Yes, I pirate for many reasons. Money used to be the main one when I didn't have any. Today, fortunately, I'm doing very well, but I still do it because it's much more convenient than adapting to each of the streaming platforms, or because I access uncensored material (music and shows). For example, I'm a big fan of South Park, and the only way to access several episodes is by pirating them. My family pays for the family plan of all the major streaming services, so if I wanted to access them legally, I could, but God, I'll never do it. I really find it all pathetic.
Regarding software, I try to avoid using anything that requires payment.
I donate anonymously to many open-source projects: Cryptomator, GrapheneOS, Electrum, Veracrypt, Librewolf, WG Tunnel, and VLC. I pay for the premium versions of Bitwarden and ProtonMail. And that's it, that's all.
I don’t pirate software anymore. If I do the math on how much enjoyment I get even from a mediocre AAA game title, it is dwarfed by what I’d spend on a night out, so the value is there for me. On top of that the risk of malware (or the effort in mitigating it) isn’t really worth it.
Tv and movies? Pirate it. The streaming services are garbage and the content has too much crap for me to want to pay a corporation for it. If it became too hard to pirate I just wouldn’t watch it anymore.
Books kind of fall in the middle. Happy to pay for ebooks if the author makes it practical, but I’m not keen on buying through Amazon.
Yup, same. I haven't pirated software in a decade or so. I'm not much of a gamer, and the software I do use is almost all FOSS.
Books, eh. I'll buy an epub or PDF that I can download. I'm not "buying" something that can disappear from my library after license agreements change between corpos. I don't want paper, too heavy and voluminous.
When I started listening to the band Korpiklaani back in 2008 I could only find their newest album for sale. I ended up pirating everything else. I have since purchased all of their albums directly from them.
Excellent choice of music. Though I gotta say I even prefer their older albums when they sounded less refined. Same with Ensiferum, over time they just got a bit too polished for my taste.
I'm not familiar enough with Ensiferum to have an opinion, but I agree with you on Korpiklaani. They're still good, but the old lack of polish adds something to the sound 100%.
I love buying music of artists I find on Bandcamp. I get lossless quality audio, and I get to support the artist. Granted, it is best to do the bandcamp fridays because more money goes to the artist.
However I hate that Epic now owns Bandcamp, and has for a while.
Do this all the time with video games. Pirate to try before I buy. If I really like the game I buy it in the hopes it creates an incentive to make more games like the ones I like.
I wish I could donate to more novelists directly via their websites. I tend to pirate ebooks because I don't want a) the fuss of removing the DRM and b) to bankroll the destruction of the economy for 99% of people by giving money to big companies.
I pay for non popular things - bands that aren't well known, YouTube creators who haven't started doing those stupid "MUNDANE TASK 😱 GOES WRONG!" thumbnails yet, games or software that are free to download but hey maybe some money would be cool if you could, independent news and radio, etc.
Once something is popular I'll just thieve it. Artists are creators deserve to get paid for their work, but once they start getting paid dozens of times over for no extra effort it's hard to feel too bad about borrowing a free copy.
Disagree in some cases. A good chunk of YouTubers make good use of their "no new effort" earnings by reinvesting it into their channel. The end result is either better content or more of it
Plenty. Music and books in particular. I'm usually behind on making legit buys, but I treat piracy partially like a library where I can try before I buy.
That isn't saying I buy everything I pirate, I don't. But if I like it enough to keep the files, I'll wait until I find a good sale and eventually get a legit copy in some format.
I also do it in reverse, where I'll buy something, but pirate a digital copy when it's more convenient. That's typically for paper books and music on vinyl. Sometimes I'll even pirate a copy of a CD if I'm not up to dealing with the ripping (disability means I don't always have stamina for everything, so stuff like ripping a cd is low priority).
Sure. I buy tickets to their concerts, have bought CDs, movies, buy their game in the next Steam sale or on Humblebundle, rarely Patreon or support indie things on Ko-fi or whatever. I buy a novel if I enjoyed the first chapter(s) and want it on paper. Or go to the library. I just can't afford all the music and Spotify isn't paying the artists properly either. And I don't want a DVD collection, so for TV series they don't get money from me. Except for what the one streaming service I pay for forwards to them.
I pirate games to demo them. If I like them, I buy them legit. If I don't like them, I don't even play more than an hour and delete them.
It's the only medium I've done this... If I am pirating a movie or a TV show, it's either old and not able to be purchased or only available on Paramount+ which is absolute garbage and doesn't work 90% of the time I have tried to use it.
Same. There's one game I liked well enough after demoing it that I bought merch for the game to support the dev, alongside having bought the game on Steam. If a game is worth the price and is a quality game, I have absolutely no problem going from demo to buying it if I can.