Piracy

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Online piracy (also called digital piracy, internet piracy or software piracy) is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission from the copyright holder, such as music, movies, or software.

Reasons to Pirate

Many users choose to pirate for financial reasons. Rather than paying a subscription for a streaming service like Netflix, users can specifically pirate the shows that they want for completely free.

Sometimes users may pirate because the content is not available in their region, or is otherwise not accessible.

Others may choose to pirate for moral reasons, such as a boycott against certain corporations. This is effective as the individual does not provide the corporation with any profit while still having access to the content of said corporation.

Implications of Piracy

The existence of pirated content also indirectly improves the quality of non-pirated services. Since pirated content is usually cheaper compared to the non-pirated content, this creates a somewhat unfair competition between pirated and non-pirated services. The non-pirated service has to either innovate and improve in order to stay ahead and retain users or lose popularity.