The Ethics of Piracy
Is it wrong to sail the seven seas, or is the life of a pirate free of guilt?
Disclaimer: As the title implies, this article is written from a perspective of ethics, and not one of legality. Piracy is illegal, and this article is not meant to actively encourage any group or individual to break the law. The purpose of this article is to encourage critical thought, and neither I nor Medium are responsible for any actions taken due to said thought.
Piracy is quite possibly one of the least actively pursued crimes around, up there with US-backed coups. Obviously, much of this is due to it being a small, victimless crime, and being potentially near-impossible to trace with a simple VPN. This poses the question, should it be punished more, or should it be allowed to fly under the radar entirely? In my opinion, the answer is the latter, and I will explain why.
Many people against piracy liken it to shoplifting, stating that pirates steal the food directly from the mouths of creators. While the ethics on shoplifting is a vast subject that can (and likely will) be made into its own article later on, right now I will simply focus on how piracy is incomparable to shoplifting.
Shoplifting is actively taking an item from a store. The store loses that item, and the shoplifter gains that item. It is stealing. Piracy is making and distributing a copy of a form of media. The creators do not lose their copy, despite a new one existing. It is not stealing. Would you say that somebody stealing a bag of chips from Walmart is the same as somebody making their own chips with the exact same recipe? Piracy does not tangibly steal from creators, they steal from money that they feel entitled to.
This isn’t even mentioning the ways that piracy can actually be very helpful. For instance, it can be useful for preserving media that would otherwise be lost. Some people even use piracy as a sort of demo to determine if a product is worth spending money on, which can potentially give creators more money if they make a good product.
On a related note, emulation is even more beneficial. It can help keep old games accessible by having an option to play them without forking over ludicrous amounts of money to people reselling them and the consoles they use. As well, almost all emulation is for consoles and games which companies don’t even profit from anymore.
In conclusion, I believe piracy (and emulation) are not only morally justifiable, but morally correct more often than not. Though, if you really want to spend $500 on Sony Vegas, more power to you, I suppose.
