibly petty, greedy, and downright predatory that you might as well avoid at all cost anyway.
