He who has power makes the law. Money is power and big corporations have it.

And like the Prohibition, there's just no convincing the public at large to stop smoking weed, drinking alcohol, or going around copyright when it's just too expensive overall.

self-censorship

I even discussed such matters in for instance GBATemp Forum.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/lets-list-side-effects-of-alcohol-and-drugs.633600/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/should-parents-have-the-right-to-track-their-children.648991/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/should-kids-have-the-right-to-track-their-parents.649045/

Wow, everyone has an opinion so I guess I will throw mine out there.

I have two reasons I do not pirate games.

One, it is morally wrong.

Two, there may be a malicious payload mixed in.

Of course it is difficult to forget that Sony had one of those malicious payload on I think a music CD they were selling at one time and it was not possible or feasible to remove it without reinstalling Windows. Do a search for "sony audio cd malicious payload" Gotta love them rootkits.

Anywho, since it is morally wrong just own that fact if you are doing it. Not saying be stupid enough to admit it but stop pretending being a pirate is legitimate.

In any case, if you paid for it and make a hack to turn off DRM as long as you are not sending the program that does it out there that is perfectly legit. You paid for it.

There are games I will never buy because of the devs or publishers being shit OR the DRM is invasive enough to keep me from opening my wallet. I just accept I am not their customer.

Of course there are often a TON of people that will crawl on their hands and knees for the privilege of getting the game and jumping through extra hoops to play it.

A friend of mine bought me Skyrim on Steam when it first came out and I was not flush with cash. I was thankful and played it a lot. Now, when it came to GOG I bought it along with Fallout 4 since I liked the games enough I wanted to show that I am willing to buy them on gog.

Now, this has dragged on enough for me. Game on

I question that morality.

There's dozens of games that are now dead that you can't play because they had online requirements. Is it morally right that your purchased game was removed/revoked by the devs or publishers?

Is it morally right to have your books you purchased deleted and removed off your kindle?

Is it morally right, you can only play an older Nintendo game while on a subscription service because they pulled the Eshop off?

Personally i hope to see copyright reduced to a mere 10 or 20 years again. That would do so much for preservation of everything.

As for instance I mean in case of companies like Nintendo they could eventually optionally mount special slots,ports,add-ons to not just only digitally,but also physically nowadays…etc.
For instance Epic Games also removed their own classics from both GOG.com and Steam nowadays considered as being digitally re-released…etc. I guess in case of companies like Epic Games there are no such thing as public domain to their own lawyers.

Some companies removing access to media doesn't make it morally ok to pirate media.

The idea that doing something bad to someone because they did something bad is somehow good is a really weird and irrational cope.

If you do not like a company or person, do not get their games. Stealing from all game developers because you dislike the policies of some companies like EA is still just stealing and morally wrong since it's only for your own amusement / benefit.

Absolutely no one NEEDS video games or movies or ebooks. There is no justification for stealing their stuff.

I guess sometimes in some cases it is necessary.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/morality-of-piracy.639740/
https://gbatemp.net/threads/what-is-your-relationship-with-cracked-games.626368/

While I completely agree with a point that "grabbing what you apparently don't like is irrational or even stupid", calling digital piracy a stealing is quite inaccurate since the copyright holders still in control of their intellectual properties if piracy occurs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_is_theft

If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing. Pirating was never "stealing." I don't do it because I live in a country where they try to disproportionately punish people for copyright infringement (literally tens of thousands of dollars in punishment for each download of a property, in some cases). Legally, I'd never condone it. But morally, I'll never condemn it, either.

On a purely technical level, yes this is true. But that's only on a physical level.

I've found with sex, it's like a hunger and like everything else needs to be fed periodically (some more than others). If you only eat, sleep and work/cultivate to survive you will go insane and burn out. Everyone needs downtime and fun mental exercises; and being bored out of your mind is one of the worse (just go sit in a waiting room for 6 hours with nothing to do, then tell me TV or magazines isn't needed), eventually you'll go out of your mind.

A side note of going out of your mind, you can go to a deprivation chamber. Half filled saltwater container in total darkness where some people go to let their mind do a lot of work without all these little things like feeling seeing or hearing anything. Someone going in for 2-3 hours can come out seemingly a caveman or lost wild animal unable to comprehend the world until their brain reconnects some 20 minutes later. Were you put in there long enough... You might not mentally come out again, or kill yourself rather than suffer non-sensory any longer. Technically you don't NEED to see/hear/feel/taste anything to survive on biological level (aka keep your heart going and cells doing their basic jobs). But i'd wager you don't want to live without them.

Preferably you're in a place where you don't have to wok too much, have a balanced social life (with sex), decent food, and have enough entertainment to keep you relatively happy.
Why not?

A ton of people purchased whole seasons of Mythbusters and other series on Sony's services, expecting to have it, and it was more convenient to stream than to have DVD's to switch them out. But suddenly Poof they are going to remove 1,200 different shows full content and everything and leave their paid customers with nothing. Like breaking into someone's house and just confiscating their media library.

Keep in mind, like games we have this notion of owning something when we buy it. Not 'extended renting'. If it said 'rent your media now' instead of 'purchase' i'm sure sales would plummet.

People did things like this for ages before TV and video games were a thing. Don't mistake being accustomed to something as that it is needed.

Yes, physical hobbies were a thing (like riding horses, woodscrafting, blacksmithing, etc), and books were a thing, and going out gambling playing cards and smoking were far more a thing.

We can go back to that, though it would take a while. You'd probably also end up replacing all the cars and trucks with horses, i don't see a number of city planners and them being happy, as they were worried we'd eventually have manure 20 feet high in all the streets from all the horse poop.

When you take creative content from the creators for free, and enjoy it, you've already placed a non-zero value on that product. Therefore you are depriving them of revenue (which could be critical for many creative content creators for their future).

It's as simple as that.

The rest is just whining because people want to have a free lunch.