Why do anti-piracy people often treat us as the "villains" of the story?

I blame the "piracy is stealing" advertising/propaganda. It was super effective, given that we all remember it.

Editing to add one of my favorite videos in the other direction, Copying is Not Theft.

Ignorant idiots who can't think for themselves will always follow the narrative that is forced down their throat.

See also "The war on drugs". The majority of the people who will demonise you for choosing to use "illegal" substances will also be smashing their livers with alcohol which is more detrimental to both themselves and society than a lot of other drugs on a weekly or often daily basis.

Just because it is legal they feel like they are fine to not do their own independent research into what these things actually do to them and how fucking addictive they are.

Propaganda works.

The put out a lot of propaganda saying that copying files is stealing. They point to intellectual property rights laws as if that means intellectual property is justified because of the existence of laws.

As opposed to everyone else calling them bootlickers, I think there is likely a subset of people like this who are not considering piracy against the big corporations as unethical, but the "trickle down effect" of piracy towards smaller business/individuals.

For example, if you were to pirate Starfield, no one would really care. If you were to pirate something like BlackOps, most people wouldn't care (and those that do are corporate bootlickers). However, what about pirating indie games, or music VST's, or circumventing a patreon from someone with under 100 supporters?

There's two camps when I see anti-piracy comments; the bootlickers, and those that have the idea that pirates pirate everything relentlessly. The fact of the matter is that piracy does not hurt big corporations, but we cannot say that is also true for small developers publishing their game on their own, and vocal anti-piracy, or rather artist-in-mind individuals, will let the world know that we should support independent artsits and not pirate.

Now, whether or not indie games are getting pirated is a whole different story. And really, what this comes down to is just having the opportunity to purchase in a way that supports the pirates ease of access.

Also, it completely ignores the ethical aspect of piracy which is why support a company that doesn't have your interests at the forefront of its business practices. Which is a very similar reason to decide to not pirate -- I enjoy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I would like to see more if it, I will pay Hulu and watch the show to tell them to make more IASIP.

If you like something, don't pirate it if you want more of it. It's actually very simple. If you do like it but can't support it for personal reasons, don't expect to get more of it.

Which of course, for the anti-piracy crowd is another sentence for, "you didn't pay to watch it so they cancelled my favorite show!"

Tl;DR - A poor crossover between an individuals enjoyment of corporate content and an supporting independent artists living wage.

Capitalism does a very good job at making people who do not and never will hold capital into sheepdogs for the cause. You get someone addicted enough to your slop, they'll advertise for you, they'll evangelize for you, they'll even come report to you who didn't pay 'their fair share' for entry.

They're well-trained dogs, incog. Might as well ask why a dog chases cars.

There's propaganda, definitely. Also, there are people who simply don't care what they watch. They'll just open Netflix and watch whatever they see on the home screen. It's hard for them to understand why I might wanna watch some Iranian movie from the 80s.

For me i'm always hearing people complain about these companies bad practices. What you hear is based off of who you listen to.

Alot of "official sources" are actually owned by alot of forprofit corporations, so of course you're going to hear piracy bad from those outlets.

But if you follow some youtubers, like Yongyea, you will find voices that actively call out companies like Nintendo and ea's bad practices.

hell yeah i'm the villain of the story, and i love being immoral

I can hate bad corporate practices and also think that piracy is stealing. They aren't mutually exclusive.

Why do people seem like they hate pirates more, to you? Likely a bias because you are a pirate, and not working for a corporation.

In my opinion I hear more critiques of big business than of piracy. I also dont find these threads full of people saying negative things about piracy, but thats a matter of perspective.

I also pirate, but theres a reason I'd rather pay for it if I can afford it.

People buy into the BS sold by companies, they eat it all up without thinking twice about it. It's easier to point fingers at each other than at companies when companies are paying so much money to attack end-users.

Because if you aren't the bad guys then they're just essentially the low level stooges of the evil mastermind just doing mundane evil shit for no discernable reason.

Where as if you're the bad guy they're virtuous principled people just doing what's right (allowing them to have complete dominion over the moral high ground)

It’s law and order with a bit of “thou shall not steal”. There’re people who never question the root cause.

Its fanboy/girlism.

If you pirate content from their favorite author/artist/producer/whatever, basically all of their screeching comes down to a hysterical emotional response that you are hurting a person or group that they worship as God.

They just learn rhetoric to justify their emotions as a side effect, a consequence of wanting to be able to argue against the bad mean people that are hurting their favorite creatives.

They are naive, ignorant or misinformed, immature... usually believing in some kind 'just world' type worldview where everything is fair and square actually if you just follow the rules.

They don't understand that the actual 'losses' from piracy are far, far smaller than whatever the RIAA or game studios say it is.

They don't understand that the people who actually create or perform the art basically get paid a tiny fraction of what their labels or corporate overlords make.

They don't understand that some people are actually poor, and the poor deserve art as well.

They don't understand that when a reasonable cost forma product with reasonable ownership rights exist, a great, great many will prefer a streamlined but slightly costly method over a complex but monetarily costless method.

They don't understand that you don't really own anything which you can't use or view or listen to as you please without relying on some proprietary other system which may just poof that ability out of existence one day, without refunding you.

Permanently Deleted

Many think streaming services went more expensive because of piracy ( less people paying for same content = content price needs to be higher, where I believe it is other way around (higher price for less content = more pirates).

The market of distribution of films and series is just fucked. The fight with competitors using exclusive content leads to worst way of distribution since company with exclusive content has monopoly of that content. Streaming services should not be the one owning the content but should be in competition with other distributors offering the same content.

I think the politics have forgotten that we need at least social capitalism if we not want to create cyberpunk dystopia.

It’s because they are paying money for something and you’re getting a better deal. See that’s not fair. Same reason vegans hate on omnivores - they’ve taken the high road and the benefits are small while the cost is high. They tell themselves that their money is going to the artists. And if you believe that, then piracy is harming artists in a very direct way.

I think piracy is immoral but I still partake in it and I don't hate anyone for doing so.

It's like eating meat.

Some people think that bootlicking will make their own pitiful lives better.

Bootlickers...